Chapter 11 #2
Frannie rolls her eyes. “Probably. But we’ll never know,” she says, shrugging when Elsa raises an eyebrow. “I’m not dating anyone.”
“Walk into a queer bar, you’ll have tons of numbers. Do you date?”
They stare at each other for a moment. Frannie’s not brave enough to explain that there’s only one woman she wants to make out with in these hallways, and being caught probably wouldn’t be a problem, given they’re standing invisible on the roof right now.
“I’ve got other … things on my mind right now,” Frannie says. She can’t quite stop herself from clutching at Elsa’s hand.
Elsa stares at her for a moment before nodding once. “All right.”
Frannie has to tear her eyes away. If she keeps looking at Elsa, she’s going to say something. Something too revealing. Something that might scare Elsa off. And she wants to stay right here, with her fingers tangled through Elsa’s, for as long as she’ll let her.
“So, is it just Henry?” Elsa asks. Frannie glances at her. “That keeps you from dating normally?”
Frannie sighs. “Henry doesn’t control my dating life.”
“Just your waking hours,” Elsa counters. “The hours you keep are ridiculous.”
“I haven’t been working that late,” Frannie says, knee-jerk. The same she tells her mom, and Gretchen, and her college friends, and her … everyone.
“When he’s here, you routinely work past eight, which is absurd.”
Frannie opens her mouth, staring out at the park. “It’s … fine,” she protests weakly.
“It’s not,” Elsa says.
Frannie sucks on her cheek, shoulders coming up. She doesn’t want to argue about this right now. Henry’s not even back yet.
After a moment, Elsa squeezes her hand, and Frannie forces herself to relax.
“Is it just the working hours? Or are you … I know the asexuality spectrum is big,” Elsa starts. Frannie laughs, surprised. “Sorry, was that insensitive?”
“No,” Frannie says, air coming back into her lungs. “It’s nice of you. But I’m not single because I’m ace. And being ace doesn’t mean you’ll always be single either. But I’m not ace, I’m single because—” She breaks off with a sigh. Elsa was pretty open with her. “I’m a little gun shy,” she admits.
And not just because the woman she’s currently falling head over heels for is a ghost and it would be totally impossible for anything to happen, though she still can’t quite make herself stop hoping.
“My last breakup was pretty painful, and I haven’t been eager to do it again,” she says at last. “I like being on my own.”
Elsa considers her. “Do you?”
Frannie shrugs. “I’m good at it.”
She’s not sure being good at being single and being happy being single are the same thing. But she is—good, at being alone. Or she was, until two ghost children started haunting her, and brought along their amazing ghost mom.
“Breakups are awful. I’m sorry,” Elsa says softly.
Frannie’s breakup was awful. In the painful way that a breakup cuts particularly deep when you know you’re no longer right for each other, but the love hasn’t died. But standing next to the woman—ghost—beside her, Frannie’s not sure she has the right to complain.
“I’m sorry. About Joan,” Frannie says.
Elsa raises one shoulder, not looking at her. “It was a long time ago.”
Frannie hesitates. She wants to know what happened so badly it almost hurts. But she doesn’t want to hurt Elsa just to know. So, she grips at Elsa’s hand, tries to let her know she’s there, but not asking anything. Not—
“It was very unremarkable,” Elsa says.
“What was?” Frannie asks.
“My death.” Elsa tips her head back, staring up at the falling snow. “I was trying to rewire a lamp. I was the, what did you say the other day? The handy gay, in our relationship.”
Frannie gasps out a surprised laugh. “Yeah.”
Elsa smiles, just a little. “I should have taken it down the street to the hardware store, like Joan said, but I was determined. And then all of a sudden, I … simply wasn’t anything anymore.”
Frannie turns, taking Elsa’s hand in both of hers and looking up at her as Elsa keeps staring up at the sky.
“I floated out of myself and there I was, like nothing had happened, except my body was on the floor. Joan was out. It took a few hours for her to come home, and though my powers came slowly, she was so excited to see me after she found my body. Well … excited and scared—that’s a good lyric.”
Frannie blinks. Really, an Into the Woods reference, now?
“Joan was upset you couldn’t poltergeist right away?” Frannie asks gently.
“Poltergeist isn’t a verb,” Elsa replies.
“It’s as good as anything else to describe what you and the kids do.”
Elsa sighs gustily. “Fine. Yes. Joan was upset that I couldn’t—that my poltergeist powers weren’t there. That I wasn’t really there.”
“But you are,” Frannie says. How could anyone think otherwise?
Elsa nods slowly. “That’s what I thought.
But it wasn’t enough. Joan—we had a big life outside this building.
And Joan thought people would think she was crazy.
That it would draw attention to her in ways that—” She breaks off, shaking her head.
“Joan needed more than I could give her, so she left.”
Her lover abandoned her to eternity in the Dakota Building, in an apartment Elsa didn’t own. And she says it so simply, so lightly.
Frannie sniffles, biting at her lip. She doesn’t have the right to cry. Elsa isn’t crying. But it hurts.
“I don’t blame her,” Elsa says, eyes coming back to Frannie. She smiles softly and reaches out with her free hand to brush a tear off Frannie’s cheek, leaving Frannie’s skin buzzing. “It was a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry. I just—”
Elsa strokes Frannie’s cheek once, before pulling back. But her other hand remains linked with Frannie’s, their fingers tangled. “Two tenants came and went before Bridgette found me.”
“What did you do in that time?” Frannie wonders, so heartbroken and angry for her.
“Floated,” Elsa says, voice a little distant.
“A bit like being in suspended animation in one of those cryogenic pods sci-fi was so fond of for a while. I kept—” She pauses, shaking her head.
“I think I was waiting. I thought Joan would come back someday. Would realize what she’d left behind—who she had left behind. But she never did.”
Elsa stares out at the park and Frannie has half a mind to go look the woman up, and either electrocute her in revenge, or drag her back here to make her apologize and beg for forgiveness sixty years too late. If she’s even still alive.
“But then Bridgette found you,” Frannie prompts, for both their sakes.
Elsa’s face lifts in a true smile. “And then I had Bridgette and Michael to think about. They were lost, like me. They needed someone. And I so desperately needed to be needed. We’ve been the three of us ever since. Together forever, no one left behind.”
“You’re a great mom to them,” Frannie says, in lieu of anything more articulate.
“Thank you.” Elsa smiles and tugs Frannie closer, so they’re shoulder-to-shoulder, and wraps her free hand through Frannie’s elbow, anchoring them to each other. Frannie can feel her even through her coat, tingling and solid. “You know I was … against Bridgette talking to you at the start.”
“I had some inkling, yes,” Frannie says, laughing as Elsa bumps her hip.
“She’s made friends before. Or, well, she’s met tenants who didn’t run screaming, at least. But they always leave. It breaks my heart every time.”
Frannie sucks in a breath. Impermanent rings in her head. How is she any different?
“But it’s nice,” Elsa says softly.
“What is?”
“Having someone to talk to. It’s been so long since Joan left—I’d forgotten. Watching the snow with you, watching movies—it’s lovely. I understand why Bridgette risks it now. It’s worth the end to have the middle.”
She looks down at Frannie, face soft, eyes bright, and Frannie smiles back reflexively, even as her stomach twists.
Frannie is the first person Elsa’s spoken with since she died, other than Joan?
The first person she’s allowed herself to get attached to, knowing someday Frannie will leave her job, and leave her here, just like Joan did?
“I’m glad you’re here,” Elsa whispers.
Frannie nods, her eyes filling again. “Me too,” she whispers back, turning her cheek to rest against Elsa’s shoulder, so maybe she won’t see Frannie cry.
Frannie can feel the cashmere against her skin, can feel Elsa’s breath when she rests her own cheek against Frannie’s temple. She’s solid, and real, and here. Just as real as anyone Frannie’s ever known.
She is more real than anyone Frannie’s ever known, ghost or not.
Frannie can’t be another person who abandons Elsa, or Michael and his schematics and inquisitive questions. She can’t be another in a long line of disappointments for Bridgette. It may be strange, otherworldly, and just a bit insane, but she can’t be another person who leaves.
She just doesn’t know how not to be.
“You know I once had a snowball fight with Lauren Bacall in Central Park at midnight?”
“What?” Frannie asks with a laugh.
Elsa giggles, her breath ruffling Frannie’s hair.
She has to find a way to be someone who stays, because there’s nowhere she’d rather be on earth than right here, covered in snow and starting to shiver, listening to Elsa laugh.