Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(91)
“I think she would disagree right now.”
“She’ll remember.”
“People keep leaving her behind. I wanted to be better than that.”
“Pursuing your dreams isn’t the same thing as leaving someone behind.”
I nod and scrape at the dregs of the ice cream carton. “Tell that to Delia.”
“I think Delia will land on her feet,” Mom says. “She seems to have a certain gutsiness.”
“I hope.”
Mom stands, leans over, and kisses me on the top of my head. “I’m going back to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I catch her in a side hug. “I love you, Mom.”
“Love you too. Put your spoon in the dishwasher.” She starts to leave but turns in the doorway. “I’m proud of who you’re growing up to be.”
I tear open the ice cream carton and lick the sides. “And why wouldn’t you be?”
She smiles and disappears down the hall. I hear the soft click of her door shutting.
I sit there for a while, too tired even to get up and go to bed, and let the buzzing of my thoughts harmonize with the hum of the refrigerator. Then the fridge goes silent and the kitchen is quiet like loneliness.
I wonder if it’s how Delia feels all the time.
???
It’s Thursday and I still haven’t heard from Delia. Total silence. I texted her a couple of times but got no response. It’s time for more active measures.
I’m sitting in Delia’s gravel driveway. It’s late enough that she should be home from work. I keep trying to think of what to tell her, what to say to make things right. But we’ve never been the sort of friends who make planned speeches to each other. I get out, walk up to her door, and knock.
I’m about to turn around and leave when I hear a thumping and the door swings open. It’s Delia. She looks resigned and sad, but not angry to see me.
“Hey.” I wave awkwardly.
“Hey.” She waves awkwardly.
“Hey,” I say in a dumb-person voice and wave goonily.
“Hey,” she says in a dumber-person voice and waves even more goonily.
This goes back and forth for a while until we’re both smiling.
“Are we still friends?” I ask.
Delia comes outside, closing the door behind her, and sits on the front steps. “Of course, dummy.”
I sit next to her. “We’ve never gone so long without talking. I wondered.”
“Haven’t felt like talking to anyone.”
“I hoped it was that and that you didn’t hate me.”
“I’m so sure.”
We watch moths flit and dance around in the light of Delia’s mom’s sign.
“It’s not even you,” Delia says. “Mostly I’m still processing my meet-up with my dad.”
“Was it horrible?”
“It wasn’t horrible. Like he didn’t slam the door in my face. But it sucked in how little it was what I’d hoped it would be.”
“What did you hope?”
“I don’t even know. That’s the frustrating thing. But whatever I wanted, it wasn’t what I got.”
I just listen.
Delia continues. “What I got was that he was cowardly and small. He ran from my mom and me because he was scared of the responsibility. It feels weird that something that affected my life so much is the result of someone being afraid. I almost wish he left because he hated me.”
I put my arm around her. “I’m really sorry, DeeDeeBoo. You deserve better than that. I love you.”
She lays her head on my shoulder. “I love you, JoJoBee. I’m really sad I’m losing you too.”
“You’re not losing me. You’ll always have me.”
“But you’ll be far away.”
“Five hours.”
“Do you have to leave?” Delia asks plaintively.
“I can’t do what I want to do with my life if I stick around here.”
“It’s what you’ve wanted since you were little, huh?”
“Yeah. But it still guts me to leave you.”
“I get it. I wouldn’t make you want less for yourself, even if I could.”
“I really tried with Jack Divine, boo.”
“I believe you.”
“Like legitimately, if you knew what we went through that night. He’s seriously a piece of work.”
“How so?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure his ‘assistant’ Celeste who you emailed with is actually him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yep. And Lawson ended up knocking out Yuri.”
“For reals?”
“Yep. Divine told Yuri to get money from us. So Lawson did some MMA move on him and choked him until he passed out. When we left Divine, he had his arm stuck in a clothing donation bin.”
Delia snort-laughs. “Come on.”
“Oh, oh! And we had just come from the office of a dude named Wald Disme.”
“Wait, like Walt—”
“NO. NOT AT ALL LIKE WALT DISNEY. He was very emphatic about that. Anyway, Disme had barely told me about doing battle with a bunch of hornets at a construction site when Divine’s scary Austrian professional shot-putter ex-wife showed up and threatened to burn down the building. So we had to escape.”