2. Delilah
DELILAH
“—and can you write Merry Christmas, Gladys on the big one?”
“I can write anything you want on it,” I say. “I just did a cake for a nice lady’s fourth divorce that said ‘All My Exes Can Eat Shit and Die.’“
Mrs. Kowalczyk laughs at me. I box her order, ring her up, and hand it across the counter.
“You’re an angel, Delilah,” she tells me.
“Takes one to know one, Mrs. K. Merry Christmas.”
It’s been a doozy of a morning. Since the millisecond we opened, it’s like every single person in Sunset Park has been through my doors. I’m on the precipice of internal collapse, and the only thing keeping me from hurling myself off the edge is a steady stream of espresso.
But as long as I keep moving, keep working, I can forget what I saw in the gray light of the morning. Video? What video? Never heard of her.
“Delilah Dorsey.” Priya emerges from the back with a hotel pan on her hip and her eyebrows already up. “You told me you were going home.”
“I... did?”
“Liar!” cries Priya. “She’s a liar! Seize her and burn her at the stake!”
“I think you’re confusing liars with witches.”
She frowns. “Am I? Oh, well.”
“Not that I’m not in favor of putting liars through heinous executions, though,” I mutter under my breath.
“What’s that? Gotta speak up, love.”
I shake my head. “Nothing. Just some philosophical musings.”
“Alright, my little Aristotle. Don’t think too hard, you’ll give yourself a headache.”
Then she gallivants off back into the kitchen to check on the gingersnaps that the law firm of ambulance chasers paid an exorbitant price to bulk-order at the last minute.
When she’s gone, I let out an exhale like a deflated balloon.
What surprises me is which part of last night hurts.
I thought it would be the videos. And yeah, of course, that was like being drawn and quartered in and of itself.
But it’s the last ten seconds of the third one that are playing again and again in my head like Chinese water torture.
Connor saying, We’re gonna get caught.
My baby sister’s laugh. As carefree as ever.
“Relax. She never notices anything.”
Ouch.
No matter how many times I replay the memory, it hurts just as bad as the first.
“Excuse me—are the gingerbread men gluten-free?”
“They are the exact opposite of gluten-free,” I tell the customer, a suave-looking guy in a nice suit. “I’d go so far as to call them gluten-forward. Gluten on top of gluten, really.”
He grins. “Perfect. Load me up. Gluten-free tastes like cardboard, anyway.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I grab the tongs and give them an experimental clack to be sure they’re in good working order. “How many is ‘load me up,’ by the way?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
“Dangerous words,” I warn. “I’ve been awake since yesterday. My judgment is impaired.”
“Then I’ll take whatever you’d want if you were me.”
That’s such a strange thing to say that I actually look at him properly for the first time.
Dark hair, stylishly messy if a little too long on top, like he keeps meaning to get it cut and keeps not doing it.
Dark pea coat over his suit, unbuttoned.
He’s got a permanent half-smile on his face that makes me want to smile along with him.
Even though every smile today has felt like it’s been the product of hot pincers hooked into my buccal fat and dragged wide.
I box up six gingerbread men and then, on a whim, throw in two of the pistachio linzers I’ve been pushing all week.
His eyebrows rise. “Pistachio? Now, you’re scaring me, Chef.”
“Trust me,” I advise. “Pistachio frangipane, raspberry, so much powdered sugar that you’ll think I’m secretly Pablo Escobar. You’ll get it all over that coat and think about me for the rest of the day.”
Oh, God. Think about me. Who am I? What am I saying? I hear it about a half-second after it leaves my mouth, at which point it is legally and physically unretrievable.
“Is that a threat or a sales pitch?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t even throw in a bear claw. That would be a threat. To your insulin levels, at least.”
“That’s not a threat. Death by sweet treat is how I’ve always wanted to go.”
“I can’t have your blood on my hands.”
“Boo,” he teases. “You’re boring.”
“Yeah, well, someone has to be the adult.”
He laughs. “Sounds exhausting.”
“It builds character.”
“Does it?”
“No,” I admit honestly. “Just heartburn and back pain.” I tap in his order at the register. “That’ll be twelve-fifty. Good luck in the afterlife.”
“Thanks, Miss...?” He arches his eyebrow, obviously asking for my name.
But before I can reply, the doorbell chimes and he gets his answer at full volume.
“DEE-DEE!”
I grimace. As always, my sister is heard before she is seen.
She comes bustling through like she thinks she’s a movie star, huge purse slung over one forearm, even huger sunglasses perched on her nose.
Her hair is freshly blown out, diamond studs glint in her ears, and, even though it’s winter in New York and thus nipple-achingly cold outside, her sweater is cropped high above the navel to show off a midsection that Naomi Campbell would die for.
“Hi, Viv,” I mumble.
“Oh my God, it smells like a Bath & Body Works in here,” she declares at the top of her lungs as she cuts through the waiting queue. She comes to a halt in front of the register and gives me a scathing up-and-down over the rim of her sunglasses. “Are you wearing the same clothes as yesterday?”
I look down at myself. “Uh... maybe? I can’t remember.”
“Ew.”
She glances to the side at the man in the pea coat. He glances back at her.
And, like always, I see it happen.
The Shift.
His eyes, which a moment ago were flirtatiously fixed on me, go to her—and then go huge.
It’s cartoonish, almost. Full-on goo-goo-ga-ga. Any second now, his tongue is gonna fall out of his mouth and unroll on the floor until it reaches the door like a red carpet. Is that steam coming from his ears? Hearts thumping in his pupils?
If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times. I no longer exist, in his eyes.
It’s just Viv, Viv, Viv.
The Shift. From me to her.
She gets the spotlight.
I go invisible.
“Hi,” Vivian says to him. She pushes her sunglasses up into her hair.
“Hel—Hell—er, hi,” he mumbles back.
It appears that’s all he’s got. Ten seconds ago, he had jokes and smooth retorts aplenty. Now, in my sister’s vicinity, one syllable is enough to trip him up.
I put his box on the counter and slide it toward him. “Twelve-fifty,” I repeat.
He fumbles his card out of his wallet without looking at me, taps it, and takes the box.
“Thanks,” he says.
To her, not to me.
“You’re welcome,” Vivian says, even though she didn’t do anything.
He stands there another second, like he’s waiting for something else to happen. When it doesn’t, he leaves. The bell over the door jingles behind him.
Vivian watches him go. Then she turns back to me and drums her nails on my counter.
“Cute,” she decides. “Kinda short, though.”
He was at least six foot one.
“Uh-huh,” I say. “What do you want, Viv?”
“I need dessert.”
“For what?”
“Tomorrow, dummy.” She reaches out and taps me on the temple with one French tip. “The party? At Mom’s house? Christmas Eve? The thing we do every single year because our family is weirdly obsessed with holidays?”
“Oh,” I say dumbly. “Yeah. Right.”
“I told her I’d handle desserts and then I completely forgot, so.” She raps the display glass with that same fingernail. “Guess you’re handling desserts.”
Numbly, slowly, I get a box out from under the counter and start folding it. “What do you want?”
“Whatever’s cute.” She starts roaming down the case, bent over, pointing. “What are those?”
“Cranberry pistachio.”
“Gross. Not those. Those.” She points at the candy cane sugar cookies one rack over. “Those are cute. And the ornaments. The red ones. Those photograph so well.”
“Anything else?”
She straightens up and plucks one of the broken cookies we put out in a sample jar. She takes one tiny nibble, makes a disgusted face, and dunks it in the trash.
“God,” she says. “That’s why I don’t come here.”
“You come here all the time.”
“To see you.” She swallows the molecule of cookie she let pass her lips. “I don’t come here to eat. I would be the size of a house.” She looks at me and then—and I swear she does this without one single thought passing behind her eyes—she says, “Are you eating a lot of these?”
“I’m working, Viv.”
“Because you can tell, a little, in your face. Not bad! Just, like, in the jaw. Like right there.” She squints at me closely. “It’s probably the stress, honestly. Stress does that.”
Yesterday, I would have said nothing.
So, even though I want to say something more than anything, I remind myself that I’m not ready to blow up everything.
Not now.
Not yet.
Therefore, I bite my tongue.
But I need to fill the air with something or I’ll start screaming like a banshee. So I ask, “How’s work?”
She’s looking at her phone. “Hm?”
“Work. How’s it going?”
I leave it vague because I’m not actually sure what Vivian is doing for work these days. She’s never had much of a steady job.
She “did interiors” with her friend Yvette for a while, then some kind of “fashion consulting,” whatever that is, then a gig managing a tanning salon. Some kind of party planning nonsense. Mostly, it seems to involve getting dressed up and drinking lots of dirty martinis.
“Oh,” she says. “Busy, actually. Like stupidly busy.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s the end of the year, so everything’s due at once.” She scrolls. “Everyone’s just, like, panicking.”
“Doing what?”
“The brand stuff.” She waves the phone in a little circle, as if that’s self-explanatory. “It’s a lot of decks. I was out at a thing all weekend for it and I’ve barely slept.”
“Sounds fun.”
“You wouldn’t like it. It’s a lot of meetings. Face-to-face stuff.”
It’s actually a marvel how she can make such a meaningless sentence still come off like an insult.
Don’t get baited.
Don’t get suckered.
Do not, under any circumstances, let her rile you up.
I tape the first box. “You in the office much?”
“When I have to be.”
“Where’s the office again?”
“Midtown.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”