Off the Page

by Jodi Picoult

  “Dude,” Chris says, “not all black people are into basketball—”

  “He means a date,” Delilah explains, and I nod. A slow smile unfurls over her face. “So you finally want to take me out, huh?”

  I shrug. “It seems fitting, since we’ve already gone to bed together.”

  Delilah’s mouth drops, and Chris’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “That’s my cue to leave,” he says, and he walks off down the hall.

  Shaking her head, Delilah sighs. “Oliver,” she says, “you and I need to have a little talk about slang.”

  Delilah drives Jules home after school, so that she can pick up some things before the double date. Then we continue to Delilah’s house, with Jules sitting in the backseat, fidgeting. “This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,” she says. “I don’t even know why I said yes.”

  “Because you don’t want to die alone and surrounded by cats,” Delilah replies.

  “You know my track record,” Jules mutters. “He’ll probably be gone by dessert.”

  “Maybe Chris will be the exception,” I suggest.

  Jules snorts. “Easy for you to say. You’re lucky. You already found your dream girl.”

  “Actually, she found me.” Delilah catches my eye, and I grin at her.

  “This is really helpful, you guys,” Jules says. “Now all I have to do is stuff Chris inside a book and try to pry him out.”

  “Those are just details,” Delilah tells her, pulling into the garage of her house. “The point is you never know who’s going to be the one.”

  “She’s right. If I’d given up, I never would have bothered looking when Delilah opened the book. I might never have known that she could hear me. Just be yourself,” I suggest. “Or perhaps a slightly gentler version of yourself.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jules argues.

  I turn in my seat and raise a brow.

  “Ugh. Fine,” she says. “I’ll try to tone it down.” Jules gets out of the car. “It’s not my fault that my awesomeness intimidates people.”

  We both watch her carry her bag upstairs. Delilah slips her hand into mind. “She’s right. We did get pretty lucky.”

  What if Delilah hadn’t opened the book that day? What if I hadn’t looked up?

  What if this isn’t permanent?

  What if we did get so lucky that we’re due for something terrible?

  I drop a kiss on the crown of her head. “I know.”

  It seems silly to me, but Delilah insists that when it comes to a double date, she and Jules are incapable of dressing themselves alone. Delilah says it’s a girl thing; I wouldn’t understand. To that end, Jules has come to Delilah’s house with a suitcase full of enough clothes to last her for a month, although she is only staying overnight. I’ve been exiled to the living room, where I wait with Frump. Upstairs, there is a symphony of squeals and shrieks. I’m not certain if they are doing each other’s makeup, as Delilah has said, or if they are murdering each other.

  The doorbell rings, and Delilah calls down from her bathroom. “Can you get that?”

  Chris is standing on the threshold, holding a bouquet of flowers.

  “Oh,” I say, reaching for them. “Thank you. I’m so sorry. . . . I didn’t get you anything. . . .”

  Chris rips them back out of my hand. “I didn’t get you anything,” he says. “These are for Jules.”

  I lead him into the living room. “Delilah says they’re almost ready,” I tell him. “Of course, she said that about an hour ago.”

  Chris claps me on the back. “Thanks for doing this, man. I didn’t expect to have as good a friend as you once I moved here.” At that, Frump leaps off the couch, his teeth bared, and is about to sink his fangs into Chris’s calf. “What the—”

  I grab his collar. “No!” I yell. “Bad dog!” Frump whimpers as I drag him away from Chris, scoop him into my arms, and put him on a chair as far away from us as possible. I lean down on the pretense of patting him. “He’s just an acquaintance,” I whisper. And then, more loudly, “Stay.”

  Frump snorts.

  “Are you quite all right?” I ask Chris.

  “This is why I have cats,” he says.

  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 I don’t know,” 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 walking toward 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 place is this, Delilah?” Jules asks, reading the selections. “Candied celery and lemon-verbena foam and sorbet quennels. Is that actually a word?”

  “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 our pets?”

  “What kind of bubble is Cape 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’re a 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 his bedroom 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.

  “I must admit, I’m surprised that Jules is his type,” I whisper back. “I’m surprised that Jules is anyone’s type.”

  Delilah laughs, and the waiter returns, placing a math worksheet on a small silver platter in front of me. “Thanks,” I say politely, “but I’d much rather have an éclair.”

  “That’s the check,” Delilah explains.

  Suddenly it all makes sense: Jessamyn pressing crisp bills into my palm before I left on my date, telling me a gentleman is always the one to pay.

  Chris pulls out his wallet. “Let’s split it,” he suggests, scanning the paper.

  I wait for Chris to put money on the small dish, and match the same amount. Then I stand, pulling out Delilah’s chair and offering her my hand.

  Chris is helping Jules put on her jacket. “I know the most amazing vegan cupcake place,” he says. “We could go there for dessert.”

  I think about the éclair I didn’t get. “That sounds wonderful!”

  “No!” Delilah widens her eyes at me. “We’re leaving.”

  “But I like cupcakes. . . .”

  She loops her arm through mine. “Then I’ll make you some at home,” Delilah says, and she adds, under her breath, “We’re giving them time alone.” Turning to Chris, she asks, “I’m assuming you can drop Jules off at my house later?”

  “You bet,” Chris says.

  We walk to the parking lot, and Delilah and I watch them drive off in Chris’s car. “They grow up so fast,” she jokes. Then she grabs my hand. “Come on. Maybe we can talk to Orville before she gets back.”

  I let her pull me toward her car. “But you promised me cupcakes. . . .”

  When we return to Delilah’s, we almost have the house to ourselves—Mrs. McPhee, who was out when we left, is still out with Dr. Ducharme. Frump meets us at the door and, after an embarrassing show of charades, makes clear that he needs a moment on the privy of the front lawn. Afterward we all convene in the kitchen while Delilah rummages through the cabinets for a box of dessert. She pours powder into a bowl, then cracks two eggs and adds a dollop of oil and some water, insisting that this will materialize into something edible. While the mixture is baking in the oven, Delilah and I speculate on how Jules and Chris are getting along.

  “I did not see that coming,” Delilah muses. “The last guy Jules was interested in had tattoos running from neck to navel and owned a pet falcon. By comparison, Chris seems so . . . tame.”

  “There’s no logic to the laws of attraction,” I say, grinning at Frump. “I mean, this one’s hung up on Seraphima.”

  Frump looks over his shoulder at me and growls.

  A bell chimes on the oven, and Delilah takes her concoction from its belly. She cuts me a square and hands it to me as I lean against the counter. It may not be a cupcake but I must admit, it smells heavenly.

  “Happy?” she asks.

  I put the treat down and lift Delilah by her hips so that she is sitting on the counter and I am standing between her legs. Leaning forward, I kiss her until her arms come around me and Frump starts barking. “Very,” I say, smiling.

  By now, Frump has gotten the tail of my shirt between his teeth and is trying to drag me backward. Delilah holds up a hand. “Okay, okay. We’ll get a room.” Jumping down from the counter, she tosses Frump a square of cake. “Speaking of which, let’s go get the book.”

  That’s all it takes to remind me that I still need to tell Edgar about his mom.

  Frump trots into Delilah’s bedroom, jumps up on his hind legs, and tugs the book from its spot on the shelf. He brings it to Delilah, his tail wagging. “Thanks,” she says, surreptitiously wiping the drool from the book’s spine. “Now. Let’s find Orville.”

  I crack open the book, but to my surprise, nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Although we were always in place and ready for the Reader when one came, I seem to have caught the characters unaware. On page eleven, in the enchanted forest, the fairies are braiding each other’s hair. On page thirty-one, the trolls haven’t bothered to rebuild their bridge. The mermaids aren’t even on page twenty-seven, having swum off to sun themselves on Everafter Beach.

  I realize that when I was in the book, and everything ran like clockwork, it was because Frump was there barking orders. I glance at him, and he shakes his head and rolls his eyes, as if to say: Amateurs.

  Flipping through the story, I try to find Edgar, but he is nowhere to be seen, which is particularly troubling since—as the main character—he’s supposed to be present on practically every page. We locate Socks, lolling on his back in the unicorn meadow with Humphrey, as they look up at the clouds passing by. “Socks,” I say, and he scrambles to his hooves.

  “Hi, Ollie,” he neighs. “Humphrey and I didn’t hear you coming.”

  Humphrey sits up, his entire body wriggling with delight. “This is my new best friend. He’s the biggest dog I’ve ever seen.” He turns to Socks. “I love you.”

  Socks beams at this attention. “And I love you.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” I sigh. “Where’s Edgar?”

  “Don’t know, Ollie. I haven’t seen him at all today.”

  “Then who’s running the book?”

  Socks whinnies. “I guess nobody,” he says. “Since Frump disappeared, everyone’s been left to his own devices.”

  Frump barks at the book, drawing Socks’s attention. “Hey!” he cries. “You look really great. I guess it’s not true what they say, how the outside world puts on ten pounds. . . .”

  “Socks, where can I find Orville?” I ask.

  “Oh, he’s getting his teeth cleaned,” Socks says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Hold on to your horses.” Humphrey wraps his paws around Socks’s hindquarters as I flip through the book to page thirty-seven, where Captain Crabbe leans over Orville as he reclines in the commander seat of a space shuttle. “Hello, laddie,” Captain Crabbe says from behind a paper surgical mask.

  Orville tries to speak but has a mess of instruments in his mouth.

  “One wee moment, now. All right. Spit,” Captain Crabbe orders, holding up a cup for Orville, who then reveals a blinding white smile. “Ye’re missing out, Oliver. These new space chairs are so much more comfortable than the old braw ones on the pirate ship.”

  “Orville,” Delilah asks, “have you had any luck?”

  Orville shakes his head. “This is the first free moment I’ve had since you last opened the book—and I’ve already rescheduled twice. There have been more pressing matters.” He exchanges a look with Captain Crabbe. “The book’s not reacting well to all these changes,” he confesses. “It’s in a stage of degradation.”

  Captain Crabbe interrupts. “He means to say it’s fallin’ apart at the seams.”

  “How?” I ask.

  Orville sits up, ripping the paper bib from around his neck. “A sinkhole’s opened on Everafter Beach that’s pulling trees from the Enchanted Forest into its depths. It’s already taken out five fairy huts.”

  “Part of Pyro’s cave collapsed yesterday. Thank goodness he was out when it happened.”

  “Isn’t the book fixing itself like it usually does?”

  “That’s the problem, laddie,” Captain Crabbe says. “It hasna responded that way since Frump left.”

  “It’s as if the book has lost so much,” Orville muses, “that it’s just given up.”

  “Who are you guys talking to?”

  Delilah and I freeze at the sound of Jules’s voice. She’s come into the bedroom, wearing Chris’s jacket. On the page, Orville and Captain Crabbe look at each other, panicked, unsure what to do. Usually when a new Reader arrives, there’s a cue—the opening of the book, and Frump’s
orders—but in this case, no one is in their correct place to act out the story.

  “It’s okay,” Delilah says to them, and she lifts the book to her chest. “Jules, remember when I told you that the characters in the fairy tale I read over and over were talking back to me?”

  She narrows her eyes. “Yes.”

  “You said you believed me, back then.”

  “Yeah . . . but that’s what you always say to your best friend,” Jules points out. “If you told me you were going to vacation on the moon, I would have nodded along too.”

  “Well, the thing is,” Delilah says, “I wasn’t lying.” She turns the book so that the pictures are facing Jules. Captain Crabbe and Orville awkwardly wave.

  Jules grabs the book from Delilah’s hands. “This is insane,” she murmurs, turning it over and shaking it.

  “Please stop!” Orville yelps.

  “Where are the batteries?” Jules asks, peering at the endpapers. “Is this like the next-generation e-reader or something?”

  She turns the book upright; Orville and Captain Crabbe are tangled in a heap at the bottom corner.

  Suddenly the page lifts, although Jules hasn’t touched it. It flips backward, and then the next sheet does the same, and so on, a cascade of paper like a curling wave.

  “What’s happening?” Delilah whispers.

  But I have no idea. I’ve never seen this before.

  The paper falls flat at the very beginning of the book—the copyright page. It’s a territory we’ve never explored—mostly empty space with small clouds formed of letters that cast shadows on the ground. It’s quite far away from all the other pages, and without mountains or trees or water or castles, there just isn’t any reason to tread there, which is why we characters have pretty much forgotten it even exists.

  Jules looks up at us, her eyes shining. “This night just keeps getting more awesome,” she says, and in that instant, she disappears.

  EDGAR

  I’m going to kill him.

  It’s been two days since Frump disappeared, and ever since then, I’ve been trying to shake this stupid dog, which has basically become my shadow.