Chapter Text
Summer burns in La Jolla and she can feel the prickle of sweat start at the nape of her neck and trickle down. The sun is setting on the horizon and she watches as insects dance off of the makeshift pond in front of her and Frankie’s apartment.
Soon, the air will cool to be somewhat bearable but right now, even the insects she’s been watching on the pond seem to have lost their way, spiraling into the air. Errantly, they bounce around in the sky, some managing escape, some erratically flinging themselves into doom, the zapper waiting at the edge of the little porch area.
She should get up, go inside and bathe. Washing away the heat and stickiness from the humidity would be the sensible thing to do but Grace is stationary, vision focused on that damn zapper.
The sound hammers in her ears, lodges deep into her head. Arthropod ash sprinkles down in a mist, hitting the wind and disappearing forever.
Grace can’t help but feel a strange connection with the events, feeling tossed into turmoil and zapped away into nothing, from almost everything that she’s known for the past four years. Isn’t the end of a life supposed to have a bit of stability? Shouldn’t she be able to spend the remainder of her years with a sense of safety, not worrying about whether or not people are noticing her attending the dining hall or if Frankie has pushed the blue button on the wall again for for the fiftieth time?
Frankie.
She closes her eyes against the thought of her friend, of her…? It’s hard to categorize after being floor people, balloon rides, escapes to Santa Fe, new housemates, fucking retirement homes.
At some point, Frankie has become more than just a friend. More than a person Grace had learned to tolerate. She’s become a tether to life and vibrancy, keeping them both from being victimized by the pitfalls of old age. A year ago, Frankie had told of how Grace had inspired her to do things beyond what she imagined she would be capable of. The compliment had resonated and stuck, a thing that meant more than it seemed on the surface.
Now, Grace thinks. Now maybe Frankie is the one propelling her along. And for that reason alone, she decides that she will follow Frankie literally anywhere.
So they steal Frankie’s belongings back and a toaster that isn’t, adding a golf cart to the mix by the end of the crazy ordeal.
Feeling the wind whip through her hair, it’s the most free Grace has felt in ages, a smile stuck to her face as Frankie drives down the edge of the beach and the sound of the Pacific and seagulls rings in her ears. Everywhere, life. People walking along the sand, enjoying the beautiful weather in La Jolla. The sun shines bright and so does the woman beside her, some of it reverberating back into Grace’s own form.
It’s a little like Thelma and Louise when the cart crashes into the sand and Frankie insists they make the trek the rest of the way to their home down the water’s edge. Grace knows her knee will protest by the end of the journey but it seems like a worthy endeavor to get home.
Home. The words sticks gooey like honey inside her chest and she feels the loss acutely too, a mixing of bittersweet nostalgia. It hasn’t even been that long, only a few months, but the passage of the moments seem much larger in a place like where they were. Arlene might not mind the cookie cutter rooms and set meal times but Grace wants to flow like the ocean, have a rhythm to her life that is hers by creation, not dictated by what others say.
No business, no painting, consume food on our time, don’t own anything that might be considered as contraband, don’t live your life other than how we tell you to.
“It’s all a bunch of bullshit,” Frankie had grumbled one afternoon after coming back to tell Grace about how she couldn’t paint unless she went to a class for other seniors, as if she needed a class. She could teach the damn class, not that the operators of the hell hole would ever acknowledge.
Their home looms in the distance and Frankie claps excitedly, managing to hang on to her fondue pot amidst the excitement. Standing here in the salty wind and next to Frankie, it’s easy to forget that the structure in front of them is in ruins on the inside, that it’s her fault they’re standing on the outside looking in.
A creaking fills her ears and Frankie lets the smile fade from her visage as her hand connects with the sign. Sold.
Their kids have fucking sold the house. Grace feels her knees buckle a bit and thank God Frankie is pulling her to the chairs in front of them or she isn’t sure she would be able to stay upright.
How has this all fallen apart so fast?
Frankie’s grabs at her hand and she feels her throat close, on the verge of tears and opening up to let it all overwhelm. The past few months have been too much. From the knee complications and surgery, to the house literally falling apart and the shitty contractor that made her feel like a dupe, to the kids betraying them both and throwing them away without a key into that Shady Pines wannabe.
As she stares at the ocean, she begins to wonder- What kind of life can we salvage from this? What’s to look forward to or go back on? Everything she and Frankie have worked so hard to build from the ashes is now a messed up trash pile behind her. One which she feels inherently guilty for being the culprit.
If not for her lack of better judgement, wouldn’t they both being sitting here under different circumstances? The fact that the home behind them is no longer theirs makes anger and sorrow press tightly in Grace’s chest, what she’s felt the entire time since she and Frankie moved to Walden Villas.
“I’m getting it back,” Grace announces.
“What? Oh, honey. It’s already sold. We can’t get it back,” Frankie looks stricken.
“And why can’t we? We’ll just have to find out who put the bid in and pay them a personal visit. Convince them it isn’t worth their time. Hell, I’ll give them everything we’ve made from Vybrant if it comes down to it, but Frankie, we’ve got to do this. This is our home, our life.”
“Always my tenacious little prairie dog,” Frankie smiles, but there is a tinge of sadness to it as well.
Grace isn’t sure how long they sit and watch the waves hit the beach, how long they both hold each other’s hand while wishing and hoping that all they had to do was walk up the small hill to throw open the doors to their home. It’s been a few months, ones she thought she was learning to adjust inside, but the sheer magnitude of the loss hits her squarely again.
With the sun beginning to ease closer to tuck itself into the horizon, Grace feels herself rising and offering a hand to help Frankie out of the chair. She braces herself on her one good leg and Frankie grasps her. Grace stumbles a little back, Frankie stumbles a little forward with the motion. It brings them to within inches of each other, Grace’s hand resting on Frankie’s hip to steady her, Frankie’s upon Grace’s shoulder and neck.
The breeze is cooling and Grace feels her breath escaping her in short puffs because Frankie is looking at her in that way, like she wants to say something to Grace and it would mean the whole world.
“I don’t want to go back,” Frankie whispers. Her fingers trace along Grace, brush through her blonde hair. “Don’t take me back there, Grace.”
Like it’s Grace’s choice. Like she is still looking to Grace to fix everything when Grace is the reason it all fell apart in the first place.
The tone shoots to her core and she wishes she had a magic wand or lamp or that magic was fucking real in the first place. Then she would know what to do and how to help them instead of floundering like a fish out of water. Possibilities seem nonexistent, their kids barely a passing thought. Robert and Sol have been too accepting of the fact that they both were placed in Walden Villas to begin with, so Grace feels a stab of anger toward them that has pretty much lasted subconsciously for the last four years.
“Where do you want me to take you? I don’t know where to go,” Grace admits.
“There has to be some place we can stay until you figure it all out with the house. If you’re serious about that.”
Another blow. Why wouldn’t she be? Does everything now have to hit Grace directly in the chest? Does she have to feel everything so strongly these days?
Grace’s answer comes in the form of her arm wrapping around Frankie’s waist and leading them silently away from the chairs that will stay nestled on the beach, stationary in a place they both long to rest their weary souls.
It takes a while to trek back to the abandoned cart, the knee not holding up as well on the journey back as it had on the way there. Grace drives this time, all the life seeming to have drained from her with the turning and reading of the “For Sale-Sold” sign.
They drop the cart off, wanting to be less of thieves and more runaways. Grace calls a cab and tells it to take them to the nearest, non dump of a motel. One with clean sheets, showers, and no fucking blue buttons or set meal times or stupid restrictions.
Checking in with nothing seems awkward in and of itself but by the time Grace slides the key into the door, she can’t help but not care much anymore. She watches as Frankie stands, looking rather forlorn and she wonders if she herself has the same look upon her own visage.
There are two beds and Frankie lets herself fall onto the far one, nearest the bathroom, and lets out a large sigh. Grace stands and watches, unsure of what to do. Frankie’s eyes have been closed but she opens one and looks at Grace, then motions toward a spot beside her.
She sits gingerly, already feeling the long walk in every protesting bone in her body. Frankie curls her fingers around Grace’s hand and Grace feels something different altogether.
“Not exactly what I imagined, but it beats the Red Roof Inn,” Frankie sighs.
“It will have to do, in a pinch,” Grace replies. Until I can start snooping to get our life back , she thinks.
When Frankie pats her knee, she winces a bit and Frankie bolts upright, eyes wide.
“Oh crap, I’m so sorry. Do you want me to massage it and make it feel better?”
“Oh, nothing a little steam and hot water from a shower won’t help to ease up,” Grace waves off, underscores what she really feels lighting up her body like a circuit board.
“I could help you with that too, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”
There it is, again . That impossible thing that she’s been trying to ignore for the last year or more. Because her knee-jerk reaction is that she has already said yes and they’re standing under the spray together, washing away the years and failure and fierce loss.
She shakes her head and laughs instead, standing up. It’s better to deflect and retreat. To find some solitude and have time to think. She leaves Frankie on the bed, feeling her eyes burn into her as she disappears into the other room.
Grace closes the door gently and lets out a puff of breath. They have nothing, just the clothes on their backs and each other. Thankfully a couple of robes hang on the back of the door, soft terry cloth. It will have to do as cover for now until they can figure out what the hell to do next.
She showers none too quickly, and when she steps out of the bath, she grabs the robe and towels at her hair. She’s got the robe draped precariously over her front, having not deposited it over her completely. Suddenly there is a frantic knock on the door and Grace clutches the robe tighter to herself.
“I know this is a serious boundary issue but I haven’t been to the bathroom in forever and I know I should have had the foresight to go before you got into there. Sadly now, it’s hindsight and I really have to go,” Frankie explains on the other side of the door.
“I’m not dressed yet!” Grace exclaims, but oddly stands stationary.
“What, do you have something I don’t? Come on, Grace. Pretty please?”
Before she can think better of it, she walks to the door and opens it with the free hand that isn’t pinning the robe against herself. Frankie appears and looks dumbfounded at the state that Grace is in, the droplets of water still sticking to her body and her hair flat against her neck. Dimly, she’s aware there is a mirror behind her and her, well her behind isn’t covered.
This is what Frankie gets though, isn’t it? And she doesn’t have anything that Frankie doesn’t, so why should she feels ashamed? Stuffing her insecurities down, she decides after forty years, it’s time to give Frankie a little payback for flashing her chest to Grace so many years ago.
She lets her hair fall in front of her face as she towels off a still damp spot on her shoulder which shifts the robe so that it isn’t covering...much. She hears an intake of breath and smirks a bit to herself. Her most private of areas has remained so but Grace is almost sure Frankie has caught some glimpses of her chest and back end. It’s odd to be so bold but she feels a thrill in it too.
“Aren’t you just a little voyeur,” Frankie murmurs.
Grace pulls the robe up over her and cinches it at the waist, then runs a hand through her hair. Making her way to Frankie, she leans over a little too close perhaps and offers lowly, “I thought you were in dire need of the restroom.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an artist, Grace. When you show me something like that, how am I not going to stand and admire for a few seconds?”
Grace stops on the way out, turning to look at Frankie. The comment catches her off guard, not at all delivered in a playful tone that she has come to expect. “What?”
Frankie stands, immobile. Silent. But then she shakes her head and gives Grace more than she’s had in years. “You’re breathtaking.”
Grace turns and leaves, feeling her own breath taken straight out of her lungs.