Chapter 28 #2
Joan tuts. “It doesn’t matter now, when you’re young and vivacious, like her.
When you’re still going out with your friends at night.
When you don’t need a partner beside you for events, for functions, for living.
What happens when you become successful at …
whatever it is you do, hm? When you have to travel?
Visit your family? You’re giving up your future, hiding there with Elsa. ”
Frannie just stares, her pulse pounding in her throat. So, this is where Elsa gets it. This woman, with her huge success and glamorous apartment, her well-traveled memories and her wealth. She told Elsa she wasn’t worth the sacrifices, and Elsa believed her. Believes her even now.
“Was it worth giving up the love of your life for all this?” Frannie asks, her hands spread out to gesture to the apartment.
Joan’s face contorts in pity. “You want a storybook ending, where the girl falls in love with the ghost, and they live happily ever after. I understand the impulse. I deal in stories too. I’m sure Elsa’s told you about my career.”
“She barely talks about you,” Frannie spits back, her jaw tight. “She’s too busy raising Michael and Bridgette—her ghost children, who you never got to meet—and living her life. Because she’s still living there.”
“No, she’s not,” Joan says, her voice painfully soft. “You want to pretend there’s something more to this, something after falling in love with her, but there isn’t. There’s no forever for you with her. The sooner you wake up to that, the better. For all of you.”
It’s supposed to be a kill shot. Joan clearly thinks it is. But it’s just a pale echo of what Elsa’s already said. And Elsa’s wrong.
Joan is wrong. And she always has been.
Gretchen appears from the other room, phone held limply in her hand. “Thank you for bearing with me. I had a couple more questions, if you’ve got time?” she asks, her voice overbright as she approaches the settee.
“I think it’s time you left, actually,” Joan replies. “I’ve said all I need to say.”
“Oh, well, if you—” Gretchen starts, but Frannie stands up and grabs Gretchen’s bag.
“Let’s go,” Frannie says, all but pushing the bag into her friend’s arms.
“Frannie,” Gretchen protests, catching Frannie as she moves to storm out of the room. Frannie meets her eyes and Gretchen juts her chin toward Joan, like they owe her something. Frannie huffs, but Gretchen stands her ground, eyebrow arched.
Fine. She’s not allowed to be petty about this with the woman who hurt the love of her life.
She turns back and looks down at Joan, still sitting primly on that stupid cream settee. “Thank you for your time,” Frannie manages.
“It’s your time to waste, remember that,” Joan replies.
Gretchen grabs Frannie’s wrist, her fingers curling around the bracelet Elsa and Bridgette gave her. The beads dig into Frannie’s skin, a biting, present, living reminder.
“Loving her isn’t a waste of time,” Frannie says, her voice cracking.
Joan simply looks back at her, unconvinced.
Gretchen tugs Frannie gently out of the room and down the hall. The door to 1622 closes softly behind them, and they stand there in the quiet hallway. Frannie’s barely breathing.
Anger and hurt and frustration swirl in her head. She thought Joan would be her coup de grace, her irrefutable proof that the future she wants to give Elsa is possible. That Joan was wrong, and Elsa should try.
And now …
Frannie storms to the elevator, Gretchen trailing after her, and they ride down in silence.
Once they hit the lobby, Gretchen shuffles Frannie out onto the sidewalk, the two of them standing on Central Park West and staring across it at the stone wall along the park.
Frannie blinks in the muted gray light, unsettled. It’s starting to rain.
“What happened?” Gretchen asks, slipping her hand up to take Frannie’s elbow and guide her across the street, back toward the Dakota.
“She’s a selfish bitch, is what happened,” Frannie says, shaking herself.
Frannie knows what she wants. She knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t need approval from Elsa’s former lover.
Why did she even want it to begin with?
“Is she really selfish, or was she maybe protecting Elsa?” Gretchen asks.
Frannie stops walking. “What?”
“I heard a bit of your conversation. And I just … what if Joan had stayed? And she’d met the kids, and they’d become a family, like you are, and then she decided that it wasn’t enough? Wouldn’t that have been worse for everyone?”
The tightness in Frannie’s chest starts to feel like panic. “What does it matter? She broke Elsa’s heart. She was always going to break her heart, is that your point?”
Gretchen worries her lip between her teeth, her hands fiddling with the strap of her bag. “My point is, this is a forever decision, Frannie. I’m on your side, whatever you need from me, but you need to be really sure.”
This one hits almost like a physical blow. But Frannie’s not about to fold, not now.
“I’m sure,” she says, forcing the confidence from deep within her belly. Gretchen just watches her. “I am.”
“Okay,” Gretchen says, nodding and then squinting up at the rain. “I’ve gotta get down to Brad’s to finish edits on the pilot.”
Frannie swallows, trying to find the words. Gretchen and Brad have a deadline to get their edits in to A&E by the end of March, and here she is, helping Frannie anyway. Playing along to get Frannie answers, and trying to be a good friend. But it just hurts.
“I’ll see you later,” Gretchen says softly. She reaches out and squeezes Frannie’s arm, then turns and starts up Seventy-Third Street, leaving Frannie frozen in place on the sidewalk.
Frannie stares kitty-corner across the street at the back of the Dakota. She’s sure. She’s forever sure.
She thinks.