Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I’m going to send out our first ten submissions as soon as we’re off. The only action items for you are to think about your next book, and celebrate.”
Frannie stares blankly at the title page for In the Meanwhile by Francine Goldstein, pulled up there on her work laptop. Maribel’s words take a moment to register.
“Thank you,” Frannie manages.
Maribel laughs. “I know, it’s a lot. But it’s going to be big. I can’t promise you that, but I feel it, and my gut is rarely wrong. Book club big, even.”
“Okay,” Frannie says, hoping she sounds … something less than stunned, shocked, and gut-punched.
“Okay,” Maribel replies merrily. “Congratulations on a truly wonderful book, Frannie. We’ll talk soon.”
“Thank you,” Frannie repeats.
“It’s my absolute pleasure,” Maribel replies.
And then the call cuts off, leaving Frannie alone in the silence of the office with nothing but the twinkle lights and the soft creaking of the wind whipping over the roof.
She should be jumping for joy, shouting, doing the world’s most absurd victory dance. Maribel reiterated that she thought the book had mix-six-figure potential. There’s a submission list in Frannie’s email full of dream editors she’d never even let herself consider.
She might actually get that Hollywood-style ridiculous publishing deal that’s never seemed truly tangible before. But it is. Because she wrote a book that’s—
A tear finally slips down her cheek and Frannie brushes it roughly away.
She wrote a book that might be so successful it will take her away from the one thing she had decided she actually wants. From the kids, from Elsa, from here.
Maribel will never let her stay Henry’s assistant if she gets big publishing money. Henry probably wouldn’t be able to handle it. And if she can’t stay …
She’s sobbing quietly into her hands before she realizes what’s happened. She bows over her work laptop, elbows on the desk, trying to muffle her voice, everything spilling out.
Her cellphone pings and Frannie reaches for it on autopilot. She squints at the screen with blurry eyes.
How did it go??—from Henry.
Frannie types out her response with numb fingers. The false enthusiasm comes easily: Great! Will be down in a few, when I can speak in coherent sentences. ?
When she’s done crying, that is.
“Congratulations!”
Frannie jerks in her chair, turning to find Bridgette and Michael standing by the tabletop tree, party hats on their heads. Michael blows a little party horn while Bridgette jumps up and down.
Frannie swipes quickly at her face, forcing a wide smile for them and hoping she’s not completely splotchy. She doesn’t want them to know that they’re ripping her heart into pieces.
“Thanks, guys,” she says. It comes out more of a croak than anything else.
“I always knew Henry would like it,” Bridgette says smugly.
“You were right,” Frannie agrees, snuffling.
“When do you find out?” Michael asks, going straight for the process story.
“It could be a couple days, it could be months,” Frannie says.
Oh, God, her book is going out into the world. Editors are going to judge it. They could be getting rejections for months. Years, she’s heard.
“It’ll be fast,” Bridgette insists. “Your books are really easy to read.”
“Because they read so quickly,” Michael corrects her. “They’re written to be readable. That’s a skill!”
Elsa appears behind the children, and Frannie freezes.
“Let’s give Frannie a couple minutes to get herself together,” Elsa says. “This must be overwhelming for her.”
“But—” Bridgette starts.
“You can keep working on the poster, can’t you?” Elsa asks them.
Michael nods, throwing Frannie a smile before grabbing Bridgette’s little hand. She pouts but disappears with him, leaving Elsa and Frannie alone.
Elsa looks just like she did before Frannie left for the holidays—perfect, lightly gauzy, put together and composed and beautiful. Like nothing’s changed. Like she didn’t—
“Maribel’s sending it out?” Elsa asks, lips lifting in a little smile. “Did she give you a list of editors?”
Frannie can’t seem to unstick her jaw. It’s been a long time since she’s felt like this. Betrayal sticks in her gut, stabs at her throat. It’s a fist at the base of her skull. Or that’s all the crying.
“Aren’t you excited? I know Henry’s trying to claim credit, but still,” Elsa presses, confusion passing prettily over her face.
“How could you?” Frannie finally manages.
Elsa cocks her head. “What?” she asks, still smiling.
“How could you do that? I didn’t—you read my book, you printed my book, you gave it to Henry.”
“And he gave it to Maribel,” Elsa says, smile slowly fading. “They both loved it, like I knew they would.”
“So?” Frannie says, louder. “They liked it, so it doesn’t matter that you—that you—”
“Did what you should have?” Elsa asks, straightening up, that haughty look falling over her face. “You’ve been talking for ages about selling a book.”
“So? I didn’t want to sell this one. I didn’t want—”
“What you’ve spent the last three years working toward? Getting out of this job, getting away from Henry, getting published? This is your dream.”
She says it so matter-of-factly. Like there’s no other option. Like Frannie isn’t allowed to want anything else, couldn’t possibly want anything else. Like she knows best, and Frannie should be falling over herself to thank her for making it happen.
“You can’t really be trying to tell me you’re unhappy about Maribel sending it out, no edits, no feedback, with editors already excited,” Elsa goes on. “It’s marvelous, what’s happening.”
“Is it?” Frannie asks.
Elsa’s jaw drops a little. “Frannie.”
“Is it marvelous? That you gave Henry a book I didn’t want him to read—didn’t ever want you to read?”
Elsa takes a step backward at whatever look is on Frannie’s face. “I—”
Frannie stands up, her hands in fists at her sides. “That you printed it for him, and then made it easy to find on my laptop? Because it wasn’t. You had to dig through six subfolders to find it.”
Frannie knew Elsa would be using her work computer. She must have looked through Frannie’s entire Google Drive.
“It’s beautiful,” Elsa says, folding her arms across her chest, like she has the right to be defensive right now.
“It’s not,” Frannie spits. “God, how can you say that?”
“Frannie, what you wrote—how you wrote it, us—about us—it’s gorgeous,” Elsa insists, taking a tentative step forward.
“You die,” Frannie exclaims, rooted to the spot by anger and grief. “You die. You were never supposed to see it!”
Elsa takes another step forward, moving into Frannie’s space, her face soft. “Everyone dies, eventually,” she says with such a casual shrug that Frannie wants to scream. “Everything—everyone—ends. Your book proves that the experience is still worth it.”
“All it proves is that I couldn’t figure out a way to save you—them.”
This isn’t how this was supposed to go. She was going to take Elsa back to the attic, to tell her, and promise her, that she would stay.
That she was happy to keep being Henry’s assistant if it meant she got to have Elsa and the kids.
That she was excited for the life she could see ahead of her, ahead of them.
And now …
“Saving … them was never Charlie’s job,” Elsa says softly. “Or yours.”
She reaches out to take Frannie’s hand, but Frannie jerks, her fingers skirting out of the way.
“And I think the ending is rather hopeful, actually,” Elsa continues, trying again, catching Frannie’s numb fingers.
Her touch tingles, and for the first time, it’s almost unpleasant, too frantic. Frannie wants to push her away, wants to pull her close and never let her go.
“How can you say that?” she asks, looking up at Elsa’s face. This close, the haze around her skin beneath the twinkle lights makes her look haloed.
Elsa smiles down at Frannie sadly. “You’re looking at forever with very mortal eyes.”
Frannie clutches both her hands, despite the tumult in her head. “What does that mean?”
“Forever for you is the next seventy years, God willing,” Elsa says, staring into her eyes, intent.
“Forever for me, for us, is everything after that, and everything after that, endless and expansive. So, there’s something hopeful—something I thought was peaceful, about your story having an ending. ”
Frannie’s hands hurt with how tightly she’s hanging on to Elsa. Like she might slip away right there.
“It’s the wrong ending.” It comes out vehement and rough.
Elsa shakes her head slowly and Frannie arches up without thought to press her mouth to Elsa’s, anger and desperation and the gut-clenching love she feels for her pouring out.
Elsa kisses back just as fervidly, like the end of everything might be here and now.
Slowly, distracted by their kiss, Frannie’s grip loosens and Elsa’s able to pull her hands from Frannie’s.
Her gentle, delicate fingers come to cup Frannie’s jaw, and it’s only then that Frannie realizes she’s crying again.
She winds her empty fingers into Elsa’s shirt, the fabric soft and real beneath her hands.
Elsa pulls away but keeps Frannie close, their foreheads pressed together. “Take all the time you need to forgive me, if you can,” Elsa whispers.
Frannie’s never heard herself make the sound that bubbles from her lips, half sob, half growl.
“But you’re absolutely not allowed to put yourself through a lifetime of Henry for me. To give up on your dreams for me,” Elsa continues, pulling back to meet Frannie’s eyes.
“What if I have different dreams now?” Frannie returns, her voice scratchy and tight.
“They’ll pass.” Frannie flinches, but Elsa hangs on. “You can’t put your life on hold for us.”
“This is a life. It could be a great life, with you, here,” Frannie argues.
“It will be, for as long as we have you,” Elsa says, her eyes wide and open and clearly honest. She thinks it’s enough. “But you can’t give up for us. This is the one, Frannie, and I won’t let you throw that away to stay here and be less than you are.”
“But what if it’s what I want? You don’t get to decide what I want.”
Elsa strokes her cheek. “You don’t get to decide what I want either. I want to give you the world, and this is the only way I can.”
Her soft, reverent words land like a punch to Frannie’s stomach.
“What if I wanted to give you the world?” Frannie asks, held stiff in Elsa’s arms.
“You already have,” Elsa says, pulling back. She taps her fingers on Frannie’s work laptop. “Go tell Henry. Watch him squirm to be proud and jealous. Enjoy this. You deserve it so much.”
And then she disappears.
Frannie stands there alone, reeling, and aching, and furious, and—
“Miss Goldstein?”
Frannie jumps, catching herself on the corner of the desk. “Come in,” she calls, quickly scrubbing at her face.
Paul pops his head in. “Mr. Olsen said a bulb broke? Oh, wow, this place looks great.”
Frannie forces a smile for him and shows him where the bulb shattered when Elsa—when Elsa …
“I’ll take care of this for you, don’t worry,” Paul says, smiling at her.
“Thank you,” Frannie says.
But she can’t watch him do it. Somehow, this is the final straw, and she turns, grabbing her work laptop to escape her office.
Escape the twinkle lights, and the tree, and the brightness.
She’ll work out of Henry’s dining room. She’ll tell him it’s so he can be there if she gets any news. He’ll like that.
And that way she won’t be here, where anyone could—
She just won’t be here.