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Before the axis of the world tilts and steadies itself again, there’s a separation. An end of life crisis (even though the terminology is reluctantly used.) A trip to Mexico. A decision. A divorce. A proposal of sorts.
Grace has lived a lot of lives, been a lot of people in her 84 years of life. She’s had the rug yanked out from under the perfect facade of an existence of forty years and watched it wash away like a sandcastle in a wave. The tides of her life have brought her great heartache, confounding frustration. Seven years of morphing into another person altogether.
Babe knew. Maybe that’s why she checked out a little earlier than usual, gave up the jig on a high note before life came along and slammed down a piano lid on her fingers. (Grace thinks the metaphor is lofty but after years of living with Frankie, her use of the dramatic is second nature now.)
When Babe left the world, there was a hole. A toilet gin induced phantasm mended it as best it could ever hope to be, but something else wormed its way out. Something that Grace refuted then, forgot about in the period of time after, but has remembered with stark clarity ever since.
For two years, Grace silenced Babe’s voice inside of her mind. Turned her words into a haze. Ignored the best part of herself.
The best part who is currently standing right beside her, has been standing beside her for the past seven years despite everything. Grace’s words she’s spoken come back to her with all eyes on her, with everyone wondering why a wedding practice for Frankie’s son has been hijacked by the two of them standing at a vacated hippie-inspired altar instead of moving off to the reception back at the house.
I'd rather take a crazy ride with you than a normal ride with anybody else.
Grace turns to Frankie, looks at the person she’s spoken good morning to with every sunrise for nearly a decade, has said goodnight to with almost every moon rise. The “wait!” that Frankie had exclaimed before taking front and center reverberates in Grace’s chest like a snare drum. Her knees protest from the loping run she has done to try and get Frankie to heel.
“Dearly beloved who are gathered here today: I know this is Coyote and Jessica’s time to shine, but all this talk of love and life has me thinking about the people I value most in my own life,” Frankie announces to the crowd in much the same way she tells Grace that she’s found a couple of hundy’s in the bran flakes and whoever would have put that there? with a sly laugh.
(Grace isn’t sure what’s more amusing: the fact that they managed to keep most of the couch money of Nick’s (she thinks most because she’s sure with Frankie’s lack of observation, some is surely missing in one of her hidey-holes) or the fact she finds that whatever comes out of Frankie’s mouth is amusing, even if it’s announcing she’s eating bran flakes.)
“Some of you may know that recently, I had a vision that was not aided by copious amounts of pot, one in which I was horrifically murdered.” Grace winces at the memory recollection, flinches when Frankie wraps her fingers around Grace’s sweater clad bicep. “Which really puts a broad’s life into perspective—if you know what I mean.”
“I can assure you they don’t,” Grace mumbles under her breath, wondering just why she’s taken it upon herself to end up right beside Frankie in whatever train wreck is occurring.
Frankie turns to her then, her caftan swaying in the breeze, the clunky chains around her neck tinkling like bells with every move. And then the whole, big world shrinks to the microcosm of just the two of them, Frankie reaching for Grace’s hands, stepping closer, letting Grace meet blue to swim.
“Hey, lover.”
“Frankie, what the hell are you doing?” There’s little bite to Grace’s tone. Confusion has a stronger foothold here. They’ve got a post rehearsal reception to attend, but Frankie has halted progression.
“I know this is probably bad timing, what with young Nicholas just dust in the wind—as the song goes…”
“Frankie!”
“But when would be a good time at our age, am I right? I know you’re not into drawing attention to yourself or anyone else doing it for that matter, but I told you I wanted a big life, a remarkable one.” Frankie picks up one hand and holds it between both of hers. “And I realize that any time it was larger than life, you have been right there with me.” She steps closer, her voice lowers. “I love you with my whole chest and we’re invincible when we’re together, Butch and Sundance, Thelma and Louise.” She pauses. “Without the actual death part. Even though I am dying tomorrow.”
“I said ‘pass’ on the Thelma and Louise thing.” It’s a whisper of words, easy to bulldoze through, past. Grace feels the panic begin to clog again, that closing off in her throat and the seizing of her heart. “And you’re not dying.”
Maybe if you say it enough times, it will be true. Her brain is kinder than the organ in her chest, that one that squeezes too hard.
Frankie turns to the crowd now, looking at the small gathering of faces, mostly their family, a few friends. “So you’re probably wondering why I’m doing a semi-hostage situation when all you guys want to do is eat cake and be merry,” Frankie smiles, squeezes Grace’s hand. “Which circles me back to my original point.” She looks into Grace’s eyes. “Here’s what I’m proposing. And maybe, actually, sort of really proposing…”
“Frankie?” The hysteria in Grace’s voice is audible. She feels like she’s standing outside of her own life, a foot inside a dream. One you’ve had—don’t lie. An entire existence of this, of the two of you, over and over again on your eyes. In your mind.
“You’re my girl ‘til the end, past it. My OTP aka one true partner or soulmate. Take it in what way you will.” She turns to the beautiful blonde that stands, all-knowingly off to the side, waiting to have an actual ceremony to laud over. “There’s got to be something for that. Some kind of ‘maybe not actual marriage but something close to it’, right? That’s if Grace here is willing and feels like I do.”
Everyone turns to Grace, who is startled. The pressure in her chest is unbearable now, an unrelenting heat on her cheeks and at the base of her neck. Frankie has opened up a Pandora’s Box of possibility, one that the sets of eyes on the beach are intent on seeing which avenue of destruction occurs. Because surely that’s what will happen, no?
But Grace can’t imagine a world where she finds this a curse, not anymore, and instead is dragging her hands along the bottom and picking out the hope that Frankie is offering, the neverending peace that can ensue if Grace just picks the right path.
She nods, finally, in agreement. The more she thinks about it, the more true it is.
“It’s the same for me too,” Grace admits aloud, a surprise to herself, a surprise that she and Frankie are on the same page more often than not now. The idea grows, feels full inside of her chest. Her lips form a smile, her cheeks ache from a grin. She shakes her head. “I can’t explain it. I’m not exactly sure how it happened.”
There is a morphing to Frankie’s face, a subtle shift in the joy present. Something that looks like she’s wondering if her ears are deceiving her, as if she hasn’t heard exactly right. (A real possibility, Grace realizes.) But then Grace thinks about another other life lane: that this grand declaration isn’t something new inside of Frankie. That maybe it hasn’t just been growing for seven years but for four decades plus.
All it took was divorce. A decision. Annoyance turned to acceptance turned to friendship turned to…
(Business ideas, almost trips to Mexico and actual ones, broken houses, broken relationships, retirement homes. Ashrams, health scares. Divorce again, a repetition because of a forever wrong choice. The right one, always there, and Grace aware to some degree but pushing it away.)
“It wasn’t overnight or even something that I realized was happening.” The cords of Grace’s throat find sound again. She goes from looking at their weathered hands to the way the wind touches Frankie, makes her beautiful under the sun. “But looking at you, I know it’s true. There’s no one else. There never will be. And even though life has been chaotic, a storm, for the last seven years, I’ve been choosing you the whole time.”
Robert hadn’t given Grace the initial choice. That had been out of her hands. Since that moment, the span of time until now has made Grace the captain of her own destiny. Byron, Guy, Phil, Nick. They were the misfortune that she released on herself, walking away before thinking to look for what was left.
Year three, Grace knows now, was the catalyst. You don’t become floor people, become a half of a whole and feel like absolute zero, when something as simple as ‘friends’ cannot begin to even scrape close to the depths that someone can feel. Maybe Frankie is right. Grace is an absolute fool.
“To go from not wanting to be in the same room as you to imagining my life without you and having a panic attack because I…” She chokes up, holds both of Frankie’s arms. Grace may have to live a life someday where Frankie isn’t the future. She doesn’t want to fathom it. Has said as much. “I’m choosing you again, one final time, until the end of our time. No one else, nothing else, just the two of us.”
Frankie cries, the tears sliding down her face in earnest. Grace holds on and presses their foreheads together. Inconceivable , she thinks. Why must death give living its meaning?
Before Frankie, Grace hadn’t particularly felt one way or the other about dying. Aging? Well, that’s been another story. But now the weight of the end is here, maybe sooner rather than later, (fuck if Grace knows) and the possibility of things minimizing to a pinprick instead of splitting wide open has Grace reanalyzing.
After a while of simply standing together, Frankie opens her eyes, backs away to look into Grace’s blue. Something, an intangible, passes between them and Grace knows the next second will define her hereafter. Because Frankie is so close but it’s a different type of space than the one they’ve created for the last seven years.
In a breath, a butterfly-winged beat, Frankie leans in and places a shy, apprehensive kiss on Grace’s lips, and steps away to see what reaction awaits.
What does Frankie expect out of Grace after all they’ve been through? What does she think Grace will do with a first kiss shared in front of their family? Reject her by dragging her to the ocean to drown? Compartmentalize this new facet, wind it up like a ball in a drawer, and reset the status quo?
But like a slot machine lining up on a set, so too does Grace, the world made right from the gentle press of Frankie’s mouth. She looks at Frankie’s lips, contemplates if this was a life she could have always had, one she never should have run from.
The world disappears as Grace closes her eyes, seeks, finds, and kisses Frankie gently, slowly. Creation of a moment she can keep forever in her memory.
Parting is a sorrow vast and great, but Grace feels at home inside herself now, knows that this is what love feels like. Frustrating and air robbing and like your heart will burst from happiness from obtaining it.
The salty sea air ruffles their graying and gray hair, fills their noses. It’s a gentle reminder they’re not alone. Grace backs away, looks out at everyone in the crowd.
“You kissed me,” Frankie says in her gravel tone, but it’s easy to hear the mirth there too. Skipping over the fact that she’s the one that had presented the possibility, a whole new frontier awaiting discovery.
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Grace assures her and reaches to lace the fingers on their hands. Waits for everyone else to catch up to where the two of them have arrived: life entwined forever.
“You kind of skipped some steps there, namely the ones I’m in. But I have something up my sleeve that I think will fit you two ladies just fine,” Agnes winks.
~~~~~~~//~~~~~~~
Laying on the floor isn't much of a grand idea for any age but for Grace, it’s a reality and a strangely warm bit of nostalgia as she reclines back on the camp out style mattress. She shimmies to try and get comfortable, the motion causing the thin silken straps of her rust colored gown to slide.
This call back to post-Walden Villas should cause rancor, but all Grace feels is the following sweetness. Because this time, Grace isn’t covered in her comfort sweater, donning pajamas and Ugg boots. The gown is long, true, but shows her shoulders, the expanse of her arms, and quite a bit of her chest. Nothing scandalous, no cleavage per se, but she’s mostly bare beneath it and aware that it’s more than she’s used to revealing around Frankie.
But not anymore.
Beside her, Frankie shifts, burrowing like a woodland creature into the massive pile of blankets she’s heaped atop them. It doesn’t give Grace much time to pause for guilt about potentially progressing things along now that…
Grace can’t spend too much time on it or her own brain will turn to mush. Easy to let it be as organic as possible. A solid bump to her left side reminds her who she’s dealing with. Frankie may be without a lot of her layers, but it’s like she is making a cocoon.
“If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to need a Dramamine,” Grace pulls back the blankets to see where Frankie truly is, her curls poking out finally as she flops dramatically beside Grace. “Oh, good. Are we all set for winter?”
“Ha ha,” Franks responds dryly. “You’re not one to talk since you’ll be missing this at precisely 11:59 tomorrow night when my time runs out.”
“Says the woman who ‘needs two scoops of that before I check out.’ The ‘that’ being me and the ‘I’ being you. Also, this isn’t Cinderella where the bell will toll and the spell will wear off.”
Even saying it chokes Grace up and damn it , how can it be tomorrow already when every day has felt like a held breath for the last three months? Some part of her mentality refuses to go there even though her heart pulls her toward the signs, the things that even she can’t really ignore, can’t really call happenstance.
“I once saw you slurp frozen yogurt out of a cup and moan after a Del Taco burrito. I’ve come up with some really vivid scenarios over the years of what you’d be like. Nick’s tell-all added an extra layer.” She waggles her eyebrows as she turns toward Grace, still not touching, still a chasm away.
“Can we please not bring him up?” Grace pleads.
Some part of the whole experience with him still twists Grace’s insides and how could it not? She willingly entered a marriage when what she wanted lies right beside her. (Even if it’s taken one world potentially ending to get her to realize what is the center of hers) She doesn’t like bringing Nick into the space she shares with Frankie anymore, even though she was doing it before. The last three months have been sacred, theirs. No foothold with Nick holding on or Grace trying to accept it.
“Oh, sure, mum is the word,” Frankie agrees and reaches out a hand. It’s an innocuous touch, fingers brushing the safety of Grace’s shoulder. Despite Frankie connecting them all of the time, so free with touch, Grace feels this one with a new sense of awareness.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to touch me,” Grace lets slip out, her mouth and brain lacking the connectivity she and Frankie have so often.
“You know I’d never stop—if that were possible,” Frankie responds, tomorrow looming.
Grace thinks of herself as the tarot card. Wonders if this is because of her. Death, Frankie had flipped over. Maybe her proximity is bringing the end of Frankie when Grace wants, needs them to begin together.
“I know,” Grace assures even though she’s not sure of anything anymore outside of the two of them. Yesterday had not been a dream. They said all of those things.
“Which reminds me of the thing I want to say,” Frankie holds up a pointer finger, cuts her eyes to Grace, and her face softens as she scoots as close as she can. The finger that had been held up slowly falls to Grace’s hairline as Frankie pushes aside the now gray locks of her hair.
“More grand declarations?” Grace closes her eyes, fights not to fall into a space where only comfort exists, even though what she feels is the epitome of it right now.
“I am very good at those.” Frankie’s smile is auditory. Grace can hear it as she speaks, the sound of it creating a visual on her closed eyes. “But Grace…”
(whose stomach swoops) “I could just hold your hand, lay your head on my shoulder or yours on mine, sit with you out on the beach and watch the waves. I’m going to love you no matter what. Sex won’t change that.”
But sex will change enough. Already in the span of twenty-four hours, Grace has acknowledged the depth of her love for Frankie. It’s platonic in that there’s friendship built from trust and empathy and care. From the safety of those touches that developed between them after the first couple of years. But it’s also so much more than that, so far from being just friendship.
What is life if not in the choosing? There will be no one else for either of them, especially not if the spastic rambling of a psychic (or Grace’s own heart) proves to truly be destiny.
“So you’re saying I got dressed down for nothing?”
Grace isn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, hasn’t done anything extra to her hair. There isn’t anything false to the way she’s come to rest beside Frankie. Unadorned, not made up to fit a certain gaze. There’s only Frankie’s soft blue eyes, the same shining presence that they’ve always been. The love in them. If Grace weren’t lying down, she’d swoon.
“Well, not nothing …” Frankie begins at the same time Grace starts.
“You’ve always looked at me like this,” Grace says, incredulous. Holds Frankie’s head, ear between her fingers. “I never saw it.”
“That first year was something else, huh? I definitely enjoy our time at the beach now more than I did that night.” Frankie smiles. It shifts Grace’s fingers on her face. “I don’t know if I can handle anything stronger than a joint these days.”
“Whatever possessed you to do peyote is beyond me,” Grace laughs, a thing she can do now that she’s seven years removed from retching on the beach from the combination of Frankie’s tea and muscle relaxers.
“I think it really set the tone for you and me,” Frankie says wistfully. “We needed to expel all of that negativity to start over. It was a good end to the way we had always been. Out with the bullshit, in with the love.”
If that was the end, then this feels like a new beginning. A jumping off point into the rest of their lives if Grace has any say in the matter. Days filled with Frankie’s hand holding Grace’s as she teaches her the ways to move a brush over canvas, wacky adventures even if it’s just to gain the courage to go into the ocean all the way up their hips, having Frankie taste recipes Grace cooks to tell the story of her life before Frances Bergstein.
“Took a while for us to get here,” Grace reminds. Now it’s hard to imagine there was ever another version of herself, the hard woman who kept everything and everyone away with the length of an arm. Dare she call it the Frankie effect? How odd, how beautiful to be able to find herself in someone who has been here all along. “All those years I wasted. All that time when you’ve been in my life for forty years.”
“What’s tonight if not making up for lost time?” Frankie nuzzles Grace’s cheek, places a quick kiss there.
Like the one she gave before she thought she was headed to Mexico solo. Grace feels split apart, unfurling. Her arms wrap around Frankie, squeeze in a less tender embrace than the one they shared on the couch. I have no ending, Frankie had said despondently. But can’t she see how damn transcendent that is? To be so vibrant, so full of life, that no one—not even yourself—can see a fitting ending.
People barely like Grace, something she’s fine with but also fairly sure has been a byproduct of Frankie’s presence. If anyone holds fondness for her, Grace is sure because it’s only in relation to Frankie.
The best part of you—/Fine, whatever, Babe. You knew two years ago what I’m just getting at. I’ve been chasing the stupid fucking hat. I should have listened but that damn toilet gin…
“You’re not dying,” Grace hangs on for dear life. “I refuse to let it happen.” Frankie is solid in her arms, warm. Eternal in Grace’s heart.
“What, are you going to follow along at my heels?” Frankie laughs deeply. “Knock down Heaven’s doors and tell the angels at the gates that you, Grace Hanson, refuse to let moi slide into the afterlife with the art studio to end all art studios and the biggest all-I-can-eat buffet to ever exist?”
“That’s your version of Heaven?” Grace’s face pinches slightly. Because of course it’s Frankie’s idea of the good life.
“A part of it,” she admits. Her face is as serious as Grace has ever seen it. “But somehow, nothing is much of anything without you anymore. I’m betting Heaven will feel a little empty if you aren’t right beside me.”
“I thought tonight was supposed to be happy?” Grace croaks, water pooling in the corners of her eyes. She’s not supposed to be crying but instead discovering any of the plethora of scenarios that only seemed like wisps of something beyond before yesterday.
And maybe that’s the thing about life too: plans get fucked sometimes. Because instead of fucking, (although it would never be that, not in a thousand years between them) Frankie holds Grace or Grace holds Frankie. Of which, Grace isn’t entirely sure.
A secret. A divorce. A wedding. A funeral. Vibrators, guns, life alerts. Santa Fe, hospitals for new knees, Walden Villas. Crosswalks, retreats, penthouses. A marriage. A Shark Tank. An arrest. A divorce. Home.
The hours wane, fade. Frankie tells the story of their years together. They dip their toes in first, go up to the knees, then drown in memories. Outside, the night moves on. The ocean waves crash onto the beach. The moonlight casts a glow on two turquoise chairs overlooking the horizon.
~~~~~~~//~~~~~~~
Coyote knocks hesitantly, looks to Bud beside him when no answer comes. He’s not the authoritative brother. He doesn’t know what to do.
“We have a key,” Bud reminds, withdrawing it from the pocket of his sweater. It’s 80 fucking degrees outside. Coyote shakes his head, neither able to focus on his brother’s clothing choice or about breaking in on their moms.
“Good thing Grace doesn’t have a gun anymore,” Coyote mumbles as they start through the door, the cake almost getting smashed between them. An afterthought of a gift, much like the flowers Bud holds. It had been difficult standing in Whole Foods figuring out what to get. What does one choose for someone’s funeral after party turned commitment ceremony? Coyote isn’t sure.
Bud stares at him hard with his dark eyes but then continues to push open the door, walking inside with Coyote close behind. They don’t get more than a few steps before Coyote is running into him again, this time a little more jolting.
“Bud, what the fu…” but it dies in his throat when he peers at what his brother sees: his mother and Grace curled up on a queen sized mattress in the middle of the living room, the back doors thrown open to let in the gentle morning breeze.
A snore sounds, loud and then withering from Frankie. She shifts, spooning Grace tighter. Grace is more of a dainty breather, tiny puffs of air escaping her barely parted lips and arms crossed as if to cradle her own body even though their mother is doing that just fine.
“You think we might have interrupted something if we had been earlier?” Coyote asks.
“God, I hope not,” Bud groans. He does a roll of his shoulders, a shaking out of his body. A shedding of the idea. Coyote wonders how their noise hasn’t roused the sleepers. “Let’s get out of here.”
Bud deposits the cake, the flowers, the little placard on the table. It’s nostalgia but also something new too. Now for the third time, Coyote bumps into his brother’s back, follows his line of sight back to the table, to the two bodies past it.
He watches Bud shake his head. Coyote knows he wants to smile.
They both head out the door, closing it softly behind them.
~~~~~~~//~~~~~~~
The morning is a dawn to what’s next. Grace throws off the covers, heated from thinking about where she’s about to launch the trajectory of her life, of Frankie’s, of the one they share together. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn’t promised. They’ve got years in their bones and numbered days to their souls.
Frankie is ethereal in La Jolla mornings, sunlight filtering in from the double doors leading out to the deck. She looks like the little girl Grace couldn’t have ever known, but some part of her feels she’s seeing it now.
Grace stares at the ceiling, touches her head with her hand, smiles. They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, a soft drifting that had never got to where it was supposed to go. Somehow, that doesn’t bother Grace.
She turns to her left to see Frankie still in slumber. Even though the space between them is minute, it’s still too far away. Sliding closer at first and then on top of Frankie, Grace connects their bodies and feels the sweet press of her while making sure to hold her own weight a little.
“Wake up,” she nuzzles Frankie’s ear with her lips, kisses her cheek. “The rest of our lives are waiting and I’m really excited for what that holds.” Frankie has no ending. Grace will not believe in one either.
Frankie’s eyes flicker, fixate on Grace being so close. It only takes an instant for Grace to see what’s about to happen before she is leaning down to meet Frankie halfway.
The kiss fills every part of Grace’s senses. The feel of Frankie’s lips against hers, the glide of her hands on Grace’s skin, her curves as Grace’s hand curls around her waist with her right hand and pushes Frankie’s up beside her wavy hair with her left. In her nose, sage and lavender, something wholly Frankie. The soft noise of their mouths taking each other with delicate force, making Grace’s heart almost explode.
There’s no rush, no hurry. Every second expands, rolls into the next one. The sun continues to rise, another day they’ve managed to make it to. Another day together. At some point, they’ll move upward, onward. Right now though, there’s only the logical progression of the love they hold.
On the table, a note waits.
We Love Our Moms, it reads.
History. Kismet. Exactly how it should be.