Chapter 31 Get Ahead of It #2
Later she will wonder if she was cruel. Later she will remember that the medical examiner said undissolved and partially dissolved pills, and that without a real autopsy whose purpose was to find the truth—rather than scratch the surface for appearances—there’s no way to know what impact the pills truly had, or what she might have taken prior.
Was she as good as gone? Or was she gone?
All Frankie knows for sure is Nico’s done enough, and forcing June and Jack to marry could’ve been the final straw.
The bottom line is that, for years, June was made to lead a life that wasn’t her own, and now he’s trying to take away the truth of her death as well.
Calmly, Frankie replies, “Maybe she did mean it. And maybe it was too late. But we’ll never know, because you cared more about saving the studio than you did about saving her.”
The second she says it, he nods as if a new understanding is taking hold. And though his eyes are red and shine as if he’s holding back tears, his gaze is steady.
“The house is ours. The apartment is ours. The car is ours.”
He’ll take everything. It’s as if the moment has finally arrived.
As if all her life she’s been running toward an edge, closer and closer, and here, right now, her feet have found the air.
She will be alone and she will have nothing.
Somehow, though, she’s not afraid. Because she had what she thought was right and told herself she didn’t need anyone and that the goal was a house on a hill and silence, and she had all that within reach.
The steady check and the safety net that Nico affords her.
But now she sees what it truly amounts to.
“If you make this choice,” he continues, “it’s a big one. You don’t come back from it. And don’t think the tides won’t turn on Jack. I’m the one who’s keeping him safe, for now.”
The necklace. The gun. He has the means to frame Jack, anytime. And maybe this ruthlessness drives it home: If she embraces her long-held idea of success by turning her back on what’s truly right, that’s when she’ll fail. That’s when the ground beneath her feet will disappear.
So she stands. He looks at her only for a moment before angling the lampshade on his desk as if the light has grown too much, and doesn’t watch as she walks out the door.
She doesn’t tell Betty what happened, but from the way Betty looks down, the way she fills the silence with typing, she knows.
What all did she hear? Betty, whose desk fills with flowers on her birthday and who’s invited to every premiere and party.
How much does she keep quiet about? One last time, Frankie goes to Romeo and Juliet, whispering a goodbye, then gathers her belongings at her desk: a photo of her and Nico in front of the New York restaurant facade, a Bayer aspirin tin, and the script of The Last Chance that the cast signed.
Frankie, It’s always a good day for a beach day! —Jack
Venice. The little house.
With her back to Betty, she picks up the phone and asks to be put through to Jack’s Pasadena residence, where O’Shea answers. Quietly, she says, “Tell him Frankie needs a beach day and is going there. Tell him that I need to do this, and I hope that’s all right with him.”
O’Shea knows what she’s referring to, and must know she doesn’t want the studio operator to hear. She can hear the concern in his voice. “Of course, but are you—”
“I’m fine. I will be fine. Right now, I just need a beach day.”
When she hangs up, Betty is standing at a plant nearby, slowly pouring in water. “They loved each other. You should know that.”
Frankie glances at Nico’s closed door. “Who did?”
“June and Tank.”
Does Betty know that Tank called her? It’s not far-fetched to think she checked in with the studio operator after overhearing a call that seemed suspicious. “I was still in New York then.”
Betty gives a short laugh. “Then? You mean a few weeks ago you were in New York?”
Frankie tries to play it off with a laugh of her own. “I just mean I wasn’t always sure it was love. Real love, I mean.”
“You weren’t? Seemed clear to me. I blame Iffy,” she says about June’s sister, “if you want to know the truth. If she didn’t run her big mouth to Nico the second June told her they were eloping, everything might’ve been different.”
Frankie tries to keep the surprise from her face as Betty continues.
“I think about it, sometimes. How different it all would’ve been.
The two of them married, and not one thing we could do.
Not one thing.” She pulls a dead leaf off the plant, and then another one, crumpling them in her hand.
“Husband and wife happy and together, at last. Call me old-fashioned, but I think a man should at least have the option of raising his own child.”
Words stick in Frankie’s throat. She wants to throw the phone against the wall, to slam open the window and scream across the lot. Because Tank was the father, and Tank and June were in love. They wanted to be together. June was trying to fix her own life when the studio stopped her.
All she manages to say, quietly, is, “You’re right. It would’ve been so different.”
That one moment, the moment Ida heard the plan. If she congratulated her sister. If she forced a smile. If she turned away and let the rest unfold.
Betty tests the soil in another pot. “I know Iffy thought she knew what was best for June, everyone did. But I’m not forgiving her. No way. And I know Tank wasn’t perfect, but he’s still doing right by June’s reputation. The way I see it, that’s love.”
Tank, who the studio most likely strong-armed into not talking about his relationship with June or the truth of their feelings or the child that they’d wanted, because it would damage her reputation.
Tank, who behaved, even when the police dragged him in and kept him for questioning, because he genuinely wanted what was best for June.
Tank, who just wanted to know that June really loved him.
A bit of water splashes onto the floor, and Betty uses her shoe to spread it out till it’s almost gone.
What did Nico tell Frankie? That in that last call June made, she said he didn’t even show up.
June meant Tank. He was who the other glass was for.
But June didn’t know that Nico made him leave that night, that Nico had enough on Tank to ensure he listened.
Did he pay him? Threaten him? Or just lie?
She doesn’t want to be with you, and you will destroy her. Did Nico say that?
If you love her, you will let her go.
Frankie can almost hear him saying those words.
I messed up, Tank told Frankie. Because he listened to Nico, because he didn’t go to June that night.
Softly, Frankie says, “If only Tank didn’t buy the lies, hook, line, and sinker.”
“People are so vulnerable when it comes to love. I guess I see why. Love is pretty unbelievable, so maybe it just makes more sense to think it can’t be real.”
“It’s easier to think it’s not real.”
Through this new lens, everything with Tank and June looks different.
June never wanted to be rid of him. And he was never stalking her or invading her privacy—they were simply caught trying to have a forbidden relationship.
When he showed up at nearby hotels when she was on location, it would’ve been because June told him where to go.
When he was at the premiere, it was because he was proud and wanted to be close by, any way he could.
And at the funeral, he was only trying to grieve.
“The whole Jack-and-June thing was a mess,” Betty says.
“I love a good romance, but some things are just cruel. And really, it gives me hope that an even better love story could be the one without an audience. Bodes well for the rest of us, doesn’t it?
” Looking straight at Frankie, Betty adds, “Still, it might be nice for him to know it was real. That she did really love him.”
“You’re right.” Frankie glances toward Nico’s office door. “Love is hard enough without other people making it impossible.”
“Well, I expect you might know a bit about that too.” Betty gives a small smile, and then, as if she never spoke, she turns to a palm tree in the corner and pours in the rest of the water.
Betty. Sometimes forgotten, but always listening.
Frankie needs to get out of here. But for the first time in years, she has no direction and no plan. And worse, she’s walking away from the best thing she’s ever had.
Silently, she puts The Last Chance script in her bag when she sees the corner where June signed her name:
Frankie, don’t worry, it’s not your last chance . . . it’s all just beginning! June