Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“If you’d done a wire transfer rather than an ACH, this wouldn’t be an issue,” Elsa says from her perch on the corner of Frannie’s desk. Michael nods seriously beside her.
“It’s a lot of money. I wanted the extra security,” Frannie says.
Elsa smiles. “We’re just excited.”
“It’s so much money!” Bridgette exclaims, leaning on the other arm of Frannie’s desk chair
“A ridiculous amount of money,” Frannie agrees, trying to refrain from refreshing her Chase account again. Maribel said the money went out on Monday. It’s Wednesday. It should land today.
She’s still not sure how Maribel got Hereafter to agree to paying for the first book in halves.
The second, yet undesignated book, is paying out in thirds, but she still gets the first third of that on finally signing the contract.
So, almost six months after selling the book, a whopping $312,500, less commissions to Maribel and her attorney, will hit Frannie’s bank account today.
The web page refreshes and Frannie looks over at Michael, who’s retracting his hand.
“Hey,” she grumbles.
Of course, then her account updates, and there in her checking account is a quarter of a million dollars.
“Holy shit,” she whispers.
Michael and Bridgette cheer, throwing their arms around her and babbling. Frannie just blinks at the screen. She’s—she’s done it. She’s really done it. She sold a book. Two books. For more money than she ever thought she’d have in savings, and that’s not even all of it.
Slowly, Frannie wraps her arms around Michael and Bridgette, squeezing. She looks up to find Elsa holding a cake. It’s purple, easily fit to feed six people, and covered in little green rosettes with the words “Congratulations Frannie” on the top in white icing.
“People really should spend their gift cards,” Elsa says with a sly smile. “Congratulations, darling.”
“Thank you,” Frannie says, reaching out to brush her fingers over Elsa’s knee. “For everything.”
Elsa smiles, her eyes shining. They’d absolutely be having a moment if the children weren’t here. They’ve been having a lot of moments recently, and it’s left Frannie giddy and flushed and twitterpated. She loves it.
“You have to eat it with your face,” Bridgette says, earning laughs from her family.
“A whole cake, with just my face?” Frannie asks, reaching out to close her laptop so Elsa can put the cake down on it. “What if I want to share with Gretchen and Brad?”
“You could always cut the bite part out before you show it to them,” Michael suggests.
“Please?” Bridgette insists.
With a put-upon sigh, and withholding a grin, because of course she wants to, Frannie leans forward and takes the largest bite of cake she can manage, right into the bottom of her name.
Bridgette cheers, Michael laughs, and Elsa giggles so hard she wheezes.
Frannie has to focus to avoid choking, crumbs falling out of her mouth.
“S’delicious,” she mumbles.
“Good,” Elsa says, beaming at her before looking around. “How do you not have paper towels in here?”
“I don’t know,” Frannie says, giggling and trying to wipe as much frosting off her face as she can.
“We’re making that a standing order once we’re across the street,” Elsa says, hopping off the desk to rummage through Frannie’s backpack.
“You got it,” Frannie says, laughing and batting both Michael and Bridgette’s hands away where they’ve swiped frosting to try and push into her face.
Six hours later, she traipses out of the Dakota with her cake and heads up along the driveway.
She stands for a moment staring at her new home, 11 Seventy-Third Street, with its white stone entrance, and the red-and-green brick pattern facade.
There’s a beautiful flowering tree right out front, pink flowers in full late-July bloom, and the top floor, where her apartment is, has a green copper finish. It’s perfect.
And it’s hers.
She looks toward Central Park at the end of the block to make sure she’s not about to be hit by one of the insane Upper West Side drivers, then scurries across the street and up the front steps. Her key still sticks a little in the front lock and she laughs, juggling the cake to push the door open.
She hurries up the stairs, her steps echoing on the marble, and reaches the fourth-floor landing only vaguely out of breath. It’s better than their fifth-floor walk-up in Sugar Hill.
She unlocks their apartment, 4B, and pushes the door open with her shoulder. “Honey, I’m home! And I brought cake!”
Gretchen’s head pops out of the archway to the kitchen. “Finally providing for the family. Took you long enough.”
Frannie laughs and toes off her boots, then slips them underneath their new shoe rack. She pads down the hall and turns into the kitchen, smiling at the new white cabinets above the black-and-white subway tile backsplash.
She pops the cake down on the round secondhand white dining table they found a few blocks over, along with four matching craftsman chairs.
Gretchen emerges from behind the truly massive stainless-steel refrigerator door with three seltzers and plops down at the table.
Frannie shucks her backpack, grabs three forks, and sits down with her.
“Brad still here?”
“He’s in my room, glued to his laptop, but he said he’d be out. I take it your payment came in?”
Frannie nods, reaching out to dig into her side of the cake, where she thinks she, Michael, and Bridgette did an artful job of obscuring her face smash.
“I’ve got enough in the bank to not worry about rent for seventy-one months, before taxes.”
Gretchen shakes her head while scooping her own bite of cake. “Specific, and upsetting.”
Frannie laughs. “Yeah, well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it, much less be graceful about it.”
“Fair. Good cake! How’d Elsa swing this? Unless it was Henry?”
“Please. Henry’s out all day today meeting with his marketing team. Elsa stole someone’s gift card and ordered Uber Eats.”
“Sneaky,” Gretchen says approvingly. “We need to put this on our list.”
Frannie nods and pushes herself up to add Fleur de Cakes to their growing list of good takeout options on the little magnetic pad Brad got for the fridge. There’s a tiny ghost in the corner of each page.
Brad appears in the archway to the kitchen, his blond hair ruffled, wearing sweats and one of Gretchen’s oversized hoodies. Frannie gives it about six months before he’s officially living with them.
“Hey, we’ve got Frannie’s-a-quarter-millionaire cake,” Gretchen says.
He shuffles over to the chair next to Gretchen. “How’s that feel?”
“Weird,” Frannie says, plopping back down and picking her fork up to eat yet more cake. “But good.”
They sit for a moment in contented silence. Frannie can’t wait for next week, when Elsa and the kids will be here with them. She can still feel the tingling kiss Elsa gave her when she left the office. Soon she’ll be able to have that every day, all the time.
“Frannie?” Brad says.
Frannie opens her eyes. That’s a serious look.
“You know I’ve been doing research, setting up a case study for Operation Ghost Retrieval,” he starts, putting down his fork.
He twines his fingers together on the tabletop and Frannie finds herself putting down her own fork, no longer hungry.
“Michael’s answered all my questions about their experience in the Dakota, and from everything I’ve read, they’re textbook examples of poltergeists trapped in an electrical circuit.
Michael could write a textbook, actually. Which would be a fun project …”
He trails off, eyes cast down on his hands, and Frannie shifts in her seat.
“Right?” Frannie prompts, glancing at Gretchen, who looks as lost as she feels.
“Anyway. Michael and I have gone over the plans ad nauseum. They should be able to travel across the existing power lines.”
“So what’s—”
“I still haven’t found any record of it happening, anywhere,” Brad says, raising his eyes to meet Frannie’s, concern all over his face.
“Of what happening?” Gretchen presses.
“Poltergeists moving between haunts using electricity,” Brad says.
“This is hardly the only old building built on a smaller power structure before the whole island was electrified. And there are dozens in other cities around the world—famously haunted places with electrical activity. But none of those poltergeists ever seem to leave. I can’t find anything that says otherwise. ”
Frannie’s leg starts bouncing, but she forces herself not to panic.
“I just—I wanted one example before we do this,” Brad says, his voice cracking a little.
“But it doesn’t mean it’s not possible,” Gretchen says quickly.
“Right,” Frannie agrees, her voice tight. “Right. They’ll … they’ll just have to be the first.”
“But why are they the first?” Brad asks, his voice hushed, looking between them with his brow furrowed. “Surely other ghosts would have tried and succeeded, if it were possible.”
“Maybe they just haven’t been found doing it,” Gretchen suggests.
“Yeah, I mean, this situation’s kind of unique,” Frannie says.
Brad taps his hands on the table. “I would just feel a lot better about this if I could find anything that says it’s possible.”
“I’m sure we all would,” Gretchen says, smiling tightly at Frannie before taking one of Brad’s twitching hands. “But you’ve looked at the power grid, and you confirmed there’s a current that connects over here. So, Frannie throws that breaker and they just zip across.”
“That’s the theory,” Brad agrees, still looking at Frannie. “But I just—I’m not positive it’s enough energy to get them all the way across the street. And if it’s not enough—”
Frannie nods once, hands braced on her thighs. She turns and looks through the doorway into the living room. The Dakota is right there, right across the street. Ninety, maybe one hundred feet, that’s all. It’s right there.
“I just want you guys to be really clear on the consequences if this doesn’t work,” Brad says.
Frannie drags her gaze away from the window, turning to look at her friend. “I know,” she says, trying to clamp down on her rising anxiety.
“I want them here,” he adds, giving her a sad smile.
“We both do,” Gretchen says.
“I know that too,” Frannie assures them. “And just because we can’t find any record that it’s been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Right?”
Gretchen nods and Brad offers Frannie a wan smile. She forces herself to smile back. She has to believe it’s possible. Any other outcome isn’t something she can contemplate. Not getting them out, them being gone—she can’t think like that.
She has a quarter of a million dollars in her bank account. Surely having her family with her, happy and whole, isn’t really that outlandish.