10 I Hate...People
Delilah examined it as if it were an extraterrestrial on an operation table. There were strange parts and odd mechanical functions; the sack dangled stupidly from the pipe, and overall she found it unwieldy and ridiculous-looking.
"How do you do it?" she asked, eyeing it curiously.
"You've never done it before?"
"No."
Irwin looked at her skeptically. "Well, haven't you ever vacuumed?"
"Ummm...no?"
"Jesus Christ, Delilah," he said, picking up the dusty leaf blower they had found in the closet. "It's not that hard."
"Well, excuse me for not being a domestic goddess like you," she said as he switched it to the vacuum setting.
It was a balmy day, a break from the usual cloudy spring skies that brought Johto into its hot, dry summers, and Delilah was celebrating the nice weather by spilling ultra premium active diet cat food all over her room in the Goldenrod pokémon center.
Irwin pulled the starter cord; nothing happened.
He pulled it again; the results were similar.
"What's wrong with it?" asked Delilah as her Pokégear rang.
"It's fine," said Irwin. "It just needs one big jerk."
She looked at her Pokégear. "Oh, it's Adam," she said, surprised.
"Speak of the devil and he doth appear," said Irwin, unenthused.
She laughed. "Hey, man, what's up?"
"Hi, Delilah," said Adam. "What are you doing today?"
"Uhh...well, not a lot, why? Is something wrong?"
"No," he said, seeming surprised. "I just thought I'd see if you wanted to hang out or something."
Hang out?
With Adam?
Just for the sake of hanging out?
She was immediately suspicious; they had hung out before, but always as sort of an afterthought to some kind of messed up adventure. They had never gone out of their way just to "hang out". Why would he want to hang out with her?
She hesitated. "Umm," she said. "Well, like...what do you mean?"
"What? I don't know," he said. "I mean, if you wanted to see a movie, or hang around here at the hotel, we could go swimming or something, I don't know. I mean, if you don't want to, whatever; I just thought I'd ask..."
"Well, no, that's fine," she said quickly. "It's just, I'm with Irwin right now, we were going to hang out today..."
"Oh."
"So, maybe another..."
"I guess he could come too." He sounded less than excited.
"...Okay, well, I'll ask him." She turned to Irwin. "Adam wants to know if we want to hang out with him."
Irwin made a weird face. "Really?"
"Sure, do you want to?"
"Well..." She was pretty sure that he didn't want to, but she awaited his answer all the same. "Well, like, and do what?" he asked.
"Well, he said we could hang out at his hotel, the Piedra Blanca in Olivine, I'm sure it's nice," she said, deciding not to mention the idea of going to another movie, even though it sounded pretty good to sit in an air-conditioned cinema for a couple of hours.
"Okay...I guess," he said, clearly against his better judgment.
Adam said he would "have a car sent round" for them, and while Irwin went home to put on a bathing suit Delilah let her pokémon eat the cat food off the floor, and put on a skirt over a bathing suit.
In the car Irwin said, "That Adam thinks he's the center of the universe."
"Well, girls certainly gravitate to him," said Delilah.
"One of these days," vowed Irwin, shaking his fist. "One of these days, I'm really going to do it. Bam! Pow!"
She laughed skeptically at him. "Oh, really? Straight to the moon?"
"Sure. I'm not a 97-pound weakling. I've got what it takes."
"Yeah: a complete lack of common sense. Don't be dumb, Irwin. You can be a 500-pound weakling for all I care, but Adam doesn't need to be provoked."
"There's nothing to fear but fear itself," professed Irwin. "That's what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said."
"Cool guy, but FDR never met Adam, did he?"
"I really don't get it," said Irwin. "I mean, no offense, but how can one guy be so mean and so nasty? And how can one guy still have every girl think he's the sexiest thing to ever walk the earth?"
"Practice...?"
"I just don't get it," he said again. "I mean, he is everything girls claim they don't want, but they can't get enough of him!"
"Well, is that his fault?" Irwin didn't answer, so she kept going. "He may not be subtle, and he may not be smart, but he's effective and you can't argue results..."
Indeed, Delilah's first thought when he called her was that he meant to consummate their relationship; he had gotten sort of handsy on the retreat, but if his intention was to make a sexual overture, why would he let Irwin come? Adam didn't consider her his friend, did he?
Adam was waiting for them by the fountain in bright swim trunks that clashed interestingly with preppy Madras plaid flip-flops, dipping a Popsicle in a glass of Green Chartreuse. Irwin immediately looked like he regretted coming.
Adam said, "Hi."
Delilah said, "Hi."
Irwin didn't say anything.
"So what do you want to do?" asked Adam, licking a Popsicle drip off of the Jolly Roger tattooed by the chatot inside his arm. "We could swim, or play tennis, or we could go down the beach. It's not really close by, but there's a shuttle..."
"Why do you need us?" asked Irwin abruptly.
Adam fellated his Popsicle in confusion, and made an educated guess: "For company?"
"You don't need company," scoffed Irwin. "You enjoy yourself too much."
She expected Adam to get mad, but instead he just shrugged, sweeping hair away from his face. "How about tennis, then?" he said. "Do you like tennis? Or badminton?"
"I like them," said Delilah, "but for me it's more like 'awfulminton'. I am not good at sports at all. But I guess if you guys want to..."
Irwin laughed for some reason. "Well, your heart's in the right place," he said, as if this were such a nice thing for her to have said.
"So is everything else," said Adam, touching the back of her leg. It tickled and she squeaked spastically and jumped away, brushing his hand off, and he laughed.
"Oh, give me a break," Irwin muttered.
"Is that a frown?" asked Adam. "Is that a frown, marring the fine features of that ugly face?"
"You're a fine one to talk about ugly," said Irwin, his forehead creasing in disapproval.
Adam's jaw set arrogantly. "Bite your tongue, vaginismus. I don't do ugly," he said, flicking hair out of his eyes. "Not on the outside, anyway, where it matters."
Delilah was actually surprised that it had taken this long for Adam to call him an obscure name, for he always seemed to have some casually gladiatorial remark on the tip of his sharp pierced tongue.
The Piedra Blanca was a country club kind of hotel, with swimming pools and tennis courts and a gym and a spa and restaurants with dress codes. On the way to the beach Irwin asked Adam how much everything cost, and he said he paid eighteen dollars for a hamburger by the pool. "Is that a lot?" he asked.
"Yes," said Irwin. "Yes, that is a lot."
"Quite a good hamburger," said Adam.
"It better have been. I don't think I can afford to breathe the air here—jeez!" He glanced around. "This hotel is really exclusive, isn't it?"
"It was," said Delilah. "But then I was invited in."
"I mean, jeez, are you sure we don't need, like, tickets, or something?"
"Of course not," said Adam, flinging his arm outward. "There are men with syringes at the doors," he said, pantomiming drawing blood from the inside of his elbow. "They stick a needle in you. If it comes up blue, you're in. A crisp, frosty blue, like ice water. If it's red, they throw you out the back door. If it's a sort of a purply red, they'll let you be thrown out the front door."
Delilah laughed, but Irwin didn't seem sure that he was joking.
On the beach Adam tugged on her skirt and said, "You should take this off."
She was sort of surprised at this open sleaziness, although she knew she probably shouldn't have been. "Okay," she said, pulling it over her head because the smocked waist didn't fit past her hips. "But it would really be fairer if you took off your shirt."
He did, and then blatantly looked her up and down.
"Why, Adam!" she pouted as she sat down. "Sometimes I think you only like me for my body!"
"Why, Delilah!" he gasped. "Actually that's not true at all!"
"Why, Adam! Are you saying there's something wrong with my body?"
"Why, Delilah! I like your cheerful compassion and your common sense."
She laughed. "I think you confuse me with somebody else."
"Well, then you had better settle for me liking your body," he said. "Of course, a comely houri such as yourself—"
Irwin looked harassed. "Don't insult Delilah," he said.
Adam looked at him weirdly, and then ignored him.
"Do I have a tan line?" asked Delilah, noticing the gradation on her chest like the stomach of a sharpedo.
"A little bit," said Irwin.
"Count yourself lucky," said Adam. "My whole body is one big tan line. What a pity, to have red hair," he sighed. "I've never got a tan in my life. Fat lot of good that quarter of Italian did me. The sun only treats me like a bloody sambuca..." He lifted his arm to shade his eyes for a moment as he looked at the ocean.
"Mmm, that's nice," said Irwin, deadpan, of the dark axillary hair in his face.
"Hungry?" asked Adam, leaning closer and scratching his armpit. "One lump or two?"
Irwin ignored him.
"I shave them sometimes," Adam said informatively, petting his armpit.
"Wonderful," said Irwin.
"It's refreshing, you ought to try it once at least."
"No thanks."
"I did it a few times for shoots," Adam continued mercilessly. "Now I just do it now and then, because it feels really clean. If you've got sweaty and dirty, after you clean up you should try shaving them, it just feels very fresh."
Irwin said, "I am so glad you're sharing this with me."
Adam didn't respond, and stood up. "I'm going to see if we can get some ice cream," he said. "Do you want any?"
"I'll have some," said Delilah.
"Irwin?"
Irwin shook his head silently, and it was a struggle not to roll her eyes. Adam walked off with a shrug and Irwin looked after him, moping.
"Tskugh! Isn't that disgusting!" he said, watching Adam turn heads as he swaggered away. "Look at the way they positively drool over him! Why, he has to beat them off with a stick! Or, he would, if he ever turned anybody down!"
She sighed, trying not to sound exasperated.
"I mean, jeez!" said Irwin, leaning his face in his hand. "Does he have to go around everywhere showing off his perfect face and his perfect body...?"
She laughed scathingly. "Dude, what do you expect Adam to show off? His perfect mind?"
Irwin didn't laugh or say anything for a few minutes, and continued to watch Adam with rapt, envious fascination; then he said, "Well, you have to admit, Delilah, he is pretty good-looking."
Delilah was too surprised to answer, and thought that Irwin would probably fly into a jealous conniption if she did actually admit that Adam was pretty good-looking.
"And, you know, he says some kind of funny things sometimes," he continued. "And he really is good at pokémon. And, of course, he's got more money than the United States Mint."
"Gosh," said Delilah. "Maybe one day I'll like him as much as you do."
"Like him? I HATE him!"
"That's what I thought," she sighed disappointedly, more because he missed her sarcasm than because he didn't like Adam.
"You know what's the trouble with him," said Irwin, as if all of Adam's numerous and sundry flaws could be summed up into one trouble. "The trouble with him is that just because he's rich and tall and good-looking and has twelve cars and a yacht and six houses he thinks he can get whatever he wants!"
"And the horrible truth," said Delilah, "is that he can."
"Yeah? Well, I feel sorry for him," Irwin claimed with resolute righteousness. "He's just a nasty rich person. Because...because, if it weren't for his money, and influence, and his being so advantaged, do you know what he'd be?"
"Somebody other than Adam Harlow?"
"That would be a step in the right—"
Irwin cut off abruptly, clamming up again as Adam returned with two ice cream cones.
"I got different kinds," he said, offering them to her as he sat down. "I wasn't sure what you would like..."
"What are they?" she asked, taking one of them.
"That one has vanilla, lemon, and strawberry, and this one's chocolate, butterscotch, and dulce de leche. You can try some of this one, too, though, if you like."
"Okay. Do you want to try some of this one?" she asked, holding it out to him. Instead of taking it from her, his reptilian eyes flicked over to Irwin and he leaned over and ate it out of her hand in an aggressively sexual way.
Irwin looked away pointedly, and Delilah laughed to try to defuse the horrible awkwardness.
"Do you want some, Irwin?" she asked.
"No, thanks," he said primly.
"You're right, it's crawling with all kinds of exotic VD now," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes and licking a pink drip off of the side of the cone.
Adam laughed. "Which of us was that meant to offend?" he asked.
"Both, if I executed it right," she said, and watched him scoop ice cream onto his finger and lick it off. She laughed and said, "Do you want a spoon, Adam?"
"Sure," he said immediately, coiling his free arm around her waist. "I admit I'm surprised at the suggestion."
"Oh, shut up," she laughed, and pushed him off.
"Don't be mean to him, Delilah!" Irwin chided her. "It's Be Kind to Animals Week!"
"Shut the fuck up, Irwin," Adam growled warningly.
"I'm sick of being second-fiddle Mr Nice Guy," said Irwin suddenly, standing up. "From now, I'm going to take what I want. I'm going to be cold-blooded and underhanded. Nice guys finish last, and the aggressive people get what they want."
He kicked up some sand.
"Hey!" said Adam, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "That was right in my face, borborygmus!"
"Right!" Irwin agreed. "Now, I'm going to be the bully! I kicked sand in your face, so you go home now and call Charles Atlas so you won't be a wimp anymore."
Adam scowled. "There's a flaw in your logic, matey," he said, and kicked him, knocking his feet out from under him and making Delilah jump. "I was never a 97-pound weakling to begin with."
"That doesn't bother me," Irwin insisted, standing up and rubbing his hip. "I'm underhanded now, and cold-blooded, so I'll bounce back with an evil scheme." He started walking away, then turned and called, "I'll cheat, and lie, and do bad things, until I get what I want!"
"What is wrong with him," Adam mumbled.
"He's trying to impress me," said Delilah.
"By acting like a douchebag?"
"By acting like you."
Adam didn't respond.
Delilah was still puzzling over the fact that Irwin had referred to himself as "second-fiddle", presumably to Adam. She thought it was a little conceited of him, considering he wasn't even in the orchestra. And it wasn't like he was even that nice of a guy; maybe compared to Adam he was Mother Teresa, but she didn't think it would ever occur to her to refer to him as "Mr Nice Guy".
She was surprised that he would leave her alone and exposed to all the sinister perfection of a raffish, fleering, genetically superior miscreant like Adam who could probably remove a bra with his aristocratic nostrils.
"So why did you want to hang out?" she asked, figuring he must have had some motive.
"My dad's not working today," he said. "I don't want him to try to spend time with me."
"Is he really that bad?"
"I can't stand him. At least now if he tries anything you and Irwin will be there, so he can't get too weird."
"I was wondering why you would let Irwin come."
"He's so annoying," said Adam. "I can't imagine what it must be like for you."
"Oh, he's not that bad," she said.
"He's a juggler. He gets paid to be annoying. He fancies you rotten, it must be awful."
"Well...I guess that's just the price of being the target of his affections..."
"Targets, now?" he said. "How amateur. Even if by some miracle that kernicterus managed a bull's eye, one doesn't bag any game shooting at targets. We can only hope that right now he's learning to hunt...learning to set an attractive trap, to bait his line with a lure. Humans don't have estrus so girls are always in season, after all."
"Gosh! As a 24-karat Don Juan, maybe you should be his coach."
Adam scoffed. "Not even if I were sober," he said.
"It sounds like a bad movie," she said. "There could be Shakespearean love mix-ups, and election bets or something..."
"Hey, look, a dollar," said Adam, finding a bill under his chair.
"You must be specially attuned to the smell of money."
"Maybe I should leave it," he pondered, looking at George Washington's face. "Sometimes my mum leaves money under dressers and things, so Marie won't lose interest in cleaning."
Delilah's first instinct was to laugh in shock; the fact that he wasn't joking was sort of frightening. "You are such a...!"
His mouth twisted around into half of a smile that was a little bit pert. "A what?"
She searched her vocabulary for an answer. "You are such a WASP," she said.
He laughed, a short, seductive eruption of sound. "Nobody's a WASP in Britain," he said. "It's not a minority there."
A hotel employee approached them and said, "Excuse me, Adam, there's a message for you in the club house from your father."
Adam raised an eyebrow at Delilah and stood up. "I'll be right back," he said.
No sooner had he left than Irwin showed up again. "What got into you?" she asked him.
"That's part of my new, hateful personality: I bribed that man to get him away from you."
"Oh, really..."
"Twenty bucks. Now I'll take what I want and go," he said, grabbing her arm.
"Hey!" she protested, laughing nervously. He pulled her to her feet and dragged her away. "Irwin! What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm being a different person now," he said, holding her by the wrists. "From now on, I'm just going to take what I want."
"Okayyy..."
"There are two kinds of people, Delilah," he said, sounding more depraved and insane by the minute. "There are takers, and there are those who get taken. You know what I am?"
"Um...a taker?" she guessed uncomfortably.
His posture sagged. "No." He let go of her pathetically. "I'm ashamed, that's what I am. I can't be like this!"
"Hey, you two—" Adam began, showing up out of nowhere.
"Here, Adam," surrendered Irwin, pushing Delilah toward him. "I don't know what I was thinking. That's just not how I am."
"Um...okay," agreed Adam. "Anyway, my father's on the yacht, and he's invited us aboard. He's sent the outboard for us, so we should go meet it..."
Irwin looked dumbfounded. "What!"
"What?" asked Adam. "That was a message I got at the club house."
"But you didn't get a message!" Irwin sputtered. "That dirty swindler! I gave that guy a twenty to get rid of you!"
"Oh, you did, did you?" Adam scowled. "You know what, Irwin? I'll bet you a dollar I could give you a black eye without touching you."
"All right," said Irwin, drawing himself up confidently. "It's a bet!"
Adam smiled radiantly, drew back, and performed an exquisite pivot jab, connecting uninterrupted with Irwin's face.
"Oh my God!" cried Delilah as Irwin lost his footing in the sand. "Are you okay, Irwin! That's definitely a black eye...!"
Irwin shook his head and stood up slowly. "But Adam touched me," he said.
"So I did," said Adam casually, handing him the dollar bill. "Here's your dollar."
"Ugh!" said Irwin. "What the fuck, Adam? What the fuck?"
"You guys—chill out," said Delilah pointlessly.
"I'm just going to say it: I don't know why girls are so attracted to you, Adam!" said Irwin, gesticulating randomly. "You do it all wrong!"
"Excuse me?" asked Adam, taken aback.
"It doesn't make sense for girls to be attracted to you."
Adam looked shocked and puzzled. "So?" he asked. "Is it that important to you? What do you think attracts girls, if you've had such wild success?"
"Girls want to be needed," said Irwin. "Appealing to the mother instinct. They like to have something to take care of!"
Adam looked threatening. "I'll turn you into an object of sympathy if that's what you really want!" he offered.
"Oh, come on," said Delilah. "Calm down, okay? It's not a big deal."
"Delilah, you're a girl," Irwin enlightened her. "Tell him."
"Whoooaaa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. No way," said Delilah, putting up her hands. "I am not going to get involved in this stupid ego clash. I can't afford to lose any of my IQ points."
"Well, you're right," Irwin decided, standing up straight. "I'm too smart for this kind of behavior."
Adam raised a doubting eyebrow. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah, really! I've got more brains in my whole head than you've got in one finger!"
Adam laughed. "Hah! Sure you have," he said, patting him encouragingly on the shoulder and walking past him.
They followed. Irwin suddenly stopped and looked at Delilah with worried resignation. "That came out wrong, didn't it?" he asked.
"I'm not so sure," she sighed.
Adam's father was distinguished and brutally handsome, with sharp eyes, sharper tailoring, and dark hair that was graying up either side of his head in dramatic fashion.
"You can call me Giovanni," he said. "Adam, it would be polite to introduce me, sweetheart."
"All right," Adam sighed. "This is a friend of mine called Delilah, and this is a complete tosser I know called Irwin."
"Adam! Don't talk about your friends that way..."
"He's not my friend," said Adam uninterestedly.
"What a nasty mouth you have on you! I shouldn't wonder he's not your friend!"
"So what," sneered Adam, suddenly in a very bad mood. "Who needs friends anyway."
"I disagree, Adam," Irwin interjected jauntily. "You know they say no man is an island, or even a peninsula."
"Adam Island," Adam snarled, looking like a persian ready to attack. "And the beaches are mined, so piss off."
"Tchah! Adam!" Giovanni clucked. "Crudele! Lasciamo che sia, okay? Not terribly grown-up right now, are we?"
Adam crossed his arms huffily. "Mi dispiace," he said caustically. Whatever it was, it sounded like something horribly mean.
"Don't be so unsociable," said Giovanni warningly. "Honestly, a conversation with you is about as safe as Russian roulette."
"That's unfair, Mr Harlow," Irwin objected. "In Russian roulette, you at least have a chance."
"Shut the hell up, Irwin!" Adam shouted with magnificent ignorance of the fact that he was proving their point.
"Adam!" Giovanni gasped even though he apparently was used to it.
"What's the matter, Adam?" asked Irwin. "Don't you have a sense of humor?"
"What's the matter, Irwin?" asked Adam. "Don't you have a hospital plan?"
"Stop it, Adam!" Giovanni snapped. "Express your feelings in a less destructive way. Violence is the last resort of an exhausted mind. Think! Just tell Irwin, what are you thinking?"
"I'm just thinking about how exhausted my mind is getting of this disgusting abscission!"
With flagrant disregard for his personal comfort and safety, Irwin punched Adam, who slugged him back. Giovanni stood back to watch indifferently, and Delilah in the hubbub was knocked over the side of the boat.
She floundered in the water for a few moments before Giovanni helped her onto the stairs leading up the side of the yacht.
"Are you all right, dear?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so," she laughed, pushing wet hair away from her face and coughing as he led her back up to the deck, where Adam and Irwin had for the moment stopped fighting.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" said Irwin in horror. "I can't believe I was so clumsy! I'm so sorry! I'm so stupid...!"
Adam looked at him. "Huh," he said. "What more can I say?"
"There's a room you can change in," said Giovanni. "Why don't you lads wait in the game room while Delilah changes?"
"Do you need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Delilah?" asked Adam with concerned interest.
"What are you talking about?" asked Irwin. "She's totally conscious."
"Technicality," said Adam, watching her shiver and rub her arms. "How about a warm embrace?"
"Irwin, I am so very sorry," said Giovanni, ignoring Adam completely. "I understand totally if you choose to take legal action. I'd even provide you with a lawyer."
Irwin, embarrassed, shrugged it off with some noncommittal mumbling, and Giovanni ushered him and Adam into the game room before directing Delilah to a room with a computer because she abused her pokémon trainer's rights to the Item Storage System by keeping her clothes on it.
After she had changed her clothes and come out, Giovanni put his finger to his lips and led her silently down the stairs and back into the outboard with the whole crew.
"No sense hanging about," he said pleasantly as one of the sailors zipped them back to shore.
"That boat must have cost a fortune," said Delilah, glancing back at it.
"I'll make another," he shrugged.
"I wonder if they'll get lost or something," she said.
"If that's not worth a fortune, I don't know what is. Why don't you join Adam's mother and me at the hotel for lunch?"
She smiled. "I'd love to," she said.