Page 63 of Catch a Kiwi
Delilah, of course, didn’t follow her example. She muttered under her breath all Sunday morning, and finally said, during lunch, “I can’t believe you guys. We have to leave tomorrow because … why, exactly? Probably because you made a move on her, Roman. Why can’t she just say, sorry, not happening? Why does it have to be a big Drama Llama moment that means we have to leave while my butt’s still this sore? I can’t even sit down to eat yet! Not even on my hemorrhoid donut. So gross, especially because everybody who sees it will think that. Great introduction, huh? ‘Hi! I’m Delilah, and as you can see, I have enormous hemorrhoids.’” She was, in fact, standing at the kitchen bench to eat her sandwich, but at least she was off the couch.
“Good question,” I said, “on why you have to leave so soon,” even though I knew I shouldn’t.
“I can explain it to you again if you don’t understand,” Summer said, her dignity pulled around her like a feather cloak. “Or you can accept that this is my decision.”
“So you’re just going to leave Roman to hang out with that jerk all by himself next weekend?” Delilah asked. “After he drove us to the hospital and let us stay here for more than two weeks and bought you atruck?”
“He bought a ute,” Summer said. “He didn’t buy me. And I’ll pay him the full value of that ute, too.”
“No, you won’t,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I will.”
“If you do,” I said, “I’ll put the money back into your account. We made a deal. You don’t get to change the terms now.”
Delilah sighed. “Maybe you should just sleep together and get it over with, did that occur to you? Maybe you aren’t sexually compatible anyway, in which case you’ll have no problem, or maybe it’ll be great and you’llreallyhave no problem. Of course,Imight get hideously embarrassed by your unseemly passion, but that concern hasn’t featured in your decision-making so far.”
Summer stiffened, and I said, “Because she doesn’t want to. That’s all the answer a man needs.”
Delilah said, “Teenagers are supposed to be the ones with a rigid worldview, you realize, because we haven’t lived enough yet to see the gray areas or something. You need to lighten up, Summer.”
Summer put her palms on the table and said, “I’ll do the dishes, Roman. Do you mind if I use your gym for a while afterwards?”
“No worries,” I said. “Go use it now.” She was wound as tight as a twisted rubber band. If she ever let go … what would the explosion look like?
“I’ll do the dishes first,” she started to say, and Iinterrupted her with, “No. I will. The one who pays has the power, you said. Hasn’t looked that way to me these past few weeks, but I’ll prove it by telling you to go use that gym now.”
She said, “And, see, you don’t even understand how that’s exactly wrong. But thank you. I’ll do that,” and walked out, back straight.
Delilah said, “Whoa. I do not get Summer. I mean, I love her, but I don’tgether, you know?”
I said, “She doesn’t trust blokes with money. Seems she has reason not to.”
“A stupid reason,” Delilah said. “I mean, areyoucommitting tax fraud? No.”
I had to smile as I started slotting plates into the dishwasher. “How do you know?”
“Because that would be way too much irony for a random universe,” Delilah said. “And because you’re Mr. Do-the-Right-Thing. Mr. Strong and Stoical. Felipe wasnothinglike that. Kind of a whiny baby, if you want to know the truth. Always exploding or pouting or probably crying. Summer was, like, his mommy. It’s bizarre that she can’t see the difference.”
I didn’t need this conversation, but I asked it anyway. “What was the appeal, then? Why did she marry him?”
Delilah crunched another in the pile of crisps she’d put on her plate and considered. “Well, he was rich and foreign and had an accent. Also really good-looking. Super hot. Not like you.”
“Cheers,” I said, but I had to smile.
She said, “What, that’s insulting? I guess you’re good-looking, too, you’re just good-looking in a middle-aged way. Big and tough, but not, you know, hot and fun. You have lines in your face, and you’ll probably have gray hair soon.” I was still reacting to that when she added, “If you want to see what he was like, though, you should watch the show. I can’tbelieve you haven’t done it already, if you’re so hot for Summer. She was, like, America’s Sweetheart, out there in her bikini and her tiny shorts and looking all innocent and sweet, and he was all damaged and wounded and beautiful. Practically the whole country watched them fall in love. My aunt made a scrapbook, there were so many articles. You can’t even imagine how famousIwas in the fourth grade, just being her cousin. The highlight of my life. After that, they had this huge celebrity wedding in England. They had to do it in a gigantic tent in the countryside with all this security, so cameramen couldn’t shoot from helicopters.” She ate another chip. “It was in one of the papers over there anyway, though, because they were the ones who provided the security in exchange for publishing the pictures and some truly sickening quotes from both of them. That was Felipe’s idea, of course. Summer wanted to elope, but instead, it was all this … fashion. Glamour. Just bizarrely over the top. She had a tiara with real diamonds in it. She said it was a headband, but it was a tiara. So stupid. My aunt bought two copies of the paper the article was in and cut it out for her scrapbook along with all the pictures. Summer threw the whole thing away, but you can probably still find the article online, if you want to look.”
I didn’t want to look.
“I was about nine, like I said,” Delilah went on, “but it was such a huge deal. All these girls in the UK were crying because Felipe was getting married. I mean,crying.Pathetic. Have some dignity, right? You don’t even know the guy! Of course, it turns out they didn’t need to cry, because, surprise! He fucked them after the wedding anyway, but they didn’t get the big ring and the cool house, so it depends how big of a prize his dick was, I guess.”
“Nice,” I said. “Did she tell you that? About the cheating?”
“Nope. I read it online. Summer never talks about him, orabout being arrested and put on trial, either. I only know about any of it from looking it up afterwards. Aunt Iona never found out—she wasn’t exactly computer-savvy—but I did, because Summer came back for my high-school graduation and had to explain to me why she wasn’t wearing any rings anymore and her husband was in prison and she had no money. Imagine my shock. AndthenI went online and read the whole thing, because her version was like, three sentences long. She was in her Highly Efficient Person mode—sold the trailer in about a week, rented a dumpster and threw almost everything into it, boom-boom-boom, like she didn’t care about any of it.Includingthe scrapbook. With this sort of … mask on her face, like nothing mattered. She was basically a robot.”
“That can happen,” I said. I should cut this short, but I wanted to know. I never wanted to know about anybody’s drama, but maybe that was because they were always trying to tell me, and Summer was tryingnotto.
“No, but seriously,” Delilah said. “Like—look. Almost the last thing we did was go to a memorial park place, like a cemetery, but for ashes. That was seriously creepy, the guy being all hushed and understanding and gentle and showing us all these urns that cost up to three thousand dollars. I thought, you’re kidding. What’s the point?”
