Or slide it down even farther.
She cleared her throat and focused back on her screen.
“Sure,” she said, but then those damn bees were back, their wings filling her stomach to the edges. She flipped backward to the brunch images, looking for something special, something beautiful. She wasn’t sure why she cared what Claire thought about her photography skills, only knew that she did.
Finally, she landed on the perfect one.
She handed over the camera, which Claire took carefully, like she was handling a precious jewel—which she sort of was for what Delilah had paid for the thing—and then watched Claire’s face as she reacted to the image.
First her mouth parted, eyes widening, but then everything softened.
“Delilah,” she said. That was all. One word, but it was part voice, part sigh, and it was enough to make Delilah’s arms break out in goose bumps, which she tried to hide by curling them around her knees.
“I thought you’d like that one,” she said.
Claire nodded, eyes still glued to the black-and-white image of her and Ruby, sitting side by side at their table in Vivian’s. Ruby was looking down, her long lashes on her cheek and the smallest smile lifting the corners of her mouth, while Claire had her arm wrapped around her daughter’s shoulder, her nose pressed against Ruby’s hair. Claire, too, wore a little smile. Delilah had managed to zoom in on their faces while preserving the light, cutting out most of the plates and glasses in front of them on the table.
The photo was just them.
Mother and daughter.
“I love it,” Claire said, eyes still roaming over the screen. Finally, she lifted her gaze to Delilah. “You’re good.”
Delilah laughed and took back the camera. “You sound surprised.”
Claire shook her head. “Not surprised. Just . . . impressed.”
“The Ghoul of Wisteria House has talent, as it turns out.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Claire immediately stiffened, the air between them growing tense, but Delilah wouldn’t take it back even if she could. The bees had stilled their wings, and she needed to get her control back. She hadn’t lost her shit over a woman in five years, and she didn’t plan on starting now.
But then Claire said, “Delilah,” and goddamn if that one word, her name on this woman’s tongue, didn’t stir up the whole hive again.
Delilah waved a hand and set her camera on the nightstand. “We should probably get some rest.”
She flicked off the lamp and burrowed down into the sheets, her back to Claire. Next to her, she could tell the other woman hadn’t moved.
“How . . . how did you get into it?” Claire asked. “Photography?”
Delilah didn’t answer at first. But as her eyes adjusted to the dark, moonlight drifting in through the sheer curtains and silvering up the room, she found herself turning over, tucking her hands under her cheek, and arching her neck upward to see Claire’s face.
Claire looked down at her, a safe distance away, but then she shifted. She slid down, fluffing her pillow once and then settling on her side too, her hands underneath her own cheek, a mirror image of Delilah. Her movements had pushed her a little closer to Delilah, only about a foot of space between them. The air changed again, thickened with something close and new.
“You really want to know?” Delilah asked, keeping her voice low and quiet. Too loud and this whole spell might break, and she hadn’t decided yet if she wanted it to or not.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re a nice person. Nice people ask questions sometimes just because they think they should, not because they really give a shit.”
Claire’s brows pulled together. “I give a shit, okay?”
Delilah knew she should shut this down. She wanted to sleep with this woman, not bond over origin stories and childhood grievances, and this whole day had sent her off-balance. Between Astrid just plain forgetting to book her a room, Claire offering her own, and the sudden camaraderie she felt tonight with Claire and Iris—a feeling she wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced with women she wasn’t screwing—her heart felt larger in her chest, more tender, like a sunburn that screamed at the slightest touch. The words were all right there, the how and why of her life since Bright Falls, and she wanted to release them. Let them go. Let someone else carry them for a while. Or at least know. It had been so long since she told anyone her secrets. Just thinking about it now, all this solitary knowing, suddenly made her so tired.
All the more reason to turn back over, just say good night. But as she locked eyes with Claire, who was staring at her like she really did give a shit, Delilah simply didn’t want to.
“It started in high school,” she said. At those few words, Claire seemed to relax, sink into the bed a little, like she’d been holding her breath. And so Delilah kept talking, telling her about her fascination with still images, freezing moments in time. She’d saved up money from doing odd jobs for Ms. Goldstein—her art teacher and the only adult in her life who ever seemed to give her a second look—and bought a Polaroid, just to see what it did. She walked around her cavernous house, echoes of Astrid’s and Iris’s and Claire’s laughter pinging off the walls, and snapped pictures of anything she thought was interesting. A kitchen cabinet knob. A sliver of stained glass in the library. The molding on the fireplace. Expressions when no one knew she was watching. She’d caught Astrid’s coven in so many unflattering poses—mouths hanging wide open, eyes squeezed shut, tongues lolling out to lick the edge of a dripping Dr Pepper can.
Not that she mentioned those specific details to Claire right now. “I took a few pictures of Astrid too, just here and there” is what came out of her mouth, and she left it at that. But she remembered how she hoarded all of her photographs of the girls away, studying them for clues of what made them so acceptable and her such an odd duck. Other than a little bit of makeup and clothes from Nordstrom, she could never figure it out.
“I taught myself the photography basics in high school,” she said. “Ms. Goldstein helped. Then, once I left Bright Falls, I knew I wanted to make it my life.”
Claire nodded, eyes wide and dark as Delilah went on to tell her how she worked nine-hour shifts six days a week at a diner down on Grand Street just to afford her shitty apartment, but on her day off, she would wander the city, memorializing its sensuality, its passion, its queerness. All the things she’d been missing in her life. All the things she’d never had, never even dreamed were possible. It all came tumbling out in a rush of vulnerability and truth.
“And you started doing weddings?” Claire asked, still miraculously interested.
Delilah nodded. “Weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, anniversary parties, birthday parties. Anything I could get, really. I still waited tables—I still do, actually—but events pay pretty well, especially after I got some references. I’ve only been really trying to do the artist thing for the past few years.”