Chapter 7 Don’t Yell at a Swarm of Bees #2
Once off the phone, Nico stops her. “Make sure he’s showered.
Get his hair combed. Betty’s got the kitchen making him spaghetti aglio, olio, e pepperoncino—don’t question it, just make him eat it.
Whatever you have to do, make him presentable.
He cannot mess this up. I’ve got Magda, I’ve got Dottie, I’ve got every outlet you can think of, everybody lined up.
We can’t have him looking like he just tied one on. ”
Frankie agrees, but Nico must see something on her face, because he continues.
“Drinking too much is not something he does. You hear me, Frankie? He smells like booze, looks like he has a hangover, any of it, that’s us waving a giant red flag. You remember what Bernays said about details? Nothing is too trivial.”
“I know. Got it.”
Two years ago, Jack dropped to the floor of a limousine.
Waiting in the line of cars at a premiere, one backfired.
Frankie remembers the grip of his hands on the back of his head, his fingers white.
At the time, she was new, and it didn’t occur to her that the sound had cannonballed the past into the present, but June, who’d been in the seat alongside him, simply leaned forward and calmly tapped the driver, telling him to go around the block.
There, she instructed the driver to drop off Frankie and Jack behind the building, then to drop her off at the premiere before circling back to take them home.
Not once was there surprise in her voice, or even disappointment.
Instead, there was a strange mix of protectiveness and frustration, like an older, annoyed sister who must step in to defend a sibling.
“Thank God we weren’t out of the car yet,” June said to Frankie.
She glanced at Jack. “And don’t even think about taking him to the premiere.
Not unless you want a scene, because here’s the order, in case you need to know, which you do.
First, panic. Second, confusion. Where am I?
Third, embarrassment, because the war was how long ago? Then the anger—”
“My old neighbor’s son was a veteran,” Frankie said, even then protective of Jack. “And he still doesn’t speak, to this day. Or, I guess to the day I left New York.”
“It’s a weakness is what it is. I had family who fought.
Don’t think I’m unsympathetic. My uncle lost a leg, and I felt bad, we all did, but he chose to be helpless because he could be.
My mother had to drop out of school to take care of him.
She didn’t get anything she wanted out of life because he couldn’t snap out of it. ”
Sure enough, all the phases June listed off came to pass, and soon his confusion flipped to a silent embarrassment before frustration rocketed into anger.
Anger at the war all those years ago. Anger at his mind, still so capable of yanking him under.
Anger at himself, for not being strong enough to resist it.
And anger at June, for seeing it all, and for being right.
Now Frankie knows that if she tells him what really happened last night with the shotgun, he’ll find that same shame and anger.
As she drives to his house in Pasadena, she decides she’ll see what he remembers, and if he doesn’t remember what happened, she’ll take it as a blessing and keep it that way.
She can’t risk going down that same road, not when he’s about to go in front of the press.
O’Shea answers the door. “More time with your sister?” she asks him, and he takes a deep breath, then motions to the kitchen.
Jack is standing at the pantry, and turns when she walks in. “Finally.” His hair is still wet, and he watches her like a patient eyeing a doctor entering the room. Quickly she gets the food ready, notes the time, and hands him the plate.
He sets it on the counter. “I need to know. Was there an intruder outside?”
She stays silent to let him continue, to see what more he offers.
“I remember holding the gun. I remember there was something bad outside.”
Something bad. She thinks of the little boy, the woman with her wet eyes. She thinks of Nico and then Jack, who just needs to make it through the day without making things worse, who has the rest of his life to be good but now just needs to be good enough.
“We heard something,” she finally says. “I think someone was trying to break in, but you scared them off.”
He nods just slightly, as if he’s tasting forgiveness, allowing himself a hint that it might be all right.
But then it builds, and he seems to be in full agreement, clinging to this new narrative, perhaps even seeing the scene play out in his mind.
Then a cloud, a shift. “You were breaking up with me, before everything. I remember that.”
“Jack, I didn’t say that. Just eat—”
“And what? Everything will get better?”
“Let’s just get through today.”
He shakes his head. “You’ve got your priorities, don’t you?”
“That’s not fair. You always knew I didn’t want to jeopardize my job.”
“Thank you, yes. And you continually make that clear.” Then he narrows his eyes as if having spotted something from a distance, something not right. “Was someone crying? A dog?”
The whimpering. The child. “No,” Frankie lies. “There were coyotes. Maybe that’s what you’re remembering.”
And he lets her say this, perhaps believing her, perhaps just wanting to believe.
Frankie, soothing and accommodating and convincing.
Jack, wanting to be good. Later she will think of this day, how he went to the studio and did the interviews and smiled and laughed and played his role, and how for all intents and purposes, it appeared that she had done her job because she helped.
She fixed. But did she? Sometimes she will wonder.
Perhaps she should’ve told him what really happened in the alley, because maybe, just maybe, things would’ve turned out differently if he realized just how close he was to the edge.