She wanted me to meet her mom and I should have gone and placated her. But stupid me, I thought I could fuck Delilah. I thought I understood her in a way that other morons in this building don’t, that there was nothing to fear because she’s incapable of loving someone like me. She’s a star fucker and a gold digger and while she claims to put on her Band-Aid dresses in the name of work, in the name of gossip, she is putting on these dresses because Nicolas Cage married a waitress, because Matt Damon married one too, because George Fucking Clooney promised his dick to a hot lawyer.
Even if I had shown up and met her mother and told her I loved her and bought her flowers for no reason and asked her to move in and started talking rings and babies, even then, it would never last. She would continue “working” and squeezing into dresses and going to Golden Globes parties and trying to spill drinks on people like James Franco—this is how Calista Flockhart got Harrison Ford—and she would leave me for James Franco if she got the chance.
But I did not see the whole picture. I was starved from not getting my dick sucked. I was paranoid because of Henderson and I was lonely and I didn’t see the loophole. There is something that Delilah loves more than famous cock: research. And she doesn’t know the real story, but she knows too much.
“My mom says hi by the way,” she sniffs.
I push the spinner. “Tell her hi back,” I say and I wonder if Love is awake, if Amy is alive.
She checks her messages and says she might be getting into an Ed Norton premiere tonight. She wants me to beg her to stay. I don’t.
She runs her finger along a chute. “So how did you get into Soho House?”
I look at her. “Huh?”
“My friend Ethel saw you there.”
“Who is your friend Ethel?”
“Just a friend,” she says. “She knows who you are. She’s seen you at Birds.”
“That’s kind of creepy.” I am being stalked. This is Fast & Furious and Delilah has her own fucking team and does she think she can trap me into being her starter husband, her pre-Franco fuck doll?
“Joe,” she says. “Where have you been these past few days? Were you on Skid Row?”
“No.”
“You need to tell me where you’re getting stuff,” she says. “I know it’s not just Dez because he didn’t hear from you these past few days either.”
“Delilah,” I say. “It’s not like that.”
“Then tell me who you were with.”
I look at the Kandinsky.
“Joe,” she says. “I’m trying to help you. But I can’t help you if I don’t know where you’re getting your drugs.”
She’s too smart. Technically, I should eliminate her. But if I were to bash Delilah over the head and go out and buy acid and reduce her body and dispose of it, I would attract the wrong kind of attention. Her parents would miss her. She’s been asking around about me so I would be a suspect in her murder. And then, when I find Amy, I will have a harder time killing her because I will be under suspicion. There’s no way around it: Delilah has to live. And the only way to get her off my back is to break her heart.
I pat the Chutes and Ladders board. “Delilah, I haven’t been completely honest with you. There’s someone else.”
She swallows. Her cheeks bloat or maybe they just turn red. I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I went to Henderson’s party to see this other girl.
“But she’s enabling you,” she pushes.
I shake my head. “The pills aren’t for me.”
She pulls away. “Then who are they for?”
“This girl’s mom,” I say. “She has cancer. Esophageal.”
Delilah closes the board.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Whatever,” she says, turning her back on me. I tell her I’m horrible. I tell her she is beautiful. I tell her it’s my loss. I hold her. I tell her I am a terrible person and I don’t deserve her. I tell her she is beautiful again. I tell her she is smart, she could run the world with her connections and her tech savvy. I tell her she is going to wind up with someone much better than me and this is when she hugs me harder. This is when she forgives me, when I tell her, without a doubt, that I will be knocking on her door someday, when she’s living in a big house up in the hills with marble floors and security. I’ll be wishing I was in there with her, but I won’t deserve to be.
“Okay,” she says. She shakes my hand. “Just do me a favor, don’t talk shit about me with Dez and Harvey and these other fucks. They’re all just horrible.”
“You got it,” I say. Delilah packs up her stalking devices—she has to go to the Polo Lounge to spy on someone—and when she’s gone, I find the YouTube video with me at Henderson’s. I look through the comments.
User AA212310 writes:
Murderer in the house right there
User AA212310 does not respond to any of the many people who have asked what she means about murderer.
Thought it wuz suicide
Do u know something????
Was he killed?
Thought it was orgy
I will not fixate on the fact that the username contains the initials AA. AA means Alcoholics Anonymous and AA could be anyone and it’s absurd to think it’s Amy when Henderson has millions of fans, many who are deranged, possibly in the AA program with time to spare to go on YouTube and comment. I will not think about Delilah reading these comments, wondering, investigating. I will not fall down the rabbit hole. I did not get caught. I am fine. I am free. The only thing I ever got caught doing is jaywalking.
Then my phone buzzes and I get something I’ve never gotten before. A Facebook message from Love: Ok I am a total stalker but I found you here. I’m going to Malibu. It’s too hot and I think it would be wrong of me to leave you here in this heat. So this is my good deed of the day. In?
It’s like she knew about my day, my Village nightmare. Like she sensed that all I wanted was a way out, a break. I write back all caps YES. She responds: Literally in front of your building. #psychokillercesquase
She writes again: My French spelling sucks but my French kissing is good hahha
I write back: Nothing about you sucks.
And of course it’s the truth.
I pack a bag and think about Delilah’s vacuum mouth and Amy’s hungry-hungry-hippo, all-hands-on-deck enthusiasm. I will not be getting my dick sucked in Malibu but I won’t have to deal with Delilah. I bring my clothes and my underwear and my computer. I picture Harvey explaining to some new Angeleno that this apartment is cursed. The first girl took off, jettisoned her furniture. The next guy, one day he was here and the next day he was popping pills (allegedly) and then poof, gone. Still, I can’t be too needy; I take out a few pairs of jeans.
Outside, I search for Love’s Tesla but it’s not here. I hear honking and she’s down the street, waving from a Ferrari. I walk to her and she smiles when I get in. She isn’t mad that I bailed on her this morning because of a work thing. She doesn’t see it that way at all. “I know you have a life,” she says. “We were in the zone. I had to send like a million e-mails this morning so believe me. I get it. Did you get your shit done?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “Then you can focus on this Pantry mix I made for you.”
It starts with Charles Mingus and I feel like a Fresh Air kid on his way out of the ghetto as we pass Hollywood Lawns and head toward Malibu. I text Calvin: I’m gonna need a few days. I feel like shit. Sorry I was such a dick earlier. Delilah, ugh. You know the drill. Anyway I gotta take off for a while. Let me know if anything happens with GFT. Fingers be crossing, C Money. Talk in a few.