Chapter 30 #2
Bridgette sighs and glances back at Elsa. “We’re tracing the power lines from the breaker room.”
“Bridgette!” Michael exclaims.
“I’d gathered,” Elsa says sardonically. “Franchesca, a word?”
“You guys good here?” Frannie asks Brad and Gretchen.
“Yeah, go on, Franchesca,” Gretchen says with a smirk.
Frannie glares at her. She walks to the doorway, trying to ignore how filthy she is. Wearing a black henley hasn’t done anything to combat the unending dust of the basement.
They’re close. She thinks they can all feel it.
Elsa watches Frannie bend to press the red tape along the bottom of the doorjamb, where it should go unnoticed. This is their third Saturday exploring the basement, and they’ve yet to see a single maintenance worker, but better safe than sorry.
“What did you need, Elisabet?” Frannie asks, standing and brushing off her hands.
Elsa snorts and takes her wrist, leading her out of the room.
She glances right and left, and then turns left.
Frannie follows her down the hall, comforted by the light tingle trailing up her body from Elsa’s fingers.
Might as well enjoy the contact until Elsa decides to let her have it. Prolong it, even.
“How’d I do on the title?” she asks as they turn another corner.
Elsa glances over her shoulder with a half-smile. “Pretty well. Bonus points if you get the reference.”
Frannie scoffs. “It’s from ‘The Miller’s Son’ from A Little Night Music. I’m insulted you even have to ask.”
Elsa laughs, the sound tinkling around them. The dim fluorescents shimmer. “Well, you’ve never said anything about it.”
She knows she didn’t. “It’s a very obscure Sondheim reference for the title of something we’re selling as hyper-commercial.”
“The readers who get it will be delighted,” Elsa says firmly.
“All twelve of them?”
Elsa huffs at her. “It’s the best number from that show. Do you like it?”
Frannie pulls them up short. They’ve gone at least three hallways away from the powerline crew. “Of course I like it. If I didn’t, I would have changed it.”
Elsa turns back to her, looking a little bit relieved, which is absolutely absurd. There’s a doorway to their right and Frannie moves through it, pulling out her phone, tugging Elsa to follow.
She opens Spotify and taps into her saved albums. She thumbs up the volume and looks back at Elsa while “The Miller’s Son” begins to play from her little speakers.
Elsa drops her wrist, and they stand together in yet another dingy side room. Frannie watches Elsa listen to the song, and waits for the beat to drop. The look on her face when the disco kicks in is priceless. Frannie giggles while Elsa stares down at Frannie’s phone, mouth hanging open.
“What is this?” she asks.
“They did a disco album that came out in 2020. This one was always my favorite,” Frannie says, shifting her hold on the phone to pull Elsa into her arms.
Elsa laughs and takes the lead, Frannie falling in to follow her steps with ease. They dance around the cramped room, kicking up dust and detritus from the floor without care. Frannie grins up at Elsa, who looks back, her eyes sparkling.
“I love everything about our book,” Frannie says, watching the way Elsa’s face splits in a lovely smile. “The title, the happily ever after—it’s all ours, so it’s all perfect.”
“I’m glad,” Elsa says, before spinning Frannie out and back, both of them laughing.
Elsa leans down and presses her lips to Frannie’s, gentle and slow. Frannie luxuriates in the feeling, her fingers toying with the hair at the base of Elsa’s neck until she pulls back. Always too soon, always too little, but oh so lovely.
They haven’t gotten much time to be together in the last few weeks. Frannie lets her head come to rest on Elsa shoulder, nuzzling into the soft cashmere of her turtleneck. Elsa’s arm tightens around her waist.
Frannie so desperately wants this every night. To get to be in the messy meanwhile for the rest of her life with this wonderful woman.
The song fades out and moves on to the next track. Elsa pauses to listen to the pastiche of various Sondheim lyrics that flows out across a disco backbeat.
“Do you think you’ll ever run out of things to show me?” she wonders.
Frannie pulls her head back to meet Elsa’s eyes. “If you give me enough time, when I do, we could keep finding new ones together,” she says softly. She glides her hand up Elsa’s chest to wrap both arms around her neck, hanging on. “Please. Give me the rest of my life with you.”
Elsa stares back at her, lips parting. Her eyes search Frannie’s, trailing over her face and then off to the far wall. Hope and fear crash together in Frannie’s chest—
“What’s that?”
Frannie blinks, confused. But Elsa shifts her hold, releasing one of Frannie’s hips to point at the wall opposite the doorway. Frannie follows her gesture and feels her mouth fall open. Because the wall is covered in cracking cables, all converging on one ancient-looking breaker box.
She pulls herself from Elsa’s arms without thought and stumbles over to the box, heart pounding in her throat.
She thumbs on her flashlight and feels Elsa step up beside her, both of them quiet as Frannie slowly circles the box until the flashlight’s beam hits the maker’s placard.
Frannie reaches out and runs her finger over it, displacing over a century of dust.
There, on the rusted, gray breaker box, is a tiny bronze placard that reads: 1883, Clark.
“Holy shit,” Frannie whispers.
“What?” Elsa asks, stepping around her to bend down and read it too. Then: “Oh.”
Frannie’s not sure she’s breathing. She slowly stands up straight, dragging her gaze from the placard to Elsa.
This is a hub from the original electrical system that powered the building, connected to the system that powered the three brownstones across the street.
Where her new apartment is waiting for her and Gretchen to move in.
This is the room where they … where they could … where it would …
“Oh, hi!”
They swing around together and find Bridgette stepping out from the wall to their left. One of her braided pigtails has come undone while she’s been climbing through the walls.
“Hey,” Frannie croaks, reaching out a hand without thought to crook her fingers. “Come here, messy head.”
Bridgette grins and trots over, dutifully turning around so Frannie can bend to re-braid her gossamer hair. “I think we’re close,” Bridgette says brightly. “Michael’s helping Brad tag the doors, but it looks like the line goes right to here.”
“Yeah, it does,” Frannie agrees. She reaches into her pocket for one of the tiny elastics she keeps on hand for these afternoons and ties off Bridgette’s braid. “Actually, can you go grab them for us and lead them here?” she asks, her voice tight and high.
Bridgette spins around and looks up at her with a toothy smile. “Sure! When we’re done, can Gretchen watch Anne with an E with us? She hasn’t seen it, and she’d love it.”
“If Henry’s still out, maybe,” Frannie says, bemused. It feels like she’s hearing everything through a thin layer of water.
“Okay,” Bridgette says with an easy shrug. “I’ll be right back!”
She turns and disappears back into the wall. Frannie stares at the bare beige paint, a lump forming in her throat.
They could try.
But Elsa would have to say yes.
Elsa has to want to try, and Frannie doesn’t think she can handle her saying she won’t. Not right now. Not right before Brad, Gretchen, and Michael get here, excited.
Frannie closes her eyes, summoning her courage. “Please, can we—”
But Elsa’s there in front of her, her hand gliding along Frannie’s jaw until Frannie opens her eyes. Elsa stares back at her, her eyes full, and Frannie feels her stomach drop, disappointment she can’t handle coursing through her.
“Okay,” Elsa says.
Frannie blinks, breath stalling. “What?”
“Okay. We’ll try,” Elsa whispers.
“We’ll—” Shock chases away Frannie’s despair. Her hands find Elsa’s hips, holding on too tightly. “Seventy-Third Street?”
“Yes,” Elsa says, her hand trembling against Frannie’s jaw.
Her hopes rise violently, crackling like the air around them. “You’re sure?”
Elsa pulls her in, leaning down to press their foreheads together.
She glances at the breaker box, and her other hand comes up to cup the side of Frannie’s face, holding her there.
“I made peace with being trapped here so long ago. With the small eternity I’ve made for myself and the children, hope was …
a lost concept. But seeing how hard you’ve worked to find us a way out, seeing this world you want to build, full of new things, and people, and so much joy—I want that for them.
” Elsa takes a deep breath, and Frannie feels her face split into a beaming smile there between her delicate palms. “I want that happiness for me, for us. It’s worth the risk. Something permanent,” Elsa whispers.
Frannie can feel tears dripping down her face, but she doesn’t care. “I want to be happy with you too,” she says, pressing forward, pushing all the love and affection and heartache she feels against Elsa’s mouth.
They’re both smiling too much to do it properly, but the kiss is exultant and just a bit desperate. Frannie pulls back and stares at Elsa, there in the dim, flickering light, her eyes bright, her cheeks pink. Entirely solid, and real, and hers.
“I love you,” Frannie says.
Elsa nods, her thumb brushing away one of Frannie’s happy tears. “I love you too.”
“Forever,” Frannie promises, because now she can.
Elsa leans forward and catches Frannie’s mouth in another heady kiss, and Frannie melts into her, relief and joy suffusing the very air around them.
Elsa wants to try. Elsa wants to be with her. Elsa wants their happily ever after.