Let's Be Frank (29 page)

I spin on my heel and stride toward the car. “Let’s go. I’m tired and want to get home.”

Chapter Nineteen

Betty falls asleep soon after we hit the highway, and while I’m glad she’s getting some much-needed rest, the silence gives me a lot of time to think. About four-and-a-half hours, to be exact. And my thoughts keep returning to this:

I’m so full of shit, it’s not even funny.

Even better, the only person I’m fooling is myself.

Frankie’s going to cash in her 401K to fund her dream life; well, I’m ready to collect on
my
investment, too. I’ve spent months pouring myself into a relationship that’s been far from ideal, all under the assumption that every good relationship is based on compromise and give and take. But good relationships have no room for resentment, and lately I’m starting to feel like I’m always giving, always the one compromising more, so the resentment is building.

I’ve been here before, facing this diagnosis, nearly four years ago. Back then, I chose the treatment plan with the most immediate results—people-pleasing, followed by major lifestyle changes. Oh, and large doses of denial.

This time, I’ve recognized the same things happening, and I thought I was choosing a different treatment plan. But it’s the same plan, only disguised as something “new and improved.” And now, unfortunately, my condition is too far gone to keep putting bandages on it and managing my symptoms.

My only option now, I’m afraid, is surgery. I need to cut out the disease before it starts to infect every aspect of my life.

The decision before me, is similar to the one many women face when undergoing surgery for breast cancer. I believe one breast can be saved, but is it worth the risk? Perhaps the safest choice is to remove them both and move forward with healing and possible reconstruction later.

I decide to stop for gas, so I can stretch my legs and get some fresh(ish) air. I mean, I’m comparing my relationship with Frankie and being Frank to two cancerous boobs.

“You’re a cancerous boob,” I say out loud to myself, taking the next available exit from the highway.

Betty stirs. “Huh?” she mumbles.

“Nothing. Never mind. I’m, uh… Gonna make a quick pit stop.”

“Where are we?” she asks, sitting up and blinking.

“About halfway home. You can keep sleeping. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

At the service station, while waiting in line to pay for the coffee I hope will keep me alert for the rest of the trip, I text Frankie to check her status and plans for the evening.
Staying up late tonight?

As I’m getting back in the car, she replies,
Can’t text. Writing.

That settles it, then. Surgery, it is.

*****

It’s
late but still before midnight when Betty and I roll into Green Bay. Frankie never goes to bed before 2 a.m. when she’s in the middle of a creative tear, so after I drop off yawning Betty at her place and ensure she makes it inside safely, I point the rental car in the direction of Frankie’s apartment.

Outside Frankie’s door, I take a deep breath and reassure myself this is the right thing to do. Our relationship is never going to work, and it’s better to know that now, seven months in, than continue in denial and face it months—or years—from now.

My knocks go unanswered. Sometimes she writes with music blasting into her earbuds. She ignores the door and the phone, but she always replies to texts, so I pull out my phone and key,
I’m at ur door. Let me in?

I’m beginning to think she may be indisposed—or ignoring me—when more than a minute goes by with no reply. As I consider my options (none of which are going home and trying again tomorrow), the door swings wide, and a flushed, robe-clad Frankie appears in front of me.

I smile nervously. “Hey!”

“What are you doing here?” she greets me coldly, stepping back.

“I know you’re writing. Sorry for dropping in unannounced, but I…
we
need to talk.”

I pocket my keys and advance into the apartment, standing behind a chair at her dining table, where her open laptop rests. I glance down at the laptop screen, a white background jammed full of single-spaced words, the file name at the top, “CEO-Oh-Oh,” distracting me for a second.

I shake my head and look back at her, but she’s no longer standing by the front door. She’s rushing toward me, and not in a “catch-me-in-your-arms-and-make-passionate-love-to-me-on-the-floor, you beast!” way. She stomps, her teeth bared, her nostrils flared, the true human incarnation of the raging bull we all hear so much about but most of us never experience the horror of facing. I have an urge to say,
“Olé!”
Or whimper,
“Mommy!”

When she arrives at the table, she slams the laptop shut. “Excuse me, but that’s private.”

“I didn’t read anything but the title,” I reassure her. “Clever, by the way.”

She retreats a few steps, bites her lower lip and looks away from me, something suddenly interesting on the baseboard nearest us. “It’s a working title,” she snaps, making eye contact with me once more. “I’d like to get back to what I was doing, so…”

I have to hand it to her; she’s making this a lot easier for me than I expected. That doesn’t mean I’m not nervous. I am. My heart could have probably done without that cup of coffee. Uncertainty about her reaction to what I’m about to say makes my pulse pound in my ears.

After a deep breath, I begin, “Right. Okay, then. I’ll make this quick. I came by here to say that I don’t—”

The flushing toilet stops me mid-sentence.

Her eyes maintain a lock on my face, but she mutters an obscenity under her breath.

“Who’s here?” I ask, my tone weirdly solicitous, even to my own ears.

Without hesitating, she answers, lifting her chin, “Kyle.”

What does it say about me that the first thing that pops to mind when she drops that gem is,
“I hope he sprays the air freshener before he comes out”
?

Of course, my second thought has more to do with the guilty look on her face when she answered the door to me and the way she’s dressed—or more accurately,
not
. Mixed with those images are her still-echoing denials regarding her weekend in Chicago:
“Nothing happened.”

Today, she claims, “He’s helping me with some research for my book.”

I bite hard on the inside of my cheek, bark bitterly, then say, “I’m sure he is.”

The man himself chooses that moment to enter the living room. He has the good sense to have all of his clothes on. Well, most of them. He’s barefoot, and too many buttons are undone on his untucked dress shirt. When he sees me, he smiles like we’re in a sales meeting, and he’s going to pull out his A-game to sell me a bunch of shit I don’t want.

I stride to the door, painfully aware that Frankie’s not saying or doing anything to explain herself. Even if it’s more lies, I’d appreciate the effort.

But Kyle’s the next one to speak. “Nate! Good to see you, man.” He extends his hand, which I don’t feel inspired to shake, so I don’t.

Instead, I roll my eyes at him and snort. “Right. Well. I was just leaving. I’ll let you guys get back to…
whatever
you were doing.”

Finally, Frankie snaps from her trance. But rather than give me the explanation I deserve, she states coldly, “Don’t play the injured party here. I know about you and Betty. I’ve known it for a long time.”

I turn to face her, but I refuse to say anything else with Kyle as a witness.

She takes my silence as a confession, apparently, because she sneers and continues, “I even know about the kiss. So spare me the righteous indignation.”

I use supreme self-control to open the door calmly and close it quietly. No temper tantrums or flouncing out for me. Not going to give the two of them the satisfaction.

By the time I get to the parking lot, I can feel my hands shaking and my eyeballs jiggling from the spike in my blood pressure, but I focus on breathing deeply through my nose, even when I spot the silver Jaguar that would have stuck out like a well-manicured thumb on a nail-bitten hand if I’d been thinking of anything but rehearsing my breakup spiel when I arrived here.

In my much-less-than-$70,000 rental car, I sit behind the wheel and stare at the sleek convertible through the windshield. Seething, I wonder how often it sits in this parking lot lately. Are Frankie’s neighbors more used to seeing it than they are my car? Something tells me the answer is, “Yes.”

And he’s either extremely arrogant or stupid to leave it parked out here with the top down. Then again, it probably has a more sophisticated alarm and anti-theft system on it than most homes. Is he flaunting his wealth among the Toyotas and Fords and Hyundais? Jag-off.

He’s probably the Bigfoot of the carbon footprint world.

And yes, I’m aware it’s not normal for me to be dwelling on Kyle’s personal impact on the environment right now, but it’s keeping me conscious, so I’m sticking with it.

I rest my forehead against my steering wheel and breathe away the tightness in my chest that I wish I could say was the physical manifestation of heartbreak. Then, I’d feel more like a normal person. Then, I’d feel less guilty. Then, my outrage would be justified. Then, I could embrace the role of hapless pawn I now know I’ve been playing all along, despite my vehement claims to the contrary.

But I still can’t go there. I can’t admit the extent to which I’ve been played. Because then, everything has been for nothing.

Well, almost.

*****

A proper victim would go to a bar tonight and drink by himself. I don’t want to drink, though. I don’t want to sulk. I don’t want to cry or rage or vent. I don’t know what I want to do. But I definitely don’t want to be alone.

Betty squints and blinks through the porch light at me. “Nate? What are you doing here?”

“I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” I grumble, stepping past her without an invitation inside.

She rubs her eyes and closes the door. “I just fell asleep. Is everything okay?”

I have so much to say, but I start with, “Do you always answer the door in the middle of the night dressed like that?”

She looks down at her baby tee and boy shorts. “Huh? No. I don’t think I’ve ever answered my door in the middle of the night, come to think of it.”

“Well, it’s not safe. You’re lucky it was me.”

Snorting, she shuffles past me and motions for me to follow her into the kitchen. “I looked through the peephole and saw it was you before I answered. Dad.”

In the kitchen, she stretches to reach a shelf in one of her cupboards and pulls down two pint glasses.

“I don’t want to drink,” I immediately tell her what I’ve already told myself a hundred times in the past fifteen minutes.

Ignoring me, she opens the fridge, reaches inside, and comes back out with a gallon of milk. “How’s this, Boy Scout? I’ll even try to find some cookies that aren’t too stale.”

She scratches at her bare leg with her foot while pouring the milk.

“It’s over,” I say quietly, testing out the sound of the words before repeating them, louder.

“What happened this time?” she asks with a sigh as she disappears into an impressively organized walk-in pantry.

“This wasn’t just a fight. It… I… Kyle was at Frankie’s.”

With a clatter, a package of Oreos skids through the pantry doorway and across the kitchen floor, Betty following closely behind it.

“Damn,” she mutters, crouching down to pick up the creme-filled cookies, some of which have shattered on the hard tile floor.

I join her, kneeling and reaching for a few bits that have skittered under the fridge. She allows me to throw those away, but the ones she’s picked up from the middle of the floor she sets next to one of the glasses. “I’ll eat those; my floor’s clean,” she explains, before saying, “I’m so sorry.”

“They’re just cookies.”

“No! About Kyle. And Frankie. I really thought it might not be true. I’d hoped, anyway.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Apparently, he’s her CEO-Oh-Oh.”

She laughs. “What?”

I tell her about the title of the manuscript that was open when I got to Frankie’s, before Kyle made himself known.

“Yeah, I’m the Hippocratic Oaf, and he’s a CEO-Oh-Oh. She never even gave me a chance to…” I trail off, suddenly remembering I’m a) not alone and b) thinking out loud. “Anyway!” I smile sadly. “Whatever. I mean, I went over there to break up with her.”

“You did?”

I nod. “Yeah. I should be thanking her for making it so much easier.”

“Still… that sucks.”

I shrug. “Whatever. I’ve had more intimate relationships with my cable company.
And
they screwed me more often, too.” Immediately regretting that last sentence, I tack on, “Sorry.”

I watch, mesmerized, as she holds a cookie in her milk for several seconds, then gently lifts it and drops it whole onto her tongue. After chewing and swallowing, she grins at me, her teeth an odd grayish-brown. “Good one,” she approves of my comparison.