Page 56 of Summer Breakdown
“What … you say?”
Frankie frowns. “It’s after six. Training finished at six. Are you coming?”
“What…” The line drops, then comes back. “…call?”
“I can’t hear you. Your kids are here.” She tries to be pragmatic. Jasmine can only hear her partially. She just needs the basics.
“Fuck,” she mutters. “I’m on my way.”
Frankie puts the phone down, and the heavens open. She jumps with the crack of thunder. It’s a little dramatic for the weather to join her mood. Was Jasmine mad at her? Perhaps. Jasmine is always mad at her. She keeps asking Frankie for something ridiculously simple, but Jasmine doesn’t know how insane Frankie is. That the thought of talking to her when she’s disappointed with her is almost too much for her to function. She goes back into the office in case the kids don’t like thunder.
“You alright, babe?” she asks, and Lani looks panicked. She wheels over.
“Thunder is creepy.”
“It is. You’ll be home soon,” she replies, bending down. Frankie wonders if she wants to be picked up. Jasmine said it was okay, but she’s not here right now. Frankie only picks her up if she’s here. She keeps her hands in her pockets. “Then it won’t matter, right?”
Lani smiles. “Right.”
The door swings open, and Frankie frowns at how quickly Jasmine got here. Where was she? But when she stands, a man is looking at her. Ew.
“Hi, can I help you?”
He ignores her, holds his arms out wide, and Lani squeals.
“Daddy!” Oh.Daddy. Mike. The name that makes Jasmine’s eyebrows furrow every time she mentions him. He’s not good enough for Jasmine, and Frankie knows that based on his ugly jacket alone.
“Hey, pumpkin,” he says, picking Lani up. He hugs her close, spinning her a few times, and then, when he puts her down, she’s standing. Frankie knows Kehlani can stand. Jasmine told her she could walk if she needed to, but she’d prefer it if she didn’t when she wasn’t around. She said someone can call her just to tell her Lani needs to walk. That she wants to know what the terrain is like and how long she’d have to be walking for. Frankie only sees Lani when Jasmine is here, but she’s still never seen her standing. She looks unstable, and Frankie’s chest lurches, but she’s okay. She holds on to her dad’s waist, and she’s okay.
“Hey, Marc,” Mike says. He’d look like Marcel, if she squinted. They both get their hair pattern from Mike, and maybe their ears, but both kids are pure Jasmine.
“Hi,” Marcel replies. He walks over, and they hug, but Frankie’s not sure she could call it a proper one.
“You ready? Can you grab Lani’s chair?” he asks Marcel, then turns to Lani. “You can walk today, right?”
Lani nods.
“Bye, Frankenstein,” Lani says to Frankie, with a wave.
Frankie smiles. “See you next week.”
Lani smiles back, holding onto Mike’s hand, and Marcel waves, pushing her chair, but he doesn’t look happy. He seemed down—upset about something—for most of the session too. Frankie wondered if it was something she should tell Jasmine, but now she won’t have a chance becauseMiketurned up. Ugh. Though, to be fair, if Jasmine were here, she might struggle with it.
Frankie stares at the door for a moment. Now, she won’t see them for a whole week. Well, five days. That’s basically an eternity.
She might get to see Jasmine from behind the blinds of her office, like a loser.
She catches sight of Lani’s camera out the corner of her eye and pops it in her office. Frankie sighs and grabs the papers from her desk. She may as well take them home and cry about what to do with them there. At least her sofa won’t make her back ache.
When she clicks her office light off, the door springs open again. Maybe Mike is back to grab it, but it’s not him. It’s Jasmine. A panting, soaking-wet, dressed in some outrageous black dress that clings to her body Jasmine.
Oh, fuck.
She blinks the water out of her face. “Hey. Sorry I’m late. I was—where are the kids?”
Frankie swallows thickly. “Mike picked them up.”
Jasmine frowns. “What? When?”
