Chapter 5: A classic Christmas ending
And now, we’re back to where the story began. I believe it began something like this - Christmas eve in New York City. all is calm all is quiet. the city that never sleeps seems to finally have settled in for a long winters nap…
Doxie sits on the windowsill of her puppyhood bedroom in Hortensia’s house, feeling the silence of an empty floor-through penthouse settle around her. She is looking out at the abandoned stillness of the streets below, where only a single cab rushes past, a muffled swoosh of sound below. A tear drops down her furry face and trembles on the end of a whisker.
High above the highest building, up, up in the clouds water is shooting through frozen air and forming tiny particles. The first to crystalize, becoming a tiny six-sided perfectly symmetrical true snowflake bursts forth from the churning white mist as if to announce “Let it snow!” at the same moment the tear splashes onto the windowsill.
Doxie is all alone. Hortensia had left without so much as a note of explanation. Doxie assumes this is because she’s given up on her wayward daughter. And she hadn’t seen Daphne in months. And Fabrizio… Doxie could hardly stand to think of him now, her little heart has broken in two.
She watches as the first snow flake of Christmas drifts past her window. The little flake, so free, so light and lively, can go anywhere it wanted. Doxie suddenly wishes she were a snowflake and could fly away on the wind.
If she were a snowflake, simple and anonymous, she would never have loved and lost so many people. Life would be so much easier.
The fake flutters out of sight just as a church in the distance chimes the hour --- twelve o’clock.
Christmas day.
Sometime later, Doxie must have fallen asleep. She dreamed troubled dreams of Daphne crying alone on the balcony of Le Sireneuse, of Sandro walking away from her down a cobblestone street, of her beautiful wedding veil, trampled and torn, of Hortensia staring longingly into a sunset, of Fabrizio shivering in the dark…
As disconnected and troubling as her dream may have been, she woke up to a world where all was fresh and new. She opened her eyes to find the sun was shining through her window, amplified and brilliant because of the freshly fallen snow outside.
Her nose twitched eagerly. Was that bacon? Was Hortensia home? Could it be!?
She leapt from the windowsill and tore out of her bedroom and across the landing to the stairs where a little pink box was waiting, tied with a big ribbon and a note that read Doxie
Too excited even to open the gift, Doxie flew down the stairs and raced into the living room. Hortensia was back! Her mother was perched in her favorite chair, and indeed, she was being served bacon by Elise. And sitting beside her was Daphne, wearing a fur ski hat and a crop top.
Doxie was overcome with a surge of happiness and forgiveness. It was Christmas after all, and her mother and her best friend had miraculously returned to her. Having lost them temporarily had made her realize that she loved these two self-serving socialites more than anyone else… well, except Fabrizio but… no one gets everything they want for Christmas, right?
She crawled into Daphne’s lap and the two exchanged tearful apologies to one another. Best friends have a way of always finding their way back to one another in the end. And Hortensia even let Doxie jump on her and tackle her playfully, despite her Chanel blazer. Mothers have a way of letting their children’s love overflow, even when clad in couture.
“Doxie, did you open your gift?” Daphne asked as she finished adding Hortensia and Doxie’s playful reunion to her Snapchat story.
“Yes, Miss Doxie! Here it’s for you!” Elise chimed in, bringing the little pink box in and handing it to her to open. Daphne carefully undid the bow and let Doxie nuzzle the lid off the box. Resting inside were tickets.
Tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. That very day!
Doxie counted the tickets. One, two, three. Doxie could hardly believe it. Three tickets meant they were all going. Her mother was going to a concert that wasn’t being held in an opera hall! This really was a Christmas miracle.
Daphne scooped Doxie up and hurried her upstairs for a Christmas bath and dressed her in a similar outfit with a furry Christmas hat.
Soon the three were safely ensconced in the back of a town car, each with an individual supply of Christmas bacon as they sped away to Madison Square Garden.
Doxie had never been to a Taylor Swift concert but she knew she liked her songs. She wondered if Taylor was as pretty as her voice sounded.
At the concert, the three were seated in prime front row seats. Doxie thought nothing of it, as she and Daphne rarely sat anywhere that wasn't front row. But as she glanced behind her she realized this was much, much bigger than a fashion show. The faces in the audience seemed to go on forever. This Taylor girl must be even more famous than Karl Lagerfeld! Doxie thought to herself.
The lights dimmed, the show was about to begin. Music was swelling and laser beam lights were looping and scanning the crowd like flashlights in the hands of drunk giants enjoying a rave. The fans were screaming all around them and Hortensia looked on the verge of fainting.
Doxie didn’t think it was possible but the light and sound and cheers erupted around them even louder as Taylor took to the stage in an all white pantsuit that was somehow incredibly revealing but also demure. Her hair was swept into a 1940’s low bob, curled neatly against her high cheekbones and her lips were painted bright red. In her arms she carried a big box wrapped Christmas paper and tied with a bow. Doxie stared in rapture at this beautiful creature. She was somehow vaguely familiar. Hadn’t she seen her somewhere before…?
The crowd was growing wilder and wilder, desperately eager for Taylor’s first song to begin. Would it be Bad Blood? Or Never Getting Back Together? Or Shake It Off? Or a throw back like Love Story even? The anticipation was deliciously exciting…
She walked to the center of the stage, turned her back to the audience and began to open the present. And as she untied the big red bow on the box, the band kicked into full gear and broke into a joyous and blasphemously loud first strains of the Christmas classic by Mariah Carey, “All I want for Christmas is you”
Doxie knew enough to know this wasn’t a Taylor Swift song. What was happening?
The music swelled and thumped through the rowdy opening strains. Then a voice began to croon.
But… it wasn’t Taylor’s voice. It was a boy's voice….
Taylor lifted the lid off the Christmas present box. Out of it climbed a small black and tan dachshund boy, wearing a microphone clipped to his long floppy ear, and a christmas scarf around his neck as he sang the song in a just barely-detectible Italian accent:
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas, There is just one thing I need…”
Doxie shot out of her seat, her tail flailing in uncontrollable enthusiasm.
It was him! It was her Fabrizio! Singing! To her! On stage in New York City! With Taylor… wait… that was where she’d seen Taylor. Taylor was the girl! The blonde girl from Le Sireneuse!
“I don’t care about the presents, Underneath the Christmas Tree, I don’t need to hang my stocking, There upon the fire place…Santa Clause won’t make me happy with a toy on Christmas Day”
Fabrizio was still singing, and walking toward Doxie slowly, smiling a big happy smile. Taylor knelt beside him and scooped him up into her arms and began to sing along with him, both of their eyes alight with love. The kind of love that comes from helping someone, from being a true friend, from following your heart because it’s the right thing to do.
Daphne scooped up Doxie and Hortensia into her arms too and helped them up onto the stage before climbing up along with them - an impressive feat in her ball-skirt-crop-top-fur-ski-hat outfit.
The happily-reunited family of dachshunds and new friends joined hands and paws creating a chain of love, the kind of love that blooms on Christmas day. And before a packed stadium of 20,000 slightly confused but very supportive onlookers they all sang together,
“I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know! Make my wish come true… Oh baby all I want for Christmas is youuuu”
____
Merry Christmas, my friends! See you in 2016!