30
Frankie
I stoodon the fringe of Collette’s birthday party. The pool overflowed with raucous girls and splashing. The backyard was decorated with streamers and fairy lights as Harrison grilled food for the small gathering. Harrison’s best friends and their partners were also in attendance. I would have thought there would be a separation between the big celebrities and the locals, but everybody was vibing, and the atmosphere was light and happy.
Especially Harrison. He wasn’t exactly a grumpy guy, to begin with, and now he vibrated with joy and happiness. He was fully in his element, cracking jokes and making everybody around him laugh. He flitted from person to person, checking on food and drinks, kids constantly shouting after him to come play with them between hosting duties.
I wished I could be in the moment with him. I wished I could turn off the building worry and stress that occupied my mind. I wished I could stand here and imagine this life for myself. But this wasn’t my life, and it wasn’t his. And things were beginning to feel so perfect in this role-playing that I wasn’t sure either of us could stop now. We were on a train barreling down an unfinished track.
The few days Harrison had left to go to LA, I had missed him so much it hurt. It changed me. It couldn’t be normal to miss him as hard as I had. I was a wild animal meant to roam. It was in my blood, and all this domesticity felt surreal. I didn’t know this person. Who was I?
But at the same time, it was because of him that I re-discovered part of myself.
It wasn’t just sex. It was great sex too. Lord, it was so good. We could not get enough of each other. There were muscles in my body that had long been forgotten. Like how my calves cramped for days after he took me roughly from behind one late night in the pool house. I’d taken to wearing dresses more and more just for convenience, and he’d taken full advantage. Hands on my hips, he tugged me up and high on tiptoes as he roughly slammed into me. Or when he’d laid me out on my side, one leg propped on his shoulder, and my abs were tight the next day. Or when I rode him up and down, hips grinding and sore for a week. He showed me parts of myself—sometimes literally, like that time with the mirror—that I hadn’t even seen myself.
It was freeing.
Okay, yes. So, this was a resurgence of my sexual side, but it wasn’t only that. I hadn’t felt connected tomyselfin so long. I had been shoved into all these different roles I didn’t fit into. Harrison made me forget all that. He was freshly fallen snow to my mind, blanketing the ruts and worn paths to let me sit in silence with parts of me I missed.
I connected with my physical being for the first time in years.
I was beautiful, desired, lustful, adventurous, spontaneous, wild, and wicked. I could make the world’s most wanted man get on his knees with the point of my finger. This was the Frankie I remembered. These were the aspects of myself that had defined me for so long.
I missed myself, and I hadn’t even known it. And it was all thanks to him.
Later, as the sun started to set, Harrison and Collette performed another song together. The Beatles “Birthday” of course. All the little girls danced around, getting crazy, shaking their heads all over like mini-moshers and squealing with delight. All the adults laughed from the sidelines. When they finished the song, she bowed, and he did too.
“Happy birthday to our queen, Collette.”
“Thank you, Papa Harrison.”
The world seemed to tilt, and I reverted to that same frozen reaction I hadn’t needed in some time. Harrison hugged her tight, and there was such an emotion written all over his face. He didn’t correct her and say that he would be leaving again for LA. That he wasn’t her father. I glanced at his friends. Emma and Charlie exchanged a look that matched my own reaction. Had she really said that? Was Harrison in too deep? Was Collette going to get hurt after all I had done to protect her?
My heart stuttered and skipped. That tightness in my chest all week at his absence rooted deeper into my bones, mixing with the marrow. The roots squeezed my lungs, taking my breath away. I had to leave before the roots strangled me alive. A plant ripped from its roots would never survive. Collette was still young enough that she might be okay if she found the right family. She had known love and, so maybe, it would be okay. I was forever changed after my mother left me. I couldn’t let sweet, fragile Collette have her whole life ripped apart.
All at once, it was like I watched this party from the outside, like I was watching a film of a life that wasn’t my own. The characters and setting looked familiar, but I was outside my body as it played out around me.
How did I get here? Whose life was this?
Harrison came up to me and hugged me after. I looked up to see his friends and the guests watching us. I stepped away. What was he doing? Why had he been so touchy-feely today? This wasn’t what we discussed. What happened in the pool house stayed in the pool house. He played this role of a family man all too well. It wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.
I wiped my sweating palms on my dress and ignored the hurt that flashed over his features.
“I better go get the cake,” I mumbled and stepped away.
In the kitchen, I prepared the utensils and plates. The sounds of the party drifted in through the open window, along with the smell of summer, causing a preemptive sense of sentimentality. I knew if I ever had this combination of senses, I’d be sucked back to this exact moment, and it already hurt.
Brooks came in, arms spread. “I’m here to help.”
“Here, warm this up for the ice cream cake.” I handed her the cake knife.
“That kid. Already seven. Hard to believe.”
“I know.”
“She’s incredible. I just love her. I wish I had half the confidence she has.”
“Don’t you?” I asked with a smile.
