15 Typical Girls
If the best part of being Champion was the cruise ship, the worst part was getting up early to make public appearances once the cruise ended.
It was raining when she got her wake-up call at seven, and she lay there trying to choreograph the easiest way to get out of bed. Just sitting up was too hard; she rolled onto her side and then her front, and then she pressed her head onto the pillow and pivoted her body around that point, putting her feet on the ground and finally standing up straight.
Something Delilah noticed was that it was much rarer now for her to get roommates in pokémon centers. The employees and nurses seemed more courteous and afforded her much more privacy, so if she did have a roommate, it was never more than one at a time. She wondered if perhaps that was just how things were done in Kanto, where she found pokémon trainers were generally treated very well.
Having exhausted her ingenuity on getting out of bed, she brushed her teeth clumsily enough that she pinched her lip against her teeth, and accidentally spilled water on the floor. Somehow she managed to get dressed, although she didn't remember doing so as she threw on some make-up.
Eight o'clock came and went, and her car didn't show up; at first she was glad as she finished getting ready, but as she stood in front of the window, waiting for a car to pull into the pokémon center parking lot, she started to wonder if something was wrong, so she picked up the phone and dialed Mr Driscoll's office.
"Hello? Miss Peerenboom?" said his secretary. "Is there a problem?"
"Hi, well, I don't know, um...it's 8:15, and my car's not here yet?"
"8:15?" She laughed. "England's not near as big as California, love—it won't take that long to get you there."
"Well—I thought it was coming at eight."
"Eight! No! I'm looking at the agenda and it shouldn't be there until 9:30—who told you eight...?"
That would just be typical. She sighed when she hung up the phone. Probably somebody would get fired for this. She had an hour, so she had Farley come out of his poké ball to walk to a café down the street. She didn't mind the rain, and he was intrigued by it. She didn't often bother eating breakfast, but even when she did she wasn't sure why it was the most important meal of the day. Besides, didn't that make lunch and dinner feel sort of bitter and insecure. But maybe she was hurting breakfast's feelings by not appreciating it more...
"Smile, Delilah!"
She looked up from her deep and meaningful thoughts and straight into a flash unit.
She blinked and laughed; the man with the camera smiled guiltily. "Sorry—I was actually taking pictures of the street, but I couldn't resist," he said. "I understand if you don't want me to release it."
"Oh," she said, blinking again. "That's all right, I don't mind. I don't know how much money it's worth, but feel free to sell it, as long as it's not incriminating."
He smiled. "Were you doing something incriminating?"
"Not to my knowledge, but you never know what'll offend people, do you?"
"Touch wood," he said. "If anything happens, just remember I did offer to get rid of it."
She laughed. "I don't think I'm famous enough for people to care that much, really," she said.
He looked at her skeptically. "You might be surprised. People care about weird things sometimes. I'm not a real paparazzo but I bet somebody's willing to pay for this," he said, indicating the camera.
She shrugged, unsure what to say.
"Well, it was nice meeting you," he said, extending his hand.
"Yeah," she said, shaking his hand. "Good luck. I'll try to be more famous for you."
"Thanks," he laughed as they parted.
Delilah got recognized on a daily basis, but she had always figured that that was just because she hung around pokémon centers and gyms and other places that would be heavily frequented by people who would know who she was. She wasn't really sure if the average person, who was not a pokémon trainer, would have any idea who she was; but on the other hand, Kanto was a place where pokémon training played a big part in local history, and she had also gotten more mainstream attention for her femaleness, so maybe it wasn't that strange. She had had the experience of being swarmed by paparazzi, but only in London or Los Angeles. It probably wasn't worth it for a paparazzo to come to Kanto, where the only surefire celebrities were pokémon trainers, about whom the average layperson probably cared rather little.
Finally the car came and took her to the hotel where she would be taking part in a lecture. The League was on an education kick currently; she and a few other popular trainers were going to be talking about typing and status ailments, and a little bit about operant conditioning.
The hotel lobby was very beautiful, as she and Mr Driscoll ran inside (the car was late, of course—two firings for the day so far) and she was immediately fallen upon by sheepishly aggressive pokémon trainers asking to shake her hand or something.
Lt Surge, who would also be lecturing, attempted to be helpful by waving his arms and shouting, "Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock! Ten o'clock, over here!"
The janitor smirked and said, "What time's the lecture, sir?"
"TEN O'CLOCK!" he said too loudly.
The more fans Delilah had, the crazier her schedule got. She and Mr Driscoll went to lunch with Lt Surge and a few businessy-type League men to make arrangements for a badge match; they would both get paid, no matter the outcome.
For the very first time she felt like she was breaking into a boys' club, as she sat as the only girl at a restaurant table with five men, all of whom were at least fifteen years older than she was. She thought that her well-kept bitchy eyebrows were a help in gaining respect, although the man who sat next to her had apparently never seen her picture because he kept staring at her, like he was surprised, and said she was "a nice change". From what, she wasn't sure, and could only assume Lance.
Halfway through the meal he said, "You're certainly quiet, aren't you?"
"Yeah, well...I am..."
"That's okay. Quiet people always have a lot going on inside..." He squinted and darted his eyes back and forth to demonstrate what he meant. "I salute you for being quiet," he said, putting his fingers to his forehead.
She raised an eyebrow at him. Probably he was just trying to be friendly, but she found it rather patronizing, not to mention completely pointless. The businessman sitting across the table noticed this exchange, and also raised an eyebrow at him.
Daily firing count: three.
Delilah wasn't really sure why people even bothered trying to be friendly to her, because she was never nice enough to be grateful. She remembered being assaulted by Greenpeace volunteers in National Park, or harassed by a romantic French man at the science museum, and wondered how disheartening it could possibly have been for them to encounter her skeptically amused indifference.
When she returned to the pokémon center she wrote a thank you note to a fan who had sent her flowers. She was very tired so she hoped it didn't sound too weird or druggy or anything. It was dark by the time she was done, and it had stopped raining; at a Persian takeaway somebody asked for a picture with her. She thought suddenly of the photographer from earlier in the day and remembered that she hadn't asked for his name. Had that been rude?
Delilah always tried to be polite to people who recognized her in the street, not only because she was encouraged to develop good fan relations, but because she didn't want to end up with a depraved fanatic stealing from her trash and sending her black roses and bad poetry all because she wouldn't take a picture with him.
In bed she rolled over onto her stomach, breathed in deep, and was suddenly hit with a wave of some nostalgic feeling. It didn't really make a difference, but she realized that the reason he hadn't asked her for her name was because he already knew her name. She inhaled again. It was the pillow. It smelled familiar.
How strange celebrity was—in her everyday life there were now far more people who knew her name than there were people whose names she knew. She couldn't remember where she knew the scent from. It smelled like a smell she had smelled before. Celebrities were involved in millions of one-sided relationships; for all that one could appreciate his fans, what percentage of them did he ever really meet?
She sniffed desperately at the pillow, trying to feel something to spark her memory. It reminded her of something. Perhaps this was why fame was so famously fickle: when people didn't know somebody well, they were less likely to accept excuses for transgressions, and more likely to pass a harsher judgment.
It smelled like a European hotel. That was all.