17 Danger! High Voltage
It was Friday night in Celadon and Delilah sat in the launderette, watching her clothes spin around as the rain came down loud and hard outside. Her Pokégear rang as a bolt of lightning lit up the clouds in the distance, bleaching a hot white strip across the dark sky; from the laundry basket, Beau looked out the window, his pupils contracting into slits and then dilating again as the light normalized.
"Hello?"
Without any pretense Adam whined horribly, "What's wrong with me, Delilah?"
"What's wrong with you...!"
"I don't blame you for laughing," he sighed. "It must be difficult to understand that I'm not perfect."
"I think I could be convinced," she said.
"After all, I'm rich, talented, undeniably handsome..."
"All you need is a little confidence!" she said. "You can try one of those self-help books. After three months of telling yourself that you're successful and lovable, apparently you'll fall for it."
"It's quite a pickle I'm in," he divulged conspiratorially. "I'd like to ask you to be my date at a dinner party, but I've just not got the courage!"
"How sad," she said. "I guess I'll go through life never knowing."
"And I suppose you wouldn't consider selling yourself?" he asked.
"Only to the highest bidder," she said loftily.
"Well, I have a rich father!"
"But he's married," she said.
"I use his credit cards," he said.
"Well then when is the party?"
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Thanks for the advanced notification..."
"You see why I needed a confidence boost," he said. "It's awfully rude and presumptuous to ask at such late notice."
"It certainly is," she agreed. "I should probably hang up on you."
"Why haven't you, then?" he asked. "Maybe you like me, a little bit?"
"Maybe," she said, and paused. "Or maybe my only other recreational plans were to go to the Poké Mart for flea medication..."
In a room full of men in dark suits and women in Ferragamo pumps, Adam wore skintight leather and a tartan dinner jacket.
"Well, have fun," said Giovanni. "And be good."
"Oh, make up your mind," Adam muttered.
Giovanni raised an eyebrow. "You had just better do your damnedest to keep your handsome young proboscis out of trouble," he said. "Remember what I told you..."
In a relationship, power was held by one who could provide something desired by the other. Adam told her he was supposed to talk to a man at the party about a position in Team Rocket (but nobody actually said "Team Rocket"—just "them"), something like a job interview, and then maybe he'd get his motorcycle. "He's a fence," he said.
"Why are you qualified to judge whether he deserves this? I mean...you're not part of—them," she said, catching herself.
"Yes, that's true," he admitted. "But there's something in this for me."
She couldn't argue with that "logic", but she had to think that this job couldn't be particularly important to be put into hands like Adam's; she wasn't hip to all the ins and outs of Team Rocket politics, but she figured that most positions were flexibly expendable, and this was probably mostly a test to see how much maturity Adam could show in a vaguely professional situation.
Giovanni would have doubtless loved for Adam to grow into an appreciation for the business that kept the Turnbull & Asser shirt on his back; lucky(?) him, Adam was quite open to bribes.
The man shook Adam's hand and said, "Hey, how are you?" He was American, maybe in his thirties. "You can call me George. Can I call you Adam?"
"Yes, of course," said Adam, and motioned to Delilah. "This is Delilah Peerenboom..."
He smiled broadly and extended his hand to her with an unnerving stare. "Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too," she said, and shook his hand.
"She recently became Pokémon League World Champion," Adam told him.
"Wow!" said George, and gestured to her. "Well, she is just a knockout, I'll tell you what!"
"Thank you," said Delilah, although she felt a little bit uncomfortable to have him speak of her in the third person while looking directly at her.
"Just let me have her, I'll work for free!"
There was a substantial silence.
George burst into overcompensatory laughter. Delilah giggled nervously. Adam didn't appear to be ready to indulge in the illusion that he found it at all funny.
What did everybody else think this party was for? Lance had once told her to be careful with Adam and his parents, especially if there were press nearby, and she finally understood why: most people assumed shadiness about Giovanni, even if they weren't totally sure of specifics and even if there was no proof in the public eye that Team Rocket was still functioning, and it was her responsibility as Champion to show the Pokémon League in a good light.
"So," Adam began.
"Um..." George clapped his hands together. "What do you think of the application?"
"My dad loves the application," said Adam.
"Does he really?"
"The application is great," he continued. "You have all the right background, it's all really good."
"Great," said George. "Thanks a lot. I'm really glad..."
That was the point of her contract. It detailed money and privacy but more than that she had promised to keep the League's public persona well-manicured. Being famous was about image: creating it, altering it, maintaining it. Did she interrupt the League's good face by being seen with Adam, whose father's fame was built on allegations of animal exploitation? To think she had worried about the feminists...
"So, uh...what do you think? You're, uh...?"
"Well, I think you're very much of interest to them," said Adam. "You've got all the skills and the experience that they like. Clearly my dad likes you on paper—you're doing something right to get an invitation here, right?"
He addressed this last bit to Delilah, possibly to make the conversation look less suspicious or less inviting. "Oh—sure," she said, not sure what she should say. "I mean...jeez, I don't know anything about it, you're in charge here..." She made an awkward face and shrugged, and they laughed.
"That's a point in our favour, at least," said Adam.
"Well, since you're in charge, why don't you let me have your girlfriend for the night, and you and I can maybe work something out? What do you think?"
There was another very long silence.
George again burst into laughter that was more intense than necessary. Delilah again giggled in insulted discomfort. Adam again seemed to be debating between a selfish desire for a motorcycle and a selfish desire to punch him in the face.
Lance and Red had both publicly decried Team Rocket and she felt guilty all of a sudden and very selfish for the times when she had been presented with the opportunity to do so and had not been interested. Of course, Adam had spoken very badly of Team Rocket, too, perhaps even worse than anybody else, but coupled with his explosive and sometimes quite public issues with his parents this tended to solidify rather than dissipate people's suspicions about his father.
Still, Delilah did not dislike Giovanni. He was obviously a very smart man and it was hard not to feel sympathy for someone who had known Adam for such a long time. He was always very nice to her; it didn't come off terribly phony, but she figured it was sort of calculated. She sort of assumed that he felt her apathy was harmless and therefore didn't try to court her. She certainly didn't approve of Team Rocket, but could the media be expected to know that?
"So let's cut to the chase," said Adam. "Uh...how much are you thinking?"
"Well," said George. "I'm asking 4,000."
Adam raised his eyebrows.
"I'm asking," George emphasized, and laughed.
"Okay," said Adam. "Well, that's...high. You're at two and a half, three years, something like that?"
"I'm at, uh, three years, yeah."
"Yeah. It's, it's..." Adam shook his head. "I mean, with things looking the way they do? This is a global trade, and nobody is recession-proof. They're not interested in £4,000 a month for this."
Was it wrong to be apathetic about Team Rocket? She didn't really know what they did exactly, which was why she reserved judgment. She realized with a start how much power she held. She knew something that most of the world didn't. She didn't even think Lance knew about it. Delilah could tell anybody she wanted whenever she felt like it. She could tell Lance, she could tell the police, she could tell an entire press conference. Giovanni would obviously go to prison if she did that, and probably his mother, in all likelihood stripping the Harlows of their wealth. Maybe even Ivy and Adam would go to jail! Was it illegal not to tell?
"Give me a counteroffer," said George. "I mean, my...my asking price is 4,000."
Adam blinked and said, "I think they'd be interested in something less than 2500."
George bit his lip. There was a short pause. "Um...I gotta be honest with you," he said. "It's just, uh, it's...it's...it's very low, I mean, I'd rather not even work with them, to be honest with you."
"All right, how about this," said Adam. "What if we do this: they're at two and a half, you're at four. What if we split it down the middle, make it 3250, and they pay 16,000 up front, include an office, and we have a deal."
"I..." George stopped to think. Delilah was quite stunned by Adam's business savvy, even though she had no idea what they were talking about, it certainly sounded impressive.
Delilah thought Giovanni must have known how much she knew about Team Rocket (although, she realized, it wasn't a whole lot). She had spent enough time with Adam to have a bit of an (admittedly very partisan) education. Giovanni had never mentioned it, even during the few times that they had been more or less alone (such as in the car on the way to the hotel restaurant, or eating Gaston's tarte tatin in their kitchen before Bailey took her back to the Vermilion pokémon center), but she wondered if he maybe had people watching her day and night to ensure that she didn't mess anything up. What if somebody could come around at any moment and shoot her if she mentioned Team Rocket? In a case such as that one her feminine wiles could get her only so far. Delilah did not like violence, especially after watching the three-hour-long Robert De Niro war movie The Stantler Hunter with her dad, and blood was a hard stain to remove. Being in a potentially powerful position did not, in fact, make her feel strong.
"I don't mind the lump payment," said George. "I think that's fine, it's not an issue for me. Um...an office, in London?"
"London head office block. Is that good?"
"Um, wow," said George. "Uh...depends."
Adam laughed desperately. "Depends?"
"It depends on...your girlfriend."
There was yet another rather sturdy silence.
Once again, George burst into a laughter whose aggressiveness could not really be justified by the level of humor. Once again, Delilah giggled uneasily and felt degraded and insecure. But this time, Adam didn't keep his mouth shut.
"Would you be more comfortable if Delilah left?" he asked snappishly. "An organisation as big as this one has no room for some offensive bit of lochia who'll lose it when he's got to talk to a woman. A weakness is a weakness and, whatever you think, in this market they can afford to be discriminating. I'm not emotionally invested in your hiring; do they need you more than you need them?"
George looked surprised. "God, no, we've got ourselves a deal."
"Okay, good," said Adam.
"Absolutely," George agreed, and they shook hands. "Thank you, Adam. You're the man. Thanks a lot." He put out his hand to Delilah. "Pleasure," he said. "Delilah?"
"Delilah, yeah."
"Nice to meet you," he said again. "She is gorgeous."
"I'll tell her you said so. Come on, Delilah," Adam snipped, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away.
"Thanks very much," said George.
Adam called him an omasum. Delilah didn't know what an omasum was but it sounded quite vulgar and offensive.
"Are you okay?" she asked once they got to the other side of the room, Adam apparently choosing to separate himself from George with groups of people and the band.
"I didn't know a smarm could be so utter!" he fumed comically, letting go of her forcefully. "Can you believe what he said!"
"What, that I'm pretty?" She smirked. "You disagree?"
"He told me you're pretty," he said. "He said nothing to you."
He seemed genuinely angry, but she found it quite funny now that it was over. "This is oddly crusading of you," she said. "But it's really not a big deal. I don't mind."
"Do you want a cigarette?"
He always asked her this even though she always said no. Maybe she would try it one day—she hated to admit it but it did tempt her curiosity—but today she said, "No. Are you even allowed?" There were other people smoking, but Delilah had been under the impression that it was against the law to smoke in an enclosed space (although, perhaps this was a finicky quibble in a room full of gangsters).
"I don't care," he said.
"Hey, so did you ever figure out what happened and made you sick? I mean, it can't have been nicotine poisoning, I don't think."
He shrugged. "I was just tired," he said rather cryptically.
He seemed aggravated so she decided not to pick at him.
"I'll try a watermelon martini," he told the bartender. "Double."
The bartender hesitated. "Er, I don't know that there's room in the glass..."
"Then get rid of the watermelon! Take out something!" snapped Adam, waving his cigarette irritably.
The bartender got a little sassy and offered to make him a drink called a Redheaded Slut, and said he could even put it on Coke if he wanted.
Apparently this was only a half-joke. A group of tiresome people recognized her and Adam and began to swarm them with questions. Adam wouldn't say a word to them; he made an unsuccessful phone call, responding only with looks of bored superiority to their queries of if he and Delilah were dating or if they wanted to go and "call Katie", which Delilah belatedly realized meant Kate Moss, which she belatedly realized meant cocaine.
A man with gin breath and a wedding ring was hitting on her horribly when another guy came up, laughed, and said, "Aw, are my friends bothering you?"
Adam smiled exquisitely and said, "Yes."
There seemed to be something more threatening about Adam's smile than his frown because they disappeared soon after.
Adam leaned back on the bar on his elbows. "I hope you're not finding this as boring as I am," he said. "I've really got to stay a bit longer. You could leave, if you wanted."
"Nah, it's funny," she said. "It's an interesting collection of people. Though some of them I guess I'd rather just watch."
He smirked. He was close enough that the little scoffing exhalation made her blink. He started to say something, but didn't, and she knew for a moment that he was going to kiss her. The panic must have shown on her face, because he didn't.
Adam's grandmother was from northern Italy, and Adam told her that as a result Team Rocket was a lot more business than family. However there was one man who kissed and gushed over Adam and said, "Hai compiuto gli anni, sì? Quanti anni hai?"
"Sì, yes, I did, novembre," said Adam. "I'm twenty-two."
"I knew it. See? Lo direi," he said, holding Adam's face. "You're taller now, sei così bello. Isn't he handsome and tall?"
Delilah nodded.
"Look at you," he said, shifting his hold from Adam's face to Delilah's. "Are you with him? You're as beautiful as melons." He kissed her cheeks. "Smell this and remember me," he said, removing his buttonhole and handing it to her. He looked at Adam seriously. "Watch her," he said, pointing to Delilah. "You watch her like a pidgeot."
"I can't tell if he's drunk," said Delilah after he had walked away.
"He asked me if I had a birthday," said Adam. "Of course I've had a birthday: I was twelve the last time he saw me. I should hope I'm taller and handsomer..."
When they found Adam's parents, talking to another couple, Adam tried to bring up his new motorcycle but Giovanni asked with placid disapproval, "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Did I not tell you to let me know immediately?"
"What did you expect me to do?" asked Adam. "You didn't answer your phone, like I knew you wouldn't, and how was I meant to know where you were?"
"You could have left me a message," said Giovanni, smooth and deliberate and slightly warning. "You could have texted me."
Adam returned his expression of steady intensity; the resemblance was suddenly striking. "I lost my voice."
Giovanni rolled his yes. "Ahi! Poveretto..."
"Come on, now, no fighting," said Ivy. "What do you think they all think of you?"
"I never thought about it," said Adam, as if this were a new concept. "What do they all think of me?"
"Well," said Giovanni, "half of them think you're an egomaniac."
"And the other half?"
"The other half can't stand you."
"That's enough," said Ivy.
There was a very short, very awkward silence, and then the other couple (whose names Delilah forgot immediately) asked her questions about being Champion. "What sort of things do you do, as Champion?" asked the wife. "What are your duties?"
"Well, I don't have to do anything," she said. "But they like it when I do kind of promotional stuff for the League. Lately I do a lot of like education-type stuff, just showing people how I battle and everything..."
"How interesting," she said, and looked at Adam. "And you train pokémon, too, don't you?"
Adam seemed deep in thought, and was sneering apparently unconsciously.
"Adam," Giovanni snapped.
"What," said Adam reflexively, jerking his gaze up. He looked around at his father. "Did you want me, Daddy?"
"Want?" Giovanni repeated, his eyebrows raised. "Let's not overdo it, my old pride and joy."
Adam's surly expression intensified. There was not an emotion in the world that Adam bothered to keep off his face and the sheer number of things he could express with the quirk of a perfect nostril was truly a testament to his convoluted personality.
"Oh, stop it," said Ivy shortly. "This isn't the time. Don't embarrass me."
"Well, no, Mummy, I think he raises a perfectly reasonable point," said Adam.
The other couple looked interested; Adam's parents looked like they dreaded whatever he was going to say.
"He just wants to know why I act the way I do," Adam continued, "and I don't blame him. I do have a reason, but it's not anything I've ever told anybody."
Giovanni didn't seem eager to hear it, but Adam kept going.
"I behave strangely, and I'll admit that," he said. "I call people names until they cry and when I wake up mornings I say, 'Today I think I'll hit somebody so then I'll feel better about myself.' And you want to know why?"
Ivy looked beautiful and ashamed and very tired.
"I'll tell you why I do this," said Adam.
"Well then tell us, then," said Giovanni impatiently.
Adam looked at him levelly, his top lip twisting insolently. "It's because," he said, measuring each syllable with relish, "I'm an egomaniac."
The other couple laughed uncertainly, clearly hoping he was joking but frightened by his intensity.
"And I wish," said Adam, "that the world revolved around me."
Giovanni looked uninterested. "If wishes were staraptors, beggars would eat birds. Dreams," he said, "are but the ambitions of the incompetent."
"I had a dream where Pamela Anderson did stand-up comedy in my backyard," said Delilah immediately.
There was a half second's silence, and then Ivy and the other couple laughed.
"It's just one bike," Adam implored him. "Come on, Daddy—I appeal to you."
"Not particularly," Giovanni uttered, not looking at him.
Suddenly Adam stood up. "Dance with me, Delilah," he commanded, putting out his hand to her.
She obeyed without hesitation, putting her hand in his and standing, and they moved closer to the cheesy jazz band. Adam put a hand on her hip, she tentatively touched his tartan shoulder, and they began swaying vaguely.
"So fucking annoying," he sighed cantankerously.
She had to crane her neck if she wanted to look at him. "Maybe he's trying to toughen you up," she said.
"Well it's not bloody well working," he insisted.
She sighed at his lapels.
Adam was quiet for a moment, and then said, "It's done nothing but make me angry and mean."
"Well, I wouldn't have you any other way, dear," she said jokingly.
He laughed humorlessly, but didn't say anything.
She was a little bit uncomfortable. Where was she supposed to focus her gaze? It made sense that she was supposed to look at his face, but that seemed pretty awkward, since the height difference meant going out of her way to do so. And as lovely as his lapels certainly were, staring at them was also quite awkward. Looking at their feet would be awkward. Looking around at everybody else would be awkward too. Was she supposed to close her eyes, then? She tried to think up something to say but the effort was predictably fruitless.
"Come on, touch me, a little bit," he said suddenly, brusque and almost pleading, as he closed the distance between them and manually placed her arm around his neck.
She felt herself blush at her small failure, but she still wasn't sure what to do. If he wanted her to talk, he would ask her something; did he want her to be quiet, or was he ambivalent? Maybe he just wanted her not to talk? Maybe he just wanted to feel up her boobs? Should she lean into him? Was her arm falling asleep?
It felt really sort of anonymous and impersonal; in fact he seemed preoccupied, as if Delilah weren't really there. And while it did feel sort of sexy to be pressed up against him, what she really felt for him in that moment was an odd sort of pity, an unfamiliar pathos she had never associated with him before.
In her awkward position, she saw his laryngeal prominence move up and down as he swallowed. "I've always wondered," she said: "what do you call your Adam's apple?"
"What?"
"Well, it can't be correct to say 'Adam's Adam's apple'. Do you just call it your 'apple'?"
"How often do you think I need to mention it?"
"That's never occurred to you?"
"Never."
Adam went to the bathroom so she started wandering around eating canapés and looking at people. She saw George across the room, and he smiled at her. She kind of raised her eyebrows in a face of politely skeptical acknowledgement (although she wasn't sure how well he could even see her face, considering the lighting where she was standing), and then she turned and continued away before he could approach her.
She met Adam again and they stepped outside to get some air, but mostly so Adam could complain about his parents. "You don't know how lucky you are, with your family," he said. "Even though you have siblings, you're all probably the most important thing in your parents' lives."
"I guess," she said.
"With my parents," he said glumly, "it's just incidental. It's just a footnote. Like, oh, by the way, parenthood."
"Well, I don't know," she said. "I think your parents love you. I'm sure they think you're important."
"You only think that because that's the kind of family you have," he said.
Maybe that was true, but maybe it wasn't.
"I read your interview in Pokémon Handbook," he said.
"Yeah, I've been pretty busy lately..."
Suddenly his tune changed and he frowned. "Busy? With what?" he spat bitterly. "Just busy being good at anything you do?"
"Well, sure," she said, but he didn't laugh.
He snorted derisively. "God. You can do whatever you want. I don't get it! Okay? I don't get it. It's like you became the Champion just because you wanted it badly enough."
"Are you kidding?"
"No."
"How can you be so sure? I never thought about pokémon training as something that actually applied to me. This has nothing to do with what I want!"
"Your life is perfect, Delilah!" he said, louder and angrier. "Nothing bad ever happens to you!"
"You don't even know what you're talking about!"
"You're the young and beautiful Pokémon League World Champion!" he said. "Your pokémon are perfect! Your family is perfect! Your interviews are perfect! If this isn't what you want, then what do you want?"
"You're jealous!" she gasped. "You know what's wrong with you! You're spiteful! You're vengeful, vindictive, and possessive! You're demanding, and unforgiving!"
He was clearly struggling against an overwhelming desire to smack her soundly across the face. The fact that he was mad made her mad, and she stamped her foot in a fit, throwing her purse on the ground.
"Just because you finally realize you're not as good as you thought you were!" she almost screeched. "Because nobody is that good! And you can't stand it, because your ego is all that's holding you together!"
"SHUT UP!" he shouted, his full intimidating height towering over her.
She shut up.
He was scowling. She thought he might hit her. He was so angry it made the air feel different. He pulled on her hair and slammed his mouth against hers. She kissed him back without further reflection as his hands searched her figure with unambiguous interest; she felt blind with lust and anger and fear, grabbing at any part of him she could reach.
Adam was clearly not a man starved of sex, but he kissed her with an intense and almost vicious desperation whose ferocity overwhelmed and might have frightened her if she hadn't been so mindlessly focused on the fierce heat coming off his body, his hands under her clothes while his teeth scraped her neck. She wasn't even sure if her feet were still on the ground, or if she was being underpinned entirely by the force of Adam's body pressing her to the wall, but she didn't care because it was just too exciting to feel the barbell through his tongue, the ring in his lip, his hips and hands and chest and breath. She could feel her heartbeat in her lip between his teeth and they couldn't touch each other enough but they tried.
He stopped and she turned to see George standing there looking surprised and embarrassed.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" he said, and hurried back around the corner of the building and she felt a little bit guilty.
Adam cursed and demounted, robbing her of her balance. She almost fell down for the support loss and reached out for something to steady herself, grabbing his sleeve as she slipped into a squatting position.
He looked down on her and scowled.
"Go away," he growled softly.
She felt her face twist as she fought off sudden tears.
He yanked his arm away and went back to the party.