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“It was spontaneous. That means I didn’t plan it in advance. It just happened, and it was already a weird day, so I neglected to text you. I am sorry. Please accept whatever raise you see fit in recompense.”
“Recompense is a fancy word,” she sings. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I run a think tank. Or I guess you run a think tank now. Are fancy words banned under the new regime?”
“Not inviting me to the wedding is banned,” she sings.
“Fucking crickets, Delph.”
“You didn’t invite me to the aircraft carrier gala.”
I point at her. “False. You were invited to the aircraft carrier gala, and you declined.”
“Why did I do that?” she sings. “I could have witnessed your spontaneity in person.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?” Delphi has range. I’ll give her that. She can even turn scolding with one-word phrases into a song.
“Because Walsh was there, talking to Artemis.”
Delphi’s mouth becomes a perfect round O. She strums extremely fast. “I might’ve been wrong before,” she sings. “Betrayal or blessing? Only the gods may?—”
“Jesus Christ.”
She stops strumming and rests her hand on her guitar, shaking with silent laughter. “I don’t think I’d have been able to keep my mouth shut. Sitting U.S. Senator Chris Walsh was flirting with your girl? And you proposed?”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it.”
“Sorry,” Delphi laughs out loud, breathless. “You just walked onto an aircraft carrier, whipped out a megaphone, and shouted I’m engaged into that man’s face?”
“I said it. Without a megaphone. And I don’t know how else I’d have gotten on the aircraft carrier. It wasn’t like I had access to a parachute.”
“This is the best day of my life,” Delphi whispers.
“Get out of my office.”
“Fine,” she sings. Her finishing melody is like laughter translated into music. “But I’ll be just outside the door, waiting, in case there is anything you need for your?—”
“I’ll give you another raise if you leave right now.”
“I’m already gone,” she sings, and walks backward out of my office, still playing her guitar. When she strums all the way up on the headstock, it sounds just like crickets.
When she’s out of sight, her pleased little tune echoing through the office, I fold my arms on my desk and put my head down.
This was a mistake.
I should’ve gone to the photo shoot. I would have looked ridiculously possessive and/or pathetic, but I wouldn’t be hyperaware of every heartbeat. I wouldn’t be constantly trying to assess whether I feel hotter than I did a second ago. I wouldn’t be wondering if it was already too late, and I’m doomed to tip over onto the carpet and become an absent god at my very own think tank.
For at least thirty seconds, I indulge in the fantasy of calling Delphi back in and handing her the entire company for real. World peace initiatives, backchannel meetings, everything. Delphi can’t glow at people in whatever sense I do, but she can make up a song about them with zero advance warning and her approval, unlike mine, isn’t empty. It has real value.
It’s a very vivid fantasy.
But if I gave this up, then everyone would know that the effort was always a pointless performance.
They would know that I was only invested in world peace because there’s no such thing in the filthy, smoking aftermath of a terror campaign.
There’s only the scorched earth and the poisoned rain and the withered husks of everything that could have been.
