Let's Be Frank

by Brea Brown

  My mouth drops open.

  “Yeah. She’s amazingly prolific. I read most of her stuff when I was a teenager. I used to skip around and read the sex scenes. They were… intense.” In the lights from the dash, I think I detect a blush.

  Her mention of sex reminds me of what happened between Frankie and me before dinner, and I can’t seem to summon the appropriate laughter or teasing tone in response to her admission, so I remain mum.

  “I was a teenager,” she repeats, a sharper edge of defensiveness in her tone.

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I mean, that’s absolutely age-appropriate,” I hasten to reassure her.

  “It was!”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Then what’s up with the judgmental vibe all of a sudden?”

  “What? No. I… I… I got distracted, that’s all.”

  “I see… Whatever. As if you haven’t read the book.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She grunts then replies, “You don’t have to pretend you don’t know about… everything.”

  “I know nothing,” I insist.

  “As for being preoccupied with sex, I’m not… abnormally. It’s just easy for Frankie to think less about it, since she’s obviously getting it a lot more regularly than I am.”

  “Hey!”

  “Whatever, Nathaniel. There’s no reason to deny it. It’s not 1930. And I’m not her mom. Actually, her mom would be more than okay with it, too.”

  I rub my jaw. “Can we please talk about something else?”

  I may be completely flummoxed about whatever else Betty’s alluded to during the past five minutes, but one thing’s for sure: she’s included in the growing list of people not aware of Frankie’s abstinence pledge. Hm. Not sure why Frankie wouldn’t tell her best friend something like that, but it’s not my place to set Betty straight on it.

  Plus, I really do want to talk about something else.

  After her outburst, Betty seems embarrassed, and I can’t think of anything else to discuss, so the tension builds in the car until, by unspoken agreement, we return to the house. She stops on the driveway, and I get out, even though she doesn’t say a word. As soon as I close the door, she zooms toward the back of the house, where the driveway curves and leads to the garage I noticed earlier, behind the pool.

  I stare at the afterimage of the taillights long after they’ve disappeared. My shivering has nothing to do with the air temperature.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I would have preferred preparing for the reading and signing by myself. Alone. Without other people around. Talking to me. Giving me tips. Trying to encourage me not to be nervous. (That has the opposite effect, people!) Fussing with my scarf.

  Okay, actually, I need help with that last thing. The day I don’t is when it’s time to turn in my man card for good.

  Everything else, though? I could do without.

  “You’re going to wear those pants? Can you even sit down in them? What are they, man jeggings?” Frankie fires at me.

  I’ve already tested that I can sit in these, but I’m not going to admit it was one of my chief worries at first, too. Nor am I going to reveal I have to do a bit of… shifting… of things beforehand to prevent painful pinching of my private parts. Instead, I look down at my legs and choose to address the last in her series of questions.

  “Jeggings? No. They’re skinny jeans.”

  “But you’re not skinny.”

  My head snaps up so I can regard her through the bathroom mirror. “What? Well, I’m not un-skinny, either.”

  “No, but…”

  Betty fluffs my scarf, then yanks on it to even the fringed ends. I stumble into her before regaining my balance.

  “Leave him alone,” Betty growls. “You’re just nit-picking because it wasn’t your idea. And if I remember correctly, I invited you to go shopping with us, but you were too busy writing.”

  “Yeah. I’m a writer. I have to do it whenever I have the time.”

  “Then be content with your choices and stop ragging on the ones you’ve delegated to us.”

  “Do these pants make me look fat?” I ask Betty, trying to turn to the side to see my butt in the mirror but unable to do so, since she’s still tugging on the scarf.

  “No. Hold still. And don’t ever ask anyone that again. Frank would never ask that. And neither should you. You should be getting into character.”

  Frankie sighs behind us. “Seriously? Does there have to be a ‘character’? Just go out there, read the excerpt you chose, answer a few questions, sign some books. Done.”

  Finally, my scarf meets Betty’s aesthetic approval, so she steps away from me, but she says, “Run your fingers through your hair. It’s too… perfect.”

  “Too perfect? It’s called ‘combed.’ It’s not like I have it all slicked back.” I scratch my neck.

  “Don’t touch the scarf!”

  “It’s itchy!”

  “You’ll get used to it. Don’t mess it up. Mess up your hair, instead. Tousle it. You know, sex hair. Or ‘I’ve been sitting at a keyboard all day, working hard at a particularly difficult scene.’”

  “Hello! Is anyone going to answer me?”

  We simultaneously swivel and blink at Frankie. Arms folded across her chest, she does everything short of tapping her foot to display her displeasure at the two of us.

  I can’t remember her asking a question, but I can tell by the look in her eyes that it would be unwise to admit that, so I gape while desperately searching my memory of the past few minutes for something to answer.

  “Uh…”

  Before I can utter a word, I feel something wet poke my head. I spin to see Betty standing in front of me, her hands glistening.

  “What the…?”

  “I’m fixing your hair. Crouch down a little, so I can reach.”

  “What’s that crap on your hands?” It looks disturbingly like ultrasound gel. Or personal lubricant. I voice neither observation.

  “Hair gel, goofball. Now, let’s go! We’re going to be late.” When I reluctantly comply with her barking commands, she softens and says, “Thank you. And to answer your earlier question, Frankie… yes. There has to be a character. And you’ve made it necessary, so don’t bitch at us about it.”

  “Excuse me? How have I made it necessary?”

  “Do your posts on Quite Frankly sound anything at all like Nate?”

  “No, but—”

  “There ya go. We have to be consistent. If he shows up in front of a crowd and acts like himself, your fans will spot right away that he’s not the guy who posts those rants.” She underscores each point she makes with a jab or pinch at my hair. “There. You have great hair, Nathaniel. Very pliable.”

  I look in the mirror and groan. “Oh, my gosh. I have a pompadour.”

  “No, you don’t. Your hair’s not long enough for that.”

  “It looks like a pompadour.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “Perfectly ridiculous.”

  “It matches the rest of you.”

  “Gee, thanks!”

  She blushes at her inadvertent insult while sliding the fake black glasses onto my nose. “I mean, it’s consistent with Frank’s style.” With a pointed look over my shoulder at Frankie, she says, “Consistency is key. Now, run through your mannerisms. Facial expressions first. Then hand gestures.”

  Frankie shoots us her own hand gesture in the mirror and stalks off. “I’m going to eat some breakfast,” she grumps on her way from the bedroom, punctuating her announcement with a slam of the door.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Betty says lightly.

  “I’m not,” I lie.

  “You look worried.”

  “She’s not making this easy.”

  “Well, it was her idea, so she needs to get over herself.”

  “Maybe she feels left out,” I posit.

  “Her choice. And we don’t have time to answer her second-guessing what we’ve decided aft
er having no real direction from her until now. This is it. She should have been bothered earlier, if she wanted input or final say.”

  Her worried eyes belie her tough talking, and I can tell she’s as unsure as I am. In some ways, that’s comforting, like I’m not alone in this. But in other ways, it reinforces my doubts. If what we’re doing isn’t making Frankie happy, what’s the point? And what will be the consequence?

  Before I can ask that, Betty clears her throat and blinks the uncertainty away. “Now. Someone just asked you if any details in Frank’s books are autobiographical. React.”

  Immediately, I scratch my jawline (careful not to bump the blasted scarf) and allow myself to feel sheepish so the emotion will manifest itself on my face. “Well… I’d be lying if I said no. But anything from my real life is merely a starting point. I embellish from there, and it becomes something much more flamboyant and extreme than anything I’ve experienced in my boring life.” Cue the rueful smile and self-deprecating chuckle.

  Betty’s mouth drops open, and she laughs. “Wow. Excellent!”

  I shrug. “Whatever. I’ve been practicing.”

  “It’s paid off. You’re going to be great.”

  “Yeah?” My heart pounds at her approval… and at the thought of doing this in front of strangers in less than a couple of hours.

  “Yeah.” She playfully pats my face. “They’ll be eating from your hand. And buying out all the store’s copies of your books.”

  “Frankie’s books.”

  She shakes her head as if to clear it and laughs. “Oh, yeah. Frankie’s books. See? You even had me forgetting for a minute who the real writer is.”

  When she exits the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror one more time and sigh. I think I’m starting to forget a lot of real things.

  But there’s no time to mope about that. The plane ride home will give me plenty of time for introspection. Right now, I need to keep my focus on more immediate problems.

  Most immediate is my pissed off girlfriend, who barely glances up from her bowl of cereal when Betty and I join her in the kitchen.

  “Nate and I will load up the car while you get dressed,” Betty offers with a mollifying pat on her best friend’s back.

  “You guys have this,” Frankie replies curtly around a mouthful of cornflakes.

  While I register what she’s saying, Betty, seeming a lot less sure than she was upstairs when talking about Frankie’s bad attitude, implores, “Come on. Stop pouting.”

  “I’m not pouting. You guys are right; this is something I’ve delegated to you. I do the writing; you do the appearances and marketing. So I’m going to stay here and do my part.”

  Lucy enters the kitchen and takes in the three of us. “Oh, Nate! Look at you! Very authorial!” I brace myself for her to walk over and caress my face—or something equally inappropriate—but she makes a beeline for the coffeemaker instead.

  Betty ignores Lucy’s arrival and says to Frankie, “You’re supposed to be Frank’s agent.”

  Frankie shoots her friend a warning look, presumably about discussing everyone’s roles in front of Lucy. I cooperatively bull up, not sure I can keep straight what I’m allowed to say and not allowed to say.

  Lucy, oblivious, asks her daughter while pouring a cup of coffee, “You’re not dressed? Don’t you guys need to be hitting the road?”

  “I’m not feeling well.”

  “You have to go and support Nate at his first reading!” she insists.

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  Twisting her mouth to the side, Lucy regards Frankie with her hands on her hips. “That’s not very nice.”

  Frankie rises from the table and walks to the sink, where she deposits her cereal bowl, still full of soggy flakes and milk. “Apparently, I come by selfishness naturally,” she snipes before exiting the room.

  Lucy tilts her head sympathetically at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I lie. She wouldn’t know the truth to spot the lie anyway, so I figure it’s one of the most harmless whoppers I’ve told all weekend.

  She shakes her head as she stirs half-and-half into her drink. “I can’t help but blame myself. She’s right that Sam and I were never the models of selflessness, but…” Instead of finishing her thought out loud, she taps her spoon on the lip of her mug.

  I want to tell her she should probably be more ashamed about her daughter’s poor housekeeping habits than her childish personality, but there isn’t time to have a big debate about nature versus nurture, so I merely turn to Betty and say, “Let’s load up and go.”

  “Good luck!” Lucy seamlessly changes gears. “You look great, and you’ll stun ’em. Remember… everyone is there because they love your work, so there’s nothing to be nervous about.”

  I give her a shaky smile and a shakier thanks when I remember none of what she’s said actually applies to me.

  *****

  Back to Phoenix we go in the SUV loaded down with the promotional materials Betty shipped ahead of time. Posters, mugs, t-shirts, bookmarks, business cards… you name it, we have it.

  Betty’s ranted nearly the entire trip about Frankie’s unreasonable behavior and how it’s going to look so lame for my “agent” not to be there.

  As we approach the outskirts of Phoenix, I say, “It’ll be fine. Now, stop obsessing and help me find my way to this place. What’s it called again? The Book Nook?”

  “The Reading Cupboard,” she automatically answers before mumbling under her breath about “not obsessing.”

  She pulls up a mapping app on her phone to direct us the rest of the way, and I breathe a sigh of relief. With both of us focused solely on arriving at our destination, we make it with no wrong turns—a veritable miracle in this crazy city—with plenty of time to spare before the reading.

  Inside the shop, I busy myself setting up our merchandise and stacks of books on a long table reserved for the signing portion of the event, but Betty quickly sidles up to me and hisses near my ear, “Stop it.”

  She hip-checks me away from the table and smiles tightly at the store employee approaching us.

  “What? Why?”

  Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she averts her face from everyone but me. “Frank wouldn’t help with his own setup,” she explains quickly before addressing the clerk by the name on her tag and putting her immediately to work arranging mugs featuring my mug.

  Obediently, I step away, hovering uselessly. I’m starting to hate this Frank guy. He’s a Class-A douchemuffin. Now what am I going to do? Pace near the podium, in front of several rows of folding chairs that will soon be filled with real readers, and become more and more terrified any time one of the store’s employees has to steer people away or direct them to the line that’s formed closer to the front of the store, out of my view?

  Something tells me Frank wouldn’t be afraid, nor would he pace, but I’m making an executive decision to give him a social anxiety disorder. He’s brave when he’s staring at a screen, interacting with people across the Internet, but he’s an introvert at heart, so in face-to-face encounters, he’s a spaz. Yes. Works for me.

  The pacing’s working up a sweat, though, so I perch on the bar stool situated next to the squat lectern and open my personal copy of Hippocratic Oaf to the bookmarked excerpt I’ll be reading.

  I chose this book, even though Frankie wanted me to read from her personal favorite, Girl Noir. For once, though, I put my foot down. I’m the one who has to read it, and I prefer to read something that strikes a chord with me, something I can read with emotion, even if that emotion is mostly shame. Anyway, I don’t want to read anything told in a woman’s voice, and since Hippocratic Oaf is the only book of hers written from a man’s point of view, it was a no-brainer. Plus, it’s the only book of hers I’ve read in its entirety, and I plan to keep it that way, even though it makes me decidedly vulnerable when faced with specific questions about her other works.

  Must not think about that now
.

  I’m silently practicing my reading, marking with a pen where I should pause for effect or read more quickly, when, “Mr. Lipton!” startles me from my study.

  I close the book and pop to my feet. “Yes! That’s me. I’m Frank Lipton.”

  The man, dressed eerily similar to me, smiles and chuckles, offering his hand for me to shake. “That, you are. Bob Meillor. I own this store. Thanks for coming here today.” He looks over his shoulder at the people choosing their seats and settling in for the reading. “It’s shaping up to be a nice crowd, which is good for both of us. Trust me, I’ve been at some dead readings. Painful.”

  I glance toward the grouping of chairs behind him, and, like a patient watching the needle go in during a blood draw, immediately regret it. My mouth dries. I snatch and drain the bottle of water on the podium, imagining the liquid instantly exiting my body through the suddenly overactive pores under my arms.

  Bob nods at the empty water bottle. “I’ll go grab another one of those for you, just in case, Mr. Lipton.”

  “Nate,” I reflexively correct him.

  He tilts his head, his forehead crinkling under his shaggy bangs.

  My heart thunders like I was recently given an adrenaline injection. “I mean, Frank! Frank, of course.” I lower my shaky voice and lean closer to Bob. “Nate’s my real name; Frank’s a pen name. Sometimes, like now, when I’m nervous, I get confused. I don’t like public speaking.” I chuckle at myself. “You get it, right?” I hope it doesn’t sound too much like I’m begging him to buy my story.

  He smiles and cups my shoulder with his beefy hand. “Your secret’s safe with me, Frank,” he promises on a wink. “Now, let me go grab that water for you, and we’ll get started.”

  I chance another shy peek at the crowd growing in front of me. An attractive woman in the front row catches my eye and gives me a beguiling finger wave.

  Maybe this won’t be too horrible…

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Eau Claire,” Frankie says to me as soon as she opens her apartment door to let me in.

  It’s an unconventional greeting, to be sure, but maybe we’re playing a game—“Name as many obscure Wisconsin towns as you can”—that I’m not aware of, so I reply, “Uh… De Pere?”