Page 141 of Summer Breakdown
Jasmine picks up a gift. It’s fun. Stupidly exciting to have things that her favourite people in the world went out and got for her. She didn’t get asked a single time. Jasmine wouldn’t have been able to think of anything anyway.
“Mama, I picked it,” Lani says, her little face ecstatic as Jasmine pulls the paper apart. She giggles as Jasmine opens the box. There’s a cream-coloured candle inside. Jasmine’s eyes flutter shut as she smells it before it’s even opened.
“Oh my God,” she says. “This smells amazing.”
Lani smiles brightly, her little fingers crossed like Frankie. She loves seeing them take parts of each other.
“Thank you, baby. I love it. It smells like the pie we had last Christmas.”
“I know! I know!” she says, spinning in her seat to see Frankie. Jasmine’s eyes always find Frankie. She smiles opposite her. She’s under no illusion that Frankie wasn’t in on it. Probably the orchestrator of it all.
“I told Frankenstein in the shops. Didn’t I?”
Frankie smiles as she stirs the teas. “You did, babe.”
Jasmine gets to have Christmas with Frankie. For the rest of her life. Oh, she’s going to get matching pyjamas. Something with vests.
Jasmine picks up another gift, and another, and another. They’re all things she would have wanted if she’d thought about it really hard. She doesn’t need anything other than the people at the table, but she does like everything they picked her. Truly likes. They know her, without her having to say it out loud, and there will never be anything she wants more than that.
“Happy birthday,” Marcel says. Lani starts giggling as Jasmine unwraps the soft gift. Frankie looks like she’s trying to remember what’s inside when she opens them. They’re towels. Jasmine loves a towel. Sage green as well.
When she spins them over, she sees they’re embroidered hers-and-hers towels. Jasmine laughs, her head thrown back as Frankie frowns.
“When did you pick these up?”
Marcel laughs, his shoulders shaking with it. “Ezra gave me some money when we saw them downtown.”
“What for?” Jasmine asks, her fingers against the material.
Marcel shrugs. “He thinks I’m cool, and, uh, he said he was proud of me for starting at a new school.”
Jasmine smiles. She’s proud of him too. She told him that, but she knows—even if he pretends not to care—that he wants to hear it from someone else. Having a massive man around that Marcel thinks is the coolest thing alive isn’t a hardship.
“He did say if you were upset, I should tell him,” Marcel says. “You’re allowed to shout at him.”
Jasmine smiles. “I’m not upset. I love them.” She leans over the table for the millionth time to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, baby.”
“They’re so we don’t have so many towels when Frankie moves in for real, because you two have too many,” Marcel says, shaking his head. “Every morning, I’m fighting for my life with towels.”
“Frankie is moving in?” Lani asks, with a smile. “That’s the best birthday gift.”
Jasmine laughs and looks over at Frankie. Frankie already got her so much, but if she had all of her worldly belongings in floral wrapping paper, she wouldn’t be mad.
“I can’t wrap up a key to a house Mama already owns,” Frankie says. She’s not panicking. Her feet tap the floor, but Frankie’s feet always tap the floor. “That’s not a gift; that’s wrapping up her own things. I could wrap up the key to my place.”
Lani pouts. “You have a place? The place with no lift?”
Marcel frowns. “You’re leaving?”
“No. Well, yes,” Frankie says, her hands floundering. “I do have a flat. I had it before I met you. I’m not leaving; I just already have one.”
Lani hums, her hands on the table. Marcel matches her. Manager mode activated.
“We’re not sure if it’s our choice,” Marcel says, and Lani nods, her eyebrows high in encouragement, “but we would like Frankie to live here.”
“Full time,” Lani says, sipping her tea. They had to take a mini break because they bought too many gifts (Jasmine let Lani open at least half) and had another round of tea.
“You do?” Jasmine asks. She wants Frankie to live here too. She thought it was too soon, but Mali told her it didn’t matter. They’re in love. They’ll be in love no matter where Frankie lives.
