Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(26)
I have this belief that humans who are connected in some way can feel what the other is feeling, even over distances. Don’t ask me how it works; I couldn’t tell you. All I know is I’m not surprised when I get a text from Delia, because I can sense something’s up with her.
Delia: Can you talk? I’m not good.
Me: Of course. Hugs, BB.
Delia: I told my mom I maybe found my dad.
Me: And?
Delia: Her reaction was NOT great.
Me: Aw, baby girl. What can I do?
Delia: I don’t know. Distract me somehow.
Me: K. What if you could fly, but you had to be naked. Would you? Discuss.
Delia: What about like a swimsuit bottom.
Me: Nope. Butt ass naked. Nothing on bottom.
Delia: Can I fly high enough so people can’t see my business?
Me: No. You can only fly 50 feet high max.
Delia: Can I fly super fast? So my butt crack is just a pink blur?
Me: You can fly 50 miles an hour max.
Delia: Can I fly at night?
Me: No. Full daylight. The goods will be on display.
Delia: Going for it.
Me: Yeah?
Delia: Flying sounds way fun, and flying with no pants would probably feel nice. And the stigma of being caught in public with no pants on would probably be canceled out by the coolness of flying.
Me: We discuss important stuff.
Delia: Thank you for being you.
Me: You know I love you, BooBear.
Delia: Good, because my mom and dad both hate me now.
Me: Your mom loves you more than any mom has ever loved a kid and your dad left for some reason but not because he hated little kid you. Trust.
Delia: How do you know?
Josie: If I were your dad I would love you and tell dad jokes like “Hi, tired, I’m dad” if you said you were tired and wear khakis and polo shirts and wear my phone on my belt like I’m Batman.
Delia: Now I’m crying laughing. I’m gonna get dehydrated.
Me: You need sleep.
Delia: For real. Ok, I’m gonna go. Pre-production at my house tomorrow?
Me: Yep. You already got a movie picked out?
Delia: Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory. It’s an Italian movie from 1961 that features werewolves killing girls by what sounds like humping them.
Me: Nice.
Delia: And the audio is total garbage. Voices don’t match lips at all.
Me: Here for it.
Delia: I get off work at 5. Come over at 6. I’ll let you get back to your Project Runway.
Me: Love you, DeeDeeBooBoo.
Delia: Love you, JoJoBee.
I sleep like a rock skipping across a pond. That shallow sleep where your mind still screams at you so loudly it keeps waking you up. Where you’re never quite certain whether you’ve been sleeping.
I’m not sure if I’m awake or asleep when my brain finally makes the connection. Florida is where ShiverCon is happening. Florida is where my dad maybe lives. Now I’m definitely awake, my heart churning in my chest like a washing machine. I grab my phone and look it up: Orlando is 196 miles from Boca Raton, where my dad lives. I could make it. This is maybe fate telling me something: Meet with Jack Divine. Enlist his help in taking Midnite Matinee to the next level. Make it the thing that’ll stop Josie from going to Knoxville to try to get her career started. Find my dad. Ask him why. Maybe bury something that’s been clawing at my heart like a cat in a sack.
If I have the courage to do it.
I’ve had dates before that were fine, with perfectly nice guys, and I’ve never given them a moment’s thought afterward. But something keeps turning in my mind as I watch Project Runway, a show about people sacrificing and striving and working so hard to be the best at something. It’s the way Lawson talked about wanting to be a champion. He may be a complete dork in every other way, and we may have nothing else in common, but that set something humming inside me.
I wonder if he has dreams about vast hidden rooms at his grandma’s house. I almost text him to ask him, but immediately think better of it.
I guess you don’t need to like the same music or have the same favorite food for someone to know your secret heart.
“I know I say this every time, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now, but this movie really is garbage,” Josie says, catching a piece of kettle corn before it can fall down her shirt.
“I warned you,” I say, picking up the remote and pausing our ancient VCR.
“I mean, it is upsettingly bad.”
“Isn’t it amazing that we live in a time when we have access to crappy art?”
“Like?”
“Like think how you’ve never seen a horrendous Renaissance painting. Not every artist in the Renaissance was Michelangelo, right?”
“Ah. True.”
“There must have been some Renaissance painters that were disasters. Where are their paintings?” I shift position on the couch.
“They probably got burned for firewood or something.”
“I wish there was a museum of crappy Renaissance art. I would totally go.”
“The little placards would be all ‘Please note Rigatoni’s—’?”
I giggle and spray kettle corn shrapnel. “Rigatoni? He’s both a dismal painter and literally named after pasta?”