Chapter 31 Get Ahead of It
Get Ahead of It
Her mother would know what to do. Maybe it’s being thoroughly alone at a time like this, but Frankie has finally realized that she needs someone, that being able to be alone isn’t the same thing as wanting to be alone.
She would forgive a thousand well-intentioned lies just to lean against her mother’s shoulder or hear her voice.
Or Jack. She thinks of going to him to tell him she’s in over her head, that Nico might have shot June when she was alive, but Jack warned her, and she still chose to believe Nico over him.
The only way she might redeem herself is if she helps to untangle Jack from June’s death. Somehow.
One thing she knows is if she doesn’t go to work today, Nico will notice and register the threat. And Nico does not respond well to threats.
On the drive, she rehearses what she’ll say.
She’ll get ahead of it by telling Nico that she visited Cyrus, that she went to be sure the story was airtight, because she’s heard rumors that a reporter’s looking into things.
If he questions who the rumors came from, she’ll say one of her roommates; after all, both are secretaries who spend all day on the phone and are frequently on the receiving end of gossip.
What’s important is that she tells him this before Cyrus gets to him.
Meanwhile, the city seems to have gotten worse, not better.
More and more buildings are demolished, with messy timbered piles left on the sides of roads.
Dust and debris are everywhere. The car radio requires a key to unlock, and at a stop sign, she does this, turning up the volume on the news show.
All over the country, the host says, banks have reopened, though President Roosevelt’s pleading with the American people to leave their money be.
But good news, folks, he continues, because our prezzie’s also recommending to Congress that they modify the Volstead Act in order to legalize the sale and transportation of liquor.
Laughter as the man catches his breath. They need the revenue!
I tell ya, we could get out of the Depression if they tax my booze alone, because I will cel-e-brate!
People cross the street to join a line at the bank.
Every second feels like another in which Nico’s phone rings and Cyrus gets to him first. Right as she’s about to accelerate, a family steps off the curb.
Frankie slams on the brakes just in time, and a girl peers at Frankie’s car as the mother pulls on her arm, eyes impatient, taking in the line.
People need the dream. They need the idea of happiness and success, and to think they can rise up from the ashes into something great.
You tell them June hated her life and couldn’t get through a day without pills, and who does that help?
Frankie wishes she could pull over and ask these people if it helps to think that anything is possible, or if the more important lesson is that struggle is a part of everyone’s life, and there is no such thing as perfection.
What has more impact, the value of a dream or the cost of a lie?
Every light turns red. Every car in front of her slows. It’s the longest drive of her life, but at last she’s outside the studio gates and pulling in. Along the wall, a tall woman holds a single pink rose, stepping carefully among the dried flowers as she reads notes that fans left behind.
“He’s in a mood,” Betty says the second Frankie walks in. “Got on a call and slammed the door.”
Calmly, Frankie forces herself to drop her bag on her chair as she usually does, then go to the parrots. “Do you know who called?” she asks Betty.
“The ME.”
The medical examiner. Frankie turns, eyeing the door behind her. If she goes home now, he will take it as confirmation of her guilt. Her only choice is to stay and try to play things off.
Through the window, she spots a crew filming two actors on bikes, kids who pedal as fast as they can, then stand up as the wind lifts their hair.
To the left of their building are the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower.
And somewhere behind her, like a memory never far off, is New York, those blocks that yank her through the years.
All of it part of a magic that can save and an illusion that can destroy.
“Betty, does it help people to think the dream is possible?”
After a moment, the woman says, “Guess it depends on what dream. But we all need something to want, right? And it would be horrible to think you could just want and want and never get. So the possibility seems essential.”
Nico’s voice goes loud in the other room. Directly below the window, a group of people follow a tour guide. In unison, their faces angle toward Frankie’s window.
So many movies, so many stories they’ve sold and worlds they’ve created.
But threaded alongside are the stars themselves, actors whose names roll off tongues the same as if someone were referring to a friend.
The movies are escape and entertainment, but what is the rest?
The fascination that makes it not just about acting or stories?
“Can you love someone’s art and not them?
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Celebrity has made it so the two go together. ”
“Do they?”
“What made June a great actress is what she couldn’t show to the public because they wouldn’t like it, but it made her real and it made her who she was, but they don’t want that. Same with Jack, same with—”
“Frankie,” Betty says. Her face is unreadable. She waits to be sure she has Frankie’s attention, and then, under her breath, she continues: “Careful.”
Through the wall, Nico yells Frankie’s name. Already, Betty’s back to her typewriter, a moment of silence before she unleashes a storm of clacking. Heart racing, Frankie goes to Nico’s office and knocks on the door.
“I called you, didn’t I?” Nico says when she enters. “Why’d you need to knock?”
Closing the door behind her, Frankie catches Betty watching before quickly looking down.
She forces a smile and takes a seat. “Everything good?”
The line between his brow deepens as if he’s trying to figure something out. “Cyrus, the medical examiner, called to say a reporter is sniffing around.”
Get ahead of it. “That’s what I told him.”
“When you were there.”
“Right. Yesterday. I went to talk to him because I’m worried.”
“About a reporter?”
“About all the reporters, but yes. I heard some rumors that someone’s looking into the crime scene.”
He taps his pen on the desk, and she sees that he wants to believe her, just as she wants to believe him. “Any idea who?”
She shakes her head. “It was vague. But I thought if I went there, maybe I’d run into someone. I hoped.” All believable, she thinks.
“Mickey told me Magda was at the station trying to get information.”
Magda. They sent her to the police station on a wild-goose chase to look into muddy shoe prints, and they did it so the chief of police would call Nico and tell him she was there, and so Magda would learn she was told on and be beholden to Nico.
That is exactly what happened. Did he forget, or is he beginning to suspect everyone?
“We sent her there,” she says, not wanting Magda to get in trouble.
“Right, but what else has she stumbled on? With that article she printed, all conjecture and speculation—she’s not on our side. I bet it was her.”
From the other room, one of the parrots lets out a loud squawk. Never let someone you love get in the way of doing what’s right. What is she doing? She can’t live like this. Suddenly she’s speaking, with no plan. “I think I’m going to leave.”
He says nothing, confused.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Now it hits him what she means. He studies her as if she’s grown smaller. “Frankie, this is a tough time, I’ll grant you that. But it’s almost over.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not almost over. I don’t think it ends.”
He scratches his forehead, a red mark left behind, then looks to the door to make sure it’s shut. “Cyrus said you were asking questions.”
Always catch a person off guard, before they can rehearse.
Calmly, she says, “You shot her when she was still alive.”
There is genuine confusion on his face. He’s thrown, and almost starts to laugh, before realizing she’s serious. “No, she wasn’t. How could you say that?” He glances at the door as if it might have opened, then back to Frankie, waiting for her to respond.
“You did, Nico.”
“I don’t know why you’re saying this.”
“Because it’s true.”
“No. She was gone. Empty bottle of pills, I couldn’t wake her up. A note. I told you—”
“She was passed out. From that bottle of champagne and who knows what she took earlier—but not twenty-one pills that weren’t absorbed and were still whole enough to be counted.”
There is fear on his face, but he doesn’t fidget. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t wring his hands or clear his throat. He’s steady when he speaks, and his voice comes out strong and genuine. “What are you saying? You’re saying that it wasn’t the pills?”
“I’m saying her heart was still beating. That’s why there was so much blood.”
“No, I didn’t feel a pulse. She was gone.”
He believes what he’s saying. But she also knows that he will double down, and at this point, he’s gone way too far to back out. All that makes for a man who is very, very dangerous.
“Twenty-one pills, Nico. She might have just taken them.”
He lowers his head. “She had the lights off. And the door locked. She didn’t leave it open because she didn’t want me to find her.
Because she meant it. And she left a note,” he says again, as if reading from a list he’s compiled at night, all the ways he’s reassured himself.
“There was no pulse, nothing I could—” He stops. “She meant it.”