She lifts her glass, clinks it gently against mine and we both take sips. Delilah raises one eyebrow.
“Huh,” she says, thoughtfully, as we both lower our glasses.
“Well,” I say. “It’s not bad.”
“I didn’t know I had vermouth or celery bitters,” she says. “Would you believe I don’t actually drink that often?”
“Based on what I found, yes,” I say. “For the record, you’ve also got Creme de Menthe and tequila, but I couldn’t work those in.”
“Thank God.”
We both take another sip. The second one is better.
“Do I get a tour?” I ask.
Delilah scoops one hand under the glass, holds it from the bottom.
“You treat all your first dates like this?” she asks, smiling.
“Only the ones who give me free reign while they dry their hair.”
“True. You could’ve stolen my TV, but look what you did instead,” she says, sipping again. “You know, this really could be worse. I think I kind of like it now.”
With her other hand she picks up the cocktail shaker and swirls it once, like she’s seeing if there’s any left, and when it catches the light I realize there are letters on the side: DPN.
She sees me looking and puts it back on the counter, takes another sip of her drink.
“It was a gift,” she says, as I puzzle at it for another moment. DPN aren’t her initials.
“A wedding gift,” she specifies, then looks at me, rolls her glass between her hands. “How clean is this clean slate, Seth?”
Delilah and Nolan Prescott. Of course.
“Whistle,” I say.
“I used to be married,” she says. “Got the cocktail shaker in the divorce.”
“Don’t tell me that’s all,” I say.
“There’s an etched glass carafe here somewhere,” she says, dryly. “And I’m pretty sure I wound up with the monogrammed napkins, too.”
“You kept all those things?” I ask.
As if I’m a neutral party. As if these are interesting facts and nothing more.
“They come in useful sometimes,” she says, shrugging.
I want to ask her what else she kept. I want to demand a detailed, itemized list: what she kept, why she kept it, whether she thinks of him whenever she uses it. What was so great about it.
And then, despite myself, I’d like to find everything on that list and break it.
“Are you going to tell me where we are going?” Delilah asks, draining her glass. “I can’t believe I’m letting a near-stranger virtually kidnap me.”
“Dinner and a sock hop,” I say. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“So the answer is no, you’re not going to tell me?”
I push the shaker and the carafe and the napkins from my mind.
“The answer is you’ll know when you get there,” I tell her.
“You sure are pushing it for a first date.”
“You haven’t kicked me out yet.”
Delilah laughs, still fiddling with her empty glass, sliding it back and forth along the counter.
“That’s your standard?” she teases. “If a lady doesn’t kick you out she must be having a good time?”
I put my empty glass down, grip the edge of the counter, lean in.
“Tell me, Delilah,” I say. “Are you having a bad time?”
“Not at all,” she says, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “You still want that tour?”
“Of course,” I tell her, and she nods me around the island and into the living room.
It’s a brief tour. We don’t even move from where we’re standing, because when you’re standing next to her couch you can see everything: the kitchen I’ve already acquainted myself with, the living room itself, the stairs, the second floor with a bedroom, a bathroom, and an office-slash-studio.
“Can I see the studio?” I ask her when the one-minute tour is over.
“Aren’t we already late?” she asks.
“Then five more minutes won’t matter.”
Delilah sighs. She’s wearing a long necklace with an amber pendant at the bottom, a scorpion trapped inside, and now she starts fiddling with it.
“I don’t like showing people unfinished pieces,” she says. “Or doodles, or anything that I’ve put down and I’m not sure I’m going to pick back up, or ideas I had that I abandoned, or just… anything not fit for public consumption.”
I open my mouth to tell her that I’m not people, for God’s sake, but I don’t. The whole point of this is that I am people, so I just nod and say, “Fair.”
I don’t ask if I can see her bedroom.
As we’re getting our coats, I notice the photographs on the wall by the front door. They’re vivid, oversaturated, so bright I can’t believe I missed them when I first came in. On the left is a photograph of a window, taken from across the room. Between the lens and the window is a couch with a girl sprawled on it, looking away. On the right is a photograph of an open door, a welcome mat in front of it, the greenest grass and bluest sky beyond the threshold.
“My mom’s,” she finally says. “When I moved back I started going through all her stuff that’s been in storage.”
I think, briefly, of the things I’d say if this really were a first date. I’d say, I’d love to meet your mom someday or why is her stuff in storage or she can’t tell you where it is?
But I’m not that much of an asshole, so I let the clean slate smudge because I know this part of the story: car accident, underage drunk driver. The teenager who was blitzed at eleven in the morning walked away, but Delilah’s mom was pronounced dead on the scene. A month later, Delilah moved here and started her sophomore year at Sprucevale High.
“I like it,” I tell her.
“Thanks,” she says, and together, we consider the photographs for a long moment. “She mostly did weddings and babies and stuff, since that paid the bills, but the artsy, moody stuff was her favorite. Ready?”
I study the photograph for one more moment, then turn away, open the door for her.
“Ready,” I confirm, and we leave.
Chapter Thirty-One
Delilah
“You named them?” Seth is saying, face lit by the blue light of his dashboard.
“I couldn’t just call them that one, that one, and that one,” I say.
“You absolutely could’ve,” Seth says.
“We have a relationship.”
He just gives me a look.
“I bought them the fancy dog food!”
I get that look again, for an extra second this time.
“They eat garbage,” he says, sounding baffled. “They’re varmints.”
“You really are from around here,” I tease.
“Because I said varmint?”
“Because you said it with that tone of voice.”
“Tell me, Delilah,” he says, a smile on his lips. “What tone of voice do fancy city folks use when they call critters varmints?”
“I’m pretty sure most fancy city folks think that varmint is a flavor of chewing gum,” I say, laughing. “Anyway, Larry, Jerry, and Terry are very happy to be my masked backyard friends.”