Delali had her hand on the faded wood door that led to the foyer of the math building, her eyes focused on the handle. She had gotten her metric to change color for the first time last night, when she managed to sharpen her pencil so she could annotate her lesson book. She’d checked the metric right there in the yellow chandelier light of the university library, amazed by how the once-clear orb now held the faintest degree of purple, a light shimmer overlaying it all. Now she was a woman possessed, looking for opportunities to fill her metric wherever she could. She was sure she could open the door with enough effort.
“Excuse me,” Delali heard from behind her.
Delali jumped and turned. Then she realized it was someone she knew.
“Oh, hey D,” Tanner said, pushing the door open. “What the fuck were you doing just standing there?”
A flood of students emerged from the halls, and Delali reluctantly followed Tanner out.
“I don’t know,” Delali said, feigning laughter. “Just, you know, zoning out, I guess.”
Tanner made a skeptical face, then shrugged. “Hey, I was thinking we should—”
“Shit,” Delali said. She was looking at the big clock that stood at the center of campus. It was almost seven, and she was in danger of being late to Adrien’s play and spurring a thousand and one “Late Diva Delali” articles. “Sorry,” she said, already turning. “I’m so late for this stupid play.”
Delali made her way to the edge of campus. Knowing she’d probably be photographed, she’d put a leather jacket over her sweatshirt and replaced her usual sneakers with block-heeled boots, which made running over cobblestones and dodging students that much harder. For a second, as she squeezed between a fountain and a tour group, she wondered if there was something witchy she could do to get to the theater. But she didn’t need the lesson book to tell her that attempting to transport this early in her training would be a disaster. She took the subway, and when she emerged in Chinatown, her phone buzzed to life.
Lionel
Delali
Lionel
Delali
Lionel
Lionel
Perfect, Delali thought, rolling her eyes as she approached the theater. There was still a line of people out the door, and a sign outside the tiny theater read, in neatly arranged marquee letters, “Friday Nights and Civil Rights.” Delali had tried to keep away from all the reviews, half because she was still doing her Hollywood detox and half because she wasn’t yet immune to seeing pictures of her ex splashed all over the internet. She’d started to lose faith when she saw the play was produced by Jonathan Manning, the edgelord hedge fund heir who entered the arts as an elaborate rebellion against his dad—a person Adrien apparently thought was “brilliant.” The marquee wasn’t exactly reassuring. She hurried to the entrance before anyone could notice her.
Delali settled in the front row and thumbed through the playbill. The inside cover listed “Adrien” in the starring role of Reggie Wallis, and Delali almost judged the theater for the mistake before remembering that Adrien had in fact dropped his last name, Carter, professionally, and changed the second a in his name to an e. The theater was exactly as cramped as it looked from the outside, and it was full of artsy-looking white people of every variety. Some were older, wearing floor-length patterned shawls, blown-glass jewelry, and colorful glasses hanging from beaded chains. Others, seated near Johnathan, were young, malnourished, and shabbily dressed. She would not forgive Lionel for this.
The lights dimmed, and when the curtains drew back, Adrien stood center stage under a single spotlight, dressed in a sixties football uniform. In the middle of his chest, against the kelly green fabric, was a white zero outlined in yellow. The uniform was dirtied with mud and grass.
Over the next hour or so, Reggie ran away from foster care, slept under the bleachers at a local high school, and was found and taken in by Scotty Wilkins, a white kid whose dad was the school’s football coach. He tasted pasta for the first time, learned of his supernatural football ability, and became the star player of the team (though Scotty, inexplicably, remained captain). Delali started to doze off at the beginning of Act III, when the Gators (known lovingly by the town as the Greenbacks) were practicing for the Big Game against the Evil Rival Team, which had eleven white players to the Gators’ progressive ten. She finally fell asleep after Reggie’s birth parents showed up at practice to ask if he knew the whole town had been looking for him ever since he failed to show up for pickup at Interlochen arts camp last summer, which caused a huge scene with Coach Wilkins on the sidelines.
But when the Gators won the Big Game by a single point, causing Mayor Gregory to repeal Jim Crow and snatch Reggie right from under the nose of Coach Wilkins and adopt him, the applause and loud weeping from the crowd jolted Delali awake. She sat up and looked around at the tear-stained faces of the audience, just in time to hear Mayor Gregory declare that Munrow, Texas, had gone “from sundown town to touchdown town.” Delali touched her hands together lightly—what the fuck? Had something seriously amazing happened in the half hour that she was knocked out, or had people actually enjoyed the play?
Backstage, Delali waited in Adrien’s dressing room while he did press in the hallway, answering every banal question with a diligence Delali had never been able to muster. She took full advantage of the retro vanity mirror, reapplying her Fenty lip stain and dabbing foundation on the spot where she’d rested her hand while napping. Out in the hallway, she could hear Adrien laughing in the fake-charming, totally self-obsessed way he always did when he received praise.
“So, Adrien, it’s obvious that this play is really, really impactful. I was in the audience today and, as they say, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
Delali guessed hers didn’t count.
“Can you tell me why it was so important for you to make this play? Not only to act in it, but to direct?”
“Well, for me I just think it’s paramount to be tackling subjects of this nature in this moment. Race in America, it’s complicated, and it’s still here. And I feel like these days people really let race tear us apart, you know, sunder us. This play is about lifting up. It’s about bringing together. It’s about unity. We wanted to highlight the fact that there are ways to overcome race. And so when Johnathan Manning approached me with this concept—with the incredible story of Reggie Wallis—I was blown away. I thought to myself, ‘This is the role of a lifetime.’ I’d never seen a work that so boldly explored the transformative power of sports and adoption in regard to the subject of Caucasian and African American relations within this country. Parts like this don’t show up on my doorstep every day. So I had to take it.” Delali started looking for an exit, but Adrien was standing in front of the only one, and to her dismay, he continued.
“Certainly, I’m aware of all the pushback, you know, people who have these preconceived notions of how certain characters of certain demographics should be portrayed. But something Manning and I have really bonded over, is our view that when these voices that have become so . . . prescriptive about art, so ideologically hegemonized, when voices of that nature are rankled by what you’re doing, you know you’re doing something right. Good art should make you really mad. In the end, the road to equality is long and labyrinthine, but this play is certainly going to move things along. And you know, that’s the whole point of this pursuit for me—the pursuit of acting and, ultimately, of art.”
Delali snapped her head around and stared at Adrien through the doorway, again wondering how the fuck she’d ever dated him. He hadn’t always been this way. When he was introduced in the third season of Georgia on My Mind as Tony, the cute next-door neighbor, fourteen-year-old Delali had taken great pains to make it clear she was just acting in all their romantic scenes. When Georgia had to kiss Tony in episode 3x04, after she pushes him out of a tree and he lands so hard they think he’s going to die before she can profess her love, Delali counted to three Mississippi in her head, then spit in the plastic-y turf where they’d filmed once she’d pulled away. She’d worried that if she kissed him longer than that she might fall in love with him for real.
But Adrien turned out to be a cute and funny person, and he was soon one of Delali’s only real friends. They dated for two years and made hundreds of paparazzi-documented memories together as DelAdrian, the most talked-about couple in young Hollywood. They were pretty much each other’s first everything. But when Georgia wrapped and it was time to transition into their adult careers, Adrien abruptly changed everything that had once been cool about him. Almost overnight, he began turning regular dinner conversations into rambling dissections of man’s relationship to nature, generously interpreting Tarantino movies, and not listening to contemporary rap (save for Kendrick and Cole). He let his contact prescription expire and started taking his coffee black. He no longer made jokes about his parents dragging him straight from his hospital crib to a Gerber audition. Instead, he started describing acting as his “calling,” the only thing that helped him make sense of the world and “. . . quell [his] insatiable hunger to understand” (Variety, Actors on Actors, 2017). Alongside this, he developed a totally incoherent slate of philosophical and religious beliefs. The only good thing that had come out of his transformation was the arsenal of long-sleeved black shirts he’d started collecting—mock necks, henleys, waffle crewnecks—all of which, inexplicably, made Delali weak. But the sex couldn’t keep them together, and they broke up just one month after Delali decided to go to college, a decision Adrien called pretentious.
“All right, that’s the last question I’ll be able to take today. Thank you all so much.” Adrien clasped his hands together and bowed. Delali was momentarily surprised by this announcement; she’d forgotten he’d fired all his handlers so he could be “closer to the people.”
When they were a block away from Polo Bar, Delali hopped out of Adrien’s black SUV, opting to walk through the secret entrance. She’d expected Adrien to fight her on her restaurant choice and recommend some other, more “authentic” place, but then again, if there was one thing Adrien loved, it was a restaurant where paps guarded the door. During their whirlwind It Couple days, he was the one who kept all the paparazzi calling cards. Delali chose a secluded table in the back of the restaurant and watched as Adrien entered through the front, tailed by a cloud of camera flashes. She waited while he chatted to the doorwoman, whose fro bounced as she threw her head back, laughing at one of Adrien’s jokes.
“Nelly’s just the best,” he said as he finally approached the table. Then he flashed his million-dollar industry smile at Delali. They hadn’t spoken much in the car since Adrien had used the ride to take more press calls: he was trying to “vary” his media, doing interviews with small online publications and podcasts with indie cache and Delali had sat up front so she could quietly catch up with Isaac, Adrien’s longtime driver. But every now and then she caught his eye in the rearview mirror and felt . . . something.
Delali rolled her eyes. “Split the oysters? Then the dover sole, fries, Caesar salad, and strip steak cooked medium?”
“Always,” Adrien said with a grin. “And champagne to celebrate?”
“Your own performance?”
“No,” he said. “Two old friends getting together.”
Delali let the wording slide and ordered a bottle when the waitress came around.
“So, how’d you like the experience?” Adrien asked, folding up the sleeves of his black corduroy button-down. “Isn’t that theater incredible? Such an intimate space.”
“In a sense.” Delali was more interested in giving feedback on the insane play he’d just starred in, but he looked so sweetly proud of himself that she decided to drop it. “Let’s talk about something else. I’m sure you’re so tired of talking about . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the title out loud. “The play all the time.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
The waitress came with their food, and Adrien leaned in and plucked the oyster Delali was reaching for right from between her fingers.
“Hey!” She laughed, then caught herself and rolled her eyes again. She threw back an oyster before flipping a mass of braids over her left shoulder. “You’re paying,” she said gruffly, as punishment.
Adrien pulled one corner of his mouth into a sly smile then took a sip of water. “Have you seen Cha Cha Cha? Incredible film. Really, really, powerful stuff. Definitely didn’t see that in Celeste’s future.”
Delali tensed. She sat back, grabbed her champagne flute by the stem, and took an unrefined swig. She hadn’t told anyone except her parents, Safiya, and Lionel about turning down the role. The fact that Adrien had brought the film up without this knowledge made it even more upsetting. “Cha-cha slide? Is that the name of a movie? Haven’t heard of it.”
Adrien raised his eyebrows. “Wow, I guess you’re taking your industry detox pretty seriously.”
“Did you think I wasn’t?” Delali tried to keep the edge out of her voice.
“No, no—I did. I guess part of me just thought you were plotting to come back, you know, take the crown. At least, that’s the Dela I know.”
Delali took a bite of sole. “I told you I was actually interested in going to school—I don’t know why it’s so hard for everyone to understand that I have a range of talents and interests. Anyway, if I did want to take my crown back, it wouldn’t be with some flaccid, corny ‘auditory adventure’—a.k.a. a musical.”
“I thought you said you hadn’t heard of it?”
“I said I hadn’t seen it.”
Adrien laughed again. “Okay. Well, tell me what you’ve been up to. I know I gave you a lot of shit about going to school, but how’s it been? I haven’t seen you since . . .”
Delali swatted away the memory of the relationship-ending fight they’d had inside the photo booth at the Vanity Fair Oscar party four years ago now. She still shuddered to think of the pictures posted up on gossipy blogs all over the internet, since none of the real magazines had dared to buy them.
“It’s been good. I’ve just been . . . working really hard, you know. Studying. I have the best friends. I’m working on this thesis about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and I’m up for a big award in the spring.”
“Cool, cool,” Adrien responded, but it wasn’t totally convincing, and Delali couldn’t blame him for being uninterested. She couldn’t believe how lame her life had sounded just now, and it made her question whether she’d really enjoyed the past three years or had just done a really good job convincing herself. Maybe he’d sit up straight if she added, “Oh yeah, and I might be a witch. And I’m spending every Sunday of the foreseeable future in the luxury prewar apartment of a refined witch with a blond Afro. And actually, I should be looking for opportunities to practice my powers right now but between the pasta scene and the sexually charged car ride over here I got distracted.” Delali must’ve frowned, because Adrien leaned over and touched her hand.
“Hey, hey,” he said, closing his fingers around hers. “I mean, listen, do I loathe institutions like the one you’re attending and the kind of pseudo-intellectual cookie-cutter, neoliberal rhetoric they use to indoctrinate their students instead of letting them develop into truly original freethinkers? Of course. But, honestly, Dela, you’re one of the smartest, most talented, most beautiful people I know, so you leaving Hollywood felt like the sky having one less star, you know? I mean it. And you’re also destined for greatness no matter what you do, even if that means becoming a superstar professor.”
Truthfully, Delali found this annoying and deeply condescending. But looking into Adrien’s lucid brown eyes while he delivered his meaningless speech had distracted Delali to a point she didn’t know she could return from. Despite his post-Georgia Man of the Theatre transformation, Adrien’s physical allure was undeniable. The way his eyes glinted in the mood lighting of Polo Bar, the way his hair was neatly edged up from the scene where his adoptive mom learns about Black culture, the way his collarbone peeked out from the unbuttoned top of his shirt—ugh. Delali faced the real reason she’d come here tonight: she wanted to sleep with Adrien. But she refused to make the first move. Nothing—nothing—could be more demeaning than being rejected by someone who had just unironically sung a song titled “Steal Away (To the Endzone)” in front of hundreds of real, live, listening-and-learning people, and she wasn’t sure she could take that chance. But there was a way to know exactly how Adrien was feeling.
Delali grasped Adrien’s hand just a bit tighter, then lifted her eyes to meet his. Remembering Alba’s instructions, she tried to clarify her intentions, which were simple: to have satisfying ex sex but maintain some semblance of the upper hand. As she did this, her mind went blank, then suddenly flooded with static. When the static broke, she saw an utterly random procession of images, bathed in a red and blue that reminded her of 3D glasses from her childhood. The strange pictures—a scene from Toy Story, then the lens of a camera, then an unopened bag of pretzels, then a microphone, and on and on—jaunted through her head for a moment before their color cleared to normal. These were not her own thoughts, Delali realized, they were Adrien’s. For the first time, Delali’s mind was filling with images instead of words, all of them from Adrien’s mind.
The images became less random, slowly developing coherence until Delali could finally decipher them. She saw snapshots of herself and Adrien over the past seven years, from the first time they’d slept together to the last—high-definition reels of their bodies interlocking, sometimes urgently and other times luxuriantly, their foreheads beaded with sweat. She had to admit, she was surprised by some of the hookups he chose to return to. Helpful insight. She was also surprised by the extremely graceful, otherworldly version of herself that Adrien saw in his head—seemingly 4-D, prettier than seemed possible, and totally captivating. Woah. Delali, suddenly flustered, ejected herself from Adrien’s brain and looked around the restaurant.
“Dela?” Adrien asked. “You okay?”
Delali nodded minutely, indulging Adrien with a long, searching look. Armed with her new knowledge, she thought fuck it, lifted her lavender-manicured hand, and called for the check.
* * *
The next morning Delali woke up to the feeling of white sunlight against her eyelids, jolting awake when she realized she wasn’t in her own home. She sat up in the empty bed, wrapping herself in its crisp beige sheets and looking around the bedroom. It took her a second, but between the stark monochromatic décor and shearling meditation cushion sitting in the corner of the room, she remembered she was in Adrien’s rental. She wasn’t sure how a loft on Broome got him closer to Reggie, but she wasn’t about to suggest an alternative. Delali was feeling around for her phone when she heard a quiet whistling noise. A card appeared on the bedside table.
Her heart thudding, Delali reached over to touch the card, revealing its text.
To the Recipient at Coordinate 40.7616, -73.9744
This is a second 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
Sanction number two. Shit. On one hand, reading someone’s mind in full view of the paparazzi seemed like the dictionary definition of conspicuous, but on the other, it wasn’t like anyone could see what she was doing. Her leather backpack was resting against the bedside table, and she stuffed the card inside, then fished around to pull out her metric. It had changed overnight—confirmation that she’d used her powers as intended—still lilac, but deeper, richer. She could actually feel the metric when she held it now, though it couldn’t be any heavier than a couple of grains of rice. Adrien appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe in a pair of black Clarke Stein boxer briefs.
“What’s that?” Adrien asked, his mouth full. He was spooning a green smoothie out of a scooped-out cantaloupe and into his mouth.
Delali dropped the metric into her bag. “A meditation . . . orb,” she flubbed. “I was just sending a picture to my reiki master.”
“Nice,” Adrien said. “I really need to buy a new one of those.”
Delali
Delali
Maya
Maya
Gabbie
Gabbie
Maya
Maya
Maya
Delali
Maya
Maya
Delali
Maya
Gabbie
Maya
Gabbie