Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(92)

“I deeply regret not being present for all of this.”

“It’s funny in hindsight. I can’t emphasize the hindsight part enough. Oh, and fair warning, Divine said that he was going to tell everyone in Hollywood not to work with us, so…”

“I wonder if he’s still stuck in the donation bin. Maybe he chewed his arm off like a coyote.”

“Lawson wedgied him super hard. He bid us farewell by saying we were in trouble if we injured his anus.”

“As one does, I suppose.”

We crack up. When our laughs subside, I ask, “So what are you going to do about the show?”

Delia gives a resigned shrug. “Keep it going, I guess. For a long time, I thought I was doing the show because it would be a connection to my dad. But even knowing that’s not going to happen, the show’s really all I have.”

“I think you should keep it alive.”

“It’s not going to be as good without you.”

“Dude, you’ll be great.”

“Think how much Larry Donut’s going to hate our show if it diminishes even one iota in quality,” Delia says.

“I’m imagining Larry Donut watching and fuming while eating a giant mixing bowl of melted cheese with a wooden spoon.”

“Gahhhh! My name is Larry Donut and I hate this stupid show, but I love my melted cheese bowl.”

“I mean, Larry Donut can legit blow it out the back of his gross Utilikilt for all I care,” I say.

“That’s the healthy thing to do, I’ve heard. Good for your liver.”

“That is not a thing. Where is my anger-cheese bowl?”

Once our laughter subsides, Delia starts talking again. “I’m sorry for what I said about you not being a guest on the show ever. Obviously, I want you to do the show with me any time you can.”

“I’d like that a lot.”

“Rayne and Delilah forever.” Delia side-hugs me.

“Rayne and Delilah forever.” I hug her back tighter.

“Did you and Lawson bone in Orlando before I got back?” Delia asks after a pause.

I laugh. “No. We’d had a horrible night. I didn’t want to cap off our evening of follies by taking a trip to the bone zone.”

“But you guys way made out.”

“Sure, sure.”

“I was afraid I was gonna walk in on you two bone-zoning,” Delia says.

“I missed you so much the last few days.”

“I missed you. It’ll suck living in different cities.”

“Yeah, it will.” I stand and open Delia’s front door. “Now, I believe we have a show tomorrow night to prepare for.”

“You’re gonna love the movie I picked. Or hate. Maybe hate.”

“You knew I was coming over?”

“Of course. We have a show to do.”





Summer passes like a cloud moves across the sky. While you watch it, it seems to creep along. But if you look away for a second, it’s almost gone.

I work a lot. I get a second job at the new organic grocery store in Jackson. I’ve made friends with a couple of coworkers there and pal around with them sometimes. One of them is this guy named Dax, who’s a guitarist in a halfway decent metal band. He seemed adorably overjoyed when I came out to one of his shows. He loves horror movies and started watching Midnite Matinee after we met. He and I have plans to do Thirty-One Days of Horror in October, where you watch a horror flick every night. I’m looking forward to it. He’s easy to spend time with and nice to look at.

I hang out with Josie whenever she’s not working or with Lawson. We text until the early-morning hours and we’re both ready to pass out. We do our show, and Lawson helps when he can. Each week I try to envision myself doing it alone. It never gets any easier. But I do my best to step up a little more each time.

I savor the days we have left together. I hate thinking about how our remaining weeks could be counted on one hand.

Toward the end of summer, there’s a big solar eclipse. Everyone’s saying it’s pretty rare, and it turns out Nashville is one of the best places in America to see it. So Josie and I drive the couple of hours there and buy little cardboard eclipse glasses. We find a quiet corner of a park to watch it. As it starts to happen, the light turns a cool, flat sepia. For a while, we joke around, but as it reaches total eclipse, the world darkens and turns to dusk in the middle of the day. The cicadas and the crickets begin humming and chirping, but otherwise, there’s a deep and heavy stillness, as if the world has gone inside a blanket fort. The sound of the space between heartbeats.

We stand side by side and stare up at the moon covering the sun. I feel so tiny—a cog in this immense heavenly machinery—the way I felt standing in the ocean with my dad. But being there with Josie, I’m okay with it. There are times when there’s solace in smallness. It puts the bigness of problems in perspective. As long as there’s someone by your side to remind you that you’re not nothing.

I don’t know why, but I start crying. I look over at Josie, and tears streak her cheeks too under her goofy eclipse glasses.

There’s something about witnessing something holy with someone you love, because you take that sacred thing and weave it, like a golden thread, into the fabric of your togetherness.