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.
“Oops,” Delilah said, then snapped a picture of the alcohol-and-glass mess at her feet.
* * *
DELILAH DIDN’T BOTHER getting any more shots after that. She helped the staff clean up the mess—the least she could do, as this disaster was her fault and one hundred percent worth it. Even better, the accident had brought the brunch to an abrupt close. When the floor was once again pristine, however, she didn’t want to deal with Astrid or Isabel. As guests began to get up from the tables and Isabel pasted on a smile again, Delilah grabbed her camera bag from under the table, packed it up, and all but sprinted out Vivian’s front door, desperate for some non-perfumed air and some liquor.
She spilled outside and sucked in the warm, early-summer breeze. In New York, it was already stifling hot, but here in Oregon, the weather still felt like spring, blue sky peeking between light gray clouds, the piney scent of evergreens. She sped down the sidewalk and headed straight for Stella’s.
Unfortunately, the idyllic spring weather didn’t change the fact that the bar didn’t open until six. She slapped her hand against the rough wooden door and headed back to the Kaleidoscope Inn, where she turned off her phone and took off her pants before ordering a club sandwich from the inn’s kitchen. Snuggled in the huge king-size bed, chintz be damned, she binged six episodes of a show on her laptop about a gay teenager in Georgia.
Eventually, though, when the sky started to go lavender, she got antsy. She was used to nights out on the city streets, waiting tables or keeping her hands busy by working on a piece, going to art events, or just hanging out in a bar until she found someone she liked. It didn’t always end with a hookup—sometimes it was just nice to sit with someone and talk about nothing, anything.
She didn’t like the quiet, the nights alone.
She flipped her laptop shut and slipped her pants and shoes back on. Five minutes later, she was heading down Main Street toward Stella’s, the globed streetlights casting a golden glow over the cobblestone sidewalk. There were a few people out, couples and families, annual vacationers who’d come to stay in one of the few huge houses lining the river. Most of them were white, straight-looking, a weird number of them licking vanilla ice cream cones like they were posing for candids in Good Housekeeping.
Delilah sped up, ready for the noise and activity of Stella’s. She was about halfway there when she spotted a messy bun through a store window, purple glasses catching the soft light. Books filled the window display, lots of colorful paperbacks promising summer sun and romance, a few thick cookbooks featuring lemony grilled chicken and watermelon salad with cayenne pepper on the covers.