02 Ha Ha Ha

Delilah had never really gotten used to getting up early in the morning to train at gyms, despite having done it almost every day for the past few months. She had the unfortunate tendency to stay up rather later than was probably logical even when she had had to get up very early that same morning.

So she didn't talk much in the mornings. Irwin could talk plenty, though, which was a relief to her heavy eyelids and scratchy throat as they walked from his parking spot to the gym. The Goldenrod Gym was the oldest gym in the country; Goldenrod was the county seat and largest city of Johto, the first place in the US where pokémon training gained any substantial popularity, back in the early twentieth century. Parking was always difficult around the Goldenrod Gym so when Irwin gave her a ride they usually ended up walking quite a distance anyway.

"...So they ended up not even going hiking, obviously," said Irwin, and laughed.

"Ah-hmm," she said in a rather pathetic attempt at laughter. She wasn't sure if he even heard her, since she was so tired she didn't know if she was hearing herself at the correct volume. But she also wasn't sure if he was even listening.

"Oh, look, there's Whitney," he said, waving. "She's with Art Christiansen..."

Whitney Delwyn, the gym leader, smiled brightly and waved at them as she crossed the street with Art Christiansen, who, like Delilah, was currently training at the Goldenrod Gym.

"Hi, guys! Good morning!" said Whitney as she and Art approached them. Whitney was a very bubbly sort of person and immediately launched into a recounting of her morning so far, which, while surely not having lasted more than a couple of hours, had been apparently extremely eventful, involving exciting occurrences such as getting dressed.

Whitney and Irwin quickly got caught up in their garrulous conversation, leaving Delilah walking next to Art. She would rather have been walking next to Whitney or Irwin, both of whom she found infinitely more interesting than Art, whose entire life seemed to revolve around running. All of his t-shirts seemed to be souvenirs from races he had participated in.

"How are you this morning?" he asked her.

"Fine," she said. "Tired."

"What time did you get up?"

She tried not to get annoyed, knowing that he was going to act all martyr-y and impressive and mock her for being tired when he got up much earlier. "About eight," she said.

He laughed. "Don't I wish I could sleep in until eight!" he said predictably. "I got up to run in the sunrise, this morning at dawn."

"Well...you couldn't have picked a better time, I guess..."

Her sarcasm went over his head. She wasn't sure whether or not she was disappointed.

Their conversation as well as Irwin's and Whitney's tapered off as they passed a homeless woman lying on the ground under a blanket and screaming.

Once they were a safe distance away, Whitney turned around and made an awkward face, and all of them burst out laughing.

Delilah had a rather enjoyable day of training, despite horribly bruising her arm on the door. It was quite a hot October day, and after a few hours she sat outside with Whitney to enjoy a soda and a breeze.

"How old is your skitty?" asked Whitney professionally.

"He's two, two and a half," she said with a neutralizing hand gesture.

"He's very beautiful," said Whitney, reaching over to pet him. "He's got a great coat, very clean. What's his name?"

"Thank you. His name is Beau," said Delilah. "He takes good care of himself."

"I have to say, Delilah," said Whitney, "you're a credit to the Gym."

She wasn't sure what to say, so she kind of laughed. "Well, I try," she said.

"Irwin never used to come in to train," she said playfully.

"Haha...ugh," said Delilah, rolling her eyes, and Whitney laughed.

"So are you going to officially challenge me anytime soon?" asked Whitney. "I'm looking forward to battling you—how many badges have you got?"

"Two. I don't know, I guess I'll register for a match sometime. Do you know when your next vacancy is?"

"I don't know...I have a match this afternoon. In a couple weeks, I think," she said. "You should jump on it."

So with Whitney's encouragement, that day she registered for a badge match in two weeks' time. She and Irwin watched Whitney's match, which she won, and the three of them left the gym at the same time.

On their way they again passed the screaming homeless woman, who was now standing up and folding her blanket. As they walked by, she shrieked angrily and threw a shoe at Whitney.

Whitney and Delilah laughed in shock; Irwin swore, and made to cross the street. "Let's go this way," he said.

The woman yelled at them until they were out of sight.

"Oh, my God," said Irwin. "I mean, are you okay? Did you look at her or something?"

"No, I didn't look at her. It didn't hit me or anything, I'm fine."

"Gosh! I wonder if she's dangerous," said Irwin. "That's weird, we usually don't really see a lot of homeless people when we come this way, do we...?"

"Yeah, I saw another one this morning with Art," said Whitney as they came up to Irwin's car.

Irwin reached into his backpack and frowned. "Wait a minute," he said, taking off his backpack and looking in the pockets. "I can't...find my keys..."

"Oh," said Delilah.

"Really?" said Whitney.

"I know I had them," he said. "I swear, I put them in my backpack as we passed that lady...did I drop them somewhere...? Oh no...I'm sorry..."

"It's okay, man," said Delilah. "We'll just retrace your steps."

"I'll help you," said Whitney. "I don't have to be anywhere."

Irwin walked back along one side of the street, Delilah and Whitney on the other, but didn't find any sign of the keys.

"You know," said Whitney, "I just have this feeling that they're probably in his backpack..."

Delilah laughed. "Yeah, that would be typical," she said. "Like, if this were a sitcom, or a book? Totally. They would definitely be in the backpack."

"I don't know, I just have this weird feeling that that's where they are. I'm going to tell him to look again."

Irwin crossed the street, shrugging in distress to communicate that he had not found the keys. Whitney suggested that he check his backpack one more time; he sighed, took off the backpack, reached inside, made an exasperated face, and pulled out his keys.

Delilah laughed.

"Oh my God," he said, not laughing. "I can't even believe this."

"I knew it!" said Whitney.

"That's hilarious," said Delilah.

Irwin's face was very red. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She smiled and tried not to be uncomfortable. "Don't worry about it," she said. "It's not a big deal, I don't have anything I have to do. Just another adventure on the path of life, and whatnot..."

"I knew it," said Whitney again. "I just had the funniest feeling..."

"I'm so sorry for the shittiness of this day," said Irwin. "Whitney gets attacked by a homeless woman, and now you have to put up with me being a dumbass..."

"Oh, come on," said Whitney. "You don't even know the kind of dumb things I do all the time."

"Yeah, and we didn't have to put up with you being a dumbass," said Delilah. "We chose to."

He laughed vaguely, but his face was still red. Delilah realized that if her life were a book, she would have probably found this endearing, but instead it kind of embarrassed her secondhand.

She got back to the pokémon center around 4:30 to be told by her roommate Alana MacKenzie, who was just leaving, that the elevator was broken. Their room was on the fourth floor, and Irwin had told her it had reached 85° that day, so she had never before realized how many stairs there were. It was a very bright and clean room; she turned on the ceiling fan and collapsed on her floral bed for a minute before getting up to feed her pokémon.

After taking care of them she went out to get herself something to eat from a nearby café. She took her dinner up the four flights of stairs to her room and ended up reading an old issue of Vanity Fair plastered with Angelina Jolie's cleavage that somebody had left behind. The articles were quite a lot less interesting than the advertisements, which consisted largely of women in varying states of undress. Her furret Snoops sat on the windowsill, watching people walk on the street below. Delilah gave her a cherry tomato, which she ate adorably.

The next morning she went to run errands with Alana MacKenzie and another girl named Keanna Sherman. They were both a little older than Delilah, in their mid-twenties; Keanna especially was quite serious about pokémon and had been doing it for a while. She had placed more than once at the Johto League Silver Conference, so she had some notoriety among other more dedicated trainers in the area.

"I had some of my pokémon's ID photos reshot," she said. "I just have to pick them up at the photo studio."

First they went to the grocery store. Inside the Trader Joe's there was a photo of Lance Siegfried and a little plaque declaring that this was his favorite place to buy salsa, or something. Lance Siegfried used to be a member of the Elite Four but now, due to unusual circumstances, he was the Pokémon League World Champion and had been for the last two years, having emerged undefeated from the annual Pokémon League Championship Tournament once again that summer. He trained mostly dragon-types and was a source of "local" pride, originally from Blackthorn, a quaint mountain town in eastern Johto.

"Lance Siegfried? I don't see what is the big deal about him," said Alana as they passed his picture. "I mean, Elite Four, sure, but he's only Champion because Red Ketchum disappeared. And he's not that cute, really."

"He's actually a really good friend of mine," said Keanna. "He's a really sweet guy, he's so nice. Just really sweet." Usually when people said things like this Delilah assumed they were making it up, but, she supposed, the world of pokémon was a smallish world so maybe it really wasn't that unlikely for people to know each other.

"Oh? That's cool," said Alana. "I mean, I'm not saying he's not a good trainer, 'cuz he obviously is. It's just, I don't see why people make such a big deal about him."

"Well, the reason he's such a big deal is because Red was such a big deal," said Delilah as Keanna examined melons. "How old was Red Ketchum when he won the Championship, fourteen? People were freaking out about him. So anyone who would replace him was probably going to be loved or hated by the public."

"Well, that's true," said Alana. "Let's look at the free samples. I remember my boyfriend was upset when Lance was made Champion, haha."

"Sure," said Delilah. "I mean, remember, Blue Oak wouldn't even take the title back, so they offered it to him."

"Yeah, well, a lot of people thought that wasn't fair," said Keanna. "'Cuz Lance didn't have to fight for the title."

"I know, that's what I mean," said Delilah. "So people were saying he was overrated, and stuff. But then, after like a year of calling him overrated, it was starting to be a cliché, so people started saying he was underrated. But now, if everybody thinks he's underrated, then he's actually on his way to being overrated again!"

Alana laughed. "So which is it?" she asked. "Is he underrated or overrated?"

Delilah shrugged.

"I think he's underrated," said Keanna.

"It just depends on what the general consensus is," said Delilah.

Delilah sometimes had to wonder if people were a little weirded out by the way she participated in conversations. She did not talk very much, but occasionally broke in with some long-winded and probably incoherent point that was sometimes only vaguely related to the topic at hand.

Keanna had them stop at Starbucks and then the photo studio—which was, for some reason, seemingly abandoned.

"That's weird," she said. "This is where they told me to go."

"Is there anybody inside?" asked Alana, peering in through the door, which had a big "NOW HIRING" sign on it. "It's unlocked..."

She opened the door. Inside it was dark and very empty. "Should we go in...?" asked Keanna.

They did and Alana found the lights. There was a desk, presumably for a secretary, and on the walls were many photos of pokémon, some with trainers and some without. There were several open, half-unpacked boxes, as if somebody were in the process of moving in or moving out.

"This is weird," said Alana, looking around as Keanna approached the front desk and Delilah looked into the boxes. Some of them held camera equipment, and others were full of costumes and typically "wacky" photo studio dress-up like clown noses, and tacky sunglasses.

"This isn't where I had the pictures done; it's just where I was told to pick them up," said Keanna. "It's kind of scary..."

"They probably shouldn't leave this kind of stuff out, with the doors unlocked," said Alana, examining a camera set up on a tripod.

"I found my pictures," said Keanna, appearing next to her holding an envelope with her name on it in Sharpie. "These are them."

"Did you already pay for them? Can you just take them?"

"Look at all these costumes, you guys," said Delilah, poking tentatively in one of the boxes. "I think this one is me..." She held up a very ugly mermaid costume, the tail and top connected by an obvious panel of flesh-colored fabric.

Alana rummaged gleefully in the box. "Who would take a picture with their pokémon, dressed as a French maid?" she asked.

"Many people—judging by the smell," said Delilah.

"Look—wigs...!"

"Ohmygod, look, a Team Rocket uniform."

Keanna laughed. "You have to try it on," she said.

So she put it on. "I wonder if it's real, or just a costume," she said.

"It looks pretty good," said Alana, wearing what appeared to be a World War II nurse outfit. "Sexy. Come on, let's take a picture!"

"No, we better not," said Keanna, who was in a cheap-looking shiny saloon girl outfit. "They'd probably find out somehow."

"Yeah," agreed Delilah. "Maybe by the fact that we'd be leaving film with pictures of us on it..."

Alana settled for some silly cell phone pictures.

"When is your badge match?" she asked Delilah, after Keanna dropped them off back at the pokémon center that evening and they found out that the elevator had never been broken of course.

"The twenty-ninth," she said, letting Toast walk across her legs. "Have you registered for one yet?"

"No, not yet," she said, as her phanpy sat next to her, sniffing her toiletries. "I want to make sure I'm ready, you know?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, I've only been here a couple days."

"Right, yeah."

Toast tried to step into Delilah's bag on the bed, and Alana laughed.

"Hey!" said Delilah, heaving her off of the bag and laughing. "You know, I wouldn't mind, if you weren't shedding like crazy...!"

She was relieved for the distraction, because, however much progress she was making with pokémon, she still thought it was very boring, certainly not difficult. She had only won two badges, but she hardly ever lost matches, and when she did, they were usually one-on-one. She was constantly praised and complimented on her battling but she didn't really see why. Delilah had always known that she was good, but was she really that good? When she honestly thought about it, she didn't think she really deserved to be that good. She didn't really love pokémon training. It was rewarding in the same way that school had been, but not particularly enjoyable, at least not anymore. The novelty had worn off, but had never been replaced with passion. Some people talked about pokémon training with such ardent passion that she had to envy them a little bit. She had met trainers who had won matches only once or twice but who nevertheless had a burning, fervid attachment to the world of training.

Delilah had never really had strong, deep feelings about anything; she was too analytical, too cold, too pococurante. But she won matches all the time! Where did she get off, really! Shouldn't she be a little more grateful? Why should she be so good at something that she didn't really care about either way? Delilah didn't really care about anything very much lately.

She was okay with it.