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.”
“What do you mean the artist thing?”
“Photographic art, pieces I can sell, series, getting an agent to help navigate the art world. It’s hard to break into though. Really hard.”
Then her show at the Whitney fluttered into her mind, the relief and excitement associated with it. She told Claire about it, how it could be her big break.
“That’s great,” Claire said. “I wish . . .” But the other woman trailed off, brows lowering as she swallowed. Delilah didn’t press her, and soon Claire was moving on.
“How did you know you wanted to make art?” she asked.
Delilah hesitated. The truth was . . . sensitive. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there with Claire tonight or ever. There was no reason for her to know. None at all, other than the simple fact that Delilah wanted her to. Still, she wasn’t sure how Claire would react.
But as she hesitated, Claire scooted a little closer and said, “Come on, I want to know.”
So she told her.
“I got my heart broken,” she said.
Claire’s brows popped into her bangs. “You did?”
Delilah nodded, her throat thickening, but the words just kept coming. “I’ve only had one girlfriend. Her name was Jacqueline—Jax—and we met at a wedding I was working. She . . . she was the maid of honor.”
Claire’s mouth parted, and the irony here wasn’t lost on Delilah, the fact that she was spilling her guts to another maid of honor she couldn’t seem to shut up around.
“We moved in together, dated exclusively for two years.”
“What happened?” Claire asked.
Delilah took a breath, wrapped her mind around the words she’d never said to anyone. After she and Jax broke up, there was no one else in her life to tell. Plus it was just embarrassing as hell, the fact that she hadn’t been enough.
The words rushed out anyway.
“I caught her cheating on me.”
“Oh god.”
“With her ex. Whom, apparently, she’d never gotten over.”