Track 26 Delilah
Delilah
Cohen showed off her ink on the Grammy’s red carpet last year.
“It’s Emily Dickinson,” Cohen told Rolling Stone.
“ ‘Write me of hope and love, and of hearts that endured.’ I’ve had some moments when I’ve needed someone to just tell me something good, something that makes it worth fighting through the shitty times.
I ended up exchanging letters with a few friends for almost two years where all we did was share things that were making us feel hopeful or happy, and honestly, I think it saved my life.
” We looked it up, and it turns out this line isn’t from a poem, but from a letter Dickinson wrote to her sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson.
Some academics have theorized that there was much more than sisterly love between the two, and from reading the rest of those letters, we can’t help but agree.
Text message to: Sam Knight
Did you really think that just because you blocked me that no one was going to show me your private account?
[message not sent]
Text message to: Sam Knight
Covering “Hey There Delilah”??? Are you kidding me???
[message not sent]
Text message to: Sam Knight
You are such an asshole
[message not sent]
Text message to: Sam Knight
Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?
[message not sent]
Text message to: Sam Knight
CA Car Repair in Joshua Tree
Text message from: Sam Knight
Ok. I’m on my way.
Delilah has gone through most of the pack of cigarettes by the time Sam’s car pulls into the parking lot of the mechanic where she had Roscoe towed, ten miles off of I-10.
She looks beautiful when she parks the car and steps out.
Blond hair like waves of summer sun, the full lips Delilah’s never once been able to look at without thinking of kissing them, the endless eyelashes that take Delilah’s breath away—even now, watching as Sam scans the lot until she spots Delilah, perched on the peeling picnic table next to the building.
“Jesus, Del,” she says by way of greeting, making her way over. “You know Alex’ll kill you if she finds out you’re smoking.”
Delilah looks her right in her gorgeous blue eyes and takes a deliberate drag.
Sam rolls said eyes and climbs up to sit next to her on the table, planting her butt on the dirty paint as if she’s not wearing jeans that cost more than Delilah’s first car.
She holds out a hand without speaking, and Delilah passes her a cigarette and her lighter, watching silently as Sam lights up and inhales, only coughing twice as she adjusts.
Delilah waits until she’s settled, because her mother raised her to be polite, and then says, “A fucking note, Sam?”
It’s not the greeting Delilah’s spent the last hour planning, but it’s what comes out of her anyway. Judging by the way Sam exhales smoke, she wasn’t expecting anything gentler. “Yeah,” she admits. “That wasn’t my best moment.”
“You owe me more than that.”
“I know. I’m here, aren’t I?” Delilah scowls at her, and Sam sighs, fiddling with the cigarette with her long, elegant fingers.
Pianist fingers, without the calluses that edge Delilah’s; for all her other talents, Sam had never been able to pick up guitar.
There’s a tan line on her ring finger, a mirror to Delilah’s own. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“For the note? Or for the rest of it?”
“For all of it.”
Delilah chews the inside of her cheek. The question that’s been bothering her for the past week finally comes out. “So who is she?”
Sam closes her eyes, flattening her lips into a line the way she always does when she knows Delilah’s going to hate whatever she’s about to say. Delilah hates that she recognizes the look, and hates even more that she asked at all. “Brooke.”
“Brooke?” It comes out as more of a sputter than a snap. “Brooke like your PA Brooke?”
Sam winces. “Yes.”
“Oh my God. Could you be more of a fucking cliché?”
“I know. I know, okay?” Sam has the grace to look miserable, and Delilah’s not a good enough person not to feel a bit of vindication about that.
“It’s all—it’s all shitty. You didn’t deserve it, and I could tell you how it happened, and when and why, but I know enough about how your brain works to know it’ll just make things worse, so can we just assume I know I’m an asshole and you don’t need or want the details, and go from there? ”
Delilah scoffs. She’s glad she got all of the tears out of her system when Emmett walked away—she probably still looks like she’s been crying, but at least she’s not still on the verge of another breakdown.
“You could at least try to pretend you’re not going to justify it.
” When Sam doesn’t respond, just looks down at the cigarette in her hand and leans forward so that when she taps off the ash it doesn’t land on her probably-designer shoes, Delilah exhales hard. “Why didn’t you just break up with me?”
She takes a perverse satisfaction in Sam’s flinch and doesn’t even feel bad about it.
Sam’s cheek hollows as she chews it, a familiar habit.
Delilah used to reach over and poke it to get her to stop, and then Sam would nip at her fingertip instead.
“Would you believe me if I said it was because I got in over my head?”
“Not a chance.” In all the time she’s known her, Sam’s never done anything without examining it from every angle, consulting with a publicist, and trying to figure out whether or not her parents would get pissed at her. “Not unless you had a personality transplant.”
Sam laughs. “Yeah, well.” She takes a long drag on the cigarette, then lifts her head to exhale into the wind.
Delilah watches her, taking in the expression on her face, trying to read the line of her jaw and the flickering of her eyelashes the way she always used to, back when she was so sure of Sam, and of her-and-Sam, and of their future together.
Finally, Sam says, “You’re better than me. You know that, right?”
Delilah tenses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t play dumb, Delilah.” She twirls the cigarette, once a practiced trick, now an absentminded habit.
Sam has a memory like a steel trap; she never forgets anything, no matter how much Delilah sometimes wishes she would.
“You have more talent than I do. I might have the pedigree, but you have the—” Sam shakes her head, blond ponytail swinging.
“I can’t sing like you. I can’t play like you.
God knows I can’t write like you, not as well and sure as hell not as fast. From the first time I saw you perform, I knew I was never going to be able to do what you could do.
Make people feel the way you can make them feel. ”
“The words say this is a compliment, but the tone says you’re blaming me for something,” Delilah says, falling back on bitchy sarcasm because that’s far easier than letting herself think Sam actually believes what she’s saying.
Sam sees through it, because of course she does. “I’m not blaming you for anything. I’m just—do you know what it’s like? Being with your partner and knowing that everything you care about, everything you were raised to do, they can do better?”
“Sure,” Delilah says. “It probably feels about the same as spending years waiting for your partner, who you know could do better than you because they’re rich, stunning, talented, and well connected, to wake up and realize it.
” She finishes her own cigarette, stubbing it out on the table and leaning over to flick it into the nearby trash can.
“Which, you know, thanks for proving me right on that.”
“Oh my God, Delilah.” Sam rubs her eyes. “This is—this is what I’m talking about. This moral high ground bullshit. You never trusted me.”
“I absolutely did,” Delilah says, stung. “If I didn’t trust you, it wouldn’t have felt like such a slap in the face to find out you were cheating on me for…how long was it again?”
Sam doesn’t take the bait. “You didn’t trust that I wanted you,” she says. “You weren’t happy with me.”
“Of course I was. And what does that have to do with you thinking I’m more talented than you?”
“You weren’t happy with me because you weren’t happy at all,” Sam says. “You never have been.”
Delilah flinches. “Am I supposed to apologize for being depressed?”
“No, that’s not—” Sam presses her lips together.
“I’m not saying any of this right.” Delilah waits, resisting the urge to light another cigarette, and starts twisting the hair tie around her wrist instead.
“I fucked up, Delilah, okay? I fucked up, and I know I fucked up, but you were so—I could tell that everything was hard for you. Our relationship, the way we worked together, the publicity, everything. I knew it was your dream, that you wanted it, but—but I could see it. How hard you had to try. And Brooke was…” She shakes her head.
“Brooke was easy. I didn’t have to fight to make her happy. ”
Delilah stares at her. “It wasn’t hard for me. Why would you—what did I do that made you think that?”
“It’s not something you did. Or any one thing you did. It’s…” Sam takes a breath. “It always felt like I was waiting for you to leave, Delilah. Like you wanted me because of what I symbolized to you, not because of who I actually was.”
One of the only things Delilah has ever liked about herself is how easily she loves people.
People have always told her how much she makes them feel loved, feel cared for, feel special.
Sam couldn’t have hurt her more if she’d slapped her.
“I loved you,” she says. “I loved you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I thought—” Her voice catches in her throat and she swallows hard.
“I thought I was doing everything right.”
“Yeah,” Sam says wearily. “And you were so focused on trying to do everything right that you forgot to actually try to be happy.”
“All I ever do is try to be happy.”
“Brooke doesn’t have to try,” Sam says, like she’s not twisting a knife, hitting Delilah in the one place she doesn’t have any way to protect herself. “She made it feel easy. Being happy. Making her happy.”