Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“I’m gonna do a sweep to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything,” Frannie tells Henry’s new assistant a week later.
Suzie is fresh off her MFA at Northwestern, with big brown eyes and a guileless smile. Frannie almost feels bad, handing the job off to someone so sweet. But she thinks Suzie’s up to the challenge.
Suzie nods, her long brown hair bouncing as she slips her laptop into her backpack. “You excited?” she asks.
Excited, terrified, nauseous. “Yes,” Frannie says, forcing a bright smile for her. “And I’ll be just across the street if anything catastrophic goes wrong after tomorrow.”
Suzie laughs. “Now I’m imagining Henry somehow typing launch codes into his phone and inadvertently setting off nuclear winter.”
“Never say never. He’s managed to do ridiculous things on his cell phone without knowing how.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. You sure you don’t need help?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Frannie replies, standing there with her little file box.
“See you tomorrow,” Suzie says, shouldering her bag and glancing around at the office.
It’s stranger than Frannie expected to have someone else in here with her. She never thought she’d feel territorial about an unventilated storage closet. How ridiculous.
Frannie watches Suzie leave and closes the door softly behind her, then hesitates there in the stillness. Tomorrow’s her last day. Tonight’s her last night. She’s not sure she’s ready.
She mechanically packs up the truly minimal amount of crap she’s managed to amass over four years. A few little figurines, some fidgets, pens she bought with Henry’s money but is absolutely keeping, her gloves, her passive-aggressive office parka. She’ll leave Suzie the iPhone charger and tissues.
She makes sure to grab the ornaments Michael and Bridgette made for her that she’s had hanging on the twinkle lights. But she’ll leave the lights, and the tinsel and Christmas stuff in the box in the corner. Let Suzie deck out the office how she likes next year.
She won’t think about how she doesn’t want to take the holiday cheer with her, just in case Michael, Bridgette, and Elsa don’t …
Sighing, she shakes her head and grabs her backpack, already full of her laptop and notebooks. She’ll be back tomorrow, but she doesn’t want to have anything on her other than her bag when she goes to the basement. When they enact their plan, which will work. It has to work.
“Hey.”
She turns calmly to face Elsa, who stands in front of the closed office door.
“You want to come up for a little bit before you head out?” Elsa asks, holding out her hand.
“Please,” Frannie says, trying to figure out how to hold her surprisingly ungainly file box and take Elsa’s hand at the same time.
Elsa tuts and beckons her over, then slips her arm through Frannie’s. She leads Frannie out of the office and down the hall. Frannie tries not to look at every window, every door, every crack in the plaster with rose-colored glasses.
There’s a ton she won’t miss about working up here. She should focus on that, instead of getting bizarrely maudlin about a job she’s mostly loved to hate. But it hasn’t been all bad, and in the end, it gave her Elsa and the kids, so …
Elsa opens the door to the service staircase and brings Frannie up and into the loft, where Michael and Bridgette are waiting, holding an enormous banner that reads, “Happy Last Night, Frannie!” in glittery block letters.
“Oh my goodness,” Frannie says, standing at the top of the stairs and feeling tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “You didn’t have to do this!”
Elsa sighs at her and simply plucks her box from her hands. “Of course we did.”
“Happy last night!” Bridgette all but yells.
“Are you excited?” Michael asks at a much more reasonable volume.
Frannie laughs and wraps both kids up in a hug. “Very excited. Do you want me to bring this home? That way we can keep coloring on it tomorrow night?”
Bridgette grins and nods eagerly while Michael just hugs her tighter.
“Here,” Elsa says, stepping up behind them to gently take the banner and roll it up.
Frannie realizes they’ve used the back of a roll of Sukkoth-themed wrapping paper and snorts. “Whose was this?”
“Mrs. Stydein’s,” Elsa says. “I didn’t know they even made wrapping paper for Sukkoth.”
“Neither did I,” Frannie says, smiling when Bridgette giggles. “We could make a sukkah, if you want, next year. We have the patio.”
Elsa stares at her. “Are you planning to start observing the High Holidays?”
“I could be persuaded,” Frannie says, tickled when Elsa just shakes her head and goes to pop the banner into Frannie’s file box.
“Can we decorate the patio for every holiday?” Bridgette asks.
Frannie looks down at her excited face and smiles, running a hand over her head. “Absolutely. As many as you want. We can even get those horrible blow-up figurines for each one.”
“No,” Elsa says with a groan. “I refuse to be the brownstone with the horrible blow-up decorations. Everyone in this building will see us and laugh.”
“But being obnoxious is the whole point of having a rooftop patio, isn’t it?” Frannie asks, looking down at Michael on her other side.
“I thought it was to get sunlight without having to be out among the riffraff,” he says.
Frannie giggles and Elsa’s loud guffaw warms her heart. She loves these kids so damn much. “That’s exactly it. High above the hoi polloi on our rooftop.”
“Do you think we could trick-or-treat in the building?” Bridgette asks. “We can always say we’re glowy because of the lighting.”
“Frannie can buy us candy,” Michael says before either Elsa or Frannie can come up with a good answer. “And I bet Gretchen and Brad would let us trick-or-treat in the apartment.”
“I guess. All the candy?” Bridgette asks, looking up at Frannie.
“As much as you want, and Gretchen and I will make ourselves sick eating it in your honor,” Frannie says seriously.
Michael laughs while Bridgette looks up at her in delight.
“Don’t forget Bradley. He needs to be part of this voyeuristic candy bacchanal, or it’s just not fair,” Elsa says, returning to stand with them in the middle of the loft.
“Oh, for sure,” Frannie agrees, keeping her smile wide despite the way her stomach clenches.
She doesn’t want to think about Brad’s concerns about tomorrow.
“Maybe we can get him to spell out ‘Marry me, Gretchen’ in candy, huh?” Frannie suggests to Bridgette and Michael.
“Does he have a ring yet?” Elsa asks.
“He’s workin’ on it. Had me get Gretchen’s ring size while she was sleeping and everything,” Frannie says.
“Good man,” Elsa says, smiling down at her.
They stand for a moment, their collective good cheer slowly deflating around them. Even though they’ve all decided to do this, there’s still no proof that it will work.
“You remember the plan, Frannie?” Michael asks.
Frannie looks back at Michael, then squats between the two kids.
“I do. I’m going to say goodbye to Henry, and then I’ll meet you guys in the basement at the end of the day. You’ll all go into the wall and hold onto the wire connected to breaker eight, and when you’re all set, I’ll flip the breaker, wait thirty seconds, and turn it back on.”
“And then?”
“And then,” Frannie says, willing it into existence, manifesting with her whole entire being, “I’m going to walk across the street and you three will be in our living room in our apartment.”
“And we’ll play games?” Bridgette asks.
Frannie loops an arm around each of them. “As many as you want.”
Elsa kneels down in front of Frannie, wrapping her arms around all three of them in a slightly awkward group hug that has them all giggling.
“Why don’t the two of you get some rest now,” Elsa suggests a few minutes later, when Bridgette’s grip has turned hard, Michael’s face gone serious again.
None of them can really pretend tomorrow won’t change everything, one way or the other.
“And if there’s anything you want at our new place, make sure you put it in my box, okay?” Frannie adds.
“Reasonably,” Elsa says quickly. “A stuffed animal, a book, not everything you own, Bridgette.”
Bridgette lifts her head from Frannie’s shoulder. “Why just me?”
“Because Michael is a minimalist, and you, my darling, are a packrat,” Elsa says cheerfully. “Now go on and lie down.”
Michael’s arm tightens around Frannie’s shoulder for a moment before he nods and pulls away, shuffling over to flop down on his mattress. Bridgette hovers, her hand toying with one of Frannie’s curls.
“You’ll read to me tomorrow?” she asks.
Frannie nods, meeting her brown eyes. “Every single night, unless I have to be out, and then I’ll deputize either Mom or Gretchen, who I’m sure will do spectacular voices.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” Frannie says, her throat tight.
Bridgette smiles and steps back, then takes a running leap to land on her mattress. She immediately tosses her rainbow axolotl. It arcs across the room and lands in Frannie’s banker’s box with ease.
“Olympic basketball career in another life,” Frannie whispers to Elsa.
Elsa laughs and stands up, offering Frannie her hand.
Frannie takes it and groans as she stands.
All three ghosts laugh. Elsa and Frannie walk to either side of the mattresses and unpin the twinkle lights, dropping them onto the kids, who giggle more.
Brad said closer contact with the electric system might help them supercharge. It’s worth every shot they have.
Elsa then takes Frannie’s hand and leads her across the room and up the bookcases to push open the window and clamber out onto the fire escape.
Frannie grips her hand. The warm, humid early-August night air hits them immediately and Frannie tries to breathe steadily.
She follows Elsa up the fire escape and back down to a different part of the roof so they can traipse over to their usual spot against the railing that looks out across the park.
Together they sit down, shoulder-to-shoulder, their hands resting on Elsa’s knee. Frannie stares out at the park, trying to keep herself steady. Brad’s words swirl in her head and her anxiety clangs against her ribs.
“It’ll be all right.”