“What would your parents have done,” he asked, “if you had snuck in drugs or had a wild lesbian orgy at Saint Benedict’s?”
Delilah shivered, unable to stomach the idea of being romantic with any of her former classmates. “Ugh, no.”
Finally, this made him laugh. “I’m not asking you what girl you would have been with. I mean, what would your parents have done?”
“Flipped out. Completely.”
“What does that mean? What do they do when they flip out?”
Delilah wanted to ask him, for about the millionth time, what his parents were like. Didn’t they flip out on him? Wasn’t he keeping at least some secrets from them? She wondered if this was where the game of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” came in. She didn’t particularly like talking about her family—there wasn’t anything interesting to say, really, and it always made her a little sad that her parents were so unaffectionate and awkward, particularly when compared to Nonna’s exuberant love—but if opening up showed Gavin that his family couldn’t possibly be any weirder than hers, she was willing to try.
So with a shrug she said, “My parents are. . . hard to describe.”
“How so?”
“I don’t actually know them very well.”
He seemed to digest this for a few breaths. “Because you were gone a lot, you mean?”
“That, and I think they aren’t very good at talking, or connecting to other people. They have this little marriage bubble, and I’m their kid, but to them it means I’m a joint project. Like building a birdhouse together is the same as raising a daughter and redecorating the kitchen.”
“That’s. . . too bad.”
“Don’t get me wrong. They care that I’m raised right and want me to be safe. They just aren’t very warm. They don’t ever ask whether I’ve done my homework, but they have very strong opinions about boys and dating and sex and even thoughts.”
“You can’t have thoughts?”
“I should try not to, is what my mother says. There’s no use thinking about things I can’t do yet anyway. My dad is just. . . a dad. He works; he eats; he watches TV. He works; he eats; he watches TV.”
“No sleeping in there?” Gavin asked with a small smile.
“Maybe a little. My mom is sort of charm-free. Nonna always called her ‘Belinda Bluenose.’ I finally had to look it up to realize she was calling my mother uptight. And it’s true. I think my mother would fall over dead if she ever thought I masturbated.”
Gavin had been listening intently to all of this, but when Delilah said this last bit, he ran a hand over his face and coughed out a laugh. “Good God, Delilah. You’re going to kill me.”
“What? How?” she asked, suddenly distracted by a line of black words that peeked out from beneath the cuff of Gavin’s sleeve. She wondered what thoughts and ideas he found so important he would draw them in ink across his skin.
He shook his head, and instead of answering, he asked, “Have you never had a boyfriend?”
“Um, no. Were you listening to the flipping-out bit? I’ve kissed a few boys, but each of those stories is in my collection of secrets.”
“Not anymore.”
She deflated, having broken her one cardinal rule. “I didn’t tell you the details.”
“Hey,” he said, touching her arm. “I promise I won’t tell anyone you kissed a boy.”
Her eyes narrowed and she noted the brightness in his eyes. “You’re making fun of me.”
Gavin laughed. “I am. Completely.”
• • •
In Massachusetts, the local Trader Joe’s was a beacon of color, with bright signs suspended out front and fresh produce practically spilling from the shelves. Morton’s only grocery store was beige and as commonplace and average as everything else in town. Economy Grocer was a long rectangular building wedged between a run-down used bookstore and a small Payless ShoeSource.
Engrossed in one of her paperbacks, Belinda had placed the car keys in Delilah’s hand and sent her off to fetch onion powder. Delilah thrilled at any chance to drive on her own. Driving alone meant the chance to listen to loud music of her choosing.
Delilah wasn’t sure which cosmic force to thank when she pulled into the cracked parking lot of Economy Grocer just in time to see Gavin Timothy’s lanky frame disappear between the automatic doors. Keys and purse in hand, she hopped out of the car and made her way into the supermarket.
Standing at least a full head taller than everyone else, Gavin was instantly visible down the middle aisle, where he reached to pluck a box of ice cream from the frozen-food case.
“Hello there, Gavin Timothy,” she said, stopping a few feet away.
He straightened and looked at her over his shoulder. “Delilah Blue.” As usual, Gavin was dressed in black from head to toe, his jeans practically painted on and his T-shirt doing really, really nice things for his arms and the flat lines of his stomach. But it was his smile that had her taking a step back and stumbling into a display of Hershey’s Syrup.
“I’m fine,” she said before he could ask, righting herself almost immediately.
“Good,” he said, his smile widening, approaching indecent levels. Closing the freezer door, he turned to face her, motioning to the box of Drumsticks in his hands. “I was leaving work and craving ice cream.”
Together they turned and walked side by side up the aisle. “I hope you have one in there for me,” Delilah said, bumping his arm with her shoulder.
“I’m not sure what watching you eat one of these would do to me,” he said, and Delilah almost dropped her keys and Gavin shook his head next to her. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“I think we need to figure out which of us is going to be the scandalous one here, because I’m not sure this friendship can handle two.”
Friendship, she reminded herself. Friendship.
“Just giving you a run for your money,” he said, following her around the corner to the spice aisle. A woman of about sixty was reading the back of a box of cake mix and glanced up, frowning in judgment as she inspected the messy-haired shadow at Delilah’s side.
Delilah scanned a row of spice bottles. “That one,” she said, pointing to the top shelf.
“Here?” he said, finding it easily and handing it to her.
“Thank you. Why do they put things so high? I need a stepladder to reach it.”
“Or maybe you need a grocery escort from now on.”
Her heart turned into a thousand fevered bird wings. “So what are you doing with the rest of your night?”
“Eating ice cream and thinking wholesome thoughts,” he said. “And I have a history test to study for. You?”
“Watching my dad watch TV? I don’t know.” She looked up at him. “Not much going on, really.”
Gavin looked like he might say something more, but they’d reached the checkout.
“Hey, Dave,” Gavin said, setting his box on the tiny conveyor belt before shoving both his hands in the pockets of his jeans. A middle-aged man with hair that thinned on top and grayed at the sides looked up at him in confusion.
“Hi,” he said slowly, watching Gavin through narrowed eyes like he was trying to place him. “Do I know you from somewhere, kid?”
Gavin blinked to Delilah and then back to the man. “Never mind,” he said slowly, pulling a five from his jeans and handing it to him.
Dave rang up the onion powder wearing a similar haze of confusion, his gaze repeatedly darting back to Gavin like he was sure there was something there to puzzle out.
With change in hand, Delilah and Gavin headed toward the entrance together. “That was so weird,” Gavin said.
“You do know him, then?” Delilah asked.
“He’s only delivered our groceries every week for, I don’t know, the past seven or eight years? How could he not know who I was?”
Delilah followed his gaze to where the man was ringing up the next customer. There was no way to meet Gavin and not remember hi
m, and there was absolutely no way to forget his house.
• • •
Ten lunches together and two weekends in between interrupted her time with Gavin. Saturday was the most dreaded day of the week. On Fridays, she’d doodle skulls and torches and severed hands discreetly in class just to distract her from the impending doom of the weekend. Two days at home with her parents: torture.
She wasn’t one to snap. Granted, she wasn’t the most patient when it came to Gavin. She had no idea why, but early on she’d decided he was what she wanted. She wanted those lips to be hers and that forever-long torso, too. She was possessive of his quiet, husky laugh and wanted to know that the fingers he used to play the piano or sketch in his notebook were the same he would use to touch her jaw or her lips or her waist. Until he said no, she was going to be near him as much as possible. He seemed comfortable with her, would ask her questions and reply. But he never shared many details about himself.
“You didn’t bring lunch today,” he said, biting into a mottled red-green apple. He reached into his lunch bag and pulled out a second. “Here, I brought you one.”
“How did you know I wasn’t going to bring lunch?”
“I didn’t,” he said, taking another gigantic bite. It pushed his cheek out, and she could see his sharp canine tooth as he moved the bite farther back in his mouth. “But these apples are really good, and I thought you might want one.”
“Is it from your apple tree?”
He froze, swallowing roughly before he’d finished chewing. “Yes.”
“So, it’s January and your apple tree has fruit?”
“It’s not uncommon for apples to bloom in January,” he said robotically.
“It’s uncommon for Pippin apples.” She knew, staring down at the apple. She’d seen his blossoming, fruit-filled tree and she’d looked up what kind it was, and now he knew she had.
She stared down at the apple in her hand and then rubbed it against her shirt, shining it. She could almost feel him struggling to think of some way to change the subject. Giving up and letting him off the hook, she said, “Do you like when I come here at lunch?”
“Of course.” He dropped his ravaged apple core into his empty lunch sack.
“Do you like me the way I like you?”
He scratched his cheek, ducked to meet her eyes, and finally asked, “What way do you like me, Delilah?”
She looked up at him. He knew how she liked him. She’d made herself completely transparent. Why was he so intent on making her say it? When she saw his dark eyes widen slightly, she understood: Gavin didn’t totally believe that she could feel that way.
“I want you to ask me out on a date.”
CHAPTER SIX
Him
Gavin stared at the girl in front of him, processing what she’d just said. A date, with food and maybe milk shakes, hands coming together, palms pressed tightly later. Maybe even lips and teeth touching later, too, and her quiet girl sounds muted by his mouth.
He’d never been very good at the romantic negotiations. The heavy, insinuating looks from girls when they moved to stand close to him. The cloying awkwardness of a girl trying to speak to him and becoming more and more self-conscious as he politely waited for her to finish saying whatever it was she wanted to say. Thankfully, most girls would eventually decide it was easier to pretend he wasn’t even there. But Delilah was a battering ram.
It was partly what drew him to her, but only partly. Her complete fearlessness felt calming and trustworthy, but her lips¸ and skin, and the hint of her breasts beneath her sweater didn’t hurt either.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” he lied.
“Liar. I just told you I wanted you to ask me out. Whether you’re intrigued or horrified, you have to be thinking about something.”
He didn’t bother denying it; he just smiled and looked at her face some more. She was so beautiful. Her skin was unreal, tiny freckles but otherwise smooth and clean with just the right amount of color blooming across her cheeks as she watched him. He could draw those eyes, he thought. Charcoal, maybe smudged with the edge of his little finger. Delilah’s eyes were wide-set, almost strangely almond shaped, and a turbulent gray-green like the crashing surf of Hallway Painting, waves pummeling stone and sand.
He would draw her later. He’d take the sketch downstairs, sit with Piano, listen to a song that he imagined would make drawn Delilah come to life, and he would pull her close to him, dance her across the floor. She would feel him, so real with her hands tugging his hair and her teeth pulling at the collar of his shirt like an impatient kitten, purring into his neck.
“Gavin?”
The real Delilah was waiting for an answer. How could they date when they didn’t even inhabit the same world? She, a mystery in her crisp shirt and pleated skirt, so unable to give up the prim uniform of Catholic school. He, with his tangle of hair, black shirt, jeans in the final throes of coherence.
“I’m not sure I’m really your type.”
Her smile curved her mouth into something edible. “I think you are.”
“I think you might be dangerous.” His left eyebrow quirked up, teasing her.
She laughed then, all husky and soft, and the sound burrowed into him, warming him from bones to skin. “I don’t think so, Gavin.”
“What would we do on a date, anyway?”
Her smile straightened, and she looked so earnest he would believe her if she told him the ground had turned invisible. “We could get milk shakes.”
His brows lifted.
“And maybe after we walked around for a while drinking our milk shakes, you’d hold my hand.”
He laughed. “Slow down, now.”
“And we’d talk. You’d talk.”
His expression fell a little.
“I hear it’s required on dates,” Delilah added. “It’s what I do every day with you. It’s your turn soon.”
“Talking really isn’t my strength.”
“I know,” she assured him.
“Then why would you want to go on a date with me where we have milk shakes and eventual hand-holding and awkward conversation?”
“Because,” she said, licking her lips into a sweet, shining red-apple kiss, “I’ve basically been at a convent for six years, and I’ve had a crush on you since we were nine. When I get you to say more than two words at a time, I feel like I’ve won something major.”
“Like a trophy made of chest hair?” he teased.
“Like a war.”
His skin pebbled in gooseflesh when she said that, not because it scared him but because it thrilled him to hear it from this tiny girl who drew pictures of bleeding crosses and eyeless skulls.
“What do you want from me, Delilah?”
“I want to be the only girl you look at.” No pretenses; she always said things like this, as if it cost her nothing to bare herself.
“You already are.”
“I’d like to be your girlfriend, Gavin Timothy.”
“Girlfriend? Or girl friend?” He felt the need to offer her plenty of chances to take it back.
“One word. ‘Girlfriend.’ ‘Sweetheart.’ Whatever you call it. That’s what I want with you.”
“Sweetheart?” he repeated, teasing. “My best gal?”
Shrugging, she whispered, “Yeah.”
He looked to the side, considering what that would mean. “You would have to know about me.”
“Obviously. I haven’t hung out with you under this tree for the last few weeks so I can know you less well.”
Looking back at her, he said, “It’s not like I have a weird kink like a foot fetish. I mean, I’m different.”
“Again,” she said, smiling, “obviously.”
“I live in. . . a house.” His words came out heavy as marble.
Her eyes narrowed as she considered him and he realized with a small laugh what he’d just said. Huffing out a breath, he dug both hands into his hair. “No. Right. Everyone lives in
a house of some sort. It’s just that my house is different.”
“You mean because of the patchwork?” she asked, eyebrows lifted hopefully.
“No.” But then he understood her meaning, the way House came together on the outside. He was so used to seeing it that way and knowing each individual part just as that—individual—that he’d stopped noticing how it appeared so heavily seamed, so awkwardly plugged together. “Yes, actually. I mean, the reason it looks like that is the same reason you wear those little skirts and I wear jeans and boots.”
“Like, every room is decorated a different way,” she said, smiling that she seemed to be following. Except she wasn’t. The rooms weren’t decorated a certain way; they were a certain way.
“No, Delilah. The house, and everything inside it, is unique. Everything has its own style, because everything in the house is alive.”
Delilah laughed, clearly disbelieving. “Okay, Gavin. Sure.”
Blinking away, Gavin took a deep breath and considered his options. He could laugh it off, too, pretend that he was making a joke. But that would mean nothing else between him and Delilah could move forward. He wouldn’t really be able to be himself with her the way he suspected he would want to be. . . or maybe already did.
Or, he could try to make her believe.
“I realize how this sounds,” he started. “But I wouldn’t lie to you, or tell you this to mock you somehow.” Gavin looked back at her, his eyes tripping on a strand of hair blown across her face, stuck to her lip. Without thinking, he gently urged it away with a long finger. “I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, you know, but given how I was raised, how could it have gone differently? My first day of kindergarten, there wasn’t a parent walking me there but a tricycle that squeaked down the street next to me. Not with me on it. Next to me. It sat outside my classroom until I was ready to go home and then walked me all the way back. I hadn’t even known what school was until the moment I saw the other kids playing and understood I was supposed to go too. But even then, when I was five, I knew not to tell anyone. I knew to put my hand on the handle so it would look like I was leading it and not the other way around.”