Frankie started to argue but stopped herself. There were so many more important things right now other than relitigating the past. Besides, she didn’t know how much Gregory knew, and she also decided—right then—that she wouldn’t be judged for whatever he did know. Though surely there was judgment to be made. But first, she knew she had to figure out her own responsibility. Because for the first time in years, she realized that she had some.
“You know, it takes two to tussle.” She often said this—to her clients, to roadies, to dickhead executives at record labels—and now, she only just realized that Ezra was the one who used to say this all the time and that he told her it was because his mom used to pester him with it all through his childhood, howhe couldn’t bring himself to correct her.Tango, Mom, it’s tango. Something about this pained Frankie: the thought of Ezra as a boy, that his mom was gone, that they had veered so far from each other that she only offered her condolences several years later, that she was wearing his grandmother’s ring while he was ensconced in room 303 with Mimi.
“Well, I’ll take you over her any day of the week and on Sunday too,” Gregory said, which Frankie thought was a compliment but honestly wasn’t sure. Then he lowered his voice, as if Mimi or Ezra could hear them all the way on the third floor.
“Two summers ago, I was back from Portland for a week, and Ezra invited me to his summer share.” He gave her a look like Frankie should know what and where this was. When she didn’t, he said, “South Hampton. He does it every summer.”
“Oh, ok,” Frankie said, trying to envision Ezra in board shorts and Ray-Bans and eating corn on the cob while drinking a long-necked beer. The Ezra she knew had never been relaxed enough, casual enough to figuratively sink his feet into the sand. She found that she didn’t consider the image unappealing; she found, in fact, that she’d like to know that man.
“Anyway, they were pretty new, I think.” Gregory scrunched his face up like the math of it mattered. “Maybe a few months in, I don’t know. Ezra had sold the company by then—” He stopped. “You know about that, yes? The gajillion-dollar sale?”
Frankie nodded, though the gajillion-dollar sale really meant nothing one way or the other to her.
“Right, well, this wasn’t too long after his mom died, and Ezra was putting on a pretty good face, but I wasn’t convinced.But here was this girl who he was super in love with, so I wanted to be super in love with her too.” Gregory sighed. “Look, the long and the short of it is—and I say this with no judgment, ok? We all have our shit.” He reached up and touched his wonky, still-swollen nose. “I have my shit; you definitely have your shit.”
“Yes,” Frankie said. “Got it.”
“So I’m at the Kmart—Kmart! Because of course, I’d forgotten half my toiletries, and your boy always needs to moisturize. And I see her—Mimi—in the makeup aisle. And I stop because, look, I’m nosy, ok? I’m not going to apologize for getting up in people’s business.”
“As expected,” Frankie said. Then to be clear that she wasn’t being snippy, she offered, “I mean, that’s great.” Which, of course, made no sense, but she was really hoping Gregory would get to the point.
“And I see this girl, the love of Ezra’s life, start to pocket things from the shelf! Like, goddamned Maybelline mascara! Revlon nail polish! God knows how many lipsticks she shoved in her bag.” Gregory was animated now. “And look, I’m not, like, the world’s Kmart police or whatever, but I do know that retail is a bitch. So I must gasp aloud or maybe she catches me staring... I can’t remember exactly now. But she sees me, and her eyes flick around like she could, maybe, I don’t know,notsee me? But then she shuffles toward me and says, like, in a low, pathetic voice, ‘Please don’t tell Ezra. He wouldn’t understand.’ And I’m thinking,Lady, you’re a thief, and not even a very good one! What is there to understand?” Gregory sighed.
“And did you? Did you tell him?” Frankie asked, thoughshe already knew the answer. Because Mimi was still here, and Ezra still planned to propose and have a future with this woman. Ezra,herEzra, the lawyer at least, would never have white-knuckled it through a shoplifting charge.
“No,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. “I mean, (a) how was I to know that it was going to last? And (b) he’d been through so much with his mom and all of that, I didn’t want to make anything worse.” He shrugged. “He seemed happy, you know?”
Frankie, who had seen plenty of atrocious behavior over the years, started to defend her. “Look, there are worse things,” she said. Because there were. And though Frankie did have plenty of shit of her own—on that Gregory was correct—one of her few redeeming qualities was that she did not judge. She didn’t judge her clients’ drug indulgences, she didn’t judge Ezra’s panic attacks, she didn’t even judge Mimi’s shoplifting habits. If she stood in judgment, she also knew she’d have plenty to answer for, and really, it was easier not to. She reiterated: “I mean, it’s not my business, but again, there are really worse things in the world.”
“Well, sure. Like turning down his proposal hours before he was set to graduate and then abandoning him for his move to New York.”
“Oh, fuck off, Gregory,” Frankie snapped. “I never planned to go to New York with him. He just never heard me when I tried to tell him.”
Gregory fell silent and turned back toward where campus stood in the distance.
“Come on,” he said finally, slipping his arm through hers, as if they were linked now, though Frankie didn’t know bywhat. “Don’t you have a bridesmaid’s dress to put on? And we have a new century to greet. And I, for one, could use a drink.”
Frankie didn’t bother saying she was sober. After last night, that felt like a technicality. Or maybe that was worse: that she went ahead and made such a mess of everything here and had nothing and no one to blame but herself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ezra
THREE THIRTY P.M.
Mimi kissed him as soon as the door swung closed. And really kissed him, which Ezra certainly didn’t mind but wasn’t really like her if he were being honest with himself. But for a good thirty seconds, as his hand snaked its way up her shirt and then under her bra, he wasn’t—wasn’t honest with himself, that is.
She tugged her shirt over her head. “I’m going to remind you how much you missed me,” she said, her voice low and breathy. “I’m going to blast that girl’s name right out of your head forever.”
Ezra pulled his lips off her neck. “What? Who? Frankie?” And then he remembered how not even half an hour ago, he was kissing Frankie. His brain buzzed with static, and he wished he’d brought a second Xanax, but then who could have known what a mess he’d make?
Mimi was undoing his belt buckle, then pushed him backon the bed and plucked his Sambas off, followed by his pants in record time. She straddled him and then placed her hand over his mouth as if she thought he was going to protest, and she wasn’t interested in hearing it.
Ezra closed his eyes and tried to refocus. But now his mind was spinning wildly, a whirling buzz of nerves that hit him like a tornado: about Mimi’s alleged canceled flight, about the whole shebang with Frankie, about last night’s poker game, about the Zamboni and property destruction, about, well, all of it. And he tried to breathe in and out and count to five just as Frankie had done with him in the café earlier this morning, but he couldn’t concentrate on kissing Mimiandcounting, so he must have recoiled or put his hands on her shoulders to push her away and give him a little space. His chest felt like it was going to explode; his stomach had bottomed out.
Mimi rolled off from him and bounced to her feet in one fluid motion.
“Great, so now you’re not interested in sex?”
