Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The twinkle lights are on when Frannie pushes her way into her chilly office.
She grins then shrugs out of her heavy backpack.
She may have gone a bit overboard with presents for Bridgette and Michael.
But her hometown five-and-dime has the weirdest assortment of toys she’s ever seen, and she just had to get half of them.
She fiddles with the sleeves of her blue sweater, a purchase she made on her day out shopping with her mom, thinking only of how Elsa might look seeing her in it.
She’s not nervous to see Elsa. Not nervous to tell her she plans to stay.
Not nervous, or excited, or elated, or twitterpated, or any of a thousand other adjectives. Not her. Nu-uh.
She sits down to set herself up to start typing up the notepad Henry’s already left on the corner of her desk, a solid amount of busywork to keep her entertained until her ghosts come to call. She’s just shifting her personal laptop away from her work laptop when the door bangs open.
Frannie jumps, surprised to find Henry standing in the doorway to the office. He’s wearing his normal red-and-black flannel, but his hair is a mess, and his eyes are a little … frenzied.
“Hey,” Frannie manages, her hand still held to her heart. Then she notices he’s holding most of a ream of paper. “Oh, wow, did you—should I be worried you got a temp in to type something up for you?” she asks, half teasing, half serious.
She holds out her hand for the papers. Did he finish a book while she was gone?
“What?” Henry asks, blinking at her. He follows her pointing finger and looks down at the manuscript in his hands. “No. No, this is yours.”
Frannie stares at him. “What?”
“Maribel wants to go out, today.”
“What?” Frannie repeats.
“In the Meanwhile. Very sneaky of you, putting it in my reading stack, and lying to me for months that you hadn’t written anything—we’ll talk about that later—but Maribel wants to go out today.”
Frannie can’t move. There’s a rushing sound in her ears. She hasn’t written anything called In the Meanwhile, and she certainly didn’t print anything for him. She didn’t lie about—
“She says it’s personal, and propulsive, and hyper-commercial, and I have to agree. The ghost-hunting thing also makes much more sense now.”
“The ghost—” Frannie mumbles, her whole world tilting.
Her Ghost Book. He read her Ghost Book. Her book about Elsa, and the kids, and Frannie—he’s holding it, which means someone printed it for him.
Her work laptop is still sitting innocently on the black-lacquered desk. Her work laptop that Elsa used all break long to email, and FaceTime, and read with her, and …
“Maribel says she already has six editors she texted over the break who want to read it. She was supposed to be reading Typeset, but she’ll get to it next week.”
Frannie’s eyes snap up to meet Henry’s. “What?” she asks again, weakly.
Her heart feels like it’s about to beat clean out of her chest. Henry read her Ghost Book. And he sent it Maribel. And she read it, instead of reading his book. And she told editors about it.
And Elsa read her Ghost Book.
“I’ll admit, it was presumptuous of me, but it was pretty damn presumptuous of you to just leave the book in my reading stack,” Henry goes on, unperturbed by Frannie’s lack of real response.
“I was all set to be pissed at you, but it’s good.
It’s really very good. So, I figured you wouldn’t kill me for finding it on your computer and slipping it to Maribel.
She says the editors are practically frothing at the mouth. So. Tell me we’re sending it out.”
Everything’s fuzzy. She can’t—she doesn’t know that to think, or feel, or—
“Maribel thinks it could be a mid-six-figure deal, especially if you change the ending.”
“The ending?” Frannie repeats, her voice hollow. Her hands are shaking. She’s going to have a panic attack in about a minute.
“I personally like the bleak ending. It’s ballsy. But romance, with the happily ever after and all, can sell big. And studios would eat it up too.”
Studios. She can’t wrap her head around this. Because if she does, she thinks she might burst into ugly tears.
“Not that Hollywood has ever deigned to get anything I’ve sold for film out of development hell, but paranormal romance? They eat that commercial shit up. You really hit it out of the park. I’m going to be telling everyone I discovered you.”
The lights flicker above and around them. Frannie’s breath hitches.
Her dream career opportunity is standing in her doorway, telling her she has it. She wrote it. She did it.
“So, can I tell Maribel it can go out?”
Her chest is caving in on itself, everything twisted and wrong and painful, joy and disbelief and grief and anger knotting themselves into her ribs.
“Frannie,” Henry prompts, laughing a little.
No one was supposed to read that book.
The lightbulb on the far side of the room suddenly bursts into a shower of sparks and falling glass.
Henry whips around, staring up at it, shocked.
Elsa appears right behind him. “Say yes,” she mouths fiercely. Frannie just stares at her. “SAY YES,” Elsa repeats, before she vanishes on the spot.
Henry turns back to Frannie. “I’ll call maintenance after I call Maribel. Because we’re sending it out, right, Fran?”
Frannie feels herself nod before she’s made the decision to—sees Henry’s responding emphatic smile. She watches him spin on his heel and pull his cellphone out of his pocket.
“We’re gonna be huge,” he says as he walks out of the office and down the hall.
Frannie sits there, stunned and winded, her eyes drawn to the spattering of glass on the floor across the room. Henry’s calling his agent to put her book on submission. Because he, and his agent, think it’ll be a big, commercial success.
The book that Elsa read, and gave to Henry, without telling her. Without asking her. Without asking what she wanted.
There are no flickering lights. No whispers. No movement. She’s alone in the office.
She’s never felt more haunted.