Three #3
“In this case, he is,” Frances said morosely.
“Don’t ever say that, Frances Delafield!” Edie snapped. “He’s only superior if you let him be.”
Edie meant it—she wouldn’t let Frances take this lying down.
Frances said it wasn’t the money as much as some things.
Like the emerald-encrusted box her mother kept her rings in.
It was priceless, an antique her parents had picked up in Vienna, worth more than all her mother’s jewelry.
But it held a sentimental value for Frances—she would open the box and go through her mother’s rings, and her mother would tell her where each one came from, for what occasion.
It also happened that it was valuable enough to send Frances to college or wherever else she wanted to go.
“We’re going to get it,” Edie announced. She’d called Irene and Joan. They had gone to her father’s wine cellar, helped themselves to the most expensive bottles, and hatched a plan. Their first heist was born.
Those turned out to be the best days Frances’s life.
At least until she met Nick. But she had never felt so loved or wanted as she did sitting around with those girls, plotting to take down Nils Karlsson.
They had no idea what they were doing, obviously, but went about it logically, planning every step along the way, delighting in each other and their preposterous plan.
The amazing thing was that it worked. They got the box back and with two valuable rings inside. Frances was still wearing the pink diamond after all these years to remind herself that she was a badass.
Tears blurred her sight as she gazed at the picture.
She wanted to get that feeling back before she died—that feeling of belonging.
Of being loved, no questions asked. Of being part of something that was more than just her.
It would mean everything to do one last heist with her best friends.
She imagined them all together now, planning one more for old times’ sake, something big and splashy.
She just needed to see them. To be with them. Even Edie.
Especially Edie.
The fight between the four of them had been explosive.
They’d all said things they would never have said—or at least Frances had.
But over forty years had passed since that terrible night.
How long did grudges live? How long did hurt feelings and wounded pride get to rule?
Frances didn’t care about that fight anymore and hadn’t for a long time. What she cared about was her friends.
When she was handed a terminal sentence, her first instinct was panic.
A palpable fear of leaving a life undone.
That’s how bucket lists are made, all the things left to do.
But days after the initial fear and panic had worn off, Frances began to realize that if she were to make the proverbial bucket list, there wouldn’t be much on it.
What was left for her to do or see? Of course she didn’t want to leave Aaron or her grandkids.
Or even Marjorie, for that matter. But neither did she want to be anyone’s burden or to live in pain.
If there was one thing Frances had prided herself on since she was a girl, it was her ability to take care of herself.
She’d been doing it since she was twelve.
She’d thought about it, had spent a couple of sleepless nights with it.
And when all that fretting and gnashing of teeth was done, she had concluded that she was one of the lucky ones who had done all the important things she would ever want to do.
She’d seen the world. She’d lived well, had been blessed with the love of her life.
She’d raised a gorgeous son who was raising gorgeous daughters, and she wasn’t really needed.
What would she miss, other than all the seasons of Bridgerton?
It was funny—the thing that kept coming to mind was the same thing that had been skirting around her thoughts for a few years now, weaving in and out like a garden snake.
She wanted to see the gang again. The four of them had found each other at a time when they’d all needed someone who cared, and oh, how they’d cared for each other.
She missed them deeply, missed what they had meant and been to each other.
Frances wanted to know everything about them now.
Like who had touched their lives, who had hurt them, who had loved them.
Had their lives unfurled like they’d wanted?
She imagined them all laughing about how it sucked to get old.
Or all of them singing their favorite Journey song, “Don’t Stop Believin’. ”
She didn’t want to leave this earth without reconciling with them. And maybe, just for fun, because she needed to feel so alive before she wasn’t, and maybe they needed that, too, pulling one last heist.
There was nothing else she hadn’t done or felt she needed to do. Nothing else she felt was missing in her life.
Well, there was her answer, then, Frances thought as she got to her feet on her way to make another margarita. That was it, the one thing she needed to do before she said sayonara. She was going to get the gang back for one last heist or, as they used to vow to each other, die trying.