Track 5 Delilah #2
And then a towering woman even broader than Delilah stepped up to the mic, unapologetically and passionately taking up space, and read a poem about fat queer desire that was so earnest and sensual and gorgeous that Delilah wanted to cry on the spot.
She still remembers the heat welling up in her throat and pressing against her eyes.
She’d made an escape before anyone could see whatever mortifying thing was happening on her face.
The last thing she’d expected was to run into an emerging celebrity outside on the sidewalk, all blond hair and big blue eyes and standing out like a movie star despite the unflattering light from the streetlamps.
Sam Knight was recognizable even then—her first album of breathy sapphic pop had been just transgressive enough to break the charts and put her face on magazine covers.
She’d caught Delilah’s eye, swept a smoky gaze over her from head to toe in a look that made Delilah flush, and asked to bum a cigarette.
Delilah’s hands had shaken as she pulled the package out of her purse, and her breath caught in her chest when she leaned close to light the cigarette Sam held between her full, smiling lips.
Feeling hot and overly conscious of her every movement, Delilah had hunched back against the brick facade of the building, trying to make herself smaller.
Sam had looked at her, alarmed. “Oh my God,” she’d said. “Is this new perfume that bad?”
That comment had startled a laugh out of Delilah, loud enough in the quiet evening that she’d almost clapped a hand over her own mouth, and that had set Sam off too.
They’d stayed out there for what felt like hours, even though it was really just the twenty minutes it took to get through two cigarettes each.
“I’m only in town for a few days,” Sam had told her, easy and relaxed, leaning against the wall.
“Probably not long enough to get all the way onto East Coast time. No, seriously, I’m still trying to figure out why I’m not having lunch right now. ”
“And you’re here? Instead of”—Delilah groped in her head for any other Philadelphia landmarks—“visiting the Liberty Bell or something?”
“Girl, what do you think this is, National Treasure: Lesbian Boogaloo?” Delilah choked on smoke. “I’m visiting a friend, and she’s a”—Sam had lowered her voice, as if to reveal something scandalous—“poetry person.”
Delilah ducked her head around another laugh, feeling some of the crushing too much too close too real too true pressure of the room inside start to ease its grip around her heart.
With her pulse a little calmer, she’d realized that Sam wasn’t occasionally shifting her posture just to keep warm in the crisp night air, but in response to the way Delilah automatically shrank back against the side of the building every time someone walked by, trying not to take up too much space.
Sam had been moving, so subtly that Delilah hadn’t even noticed, to stand between Delilah and whoever was passing by, as if she’d sensed that Delilah needed to hide but not so badly that she needed to run.
That she needed to be close to what was happening just a wall away, but couldn’t bring herself to step back inside.
So Delilah, figuring she owed her, had put on her bravest face and told Sam about the poem, a nervous confession about never having heard anything like it before, about feeling such an overwhelming mix of longing and understanding and kinship that she couldn’t bear for anyone to read it on her face.
“Oh, babe,” Sam said, reaching over and cupping Delilah’s flushed cheek with one cool, gentle hand.
Her nails were perfectly manicured, pressing just slightly into Delilah’s skin while Delilah tried to remember how to breathe.
“It’s such a beautiful story. And a beautiful face.
Why wouldn’t you want people to read it? ”
It wasn’t the first time Delilah looked at a woman and thought she was seeing something divine, but Sam’s energy was a different kind of ethereal.
It took Delilah’s breath away, even as she refilled her lungs with smoke, like a little bit of poison could distract her from the urge to sway into Sam, uninvited but longing all the same.
And then they’d finished their cigarettes and gone back inside, parting with a silent nod of something like acknowledgment, something like recognition.
“Where were you?” Iris had hissed when Delilah slid back into her seat, wrinkling her nose at the clinging scent of smoke.
Delilah had been at a loss for words, too distracted by watching Sam’s retreating back as she disappeared into the shelves, her blond hair shining like a beacon until the dimmed lighting of the store swallowed that up too.
The next time they’d seen each other had been in another dim room, this one packed with bodies and music and laughter, and Sam had looked at Delilah like she’d never seen her before.
And that was fine—Delilah had never thought of herself as someone people remembered, not really.
What mattered was what happened next: Sam’s hand in hers, a flash of the brilliant smile she recognized from the sidewalk in front of the bookstore, a caught breath of the familiar perfume she’d never quite been able to forget when Sam leaned close to hear Delilah’s name over the DJ’s pounding bass.
It hadn’t bothered her then that Sam didn’t remember her. After all, Sam was gorgeous and funny and a celebrity—how many times must she have been someone else’s incredible you’ll never guess who I just met story?
But now, standing just steps away from the scene of the crime, Delilah wonders if maybe it should have.
“Anyway,” she says, forcing some cheer into her voice, “I was originally going to bring her back here and re-create the whole story. Minus the smoking probably, since we officially quit a while ago, but, y’know. Change of plans. Here we are.”
Emmett looks at her, head cocked slightly like he’s deciding how to respond, and finally says, “So what do you want to do now?”
Delilah considers the question. “Do you want the smart answer or the real answer?”
Emmett shrugs. “It’s up to you.”
The response surprises her. “Huh,” she says. Emmett raises an eyebrow, and Delilah says, “You strike me as someone who has strong feelings about honesty.”
Emmett’s shoulders tighten in an almost imperceptible movement as he takes a half step back, putting a bit more space between them. Delilah hadn’t even realized how close to each other they’d been standing.
“Sorry,” she says automatically.
“No, you didn’t—” Emmett breaks off, brows furrowing.
He presses his lips together, fingers flexing and relaxing at his sides, before he shakes his head and slips his hands into his jacket pockets.
“I do have strong feelings about honesty, but they’re mostly that honesty should be a choice.
You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. ”
“Oh.” Those were not the kind of strong feelings about honesty she was expecting.
“Well, I’ll give you both answers. The smart answer is that I’m here to…
I don’t know, reclaim the space. Make it just a part of the history of the community I’m part of, not associated with a specific memory of a specific person, especially a specific person who fucked me over.
Form some new memories instead, now that I’m older and wiser and probably wouldn’t sprint out of a poetry reading to have a panic attack about someone sharing something honest and real about being fat and queer and still being valuable, not just fuckable.
” She shrugs. “Maybe pick up a few books of poetry along those lines too. Read them and cry in a cathartic way instead of a miserable way.”
Emmett nods. “That does sound smart.”
“I thought so.”
“So…what’s the real reason?”
Delilah leans against the nearest shelf. “Honestly? I kind of want to kiss an employee.”
Emmett lets out a startled laugh. “What?”