26 Silver

When Delilah was by herself, odds were pretty high that a man would say something dumb like "hello beautiful" or "how are you doing gorgeous" as they passed each other. She didn't mind, exactly, but she didn't really understand the point of it. Why bother saying something to her in those bare seconds as they passed? It didn't accomplish anything. Where did they expect it to go?

And the worst part was having to figure out what to say in response. For some reason they always said it at the worst, most awkward moment, so that if she wanted to respond she would have to turn around completely because by the time he finished saying it she was already behind him, but if she didn't respond they weren't far enough away that it didn't look rude.

She usually didn't respond.

The level of masculine friendliness went down a bit if she was with, for example, Whitney, or another girl. But with Adam, men did not look at her at all. Adam was scary and mean, so maybe they were justified, but he didn't care who looked at him or how. Adam spent as much time in the bathroom as she did, which was really pretty impressive. Delilah had never seen Adam get a smart comment like "hey, the circus is in town" even when he was in full spiked and hairsprayed regalia (maybe because his Cuban-heeled Jeffery-West Beatle boots had ridiculous but ominous skull buttons, or because they brought him to a ridiculous but ominous six and a half feet tall).

After he blighted the lives of two teenage boys asking for a picture with her by informing them of their recent nuptials, Delilah began to wonder how long it would be before there were pictures of her exhaling wrong with big probing arrows pointed at her stomach accompanied by question marks and the gaping primal cries of "BABY BUMP?" "BABY BUMP?" "BABY BUMP?"

She also wondered how long it would be before people would stop smiling condescendingly and saying, "You'll change your mind when you're older." Nobody ever said things like that to Adam. Was that just because he was a man?

After one very long day involving her appearance at a garden party followed by a boringly official meeting followed by showing at a Lance Siegfried match followed by arriving late to the League President's birthday party followed by being seen by the Right People at an art show followed by a prompt loss of consciousness, she woke up to the comfortable and slightly nostalgic feeling of being indoors while rain fell outside.

Adam read out loud to her from a tabloid, looking sort of Barbara-Stanwyck-y in his dressing gown and having toast and Dom Pérignon:

There's a price tag on his kisses—was trouble ever so cheap?

Word has it that dishy Pokémon Champ Delilah Peerenboom, 19, has managed to tame pure-as-the-driven-slush Adam Harlow, 22, alleged criminal royalty and the proverbial "good time" that was had by all...

At this point Delilah said, "Ouch!" and started to laugh.

"It must be nice to be married to someone as wonderful as I am," he said.

"It's okay."

"I'm not sure about your taming me," he said. "Maybe I made you wild?"

She said in a Barry White voice, "Boy, you don't know how wild you make me..."

He laughed. "You know, Delilah, you make me think maybe I'm not crazy after all..."

People had occasionally asked Delilah in a confidential stage whisper if she wasn't worried that Adam would cheat on her. She found herself largely unbothered by the prospect. As long as he didn't get Chlamydia or anything it wasn't really any of her business. What bothered her was that nobody seemed even to consider it a possibility that she might cheat on him.

Adam left early to go wear expensive clothes in front of a camera (but get paid for it) and Delilah, excitingly, lazed around the hotel room, until her Pokégear rang, showing a number it didn't recognize.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Good morning, Delilah, it's your new father-in-law."

"Oh," she said with a feeling like a deflating balloon. "Hi."

Giovanni had only ever been nice to her but suddenly her heart was pounding, possibly because she had no idea where he got the number of her Pokégear. She hadn't spoken to him since marrying into his family; he had attempted more than once to speak to Adam again, but Adam always ended up getting mad and at some point stopped answering if it was him or his mother.

"Um...did you want to talk to Adam?" she asked.

"Oh, please," said Giovanni. "It's much too close to dinner."

It was two o'clock.

"I wondered if you and your husband might join me and his mother for dinner, or cocktails, sometime." He had a weird sarcastic edge to his voice, like a social riddle she couldn't decipher.

"Um, well, okay, thank you," she said. "I mean, he's not with me right now, he's shooting, but I'll tell him when he gets back, and we can figure it out..."

When she told him he took it with unexpected maturity, only breaking one plate, which he told the waiter to charge to his father (eating out with Adam, one could not afford to be shy).

The day they agreed to meet his parents for lunch was another fairly busy one; in the morning she presented an award at a ceremony to Brock Harrison for his contributions to the field, allowed her picture to be taken for a while afterward, and then hurried to change so she and Adam could meet them in time.

Ivy complimented her dress and said, "What a lovely girl you are. What on earth did Adam do to deserve you?"

Delilah laughed, somewhat uncomfortably. "Well, he has his moments," she said (generously).

"Or perhaps the question should be: what on earth did you do to deserve Adam?"

Adam still was not amused by these sorts of remarks, even though his mother was better-natured about them than his father, whom he refused to look directly in the face.

Delilah had expected perhaps some ground rules or warnings or something about Team Rocket, but of course nothing was so simple and Giovanni just gave her significant appraising looks and made weird comments about how many people in the world died because they didn't have money for healthcare or something. Adam said, "Poor, unfortunate souls," devoid of any emotion.

"Aren't you glad you're not poor or unfortunate?" Giovanni asked, with what he probably thought was fatherly tenderness.

"Yes," Adam replied flatly. "I'm just miserable."

So instead of getting clear answers to unasked questions, Delilah just got a couple of hours of delicate eyebrow arching and meaningful glances. She knew these signals were being sent, and she knew she was supposed to be able to read them, which made her feel very dumb because she didn't understand them.

They were both relieved to get back in the car. "GOD, I can't stand them!" said Adam, gripping the steering wheel like he was giving it an Indian burn. "I'm so glad you didn't take him up on all that."

"On all what?" she asked, feeling incompetent.

"All, you know, knowing looks, and sidelong staring. You just ignored it, it was hilarious."

They fell quiet. Adam reached for her hand, stroking it once with his finger. He smiled, a little sad, and it made her feel sad.

Going on a cruise with Adam was quite a different experience from going by herself. Wherever they went on the ship, they always seemed to find somebody he knew, in a restaurant, or poolside, or on the battle court. The first couple of times it happened, Delilah didn't think much of it, but then she realized it was because the ship was full of wealthy people over forty. The two of them were certainly among the youngest on board—probably the youngest people there without parents.

Most of the other travelers seemed put out by all the rain, but Delilah didn't see how they could be upset when there were so many interesting things to see on the ship. Besides all the nice restaurants there was a library, a theatre, a battle court, and absolutely the most first-rate combination eavesdropping/people-watching that Delilah had ever experienced. There was also, of course, her suite, which had a staircase, a balcony, and three toilets for no good reason.

When not attending cocktail parties full of people three times her age, Delilah spent most of her time with the large amount of unanswered fan mail she had brought along. Adam had tennis dates with his fellow jaded wealthy persons, made slushies with Veuve Clicquot, and told baristas to shut up when they lectured him about the environmental hazards of cardboard cup holders. So the only difference, really, was that she didn't have to pay for anything; otherwise it was business as usual, social obligations in the form of autographed publicity stills and champagne hangovers.

The sky was only clear on the first day; when they got back to the room it was very late, and the light of the moon through the green curtains cast everything into opalescence.

"When I was in second grade," she said as he wrestled with her clothes, "my friend asked me, 'Are you going to have sex when you grow up?' And I was like, 'Ew, no!' And she said, 'Me neither. Besides, I doubt men would want to feel squishy women's boobs.'"

He burst out laughing. "Well, I think you know what my favourite part of you is," he said, filling his hands with her breasts, his breath down her neck like something alive.

"Tell me."

"Your brains."

She laughed. "Well, the brain is supposed to be the largest sexual organ...and whatever's in my head can't be very big..."

He kissed her instead of replying. Sometimes it was nice to be married to Adam, mostly when he kissed her.

"You know," she said breathlessly, "your immune system is why you have chemistry with some people."

He laughed. "Yeah, nerdy talk me, all that vulgar nonsense," he said, moving his pelvis back and forth.

"It's the densest area of the genome, the major histocompatibility complex."

"Mmmnh," he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

"In people it's called the human leukocyte antigen," she said, running her hand over his head so his whole body shuddered, his lip twisting reflexively.

There was nobody else like Adam in the whole world. There had been and would be billions upon billions of people in the world and more, but Adam's life would never repeat. Nobody would ever have the same parents and the same name at the same time in the same place.

She watched the smoke fall out of his mouth as the sun bruised the sky gray and gold. "How much do you smoke?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Why?"

She shrugged. He looked at her, and put his arm around her neck.

"I'm a mess," he said against her ear.

"You're a very hot mess," she elaborated for him.

She felt Gauloises smoke skim over the side of her face as he laughed, and then he kissed her.

"I'll get cancer from kissing you," she said, but she let him do it again. Delilah had never much cared for the smell of cigarettes. It smelled dirty, it smelled poor. But she didn't mind it so much, with Adam's chic colognes.

When she woke up in the morning he was ordering grapefruit juice from room service. He hung up the telephone, accidentally knocking it to the floor with a clatter. "Shit," he said, picking it up and replacing it.

It sounded like he either put on or removed an item of clothing, and then seemed to mill around for several minutes. She woke up again when she felt his weight on the bed, and he picked up the telephone again. He dialed a number, waited, and then hung up, muttering indistinctly.

He picked something up off the floor, and crumpled it up. "Delilah?" he said. "Delilah? Are you—are you going to wake up?"

She rolled over to face him, sighing. "I've been awake, a little while," she said.

He smiled. "I've been mucking about for a while," he said. "By myself."

She wiped sleep out of her eye, and saw that he was holding something. "Is that—oh, it's an envelope."

He handed it to her. It was a fan letter she had left on the floor. "Nice day," he said, looking toward the balcony, where it was storming. "Shall we—is Mr Goodshow coming...?"

"Did we talk to him last night, I can't remember."

"I think it...seems to me I spoke to him—"

"Could call him," she suggested, sitting up.

"Well, he wouldn't be there now," said Adam, watching her put on a robe. "Too early."

"Have you been eating all the time?" she asked, looking at the food he had ordered. "I see all this food. Have you been eating without me?"

"Do you know what I miss about Johto?" he said, looking at the food.

"What?"

"Mexican Cokes. You can get them so easy there."

"Yeah, they are nice."

"A painkiller and a Mexican Coke," he said. "Breakfast of the saints."

The telephone rang, but Adam just looked at it, even though he was sitting about a foot from it. "Do you want to get it?" she prompted him.

It rang again.

"It's a wrong number, if you don't like the person, just say it's a wrong number."

He picked it up. "Hello?" he said. "Yes. Um...who...? Oh, hi! How are you...yes, I do. With Delilah. That was lovely, nobody said a word...you don't like the place? Well, not that time. Every time I go there it gets worse..."

Delilah got up and went into the bathroom. "What's—?"

"That would be lovely...no. No. That would be brilliant..."

"Adam?"

"Umm, not sure. I...imagine I will be there. Oops—there's people trying—um..."

"Adam!"

He mouthed "wait" and then looked surprised and said, "Oh my God...good Lord, that's fantastic...right now...? There, I have to go and shoot some—a few shoots...hmm, I don't know what time would...do you know where you'll be, maybe I could call you. At this—at what number...? Okay. Then...I will. Oh...two hours? Okay. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure of it. I will do. Yeah. It's my room. I'll call him."

As he hung up Delilah asked, "Where is my toothbrush?"

"Oh, I let the maid clean the toilet with it. That was the person from the other night."

"What does he want?"

"He wants to see me."

She found her toothbrush where he had moved it. "What's so great, on Thursday night?"

"On—? Oh! Something about some party. I think I've forgotten it already. I'm going to—the eighteenth—the eighteenth's tomorrow!"

"The eighteenth is tomorrow," she agreed.

"Oh...Monday, then. No..."

"What did he say, did he say, 'I want your picture on my magazine, ciao ciao ciao'?"

"No, no, he...said there was...well, I don't know, honestly, I can't remember! I just spoke to him..." She started to comb her hair and he said, "My dad didn't give me any money this month."

"He's probably trying to get you to talk to him."

"Yeah, I figure." A sigh hit her neck. "What shall I do?"

"Well...you can...you can rob a bank," she suggested. "You can marry somebody rich..."

He went back and sat down, his long white body bending like a ribbon. "Yeah, except most of the people I know...I know a lot of rich people, but they're all gits. You know, they're just...so you can't stand to be around them."

"Well..."

"You know, like, I'd like to kill my grandmother," he said, worryingly tearing a bit off a piece of toast. "Just...do away with her. She's a useless thing." She laughed. "Once while we were staying in Nice with her, my father let her call me a femminuccia but then he yelled at me when I called her a drunken old hag. So I took her ninetales fur coat and turned it inside-out and slept in it naked."

She laughed. "Did she ever find out?"

"I don't think so...but how about this thing tonight...?"

"We could skip the whole thing and just go to the movies," said Delilah, sitting down. "And then we can just go to the dinner any time we want."

"Well, you sort of have to be there."

"I don't remember what it was for, what was the dinner all about?"

"Nothing, really, but you're the guest of honour."

"Oh..."

"Well, it's people like Edward and Corey...do you think that sounds bad?"

"As long as we don't have to talk to them it's all right."

"Well, Edward'll do all the talking."

She opened the letter she had left on the bed. When she laughed, Adam asked her what it said. "You just gird your blue-veined loins, girl," she told him.

Most of Delilah's letters from fans were fairly generic, along the lines of, "Dear Miss Peerenboom, Hi my name is Daniel and I'm a big fan! Can you send me a photo? Here's one of me. By the way I think you looked really sexy on your interview with Professor Oak! (I saw it on television.) Love, Daniel." However, this individual had written her an angry tirade about recent pictures and rumors in which he referred to Adam as a "skinny Vicodin fagitt". "Somebody's got my number," said Adam when she read it to him.

She thought this slur was neutered slightly by the first fact that it misspelled like Ron Weasley's broken wand and by the second fact that Adam had probably slept with more women than most men wished they could.

"I am on the skinny side," he observed, turning sideways in front of his reflection.

"Funny, 'cuz everyone knows you don't take a Vicodin without eating."

"I mean, Vicodin's a precautionary measure," said Adam. "You know, what if I stub my toe later? It's like a contraceptive."

"Well, two out of three, not bad," she said, folding up the letter. "Unless you are gay, but that's none of my business really."

"Do I come off a bit poofy?" he asked, doing a Janice Dickinson in the mirror.

"Well, if you do, it's probably more of an insult to me, considering you slept with me."

"Yeah, but you slept with me right back."

"What was the question again?"

"I'm handsome, not smart."

Maybe Delilah would hold her Champion title for several years, maybe even to her death, or maybe she would lose it at the end of the summer.

Maybe she and Adam would end up having a long and messy divorce when they remembered how much they hated each other, or maybe their careless marriage would last precisely because they didn't care about it.

Maybe she would be stabbed in the neck by a mentally unstable "fan" who waited hours in the rain to buy a VIP ticket to one of her matches and then killed himself.

Maybe she was being closely monitored by Team Rocket, and maybe one day she would care.

In the end, things would only go one way; but in the meantime, you just never know, do you...?

THE END

Hey guys once again I'm sorry this took so long, I don't really have an excuse for my complacency. I have this thing where, once I finish something in my head, I don't feel like actually finishing it "in real life" because hey, I already KNOW how it's going to end, so what's the fun in that? So that's not really fair to you guys. Pretty dumb huh? The smart thing would be to lag updates during the exciting part of the story where people are eager to see what happens next, not during the boring resolution lol ;)

Anyway yeah so that's it, I hope you've enjoyed reading this strange thing. Seriously, I can't even imagine what it must be like to read this. I keep wanting to make some scathing mathematical witticism—you know, something like "The Princess Diaries times Anne Rice equals Twilight"—but the thing is, I can't think of anything similar enough that I could make that sort of comparison. But then, I don't even read very much. So whatevs, I guess I'll have to give up on that.

Anyway...I'll still make a couple more posts at my LJ if you're interested, like I STILL have not written out all the songs the chapters are named for. So I'm definitely going to do that, and maybe make a couple more posts about random things that may occur to me.

I don't write very much, but when I do, it's basically a way for me to think about my thoughts (how meta!)...I don't write more than one story at a time, so what comes out ends up being a sort of map of my mind at that time, a way for me to organize whatever ridiculous philosophical pensées may be floating around getting overanalyzed. So thanks one more time to everyone who has reviewed the story or added it to their favorites or put it on alert. And if you read silently, thank you too for sharing this with me. :)