You couldn’t do this one thing for me? Isabel had asked. After everything I’ve done for you?
“Can I see it?” she heard herself asking, and that was that. She and the girl had gone into the bathroom, and once Delilah had asked her what she actually wanted the dress to look like, Ruby chattered nonstop about the boots her mom had gotten her for her birthday this past April and something simple that didn’t make her armpits itch.
Now, as Claire and Ruby wandered back into the tearoom, Astrid cleared her throat.
Delilah lifted her eyes and saw Astrid’s clenched jaw. So, helping Ruby had come with the added bonus of pissing Astrid off. This day was going better than she expected it to. “Yes, dear?”
Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You just happen to be the one who tears up the dress I gave Ruby?”
“She hated the dress.”
“She—what? She did not.”
Delilah gave her an oh come on look. “Did you see the happy girl who just walked out of the bathroom?”
“Yes, but I—”
“It’s a dress, Ass. Let it go.”
Astrid pressed her mouth flat. “Just take the pictures, okay?”
“Oh, I’ve already got some good ones.” She flipped through the photos on her screen and landed on one of Astrid talking to Josh, her mouth wide open and her nostrils flaring. “See?”
Astrid looked, then lifted her arms before letting them slap back down to her sides, exasperated.
“Damn, you really hate that guy,” Delilah said.
There was a beat of silence before Astrid said, “Well, he’s unreliable and irresponsible and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, so yeah.”
Delilah very nearly made a joke about Astrid swearing again—And in Vivian’s! Fetch Isabel’s smelling salts!—but then her stepsister’s words registered, hanging heavy in the air between them, spat with a little more force than Delilah thought the guy was worth. Astrid crossed her arms and stared down at the floor, her teeth working her lower lip.
Something uncomfortable settled in Delilah’s stomach.
“Just get back to work, okay?” Astrid said, already turning away and walking off down the hall. “I’m not paying you to be a goddamn tailor.”
* * *
THINGS WENT SOUTH from there.
Delilah did her job, just like Astrid asked. She slinked around the room and snapped photos of a whole lot of dainty nibbling on crustless cucumber sandwiches and delicate sipping of mimosas. Like any event photographer worth their salt, hardly anyone noticed her, while she noticed everyone, everything.
Every laugh.
Every time Isabel put her hand on Astrid’s back or smoothed a hand over her hair.
Every chair filled, not even an extra one in a corner in case Delilah might like a break.
Every I’m so proud her stepmother uttered.
Delilah captured it all, just like she was supposed to.
Still, she felt like she was suffocating. She couldn’t get Astrid’s words out of her head, couldn’t forget the anger and hurt that laced every syllable, like she wasn’t talking about Josh at all. Looking at Astrid now, she seemed fine. Happy. She had everything she needed. Friends, an adoring mother, a fiancé, a beautiful wedding brunch that would bleed into even more beautiful wedding events, culminating in a beautiful wedding. Knowing Astrid like she did, this was everything her stepsister could ever want.
Delilah’s skin itched and her lungs felt tight. She arranged shots, changed lenses, bent and arched to get the right angle, all the while sweat gathered on her upper lip, under her arms, the same sick feeling she remembered so often from her childhood.
The only person who seemed to notice her was Ruby, who kept trying to catch her eye with a funny face, her features all twisted up and adorable. Delilah managed to smile at her—she was a sweet kid—and snapped a few pictures of her silly expressions to humor her.
She got a lot of Claire too. Once or twice, Delilah could’ve sworn that the other woman had been looking at her, had just swung her eyes away right when Delilah’s camera centered on her, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, she got far more shots of Claire than she probably should have, but what could Delilah say? Claire was a beautiful subject, and focusing on her seemed to calm Delilah’s swirling thoughts. In fact, concentrating on making sure the chandelier’s light reflected on Claire’s shiny hair just right was all that was keeping Delilah from picking up one of those little quiches—whose crust looked just like a goddamn seashell, for Christ’s sake—and yelling at the top of her lungs, What the fuck is this all for?
She remembered events like this while growing up. Remembered them vividly, Delilah stuck in an itchy dress, sitting at one end of Wisteria House’s long dining room table while Isabel and Astrid sat at another, surrounded by adoring townsfolk who thought Isabel was the soul of class and charity.
Isn’t it so amazing how Isabel took in that poor girl after her father died?
Isabel didn’t have to do it, you know.
She is an odd little thing, isn’t she? God bless Isabel.
Delilah had heard it all over the years, praise and adoration, the musings at Delilah’s demeanor, the judgment that her gratitude for Isabel didn’t bubble over like champagne from a fountain.
Despite walking calmly and snapping photos dutifully, her breathing became quicker and more ragged as the minutes passed. She focused on her task, the simple movement of aiming and clicking, but it didn’t help. Then she tried thinking about the Whitney show, but at this moment, New York felt like another planet, three weeks a lifetime away. She could feel Astrid’s eyes on her. Isabel’s. Dyed-blond coif lady, who, if she was Spencer’s mother, would surely know all about Delilah by now, her poor dead parents, how magnanimous Isabel was in taking her in, like she was a fucking lost orphan Isabel found on the streets.
She passed close by the champagne tower, which was just as tall as it had been at the beginning of the event, Vivian’s staff replacing a glass as soon as one was taken. She lifted one off the top again and gulped down the drink, swishing the bubbles around her mouth as she stared at the golden liquid through the expensive glass.
Then, before she could think too much about it, she let her hip bump the table as she turned back around. It was subtle, clearly an accident, but it was enough that the glasses rattled against one another and then . . . toppled.
Gloriously. Horrendously. Like Sauron’s tower finally vanquished, the flutes crashed downward, champagne splattering and glass shards spilling all over the table and marble floor with a triumphant cacophony.
The room fell silent. Delilah lifted her gaze, her expression completely flat, and looked right at Isabel, whose own expression had apparently broken free of its Botox prison—nostrils flaring, skin flushed, barely-there eyebrows so low they dipped into her lashes.