Off the Page Read online

  “Dude,” Chris says, “not all black people are into basketball—”

  “He means a date,” Delilah explains, and I nod. A slow smile unfurls over her face. “So you finally want to take me out, huh?”

  I shrug. “It seems fitting, since we’ve already gone to bed together.”

  Delilah’s mouth drops, and Chris’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “That’s my cue to leave,” he says, and he walks off down the hall.

  Shaking her head, Delilah sighs. “Oliver,” she says, “you and I need to have a little talk about slang.”

  Delilah drives Jules home after school, so that she can pick up some things before the double date. Then we continue to Delilah’s house, with Jules sitting in the backseat, fidgeting. “This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,” she says. “I don’t even know why I said yes.”

  “Because you don’t want to die alone and surrounded by cats,” Delilah replies.

  “You know my track record,” Jules mutters. “He’ll probably be gone by dessert.”

  “Maybe Chris will be the exception,” I suggest.

  Jules snorts. “Easy for you to say. You’re lucky. You already found your dream girl.”

  “Actually, she found me.” Delilah catches my eye, and I grin at her.

  “This is really helpful, you guys,” Jules says. “Now all I have to do is stuff Chris inside a book and try to pry him out.”

  “Those are just details,” Delilah tells her, pulling into the garage of her house. “The point is you never know who’s going to be the one.”

  “She’s right. If I’d given up, I never would have bothered looking when Delilah opened the book. I might never have known that she could hear me. Just be yourself,” I suggest. “Or perhaps a slightly gentler version of yourself.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jules argues.

  I turn in my seat and raise a brow.

  “Ugh. Fine,” she says. “I’ll try to tone it down.” Jules gets out of the car. “It’s not my fault that my awesomeness intimidates people.”

  We both watch her carry her bag upstairs. Delilah slips her hand into mind. “She’s right. We did get pretty lucky.”

  What if Delilah hadn’t opened the book that day? What if I hadn’t looked up?

  What if this isn’t permanent?

  What if we did get so lucky that we’re due for something terrible?

  I drop a kiss on the crown of her head. “I know.”

  It seems silly to me, but Delilah insists that when it comes to a double date, she and Jules are incapable of dressing themselves alone. Delilah says it’s a girl thing; I wouldn’t understand. To that end, Jules has come to Delilah’s house with a suitcase full of enough clothes to last her for a month, although she is only staying overnight. I’ve been exiled to the living room, where I wait with Frump. Upstairs, there is a symphony of squeals and shrieks. I’m not certain if they are doing each other’s makeup, as Delilah has said, or if they are murdering each other.

  The doorbell rings, and Delilah calls down from her bathroom. “Can you get that?”

  Chris is standing on the threshold, holding a bouquet of flowers.

  “Oh,” I say, reaching for them. “Thank you. I’m so sorry. . . . I didn’t get you anything. . . .”

  Chris rips them back out of my hand. “I didn’t get you anything,” he says. “These are for Jules.”

  I lead him into the living room. “Delilah says they’re almost ready,” I tell him. “Of course, she said that about an hour ago.”

  Chris claps me on the back. “Thanks for doing this, man. I didn’t expect to have as good a friend as you once I moved here.” At that, Frump leaps off the couch, his teeth bared, and is about to sink his fangs into Chris’s calf. “What the—”

  I grab his collar. “No!” I yell. “Bad dog!” Frump whimpers as I drag him away from Chris, scoop him into my arms, and put him on a chair as far away from us as possible. I lean down on the pretense of patting him. “He’s just an acquaintance,” I whisper. And then, more loudly, “Stay.”

  Frump snorts.

  “Are you quite all right?” I ask Chris.

  “This is why I have cats,” he says.

  Suddenly there is a flurry of noise as Delilah and Jules descend. Jules is still wearing her trademark combat boots, but she’s sporting a simple black dress that is surprisingly devoid of studs, skeletons, and safety pins.

  However, it’s Delilah I can’t stop staring at. She is wearing a filmy white dress that seems to breathe over her curves. The low neckline reveals a constellation of freckles on her collarbone. Her hair is twisted into an intricate braid, and a few tendrils escape at the nape of her neck. I can’t help but think how perfectly a tiara would settle atop her head.

  “You look great,” Chris tells Jules.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she says.

  “I, um, brought you these. . . .” He hands her the bouquet.

  “Ohhh . . . thanks for the corpses of murdered plants.”

  Delilah clears her throat. “Jules!”

  She rolls her eyes. “I mean, wow, they’re so pretty.” Then Jules looks at me. “Edgar. You’re drooling.”

  I tear my gaze away from Delilah as the girls start walking toward the front door. Chris puts his hand on my arm. “She hates me.”

  I consider this. “No,” I say. “That’s just Jules.”

  Delilah has picked a restaurant for dinner that seems as if it has been ripped from the pages of a storybook. Tables nestle in a copse of trees, which are illuminated by strands of twinkling lights. Small stone fire pits dot the premises, and servants in starched white linen aprons stand at attention as we pass by.

  When we reach our table, I pull out a chair for Delilah. “My lady,” I murmur, and she beams up at me.

  Chris, halfway into his seat, jumps up and tugs at Jules’s seat when she is already half inside it. She glares at him. “You don’t think I’m capable of getting into a chair by myself?”

  “N-no,” Chris stammers. “You look very capable.” He buries his face behind his menu.

  “What kind of place is this, Delilah?” Jules asks, reading the selections. “Candied celery and lemon-verbena foam and sorbet quennels. Is that actually a word?”

  “Shut up,” Delilah says. “This is the only fancy place with vegetarian options.”

  “You’re a vegetarian?” Chris asks.

  Jules straightens her spine. “I don’t support the slaughter of helpless animals for man’s desire for barbecued flesh . . . so yes, I am.”

  “Barbecued flesh?” I repeat.

  “She means steak and hamburger,” Delilah says. “She’s just being dramatic.”

  “Dramatic?” Jules repeats. “Where do you think your meat comes from?”

  I blink. “The refrigerator?” At the castle, our meals just . . . appeared. And here, Jessamyn goes to a special store and comes back with ingredients.

  “Cows,” Jules says. “Meat comes from cows.”

  My eyes widen. “What?” I gasp. I turn and speak in a whisper to Delilah. “I knew all of our cows by name in the kingdom. You let me eat our pets?”

  “What kind of bubble is Cape Cod?” Chris says. He turns to Jules. “Well, you know what they say about vegetarians. They’re just vegans who couldn’t cut it.” He smiles. “I’ve been one since I was twelve.”

  “Really?” Jules says, arching a brow. “You’re a vegan?”

  Chris leans back in his chair. “There’s all kinds of things about me you would never expect.”

  “Well,” Jules says, smiling for the first time since the date began. “Good thing we have the whole night.”

  To my surprise, Jules and Chris spend the entire meal with their heads bent together, talking about everything from the best science fiction film-to-book adaptation to the institutional oppression of cafeteria food. Now Chris is yammering on and on about constellations, which he studies with a telescope in his bedroom each night. “That