Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Frannie barely slept, her mind churning, and now she’s stuffing giveaway bags for the Jaundice paperback release. She thought surely Henry was big enough to not need to do giveaway swag for preorder campaigns, but apparently not.
She’s set up across the dining room table again in Henry’s apartment.
He keeps glancing at Frannie, as if she’s an imposition, even though it’s hardly her fault her “office” is too small for a project like this.
He’s pacing in front of her, talking to Maribel about …
something. Frannie’s brain is fuzzy, and her heart still hurts. She needs to distract herself.
She should ask Henry about letting Brad and Gretchen in to ghost hunt. She hasn’t talked to Elsa about it, but she doesn’t think she can dodge Brad again if he comes over to the apartment.
And Frannie’s not sure she could face Elsa first, anyway, not after what she wrote. Not after what she had her fictional counterpart do. Not after the unhappy ending she gave them.
“How’s it coming?”
Frannie looks up, surprised to find Henry leaning on the back of one of the chairs across the table. He stopped talking on the phone? When?
“’Bout halfway?” Frannie says, glancing at her assembly line.
“Some homecoming, huh?” Henry asks, scrubbing at his face and plopping his phone down onto the table. “Take a break. I want to hear about your book.”
He pulls the chair out and sinks into it, looking at her expectantly. He gestures for her to sit down too.
Frannie’s stomach plummets. She avoids his gaze, looking down to finish the final preorder pouch before answering. Art card, bookmark, yellow enamel pin someone shelled out a pretty penny to stamp, author letter, wax seal on the envelope. Done.
“What genre did you pick? Another thriller? Something grounded? Gritty? Comedic?”
Frannie slowly puts the packet down and slides out the closest chair to sit with reluctance.
She’s supposed to have until Monday to figure out how to do this.
Even if the very thought of her Ghost Book didn’t fill her with angsty sadness, how is she supposed to explain it?
Oh, I wrote a book about an assistant working for a shitty boss in this building, who meets a hot lady ghost and spends the months her boss is on vacation having sex in his apartment with her?
Would he ever believe the boss isn’t based on him? Would he read it and know it’s all happened to Frannie? Well, minus the sex part, and the romance part, and … all the fun parts?
How can she tell him about a book she wrote that broke her heart?
“Well?” Henry prompts, eyebrows raised, expectant.
It settles heavy in her chest. She can’t do this. Deadline or no, opportunity or no, he can’t read this book. No one can.
“I … didn’t find the right idea,” Frannie says, her voice small.
All that light goes out of Henry’s eyes. “What?”
“I tried. Really, I did,” she says quickly, shoulders rising toward her ears. “But I just didn’t find the right idea. I have a few I’m toying with, but none of them produced pages.”
Henry leans back in his seat, frowning across the table at her.
She sits there stoically, trying to look casual and unruffled.
It was only two months. It was unreasonable to think she’d come up with an idea and write a whole book in that time.
That she’s still noodling on an idea is a perfectly reasonable response, to an average person.
But Henry’s not average.
And neither is she.
“That’s disappointing,” Henry says.
“Sorry,” Frannie says meekly. In her whole life, she’s never been a disappointment to have in class.
Henry sighs and looks down at his preorder materials.
“I think your edit is incredible,” he says, tapping his fingers on the table.
“So, I’m really baffled as to why you’re not attacking your own writing with the same excellence.
Especially when you had so much free time,” he adds, looking up at her, face pensive.
“The spark just wasn’t there,” Frannie hedges.
Henry scoffs. “That’s not good enough if you want a real career. Walk, shower, jog, see a play—you make the spark, then you fan it into fire. You don’t just wait around for something to fall into your head.”
Frannie grips at the seat of the chair beneath her, knuckles going white.
She’s done that. She’s written three books like that for him.
And he told her they were all worthless.
Her Ghost Book is the first one that didn’t feel like she was pushing the story out of her head through a coffee straw.
She found the spark, she fanned it, and she wrote an entire novel.
“That’s a real waste of two months,” Henry says.
The words are on the tip of her tongue. Snarls about how she used these last two months to their fullest. More than used them, she lived them.
She bonded with Gretchen and Brad. She made her own schedule.
She found two cute little kids and their enigmatic mother and became their friend, their person. And she wrote a book.
But she can’t push the words past her teeth. The pressure in her chest caves inward, not out, and she simply nods.
“Right, well, I’m going to take a walk,” he says. “I’ll leave pages on your desk. Finish up here and start on those.”
“Okay,” Frannie whispers, standing on shaky legs, reflexively reaching out for the next set of swag.
Henry sits there for another minute, watching her, and then gets up, walking perhaps more loudly than normal over to the desk to grab his notepad. Then he leaves the apartment, the silence ringing hollow behind him.
Frannie stuffs the preorder envelopes mechanically, breathing steadily, forcing herself not to burst into tears.
She hates this. She hates him. She hates herself, more than a little bit, for writing a book she doesn’t want to show him.
A book that was supposed to get her out of doing all this, the light at the end of this unending tunnel of a job. And now—
“Why didn’t you tell him about your book?”
Elsa stands behind the chair Henry vacated. Frannie’s breath whooshes out of her chest.
“Which book?” she asks, knee-jerk and stupid. Elsa’s watched her writing it, for God’s sake.
“Bridgette said you finished last night,” Elsa says, cocking her head. “He’d have been impressed; that’s very fast, even by his standards.”
“It’s … not a book for Henry,” Frannie hedges quickly.
“What?”
“It was just something fun to write.” She can’t talk about this with Elsa. She just can’t. “More like fanfiction, really.” Real-person, self-insert, tragic fanfiction no one should ever read.
Elsa purses her lips and narrows her eyes. “I thought the whole point was to write a book that felt like you. That’s what he said he’d send to his agent, isn’t it?”
Frannie can’t meet her eyes. “It’s fine. He’ll get over it, and I’ll … get another idea.”
She doesn’t know if she even wants to put words on paper anymore. Not after last night.
“You liked this idea. You’ve been writing every minute we’re not with you. And even when we are,” Elsa presses.
“I should get this done,” Frannie says, gesturing toward the preorder envelopes.
She never wants Elsa to go away, but tonight, if she stays, Frannie’s not sure she can contain herself. She needs to wallow, alone. She starts assembling another packet, keeping her eyes down, dismissive in a way that only makes her want to cry even more.
“Even if he doesn’t like it, you could still send it out yourself,” Elsa presses, instead of leaving her to ruminate in peace. “You don’t have to wait for him to submit it to Maribel. There are other agents.”
Frannie shrugs and clenches her jaw. She doesn’t want to talk about this. No one ever seems to understand why she would want to wait for Maribel. She wants the best. Is that so wrong?
But arguing about it is pointless, because she doesn’t want the best with this book. She doesn’t want anything with this book.
She grabs the next set of swag and pushes it a little too forcefully into an envelope. The pin catches on the bubble wrap and it rips.
“Dammit,” Frannie hisses, pulling everything out.
“You’re stalling.” Frannie looks up and meets Elsa’s eyes, surprised. “Whatever this is about, it’s keeping you here, and you deserve a hell of a lot more than this,” Elsa says, gesturing to the apartment around them.
“He probably wouldn’t have given it to Maribel anyway,” Frannie says, her voice rough, stomach clenching.
“That’s cowardly,” Elsa insists. “You’ll never know if you don’t show it to him.”
The words lance across Frannie’s heart and she looks down at the swag bag materials, losing the battle with her tears. “Well, I guess that’s me then, isn’t it?” she manages. “Cowardly, spineless, and impermanent. It’s a wonder you spend time with me at all.”
She hears Elsa’s intake of breath but can’t lift her eyes to see the words hit home. Refusing to wipe at her dripping nose, she fumblingly assembles another packet.
“You’re worth a hell of a lot more than how Henry treats you. And you’re a hell of a lot more than however you feel right now,” Elsa says. “I just wish you’d realize it.”
Frannie stares down at her hands, her fingers clenched into a bubble mailer.
She doesn’t know how to explain that she knows she’s better than all this, but the out she was working toward is one she just can’t take.
How can she give Henry her Ghost Book when it means admitting she can’t save Elsa and the kids—that the only ending to the last few months is a terrible one?
But she should say something. She needs to say something.
She finally lifts her head to meet Elsa’s gaze, and she’s gone. It’s just Frannie alone in the empty dining room.
She lets out a shuddering breath and pulls down the long sleeve of her henley to finally wipe at her nose and eyes. Fuck. The empty silence of the apartment taunts her.
Maybe she is a coward, after all.
A coward who still needs to stuff thirty swag bags. With a great sniff, she willingly loses herself in the monotony of assembly, forcefully pretending her conversation with Elsa never even happened.
Over an hour later, she finally heads up to her frigid office.
Winter has arrived in earnest, and she bundles herself into her parka on the back of her chair.
Henry left his notepad on her desk; no need to see him or face his disappointment again until tomorrow.
She plugs in her gloves and wakes her work computer, squinting at Henry’s terrible cursive with still tearing eyes.
“How does it feel to be done?”
Frannie slowly lifts her head and turns to find Bridgette standing in front of the closed office door, holding her red ball.
“What?” Frannie asks. Her face is stuffy from crying, she’s getting a headache, and one of the lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling is definitely starting to go dim.
“You finished your book last night, right?” Bridgette asks, smiling at her. “How does it feel?”
Frannie stares at her. It feels … She feels …
“Why did you tell your mom I finished?” she asks, and her voice is a hard rasp.
“Because you did,” Bridgette says, confused.
“I didn’t—I told you not to talk about it with her,” Frannie says, pulling her legs up onto her chair.
“You told me not to tell her what it’s about,” Bridgette replies, frowning. “But you’ve been working on it for months, so I thought you’d want to share now.”
“Well, I don’t,” Frannie snaps.
“I didn’t tell her what it’s about,” Bridgette says, her voice trembling.
“Fine.” Frannie looks back at her computer, all her feelings tearing up her throat.
“Why are you mad? I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m not mad,” Frannie grits out.
“Yes, you are!” Bridgette says plaintively.
Frannie bites at her lip, staring resolutely at her computer screen.
“It’s not my fault you wrote it sad.”
Frannie whips her head up, staring at the little girl, incredulous. “You read it?”
Bridgette takes a step away from her. “Only while you were typing.”
“Why would you do that?” Frannie asks, panic gripping her chest now. “I didn’t give you permission to spy on me, Bridgette. I didn’t say you could read it. Why would you snoop like that?”
It comes out too loud. Yelling—she’s yelling.
Bridgette’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
And then she disappears. Her red ball falls to the ground with a thwack and bounces across the office to jam between the narrowed ceiling at the aging floor.
Frannie sits there, heaving in air.
Shit. Shit. Shit.