Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Z ane picked the best restaurant in Nantucket Island for their first date. When he parked his BMW convertible out in front of the restaurant and cut the engine, Frankie cocked her head with surprise and looked him in the eye. He gave her a crooked smile. She read it as he’s messing with me. Obviously, he didn’t get us a table at Ce Soir. But that’s when he popped the door, hurried around, and opened the passenger side. Frankie watched herself slide her hand into his; she watched herself enter the beautiful Nantucket Historic District with her dark red dress, her big curly hair and her curves—her curves! —which she really appreciated right now. She felt beautiful, thick, powerful. She felt like the sort of woman who would date Zane rather than the sort of girl who would date Colin.
Life is all about moving on.
The hostess seated them at a table by the water and greeted Zane by name. If Frankie wasn’t mistaken, the hostess’s eyes glinted with jealousy when she passed the menu to Frankie. They asked, why her and not me? But Frankie just smiled and thanked her.
Don’t question it, she told herself. Just lean into the night.
Zane knew his wine regions and asked if she would let him order. She said yes, of course, and allowed herself to be amazed as he asked questions about various grapes and tested the server’s knowledge. He then ordered them a few appetizers and some baguettes with butter laced with crystals of salt.
So different from date nights with Colin. We always ate frozen pizza and watched The Bachelor.
“You come to this restaurant often?” Frankie asked because he knew the hostess.
“Just a couple of times,” he said. “It has to be one of the best on the island, if not the best, but I usually prefer simpler fare. I’m addicted to tacos. And I love that little hot dog stand by the harbor.”
Frankie’s face broke into a smile. “I used to beg to go there as a kid.”
Zane furrowed his brow with faux fear. “Should I have taken you there instead?”
Frankie laughed. “No! No way. I’ve always wanted to come to Ce Soir. It’s literally a dream. Thank you.” She let another beat pass, then hurried to add, “Not that I’m assuming you’re paying! I’m not. I’m super happy to split the bill.”
With the very limited funds in my bank account.
Zane reached across the table and took her hand, rubbing his thumb across her palm. His dark and sturdy eyes told her to relax.
“I don’t want to talk about money right now,” he said. “I want to talk about you.”
Frankie’s ice-cold heart melted at the edges. She swallowed a sip of wine and fell even deeper into his eyes.
“Tell me something I don’t know yet,” Zane said.
“You barely know anything.” Frankie laughed. “We just met.”
Zane squeezed her hand. “Exactly! Let me in a little bit.”
Frankie shifted nervously. Nothing about his face made her think he wanted to be anywhere else but here.
“I just graduated with a degree in linguistics.”
Zane looked mesmerized. “Wow. Linguistics! I took an introductory course once. I found it fascinating to dig into the reasons we say the things we do, where meaning is derived from the syllables we speak.” He smiled that crooked grin again. “I’m rambling. I probably remember just one or two things from the entire experience. But I remember the feeling of awe I had after every class.”
Frankie’s heart thumped. “Discovering linguistics was like putting on an old sweater that I’d always loved but had forgotten in the bottom of a drawer. I can’t explain it. It was an automatic fit. I didn’t know what I wanted the rest of my life to look like, but I knew I wanted to keep going in that field.”
“You’ve lived for something,” Zane said. “You threw yourself in.”
“Completely.”
“I love your capacity for going all in,” Zane said.
Frankie’s eyes were filled with tears, and she quickly blinked them away. For whatever reason, she was thinking of herself in May and June, trapped in bed, wondering if she’d ever live her life again. I’m living again. I’m back.
The appetizers came in a spread of brussels sprouts with parmesan, mussels and oysters, potatoes and asparagus, and fresh bread. Zane’s hand left hers to focus on the food, and Frankie matched him bite for bite, allowing herself to eat in a way she hadn’t since she’d gone on the medication that had inexplicably changed her metabolism. A part of her considered telling him that she hadn’t always looked like this. But another remembered that he’d asked her to come as this person. This person who looked like this. She loved that so much more.
“It’s delicious,” Frankie said. “I feel like I’m a million miles away. Like I’m just floating in beautiful flavors and great textures.”
Zane laughed and pressed his hand against his chest. “I know what you mean.”
The server returned to take their appetizer plates away and refill their glasses with wine. Zane asked the server a couple of questions about the main dishes on offer today, and Frankie took a moment to look at her phone—wondering if she could steal a second to text Nellie about how well this was going.
Instead, she read an email from the job she’d interviewed for the other day.
Dear Frankie Benson,
Thank you for taking the time to interview for the copywriter role. Although we are impressed with your educational experience, we don’t get the sense that you’d fit in with the environment here. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
Frankie’s smile melted. She shoved her phone back in her purse, folded her hands on the table, and took a breath.
I didn’t want it anyway. I didn’t want it anyway, she reminded herself.
Suddenly, Zane’s hand was on hers. He pulled her back to earth.
“Hey? What’s up?” Zane asked.
Frankie sniffed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be dramatic.”
“You’re not. Whatever it is, you can say.” Zane laughed lightly. “I know I’m still a stranger. Why should you trust me, right? But I promise. I’ll do my best to help you through.”
Frankie felt the cooling balm of his attention. “Okay. Um. I had a job interview the other day, and they just wrote me to say I didn’t get it.” Frankie winced.
But Zane’s expression didn’t change at all.
“You must think I’m so silly for reacting like this,” Frankie said. “It’s just a job. And I didn’t even want it anyway. From the minute I walked into their office, I thought, get me out of here! But you know how it is. Or, maybe, you know. It’s just hard to hear the word ‘no.’ It’s hard not to be accepted.”
Zane nodded solemnly. “You want to move to the city.”
“I don’t know,” Frankie said. “I really don’t.
“It’s a big corporation?”
“Yeah. Pretty big,” Frankie said.
Zane clucked his tongue. “You’re too interesting to work for a silly corporation like that. No, not just silly. Empty. Soulless.”
Frankie’s heart continued to melt. She gave him a soft smile.
“I mean it,” Zane said. “You’re the kind of woman who studies linguistics. You have to break out on your own. Do your own thing.”
Frankie thought about her mother, who’d forged ahead and built her own company and subsequently had a headache every day of her life because of it.
“Maybe,” Frankie said.
“Everyone moves to the city,” Zane said. “It’s not interesting. Not really.”
“That’s what everyone I went to college with did,” Frankie said. “Including my ex-boyfriend. And running into him there would probably be a nightmare.”
Zane’s face broke open with curiosity. “This is a recent boyfriend?”
Frankie’s cheeks were hot. She wondered if she sounded terribly young to this older man, this man who’d seen so much and dated so many people and who had, for whatever reason, decided to spend a beautiful evening with her.
Because I’m interesting. Because he sees something in me. Something I didn’t even know was there.
“Tell me about this boyfriend,” Zane urged. “What happened?”
Frankie raised her eyebrows and recalled the image of Colin, who’d appeared outside her college apartment with a face like a ghost and the hurtful words she would never forget. I really don’t know about this. We’re on different paths.
But Frankie didn’t want to play up her heartache too much. She didn’t want Zane to know she’d spent so much time in bed, nursing her broken heart.
“It’s a typical story. Boring, really. We dated for a few years and decided we wanted different things.”
“He wanted corporate life, and you wanted a beautiful life,” Zane suggested.
Frankie liked the way that sounded. She smiled and said, “Maybe that’s it.”
Zane snapped his fingers and raised his glass. “To new beginnings, right?”
Frankie clinked her glass with his. Warmth flooded her arms and legs. Colin was too simple for me. He was too boring.
“But unfortunately, you still need a job.” Zane laughed.
“That’s the thing,” Frankie agreed. “I have no plans to stay with my parents for the rest of my life.”
“Nobody wants that,” Zane agreed.
And then, as though the idea had just occurred to him, Zane perked up and said, “I could probably find some work for you in my company.”
Frankie stuttered with surprise. “You don’t have to do that.”
He wants to hire me? He wants to see me again?
But maybe that means he doesn’t want to date me. He just wants to help me.
Maybe he sees me more like a friend. Or a sister.
“Why not?” Zane said. “You’re clearly brilliant and organized and on top of your life. You’re a creative thinker, a sharp dresser.” He paused, then added, “And you’re beautiful. Not that that’s necessary for the gig, but it’s always nice to have around.”
Frankie inhaled. She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes.
It was as though everyone else on Ce Soir's patio faded away; it was just Zane and Frankie and the flickering lights of the candles.
“What kind of work is it?” Frankie asked.
Maybe he owns an internet company? A T-shirt brand? A travel social media brand?
“I have a lot of clients,” Zane explained. “And I do a little bit of everything for them.”
“Ah. You’re like a digital nomad,” Frankie teased.
“I hate that term,” Zane said with a laugh. “But yes. I guess, in some ways, I could be called a digital nomad. I haven’t met that many of my clients in person. I do almost everything online.”
“Copywriting?” Frankie asked.
“We need that for sure,” Zane said, ripping off a piece of baguette. “We’ll need some social media stuff. And you know what? It sounds stupid, but I need someone on the ground sometimes. Deliveries. Getting signatures. I would send you around to various locations across the East Coast and maybe even the west when this gets bigger.”
Zane’s eyes were saucers.
“I have huge dreams, Frankie,” Zane said, reaching across the table to take both of her hands. “I’m like you. I don’t want to say no to any single one of my ideas or thoughts. I want to run forward and seize the day.”
Frankie nodded furiously. She felt caught up in his wave.
“I hope you’ll come with me, Frankie,” Zane said. “I can already tell that we’ll be something special to each other. That we’ll help each other achieve our dreams.”
Frankie’s eyes welled with tears.
This is what I wanted Colin to say to me. I wanted him to take me in his arms and tell me to come to Manhattan with him. I wanted him to say, We can make it work wherever we are!
But instead, it was Zane saying this to her. And all Frankie could do was open up the doors of her heart and let Zane crawl in.
Much later, they finished dinner, and Zane paid the bill in full, refusing Frankie’s pathetic twenty-dollar bill that she’d tried to pass over the table. The dinner cost so much more than twenty dollars that it was laughable. But Zane flashed her a smile and said, “We’ll earn that much and more together. Don’t worry about it.”
Frankie wasn’t ready for the night to end. She felt as though she floated alongside him, walking along the boardwalk as an inky-black night erupted over them, speckled with stars. Zane had many theories about life and people. He hardly ever offered details of himself and instead spoke of ideas and dreams about the future. Frankie liked this about him. It made him feel so much more intelligent than the boys she’d known at university. And because he let her into his world, she felt as though, in turn, she was his equal. He was the one she’d been waiting for.
The fact that he kissed her when he dropped her off didn’t hurt, either. There in the shadows of his BMW, he pressed his lips against hers and wrapped her in a muscular embrace, one that made her feel so beautiful and so real. After their kiss broke, he gave her a final one on the tip of the nose and breathed, “I’ll be in contact soon.”
After that, she got out of his car and hurried back up the walkway, disappearing inside. From the foyer, she watched him drive away—not too fast, not too slow—and then she went upstairs to find Nellie already in bed, watching television.
Like a teenager swooning, Frankie crawled into bed with Nellie and burrowed against her, saying, “I’m in love! I’m in love!”
Nellie giggled. “You’re not in love. Not yet.”
“I am, Nellie,” Frankie said, sticking out her tongue. “They say you just know when you meet the one. Right?”
Nellie gave her a serious smile. They held the silence. Frankie could hear her own heart beating in her ears.
“You’re twenty-three now,” Nellie said finally. “Maybe that’s when you’re supposed to meet the love of your life. Maybe it’s time.”