Page 26 of The Ex Effect
MORGAN
I held my breath as Frankie stared at the three-ring binder. A couple of moments passed with Frankie’s eyes doing calisthenics with all their squinting. Another moment and instead of shifting to excited, or heaven forbid, grateful, Frankie frowned.
“Thisis your gift for me?” Frankie asked.
The words stabbed me in the chest. I lifted my chin, high. “I never said I was giving you a gift.” Although that was exactly what I had intended. After Frankie denied my offer for dinner the other night—to pay her back for working on my car—I wanted to do something nice. “I said I had a little something for you. And here…isa little something.”
It was actually more than a little something, but hell if I’d divulge that information. I knew Frankie was not a big fan of electronics unless it came to photo software. So, I spent almost two hours putting together a binder for Frankie,with color-coded tabs, dammit, so Frankie could keep on track with renovations and wedding items via paper.
“Um.” Frankie chewed on the side of her lip. “Thanks?”
The sting was fierce and sharp. “Well, I just thought it would be easier for you because you hate emails. But just throwit away if you don’t think you’ll use it.”Ungrateful.Not only had I color-coded, but I also did it in a rainbow theme—reds and oranges for house stuff, yellow and green for wedding stuff, and the blue and purple for contracts and vendors. I spent so much time filling it out and printing off pages to help keep Frankie organized, and I naively thought Frankie would be happy. The back of my eyes stung, but I moved my head and scanned the house, needing a distraction from Frankie’s horrible, rotten, terrible face.
Peaches’s house. Wow. The memories here were nearly as thick as they’d be at Frankie’s parents’ home. The place looked the same, as much as I remembered. Nothing was updated, yet it was all preserved, like I stepped into an early ’80s museum. The green carpet, the honey oak kitchen cabinets, the daisy wallpaper…untouched. “I can’t believe nothing has changed.”
Frankie tucked the binder under her arm. “I know. It’s like a shrine to the eighties. If you click your heels three times and sing the lyrics to ‘Take On Me,’ pretty sure Molly Ringwald or Bruce Willis will appear.”
My body betrayed me, and I smiled. I hated smiling at Frankie’s humor and loathed that throwing on the charm came so easy for her. I dropped my grin and crossed the room to the patio door. The backyard also looked the same, with tall pine trees, saggy crabapple tree branches, and budding lilacs. “No way. She still had the tire swing?”
Back then, when I needed to get away from my work-obsessed parents, or take a break from studies, I’d meet Frankie at Peaches’s. We’d tear around the yard, fill our bellies with stale candy and fresh cookies, and climb in the tire hanging from a rope on the tree. The tire looked smaller than I remembered, and I tried to picture myself squishing in it now to swing. Most likely I’d end up with a hefty rope burn and a trip to the chiropractor.
Frankie slid the binder on the counter. “Remember when your foot got caught?”
“And I fell flat on my face? Um, sure do. I had to wear a Band-Aid on my face for like a week, which is one hundred percent the most embarrassing place for a Band-Aid.” I stepped back and crossed my arms. “I totally blame Peaches, though. She let us sip Kahlúa in our coffee. Thinking of that now, it was kind of problematic that she let two underage girls drink in her home, huh?”
“Oh, Peaches.” Frankie lifted a box off the stool at the kitchen counter and offered me a seat. “I wonder where the lifetime of bad decisions my dad made ever came from.”
Being around Frankie lately, there’d been a couple of those “remember that time” type conversations, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. I spent years burying the pain I felt after our split. Reminiscing was doing something funky to my insides, and I liked it as much as I didn’t like it. “Anyway, I just wanted to drop by and give you that binder. I thought it might be easier for you to have everything in one place, but you can disregard it if it’s not useful.”
“No, no, it’ll be great.” Frankie’s eyes softened as she patted the top of the binder. “Sorry, my reaction was…off…earlier. It was just unexpected, that’s all. I’m sure it was a lot of work to put together.”
Putting together the binderwasa lot of work, but I didn’t want to dive any deeper into why Frankie’s reaction upset me so much. Because really, was Frankie’s ingratitude the real issue here? Or was this about the need to be seen and validated, for Frankie to think that I had my shit together and she could wallow in everything that she gave up when she left?
Nope. I wasn’t doing this. I refused to overanalyze this situation any more than I already had.
Frankie reached for the shipping tape and pulled a box close to her chest. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”
Contemplating every argument I’ve ever made since the seventh grade and wondering why I left out valid points.“Olivia wanted to see a sampling of different table settings and name cards. I’m gonna press some flowers, do some fancy fonts, make a few mock-ups.” I gripped the side of the box as Frankie taped. “I have a trunk full of crafts items waiting for me to have a stroke of wedding-inspiration.”
Frankie scribbled a note on top of the box. “Do you need some help?”
Right now, at least two dozen boxes littered the kitchen, open cabinet doors showed dishes stuffed on every shelf, and a heaping pile of clothes was scattered on top of the kitchen table. I almost suspected ultra-tough, ultra-cool, ultra-don’t-give-a-shit Frankie didn’t want to be left alone. Fascinating. “You seriously want to do crafts with me?”
The corner of Frankie’s lip lifted. “If you can go into that rust-infused barn with your golden Gucci shoes on, I can help iron flowers or whatever crafty crap you need me to do.”
Damn her being thetiniestbit charming. “First, I don’t own Gucci shoes.” Only because I couldn’t afford them, not because I didn’t want them. Obviously. “Okay, then. Looks like we’re doing some crafts.”
After dragging in two boxes and clearing off the long coffee table, I sank into the worn green couch next to Frankie and started giving directions. An hour or so passed of reviewing different design websites, organizing plate settings, and rolling a few scrolls, when we moved to name cards. I glanced at Frankie, who was writing—in near perfect calligraphy—“Olivia & Tommy.” Who knew someone with such a rough exterior could have such delicate penmanship? And was this a newly developed talent? I certainly didn’t remember this skill from high school. Frankie was always rushed, running late, flying by the seat of her pants. I assumed her handwriting would be scattered and messy.
Time passed with me rearranging place settings while Frankie snapped photos from various angles. I frowned, adjusted, frowned again. Where was that damn “it factor”? Everything was just “fine.” But with my business teetering on closing for good, I didn’t have the luxury of “fine.” I needed perfection.
How would the community react if I failed? I could almost hear the whispers at Connie’s Coffee, or Zoey’s Bakery, or Sunday after mass. “Can you believe that poor Rose girl had to shut down her business? Couldn’t keep up with the fancy Dreams Events place.” Of course, most would be sympathetic, some even slightly militant, droning on about how they don’t appreciate big money coming into our town and running out the little guy.
Sure, God knows I’d engaged in concerned community discussions, aka gossip, myself over the years. But being on this side felt terrible, no matter how good the intention. I had no choice—I had to nail this wedding.
A cramp buried itself into my shoulder blade, and for a flicker of a second, the thought of Frankie’s strong hands working out my shoulder kink sounded heavenly. I mean, the strong-hands part sounded heavily. The fact that those appendages were attached to Frankie sounded terrible. I pushed a finger into the pressure point and rotated my arm. Soon enough, I’d have to take a break before my bones crumbled.
Frankie was gluing a small baby’s breath stem into cardstock, her eyebrows knitted in concentration. I really,reallydidn’t want to admit it, but having someone helping with this work was kind of nice. “You said the photo edits were coming along?”
