"Do you have a secret stash of love letters?"
Frankie asks her that on the night they finally manage to get Sheree her house back, and it must be a cold day in hell because Grace is thankful she's not drinking anything at the moment –she's pretty sure she would have spit out whatever beverage she might have been enjoying.
Instead of the honest answer that almost rushes out of her lips, she jokes about her loveless marriage with Robert and laughs as Frankie tells her about the letters her sons wrote to her –trying to ignore the hint of hurt she feels that her daughters never did such a thing, and the guilt that she's largely to blame for it. And it's not even really a lie anyway, because Frankie meant to ask if Grace had a stack love letters addressed to her, and nothing else.
"Must be nice for Sheree, to have been loved like that," she can't help but add, feeling bold at approaching this dangerous topic.
Because discussing love, with Frankie, is a slippery slope ever since Grace has come to certain realizations in her absence.
But she backpedals and ignores the part of her that chastises herself for her cowardice, and instead brings up Jacob to distract Frankie. And it works, because, as the other woman's tone of voice confirms, he does love her like that. And she probably loves him like that too, and they will love each other likely forever –or the little time they all have left anyway– even if they're not living in the same city, so Grace just has to accept it and move on already.
Which is why living together again is both a blessing, because she's missed Frankie so much she thought she might go mad –which, considering her behavior with Sheree, is still not off the table– and a curse, because how the fuck do you move on from being in love with your best friend and roommate and aunt to your kids and overall light of your life?
But she bites her tongue and forces the confession down her throat, as she instead reads to Frankie to help her fall asleep. Feels both giddy and guilty at the idea that she's doing something for Frankie that he usually gets to do, has to stop herself from going down the road of other things she'd like to replace him at –especially when Frankie jokes that she can't or won't, Grace? and she has to fight to stay silent through what's only banter to the other woman.
Once Frankie's asleep, Grace lets out a tiny sigh of relief. That she's not conscious and therefore not able to ask more surprise questions that might lead Grace to destroy their friendship with the ridiculous truth, but mostly that she's here, in their house, on their couch. Back with her, where she belongs in a weird way neither of them ever saw coming.
She stands up and covers her with a blanket, amazed to see Frankie really is deeply asleep –then again, business management talk always seemed to have that effect on her– and not resisting the urge to kiss her forehead after she tucks her in.
She doesn't linger for too long though, because if she does then she'll never be able to stop kissing Frankie, but that touch alone soothes an ache in her soul that's been there since Santa Fe was first brought up, and that hadn't quite disappeared yet –not even after that night they talked by the pool and Frankie officially decided to come back. The feeling of warm skin under her lips, of tiny strands of that unruly goddamn hair that gets everywhere all the time tickling her skin, the breath Frankie releases that caresses her neck before she stands back up, all of those are balm on her bruised heart.
She flicks the lights off as she walks back to the stairs, sparing one last look in Frankie's direction before she gets up there, just to make sure it's not a mirage or one of the many –many– cruel dreams she's had of Frankie coming back to her, only to wake up to an empty, lifeless house.
As she goes up to her room and gets ready for the night, she reflects on those last days before the move, that time of their lives that feels like years and years ago, in another dimension when she was still blissfully unaware of some very important details.
After the initial shock and discussions about it, after the balloon ride she was so proud she'd been able to offer her best friend in the world, she tried to rationalize it before the move had actually happened. She prepared herself, steeled herself for what came ahead, told herself it wouldn't be so different, now would it, to all those years she'd spent alone in that other, bigger empty house? She'd managed back then, why wouldn't she manage now?
And so, for the last few days Frankie spent here with her, it worked. She was able to truly enjoy their last moments as roommates and tell herself it would all be okay, that they'd keep in touch as often as possible, that the rest of her family would still be here should Grace need anything and that she wouldn't need that much anyway because she was fiercely independent and Frankie leaving wouldn't change that.
But then time kept moving, as it so cruelly does, and the day of the move arrived, and they hugged and said goodbye five times –Frankie having forgotten her purse, her favorite necklace, one of her crystals, an already rolled joint "for the road" and somehow, one of the shoes she was wearing in as many false starts. And still Grace managed to laugh it off, more endeared than ever at Frankie's goofiness.
Until she closed the door for good after that fifth time, and somehow knew there would be no sixth. No more goodbye embrace, no more odd advice from Frankie about skinny-dipping at each full moon or burning effigies of whatever on random dates, no other chance for her to switch her cheery "travel safe, tell me when you get there" with a pointed look at Jacob because of course Frankie would forget, to the burning "please, don't leave me" that only then revealed itself as the incessant hammering that had been going on in the back of her head ever since their fight in the studio.
And it was only when she was well and truly alone that the misery, the hollowing feeling of despair she'd only had a faint taste of when the idea of Santa Fe had first been mentioned, truly hit. It crept up on her everywhere she went, at whatever time of the day or night, thousands of invisible spiders invading her space, crawling on her skin, digging through it deep enough to pollute her mind and darken every thought. Suddenly it was more than just physically painful to get out of bed in the morning and get herself ready for the day, or to go downstairs and open their fridge –Frankie's side not even close to empty even though they both knew there was no chance in hell Grace would ever feed herself on anything from in there– or to work on their company by herself, or to do anything alone in the peace she used to appreciate in her life before this whole mess of a friendship had started.
She had thought she'd be okay on her own like she'd been most of her life, because that was what she needed to be happy: quiet, work, and a few vodka martinis. And she cursed herself every day that passed without Frankie there for being such a fool.
Because it was awfully ironic, wasn't it, how it had taken her going through what she'd though of as the most miserable and humiliating moment of her life in that restaurant three years ago, for her to actually, after a few challenging months, become truly happy for the first time in forever. And so of course there was no way she'd be fine living this solitary way she'd merely contented herself of all those years, now that she finally knew, thanks to Frankie Fucking Bergstein out of all people on Earth, what living a fulfilling and peaceful life was like.
She didn't focus on it too much when it first occurred to her, didn't want to think what this really meant –knew deep down she wouldn't be able to cope with both Frankie's absence and a completely life-alternating realization.
Still for days, agonizing days, she had to fake enthusiasm at Frankie's excited texts about her new life, each exclamation point after a rant about some wonderful barter market, another stab at her already torn heart; each smile she had to fake as she lied to the kids and everyone else about how little she was affected by it all, feeling like a bitter regression on the progress she'd made recently in all those relationships.
The solution, although it didn't magically make the pain go away, came to her on one seemingly random night, after the worst of it had gone by. She was on the couch, working too late at drafting an email requesting a pop-up for the following week, when her phone rang. By that time in their separation, she had already lost the habit of rolling her eyes at the inconvenient hour in favor of a large grin –and the now familiar pinch of longing in her chest– anytime she set eyes on Frankie's name on her screen, so she took a deep breath and, completely unnecessarily since her former roommate had yet to figure Skype out, fixed her hair before she accepted the call.
As always, after a couple of Frankie-odd questions –how are you, and more importantly, how is the ocean doing today? on that particular occasion– Grace told her about her day, rushing through it. Because on the one hand, she was definitely lying about "finally getting some work done when the main distraction, yes, that would be you, Frankie," wasn't slowing her down anymore, and she was afraid after some time Frankie would see through the too playful banter and ask something stupid like if Grace actually missed her –and the amount of carefree lying needed there would have been too much even through the phone. And on the other hand, she definitely didn't care to talk for too long, as all she really wanted from these almost daily calls was to hear Frankie's voice.
It hurt, of course it did, to hear the childlike wonder in her tone every time, the joy and the love she seemed to feel for everything in New Mexico, when Grace was over here wallowing in regrets that she had been too much of a coward in letting her best friend leave for another state with another person to love her there, when she could have… But Grace knew the tears gathering in her eyes were selfish ones. All she wanted was for Frankie to be happy, after all, and if that meant having to fill her absence with the constant reminder of Jacob during those phone calls, then so be it, right?
She was lost in those thoughts and only half listening to Frankie that night, even tucked the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she ran her hands on the keyboard absent-mindedly, when something Frankie said caught her ear.
"What was that?" she asked, not hearing herself over the suddenly loud pounding of her heart against her ribcage, the suddenly jumpy pulse on her temples.
"We went on a balloon ride! And let me tell you Grace, their balloon game is on fucking point around here. I mean I know it's what they have a reputation for, but for real…"
Try as she might, Grace couldn't remember a word after that, and she thought she might be the one having a stroke that time, as she found herself unable to move, talk, or even think straight for a few seconds.
When she pulled it together and managed to speak again, catching the phone with a shaky hand and securing it in her grip from its dangerous dangling place on her shoulder, she didn't even know if she was interrupting Frankie's rant or not.
"I'm sorry, Frankie, I have to go. My battery's dying, my charger's downstairs and I'm already in bed… Can we pick this up tomorrow?" she spoke fast, a little too fast maybe, but hoped she put enough cheer in there that it didn't raise any suspicion –also hoped that Frankie would forget to call her back in the morning and she would never have to hear more about that specific Santa Fe shenanigan.
Thankfully, Frankie only hung up after wishing her good night, oblivious as always.
Or not so much, Grace thought with horror as a text appeared on her phone soon after.
Sure ur ok?
She didn't even feel the usual annoyance at the misspelling Frankie appreciated a little too much when texting, instead overwhelmed by an almost violent impulse to answer that question honestly. She picked up the phone, ready to type a two-letter reply that would finally destroy the facade she'd been living, and she felt elated at the thought alone. Pushing that button would be like ripping a band-aid off in one fluid motion, finally exposing her wound for the world to see, no more hiding it away.
But she didn't hit send, because she knew it would never be that simple. Such an admission on her part would require follow-up explanations, which would either lead to very dangerous revelations that would change everything in a likely bad way, or some dampened version of the truth that would simply guilt Frankie enough that she'd feel forced to come back for her friend, leaving the man she loved and everything that made her happy behind all because Grace couldn't control a silly crush.
And if there was one thing Grace couldn't bare to be responsible of, it was Frankie's unhappiness.
She put the phone back down after turning it off, deciding it was wiser to go along with the dead battery charade, and stared at the laptop sitting on her legs, at the page she'd opened to start her draft.
Then, as if on automatic, not thinking it through fully, she opened a new, blank page and let her fingers dance over the keys.
She started writing how she felt about Frankie and Jacob going on a balloon ride, how it felt like a betrayal when it had no goddamn right to. She replied to the text with a simple word, and then another, and then before she knew it she was pouring her heart out and confessing to how she was exhausted of feeling constantly torn between happiness for Frankie, and her own senseless existence ever since she'd left. She wrote for minutes or hours, until the arthritis in her fingers started feeling like it might flare up, until she felt exhausted and drained and couldn't see much more through the tears that wouldn't stop falling.
She stared at the screen without really seeing it, stunned that she unknowingly had it in her to put it all in so many words. She sighed, thinking it was always easier to find the right words when you knew no one would actually read them, and shook her head at her own silliness. Put her hand above the Erase key, ready to put this little tantrum behind her and move on with the shell of a life she was now living.
Then her eyes caught on the last sentence she'd written, three simple words. Three words they'd told each other occasionally over the most recent months, three words that in their entire lives Frankie had probably said too much and Grace definitely not enough, three words that now held a whole different meaning in Grace's heart.
So even if this letter would never actually make it to its recipient, even if the secret of its existence would probably die with Grace herself; it felt so cathartic, so profoundly and entirely good, to see it in black and white in front of her for the first time, to have gotten it out of her own head, to have finally phrased it like she'd known all along but had been afraid to admit to herself. And so on a whim she printed the page, erased the document from her computer, and decided to keep the piece of paper hidden under her bed in a wooden box.
And although her night was full of nightmares featuring balloons that looked much bigger and better than the one she'd taken Frankie on, and an evil version of her former roommate pointing it out as she laughed at her from the air, Jacob by her side; still when she woke up the next day, Grace thought back to the letter and found that pushing the covers off of her and putting her feet on the floor, was a bit easier than it had been ever since Frankie had gone away.
She replied some innocuous lie to Frankie's text, and as the weeks went on, she felt herself standing a little more upright, allowing herself to feel a little lighter at the virtual weight that had been lifted off of her shoulders.
She talked to Frankie, the real Frankie, with a lot less pain in her voice, with a lot more curiosity about what she was telling her, because after all there was no such thing as an ecstatic Frankie rant, and because she knew she had a way to relieve some of the pain.
She let herself open up to more possibilities, let Sheree into her life and into her home, enjoyed the less and less anxious lines on her daughters' faces when they came around, and all the while, every chance she got, she wrote Frankie love letters –because really, what else could they be called when she couldn't stop herself from writing those words every single time she sat down to do it.
Sometimes it was two letters in a few hours, either carefully typed on her computer or hastily scribbled down on the nearest piece of paper at the time she'd been struck by something she had to get out of her mind. Sometimes she didn't write a word for a couple of days and then got an embarrassingly high number of pages in one night. At first she only talked about their present situation and how miserable it was making her, then as time went by, she started remembering things from months ago that she could suddenly see in a new light, confusing her more and more everyday about just how long it had been since her feelings had crossed the line –and how ridiculously long it had taken her mind to catch up.
Until Frankie came back, and Grace hasn't had a second to herself because she won't ever leave her side nowadays, bless her heart, and Grace can't even pretend to be mad about that.
Grace sits down on her bed and pulls the box out from under it, staring at the letters with the ever-growing awe that there are so many. She runs her hands through them, smiling sadly as she does. Because technically, she doesn't need them anymore, not now that she has the real Frankie right here with her again.
Except Grace knows now, that it's possible to miss someone when they're standing right next to you, when they're sharing a home with you, when they're being your best friend and it's the last thing you want them to be.
So she sighs. Pulls a sheet of paper from the stack she's taken a habit of leaving by her bedside.
And writes some more.