By the time Delali got to her apartment, her hangover had mutated into something truly vicious. It was always fifty-fifty—sometimes eating breakfast fixed everything, and other times it made her feel like her insides were melting. On the upside, getting home at midday on a Sunday meant she had bested the paps who were almost always stationed outside her door when she got back from class on weekdays. She breezed past the front desk, exchanging a quick hello with her old Greek doorman, Stavros. He was a generally pleasant and disoriented old man who adored Delali and trapped her in long conversations about the immigrant work ethic whenever he could. Delali was glad to find that the lobby was empty and she wouldn’t have to share the elevator with one of her annoying rich neighbors.
As she waited for the elevator, Delali ran through all the shit she’d have to get done before her birthday dinner tonight—grab groceries from Westside, get in at least forty-five minutes of review before her exam, schedule an eyebrow appointment. She’d also have to get her apartment ready for Lionel, who’d texted to say he landed an hour ago. As if that wasn’t enough, her head was flooded with the run-of-mill morning-after anxiety about, well, everything.
Delali was trying to remember how the night had gone—Had she embarrassed herself at SNEAK? Had anyone recognized her? Did she end up texting Darren? What the hell had she and the study group guys talked about for forty-five minutes?—when a faint buzzing penetrated her thoughts, filling every inch of her head with white noise. At first, she assumed it was just the sound of her building’s elevator coming down the shaft, weirdly magnified by her hangover, but then the buzz broke into an intelligible murmur, pocked with a heavy Mediterranean accent. Hmph. Nice of you to finally show up.
Delali snapped her head around to ask the doorman what he meant, but when she turned, he just looked over at her and smiled blankly. It was clear he hadn’t spoken. Delali nodded at him, her face hot with embarrassment, and turned to face the elevator again. It finally dinged and the doors slid open, but before Delali could step in, she heard that same crackling noise, like radio static, and another mumble: That’s three Saturdays in a row . . . probably safe to tip TMZ . . . four, five thousand . . . easy. Delali’s mouth dropped open. She rushed into the elevator and hit penthouse, poking her head out quickly before the doors began to close. Stavros flashed another doddering smile and friendly little wave.
Delali’s heart was thundering so hard she could barely hear herself think. What the fuck is going on? The voice she’d heard was certainly, without a doubt, her doorman’s. But she couldn’t place where, physically, it had come from. His mouth wasn’t moving, and the sound hadn’t echoed across the lobby’s marble walls the way it usually would. The voice had been . . . inside her head somehow. It had been so clear and crisp that if it hadn’t been a man’s (and heavily accented, and talking about tipping TMZ about her whereabouts), Delali would’ve confused the sound for her own internal monologue. It would be easier to dismiss altogether if the snippet didn’t make perfect fucking sense. Of course the rat was her doorman. Delali paced around the elevator, her breath growing quicker and shallower. When the door opened, Delali rushed into her apartment, running like there was a wannabe director from her school’s film department chasing her. She slammed the door behind her and leaned against it. There was no way she would be able to focus on homework now.
Delali threw open her floor-to-ceiling living room windows and stuck her head out, taking in deep, replenishing breaths of the city air, the warbling East River and lamps on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade twinkling as they came into focus. When she’d calmed down slightly, she pulled a half-empty pack of Sour Patch Kids from the bottom of her backpack and started to stuff them into her mouth, her breath slowing as the sugar coated her tongue and cheeks. The last time she’d felt this emotional it was because she’d lost the role of Princess Tiana in Disney’s live-action remake of The Princess and the Frog to Celeste. The days between Lionel’s devastating call and the shoplifting scandal that had gotten Celeste kicked off the production were some of the darkest of Delali’s life. When she finished the gummies, Delali sat on her sofa and pulled a college-ruled notebook and dented Ticonderoga out of her backpack, deciding, in typical Delali fashion, that it might help if she took notes on the past twenty-four hours. Maybe writing everything out in a neat and orderly manner could help her figure out what exactly was going on. She wrote:
Went to a shitty bar with the VA guys
Saw C*l*st* on The Bar TV
Met two random girls—also turning 22
Left the bar/ditched VA guys
Saved the one girl’s phone from falling (?)
This she punctuated with a huge, dark question mark.
went to the club and everything was normal
Bad hangover, cinnamon raisin bagel
Annoying fan
Tried to do the phone thing again—didn’t work
Heard doorman talking about selling me out to TMZ??
but in his head???
in MY head?????
Delali laughed out loud at her attempt to make sense of the events. The list was ridiculous. Did she think she was a mind reader now? She struck through the page with a large X and ripped it from the notebook, and just as she did, her doorbell rang. Delali jumped. Who would Stavros have let up without calling her first? She crept to the door slowly and looked through the peephole, half worried she might find Harvey Levin standing on the other side. She let out a relieved sigh—duh. It was just Lionel.
Delali unlocked the door and Lionel breezed in, tossing his LV-monogrammed duffle bag onto the marble kitchen island and letting out the world’s most theatrical sigh. “I am so, so, sooo sorry!” Then he paused and examined Delali’s face. “What’s wrong with you?”
Delali closed her mouth and blinked. She turned to lock the door, brushed the lingering granules of sugar off her lips, and crumpled up the list, which was still in her left hand. “Your shoes,” she bluffed. “When have I ever allowed shoes in my home? Act like you’ve been here before.”
“Lord, you are still so anal,” Lionel said.
“This isn’t Los Angeles, Lionel. Those shoes have seen things.”
“And so have I! I was at LAX for sixteen hours. That’s sixteen hours longer than I would’ve been if you hadn’t convinced me flying private is unethical,” Lionel said as he slipped off his Chelsea boots. “Which I’m still not sure about . . . I’m gonna need a shower before your birthday dinner. Can’t have your school friends thinking I’m musty on our first meeting. Especially my nemesis, Safiya. Anyway, I come bearing gifts.” He brandished a bottle of wine and a small box of bakery cupcakes.
Suddenly beside herself, Delali smothered Lionel in a hug. She’d missed his monologuing and incorrigible LA-ness. Lionel pushed her off.
“Uh-uh! I don’t want you to think I’m musty either!”
“God, you’re stupid,” Delali said, which sent them both into peals of laughter.
Delali tossed her crumpled list into the recycling while Lionel took off his coat, then grabbed a cupcake out of the box. It dawned on her then that she was being ridiculous about everything that had happened over the weekend. She’d probably been hearing her own thoughts in the lobby earlier that day (after all, she’d always had her suspicions about Stavros’s whole senile-but-sweet act). It was so like her to get obsessive and weird about every little unplanned event in her life. The bottom line was that she had barely slept last night, had gotten twenty-first-birthday drunk, and was still entertaining the small existential crisis that had been plaguing her since the first day of senior year. She was simply not in good shape. All Delali needed to feel better were some electrolytes, at least two cupcakes, and a proper birthday dinner with her best friends.
* * *
The next morning, Lionel and Delali left her apartment together, him heading for his hotel and her making the tragic march to the exam room. By the time she finished the test, Delali finally felt like she was returning to normal. Having dinner with her friends had made her feel better, and she was pretty sure she’d aced her test. Delali dropped her backpack on the floor when she reentered her apartment, then collapsed on the sofa, feeling the special sense of relief that could only come from finishing a big test. She reached for the remote on her coffee table, but was distracted by something sitting atop her pile of books and magazines.
It was a thick stack of paper, held together by a rose gold butterfly clip—Lionel’s signature. The cover read: Sit Awhile: the Lorraine Hansberry Story. It was the script Lionel had mailed her all those months ago. Annoying, she thought. If Lionel wanted her to read the script, leaving copies in her house was not the way to do it. But Delali’s annoyance turned to confusion, then fear, as she started flipping through the pages. There, in the margins of the script she’d never read, were the problem sets and notes she’d scribbled on her copy months ago—but how? She’d watched the script enter her building’s garbage chute with her own eyes. But there it was, her handwriting, her sloppy equations. Delali was staring, hands shaking, at the script, when a card fell into her lap, a white three-by-five sheet of thick cardstock that whistled through the air and landed jauntily on her thighs. She stared at the blank card for what felt like a lifetime before mustering the courage to touch it. Though it looked like paper, the card felt impossibly soft and almost fluid, like cream. At first it was blank, then whirling purple script began to crawl across the front, forming words, which erased themselves as Delali read.
To the Recipient at Coordinate 40.6975,-73.9966
This is an initial letter of sanction regarding your recent magical behavior. We are instructing you to please cease your conspicuous acts of magic immediately.
Should you continue to practice magic in a manner that is inconsistent with the objectives of the Sphere, you will receive further sanctions.
In the instance that you receive five sanctions, you will be located and transported to 33,26 to discuss your behavior with the Council. You will be afforded the option of attending with your mentor, instructor, or closest elder if you so choose.
With the utmost love and affection,
The Council