Chapter Text
It begins, as most things do, rather innocuously. With a phone call.
A phone call that shocks Francesca from her deep sleep, blinking confused and discombobulated in the dark.
It’s a little past midnight, according to the numbers on her alarm clock that blink neon in the dark room -– though the bright lines of the digits dance and weave before her half-closed eyes, so really it could be any time at all.
She registers her phone ringing on her nightstand with a jolt, and crawls out of the warm nest of blankets, flinging an arm over and answering without even glancing at the caller ID. Her voice is hoarse, brimming over with sleep as she clears her throat and mutters, “Hello?”
“Frannie,” Michaela breathes on the other end.
All of a sudden Francesca’s wide awake.
She sits up straight, legs tangled in her sheets, all thoughts of sleep and warmth and partial annoyance at being woken up in the middle of the night gone like they’d never existed. Her heart’s racing, as if somehow her body recognizes this, knows something’s about to happen before she herself does.
“Michaela?” she says, immediately panicked at the note of fear in her voice. Michaela never calls her in the middle of the night, all too mindful of Francesca’s early bedtime –- a bedtime which Francesca herself thinks is perfectly reasonable and not too early at all, thank you very much –- and she never, ever sounds scared. “What happened?”
She hears a breath, then a gentle sniffle, and she gets to her feet immediately, switching on the bedside lamp. The carpet’s soft under her bare feet, pajama pants whispering around her ankles as she begins to pace.
“Frannie,” Michaela repeats, like she needs reassurance that Francesca’s there on the other end, like she needs something to hold onto.
“Yes,” Francesca says hastily, doing her best to give her all that just from her voice and the simple act of speaking, “yes, yes, I’m here. Please talk to me, Michaela. What’s wrong?”
And finally, finally, Michaela tells her.
“My apartment,” she says. “It’s flooded.”
Francesca breathes a gasp, heart already sinking. “Oh, God.” She pictures Michaela’s apartment, which honestly looks like something from Pinterest or an interior design magazine, full of windows and plants and practically wallpapered with impressionist art. Michaela loves her apartment. “Are you okay?”
She hears her nodding on the other end, hair brushing the phone. “Yeah, I’m okay, but it’s the whole building. The whole thing’s flooded, I guess a pipe burst on one of the top floors, and somehow the pipes were connected or something, I don’t know, the fire department explained it but I didn’t really follow-–”
Francesca interrupts, unable to stop herself or the panic rising in her throat. “The fire department? They’re there?”
“Mhm, they’re here. They were able to stop the water from traveling any farther, but the building –- I mean, it’s full of water, Fran. The hallways… I feel like I’m on the fucking Titanic.”
Francesca snorts an unexpected laugh. Trust Michaela to crack a joke during an emergency. “Okay,” she says. “Well, I’m glad it’s not actively flooding anymore.”
“Yeah.” Michaela’s voice sobers. “But yeah, the building is completely flooded, and the damage is really bad, I mean, some of the walls are crumbling, and they’re not letting us stay here until it’s fixed, and I –- Fran, it’s the middle of the night and I just need somewhere to go, can I-–”
“Yes.” Francesca’s answering before she’s even finished the thought. “Of course. Always. Come stay with me.” She’s biting her lip, picking at her thumbnail; the thought of Michaela facing such extreme circumstances by herself, all the way across town -– well, it’s simply unthinkable. Lovely, considerate Michaela, the life of the party, charismatic and funny and cracking jokes even when she herself is in pain –- Christ. No, something has to be done. Michaela’s hurting, and when Michaela’s hurting, Francesca’s whole world stops. It’s always been that way for her, right back to the first time she’d seen beneath Michaela’s casual, breezy exterior. It was the second time they’d ever spent time together, back when Francesca and John were meeting up most days on their lunch breaks and calling each other every night, and the three of them had gone out to brunch on a warm spring Saturday. Francesca could still picture it, could hear John’s voice, so excited for his “two favorite people to finally really spend time together” because the first time they’d met had been at John’s birthday and they hadn’t really gotten to talk, what with Francesca hosting and running around frantically making sure everything was perfect for him while Michaela entertained all the guests with childhood stories about John. Normally Francesca would have been more wound tight to spend time with her, feeling the pressure, but unfortunately, Michaela’s dog she’d had since childhood had just died, so Francesca spent the entire morning in a state of extreme nervousness, trying to figure out how best to help, cracking every stupid joke she could think of and spontaneously stopping to buy her ice cream on the way home.
She’s always been like that. At least when it comes to Michaela. She doesn’t mean to, per se, but what can she do? Michaela shouldn’t have that spark of pain in her beautiful eyes, should be bubbly and charming rather than downcast and quiet. And Francesca’s always been pragmatic, always been a problem-solver. What alternative does she have?
She hears Michaela breathe a quiet sigh of relief on the other end. The sound is right in Francesca’s ear, quiet and low, and it sends a shiver down her spine. “Thank you, Francesca,” she says, and the gratitude in her voice is so palpable it almost hurts.
“Of course,” Francesca repeats more firmly; she’s now caught up in images of Michaela, soaked to the bone through her pajamas and outside in the chilly night, alone and shivering and scared. Nowhere to go. She scrunches up her face against the sadness, trying to push the image down and force herself to breathe. Michaela is okay, she says in her head like a mantra. Michaela is okay. Michaela is going to be here soon. And she wants to throw on shoes and a jacket and sprint all the way there, wishes she could teleport so she could wrap Michaela in her arms right that second; but she knows all too well that if she tries to come get her Michaela will protest, unwilling to let Francesca out alone in the city at night on her behalf. So she just breathes in, breathes out, and murmurs, “Get here soon.”
***
When there’s a quiet knock at her door half an hour later, Francesca’s ready.
She’d spent the last thirty minutes in a state of crazed worry, rushing around her apartment like a two-four allegro. Like a chicken with her head cut off, Michaela would say, the way she always does when Francesca gets on one of her routine cleaning sprees. Francesca always just shrugs it off. She might look a little insane from the outside, but hey, her apartment always sparkles after she’s done.
And just like with her cleaning sprees, she gets everything done tonight, too, and just in time at that. She’s cleared off the nightstand and removed her clothes entirely from the top two drawers of her dresser to make room for Michaela’s things; set up New Girl, their comfort show, on her living room TV; and she’s got Earl Grey, sugar, no milk, steeping in Michaela’s favorite mug, the one with the abstract lilies all over it. She’d even remembered the half-bag of M&Ms in her cabinet, leftover from a few months ago when Michaela had been too wine-drunk to follow a recipe and ended up burning chunks of dough -– because, really, whatever she made couldn’t be called cookies, hadn’t earned the right to that title –- almost to ash in her oven, and put those out, too. In short, she’s got all the bases covered. Whatever Michaela wants, Francesca is more than ready to give her.
She’d been sitting on the couch in wait, knee jiggling, wide awake and wired with absolutely no thought to the fact that normally she’d have been fast asleep hours ago. When Michaela knocks, Francesca’s up and opening the door at what she thinks later must have been pretty comparable to the speed of light. And finally, Michaela’s there, and then she steps forward and Francesca does too and finally, finally, Michaela’s in her arms.
Michaela’s warm against her. She smells like jasmine, the same perfume she’s been using since college, and her skin is soft when she tucks her face into Francesca’s neck in a rare display of emotion. Her body softens palpably, melting into Francesca’s arms like butter on toast. And Francesca, barely able to breathe, presses her cheek against the top of Michaela’s head and squeezes her eyes shut, trying desperately, on some level, to hug all the sadness out of her.
When she finally releases her, feeling the loss of Michaela’s warmth like a cold-water shock against her body, she takes a second to look her over. Michaela’s wearing plaid pajama pants and an oversized hoodie, like she’d just rolled out of bed. She’s got a tote bag over her shoulder, likely full of whatever she had been able to salvage from her apartment, her hair pulled back in a soft bun. She looks okay, to Francesca’s scrutinizing eye; but losses like this weren’t usually visible, after all. Especially with someone like Michaela, who was a little too talented at hiding her emotions when she wanted to.
Francesca’s heart skips: all of a sudden, she feels entirely out of her depth, unsure how best to help, and she forces herself to take a deep, stabilizing breath. It’s going to be okay.
She steps to the side so Michaela can come into the warmth of her living room rather than have to stand in the hallway any longer, hastily locking the door and then moving to sit on the couch next to Michaela, picking at her nail anxiously. “I made you tea,” she says, motioning to the mug on the table, and Michaela’s expression softens as she reaches for it. “And there’s M&Ms on the counter, and we can watch TV if you want.”
She’s grasping at straws, at anything she knows usually comforts Michaela; but she smiles softly. “Thank you, Fran,” she says quietly, “you’re lovely;” and she just looks so cute in the too-big hoodie, clutching her mug of tea, and her eyes are fondue-soft, and somewhere in the back of her mind where she doesn’t entirely register the thought, Francesca kind of just wants to fall into them. Fall into her.
She forces herself to focus, though. It’s time to be strong for Michaela.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly, cautiously, eyes flickering across Michaela’s features, keeping an eye out for any sign of emotion, however small.
But when Michaela nods, she just looks defeated. “Yeah, I’m okay. The fire department said they’d be able to put everything back to normal.”
Francesca smiles despite herself, grasping at any shred of positivity in the situation. “Wait, Michaela, that’s amazing.”
Michaela nods. “But they said it’ll probably take four weeks. Four to six weeks.” She’s looking up at Francesca from under her eyebrows, something flickering in the depths of her eyes, and suddenly Francesca understands: she’s worried. She doesn’t want to be an imposition, doesn’t want to ask if she can stay with Francesca for that long; but she has nowhere else to go.
It feels like Francesca’s heart’s growing three sizes, growing and expanding out of her chest. Growing large enough to fit all of Michaela within it. Considering her words very carefully, she opens her mouth and says, “We can watch so much TV in four to six weeks.”
When Michaela beams at her, Francesca sighs, shoulders losing their tension. She feels like she can breathe again.
It’s bedtime then, though. Francesca can tell by the way Michaela sets down the mug on the table, retreats back into her hoodie. The sleeves cover her palms. Francesca kind of wants to reach over and wrap Michaela up, swathe her in blankets like a burrito.
She doesn’t, though, instead getting to her feet. “Shall we try and get some sleep?” she asks, and is rewarded with a grateful nod as Michaela stands, too, and pads softly towards the bedroom. She clicks the TV off, hastily following behind her, but leaves the tea mug and M&Ms out in a rare display of apathy when it comes to the cleanliness of her space. She can clean those up anytime -– Michaela is more important.
When she gets to the bathroom, it’s apparent that Michaela’s bathroom must have gone largely untouched by the flooding: she’s got all her skincare products spread out on the sink counter and is in the process of tying her purple silk bonnet around her curls. The room already smells like jasmine, like Michaela; Francesca can’t help but smile.
Michaela looks at her in the mirror, smiles softly. “Can I borrow your toothpaste?” she asks.
Francesca, though, is momentarily not listening, strangely focused on the curve of Michaela’s nose from the angle at which she’s standing behind her. Michaela is beautiful, she knows that; it’s just a fact. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Michaela is beautiful. All basic facts of life. Michaela’s apartment is flooded and she is staying with Francesca. Hmm. Maybe she should add that to the list. Michaela’s nose is pierced. That’s another fact. Francesca’s attention catches on the gem, glittering gold in the low light of the bathroom. She really likes nose piercings.
“Fran,” Michaela says again.
Francesca jolts back into real life, heart thudding. “Huh? What?” She blinks under Michaela’s amused gaze and feels her ears growing red, guilt inexplicably building in her stomach.
“I was saying, I forgot my toothpaste,” Michaela says, still giving her a rather entertained look through the mirror. “Can I use some of yours?”
“Of course,” Francesca says hastily, reaching to grab it for her. Their fingers brush as Francesca hands it to her, and Francesca flinches imperceptibly. Oh, God. Her fingers twitch by her side. “Um, I’m sorry if you don’t like it. I can run out in the morning and get some more if you want, a different flavor, whatever you-–”
“Fran.” Michaela cuts her off, turning to face her directly. Francesca’s four inches taller, enough of a height difference that Michaela has to look up whenever they make eye contact, and this time is no exception. Michaela’s head tilts, and she reaches out and takes Francesca’s hands in her own. God, her hands are soft. And she’s warm, and she squeezes Francesca’s hands as she speaks. “Honey, it’s just toothpaste. Okay?”
“Okay,” Francesca repeats, cheeks pink. Michaela’s actions have the intended effect, though; her shoulders drop back to their normal place and she feels more relaxed, if slightly embarrassed.
“Good.” Michaela smiles at her as she turns around. “So don’t worry about it.” She shoves the toothbrush into her mouth, makes an exaggerated show of enjoying it, closing her eyes and humming in fake overdramatic bliss. By the time she finally spits and rinses her mouth out, Francesca’s laughing, almost loud enough to miss Michaela turning to her and rubbing her stomach like a child. “Mmmmm, so good.”
Francesca rolls her eyes, pokes her with her elbow. “Go to bed, dummy.”
Michaela squawks in fake outrage, but she finishes up and leaves the bathroom. Francesca can hear her moving amongst the bedclothes, settling in. She doesn’t even have to look to know Michaela’s picked the right side of the bed, closest to the nightstand. It’s the side she always sleeps on; she says it’s because the left side is against the wall and she doesn’t like feeling boxed in, but no matter where they are, where they end up, Francesca’s on the left, Michaela’s on the right.
Alone in the bathroom now, Francesca breathes in deeply. She stares at herself in the mirror. Long hair, brown eyes, straight nose. Amusement curled into the corners of her face. It’s Michaela’s doing, she knows, and her heart skips a beat at the fact that she can see Michaela’s influence so visibly. She’s not used to that, not used to being able to perceive so easily the ways in which other people affect her. Perhaps she’s not used to having other people affect her so much. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Maybe -–
“Francesca!” Michaela calls, pretending to be annoyed. There’s a rustle, then a sigh. “Hurry up and come to bed!”
Francesca’s lip falls from where she’d been worrying it between her teeth, and she smiles. “Be patient,” she calls back, pretending to be just as annoyed; but it’s nothing more than a game they play, and both of them know that. In reality, Francesca’s never been annoyed with Michaela in her life, and she’s pretty sure the opposite is true as well.
“Ughhhhh.” Michaela sighs again, seeming to summon her inner middle-school theater kid with the amount of contrived drama in her voice. “I’m not good at being patient, Fran, you know that.”
And yes, Francesca does know that very well. She’s watched Michaela wait in lines dozens of times -– at crowded cafes, the movies, the train station -– and every time, Michaela’s wiggling, complaining. She truly hates waiting, hates being kept away from any experience which could possibly be beautiful — and maybe it’s this which makes Francesca drop the game and acquiesce. She’s not one to make Michaela wait, after all. Not one to inconvenience her, to hold her back from anything. In fact, maybe it’s just the stress of the night, the worry she always holds for Michaela that’s knotted itself into a clump just under her heart like yarn when she messes up a crochet project, but she’s pretty sure she’d do absolutely anything Michaela asked her to do.
“Okay,” she says, “I’m coming,” and she flicks off the bathroom light.
***
Francesca tries to call her mother once a week. Sometimes, when work gets busy or if she’s got unexpected plans, it ends up being every other week, but whenever that happens her stomach fills with guilt and the first minute or so of their next call is composed solely of her profuse apologies. It’s not too big of a deal, she knows; going a few extra days without talking is okay, but Francesca holds the dubious honor-slash-curse of being the Bridgerton child to move the farthest away. Except for Daphne, that is, but Daphne visits home so often and Violet watches her newborn son, Auggie, so much that she doesn’t really count. Her mother’s not entirely an empty nester yet; she’s still got Hyacinth and her precociousness keeping her hands very full, and Gregory’s state university is close enough for him to make surprise visits all the time. But still, it’s different from Francesca’s memories of her childhood, of all of them at home, shouting and laughing and crowding onto one shared couch to watch movies on Saturday nights. And while all that chaos might’ve overwhelmed Francesca herself, she knew her mother loved it and missed it fiercely, in equal measure. So: the weekly calls.
It’s still early, eight-fifteen, and Francesca sits on her couch, shrouded in an oversized hoodie and pajama pants, dialing her mother’s number. The sun’s pouring in through the blinds, casting stripes on the wood planks of the floor, and she’s daydreaming about the pancakes she’ll make for Michaela later. For Michaela. The mere thought of it, the memory of spending the night next to her, of all the sleepovers that lie ahead of them, sends shivers down her spine. They’d stayed on their respective sides all the way through the night, of course -– even in sleep, Michaela is nothing but respectful of Francesca’s boundaries. But they’d had a whispered conversation in the dark, before Michaela’s words drifted from enthusiastic to slurred to silent and her breathing had slowed down. It hadn’t been anything earth-shattering, of course, just a normal conversation between the two of them, but Francesca finds herself smiling at the mere memory of it.
Her mother answers on the third ring. “Hi, dearest!” she exclaims, dishware clinking behind her -– Francesca guesses she’s probably standing at the stove, making breakfast for herself and Hyacinth.
“Good morning, Mum,” Francesca says, the spoken words slightly startling against the silence pervading the apartment. “What’re you doing?”
“Just making eggs,” her mother answers, and Francesca nods, her assumptions now confirmed. “Hyacinth slept over at Lily’s last night, so she’s not here right now, but I’ve made her promise she’ll be home within the hour so I can see her before I leave.”
“Right. Volunteering today?” Her mother, desperately needing some way to fill her schedule after her children began to grow up and leave the house and stopped needing rides to dance rehearsals or soccer practices, had taken up volunteering every Sunday morning. She goes with her friend, Mrs. Danbury, and the two of them carpool; Eloise always makes dumb and unfounded jokes about them potentially being lesbians, but Francesca privately thinks it’s very sweet. She’s just glad her mother has turned to volunteering and community improvement as a way to fill up her time, rather than wallowing in the existential depression Francesca suspects she experienced when the first few of them left home.
“Mm-hmm!” her mother confirms, the sound of sizzling bubbling up in the background. “Today we’re going to Julien Park, gonna clean up trash and plant some trees.”
“That’s lovely,” Francesca says, and she means it. “Tell Mrs. Danbury and everyone I say hi.”
“I will, darling.” Something beeps on the other end; Violet clucks her tongue. “Oh, there’s my eggs.” Francesca can hear her moving around, clinking dishes, gathering silverware. “So how are you, dearest? How have you been this week?”
Francesca never really knows how to answer that question. “I’m pretty good,” she says, shifting her weight on the cushions. “I haven’t really been doing much, but last night-–”
“What, dear?” Her mother adjusts the phone, and suddenly her voice is magnified; Francesca winces, turns down the volume. “You’re speaking softly, I can’t hear you.”
“I know, Mum,” she says, permitting her voice to come out just a little bit louder, “that’s what I was telling you. Last night, Michaela’s apartment flooded, so she’s staying with me for now. She’s still asleep so I was just trying to be quiet.”
“Oh, no.” Violet’s sympathy and worry are apparent in equal measure in the tone of her voice. “Oh, poor baby. Is she all right?”
“Yes, don’t worry. She’s okay. It was just scary, I think.”
Violet hums. “Oh, I can imagine. And her apartment was so beautiful, and she spent so much time on it… oh, poor thing must be so sad.” Her tone turns thoughtful. “I’ll bake her something, send it over to you. She likes lemon bars, right?”
Francesca smiles; it warms her heart, seeing her mother accept Michaela so easily as one of her own. “Yes,” she says, “with extra powdered sugar.”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t know how well powdered sugar will travel in the mail, so I’ll trust you to put that on top for her.”
“I mean, I don’t know how well lemon bars will travel in the mail, either,” Francesca points out.
Violet dismisses her worry, though. “Oh, don’t worry, dear. I’ve sent them before, they were a little smushed but tasted just fine. Can I trust you to add the powdered sugar for me?”
“Of course,” Francesca says.
“Good, because you know, they really shouldn’t be eaten without it. The sweetness of the sugar curbs the sourness of the lemon, it’s a very important component. We can’t have Michaela eating too-sour lemon bars after her apartment floods, now, can we?”
Francesca laughs quietly. “Thank you, Mum. That’s really kind. She’ll love them.”
“Well, good,” her mother says; “tell her if she needs anything, I’m always here, and I love her very much, and she should watch the Instagram video I sent her.”
This time, Francesca’s less prepared for the laugh that escapes her -– it’s not as quiet, and she winces, hoping Michaela is still asleep. “What? What on earth did you DM her?”
“None of your business, it’s not your DM,” her mother says, fake-haughtily. “No, you know, I just send her art videos whenever I see them. Some of them have very nice ideas and I think she could use them for her gallery. Anyway, I sent her some a few days ago, but she hasn’t responded, so will you do me a favor and tell her to watch them? There was one video I really liked -– about new painting frames, I think she might like it too.”
Francesca groans. “They’re called reels, Mum,” she corrects, “not videos.”
“Oh, whatever. Reels, then. I sent her some reels and I think she would like them.”
“Okay. I’ll remind her. She doesn’t check her DMs often, you know.”
“I know, darling, yes. That’s why I wanted you to remind her, so she can see the frames before her event in two weeks.”
Francesca shakes her head wonderingly. Her mother’s right, Michaela’s got a big event in two weeks. The gallery she works for is opening a new branch in Kolkata, so Michaela’s been preparing for an upcoming seven-day trip, complete with a conference and celebration of the new opening, to India. Francesca knows about it, of course, is intimately familiar with the details of the event, how Frankie, Michaela’s boss, is childhood best friends with the soon-to-be gallery owner in Kolkata, and how another of her coworkers, Sasha, is really pissing her off with how many times she’s forgotten how many chairs they’ll need; but Francesca also sees Michaela practically every day. Violet, by contrast, hasn’t seen her since Colin’s birthday party three months ago, and even then only in passing as they hadn’t gotten to talk much. How her mother manages to remember every single big life event in the lives of all eight of her children, plus their spouses or partners -– and, in this case, their dearest friends -– she has no idea, but what Francesca may lack in understanding, she makes up for in admiration for such a skill.
“I’ll let her know,” she says, “I promise.”
Her mother hums a thank-you. A minute of silence passes between them, then she speaks again, her tone thoughtful and serious. “It’s very kind of you to take her in, Fran.”
Francesca shrugs, slightly uncomfortable about the topic change as well as the implication that there was ever an option for Francesca to not take Michaela in. “Not really, I mean, she called me and she was all alone, it’s not like I would’ve ever said no.”
“I know,” says Violet, “but it takes time to repair buildings from excessive water damage, so she’ll probably be staying with you for a month, right-–”
“Four to six weeks, yeah-–”
“Right, and that’s a lot of forced proximity, Fran. I mean…” Her mother softens her tone at Francesca’s dismissive snort. “I only mean to say, darling, that you find a great deal of happiness in your solitude. You always have. I remember-–” she begins to chuckle -– “I remember when you were a child, I would come up with games to play or places to go, but you were always happiest when I left you alone.” Her tone’s not bitter in the slightest, just matter-of-fact, slightly teasing. “So I just -– I worry about you, about what’ll happen if you don’t have any alone time for that long.”
“I’ll be fine, Mum,” Francesca says hastily.
“Hmm.” Violet doesn’t sound convinced. “I know you love Michaela dearly,” she continues, and Francesca’s heart jolts in her chest for some odd reason, a strange occurrence she promptly pushes to the back of her mind. “And, well…”
Her mother’s voice trails off, returns delicate, and it’s this more than anything which makes Francesca take note, makes her heart skip a beat in her chest. Whenever her mother takes this sort of delicate tone with any of her children, well. Good things may follow, certainly, and she may turn out to be right in the end, but that doesn’t mean it’s anything anyone particularly wants to hear.
“Fran, you know I love you very much,” Violet begins, and Francesca silences the immediate uh-oh that thuds into her brain with all the heaviness of a rock dropped into a lake, forcing herself to be fair and hear her mother out. “You love loudly. All of us do, but you, dearest, especially, well, you’ve always felt things so strongly, even if you aren’t always vocal about it. And I’m… well, I’m just so thrilled, Fran, genuinely, that you have found someone to love so loudly and to care about so deeply.” She continues quickly, a hasty, shaky laugh sliding from the corner of her mouth, and for the first time, Francesca realizes her mother might be nervous. She furrows her brows as her mother goes on, muttering almost to herself at this point. “And I mean, he was so quiet, and you were so quiet with him, I’m just glad you–-”
Francesca cuts her off. “Who are you talking about?” she asks, a strange foreboding feeling overtaking her limbs. Suddenly she’s not hungry anymore. “Who was I quiet with?”
And maybe Mrs. Bridgerton possesses no tact, or maybe she’d just momentarily forgotten the intricacies of the situation, the months Francesca had spent trying to work out her own heart, because without missing a beat, she replies, “Well, with John, of course.”
They sit in silence for a moment. Francesca blinks: stunned, confused, slightly offended. “What…” she begins, and there’s a note of irritation in her tone that she just can’t hold back. “Mum, what on earth are you talking about? Comparing John to Michaela? But that doesn’t make any sense, they’re entirely different, just because they grew up as siblings doesn’t mean they’re the same person or act in the same ways, everyone is always confusing them and it’s not fair. John is my ex-boyfriend,” she exclaims, and immediately forces herself to quiet down or risk waking Michaela up in the middle of a conversation she herself might not understand but is well aware she does not want Michaela to overhear. She continues at a drastically lower volume. “He is my ex-boyfriend and now my best friend, and Michaela is… well, she…”
For some reason, Francesca’s scrabbling for words. How best to categorize Michaela, to describe the very particular space Michaela takes up in her life? She’s not sure.
“She is very important to me,” she finishes lamely, well aware herself that she’s not really made the point she was trying to make.
Violet sighs on the other end. “I understand that, darling. I promise. I’m not trying to compare them, I’m well aware they’re wildly different people, trust me,” she chuckles, “but, well…” She trails off again. This time, when her voice returns, it’s gentler. “I know you have such a capacity for love,” she says quietly. “So much energy to watch over and take care of the people you care about. I just worry about you, dearest. Especially considering the limited space, knowing how you are when you don’t have any time alone. I just want you to promise me that you’ll remember to take care of yourself, and your own heart, too.”
Francesca breathes out, long and slow, on the fence about whether or not to be offended. She’s still unsure how any of Violet’s long-winded points relate to one another. Her mind is spinning like the inside of a kaleidoscope, trying to figure out what on earth her mother is talking about -– but there’s just as large a part of her that thinks maybe she’s better off not understanding. “I know, Mum,” she says. “And thank you. I appreciate the reminder. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Good.” Her mother finally sounds satisfied. “Well, I’d better run, darling, I have to finish getting ready, Mrs. Danbury is driving today and she’ll be here in fifteen minutes. But you take care of yourself, okay? And don’t forget-–”
“--to remind Michaela to check her DMs, Mum, I got it.”
“And also to tell her I love her very much and to let me know if she needs anything,” her mother reminds her, and Francesca softens. Her mother really is one of the kindest, most welcoming people she’s ever met. Right up there with Michaela herself, probably.
“I will,” she promises, and means it. “Love you, Mum, I’ll talk to you soon.”
She can hear her mother smile on the other end. “I love you more, dearest.”
The call disconnects, and Francesca’s left alone in her living room, the quiet somewhat of a shock as it takes the place of her mother’s voice. Twenty-four years old and it still soothes her. No matter how much they might disagree, how much her mother’s insistence on loud love may irk her, ruffle her feathers until she’s more up in arms than Anthony listening to any of Hyacinth’s loud and sprawling and potentially falsified tales from school, at the end of the day, her mother can always tuck her back into bed again.
Metaphorically speaking, that is. She frowns. Sorry, Mum, but I don’t want you anywhere near me and Michaela’s bed.
The thought startles her -– both for the fierceness with which she wants her mother to stay away, and the fact that she’d called the bed her and Michaela’s without even thinking -– and she shifts against the pillows, momentarily uncomfortable and yet still unsure why.
The particulars of the conversation thud back into the front of her mind and she frowns, still utterly lost. What on earth could her mother have meant, comparing John to Michaela? They were completely different; Fran had seen them get irritated enough times when people equated them to one another, assumed on the basis of their closeness that they must be carbon copies of each other, that now she herself gets irritated by it, too. But then, her mother had said she knew they were different, had promised she wasn’t trying to assume they were one and the same. So what on earth, then, could she have meant?
I guess she wasn’t trying to compare them, Francesca thinks suddenly, with an odd, focused moment of clarity, so much as she was comparing my love for them. She shakes her head violently, like she’s rolling dice. Seeing what result she’ll end up with. What path in the metaphorical game she’ll be set on. But that still doesn’t answer any of my questions.
She frowns at the phone in her hand. Should I call her back? she wonders. And she’s almost there, too, got her mother’s contact pulled up on her screen and finger hovering over the call button, carpool with Mrs. Danbury be damned, when she hears soft footsteps and a sleepy, beautiful Michaela comes into view.
Francesca can’t help her heart skipping a beat at the sight of her. Her eyes are still half-closed, pajama pants caught around one ankle, and she’s still got an imprint from the pillows pressed into her cheek; but she smiles easily when she sees Francesca and moves to sit beside her.
“Good morning, Fran!” she exclaims; and Francesca had been watching her carefully for any sign of emotionality, but at the boisterous greeting despite the early hour, and the smile which is too wide to be anything but real, she relaxes instantly. “What have you been up to this early in the morning?”
“It’s barely even early,” Francesca replies reflexively, looking away and staring over Michaela’s shoulder at the kitchen wall behind her. This close, the smell of jasmine is nearly overtaking her, making it difficult to answer the question.
Michaela helps her out, though, as always. She leans back onto the arm of the couch opposite from Francesca, yawning elegantly behind her hand with the grace a cat might use to casually lick its paw. “Was that your beautiful mother I heard on the phone?”
Francesca’s torn between a wince at potentially having woken Michaela up and a scowl at Michaela for flirting with her mother again, and manages neither -– though Michaela watches her with an amused gleam in her eye, as if she could tell anyway. “Yes,” she says, managing to stop herself from rolling her eyes just in time, lest Michaela catch the gesture and press for details of their conversation, “and she says hello, and she loves you, and to please tell her if you need anything, and also to please check your Instagram DMs.”
Michaela bursts out laughing.
They decide to spend the morning at Michaela’s, carefully salvaging whatever they can find that hasn’t been too water-damaged. Overall, it’s mostly good news: the burst pipe had largely missed her apartment, save for some damage on a few kitchen cabinets and some interesting water patterns on the walls. One poster ends up completely ruined, a window-sized Monet reproduction, and Michaela stares at it for a second, assessing the damage, then declares her relief that she’d gotten it for so cheap.
Michaela’s not moving out forever, of course, so they leave most of the big, heavy stuff, but on the way back to Francesca’s -- which Francesca has already begun privately thinking of as theirs -- they’re laden down by suitcases and tote bags full of clothes, books, tchotchkes.
On the quiet walk back from the train station, Francesca chances a glance over at Michaela. She’s walking with her head down, bottom lip between her teeth. And sure, she’d put on a brave face all morning, but it was hard, arduous work, having to sift through your damaged belongings.
Francesca glances around her, makes a decision, and reaches out. Michaela’s arm is warm, muscles taut from the effort of carrying so much, and she looks over at the touch, quizzical until Francesca pulls her over to the storefronts, holds open the door of the nearest cafe, and ushers Michaela inside.
Inside, she knows she’s made the right choice when Michaela softly smiles up at her. It tugs at her heartstrings, and in an odd, unfiltered moment, she leans over and wraps her arm around Michaela’s shoulders entirely, pulling Michaela into her. Michaela’s warm, body solid against hers, and she lets out a quiet sound of surprise and then curls into Francesca’s embrace, just a bit.
They’re making an odd image, Francesca thinks. Two girls in a cafe, surrounded by suitcases and bags, looking for all intensive purposes like tourists in their own city. Arms wrapped around each other as they study the menu. It doesn’t bother her, though; it’s just nice to have Michaela like this, pressed into her. She breathes in honeysuckle and jasmine, and looks around her serenely, contentedly. “I’m paying, by the way,” she murmurs into Michaela’s ear, and Michaela glares but acquiesces.
Ten minutes later finds them sitting at the table nearest the window, bags shoved unceremoniously between the wall and Francesca’s chair. It’s a beautiful day, sun pouring in, pedestrians hurrying past outside, and the cafe’s nice, cool-toned wooden tables and the smell of coffee beans in the air. Michaela’s staring out the window, sipping her iced coffee. Francesca’s halfway through her danish, hunger having finally hit her for the first time since before she’d called her mother.
Her memory of their conversation returns in full force, and she frowns without even realizing. Michaela catches it, though, and her brows shift in worry. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asks.
Francesca shakes it off. “Nothing,” she says, attempting a normal smile. “I’m fine.”
Michaela just narrows her eyes and lifts a finger. Very softly, she brushes the area between Francesca’s eyebrows. “No, you’re not,” she says, “you’ve got a crinkle.”
Her touch is featherlight, and Francesca’s heart stutters. It’s strange, sometimes, being known so well.
She shrugs, sighs. “Just my mom saying weird stuff this morning.”
“Your mom is always saying weird stuff,” Michaela replies, which Francesca recognizes as an attempt at a joke, to lighten Francesca’s mood, but she’s watching Francesca carefully, fingers stilled around the straw of her coffee.
“True,” Francesca concedes. She bites her lip, index finger picking at the skin of her thumb involuntarily.
Michaela catches it yet again, presses her hand over Francesca’s to stop the nervous tic. Their hands stay like that, completely still on the table. Francesca watches with some amount of fascination, as if it wasn’t her own hand there under Michaela’s.
“Do you want to tell me what weird stuff she was saying today?” Michaela asks quietly, and her voice is so gentle Francesca feels her resolve melting, just a bit. Just enough.
“Okay,” she says, and takes a deep breath. “It was about John.”
She watches her friend’s face carefully. For an instant, Michaela’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and then the next second she’s blank-faced again, schooling her expressions. “That is very weird,” she says, in a tone that drifts off, inviting Francesca to continue. When she doesn’t, not immediately, Michaela speaks again. “What was she saying about John?”
And it’s moments like these when Francesca kind of wishes she and John had never dated at all. Because it’s weird, now, for both her and Michaela. John exists between them at all times, and most times he’s invisible, they can’t see him or they forget about how they were brought together in the first place, but sometimes, in moments like this, his specter becomes larger than life, looming over them both. And it makes everything weird.
She shrugs. “Just talking about the way I loved him,” she says, and winces, immediately wishing she could take it back. Because that answer isn’t helping at all; in fact, now she’s making everything kind of worse.
“Hmm.” Michaela watches her, inscrutable. “I mean, to be fair, you guys are kind of weird exes,” she says, and she blinks rapidly before continuing. “Would you… I mean, would you ever want to try again? With him?”
Francesca’s already shaking her head. “No,” she says, “no, no;” and she wonders if she imagines the brief flash of something in Michaela’s eyes. Was Michaela upset she was saying no? Did she want them to get back together?
“I mean,” Francesca asks, more carefully; and that’s weird, too, she never has to walk on eggshells around Michaela; “do you think we should? What do you think?”
Michaela blinks, like she hadn’t expected the question. She smiles, though. “I think you should do whatever is right for you, Fran,” she replies, and if Francesca hadn’t known her so well, she wouldn’t have noticed the curve of her mouth and the look in her eyes that meant the mask was back up.
She doesn’t press it, though, not wanting to make things feel even less stable between her and Michaela. There’s already been enough weirdness for one morning.
“Well,” she says, “I love John very much, but he’s just my friend.” Privately, she hopes that’s okay. Hopes the odd flash of emotion she’d caught on Michaela’s face wasn’t irritation that they weren’t going to try again. But then she remembers after their breakup when she and Michaela had finally reunited. They’d been drunk at a bar, and… what was it Michaela had said? I think you two make much more sense as friends, anyway.
Francesca exhales, feeling more secure in her decisions, comforted by Past Michaela’s words.
Present Michaela seems to agree, too, shifting in her seat and sipping her coffee. She nods, and when she smiles at Francesca, it’s real, not contrived. “That sounds good to me,” she says.
Francesca, relieved, can’t help but smile back. The conversation had been a little weird, but it’s over now, and Michaela seems okay, not mad at her, and if they didn’t get to everything Mrs. Bridgerton had said on the phone that morning -- well, that’s okay. Perhaps it didn’t need to be discussed, after all.
She leans over, their hands still pressed against one another, and steals a sip of Michaela’s iced coffee, earning herself an eye roll and a fond smile in return. “Shall we go home?” she asks.
Michaela nods, scooting her chair back and standing up. Francesca does too, and once again she’s immediately forcibly reminded of their height difference now that she’s looking down into Michaela’s eyes. Just like last night. She shudders involuntarily. It’s weird, this sudden sense of existing in relation to Michaela. She’s not entirely sure what to do with it.
They gather their things, hoist bags back over their shoulders and grab handles of suitcases, and leave the cafe, narrowly avoiding tripping any customers, which Francesca decides is a win for her own limbs, which are too often more clumsy than she would like.
As they step back out onto the street, Francesca’s pleasantly full of coffee and pastries, caramel syrup on her tongue, and when Michaela touches her arm, she glances over, a smile coming easily to her lips.
“Thank you,” Michaela says, and there’s something in her eyes that warms Francesca from the inside, overpowers the chill of the iced coffee. Makes her feel stronger, somehow. Like she could go clean out Michaela’s apartment and practically move her into her own a thousand more times, maybe.
Francesca looks back at her best friend, at her pretty hair, pretty mouth, bright-eyed and glowing in the sun, and smiles. “Anytime.”