“Fine!” She said it too loudly, and a few of the waitersstopped loading trays with tiny appetizers and stared. “Of course this is how it would end a second time!”
Now he spun toward her. “End?End?This was not athing. We were not a thing a second time! The last time I saw you, Frankie, you made it extremely clear that we were barely a thing the first time. You said no. Do I need to remind you? You. Said. No.”
Frankie didn’t want to get into all of that, even though she realized that she had been the one to raise it. She reached into her purse and wedged her fingers into the tiny satin pocket that sat just below the zipper. She clasped his grandmother’s ring and took four long steps toward him. Then she grabbed his right hand and forced it into his palm, then pressed his fingers closed, into a fist.
“And now,” she said, even though she knew it was spiteful, “it’s about to be a new century, so we’re done entirely. A fresh start. As if we never met.”
THIRTY-TWO
Ezra
Ezra did not want Frankie to have the last word. Goddammit, he knew he needed to leave it alone. What was even the point of the verbal sparring, of the back-and-forth, when all he wanted—all he needed—was to go back out to the party and dance with Mimi and enjoy the buffet and propose at midnight.
Instead, he marched after Frankie and grabbed her arm before she could slide out from backstage.
“What?” she barked. “What else is there possibly to say?”
Ezra didn’t know. He hadn’t thought it through. Certainly, there was a lot to say, even though most of it should have been said a decade ago, and now, it felt like an emotional excavation.Leave, he thought.Just leave it. Just leave her.But like so many things with Frankie Harriman, he felt powerless to do so. Surprisingly, he did not feel like panicking; he did not feel the rise of an oncoming anxiety attack. He’d always assumed that Frankie had somehow played a part in his spiral of nerves, but he was here now, with her, facing an incoming shitstorm, andwhen he surveyed his heart, his mind, he didn’t find the usual static that clouded him, that terrified him, that sent him to the floor trying to breathe.
Ten years ago, just a couple of weeks out from graduation, before everything changed, Laila had seen Frankie run from Burton Library crying. Laila had been on the pay phone out front with her mom, she’d told him, so she couldn’t chase after her.
“She looked wrecked, like, really, really upset,” Laila had said, her face awash in concern. They both knew that Frankie never cried; she rarely, if ever, even lamented. Ezra had never questioned that until now: he’d just assumed she was gifted with a stoic constitution, the very opposite of him. He stood in the lobby with Laila and realized that was one of the reasons he loved her. It would be a long time until he realized that what he thought he’d loved had been make-believe, just a construct.
“I don’t know where she went,” Laila said, looking helpless. “Do you think it’s something with her parents?” Ezra had no idea what to think because she hadn’t shared anything about them recently, and well, he hadn’t asked. But he did think he knew where to find her.
Steinway was empty when he got there. She wasn’t onstage; she wasn’t anywhere. A few students lingered in the lobby with their string instruments, so he circled back out and asked if they’d seen a girl come in. “She’d have been playing the piano? She’s incredible?” he added, as if they’d be mesmerized by her talent.
They raised their eyebrows at this, unimpressed, but they didn’t know Frankie, didn’t know her gift. Ezra barely did, actually, but the lone time he’d seen her a year ago, right inthis very spot, it had taken his breath away. He hadn’t grown up going to symphonies or paying much mind to music other than whatever was on the radio when they carpooled to school, but he knew enough to know a generational talent when he saw one.
But she had to be there. Intuitively, he knew this. She wouldn’t have run to the dorm to be by herself in the silence; she wouldn’t have run to his room for comfort because that wasn’t the sort of thing she did. Or had ever done, at least. And for once, he wanted to be the one to nurture her, to lean in and say:How can I help?And just as important, for her to tell him. Frankie had been clear that she didn’t want a white knight, had never wanted a fixer. But just this one time, wouldn’t it be nice if he could offer?
He took the stairs up to the stage, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous space of the thousand or so seats behind him. When he got center stage, he turned and stared out. What a marvel it was, he thought, that she could sit here and lose herself in front of such an audience. Or had a long time ago. That took guts. That took discipline. That took a steely spine that he had never been called to rely on. Crushing the LSAT or making dean’s list wasn’t nearly the same thing as stepping out in front of a rapt audience and willing yourself to make not a single mistake. He looked out into the empty seats and knew there wasn’t a thing in the world that he wouldn’t do for Frankie. He’d walk to the ends of the earth if he had to.
He heard a clatter from behind the stage and turned with a start. He’d obviously never been back there, so he fumbled a bit through the darkness, over music stands and set pieces,toward the noise that was still reverberating. He found her sitting behind a partially broken down drum set, her hands on either side of a cymbal, trying to quiet it.
“Frankie,” he said.
“Shit,” she said.
She looked terrible. Her cheeks were spotty, her eyes damp and bloodshot, her nose an angry red. She’d piled her dark hair into a messy bun on top of her head, and though he had seen her just this morning, her hair looked greasier, like this whole thing—whatever it was—also made her in need of a shower. She played with the cuff of her sweatshirt, then grabbed a wayward thread and pulled it until the seam of her sleeve partially unraveled.
“Hey,” he said, stepping toward her. “Whatever it is, I’m here.”
Frankie took a long look at him. Then hiccupped.
“I’m not moving to New York,” she said. “I should have told you that earlier. I mean, I tried to. Really. But I shouldn’t have pretended otherwise. I wanted to make you happy.” She shrugged. “But I’m moving to LA.”
Ezra felt a shock to his system. Even ten years later, with his grandmother’s ring in his palm and Mimi out front onstage waiting for him, he could remember that. How he felt like the bottom was falling out.
“What? Wait, LA?” Ezra tried to recalculate, recalibrate. Whether he could go with her, but he knew he couldn’t; why would she suddenly have such a change of heart, if it had been changed at all?
She stood quickly. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”
“This is why you were crying at Burton? Because you are going to LA?” Ezra tried to take comfort in that. “We can fly back and forth; we’ll make it work.”
Her eyes found his. No, it was more than that. He understood this intuitively. It would take a wrecking ball to break Frankie Harriman, so whatever it was, it was about significantly more than putting three thousand miles between them.
“Do you... I mean... is it for a job?” Ezra asked.
