Chapter 4
Lucy launched herself into Frannie’s waiting arms with a squeal when we got to the park the next morning. Lifting her off the ground, Frannie asked, “Which princess are you today?” Then she kissed Lucy’s forehead before setting her down.
“Belle, silly!” she said, giving Frannie a withering look.
“The elaborate yellow dress didn’t give it away?” I teased.
“I guess I need to brush up on my princesses,” Frannie said. “Go play, moppet.”
“Belle” swished over to the slide as Frannie and I plopped down on a nearby bench.
I handed her a cup with her coffee order, which had remained unchanged since we were assigned as roommates our first year at USC.
I remembered checking out her Instagram before we arrived on campus.
The bleached-blond hair, big boobs, and photo after photo of her living her best life while not wearing a whole lot of clothing had made me question the school’s matching process.
Why would they stick a bookworm like me with a party girl like her?
But when Frannie shook my mom’s hand in our dorm room on move-in day and told her she was a computer science major, I thought my mom was going to kiss her.
Callie had been the mathematician when we were growing up, and being a math geek herself, my mom had always viewed my interest in English literature as frivolous.
My mom had been transparent in her hope that Frannie’s Stem focus would rub off on me.
As for me, I was convinced Frannie was messing with us, and that as soon as we were alone she would confess she was a communications or sociology major.
But it turned out that on the inside, she was a super nerd like me, and we clicked immediately.
That’s not to say she didn’t find my two milk crates full of novels disturbing.
But I was equally baffled by her collection of tricked-out Rubik’s Cubes and her status as some kind of international cubing champion.
“I can’t believe you let her out in public wearing that antifeminist crap,” Frannie said with her characteristic bluntness. She took a sip of her coffee and flashed me a grin.
“Belle happens to be very empowering. She’s a freethinker who loves books.
My kind of gal.” I laughed, feeling like I was defending myself.
“So, how was last night?” Given that my only entanglements with the opposite sex were vicarious, this was always my favorite question.
And particularly so today, when I was desperate for distraction.
“The sex was pretty darn good. Very acrobatic.”
“Are you going to see him again?” I asked her, genuinely curious.
“He wasn’t the smartest,” Frannie said. “But I’d hook up with him again.”
“What is it with you only dating your intellectual inferiors?” I asked.
Frannie was a programmer at a tech start-up.
Anything else she told me about her job went over my head.
“It’s almost like you don’t want to date anyone who you might actually fall for.
Maybe you should try dating someone with a little more going on upstairs. ”
“Oooo, speaking of upstairs. Remember that two-bedroom in my building I wanted you to look at? You snooze, you lose. I met the guy who rented it in the lobby yesterday. He’s an ER doc.
Lost his wife to cancer and has two little kids who look like they’re around Lucy’s age.
And he’s hot. I could totally set you up. ”
“Why don’t you go out with him?” I volleyed back.
“Not a good fit,” Frannie said. “You know kids are a nonstarter for me.”
“Just because you had an evil stepmom doesn’t mean you’d be one, you know. You’re amazing with Lucy,” I said, hoping I’d successfully derailed Frannie’s latest setup attempt.
“For fuck’s sake, Thea, I’m not suggesting you marry him. Just go out to dinner.”
“I did that.” I kept my eyes trained on Lucy. Another benefit of the princess dresses—easy to spot on a playground. “And it was awful, bruh.”
Frannie guffawed. “OK, that one was my bad. But seriously, you’re going to swear off dating because of one lame guy?”
“No, but I am going to swear off you setting me up.” I elbowed her gently.
“Haha,” she scoffed. “So what I’m hearing is, you’re open to more dates?”
It was impossible to miss the hope in Frannie’s voice. “Maybe? But it’s not like anyone is going to be interested in a single mom with a three-and-a-half-year-old.”
“I don’t think your single-mom status is your biggest issue, my friend.” She raised a brow. “Once any guy finds out about your living situation, the notion of romance will be dead in the water. I’m serious, Thea. You have got to move out of there. It’s a total deal-breaker.”
“It’s complicated.” When Frannie had first told me about the apartment in her building, I’d mentioned it in passing to Rebecca, who had quickly listed all the reasons it didn’t make sense: The guesthouse gives me privacy; I don’t pay rent; isn’t it better for Lucy to be surrounded by three loving adults than one?
All valid points, not to mention an exemplary use of the much-maligned semicolon.
And then she’d enveloped me in a hug and delivered the coup de grace: She and William would miss us terribly if we moved.
“There’s nothing complicated about this,” Frannie said. “You make excuses for everything. Sometimes, I just want to shake you. I know the old Thea is in there somewhere.”
Although Frannie had stood by me through everything, her frustration was more palpable lately.
Normally there was nothing we didn’t share with each other, but if I told her about Harper’s ultimatum now, I was afraid it would only add fuel to her growing impatience, and I hadn’t decided what I was going to do yet.
I was still feeling rattled by the post–family dinner conversation with Rebecca.
I had less than a week to get a proposal to Harper or say goodbye to the “agented author” label I’d proudly worn for years.
Aside from the question of exactly how much strife it would create at home if I ignored Rebecca’s concerns and rejected her alternate vision for my career, I needed to dig deep and determine if I had the audacity to write another book after how badly things turned out the last time.
Maybe I could just float the idea of writing again in the abstract to show Frannie some forward momentum?
“Come on, old Thea is still here,” I said.
“And she’s even thinking about writing again.
” Then, feeling very ridiculous talking about myself in the third person, I switched back to first person and stammered, “Er, um, especially if I could come up with an idea that wouldn’t cause any harm if it happened to come true. ”
“You see, this is exactly the sort of thing that worries me.” Frannie closed her eyes and took a measured breath.
“It was one thing for you to be grappling with this superstition, or whatever you want to call it, in the months after Sam died, or even after Lucy was born. But, Thea, we’re several years on now and still having the same conversations.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: You need to deal with the root cause of this fear, or it’s going to keep holding you back. ”
“But it wasn’t just the Sam stuff. The problem runs deeper.
” I felt my face flush and quickly looked away.
To start at the beginning would mean confessing for the first time, to any living soul, what I’d come to think of as my original sin: the awful text I sent Callie minutes before she died.
However, since I didn’t need to go that far to make my case now, I skipped ahead to the next example.
“There was also that short story in high school that anticipated my parents’ divorce.
Remember?” I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.
“When something happens once, it’s easier to wave off.
When it happens more than once? Well, I’m still processing it. ”
“Um, yeah,” Frannie said in her “duh” voice. “And that’s why they have this thing called therapy. To help guide and speed up the processing. You really should try it again sometime.”
“Careful up there, Lucy!” I shouted, ignoring Frannie’s sarcasm, even though Lucy was on a tot slide a whole three feet off the ground.
Frannie was a big fan of therapy and believed everyone should have a therapist, the way everyone had a dentist. After Sam died, she gave me a list of grief counselors she’d gotten from a colleague, despite my protestations that I’d already been down that road in middle school after my sister died and it hadn’t helped one bit.
But Frannie had been so worried about me that I ended up attending a bereavement group, figuring the more people there were, the less I’d have to talk.
The leader was painfully shy and ineffectual, and then the pandemic hit after a few meetings and it switched to a Zoom support group.
I went into each online session with a microscopic amount of hope and left sadder and lonelier than before.
So I quit going. Or logging on. Giving birth to Lucy pulled me through that rough spot eventually.
“I’m just saying,” Frannie pressed, “don’t write off therapy forever because you had a couple of bad experiences.”
“I’m doing fine,” I said.
“Fine?” Frannie said incredulously. “You still believe what you wrote caused Sam’s accident and your parents’ divorce.”
And my sister’s death.
“Thea, look at me.”
I peeled my eyes from the play structure to meet her unflinching gaze.
“You. Deserve. To. Be. Happy.”
“I could say the same for you,” I clapped back, and then spotted Lucy again. “Anyway, who says I’m not happy? I’m plenty happy. I’ve got Lucy, and you, and the Packers, and a great job with a flexible schedule.”
“Your job is working as an account executive at your former in-laws’ agency.”
“Come on. It’s not that bad,” I said, deciding it was probably better not to mention Rebecca’s surprising plans for me to take over the agency.
“Rebecca says I can move over to the creative side with William once I’ve learned the nuts and bolts of the business.
Besides, not everyone gets to have a job they’re passionate about. ”
Frannie sighed. “When are you going to stop beating yourself up and start living again? Like really living. Not stuck in the past or imprisoned by kooky fears about your mighty pen and the future it will write into being. I want you back where you belong, in the rational world. In the here and now.”
“I’m raising a preschooler. That’s not living enough in the here and now for you?”
“Nope. You need to do something to shake things up. Like move. That’s an easy one.”
“I am doing something,” I shot back. “I’m getting Lucy a dog.”
As I uttered that simple sentence, it was as much news to me as it was to Frannie, and I immediately wished I could swallow the words.
Sam had wanted a dog growing up, but he said his parents had always rejected the idea because their lives were too busy.
Sam and I had planned to get one as soon as we were settled in our own house.
And Lucy had been begging for a dog ever since she started preschool.
I had gone as far as researching breeders, but then I came to my senses.
I had neither the time nor the energy to learn how to take care of a dog, and it wasn’t likely the Packers would be keen to back me up.
I didn’t have to look at Frannie to know she was rolling her eyes.
“Not exactly what I had in mind,” Frannie said. “When is this happening?”
“Um, on Thursday?” I was really winging it now. “And it’s kind of a big deal because I’m not telling Rebecca and William in advance. But it’s not like I might lose a security deposit over it. And it’s for Lucy.”
“Wow. Big step toward independence. Hope you can handle it.” Frannie smirked.
I sighed loudly. “Actually, I was hoping you’d help me surprise Lucy. You grew up with dogs. I need you to teach me everything you know.”
“Fuck you.” Frannie snorted. “You know I can’t say no if it’s for my goddaughter.”
“I know,” I said with a grin. “That’s what I was counting on.”
But as we hugged and parted ways a few minutes later, it dawned on me that this was exactly what it meant to cut off your nose to spite your face.
For crying out loud, I’d had a baby at twenty-five, I’d been completely celibate for the second half of my twenties, I still lived with my late husband’s parents, and the only career dream I’d ever had was on life support—with six days of oxygen remaining.
Of all the ways I could have chosen to deflect Frannie’s goading, my big, bright idea was to commit to a dog I had no idea how to handle?