15. Frankie
FIFTEEN
frankie
“You know I’ll come back in a heartbeat if you need me,” Enzo Lombardi says. He hugs his daughter gruffly, patting her on the back as he clears his throat.
Frankie is standing in the middle of the airport in Ft. Lauderdale with her parents, watching as her mother scans their fellow passengers with mild disapproval. “Why are these women so casual?” she says to no one in particular. “You see her over there in her flat shoes?” Allegra tsk-tsks a woman in Keds and capri pants. “Is she going to work in her garden, or fly to New York City?”
Frankie stifles a smile at her mother’s running commentary, which is something that they’re all accustomed to. “I don’t know, Mama,” she says mildly. “Maybe she wants to be comfortable.”
“Be comfortable at night when you’re in your own bed,” is Allegra’s answer to that. She shakes her head and smooths her hands down the front of her light blue skirt suit. She even has a flower that she’d plucked right from the bush in front of Frankie’s house that’s now pinned to her lapel. Her hair is set and styled, and her makeup is impeccable.
Enzo ignores the whole conversation as he releases his grip on Frankie but holds onto both of her hands. “Do you hear me? I’ll come right back,” he says, though Frankie knows that her father would not relish the idea of buying yet another plane ticket to come back to Florida so soon. Her parents are comfortable in their lifestyle after decades of hard work, but part of the reason they’re so comfortable is that Enzo is extremely fastidious about what they spend money on.
“I’m fine, Papa,” she says softly, still watching her mother from the corner of her eye as Allegra observers a woman giving her two children candy before their flight. Frankie looks back at her father. “I promise. You just caught me at a bad time.”
Enzo is looking at her as if he isn’t believing a word of what she’s saying. “Francesca,” he says plainly. “You’re my daughter. I can’t fix everything that’s wrong in your life now that you’re a grown woman, but I will do anything in my power to protect you. To be there for you.”
Frankie knows this is true. He hadn’t asked too many questions after their talk on the golf course, and he never again mentioned the night he’d caught her outside during the storm, nor the fact that he sat up the rest of the night in her front room, reading quietly and making sure she slept soundly.
“Thank you,” she says to him, reaching her arms out to hug him one more time. Her father is the silent, steady rock of her family—he always has been.
“Okay, okay, Enzo!” Allegra says, waving her husband away so that she can hug Frankie too. “Let me say goodbye to my baby.” Frankie nearly laughs at the way her mother refers to her as “her baby”—she hasn’t been a baby in nearly three decades, but it warms her heart to think that her parents still see her as their little girl. “Your husband comes home tomorrow, mia perla ,” Allegra says as she hugs Frankie and then puts her hands on both sides of Frankie’s face as she looks up at her daughter. “Everything will be okay.”
Allegra is about six inches shorter than Frankie, so Frankie presses her cheek to the top of her mother’s head and hugs her back. “I know, Mama,” she says, smiling at Enzo over Allegra’s head. “I know it will.”
Frankie feels reasonably certain that her father never mentioned anything to her mother about the moments they’d shared during this visit, so most likely Allegra is simply referring to the fact that she thinks Frankie will get pregnant soon. But then again, mothers do seem to know so many unspoken things about their children that anything is possible—maybe Allegra really does know that Frankie has something dark that haunts her like a ghost hiding around every corner. Maybe she can feel that Ed is already talking about taking his career in another direction. Maybe she knows things that Frankie can’t even imagine her knowing.
Frankie waits until her parents have checked in at the counter and they begin their descent into the hallway that leads down to the aircraft. She watches as Allegra slides her arm through Enzo’s, her oversized purse hooked over one shoulder as she looks up at her husband, saying something that Frankie can’t hear. Enzo smiles down at her, patting the hand that’s looped through his arm. She loves her parents so much in this moment, and she loves that they’d come to Florida to stay with her for a month. Having them there had let her just be a daughter for a while, and she’d needed that without even knowing it.
But now Ed is coming home, and with him, the realities of her life and her marriage. Frankie wants to get serious about looking at opening her dance studio, and she wants to work on the things that have kept her from truly being able to give her true self to her husband. And if that’s not entirely possible, then she at least wants to confront them in her own mind, because she has to. As painful as it is and as hard as it will be, Frankie knows know that she’ll never move forward without going back.
With Ed home again, life returns to its normal and predictable patterns. Frankie shops for groceries listlessly during the day, tossing eggplant, a hunk of parmesan, fresh herbs, and flour for pasta into her cart. She ambles the aisles of Publix in her dresses and sandals, hair done, makeup on.
In the evenings, Ed stops at the Black Hole several days a week for a beer with the guys, and Frankie sits by the pool with a novel and an ashtray for her cigarettes while water boils on the stove for linguini. Pork chops bake as she reads about other people taking big adventures, and her wine glass slowly empties while her mind travels the world with whichever characters have captured her attention at that moment.
After dinner there are walks with Jo, television shows to watch, and easy conversation with Ed, but nothing deep and nothing that will rock the boat that they both carefully keep balanced on the water. But on Ed’s third evening at home after his trip from Seattle, Frankie finally tires of the way they dance around so many serious topics, and she takes matters into her own hands.
“Edward,” she says, holding a spatula in one hand as she moves the rest of the lasagna into a container to save for later.
Ed looks up from the sports page. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, keeping her company. He gives a sharp laugh and folds the paper in half, giving Frankie his full attention. “Uh oh,” Ed says. “Am I in trouble?”
Frankie sets the spatula down and walks over to him. She pulls out a kitchen chair and slumps onto it with resignation. “You’ve been home for three days and we’ve barely talked.”
Ed frowns. “We’ve talked plenty, Frank. I asked you all about your parents, and I told you about Seattle and we talked about Jo writing a book. What did we miss?”
Frankie blows out an exasperated breath. “ Everything ,” she says. “We never talked about the dance studio, and you never told me if you were really thinking about trying to find a job in Seattle, and…” She looks at her hands as she picks at her cuticles. “We never talked about that thing you said—on the phone.”
“What thing?”
“You know,” Frankie says, unable to meet his gaze. “When you said we’d never have children if we didn’t try.”
Ed inhales a long, slow breath, holding steady like he doesn’t want to make a quick move that might startle her. “Right,” he says. Ed reaches across the table for Frankie’s hand. “And I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to say something so unkind. It’s just…” He pauses, collecting his thoughts. “It’s just that I’m a man, Frankie, and I have needs. More importantly, I need and I want the woman I married. And sometimes I feel like you don’t want me back. Is it fair to say that?” He asks this question gently, but Frankie still feels confronted. Attacked.
“I think it’s fair for you to feel that way,” she says, lacing her fingers through his as she tries to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. The light that hangs over their kitchen table casts a warm glow on them as they sit there together, trying to speak without hurting one another. “But it’s not true.” Frankie’s eyes fill with tears and she blinks them back. “I do want you, I just have some things that I need to deal with.”
Ed leans back in his chair but doesn’t let go of her hand. “Frankie,” he says sharply, looking out the glass of their sliding door. “We’ve been married for three years. I understood when I proposed that you had some—what shall I call them—hang ups? But I also thought that you’d learn to trust me and to put those things aside. I thought you’d eventually warm up and that we’d have a normal relationship.”
Frankie pulls back from him, taking her hand with her. “Normal?” she says with a tinge of disgust to her voice. “Are you saying we’re not normal?”
Ed blinks. “Well, I don’t think it’s normal that you only let me touch you once every blue moon.”
A small sob escapes Frankie’s chest and she folds her arms across her torso, letting her head fall forward. She can’t look at him, the shame is so great. Because Ed is not wrong: what kind of wife doesn’t let her husband touch her? What kind of woman is so closed off that her husband doesn’t even know why she can’t let herself be totally free? What kind of woman throws herself at a man right before he leaves for a monthlong work trip, but then doesn’t open her arms to him the same way upon his return?
“You’re right,” she says hoarsely, nodding and still not looking at Ed. “You’re right.”
“And the last time we…before I left, did anything come of that?” He nods at her, indicating her stomach; he’s clearly asking whether she might be pregnant.
Frankie shakes her head sadly. Her period had come like clockwork two weeks after Ed had left for Seattle. “No,” she whispers.
“Frankie,” Ed says with urgency in his voice. He leans across the table and reaches for her, taking her upper arms in both hands gently. “You have to let me in. You need to trust me, and you need to let me understand you. Without that, we’re just two strangers dancing around one another and trying not to shatter the glass cage we live in. I can’t do that forever. Can you?”
Frankie shakes her head, but she doesn’t truly know: could she live that way forever? Maybe. It’s safe, and there’s no fear of having to tell anyone her secret. Sure, it’s unsatisfying on some levels, but when it comes right down to it, Frankie loves Ed and she knows that Ed loves her.
“No, you can’t?” he asks, trying to make heads or tails of her silence. “Because I can’t. I love you, Francesca. I want to build a life and a family with you but I need to know where we are and where we stand. I need to know what’s going on with you. Can you talk to me?”
Frankie realizes that she’s shivering, she’s shaking and her body is nearly jerking in her chair as she holds herself tightly with both arms. Her teeth chatter as she nods. “I can try,” she says. “I will try.”
Without speaking, Ed stands and pulls Frankie up with both hands. “I want you to trust me right now, okay?” he says gently. “Can you?” Frankie nods, and he leads her through the sliding glass door and out to the darkened patio, where their pool hums with light and the sound of the filter. “You can trust me, Frank. I won’t ever hurt you,” Ed says, unbuttoning his own shirt as he watches her. He never takes his eyes off his wife as he slips his arms out of the shirt and tosses it on a pool chair. With his feet, he kicks off his shoes, and then he unzips his pants, stepping out of them and leaving them on the concrete.
Gaze still on Frankie, Ed steps into the pool wearing just his boxer shorts. “Come in?” he asks her gently, holding out one hand. Frankie stares at him. “Please? I just want to talk.”
After a moment, Frankie unzips the front of her dress, letting it fall off her narrow shoulders. She pulls her arms out one at a time as she steps out of her shoes, feeling the warm pavement beneath her bare feet. Ed is smiling at her from the pool, one hand still outstretched as Frankie lets the dress fall. She unhooks her bra and drops that, stepping into the water in just her underwear. She holds her breasts in one arm, her other hand reaching for the railing so that she can step carefully into the water and over to where Ed is waiting with open arms.
Once the water rises to her collarbone, Frankie lets her breasts float free in the water and she swims the short distance to where Ed is, snaking both arms around his neck and holding onto him like she would drown without him. She wouldn’t drown, but she feels like she might.
“Hey,” he whispers in her ear, the feeling of cool water and warm skin colliding between them. It’s intimate, but Frankie doesn’t feel that he’s invited her into the pool for any other reason than to startle her out of her shaking and chattering. He’s asked her to get into the water with him so that they can hold each other, and possibly so the sound of the pool filter will soothe her as their words pass back and forth from lips to ear. “I love you, Francesca. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
Frankie lets one hand drift through the water as she holds onto her husband with the other arm. She puts her head back, turning her face up to the stars as the quaking inside of her begins to settle. She can do this. She can be honest with him.
She will.
She’ll tell him soon—but not yet.
As the stars begin to twinkle overhead against the dark denim of the winter sky, Frankie exhales. She lifts her head from the water and her wet hair falls all around her shoulders. “Ed,” she says, leaning in close so that her lips are right next to his warm ear. “I’m trying so hard. I need to find a way to be myself again. Can you help me?”
Ed nods, and she can feel his heart beating as his pulse races in his neck beneath her hand. “I want to help you,” he says. “But sometime soon I’m going to need the whole story. I want to know all of you, not just part of you.”
Frankie nods, feeling the fear of full disclosure as she imagines actually saying the words aloud.
“I’m here, Frankie,” Ed assures her, holding her close under the light of the moon. I’m right here.”
Frankie’s first order of business after she gets the keys to the dance studio in downtown Stardust Beach three weeks later is to open the windows to the late winter afternoon. The sun is sinking lower in the sky, and the air blows through the space, reminding her that she’s safe. She’s not in New York, and she is not in danger. Everything she wants to work through is in the past, and lives now only inside of her. She takes a deep breath and thinks about what she needs to do before she changes into a leotard and a pair of tights with her dance shoes—a costume she hasn’t worn in years. With the wood floors mopped and the long mirror cleaned, Frankie turns on the radio and places herself in the center of the room, where she begins to stretch and limber up.
“Earth Angel” by the Penguins plays softly as she puts one foot on the barre that she’s had installed. She leans her body sideways, arching her torso towards her pointed toes like her body is a rainbow. The next song is more upbeat, and Frankie begins to lunge and plié, feeling her muscles warm up and her body begin to thrum. It’s been ages since she’s let herself move like this. To be free and to take up the space around her with her whole being.
She spins once and hears her knee pop, which brings a smile to her face. She’d pulled a tendon several years before during the Rockettes’ Christmas show, and while there isn’t any pain to it now, her knee is still given to making an audible sound if she steps on it wrong, and to Frankie, it feels like a war injury that’s there to remind her of what she’s been through—and that she’s survived it.
Soon enough, the music has taken over, and with a loosening of her joints, Frankie begins to really dance. Her body bends nimbly, her arms rounding gracefully and her legs extending high when she kicks. She explores the entire space—moving around the room like it’s a stage that she and she alone can command, leaping and throwing herself in a tangle of limbs and energy. It feels good. She’s at home in her body and lost in the music, and as she does things that she hasn’t done since the last time she danced in New York, Frankie realizes that her ability to dance has never really left her. It’s always been there, and all she’s needed to do is give herself permission to enjoy it again.
With her eyes focused on one spot on the wall, Frankie pirouettes three times, four times, five, stopping herself with one firm plant of her foot. When she does, she’s facing the doorway, and there, smiling at her as he leans against the doorframe, is Ed.
“What do you think?” Ed asks, stepping into the dance studio and looking around. “Are you happy with the space?” He looks like a hopeful little boy who has handed his mom a bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers, and all he wants now is her praise and approval.
Frankie takes it all in as she wraps her long arms around her leotard-clad body. She gives a pleased nod. “I am,” she says. “It’s perfect.”
The music plays on as Frankie turns lightly, pirouetting across the room. She knows what she needs to do—aside from getting some kids signed up to take her dance classes so that she can make the rent every month—and the time to start is now.
“I need a couple of hours here to work on something,” Frankie says to Ed as she stops spinning. She crosses the space and kisses him lightly on the lips. “I have an idea, and I want to follow it.”
Ed puts his hands in the pockets of his pants and backs out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll come back for you in a couple of hours?” he offers through the open doorway.
Frankie nods, her mind already racing. She doesn’t even watch Ed as he crosses the street because she’s already dancing again.