Off the Page

by Jodi Picoult

  There’s a little red wristband she wears while she’s running in case she falls off the moving walkway or gets hurt. If this happens, a cord on the wristband makes the machine stop dead.

  I imagined that is exactly what happened when I left the book. I pulled the cord, and everyone else stayed frozen in the moment, static, waiting for me to start them up again.

  But I suppose I was just kidding myself.

  They all seem to be going on with their lives and their stories, as if they never needed me in the first place.

  I should be happy for them. I should feel good about the fact that they, like me, have moved on. But I’m fairly certain happiness doesn’t feel like a stone in the pit of one’s stomach.

  When I opened the book and I saw that beach, I could still picture myself looking up at the words hanging like balloons in the sky. I could feel the spray of the ocean, and the sun beating hot on the back of my tunic.

  For the first time I can remember, seeing Seraphima was a delight, not a chore.

  I couldn’t even make eye contact with Queen Maureen because it hurt too much.

  And Frump . . . well. Seeing him on Everafter Beach, so happy and human—I wanted to be excited for him. But all I noticed was him standing beside Edgar, and how easily Edgar seemed to have replaced me.

  Once upon a time, Frump and I swapped out the salt for the sugar in Queen Maureen’s pantry, causing her to make the world’s most inedible cake for a birthday party for Ondine the mermaid. Then there was the time we painted Socks electric pink while he was fast asleep. I can’t count the number of hours we spent playing chess on the beach, using the fairies as pieces. Sometimes I wouldn’t even have to tell Frump what I was thinking. He just knew.

  I can’t imagine my life without Delilah in it. But to be honest, I always believed Frump would be there too.

  I reach over Delilah’s bed to the words COME HOME, which are still floating like lanterns, and crush them in the palm of my hand. They leave smudges on my skin. When I toss them in the trash, they look like a tangle of black ribbon.

  Delilah puts her hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “I just . . . I thought they might need me a little more.”

  “I need you.” She leans forward, and I tuck her against me. Her skin is soft as satin. This is what’s real. This is why I’m real.

  It’s Delilah’s idea to take a walk in the woods. We strike out behind her house, following an overgrown path littered with fallen leaves the color of fire. “I used to come here and make fairy houses out of acorns and pine needles and twigs,” she says.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I scoff. “Fairies would never live on the ground; they’d be stepped on. They make their homes in the notches of trees.”

  She laughs. “Well, not all of us have the benefit of firsthand experience.”

  “I had a spot in the Enchanted Forest where I used to play with Frump as a child. It looked just like this,” I tell her. “We built a fort between two boulders and spent hours trying to hunt a squirrel for dinner.”

  “Queen Maureen would have let you eat a squirrel?”

  “No,” I admit. “Luckily we never caught one.”

  “Come here,” she says. “I want to show you something.” She takes my hand and leads me through a thicket of overgrown brush and tangled roots, which opens suddenly into a small clearing. A canopy of leaves filters the sunlight above us, dappling the ground. A willow tree arches like a dancer, its arms extended and its long hair cascading. Delilah parts the vines, revealing a mossy log. She sits down and pats the space beside her. “I used to come here when I wanted to run away from home.”

  I think about Delilah’s cozy house, her attentive mother. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because no one is always happy where they are. Every time I got mad at my mom, or frustrated because she was working too hard to be around a lot, I wanted to escape. So I’d pack everything I thought I should take with me into my pillowcase and I’d come here. And then, by the time the sun went down, I couldn’t remember what had made me want to leave in the first place. All I could think of was the dinner my mother was probably cooking, and the way my pillows sank down just the way I liked, and my favorite pair of pajamas. It was all those little things that reminded me of why I couldn’t run away.” She looks up at me. “I’m scared, Oliver. I’m scared the sun is going to go down and you’re going to realize you want to go home.”

  I frame her face in my hands, looking into her eyes. “I am home,” I tell her.

  After supper, Delilah’s mother pulls out a stack of photo albums. Delilah is mortified, her cheeks flaming, but I can’t get enough of the pictures. I watch her morph from a tiny baby waving a pair of oversized sunglasses to a child on a swing to a young girl in a sunflower dress at her piano recital. Delilah’s mother sits beside me, the dog curled at her feet. “Look, Lila,” she says, turning the page to reveal a preteen, all angles and elbows, with a full mouth of metal. “Remember how we thought you were going to have your braces till you were thirty?”

  At that, Delilah practically leaps over me, slamming the album closed. “Shut it down,” she says.

  “Kids grow up so fast,” her mother says. “Edgar, I’m sure your mother would agree.”

  “Maybe not,” I murmur under my breath. I’ve been a teenager my whole life.

  Delilah’s mom strokes the cover of the photo album as if she would rather give up her life than lose what’s inside. It’s exactly the way Delilah looked when she used to open the fairy tale. Her mother glances from Delilah to me. “One day you two will understand.”

  “Oh my God, Mom. No.” Delilah pulls her mother to her feet. “Don’t you have a date to get ready for?”

  The date in question is with Delilah’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Ducharme. I would have expected Delilah to be less than pleased, but actually, she’s overjoyed. Once they started dating, Delilah stopped having to go for appointments, because it was a conflict of interest.

  Mrs. McPhee looks at her wristwatch. “You’re right. Greg’s going to be here in fifteen minutes. Delilah, help me with the dishes?”

  Humphrey leaps to his stubby feet, waddling into the kitchen behind them in the hopes of catching a dropped scrap. Meanwhile, I carry the albums back to the shelf where Delilah’s mother found them. As I return them to their spots, I notice one thin slice of an album labeled HALLOWEEN. Inside it, Delilah changes from a pumpkin to a gypsy queen, to a monkey, to a bunch of grapes.

  On the next page, I pause.

  Delilah is young—maybe six or seven. She is wearing a blue ball gown, long white gloves, and a jeweled tiara.

  This is what she might have been like had we met as children in the middle of my world instead of hers.

  With a grin, I slip the photograph out of its protective sleeve and into my pocket.

  She would have made a lovely princess.

  On Saturday, I run out of clothes.

  Unlike in the fairy tale, where there’s always a fresh tunic and hose whenever I need them, in this world one is left to one’s own devices to ensure a clean wardrobe. For the first month or so, I didn’t even notice the difference—Jessamyn would simply disappear with my hamper full of worn clothes and they would magically be returned, pressed and folded, to my bureau. But today, when I pull out the drawer, there’s a single folded shirt. I check my closet and realize my dirty clothes are still in the hamper.

  Perhaps Jessamyn has forgotten. I call out for my pseudo-mother, but there’s no answer. Jessamyn told me she might go grocery shopping today—another extraordinary inconvenience in this world. In the book, our pantry is always full. But I’m not in the book. I’m not a prince. I have to learn to take care of myself. How hard could this possibly be?

  Cheerfully I carry the hamper down the stairs into the laundry room, where I’ve watched Jessamyn go through the motions at least a dozen times. I know it involves pouring a liquid soap and pushing a series of buttons. I dump the tangle of laundry into the
belly of the metal beast and pick up the bottle of detergent to read the directions.

  FILL CUP.

  What cup?

  I wander into the kitchen and stare at the glasses we use at the dinner table. There are two sizes—a tiny one for juice, and a large one for water. Well, the cleaner, the better, I think, reaching for the larger glass. In the laundry room I fill it to the brim with blue detergent, then add an extra splash just to make sure I have enough. I close the lid and press the big green start button. The machine shakes to life, grumbling and gurgling as it fills with water.

  I lean against it, awfully pleased with myself. Wait until I tell Delilah what I’ve done all on my own.

  That’s what I’m thinking, anyway, when the back of my shirt suddenly grows sopping wet. I spin around, my eyes widening at the washing machine, which is foaming at its mouth. It spews bubbles at an alarming rate, froth cascading to the floor. I try to scoop it up in my arms, hastily shoving as much as I can into the empty dryer, but I fail spectacularly to keep up. By now, my sneakers are hidden in a white sea, and the bubbles have leaked out of the small laundry room into the hallway.

  I run to the phone, slipping and falling three times on the way. By the time I reach it, I am wearing a suit of bubbles, and I have trouble holding the receiver without it sliding from my palm. I wonder if perhaps I will be the first person to die by drowning in soap.

  Delilah answers on the second ring. “Thank God,” I say. “I’m having a crisis.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “The washing machine has exploded.”

  “Wait,” Delilah says. “What?”

  “I tried to do my own laundry and—”

  “I’ll be right there,” she interrupts.

  The phone goes dead in my hand. I turn, looking toward the laundry room. A river of foam oozes from the doorway. I trudge through it, kicking at the bubbles, and climb on top of the machine, which bucks beneath me like a spirited stallion. Maybe if I can just keep the lid shut, the bubbles will diminish.

  This is how Delilah finds me fifteen minutes later, huddled on top of the washing machine, clutching it for dear life.

  “What the—” Before Delilah can finish, she slips in the bubbles and goes completely under. She surfaces with a white beard and hat. “Oliver,” she says, laughing. “How much soap did you use?”

  “It said a cup?”

  “Was it the Stanley Cup?” she asks.

  “I don’t know Stanley, or his cup. It was a regular glass from the kitchen.”

  She puts a hand to her forehead, then reaches for the detergent, its blue bottle only dimly visible in the catastrophe of bubbles. She unscrews its tiny cap and holds it out to me. “This is a cup, Oliver.”

  It holds roughly one-eighth the amount of soap I used.

  Delilah breast-strokes forward, shoveling bubbles out of the way. She reaches past me for the illuminated panel and presses a button. The machine shudders to a stop. I let out a sigh of relief.

  Delilah glares at me. “I cannot believe you did this.”

  I grin, scoop a dollop of bubbles onto my finger, and touch it to her nose.

  She wipes it away, pretending to be annoyed, but then she lifts a handful of bubbles and palms my face with it. Laughing, we fight a war in a battlefield of soap, slipping out of each other’s embrace as we tumble to the ground. Then I kiss her, or maybe she kisses me, until we’re completely enveloped in a foam cocoon, and for a few moments, neither of us cares one bit about the mess.

  Eventually, though, reality comes crowding in, when the taste of Delilah begins to morph into the bitter taste of detergent. I sit up, pulling her with me. “How do we get rid of all of . . . this?” I ask, gesturing at the foamy swamp that surrounds us.

  Delilah rummages in the cleaning closet and returns with a blue bucket. She scoops an armful of bubbles inside and instructs me to go dump them in the bathtub upstairs. She does the same, using Jessamyn’s spaghetti pot. We cart the evidence away one trip at a time, running cold water in the tub until the soap dissolves down the drain.

  Finally we mop the floors and walls with a towel, leaving the house in an even tidier state than it was, ironically. Then we collapse onto the floor, exhausted. “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t start your independent streak by attempting to flambé baked Alaska,” Delilah says.

  Her hair is straggling out of her ponytail, and her shirt has started to dry stiffly against her skin. But despite the mess, she’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

  I cup my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her closer. “You know your pupils get bigger the closer you get to me. That means you love me.”

  “Or that you’re blocking my light.”

  I laugh. “My girlfriend is such a romantic.” Leaning forward, I start to kiss her, when suddenly the door clicks open and Jessamyn walks in holding two large grocery bags.

  Delilah and I spring apart, putting a foot of space between us.

  Jessamyn’s brow furrows as she examines the two of us, still drenched and matted. “What on earth happened to you two?”

  I offer my most brilliant smile. “We cleaned the house!”

  A week of high school has taught me the following:

  1. Packing one’s own lunch is preferable to eating the questionable mass that is served in the cafeteria.

  2. Nobody actually studies in study hall.

  3. The same six boys in gym class play the game of the day as if their lives depend on it, no matter if the game is dodgeball or badminton.

  4. Everyone has a phone, but no one ever seems to use it to make a phone call.

  5. There is something called Facebook that is neither a face nor a book.

  I’ve noticed that the school isn’t divided by grades as much as it is by personality.

  There are boys who insist on carrying their lacrosse sticks to each class as if it is a standard bearing the family crest. Some students take notes as though they are writing a novel, while others don’t even pick up a pen but instead paint their nails and regard their features in the tiniest of mirrors while the teacher speaks. A roving gang of minstrels uses the school as a performing ground, riding wheeled boards down the staircase rails and hopping over concrete benches in the main entrance. There are some who look like creatures of the night, pale as the moon, with black hair and painted eyes and jewelry shaped like skulls. And then there are the girls I can’t even look at without blushing—the ones who dress in so little clothing that I asked Delilah if they work at the local brothel.

  Unlike the characters in the book, however, these different sorts of people don’t seem to mix well. It is like the salad dressing Jessamyn makes: a little bit of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and some red wine vinegar. If whipped, they combine. But leave them to their own devices and they will sort themselves out again.

  I don’t really understand this. When you have so many people, each one inevitably fascinating, why would you limit yourself to only those like you? If I behaved as most of the students in this school do, I would never have talked to Charlie, who recruited me for the fencing team, or Darrell, who sells homemade sock puppets to raise money for children in Uganda, or Tina, who is having a baby this winter. I wouldn’t have joined the drama club and the Ultimate Frisbee team and the Dungeons & Dragons society (though, truly, I was born for that). It doesn’t matter to me if the person I’m speaking with is talking about comic books, or sales at Sephora, or how many touchdowns he made at the homecoming game. I just like listening.

  I guess maybe because of that, it’s easy for me to move between groups. Instead of feeling as if I’m being judged by someone different from me, I learn from them.

  Today in pre-calc Mr. Elyk is explaining the standardized examination we will be taking on Saturday morning, a day we usually do not have to go to school, when I usually am with Delilah instead. The test has something to do with sitting and sounds relatively simple, since all we have to do is fully fill in the bubbles wit
h a number two pencil. After the fifth time he repeats this, I begin to tune out, sketching mermaids and pirate ships in the margins of my notebook. Suddenly a pencil lands in front of me, and I look up. Raj, the skinny kid sitting to my left, holds up his calculator. Across the screen is a number:

  I lift a shoulder, shrugging.

  Raj grins and spins his calculator so that the numbers are now upside down.

  “Boobs,” Raj mouths silently, and giggles.

  I laugh out loud, and Mr. Elyk turns. “Edgar, is there something you’d like to share?”

  I smile. “I’m super excited for this test, that’s all.”

  He sighs. “I know, I know, everyone hates the SATs. But it’s a necessary evil, like flossing and in-laws.”

  The bell rings, and I turn to Raj. “What else can you spell?”

  “Tomorrow I’ll show you how to draw a naked girl in Microsoft Word.”

  After math class, Delilah and I meet up at her locker. When she approaches, I’ve got my nose buried in my calculator. “You can take the guy out of the math classroom,” she says, “but you can’t take the math out of the guy.”

  I laugh and proudly present my calculator screen.

  “Let me guess. Your prison number?”

  I put my hand over hers, twisting her wrist so that it’s upside down.

  “How cool is that?” I say proudly. “I can type my name in numbers.”

  Delilah smiles. “I see pre-calc is really paying off for you.”

  “Wait, I’m not done.”

  I take the calculator back and write BOOBS, then show it to her.

  She rolls her eyes. “Ugh. You’re acting like such a teenage boy.”

  “I am one,” I say proudly. “Wasn’t that exactly what you wanted?”

  Delilah turns the calculator off and gives it back to me. “I should have listened to that genie,” she replies. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  In the fairy tale, countless armies faced Pyro the dragon. Grown men shook in their armor, crying out for their mothers as the flames licked their shields. They pleaded with the heavens and sank to their knees, certain they had met their end of days.