Free Snap by Carol Snow Page B

energy up there isn’t nearly as powerful as it is downstairs.”
    Rose’s Reading Room (Delilah’s phrase, not mine) was kind of disappointing: no crystal ball or lamps draped with filmy scarves, just a couple of worn green love seats facing each other, a scratched coffee table in between. Along one wall, next to a beat-up brown mini fridge and a small sink, a folding table held a coffeemaker and a messy pile of paper plates and napkins. An old computer sat on a desk along another wall; a bulky photo-developing machine was crammed into the corner. Everywhere I looked there were cardboard boxes, many of them empty. A headless dressmaker’s dummy was the only thing out of place, but I figured it had something to do with Delilah’s art.
    Delilah emptied her black trash bags onto the gray industrial carpet.
    â€œI have a pair of shorts just like that,” I said, spotting a familiar plaid. I felt closer to Delilah all of a sudden, just thinking we owned the same thing. But then I remembered: my plaid Billabong shorts were from eighth grade. I’d dropped them in the charity bin.
    I corrected myself: “Well, I used to have shorts like that, anyway. But I gave them away.”
    As Delilah sorted through the clothes, a T-shirt caught my eye: red with a moose. “Hey—I had a T-shirt like that, too. It wasmy favorite.” And then (a little late, I admit) it hit me. “Those are my clothes!”
    â€œHuh?” Delilah looked up from the floor.
    I picked up the Abercrombie shirt and checked the tag. “I dropped a whole bunch of stuff in a charity bin a few days ago. It must have gone to the thrift store. This was my shirt—that’s so funny that you bought it! And these shorts were mine, too: Billabong, see? Anything else?” I pawed through the piles until I came up with a white Hollister camisole that had never fit me quite right.
    â€œThese were your clothes, and you just threw them away?” Delilah asked, astonished.
    â€œThey didn’t fit,” I said. I squinted at Delilah, who was at least four inches taller than me. And then I gave her the bad news. “They’re going to be way too small for you.”
    She laughed at my misunderstanding. “I’m not going to wear them!”
    Before I had a chance to ask what, besides wearing, the clothes were good for, the back door swung open. Leonardo and Duncan burst into the room, their arms loaded with…What is the word I’m looking for? Oh, yeah: junk.
    â€œWe struck gold at the yard sales today,” Leonardo announced to the sound of clinking ceramic. “NFL mugs! From the eighties!”
    â€œHey, G.G.!” Duncan said when he saw me.
    â€œThe eighties? Get out!” Delilah chirped, rushing over to see the mugs. “How many?”
    â€œI am not Goth,” I informed Duncan. “I’m just having a bad hair month.”
    â€œNothing wrong with Goth,” he said. “Oh, Delilah—yourmom said to tell you she’s at my place.”
    â€œWhere’s your dad?”
    â€œOut on the boat. He left at, like, four this morning. Your mom made me and Leo pancakes.”
    â€œShe never makes me pancakes,” Delilah grumbled.
    â€œThat’s because you’re so capable,” Leonardo said.
    â€œThey weren’t very good,” Duncan assured Delilah. “Kind of rubbery.”
    Leo put the mugs on the folding table next to the coffeemaker. “I think there’s…” He counted. “Eleven. But wait.” He picked up a plastic grocery bag. “They had some shot glasses, too. New York Giants, Miami Dolphins…and…Raiders.”
    â€œSweet!” Delilah said.
    Leo looked at Duncan. “Where are the Raiders from—San Francisco?”
    â€œOakland,” Duncan said. And to me: “Leo grew up without a father. That’s why he’s sports-challenged.” Duncan smiled at me. I smiled back. He kept