Frankie #3
“I shouldn’t need to tell you! Anyone with common sense should know it!”
“Oh, yeah?” Even though it’s dark, I see a sudden gleam in his eyes. “Do you think you know everything that’s going on in your own neighborhood?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. Then what about that time you were walking around your yard calling to Violet, and she didn’t come, and didn’t come,
and it was getting dark, and you kept calling and calling for her in a voice that sounded like your heart was breaking—”
I frown. “I don’t remember that.”
“Of course you don’t, because I didn’t let it go on for very long. Violet was always at my place, so I’d pick her up and put
her over onto your property so you’d find her. That’s when I’d almost always see Dr. Dick standing out there, weeding, or
pruning, or whatever. He’d see me with Violet in my hands every time, and he would have had to have been deaf not to hear you calling for her. But he didn’t say a word to you. Not a fucking
word. He’d just glare at me and keep on weeding, and let you keep calling and calling until the cat finally roamed into your
line of sight. That guy was a dick, Frankie. He is a dick.”
Even though I agree, it’s a little galling to hear it from Ash Merit.
Before I can say anything, though, he adds, “God knows I had to come out here more than I wanted to because he was always
doing stuff to annoy my tenants—”
Now he’s gone too far. Richard is a dick but he was always kind to Summer People, even if it was only because he viewed them as potential patients. “Like what?”
“Like cutting the cables to my speakers!” Ash gestures back to his house. “Twice! If he’d just asked me, I’d have been fine with dismantling the outdoor music speakers. But he never asked. He just cut them!
Do you know how much those cables cost?”
“Oh my God,” I say. Now I’m laughing again—but at the same time, I also want to cry. “That wasn’t Richard. That was me!”
Ash stares. “You? You’re the one who cut my cables?”
“Yes! Who has outdoor speakers at a lake house, anyway? You’re supposed to listen to the sound of the lake and the birds and
other wildlife. Other people live here, you know, and they may not want to listen to your truck’s noisy muffler or ‘Margaritaville’ on repeat all day and all night—”
Ash is still staring at me, stupefied, as I pace in front of him. Even Daisy, back in the living room, is watching me. I can
see the shadow of her head move in the yellow square of light on my lawn, following my every step.
“So yeah,” I go on, recklessly. “I cut your speaker cables, and I’d do it again! Especially because you never even looked at my binder—”
“What binder?”
I stop pacing and stand in front of him, lifting my chin so I can look him in the eye as I say with a calm I do not feel,
“The binder I gave Rochelle to give to you—the one I found today stashed in a drawer in your kitchen. The one that has all
the information about living in West Harbor in it so I wouldn’t have to answer your dumb tenants’ dumb questions anymore!”
Now he simply looks baffled. “I didn’t even know you made me a binder.”
“Well, I did!”
The moon has risen fully from the treetops. In its cold blue light, I can see that his lips look just as perfectly formed as they had earlier today, when I’d first noticed them.
Only now those perfectly formed lips are beckoning to me. Kiss me, they seem to be whispering.
But that’s absurd. I don’t want to kiss Ash Merit. I want to kill Ash Merit.
“Fine,” Ash is saying. Puffs of light-blue steam come out of his mouth as he speaks. “I’ll read it. I’ll go home and read
the whole thing right now, if that’s what you want. I’ll do whatever I have to do to let you know that I’m not that guy.”
“What guy?”
“Dr. Dick! I think that guy is an asshole. Anyone who would willingly leave you is an asshole—unless they couldn’t help it,
like your dad. But anyone who can’t see how smart, funny, beautiful—”
“Ash.”
“No, don’t try to deny it. You’re beautiful, Francesca. Beautiful, intelligent, kind . . . and anyone who can’t see it . . .
well, that’s their problem. You’re always there for everyone else—your patients, your family, your friends, even the fucking
UPS guy. But who is there for you?”
“Plenty of people.” I look at him, standing there in the moonlight, his expression so sincere. There isn’t an ounce of guile
in this guy. It’s kind of refreshing. “I have friends, you know, Ash.”
“I know you do. But I should be one of them. I want to be your friend. I want to be more than friends, but I’ll settle for friendship if that’s all I can get. Why can’t we just be friends instead of enemies, or
neighbors, or whatever this is?” He waves a hand between the two of us on the word this. “This isn’t what I want!”
I find myself shaking my head. I’m looking at his lips again. I don’t want to but I can’t seem to look away. “It’s not what I want, either.”
He frowns. “Well, what do you want, then?”
“This,” I say.
And then, before I can stop myself, I reach out, wrap both my hands around the lapels of his expensive sports coat, and drag
him toward me until those lips meet mine.