Track 10 Delilah #2
She’s having fun, feeling lighter than she has since she found Sam’s note, impossibly just two days before.
So it’s infuriating when she feels the familiar bitterness and envy start to creep in as they walk by exhibit after exhibit displaying brilliant talent that she knows she could never, ever match.
She tries to tuck the doubts and uncertainty into a mental box to deal with later, but the part of her brain that’s never met a serotonin molecule it can’t reject refuses to let her just enjoy this.
She finds her steps lagging, her smile taking more and more energy to keep up, her little people-watching stories growing less and less funny and more and more mean.
She holds it together, though. At least she tries to.
But when she catches sight of a photo of Sam’s mother in her glam-rocking prime in the middle of the exhibit on revolutionary women in music, she goes altogether silent, unable to even try to keep talking because the furious tears are too close to the surface.
Emmett notices, following Delilah’s gaze to the photo and reading the plaque underneath it.
Delilah has to fight back a wince as they visibly connect the dots—Jada Knight to Sam Knight to Delilah herself—but all they do is take her arm and draw her gently into a corner with a little less foot traffic. “Do you need a minute?”
“No.” It’s an immediate, obvious response, and Emmett’s single raised eyebrow makes it clear they’re not buying it.
“I just—I’m supposed to be recording demos in less than two weeks, and everything I’ve written so far feels like it could have come out of an angry fourteen-year-old girl’s journal, not the brain of someone who’s won literal awards for songwriting, and—”
It takes effort not to look past Emmett’s shoulder to where she can still see Jada’s photo, all glamour and fame and shining lights.
She grits her teeth and keeps her eyes on the open collar of Emmett’s shirt instead, which, for some reason, feels safer than trying to meet their gaze.
“Maybe this whole thing was a mistake, you know? Maybe I should have just taken Alex’s advice and gotten on a plane to LA and let her lock me in a hotel room until I churned out something worth what they’re paying me, instead of the garbage I’m scraping together on my own.
” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I was insane for trying to do this alone. ”
Emmett looks at her for a long moment, brow furrowed, lips pursed.
“You’re not alone,” they say at last, and reach down to take her hand. “Come with me.”
They lead her out of the corner, down the nearest escalator, and into the open instrument-filled space they passed by earlier with only a quick glance inside to see what it was.
It’s the experiential part of the museum, one of the employees had said when Delilah asked—interconnected rooms with instruments and video lessons and spots for people to just “jam out,” designed to mimic the garages and living rooms where people actually learn to play.
It’s busy, full of laughter and occasionally discordant music and misplayed notes and half-figured-out harmonies, and Delilah falls in love the moment she steps inside.
“You were telling me about why you learned to play, and what you were trying to do,” Emmett murmurs.
They have to stand close enough that their lips nearly brush her ear in order to be heard over the din, and Delilah shivers.
“Not to be famous or to make money, but just to play around. To see what you could do with other people’s music until it turned into yours.
So, go.” They let go of her hand. “Play.”
They give her a little nudge, just firm enough to make her take a step forward.
Delilah makes a face at them, more from instinct than out of any real displeasure, and then squares her shoulders and heads over to a wall of acoustic guitars.
She scans them until she finds a Gibson that looks close enough in size to the Alvarez she inherited from her dad, lifts it out of the rack, and then finds an empty spot on a couch.
It only takes her a few minutes to get situated—shoving her bag under the couch so she doesn’t step on it, tying her hair up into a messy bun, playing a few test chords to get a sense of the instrument in her hands.
She’s not surprised to find it perfectly tuned, and she hums appreciatively as she runs through a few standard riffs, just warming up her fingers, connecting to the strings and the sound.
And then she starts to play.
She can’t remember the last time she sat and just played for fun, no agenda, no rules, no outcomes, just her fingers and the strings and the keys.
She plays through a few girl power classics, “Bad Reputation” and “No Scrubs” and “Unwritten” and “Did I Shave My Legs for This?”—music only, not bothering to sing, tweaking wherever she finds a spot to add an extra riff or an unexpected resolution to a chord progression, making it up as she goes along.
Delilah does start singing when she plays through a few sweet acoustic renditions of decidedly horny songs, changing lyrics here and there when she spots a small clump of kids starting to pay attention to her.
When they walk away, she plays pointedly gay bitchy covers of “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” and “Before He Cheats” and “Jolene” and “Gives You Hell.”
Alex will kill her if she hears about this. Delilah does it anyway.
The couch beside her dips as a person with warm brown skin, a shock of violently turquoise hair, and a vintage Les Paul sits down next to her, a they/she pin on the lapel of their jacket. “Hey,” they say, grinning through pierced lips. “Can I join you?”
“Sure.” Delilah returns the smile easily, her body filled with the warm, lazy sweetness that only comes with playing so long that her fingers are tingling and sound and vibration have replaced the usual mess of self-loathing and manic spiraling and frantic attempts to just be better.
“Anything in mind, or just playing around?”
They think for a moment, then play a quick series of opening notes Delilah recognizes instantly. “Yeah?”
Delilah shifts her borrowed capo to match theirs, runs through the song in her head, and nods. “You got it.”
“The Chain” comes together a verse at a time, growing louder and messier and more and more fun the more people start joining in—a bassist with a deep, vibrant tenor of a voice comes in first, and then another guitarist, two more singers, and a girl with a ukulele who can’t be more than ten.
Delilah catches more than a few people with their cameras out, definitely recording, but she’s having too much fun to be self-conscious, lost not just in the music but in—oh, she hates when other people are right—the connection of it all, wild and unpolished and joyful.
Music for the sake of music, for the sake of coming together to make something no one has ever heard before.
Something impossible to replicate.
They let the bridge go long, let the mix of harmonies grow into a crescendo of sound, let the guitar solos turn into a chorus of riffs and mixed-up improvisation and good-natured laughter when chords clash together or someone drops a string.
By the end, ten or fifteen people are playing, singing, laughing, and Delilah can’t remember the last time she was so utterly happy.
The room breaks into applause when they finally let the song come to a close, and Delilah claps right along with them, shaking hands and bumping fists with the various people who drifted over to join them as they go back to their own friends or families.
“Nice,” her original companion with the Les Paul says when only the two of them are left. Their grin looks broad enough to split their face as they hold out a hand. “You were amazing.”
“You too.” Delilah shakes their hand. “I really needed that.”
“Well, you killed it.” They get to their feet, rolling out their shoulders, then sit back down. “Wanna go again?”
Delilah searches the room until she finds Emmett, leaning comfortably against the wall, watching her with a warm, easy smile, not a trace of I told you so anywhere on their face.
She tips her head in a question, and Emmett’s smile warms even further as they nod.
Delilah grins back, then turns back to her seatmate. “You’re on,” she says. “Let’s go.”
Lucy Stevens [@lucyflawless]
Last thing I expected to see during my family vacation stop at the R&R Hall of Fame was my very own queer awakening Delilah Cohen leading the coolest collaborative song session I’ve ever seen in my LIFE?
?? I didn’t catch the start but I WILL be playing this video on repeat for the rest of eternity, please and thank you, truly the gay gods have blessed me today
TMZ [@TMZ]
SPOTTED: Recently single singer-songwriter Delilah Cohen joining an impromptu jam session at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! Should we be reading into her choice of covers?
[on a page of Delilah’s journal, half obscured by a coffee stain]
Musical chairs as an allegory—is it the music or the place to sit or the fights for a home that make it fun—and is it the silence or the loss of a place or the loss of control that makes losing hurt—what would be the best song to lose to—what would be the worst song to win to—who is controlling the sound anyway—is it you or is it me or is it someone else—pulling the strings—and what would happen if I just let you sit on my lap so that neither of us ever had to lose?