Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Z ane texted Frankie for the first time later that night. Still buzzing after the magic of their meet-cute, Frankie watched his name pop up on her phone and felt another adrenaline spike. Something told her not to read it immediately, to make him stew. But another part of her remembered that “playing games” like that was something people did in university, not out in the real world. If Zane was going to be her first real adult relationship, she wanted to approach it with real adult values.
She waited five minutes before she read.
ZANE: Hey. It was cool to meet you today.
ZANE: What’s your week like? I want to take you out.
Frankie was suddenly on her feet, pacing along her bed. She couldn’t control her heartbeat. He already wants to take me out. No messing around. Straight to the point.
Suddenly, she imagined herself getting engaged within the year. Colemans always married young. Colemans always had children young. Her grandparents, her parents, her aunts, her uncles, and her cousins would all think she was falling in line with what the rest of the Colemans did. They would think she was okay. Happy. Healthy.
Just then, Nellie’s car pulled into the driveway. Frankie watched as Nellie clambered out and hurried inside. A few minutes later, Nellie was upstairs and in Frankie’s bedroom, no longer glum after their failed trip to Manhattan. It was clear she felt bad for abandoning Frankie tonight. It wasn’t like them to turn their backs on each other like that.
But Frankie was too smitten to care about Nellie and Nellie’s friendship group. She showed Nellie the texts from Zane. Her smile hurt her face.
Nellie raised her shoulders. “He sounds so nice?”
“So nice, right?” Frankie fell across her bed and spread her hand across her chest.
“Don’t get carried away, Frank,” Nellie urged her.
Frankie shot her a look that meant, don’t tell me what to do.
Nellie laughed. “Point taken.”
Nellie changed into pajamas so that the two of them could watch a sitcom and gossip about celebrities until one thirty in the morning. It had become their ritual since they’d returned to Nantucket after Frankie’s graduation and Nellie’s sophomore year. Frankie treasured it; she really did—especially during a summer as lackluster as this one had been. But her heart and mind were ninety percent consumed with what she wanted to respond to Zane with.
Finally, Nellie helped her compose something short. It was simple—too simple. Frankie was frightened that it made her sound boring or uncool.
FRANKIE: Hey! Sure, I’m around this week. I have plans for Friday but could meet on Saturday.
Frankie had wanted to include a link to a song she was obsessed with. She’d wanted to send a photograph of a poem. But Nellie had urged her not to. “Keep him guessing!”
Zane wrote back in ten minutes to arrange the Saturday date. He said he’d pick her up at six thirty.
Frankie was back on her feet, frantic. She hurried to her closet and ripped the door open to peer at a wardrobe that was both out-of-fashion and didn’t really fit her anymore. She glowered and shifted around to look at Nellie. Tears filled her eyes.
“I never should have gone on that stupid medication,” Frankie said glumly.
Nellie hopped up and gave Frankie a look. “You couldn’t even get out of bed for most of May and June,” she reminded her. “That medicine literally brought you back to life.”
Frankie bowed her head. She didn’t love thinking about those post-graduation weeks—not so very long ago—when exhaustion and depression had weighed so heavily on her chest that she’d refused to do anything but laze around. The medication had put a fire under her; that was true.
She considered saying, I just want things to go back to the way they were before. But just as soon as she thought about it, she decided it wasn’t true. She wanted to be twenty-three and on the verge of dating the handsome and mysterious Zane. She wanted the hope that came with new stories.
And she definitely didn’t want Colin back.
“I guess it’s time to go shopping,” Frankie said with a shrug.
Nellie punched her upper arm. Her eyes were electric. “That’s what I like to hear.”