“I think you mean metaphorically,” I corrected.
“No,” Boomer said, perfectly serious. “I mean metaphysically. Everything is the way it is. You blink. Then you’re back, and everything is the way it was…except that parts of it have to be a little different. But that blink? Completely necessary.”
I thought about this the rest of the way—maybe Lily and I had just been through a blink. Maybe our eyes were back open. (Or at least one of my eyes was back open…but that was more a medical thing than a metaphorical or metaphysical one.)
I was lugging Lily’s Christmas present—I had ordered her the finest cookie sheets to be found on the Internet and had also used my father’s Christmas check (mailed to my mother’s house) to get her baking lessons at the French Culinary Institute, downtown.
I’d tied the cookie sheets with a bow instead of wrapping them, so I wasn’t that surprised when Boomer said, “I think it’s so cool that you got Lily those little sleds. They’ll be awesome when it snows. We’ll have to go to the park!”
“And what did you get Sofia?” I asked.
“I know when she gets back she’s going to miss home, so I got all of these photos of Barcelona off the Internet and put them in one of those digital frames, and then also got one of those projectors, so if she wants to be in her room and think she’s back in Barcelona, she should be able to do that.”
I tried to remember the last present I’d bought Sofia—I think it had been a Gund teddy bear. Lily was the first girlfriend I’d ever had who I’d given presents that weren’t purchased (sardonically or not) in a toy store.
“How do you get good at this whole dating thing?” I asked Boomer. Part of me couldn’t believe I was asking him this. But a bigger part of me really wanted to know.
“I don’t think I’m good at it,” Boomer told me. “But when I’m with Sofia I’m not really thinking about whether or not I’m good at it, which is what makes it good. Then I go home and worry. But then I’m back with her and it’s good again. I think that’s what dating is.”
Mrs. Basil E.’s joint was already jumping when we got there—I recognized some of the people, and a good number I didn’t. I waved to the librarians, who raised their glasses in salute. Since I didn’t want to saddle Lily with the cookie sheets straightaway, I hid them behind a statue of Dame Judi Dench.
Boomer spotted Yonni and bounced over to him to say hi. I looked for Lily but couldn’t find her in the parlor or the drawing room.
I felt a little silly going up to Mrs. Basil E. and asking, “Have you seen my girlfriend?” Luckily, I didn’t have to ask.
“If you are searching for She Who Shall Not Be Called Lily Bear But Shall Remain Lily Bear In Our Stubborn Loving Hearts, she is in the kitchen with my brother. Please tell them to get out and mingle. A party, like the human body, will fall into rigor mortis without proper circulation.”
I headed to the kitchen. I was a little worried about what Grandpa would look like, after what Lily had told me about yesterday. It was a relief to see that even though he stayed seated rather than jump up to shake my hand, the gleam in his eye was still very much present when he saw me walk in.
“If it isn’t Long Dash Silver!” he laughed. “She told me it was bad…but, wow, you look like you lost a fight with an octopus. I hope you at least got a few shots in.”
“I got at least four of its arms. How are you feeling?”
“Fit as a fiddle! Granted, it’s a fiddle that’s been played for eighty-four years straight. But still making music!” Slowly, but resolutely, he got up from his chair. “Now I’m going to leave you two to catch up. I know Inga’s out there somewhere serving the canapés, and I’d go all the way out to Canarsie for one of her canapés.”
It wasn’t until Grandpa had shuffled out of the room that Lily said, “It makes me so sad.”
“I know,” I told her. “But if it makes his life better, and he’s okay with it, then your sadness is kinda beside the point.”
Lily recoiled at that, and her recoil made me realize how awful what I said had sounded.
I quickly jumped back in. “What I mean is…he and Mrs. Basil E. are very smart people. They know what they’re doing.”
Lily was still irate. “Are you saying I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“Agh! No!”
Lily was out of her own chair now. “Just LET ME BE SAD. Why can’t anyone let me be sad?!”
I answered carefully. “Lily, you don’t need anyone to let you be sad. Be sad. Be happy. Be thrilled. Be despondent. But don’t lose sight of everyone else. Not when you’re happy, and not when you’re sad.”
“Well, I’m sorry if you feel I’ve been ignoring you—”
“No!”
“You don’t get it. Nobody’s going to live in my house anymore, Dash. Nobody!”
“But they’re all going to be living somewhere. They’re all going to be near.”
“I know. But…,” Lily trailed off.