26. Delilah
DELILAH
Vivian stands in the bedroom doorway in knee-high leather boots and an off-white Max Mara coat, one hand still wrapped around the knob. Snow beads in her dark hair.
Her lipstick is the soft pink she wears when she wants to look harmless, which is a little like putting a cashmere sweater on a circular saw.
The photograph of Kane kissing me is still in my hand.
Vivian looks at it, but I turn it away before she can see. This is one thing I don’t want her to spoil.
Shrugging, she lifts her other hand. A brass key dangles from one finger.
“Before you freak out, I didn’t break in.”
There are several things I could say to that. Most begin with Who says I’m not freaking out already?
I look at the key. “How do you have that?”
Her gaze wobbles. It’s tiny, but I catch it.
Apparently, discovering your husband’s multi-year affair turns you into a forensic specialist in micro expressions.
“Connor gave it to me,” Vivian says.
“When?”
She rubs her thumb over the teeth of the key. “I don’t know. Like, last year?”
“Oh, give or take fourteen months ago?”
Vivian’s silence is all the answer I need.
She’s had a key to my house for fourteen months. She has walked through my front door whenever she wants.
Maybe she’s stood in my kitchen drinking from my yellow mugs with Connor’s scent all over her.
Maybe she’s used my shower after they had sex and left before I get home from the bakery.
The headboard is gone, but it appears in my mind anyway. Dark oak. Crooked knob. Her heart tattoo flashing above my quilt.
Vivian takes my silence as an invitation and comes the rest of the way in. Her eyes go around the room first. Not to me. To the fresh paint. To the bare floor where the bed was. To the rolled carpet. Her mouth comes open when she gets to the space where it isn’t.
“Where’s Grandma’s bed?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“It got compacted into a garbage truck about fifteen minutes ago.”
Her jaw drops. Indignation, though I don’t know why. She didn’t give a fuck about our grandmother. She left the wake early to go see the Chainsmokers play an outdoor show in Prospect Park.
She blinks. Then her attention snags on the massive man standing next to me in a black suit with a rose gold chain at his throat.
“Who’s this?”
I don’t answer.
Her face cracks open with awed delight. “Oh my God. Are you seeing somebody? Already?” She presses her fingertips to her chest. “Dee. It’s been like a week!”
“It’s been nine days, actually.”
“That’s wild.” She’s grinning, so pleased with uncovering what she thinks is a juicy bit of gossip. “Wow. Okay. Well, good for you.”
Then she does the most obvious thing she’s ever done.
It’s strange to watch it like this. Up close and personal. I can almost see the gears turning, the machinery at work. How did I never notice before how fake and artificial the whole thing is?
Her shoulders drop. Her chin tips down and her eyelashes bat. Her voice gets soft and coquettish, girly, teasing, high-pitched and giggly.
“Hi,” she says to Kane. “I’m Vivian. I’m the sister. The infamous one, supposedly.”
She crosses the room. She puts her hand on his sleeve, right at the forearm. Just like Alisa.
Kane looks at her for a long time without saying anything. Then his gaze drops to her hand. The disgust on his face makes me recoil from how violent it is. It’s like he just found a cockroach in his five-star meal.
He takes her wrist between his thumb and forefinger, lifts it off him, and lets go in midair.
He steps around her without a word and stands at my shoulder.
“Do you want her out?” he asks me.
I look past him and watch my sister’s face come apart.
I take the time to memorize it all, because this is a micro expression I’ve never seen before and I want to remember it right.
It’s hurt.
It’s confusion.
It’s the look on a person’s face when they flip a light switch they’ve flipped their whole life and nothing comes on.
She looks at her own hand. Then at the back of Kane’s head. Then at me, waiting for someone to explain.
No man has ever moved around her to get to me.
Nobody has ever asked what I want while she stands in the room waiting to be wanted more.
She has never been turned down in front of me.
I don’t think it ever crossed her mind that it was possible.
“No,” I tell Kane.
He looks down at me. “Are you sure?”
“No,” I say again. “I’ll do it myself.”
A slow, private smile touches his mouth. Then he steps away. He moves to the wall that isn’t glistening with fresh paint, leans against it, folds his arms over his chest, and watches on silently.
A supervising presence.
Like the world’s largest, hottest proctor.
Vivian gives him a final glance before turning to me. “Can we talk alone?”
“No.”
“Dee.”
“Delilah, please. I’m not a little kid anymore.”
She exhales sharply. “Fine. Whatever. I didn’t come here to fight.”
“No?”
“No. I came because this has gotten completely out of control.”
“You’ll have to narrow that down.”
“I’m talking about the video, obviously!”
Of course.
Not my marriage. Not my bakery.
The video.
Vivian starts pacing across the bare floor. “It has fourteen million views.”
“Congratulations. You’re famous, just like you always wanted to be.”
“I’m serious. It’s everywhere. Someone added captions. There are reaction videos. There are fucking hashtags!”
I giggle, and she whirls around and glares at me. “This isn’t funny!”
“Two brands dropped me yesterday. Two! One was a six-month skincare partnership, Delilah. Do you understand what that means?”
I do, in fact. It means there is a God, and She has Wi-Fi.
I don’t say that, though, as fun as it would be. Personal growth is exhausting.
Vivian presses a hand to her chest. “The comments are insane. People are posting my old pictures. Someone found the tanning salon thing, which wasn’t even my fault. Yesterday, this random woman recognized me outside Whole Foods and called me a ‘home-wrecking slut.’“
“Which Whole Foods?”
“What?”
“I’m wondering if I should send her flowers.”
Vivian’s face hardens. “Mom can’t leave the house.” Ah, of course. Here comes the rest of the guilt trip. “She says people at church are talking. Aunt Virginia won’t take her calls. She hasn’t slept properly since Christmas Eve.”
I cock out a hip. I refuse to be swayed by her bullshit and crocodile tears. They aren’t real. She doesn’t care about Mom’s REM cycles. She just wants to be adored and nothing else.
“So what are you asking me for?”
Vivian ventures closer. “I need you to post something.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
“A statement,” she says quickly, warming up, because now, we’re in the part of the conversation she rehearsed.
“It doesn’t have to be long. You just say the video’s old, or it’s been edited, or that it’s a private family matter and everyone’s blowing it out of proportion.
A misunderstanding between adults. You put it on your bakery page and turn the comments off.
” She spreads her hands. “That’s it. That’s all. It’s five minutes of your time.”
“But that would be a lie,” I say, pursing my lips thoughtfully. “You want me to lie for you?”
“Goddammit, Delilah, just say it’s edited!”
“It isn’t.”
“Say it was taken out of context!”
“I’m dying to hear the context that improves it.”
Her cheeks flush. “All you have to do is say that you regret sharing it publicly.”
“I don’t, though.”
“You don’t have to mean it.”
“I know. That’s your specialty.”
She flinches, then recovers.
Vivian has always recovered quickly. It’s easy to bounce back when the floor of your life is made from everyone else’s spines.
“Please just fix it,” she whimpers. “You’re good at this. You’re the one who handles things. You’re Do-It-All Delilah.” She smiles at me as tears shine in her eyes. “One more time. One last time, and then I’ll never ask you for anything again.”
I feel sick.
She wants me to fix it.
She’s not admitting guilt, or begging forgiveness, or asking how she could try to repair some of the damage she caused.
Just fix it.
Do-It-All Delilah, summoned for one more shift.
I glance down at the photograph in my hand. Kane’s mouth on mine. My body pressed openly against his without one inch tucked away.
“No.”
Vivian stares.
“No?”
“No.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s generally how the word works.”
Her nostrils flare. “This is bigger than you being angry.”
“No, it isn’t.” I jab a finger at her. “You slept with my husband in my bed.”
She drags hands down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to show everyone!”
“You didn’t have to film it and upload it to our shared fucking album, Viv.”
She looks toward Kane as if expecting him to be reasonable on her behalf.
But she’s even crazier than she looks if she thinks that’s gonna happen.
Vivian folds her arms and switches gears. “Connor said you’d do this.”
At his name, something hard moves through my chest. “Oh, yeah? How is Connor?”
“As if you care.”
“I’m only asking to see whether he’s mentioned why he forged my name on a four-million-dollar loan.”
Vivian’s gaze whips toward Kane.
Interesting.
“What does that have to do with me?” she says, lying through her pearly white teeth.
“You were planning a life together. Apparently with my real estate.”
“It wasn’t his idea.”
I keep my voice level. “What wasn’t?”
“I don’t— he didn’t tell me the details.” She’s backpedaling now, but she sucks at it. “There was a guy. A man came to him about it. With an offer, or a— I don’t know, an opportunity. Connor said it was going to fix everything.” She swallows.
“What man?”
“I don’t know!”
Kane remains motionless against the wall. But I feel his interest sharpen.
Vivian shakes her head. “Connor said there was going to be enough money for both of us. That’s all.”
“Both of you,” I say.
“That’s not— that’s not the point right now.”
“No,” I agree. “I guess it isn’t.”
She pushes her hair back. “So will you do it? The post?”
“No.”
“No?” She looks at me again as hatred twists her face apart. “You’re seriously going to stand there with some stranger and act like I’m the worst person in the world? I’m your sister, for God’s sake!”
“You were,” I agree. “And Kane isn’t a stranger.”