Her voice sounds funny, and she still doesn’t look at me. I swallow hard, grit my teeth, then relax my jaw. Delilah has always felt like a lit match near gasoline, and it’s hard not to catch on fire.
“I brought a peace offering,” I say, holding up a plate of crabcakes and brie puffs and a glass of water.
“Did she make you?” Delilah asks, bitter and sarcastic. “Can’t have Delilah getting mad and ruining the wedding. People might talk.”
“I thought of it by myself, thanks,” I tell her, then pause. “Well, sort of. Daniel once told me that when Rusty’s in a bad mood, he always gives her a snack and a drink before trying to reason with her.”
“Don’t you dare try to reason with me,” she says, but she finally turns her head. “And I don’t know how I feel about being compared to a… five-year-old?”
“Nine,” I correct.
Her face is blotchy, her eyes puffy under those eyelashes, her lips a deep pink as she rests her head against the wall, drapes her elbows on her knees, the skirt of her dress falling from her shins.
“You’re kidding,” she says. “That kid’s nine?”
“Going on nineteen,” I say, and offer the plate.
Delilah sits up straight, swinging her feet to the floor, her heels making a quiet thunk as she stands.
“What did she offer you?” she asks, grabbing a crab cake and popping it into her mouth. “Riches? A horse? Some kind of business deal?”
“I could’ve gotten a horse?”
“So she blackmailed you,” she says. “Which is presumably also why you didn’t tell me yesterday. You feared Vera’s retribution.”
She’s holding her left arm around her ribcage, clamping it down with her right elbow as she eats the brie puff, watching me. There’s a hard edge to her voice, but it’s not bayonet-sharp anymore.
“Actually, I only agreed after I chased you down in the parking lot,” I admit.
Delilah frowns in alarm.
“I left the brewery at like… eleven-thirty last night,” she says. “Did you talk to her this morning?”
I grab a crab cake and pop it into my mouth.
“No,” I say. “She actually asked after the first time you were at the brewery, and I said no. But then I called her back later.”
“At midnight.”
“It wasn’t technically midnight yet.”
She chews for a minute, both arms folded over her midsection.
“Good,” she says, after a moment. “I hope you woke her up from a really amazing dream, and I hope she never properly got back to sleep. I hope she woke up every thirty minutes all night long.”
“She was very courteous about it,” I say.
“Of course she was,” says Delilah. “Vera knows her manners, unless you’re her actual family, in which case she pulls shit like this behind your back because she thinks that —”
Her fists clench and she draws in a long, deep breath, clamping her lips together with her teeth.
“Imma kill her,” she says again, almost under breath. “Imma kill you too, but I’m really gonna kill her.”
“I also brought water,” I say, holding up the glass.
“In case I’m actually the Wicked Witch of the West?” she asks with a snort, eyes still closed.
“In case you’re thirsty.”
She breathes again, then exhales.
“Thanks,” she says. “It’s too bad, I’d love to have some flying monkeys under my command right now. And a broom that could shoot fireballs. You know, I always felt she was treated unfairly.”
I take a sip of the water myself.
“Yesterday it was virgin sacrifices, and today you’re an apologist for the Wicked Witch?” I say. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
Delilah laughs, her head tilting back, her earrings swinging from her ears.
“Double, double, toil and trouble,” she chants, waving her fingers in the air. “Cauldron burn, and fire… wait, no.”
I glance down at myself.
“Not a toad,” I say, and Delilah just sighs.
“I tried,” she says. “Can we sit? These shoes are stupid.”
Delilah turns, leads me back to the window nook, hops up. I sit on the other side, the appetizer plate and the glass of water between us.
“I can’t believe she did this to me,” she says, leaning her temple against the wall, her neck long. Underneath the lace of her sleeve I can see snow-capped mountains, a lake, clouds, a sun.
“I brought you snacks, I can’t be as bad as all that,” I say.
Delilah laughs. It’s a short, quick, rough ha but it’s a laugh and I’ll take it.
“Well, you are, but I mean this,” she says, waving her arm in the air to indicate the whole building. “I mean that even though I made my wishes perfectly crystal fucking clear, she decided that I’m not allowed to be single.”
Another deep breath, her skirt twisting between her fingers.
“She’s always been this way,” she says, and now there’s an unsteady edge to her voice. “She thinks that because I’m single and thirty I’m some pathetic, sad spinster who must be crying herself to sleep every night because, as we all know, the only true path to happiness is through dick. She thinks I’m some object of pity that she has to fix.”