Delilah Green Doesn't Care(Bright Falls #1)(17)
It was good.
And yet, her inbox continued to accumulate cobwebs.
She switched over to her Instagram account, where she tried posting a photo a day. Weird shit she snapped on the sidewalks. Unique shots she got at queer weddings. Anything that matched the brand she was trying to build for herself—queer, feminist, angry, and beautiful.
Niche.
Her stuff didn’t appear to work for most stick-up-their-ass NYC agents, but it sure worked for the Internet. She had close to two hundred thousand Instagram followers and couldn’t keep track of the comments anymore. Her queer stuff got the most attention, and lately people had been asking whether or not she sold her pieces in an Etsy shop. It was affirming, but the idea of running her own e-commerce business—shipping, taxes, invoices—it all made her head spin.
She pulled up one of the pictures in her photos app she’d taken at JFK yesterday, a tripod-selfie in Terminal Four in front of the word Queens printed on the wall in huge blue and black mod letters against the white background, her in all black and gazing off to the side with one booted foot on the wall and looking . . . well, really queer and angry.
And sort of beautiful, if she was being honest.
She worked on the photo in Lightroom for a few minutes, adjusting the contrast, the tone, then uploaded it with no caption because she never wrote a caption. She was just about to click her phone’s screen dark when a new email notification popped up. It wasn’t from an agent or anyone at the Fitz gallery, but the subject line grabbed her attention like a yank on her hair.
Possible showing at the Whitney
Delilah sat up straight, floral comforter sliding to her lap, her fingertips tingling as she stared at the impossible words. They were real, though, sent from an official Whitney email address no less. Her hand shook as she tapped on the message.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dear Delilah,
Hello, my name is Alex Tokuda and I’m one of the curators at the Whitney in New York City. For the past several months, we’ve been preparing for our Queer Voices exhibition, due to launch on June 25, which will showcase queer photographers and their work from all over the country.
Delilah had, of course, heard of the Whitney’s Queer Voices exhibition. While New York City was home to over eight million people, queer photography was still a small world—niche to the true assholes—and the fact that the Whitney itself was creating an entire showcase centered on queer voices was . . . well, it was huge. Delilah would’ve given anything to be part of this show, but she couldn’t even submit work for consideration. The Whitney dealt with agents, seasoned gallery owners, famous photographers. They didn’t take emails from queer women in torn black jeans working weddings and serving up sparkling rosé at the River Café.
She swallowed hard and kept reading.
I do apologize for the weekend email, but in the spirit of full transparency, I’m a bit desperate here. Yesterday, a mutual acquaintance, Lorelei Nixon, shared one of your pieces, Submerged, with me, and I was very impressed. I’m writing to ask if you’d like to be part of the exhibition. I understand this is late notice. Usually, we book our artists months in advance, giving them plenty of time to prepare, so again, I do apologize. Just this morning, one of our previously scheduled artists had to pull their work from the exhibition due to a personal family matter, and I immediately thought of you. I feel your style and perspective is integral to this show, and this experience would be a wonderful opportunity to share your work with a broader audience. As this is a collective show, we’re asking each artist to prepare ten pieces from their body of work.
Please let me know your answer as soon as possible. We would need your pieces ready for matting and framing by June 20, at the very latest.
Best,
Alex Tokuda
Assistant Curator, The Whitney
they/them
Lorelei Nixon . . . Lorelei Nixon. Who the hell was Lorelei Nixon? Delilah scanned the email again, landing on the piece Alex referenced, Submerged. Of course Delilah knew the piece well. It was hers, after all, and she’d named the damn thing—a bride in a rusty bathtub full of milky water, mascara sliding down her face, eyes on the viewer. What she didn’t know was why the hell someone named Lorelei had it available to show to—
Lorelei.
Realization flashed hot through Delilah’s veins.
Lorelei.
That was the name of the woman who bought Submerged and promptly took Delilah home to her bed. Blond pixie cut, talented fingers. Not Lola or Leah or Laura, but Lorelei.
Which meant this was real. This was actually happening. The Whitney wanted Delilah’s photographs on their walls. Granted, they only wanted them because someone else more important or high profile had to drop out, but who the hell cared about that?
She, Delilah Green, was going to show at the Whitney. The Whitney. LaToya Ruby Frazier, a Black photographic artist whose work blew Delilah away—and who happened to be just a few years older than Delilah—had shown at the Whitney. Sara VanDerBeek, Leigh Ledare. This was huge. This was potentially the thing that could alter the course of her entire career. This was a life changer.
And she was in fucking Bright Falls.
She felt a flare of panic as she scanned Alex’s email again for the details. June 25, which was nearly three weeks away, but they needed her work by the twentieth, which was a mere four days after Astrid’s infernal wedding. She chewed on her bottom lip, wondering just how much grief Astrid would give her if Delilah crapped out on her right now.