“Stop squirming!” Safiya barked in Delali’s ear, which only made everyone laugh harder. Delali gave up, lying still on the carpet as Safiya dragged a few more strokes of her tiny paint brush across Delali’s cheek. “There,” she said. “Finished.”
Delali got up to go to the mirror, stepping over Melina, who was painting her nails purple and green, the university’s colors. Melina held her hand over the polish bottle to make sure Delali didn’t knock it over.
“Didn’t you used to have a coffee table in here?” Melina yelled, barely audible over the sound of Drake blasting through the speakers. “What happened to your coffee table?”
Delali and her school friends were in her apartment living room, where they were having a “mature,” laid-back senior pregame before homecoming. For the past three years, Delali had joined her friends at sloppy morning events on-campus, then slipped away before the actual game, scared of being photographed while drunk. She’d vowed to go to the game this year, but the upcoming meeting with Alba made it impossible. After a full six days of begging, she and Gabbie had finally convinced Maya to go, and the meeting was basically all Delali had thought about that week. She’d completed every assignment and reading she could think of so that her afternoon was clear. She’d read and reread the sanction letter and looked up Alba’s address on maps. She stopped just short of setting out her clothes like it was the first day of school. Then she’d pulled out her acting chops to convince Safiya, Ruby, and Melina that she had an unmissable, career-defining meeting with Lionel that afternoon. Safiya, the only person who knew how ambivalent Delali was about acting, had seemed suspicious, but let it go.
“I’m getting a new one,” Delali lied absently, examining her cheek, where Safiya had painted the school letters in washable paint. In truth, while she was clearing off her coffee table that morning, it had disappeared in front of her eyes, her magazines and books reappearing neatly on her shelf. Including another copy of the trashed script. She’d noticed this weird pattern with her magic—she’d intend to do one thing, and her magic would go into overdrive, completely misinterpreting her and doing something else completely. Yet another reason she couldn’t miss today’s meeting with Alba.
“What do you think?” Safiya asked, paintbrush aloft. She smiled sweetly.
“It’s perfect,” Delali said, rolling her eyes.
“That’s what you get,” Ruby called from her position on Delali’s leather sofa. She took a sip of her Corona as she scrolled through her phone. “I can’t believe you’ve managed to squirm out of homecoming for a fourth time.”
“I’m sorry,” Delali said, making her way back to the couch. “I swear I really wanted to go. I even bought tickets!”
“That’s true,” Melina vouched, fanning her hands to dry them. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Safiya reassured Delali, plugging her blow dryer into the kitchen island. “I don’t think we’ve ever even won a game.”
“That’s true. I’ve always said, maybe the real homecoming game is the pregames we made along the way,” Ruby quipped.
“Could you forward me your ticket?” Safiya called to Delali from the kitchen, where she was bent over, diffusing a section of her hair. “I think I could convince Lionel to come.”
“Oh my god,” Delali said. “If you manage to pull that off, please send pictures.”
Safiya had been Delali’s best friend since freshman year, when they’d been partnered for an extra credit assignment for their required West Meets West: Western Civilizations on the History of Western Civilizations class. For years, Safiya and Lionel had had a fake beef that resulted in Delali having to use the terms “school best friend” and “childhood best friend” whenever she discussed them. Until last Saturday, that is, when they’d finally met and hit it off at her birthday dinner. Delali couldn’t imagine bougie Lionel at a college football game, but she’d love to see it. Delali leaned on the counter next to Safiya, opening the email app on her phone to find the ticket.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Safiya shrieked over Delali’s shoulder. She grabbed the phone before Delali could answer.
“Saf,” Delali warned, but it was too late, Safiya was already running drunkenly around the open-plan living room with her phone.
“An email from Adrien?” Melina gasped. Ruby looked up from her phone. “Can I read it? Please please please?”
Delali sighed. “Fine.” After all, Ruby, Melina, and Safiya had been eyewitnesses to her whirlwind freshman year, when her post-Adrien rebound game reached truly concerning heights.
Safiya stood on an ottoman and read aloud the email Delali had been ignoring for days.
Hey stranger.
It’s been a long time. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but I’m in the city for a new play, produced by the brilliant John Manning and directed by yours truly. Our initial run is six months, so I’ll be in SoHo until the spring, holed up in my rental and trying to do my best to honor this character. It would be impossible to be in this city and not think of you, of us.
Anyway, it would mean more than I can even express if you came by and saw it, if you’re still around. It’s a big moment for my career. We open this weekend, and as I’m sure you know Lionel is in the city and will be coming to the show. I hope you’ll join him. There will always be a spot in my theatre for you.
—Adrian (but only to you)
“Awwwww,” Safiya and Melina crooned.
Delali buried her face in her hands in an attempt to absorb a full-body cringe. How had she ever loved someone so . . . simple?
“He’s so embarrassing,” she said.
“Embarrassing? But that was so cute,” Melina said. She would say that.
Delali looked to Ruby, a literature major and her most pretentious friend, for support. “A positive discourse on intellect-gap relationships is long overdue,” Ruby offered.
“So what if he’s kind of cringe?” Safiya asked. “You need to maintain important relationships from all stages of your life, especially when the stages are as disparate as yours.” Safiya was both a philosophy major and a crystal-wielding horoscope girl, a combination that sometimes produced truly staggering wisdom.
“Maybe,” Delali said. She poured herself a warm Bellini from the pitcher Melina had brought with her and drank.
“Wait, you already drafted something?” Safiya asked, still on her podium.
“No?” Delali said. She’d considered it, but didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t see the harm in catching up with someone who had once been such a huge part of her life—it was the play itself that she was avoiding. Plus she’d been so focused on her quantum metrology reading, pleading with Maya over text, and stalking Alba on Google street view.
“And you sent it?” Safiya continued.
“No?” Delali asked and stood, panicked.
“Oops,” Safiya said, impishly cocking her head to the side.
Delali rolled her eyes and grabbed the phone. She should’ve seen that coming. Safiya followed a strict “send the damn text” policy, and this wouldn’t be her first time hijacking Delali’s phone. She looked through her outbox.
Sure—I’ll be at the Monday showing.
Delali
“If you weren’t drunk, I’d murder you,” she said to Safiya. At least Lionel was in town—there was no way in hell she was going to Adrien’s play alone.
Safiya, Ruby, and Melina left at twelve to catch the shuttle, and as soon as they did, Delali realized that she’d left too much time between the pregame and Alba’s. They didn’t have to be there until three, and the next three hours yawned menacingly ahead of her. Delali tried to kill time by cleaning up after her friends (being careful not to seem too eager to clean, lest another piece of furniture disappeared). She showered then reorganized her closet. She looked up the names and bios of former Pythagoras winners. After impulse-buying several celebrity memoirs (her guilty pleasure), Delali checked the time again. Close enough.
Delali
Delali
She perused her closet while she waited for the others to respond. After pulling on and taking off two sweatshirt and jean combos, she decided on a pair of tan cargo pants and a screen-printed TLC hoodie left over from the H&M capsule collection she’d “designed” a few years ago.
Gabbie
Delali felt a secret rush of affection for Gabbie—dependable Gabbie, who responded to every message as soon as she read it and spared no energy thinking about whether she should double-text. She was annoyed by Maya’s lack of response, although she’d anticipated it.
Maya’s surprise—disgust?—at Alba’s witch drop was as predictable as everything else about her, from her Brazilian body wave to her amethyst and aquamarine FKA pinky ring, but it was particularly irksome considering it was Maya’s carelessness with her phone that had dragged these powers out from wherever they’d lain dormant all these years. And Gabbie had made a good point: it was obvious that whatever happened next would have to happen to all three of them.
Another thought crossed Delali’s mind. What if Maya just decided not to show up? She’d been so reluctant all week, and around 4:00 a.m., she’d sent both Delali and Gabbie a drunk Snapchat from the bathroom of Paul’s Casablanca, one of those Chelsea clubs she loved so much, with the caption “remind you of anywhere?????” What if she wasn’t even awake? The mental image of Maya in a deep, drunken slumber, her stupid-ass Blair Waldorf sleep mask askew, spurred Delali to action.
Delali never called anyone other than her parents, but she found herself hitting Gabbie’s name in her contacts as she pulled on her blue and white Nike Dunks and closed her apartment door behind her.
“Hey,” Gabbie answered, sounding surprised. “Everything okay? Did you get another letter?”
“I have a feeling that Maya’s gonna flake,” Delali said. She held the elevator door open with her foot as she spoke, examining herself in the hall mirror.
“Oh,” Gabbie said. “I can see why you would think that.”
“Are you down to meet me at her apartment and make sure she’s up?” Delali bit her lip as she waited for Gabbie’s reply. She knew she sounded a little desperate, but she also knew, somehow, that she needed Alba more than the others. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Alba’s was the very first mind she’d read kind of on purpose, just like it couldn’t be a coincidence that she, Gabbie, and Maya all had the same birthday, or that they had all stumbled into the bathroom at The Bar at the same time that night.
“Um,” Gabbie said, and Delali cut her off.
“I’ll get your car,” she said. Gabbie loved to say she “supported the mission of public transportation,” but it was clear to Delali that she hated making the hour-plus subway ride required to get from Washington Heights to anywhere she wanted to go.
“Oh, that wouldn’t be too much, would it?” Gabbie asked, with all the sincerity of a girl offering to pay on a first date.
“It’s fine,” Delali said, and she hung up, pressing the L for lobby.
Gabbie hadn’t even gotten out of her car before Delali stood from the stoop of Maya’s building and pressed the buzzer. The long, low buzz filled the air as Gabbie approached.
“Hey, thanks,” Gabbie said as she joined Delali in front of the door. Delali didn’t respond, but Gabbie hadn’t really expected her to. Ever since her conversation with Alba at the park, Delali had become obsessed with the meeting—she basically spoke about nothing else. It reminded Gabbie of how she’d been when she first learned she could put her glue gun sticks in the freezer to keep them from getting stringy and weird. She wasn’t as excited as Delali, but she saw no harm in the meeting, and hoped that maybe, finally, it would get all three of them on the same page. And, Gabbie thought as her phone vibrated in the back pocket of her skinny jeans, maybe it would distract her from the fact that she’d accidentally missed Dan’s call while on the train home from school yesterday and he’d been impossible to get a hold of since. “That’s so cute by the way.”
“Hm?” Delali asked. She hit the buzzer again.
“Your hair, I like what you did to it.”
“Oh,” Delali responded. She’d pulled her box braids into one long braid. “Thanks, Gabbie.”
Inside, Maya burrowed further under her covers, closing her eyes against the bleating of the buzzer while she waited for one of her roommates to open the door. Elise was at a café studying for the GRE, but Denise had no excuse. “Denise?” Maya called from her bed. “Are you gonna get that?” she yelled. “Duh-neese?” When no response came, Maya threw off her covers with a grumble and dragged her slippered feet to the door, remembering the Great Value Odell Beckham Jr. Denise had left the club with last night.
“Who is it?” Maya demanded, getting ready to tear into the delivery guy.
“It’s Delali,” came a voice through the speaker.
A breezier, “and Gabbie!” followed.
Fuck. Maya looked down at her silk La Perla pajama pants, running her hand over the tangled ponytail she’d managed to loop her hair into before passing out last night. She’d totally forgotten about the meeting with that weird lady Delali was obsessed with. Forgetting the witch stuff wasn’t exactly her goal when she corralled a group to go out last night, but it was a nice benefit. Weekends were already too short—did she really want to waste her Sunday digging deeper into this weird witch situation? Maya toyed with the idea of ignoring them and going back to sleep, but then Delali, Maya was sure of it, hit the buzzer again. “Ugh, fine,” Maya murmured, pressing the button to let them in. She leaned her throbbing head against the doorframe as she waited for them to make their way up, and when they rang bell minutes later, it ricocheted violently against the inside of her skull.
“I cannot believe that y’all actually came to my apartment,” Maya said as she opened the door.
Delali eyed Maya’s bedraggled appearance. “And just in time. I knew you would try to flake on us.”
Maya was momentarily stunned into silence by Gabbie’s horrific outfit: another peacoat, this time plaid and cropped, a cheap fuzzy turtleneck sweater, and skintight gray skinny jeans, worn over a pair of ashy tan booties. But Delali’s attitude snapped her out of it.
“Flake?” Maya said, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t planning to flake.”
“Right,” Delali replied. She stepped into the apartment, and Gabbie followed behind her. “Looks like you were right on track to get to Alba’s by three.”
Maya sneered. “Well, would you blame me for not being sooo excited to hang out with—”
“Oh my goodness you two, stop,” Gabbie said. She put a hand on each girl’s shoulder, and suddenly the world went mute. She felt a drop in her stomach, like she was descending from a rollercoaster’s peak or walking into a job interview. She could see Delali and Maya, but she couldn’t move or speak to them; despite being inches away, they were totally unreachable. The world went disjointed and gray, then black.