Let's Be Frank (17 page)

Don’t forget to tweet today.

I stared into my cereal bowl, watching the shredded wheat bloat, while I absorbed the disappointment. Then I dutifully logged into Twitter, my hands shaking so much that it took me three tries to key in the password, and I thumbed in,
Frank Lipton is pussy-whipped.

I had tweeter’s remorse almost immediately and added,
April Fool’s!
as a reply to my own tweet. Unfortunately, it was April 3, so that didn’t quite work. So I deleted the tweet altogether. But Frankie obviously saw it before I performed my lame damage control. The silent treatment I’ve received ever since can’t be a coincidence.

I guess she’s right to be pissed. But seriously? Her texting me to do my “job” as Frank is like me texting her to remind her to drink plenty of water and eat her fiber so she’ll stay regular. At least if I sent her a health tip, it would be because I cared about
her
as a person, not because I was treating her like a personal assistant.

So she can give me the silent treatment all she wants, because I don’t want to talk to her right now, anyway. I’d rather hear nothing from her than any Frank-related whip-cracking. Maybe it’s best if we lie low this week.

Plus, we’ll get plenty of together time this weekend when she and I fly out to Arizona with Betty as we combine Frank’s first author appearance with an impromptu visit to Frankie’s parents’ house.

I’m not a fan of “impromptu.”

I’m also trying to block out the visions of me hooked up to a lie detector machine in her dad’s basement.

“Are you doing this Frank Lipton thing for my daughter just to get laid, Nathan Arthur Bingham?”

“No.”

ZZZZAAAAAAAPPP!

Did I mention his polygraph includes a taser connected to my testicles? Yeah, in my nightmares, Frankie’s dad makes Robert DeNiro look like a teddy bear.

But I don’t have time to indulge in silly daydreams that place me in the role of fellow murse Gaylord Focker; I have a clothes shopping date with Betty.

*****

“Explain to me, again, why I can’t wear something from my closet,” I say to Betty as she buries me in stacks of clothes amongst the disheveled racks at T.J. Maxx.

“Frank’s not a khakis-and-Oxford kind of guy,” she states, adding another two layers to the crippling pile in my arms.

“What’s wrong with khakis and Oxfords?” I grumble.

“Nothing. For you. But they’re not the image we’re going for with Frank. Plus, you don’t have enough clothes. You can’t wear the same thing to different appearances.”

“Why not? There will be different people at each one.”

The look she shoots me clearly conveys her assessment of my intelligence, but in case I’m not sure, she follows it up with, “Don’t be a dumb-ass, Nathaniel. People will take pictures with you and post them on Facebook. At least, we hope they will. And we also hope the media will show up at a couple of these readings.”

“We do?” I’m not sure if her vision of my future or the mound of clothes I’m buried under is making me sweat more.

“Yes. Exposure is important. I don’t expect a lot of buzz at your first few appearances, but… as word spreads…” She pushes me in the direction of the dressing rooms. “Okay, that should get you started.”

When the dressing room attendant balks at the number of items I’m proposing to take into the stall with me, Betty levels him with a withering glare. “Just go with it,” she commands him. “We’re about to spend a shit-ton of money here.”

He grudgingly allows me to stagger past, with Betty calling after me, “Even if you don’t like the way something looks, come show me. I’ll be the judge.”

“Great,” I mutter, throwing the heap of garments onto the floor in the nearest open stall I can find. I guess I should be glad Betty didn’t insist on joining me back here.

Sixty sweaty minutes, half a dozen flashbacks of shopping trips with Heidi, and two near-panic attacks later, I have a whole new wardrobe for Frank that includes skinny jeans and pants in nearly every shade of the rainbow, denim and plaid flannel shirts with pearl snaps (I thought only cowboys wore those, but Betty told me to stop thinking and try on more clothes), wing tips, waistcoats, scarves (scarves!!!) and knit beanies to go with the black-framed glasses Betty already procured to match the Photoshopped ones in Frank’s author photo.

As I hand over my credit card to the clerk, it must be obvious how sick I feel to be spending so much money on such ugly clothes, because Betty pats my arm and says, “Frankie will pay you back.”

Not in the way I’d like
, I can’t help but think, but I smile bravely and say, “Whatever.”

“No, really. It’s part of her marketing budget.”

Of course. All business.

I sign the receipt with the staggering total and grab the bags full of mass-market hipster clothes.

“Well, it’s been real, Betts,” I say in front of the store, stepping off the curb to walk in the direction of my car. “See you next—”

“Wait a second!” she interrupts. “We’re not done. I told Frankie we’d work on your image today.”

“Done,” I state, lifting the shopping bags as evidence.

She laughs. “The clothes are only the beginning.”

My heart plummets into my stomach. “Oh. Really? Because… I was hoping to get some stuff done around my house today. You know, since we’ll be gone next weekend, and—” I back away from her, but she doggedly pursues.

“You’ll have to clean out your gutters some other time. Put those clothes in your trunk and meet me over at that coffee shop.” She nods in the direction of the café nestled in the strip mall. “I’ll have a drink waiting for you. What’s your poison?”

I debate running, but that’s not very dignified. Plus, I wouldn’t get far with all these bags, and I’m not dropping them, considering how much debt I went into to buy them.

Flatly, I reply, “Salted caramel latte,” ignoring her barely contained smile and apparent judgment of my sodium-and-sugar-laden choice. She can bite me.

“Don’t strand me with your fattening girlie drink,” she dictates to my retreating back.

Confident she can’t see it, I roll my eyes and stick out my tongue.

“And don’t make faces at me! I’d rather be shoe shopping!” she shouts as she takes her X-ray vision in the opposite direction, heading down the strip mall’s sidewalk.

*****

Our coffees weren’t even cold before it was obvious we couldn’t continue our conversation in public. For one thing, I felt ridiculous talking about someone imaginary as if he’s a real person, much less as if I’m that person. And for another thing, it’s one of my biggest fears to have someone approach me and test our ruse, so talking about Frank in the open is too risky.

I have a story (lie) ready, of course; I’m just not in a hurry to use it. We’ve decided I’ll tell people I’m a nurse in real life (which some of them will already know) who wrote and self-published some books under a pen name. It’s an elegantly simply cover. The question is, can I pull it off? I’m obviously okay lying to myself and the people closest to me, but when it comes to lying to strangers and mere acquaintances, I seem to always locate my conscience and become a stuttering, fumbling ninny.

When I lament this to Betty at her house (her immaculate house, I note with relief), she dismisses my worries. “You just need to say the lie enough to start believing it.”

“Uh… I’m not sure I ever want to get to that point.”

“You’re going to have to, if this is going to work. When you’re in Frank’s clothes,” she nods to the bags in the middle of her loft office space, “you’ll
be
him.” Her eyes sparkle hopefully. And I like that. A little too much.

Whoa, Bingham… Do
not
go there.

With a cough, I insist, “I’m not an actor.”

“Have you ever tried?”

I think back to high school when a couple of buddies and I auditioned on a whim for
Fiddler on the Roof
. I couldn’t sing, but I somehow didn’t think that would be a problem… in a musical. And oddly enough, I was okay at the crazy Russian dancing we had to do. The drama teacher gave me a non-speaking/non-singing part (everyone was guaranteed a role) and told me I was part of the “ensemble.” “Just dance and lip sync,” she said.

Then one of the bit players got leveled on the football field and ended up in traction. He had one line.
Surely, Nate can handle that
, the drama teacher must have thought. Yeah. No. I was eventually able to do it in rehearsals without sounding like I was reading from a cue card, but on all three nights the show ran, I flubbed it.

I sip at the dregs of my coffee and set down the biodegradable paper cup that has started to make the drink taste like biodegradable ass. “Yeah, I have, actually. And I suck. There’s something about memorizing lines that makes me freeze up.”

She digs through the bags and pulls out a pair of black skinny jeans, a “vintage,” bought-an-hour-ago-in-a-chain-store t-shirt, a waistcoat, and a scarf. “You’re not going to be memorizing any lines here, so no problem. Go put these on.” She nods toward her bedroom through an open archway in the loft.

Rubbing my neck, I whine, “Really?” but rise from the sofa and take the clothes from her.

Mindful of the doorless room and positioning myself at an angle so she won’t be able to see me unless she stands in the doorway, I strip to my skivvies.

From the other room, she raises her voice to be heard when she says, “By the time we’re done today—and with some practice on your own during the week—being Frank will be second nature. There’ll be no flubbing, because there’ll be no thinking. Only instinct.”

“No thinking. Perfect,” I mutter at my ridiculous reflection while fumbling with the last piece of the outfit, the scarf.

How does this thing work, anyway? Something tells me I’m not supposed to wear it like I would one of my winter scarves. I’m not supposed to wind it around my neck and tuck it down into my vest, right?

Betty suddenly appears in the mirror behind me, making me jump.

“Hey! How did you know I wasn’t naked in here?” I squeak, outraged.

“I peeked,” she answers matter-of-factly, spinning me around by pulling on my shoulder and taking control of the scarf-winding. “Pay attention,” she bosses, doing a series of complicated over-under maneuvers that results in a sloppy, bunched-up, “I-don’t-give-a-damn” look. She produces
the
glasses from the neck of her sweater, where they’ve been hanging out with her girls for who knows how long. When she slides them onto my nose, they’re warm and smell like fabric softener.

I turn back to the mirror and want to cry. “I look—”

“Like Frank. That’s all that matters. Do you feel different?”

I think about it. “No. I generally feel ridiculous, and these clothes don’t change that.”

She laughs and pushes on my shoulder, holding on while she talks to my reflection. “Come on. Be serious.”

“I am! What’s the point in wearing such a pretentious t-shirt if I’m going to cover it up with this?” I finger the fringe (yes, fringe) on the scarf.

“Hipsters wear clothes for themselves, not for show.”

“Bullshit.”

Again, she laughs, but she releases my shoulder and moves away. “Yeah, I know. But that’s the answer they’d give.” She disappears into the en suite bathroom I wish I would have noticed earlier, considering it has a door.

“Well, this isn’t ‘hipster.’ This is, ‘I’m trying hard to
look
like a hipster,’ which is even worse!”

“Most people don’t know the difference.”

“Oh, that makes it okay, then. I feel like so much less of an idiot.”

She returns with a hand mirror. Leading the way back to the office area, she tosses back at me, “Enough whining. Now, let’s make Frank your bitch.”

“For you, anything,” I say, following her. Just how much I’m beginning to mean that is yet another pesky part of my current predicament, which I push to the back of my mind.

Chapter Twelve

Flying’s not my favorite thing. It ranks up there with snowmobiling. Logically and intellectually, I have faith in the physics that make air travel possible—it’s science, after all—but on a more primitive, base level, I don’t know how it’s possible. How is my body, plus the bodies of so many other people and thousands of pounds of luggage, encased in a 45-ton hunk of metal, suspended 35,000 feet in the air? Not even suspended. Moving. At more than 500 miles per hour. A sane person can’t believe that’s possible. It makes as much sense as believing in time travel.

I’m holding it together, though. I’ve been told all the statistics about flying being safer than driving so many times that I can recite them, too. I do, actually. In my head. Unfortunately, they’re not all that comforting, and they merely highlight the improbability of my ever living to see age forty, but they manage to distract me from my surroundings.

Plus, I’m downright chill compared to Betty. She’s done everything short of breathe into her barf bag during this flight. Frankie wanted the window seat, which was fine by Betty, who wanted the aisle seat so she could “climb the fuck out of here easier if shit starts to get real.” That left me with the middle seat. When I’m not repeating death statistics in my head, I’m wondering if Frankie’s parents will have alcohol and antibiotic ointment for me to treat the puncture wounds caused by Betty’s nails in my right hand.