Suddenly there is a flurry of noise as Delilah and Jules descend. Jules is still wearing her trademark combat boots, but she’s sporting a simple black dress that is surprisingly devoid of studs, skeletons, and safety pins.
However, it’s Delilah I can’t stop staring at. She is wearing a filmy white dress that seems to breathe over her curves. The low neckline reveals a constellation of freckles on her collarbone. Her hair is twisted into an intricate braid, and a few tendrils escape at the nape of her neck. I can’t help but think how perfectly a tiara would settle atop her head.
“You look great,” Chris tells Jules.
“Tell me something Idon’tknow,” she says.
“I, um, brought you these. . . .” He hands her the bouquet.
“Ohhh . . . thanks for the corpses of murdered plants.”
Delilah clears her throat. “Jules!”
She rolls her eyes. “I mean, wow,they’re so pretty.” Then Jules looks at me. “Edgar. You’re drooling.”
I tear my gaze away from Delilah as the girls start walkingtoward the front door. Chris puts his hand on my arm. “She hates me.”
I consider this. “No,” I say. “That’s just Jules.”
Delilah has picked a restaurant for dinner that seems as if it has been ripped from the pages of a storybook. Tables nestle in a copse of trees, which are illuminated by strands of twinkling lights. Small stone fire pits dot the premises, and servants in starched white linen aprons stand at attention as we pass by.
When we reach our table, I pull out a chair for Delilah. “My lady,” I murmur, and she beams up at me.
Chris, halfway into his seat, jumps up and tugs at Jules’s seat when she is already half inside it. She glares at him. “You don’t think I’m capable of getting into a chair by myself?”
“N-no,” Chris stammers. “You look very capable.” He buries his face behind his menu.
“What kind of placeisthis, Delilah?” Jules asks, reading the selections. “Candied celery and lemon-verbena foam and sorbet quennels. Is that actually aword?”
“Shut up,” Delilah says. “This is the only fancy place with vegetarian options.”
“You’re a vegetarian?” Chris asks.
Jules straightens her spine. “I don’t support the slaughter of helpless animals for man’s desire for barbecued flesh . . . so yes, I am.”
“Barbecued flesh?” I repeat.
“She means steak and hamburger,” Delilah says. “She’s just being dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” Jules repeats. “Where do you think your meat comes from?”
I blink. “The refrigerator?” At the castle, our meals just . . . appeared. And here, Jessamyn goes to a special store and comes back with ingredients.
“Cows,” Jules says. “Meat comes from cows.”
My eyes widen. “What?” I gasp. I turn and speak in a whisper to Delilah. “I knew all of our cows by name in the kingdom. You let me eat ourpets?”
“What kind of bubbleisCape Cod?” Chris says. He turns to Jules. “Well, you know what they say about vegetarians. They’re just vegans who couldn’t cut it.” He smiles. “I’ve been one since I was twelve.”
“Really?” Jules says, arching a brow. “You’rea vegan?”
Chris leans back in his chair. “There’s all kinds of things about me you would never expect.”
“Well,” Jules says, smiling for the first time since the date began. “Good thing we have the whole night.”
To my surprise, Jules and Chris spend the entire meal with their heads bent together, talking about everything from the best science fiction film-to-book adaptation to the institutional oppression of cafeteria food. Now Chris is yammering on and on about constellations, which he studies with a telescope in hisbedroom each night. “That one’s Casseopeia,” he tells Jules. He lifts her hand and guides her arm, to point. “And that’s Canis Major. You can tell because Sirius, the Dog Star, is in it.” Chris locks eyes with Jules. “It’s the brightest star in the night sky.”
“Looks like this has been a huge success,” Delilah says quietly to me.
