March 18th
At the end of their last day of freedom, Frankie coaxes Grace to stop at Artist & Craftsman to pick up some essentials. Grace acquiesces, on the condition she not be required to join. After grabbing coffee, and scrolling through her work email for twenty minutes, Grace finally decides she should check on things inside. She expects Frankie has made friends with a young artist and is likely boring them to death with inane questions. Instead, she finds her with a few tubes of paint, staring at sketchbooks.
“Frankie , what are you doing. You’ve been in here almost an hour.”
“It’s the paper. I can’t decide whether I want mixed media Bristol, or watercolor paper.”
“Just get them both.”
“Really? Do you mean it?” Frankie beams like a child who’s just been rewarded for good behavior at the supermarket. (Though earlier, she hadn’t begged Grace to get every available flavor of Cap’n’Crunch, which they were both equally surprised about.)
“Yes.”
March 22nd
Grace has gotten into a good working groove. She rises every day at 6:15, works out, showers, then has breakfast. Her most productive hours are often between six and eleven which is when Frankie usually decides to join her for the day. She wonders why she hadn’t self-imposed this kind of exile before. No one allowed to demand anything of her time aside from work. Well, work and Frankie; which feels like an ok compromise.
March 29th
Everything at Vybrant is officially running smoothly. They’ve streamlined their online orders, Frankie has stolen their fancy mic to start a podcast about transcendental meditation (with or without psychedelics), and Grace feels like they’re on top of the world.
April 20th
…until she doesn’t.
April 22nd
Grace allows herself to sleep in until the ungodly late hour of seven-thirty. In doing so, she also decides to forgo her morning workout in favor of a long shower. What’s the point? After blow-drying her hair Grace throws on her robe, heads downstairs, and starts a pot of coffee. As the brew starts to gurgle she sits on the couch.
Two hours later, she awakes from an accidental nap. She notices that there’s still half a pot of coffee left and rises to pour herself a cup.
When she pulls the pot out, she sees a steam-wrinkled note: Hey sleepy, I made you a chocolate chip waffle. She smiles, and pulls the note off, revealing another more wrinkled note: Additional toppings optional. And then a third, even wrinklier note: Except the fruity pebbles. Then the final, wrinkliest note: Sorry!
Grace examines the counter and sees a perfect looking Belgian waffle with two banana eyes, and a smiling bacon mouth. She thinks for a moment, and realizes that if she’s already decided she’s not going to workout, she may as well commit. She eyes the whipped cream, and imagines that a true fuck-you to the meaning of life would be to add some hair to her happy breakfast. She puts her finger on the nozzle trying unsuccessfully to put the finishing touch on this brunchy magnum opus. The whipped cream fizzles, sputtering little bits of liquid on top of her waffle in a Kandinsky-esque pattern when she notices another note. Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry!
She pulls the note off, and sets the bottle down on the counter with contented defeat.
April 25th
After receiving a large grocery delivery with twenty cans of Reddi-Whip and five family-sized boxes of Fruity Pebbles, Grace walks into the studio to find Frankie pensively staring at a giant calendar full of names.
“Frankie, why did you order an entire refrigerator’s worth of whipped cream?”
“Oh, it came!” Frankie turns around, excited. “Damn, that was fast.”
“Why did you get this much?”
“Oh, ye of little foresight. Now we’ll be stocked up for the rest of house arrest!”
Grace wants to ask Frankie if she thinks she’ll be able to go through all of it before it goes bad, but thinks better of it. Instead she changes the subject.
“What’s that?” Grace points to the calendar of names.
“I’m so glad you asked. It’s my celebrity birthday calendar!” Frankie beams. “How should we celebrate Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday?”
“When is Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday?”
“Today of course.” Frankie points to her name on the calendar, and Grace sighs.
“I don’t know, I guess I hadn’t given it that much thought.”
“Let’s brainstorm together.”
Grace takes a moment to think about all of the other things she could be doing instead, and truly, can think of nothing. She wants to back out, but her mouth opens before she can formulate an appropriate exit.
“Ok.”
May 2nd
Frankie sits at the kitchen table surrounded by markers, paints, a mug of tea, and a Fruity Pebbles-Krispie treat. She opens her sketchbook to a mostly blank page, marked only with the bleed-through of its predecessor. She’s still for a moment; hand over mouth, contemplating; before being struck with inspiration. Without thinking, she dips one of her brushes into her tea mug.
She shrugs before taking a big sip of tea.
Grace descends the staircase after an exhausting zoom with her grandkids. 40 minutes of the girls rambling on about their favorite members of BTS has Grace ready for a mid-afternoon cocktail. As she starts pouring, she notices that Frankie’s expanded all over the table.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m writing in my gratitude journal.”
“What on earth is that?”
Frankie starts flipping through some of the pages as she explains. “It’s where I write down all the things I’m grateful for. Yesterday I was grateful for Faith, today I’m grateful that Chidachida brought his whole family to see me.”
“What-a what-a?”
“My favorite sand crab! I’m glad he finally trusts me enough to bring his friends with him. Our bond is practically unbreakable.”
“The whole world’s gone to shit and you’re happy you saw a bunch of crabs? On the beach?”
“Well, what else are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, drink?” Grace laughs before taking a big gulp of martini. This gives Frankie pause.
“You should try it.”
“Try what, being happy about crabs?”
“No, keeping a gratitude journal. It’ll rearrange the furniture in your brain.”
“If you say so…”
Later that evening, after a couple more martinis, Grace walks into her room to get ready for bed. As she turns down her sheets, she hears something tumble to the floor. She sighs before picking it up.
“What the hell is mixed media Bristol?”
May 10th
Frankie finds Grace doing Pilates on the deck, and interrupts accordingly: “Let’s have a movie night.”
“I don’t know.” Grace exhales before sitting up.
“Oh come on, we could make popcorn!”
“How long is it going to take to fish all the kernels out of your birdseed?”
After some dedicated wheedling, Grace finally agrees, if only to keep her housemate quiet. Frankie insists on making Frojitos, which is just a mojito with a rainbow sprinkle rim.
“Just for that extra splash of flavor.” She says, beaming. Grace pinches the bridge of her nose, frustrated, before carefully scraping off just enough room for her mouth to fit on the glass.
They settle into their movie and Grace finds herself eating the sprinkles off the rim after she’s finished with each drink. Grace curls up under Frankie’s arm as they watch two gay buckaroos confess their love to one another on the side of the Brokeback mountains. After a while, Frankie speaks.
“You know what I don’t understand?”
“Hm?”
“Who would want to do butt stuff like that if all you’ve been eating is beans?” Grace laughs.
As the movie draws to a close, Frankie runs her fingers through Grace’s hair. Neither of them want to move from the couch, and after a while, they both drift off to sleep.
May 18th
Frankie brings her giant wool blanket to the beach. Grace joins her with two bottles of ice water. They unfold the blanket together, and Grace sighs.
“I don’t get it. I still feel like we should be doing something.”
They sit down, and Frankie looks at her thoughtfully.
“We are doing something.” She reaches out for Grace’s hand, and squeezes it. After a moment of quiet, Frankie shrieks. “There he is! It’s Chidachida! How are you, friend?”
The tiny sand crab shuffles by, followed by two smaller, similar looking crabs. Frankie is delighted by this.
“Oh, what a great day!”
Grace looks at her, soaking up her palpable, unrestrained joy; and smiles.
It really is.
May 26th
Frankie decides they’ll celebrate Pam Grier’s birthday by watching Coffy. Grace agrees to make lemon drops, and they pop a bag of popcorn that is not made of birdseed kernels.
They origami their bodies together, as they have since their first movie night. As the credits roll, Frankie speaks: “I love the end. She just shoots her boyfriend in the balls, but I feel like she’s castrating the entire white-supremacist cisheteropatriarchy.” Frankie lets out a contented sigh. Grace is quiet, pensive.
“Butut for your thoughts?”
“I don’t think my knees can handle another night on this couch.”
Frankie runs her hand up and down Grace’s back. “That’s ok, let’s go to bed.”
Neither of them move. The silence distends, as though its ballooning would carry the house across the ocean. Grace purses her lips before opening her mouth.
“I don’t really want to,” she stops, “be by myself.”
Frankie smiles. “Are you proposing what I think you’re proposing?”
“You can say no if you want.” Grace tenses up at the thought.
“Why would I do that?” Frankie maneuvers them both up to a sitting position before they both walk upstairs. “We’ll have to sleep in your bed though, I still haven’t cleaned all the birdseed off of my comforter.”
Grace stops at the top of the stairs, and closes her eyes with unsurprised amusement. Of course you haven’t.
After they’re both in their pajamas, Frankie joins Grace in her bedroom. The sketchbook on Grace’s end table piques her interest.
“Have you used your gratitude journal yet?”
“Not yet. I don’t know what to write about.”
They crawl into bed, Frankie’s hands find their way through Grace’s hair, and Grace rests her head in the crevice of Frankie’s collarbone.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Some day in June
The early morning light streams through the window, Grace turns to look at the clock, making sure not to disturb her sleeping companion. It’s barely six, but bright as midday. She readjusts, and in doing so, bumps the table and knocks her sketchbook off with a loud PLOP!
“Shit.” Grace leans over the bed and the cover of her book glares at her, she stares at it a moment before deciding to get up. She collects the book, and takes it downstairs.
After making a pot of coffee and pouring herself a cup, Grace finds her favorite fountain pen and sits at the table next to an empty page that practically yells at her.
She sighs before writing: I have no idea what I am grateful for.
Grace takes a drink of coffee and screws up her face with discontent. She likes her kids, but she’s not really grateful for them; and she feels the same way about her grandchildren. Being healthy is nice but she can’t seem to get over the parts of her body that don’t work as well as they used to. Maybe she’s grateful for this brief moment of solitude? No, not exactly. She slams the sketchbook closed.
I don’t understand how Frankie does this.
Grace bites her lip before running her fingers over the cover of the sketchbook. Frankie has made space for her since this entire fracas had started. Since their entire friendship started. Despite her various idiosyncrasies, Frankie was truly the only person in the world who didn’t have an insurmountable level of expectations for Grace to meet. Every day they’re together, Grace just shows up; and that’s enough. She thinks of Frankie’s fingers in her hair each night; and sitting on the beach looking for crabs; and celebrating birthdays; and truly loving someone. Grace opens her book, and crosses out her first sentence. Underneath it, she writes:
I am grateful for Frankie Bergstein.
As she puts her pen down, there are footsteps on the stairs.
“I reached out for you and you weren’t there.” Frankie’s hair is tousled, she descends the stairs in a Margaritaville t-shirt and an old pair of pajama shorts. Grace’s heart warms at the sight of things.
“I came downstairs to make breakfast.” Grace holds Frankie’s gaze before closing the book.
“What are you making?”
“Anything you want.”