Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“So,” Henry says, the two of them standing awkwardly in his dining room, Frannie’s backpack and the day’s FedEx envelope resting on the kitchen counter.
“So,” Frannie says, twisting her hands together.
They stare at each other in the fading sunlight coming through the windows. It’s five o’clock. She’s never left at five o’clock in the almost four years she’s worked for him. It feels wrong.
Everything about today has felt wrong. She spent the whole day in Henry’s dining room, with Suzie flitting up to the office to print things off.
They went over his delivery schedule for his new book.
They covered the ARC schedule and book tour questions for Typeset.
Frannie gave him her thoughts on his current draft.
She’s already promised to do a beta read for him, and he promised to do the same for her next book, so it’s an amicable trade.
Who would have thought Henry L. Olsen would be one of her beta readers one day? She and Suzie had a whole side conversation about the Omegaverse that Henry overheard, and they lost the entire lunch hour explaining it. It was kind of scarring, but funny.
She doesn’t think anything should be fun or funny today, when she’s about to go risk everything before she leaves the building.
“I’ll see you Friday for coffee,” Henry says gruffly.
“Yeah,” Frannie says, laughing a little. “I’m just a call away, too, if you or Suzie need anything before then.”
Elsa told her not to offer. Gretchen and Brad told her not to offer. But people pleasing dies hard.
“And thanks,” Frannie adds, her chest suddenly a bit tight. “You know, for everything.”
Henry nods. “Always told you you’d make something big of yourself.”
Frannie smiles. “I’ll do my best.”
“And don’t be a stranger,” he adds with a little shrug.
“Henry,” Frannie says with a laugh.
“You’ll be so busy you’ll forget about your old boss,” he says.
“I’m just across the—”
“We’ll exchange holiday cards for a while, and then I’ll see you across a convention hall someday.”
“Oh my God,” Frannie says with a sigh.
“Maybe I’ll get a little nod in one of your acknowledgments.”
“You’re the first line,” Frannie says. Because of course he is.
She’d never have heard the end of it if he wasn’t.
And while she’s been dying to get out of this job for ages, if it weren’t for Henry, she wouldn’t have any of this.
Annoyingly, and gratefully, and ridiculously, she owes almost all of her wonderful life to Henry.
And even eager as she is to leave, it’s really weird that she won’t see him tomorrow.
“Oh, I know,” he says.
“What?” she asks, watching him dart over to his desk.
She was planning to give him a finished copy with the acknowledgments. How would he—
He pulls two small bound manuscripts out of a stack of things on his desk and walks back to her, extending one with a sly smile. Frannie reaches out and takes the bound, book-sized manuscript, looking down at the cover in shock.
“Beatriz sent it to Maribel, and she gave it to me to give to you today.”
It’s her book. In the Meanwhile.
It’s not an Advance Reader Copy, not yet. It’s just a plain bound manuscript with the title and her name on the front—the kind of thing they mock up for internal reads at the publisher. She never thought she’d get to see one done for her book.
“Sign mine?”
Frannie looks up and finds Henry holding out his copy and a Sharpie.
She’s never signed a book before.
With shaking fingers, she takes his copy and the Sharpie, balancing them on top of her own copy. She stares down at the title page.
“I promise not to open a credit card if you want to use your legal signature,” he says sardonically.
“I wasn’t ready,” she says.
“Yeah, you were,” he says softly.
Frannie has to blink, her eyes suspiciously misty. Damn him. And damn herself for caring so much about what he thinks. She signs his book with her legal signature. It’s weird. And her signature is terrible. Still, she hands the book back and they both stand there holding copies of her debut novel.
Four years, thousands of hours, pages, emails, and texts, and look what she got out of it. It was horrible, and it was marvelous, and now it’s just … over?
“Okay, get out of here,” Henry says.
He steps forward and Frannie meets him in an awkward hug. When they break apart a few slightly uncomfortable seconds later, she grabs her backpack and the FedEx envelope, and nods a few times.
“See you Friday,” she says.
“Yep,” he replies, rocking on his heels.
She stands next to the counter for just a beat, and then she walks out, closing the door softly behind her.
The hallway is quiet, like always. She takes a deep breath, her fingers curling around the bound manuscript in her arms, the FedEx envelope pushing into her forearm.
She squares her shoulders and turns, heading down the hall toward the service elevator, feeling oddly bereft.
She’ll see him Friday, and she’s sure she’ll text with Suzie tomorrow.
It’s hardly goodbye. It’ll probably feel like too soon. Not like—
No, this won’t be goodbye either. She won’t let it.
The ride down to the basement seems to take an eon and a split second at the same time. Her heart rate’s speeding up, her body going tense.
She tries to walk into the basement like it’s any normal Monday.
She nods to Jose over in the break room and he nods back with a smile, then looks down at his phone.
She opens the FedEx drop box, slips the envelope in, closes the lever, and listens for the final tell-tale thump of the envelope successfully clearing the chute. Then a hand covers hers on the handle.
Frannie turns and looks up at Elsa. She’s smiling, but there’s a tightness around her eyes.
They stand for a moment in silence, just staring at each other, before Frannie finds the will to move her feet.
She takes Elsa’s hand and leads her over to the service door.
Frannie glances over her shoulder, but Jose’s focused on his phone, so she opens the door and slips into the corridor beyond with Elsa.
The hallway is dim, foreboding, and Frannie grips Elsa’s hand. She opens her mouth but can’t seem to push any words past her lips. They walk down the corridor and hang a left, squirreling back until they reach the tiny room with the original breaker box.
One bare lightbulb, some cobwebs, and the mess of cracking wires converging on the single rusty electrical box—it’s inauspicious, at best. Frannie tries hard not to stare at the lone, pristine new cable running across the floor and up to the box, carrying Con Edison electricity and all their hopes inside it.
Michael and Bridgette stand along the breaker wall, Michael’s arm wrapped around Bridgette’s little shoulders. They look more serious than Frannie’s ever seen them.
Anxiety crushes Frannie’s chest. What if they make it? What if they don’t?
Elsa squeezes her hand and then lets go, stepping aside so Michael and Bridgette can shuffle forward. Frannie kneels down, looking between their faces, memorizing and hoping hard enough she can practically feel her love for them pouring out from her eyes.
Michael lets go of Bridgette to wrap his arms around her. Frannie grips back. She feels him take a shaky breath and girds herself. They can do this. They’ve planned. She and her little study buddy. They’re ready.
He pulls back after a moment and they stare at each other. “It’s the third one from the bottom,” he says, his voice cracking a little.
“The third one,” she repeats with a nod.
He squeezes her biceps and then lets go, glancing up at Elsa, then at Bridgette, before walking straight into the wall below the breaker box.
His arm remains outside the wall, palm up, to help Bridgette through.
A year ago, it might have seemed strange.
Now it makes Frannie want to cry, because he’s such a great big brother.
Frannie turns her gaze to Bridgette, her first little ghost, and opens her arms. Bridgette slams into her, tucking her head beneath Frannie’s chin and holding onto her backpack.
“Thank you for deciding to be my friend,” Frannie whispers.
“Love you, Frannie,” Bridgette says.
“Love you, too, kid,” Frannie promises.
She starts to loosen her hold, but Bridgette hangs on, and Frannie rubs her little back. Elsa steps up to them and runs a hand over Bridgette’s head.
“Come on, sweetie,” she says.
Bridgette pulls back, her eyes shining, and kisses Frannie’s cheek. Frannie smiles, hoping she looks comforting and sure, even as it feels like her heart is cracking in two. Bridgette sniffles and then turns and takes Michael’s hand, disappearing into the wall.
Frannie stares at the peeling paint, her stomach in knots.
She slowly looks up at Elsa and takes her hand to stand on aching knees.
In the dim light from the lone, bare bulb, Elsa looks perfectly solid—mortal, and beautiful, and nervous.
Frannie tugs her in, unsurprised when Elsa lets go of her hand to raise both of hers to brush back Frannie’s hair, her fingers tripping along her jaw.
“Are you sure?” Frannie asks, because now, staring at the love of her life, memorizing her beautiful lips, her bottomless blue eyes, her nose and her hair and her everything—
“Absolutely positive,” Elsa says firmly. “Whatever comes, Frannie, I’m sure of you.”
Frannie rises onto her toes to pull her into a kiss and Elsa meets her immediately. Frannie wraps her arms around Elsa, the bound manuscript falling to the floor, but she doesn’t care. She just wants her as close as possible.
All too soon, Elsa breaks their kiss, her forehead pressed to Frannie’s. Frannie tangles her hands into her turtleneck, holding on.
“I love you,” she says, her voice rough and choked.
Elsa smiles. “I love you so much.”
Frannie nods against her and takes a deep breath. “I’ll see you in just a couple minutes. Gretchen’s got all kinds of things for the kids, and we can scare the shit out of Brad when he gets back. And then tonight, we can—”
Elsa silences her with another fervid kiss and Frannie lets her, promising herself, promising them both and anything that will listen, that it won’t be their last.
“I’ll see you soon,” Elsa says, pulling away far too quickly. With one long look—full of everything they’ve ever said, all the jokes, and moments, and laughter, and love—she walks through the wall.
All alone, Frannie stands there staring at the plain, unremarkable beige paint.
With shaking legs, she steps forward and opens the breaker box.
She’s not sure if she’s imagining it or if she really can see them there through the tiny gaps in the paneling, hovering just behind the breaker, clutching the wire.
Frannie takes a deep breath. They can do this. She can write this ending for them. Happily ever fucking after, here they come.
She hesitates for just a second, and then with a quick jerk, flips the breaker.
There’s no bang, no fizz, no pop. There’s nothing at all.
It’s just Frannie alone in the cramped, empty room, no indication of ghosts or magic or fairy-tale endings. But she knew there wouldn’t be. This part she has to do on her own, on faith in their happiness alone.
She counts to thirty and then flips the breaker back on.
She can’t see anything beyond the breaker box now. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t make it. That doesn’t mean anything. She closes the box and stands there, breathing hard.
Slowly, she bends down and picks up her book. She clutches it to her chest, dust and all. She can will the ending of her story into existence. She fell in love with a ghost, after all. Nothing’s impossible.
She closes her eyes for a moment, heart hammering in her chest, and then she bolts.
She bursts out of the room and hurries down the hallways.
She slips into the basement and jogs back to the service elevator, punching the button with twitching fingers.
The ride seems to take forever, but finally she’s back on the first floor.
She hustles down the hall and clears both security doors, stepping out and onto the loading dock in the driveway.
She turns and heads toward Seventy-Third Street, walking, then jogging, then running, then sprinting up the Dakota’s driveway and onto the sidewalk. She barely checks the street before hurtling across and vaulting up the stairs to her brownstone.
She takes the inside stairs two at a time, nothing but the pounding of her pulse and the desperate plea for them to be there, be there, be there echoing in her head.
She reaches the landing on the fourth floor and fumbles in her pocket to pull out her keys. She glances out the window, staring across at the Dakota Building.
This is either going to be the beginning of the greatest love story of her life—the rest of her meanwhile, her beautiful forever—or it will be the end of it all together.
She turns away from the Dakota and strides to the door to 4B.
With a shaking hand, she slots the key into the lock, takes a deep breath, and turns the handle.