by: bj
in sum: when i get there i'll send for you.
label: delia.
rating: pg13. language.
sissies: i know you'll have no spoilers.
legalities: don't own, don't sue.
i say: consciousverse! after "conscious."
muse: "entresol" by matthew good. "in the going she became complete" and "scripted conversations" by piotr mancewicz, in "sleeping on the ground."
you say: all comments appreciated, answered, and archived. allcanadiangirl@lycos.com.
oblivion
1
She's starting to feel the actuality of sidewalk beneath her. The cracks and divets—she can feel the city vibrating through the concrete. She can feel glass and small rocks digging into her scalp. She feels like a discarded newspaper.
A small crowd is formed, half of them probably thinking this is performance art at its worst. He bursts through, knocking people back, he kneels beside her. She closes her eyes.
"Delia, Delia," he says. "Can you hear me? Delia, say something. God. Delia."
He keeps saying her name and running his hands above her face, her arms, her torso. Not touching her, but almost. "Ephram," she says. She grabs one of his hands and squeezes. "I'm okay."
When she opens her eyes she can hear sirens approaching, he is staring down at her. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice is hoarse, he is crying. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Then there are paramedics running their hands roughly over her, shining bright lights into her eyes, Ephram stands just beyond them. He paces as they ask her questions and put a brace around her neck, rubbing his eyes, pushing his hands through his hair.
Finally they lift her onto the stretcher. He jumps into the back of the ambulance with her, she grabs his hand again. "It's okay," she says. "I'm going to be fine." She can feel everything, as if she fell into her body lying open on the sidewalk. As if her entire life had been restored to her. She can only smile, even if it hurts.
2
"It's a miracle," the emergency room doctor says, and Delia looks at Ephram because she knows it is and he rolls his eyes, scowling.
"Don't say that word," Ephram says. "I think she hit her head. She doesn't have a concussion? A subterraneous hematoma?"
The doctor furrows his brow, looks at the x-rays, the MRI, again. He shakes his head. "No, Mr. Brown. She's fine. Cuts and bruises. Like I said, it's a—"
"Don't say it," Ephram says again. "Don't fucking say it."
Ephram's been better, she thinks, Ephram's been better the last year, he's been getting better since he went back and saw the house. She hadn't wanted him to go, but now she realises he's been getting better. She can see everything so clearly. She can see that two days in Everwood was probably not enough to make a permanent improvement in him—there are still secrets and angry silences, but he has been better this last year. She sees what they need.
She fell into it. She fell into her life and she fell into what her father always wanted.
Ephram is staring at her, the doctor has left. "What?" he says. "What did he want?"
Delia blinks. "Just thinking out loud," she says, she tries to smile. If he thinks she's crazy he won't go with her.
He narrows his eyes. "I startled you and you fell off your balcony because you're stupid and sit on the railing when you're drunk," he says. "It wasn't a goddamn miracle. It was not a religious experience."
"I know," she says. She knows. "I wasn't drunk. That was the first glass I've had in a week."
He cracks his knuckles and looks away. "Right."
"I don't drink half as much as you do."
He smiles. She frowns against the bitterness in his face. "I drink twice as much as I should."
She knows. "Ephram."
"Don't say it," he says.
3
Delia is packing the next day, careful of her sore shoulders. Ephram stands in her bedroom doorway, hands in his pockets. "Where are you going?" he asks conversationally.
She looks over her suitcase, t-shirts and jeans folded like shadows, past her grandmother's wedding quilt wrinkled by a heap of socks and underwear, out the window. The brick and stone of the city is golden and ebony in the sunset.
She shrugs, pushes her pajamas over to make room for her tennis shoes. "Everwood."
The room is very quiet for a while, she smiles a little at the city outside, starts tucking socks and underwear into the pocket in the suitcase's lid.
Ephram leans into the room, away from the door, along the wall, takes a step, he's standing directly in front of her, across the bed, blocking her view. "Could you say that again? I'm sure you meant Entresol. The festival, right."
She rolls her eyes. "No, Ephram. Everwood."
He draws back. She zips the suitcase shut and pats the top of it twice before looking up at him. "Coming?" she asks with a smile.
The panic in his eyes is gone almost before she can recognise it. His face is stony and impassive. "Fuck no."
Delia nods, she had expected as much. "Okay," she says, standing. She pulls her suitcase off the bed and rolls it near the door. "Anyway. I leave on Thursday."
"Two days," he says. Disbelieving.
"Yes." She is still smiling. She feels like she will never stop smiling again.
"And you didn't think to tell me you were going before now?"
"You never asked."
He makes a frustrated, surprised noise. "Delia."
She cocks her head. "Ephram."
"Fuck," he sighs. He throws his hands up. "Writers. Fine. Go, whatever." He moves past her, out of the bedroom, back into her living room.
He grabs his coat off her couch. "I'm going home," he says. "I'm meeting somebody later, I need to go now. Also, you're a lunatic, and my therapist says it's not good to be around people who are crazier than myself."
Delia laughs. "I'm not. I'm neither crazier than you nor a lunatic to begin with." She follows him to the door, leans on the wall as he puts his shoes on. "Are you meeting Mark?" she asks conversationally.
Ephram picks his left runner up and doesn't look at her until it's on. "Yeah. Why?"
"Just curious."
He raises his eyebrows. "Curious."
"Yes. Writers are curious people."
"I'm not going with you," he says, sliding back the chain on her door. "I'm not going to Colorado ever again. Ever, Delia, and I mean that in the strongest possible terms."
She nods. This is the perfect moment. "I know. You can't leave Mark, I know."
He stares out into the hallway, then he turns and stares at her. "What?"
"He's your guy, right?"
"My guy."
"That you're going out with." She shrugs, waves her hands vaguely. Everything according to plan. "Your dating guy. You know what I mean."
He smiles a little bit. "I'm sure I don't. Why would you think he's anything at all like that to me, and, more importantly, why would you think I'd want a guy of my very own?"
Delia frowns, but she's still smiling on the inside. "Ephram, I know."
That fleeting panic returns, sticks around for a little longer, but is wiped clear of his expression by amusement. "Know what?"
"I know about the guys."
"You do."
She nods, feeling a little sad around the happiness of her fall, that it had to happen like this.
"I always have. Since before you left Everwood. What are little sisters for, if not for knowing secrets?"
He shakes his head and she can tell he's a little angry. She can't tell if he's angry with her or with himself. "I have to go. I'm not talking about this right now."
Delia gives a crooked smile. "We don't have to talk about it ever, Ephram. I know." She spreads her hands away from her body, asking for a hug.
His eyes widen. "Fuck that," he spits. "You don't know anything."
The slam of the door dislodges her joy, because it wasn't in the plan. She presses her ear to the green-painted wood, hands curled against it, hoping he'll knock for re-entry, speak to her through the peephole. She hears the elevator ding across the hall, she closes her eyes, it's not going to happen.
She whispers, "I know."
4
The keys of Delia's typewriter are cold under her fingers, it sits on the desk in a room full of boxes, some of them empty. She's making this, she's making it permanent. If she's not coming back to him, he'll have to come to her, she thinks. She looks at the house key on the desk, it sits on top of her stack of blank pages.
The letters on the keys are worn nearly away. This thing, this twenty-five-year-old Brothers electric typewriter, it came from the county hospital thrift store in Old Springs. She's taken it everywhere since she was fifteen. It goes with her.
She writes an invitation, a script.
(ENTER DELIA, with contrition, onto a DARK STAGE, carrying a SUITCASE)
DELIA: Ephram? Are you here?
(she WAITS for an answer, but it does not come)
DELIA: I'm sorry, Ephram. I thought you'd be happy. I thought it would be nice if you didn't have to lie to me anymore. I didn't mean to hurt you.
(again, she WAITS for an answer)
5
When he speaks his line, she's sitting on her balcony for the last time, safely away from the railing, a bottle of water on a box of books beside her.
"I never told anybody," he says from the window.
She doesn't turn. She doesn't smile. You never know with Ephram, she thinks, you never know if he's going to follow the script. "This is why I love you," she says.
"I hardly ever know what you're talking about, you know." He climbs out onto the balcony, steps past her, leans back against the railing. He's smiling a little bit.
She smiles back some, laughs quietly. "Me neither. But I do, Ephram. Love you."
Ephram looks quickly away. "Yeah." He clears his throat. "Me too."
"You love yourself?"
He glares. "I love you. Jesus, Delia."
Her laugh is loud this time, and clear. Sometimes Ephram's version is better than her script. More uncomfortable for him, anyway. "I know."
He blinks slowly. "I'm not going with you," he says, very serious, very emphatic.
"That's okay," she says. She steps up to him, wraps her arms around the leather of his coat. "You can come later."
He laughs into her hair, but it's a wet, desperate sound.
"You're so stubborn," he whispers after a moment.
"No," she says, pulling back to look up at him, look him in the eye. "I'm right. You need to be there just as much as I do. We're horrible on our own, even when we're together. There's something in the water out there that, I don't know," she shakes her head against the way he rolls his eyes. "It encourages happiness."
His mouth, it's a smile, but it's so sad. He looks over her head, into the half-boxed apartment. "I'll take you to the airport in the morning, okay?"
"Okay," she says, dropping Colorado. It is his decision, after all. "I'd like that."
"But I'm not getting on the plane."
"I know."
"Just saying."
"I know, Ephram. When I get there I'll send for you."
"Fuck, Delia."
End.