Page 93 of Go Find Less
“We’ve gone out for drinks a few times.” She nods toward Frannie. “I think the last time we saw the two of them together was right after Frannie’s graduation from LSSU.”
“You saw them together?” I ask my sister and she shrugs, wiping down Greta’s face.
From the kitchen, my dad calls, “This bottle is almost empty! I’m going down to get another.”
“We ran into them at the mall.” Frannie gives me a small, sad smile. “I think that was right before the funeral. She looked so different from what I remembered, Will. Hollow.” I feel a lump in my throat forming, and I try not to picture the girl I’d seen in that obituary picture - sure, she’d looked like Piper, but having looked back at it a few days ago, she wasn’t herself. Wasn’t bright and buzzing with energy. Like being with Mickey had taken the life right out of her, too.
“That family put her through hell, Will,” Paula says, crossing her arms over her chest tightly.
“I know.” She looks concerned, but I can’t tell whether it’s for me, or for Piper.
“I don’t want to see either of you get hurt again.” Her lips purse, and for the first time in a long, long time, I see her eyes shine.
But then a door closes below us, and she shakes her head, turning to look at her granddaughter, face softening.
“I think after this, Mimi is going to get you some cake, hm?” Greta giggles, stuffing a piece of pasta into her mouth, and I try to sink further in my seat as everyone observes me. For once, I’m thankful for Dad’s interruption as he brings in Paula’s glass, half full, and a freshly opened, similar bottle.
By the time Frannie, Freddy and I sit down in the living room several drinks and a piece of cake each later, Paula has shooed us out of the kitchen so she can organize the leftovers, and Dad has ventured outside with their labradoodle, Lincoln, for their evening walk.
“Seer and Chloe seem to think things went well last night,” Frannie says, curling her legs underneath her and sipping at the wine in her hand. Greta plays with a set of blocks on a mat at her feet.
“I didn’t realize the whole Scooby gang would be there.” I glance at the kitchen over her shoulder, wondering how much Paula can hear from here.
“You went toMenagerie,” Freddy points out, lifting his vodka soda as if to sayyour fault, dumbass.
“Yeah, but Seer, Mateo and José in one night? Plus Chloe?” I shake my head, leaning back into the couch. “I’m lucky all their bullshitting didn’t scare her off.”
“Not everyone is as fun-averse as you.” Freddy smirks when he says it, but I eye him. This, coming from the guy who gave up soccer in middle school because he made the mistake of researching sports related injuries for a school paper. Sure, dude could party like no other around people he liked. But put him in a social situation with a bunch of strangers? We were exactly the same, on that front.
Frannie shrugs, scrolling through her phone in her hand. “José likes to be there when a couple of them are working, that’s why he told his friends he’d do the sound gig. Mostly for fun-"
“Wait.” I lean forward. “A couple of who?” Frannie’s eyes narrow.
“Uh, his kids?” She says it like I’m dumb, but I feel dumb, and confused. “Seer and Mateo?”
“Seer isn’t José’s kid,” I reason, sitting my glass on the table in front of me. “Why does everyone keep calling her that?” I’d heard the offhanded comments they’d made on Saturday, but assumed it was a joke, given that José had been clearly working with Seer on her cooking skills.
“His son is married to Seer’s brother.” Freddy looks at me over his glass, his face pinched together. “They got married at Pearson Place.” One of our more modern venues on the west side of Fort Worth, I knew it well, helped open it a few years back. But José’s son?
“Mateo isn’t-"
“Not Mateo, you loser.” Frannie snorts into her glass. “Jesse.”Jesse. Fuck.
It clicks. Jesse, José’s stepson. Jesse, whose mom had married José when we were in college.
Frannie turns her phone toward me, and it’s a picture clearly taken at Jesse’s wedding. He and the blonde next to him, a very serious juxtaposition to Jesse’s dark features, were wearing coordinating gray suits, while the surrounding group was in shades of black and purple. In the crowd, I immediately spot Seer, half a foot shorter than everyone else, and Frannie, just pregnant enough that I could tell. With them was a smiling Chloe, Mateo, José’s daughter Andrea, her husband Caesar, and Jesse’s twin sister, Jasmine.
“That’s how Seer and I met,” Frannie says softly, probably because she can see the shock in my face at taking in the whole group. I didn’t even realize she and Seer were that good of friends, or that Seer was close to José, until a few weeks ago, so seeing her as such an integral part of that group is surprising. “Remember, Jesse and Mateo lived down the street from us in college?” I nod - Dad had done the same thing for her that he’d done for Freddy years later, bought a house for her and her friends to rent out. “When that last shitbag roommate moved out,” she starts, but Paula cuts in from the kitchen.
“Shitbag is an understatement,” she calls over the sound of running water, and I wonder how long she’s been listening. “I still think she sold your laptop on Craigslist.”
“ANYWAYS,” Frannie rolls her eyes, “Jesse said I should talk to Seer. José and Athena were dating by then, and Athena is on cast with Seer at Greensleeves. She’s basically Seer and Liam’s second mom. Seer was even Andrea’s nanny for a while.” She leans back, locking her phone and taking a deep sip of her drink, her eyes crinkling like she’s remembering something bad. But when she says “And then shit hit the fan,” I know exactly what she’s talking about.
And it all falls into place.
“Is what happened to Seer in college why she’s sober now?” I ask slowly, trying to be delicate, because I remember Frannie being affected by it then, now realizing how much more it probably did if she and Seer are still so close.
“You mean being brutally sexually assaulted and then thrown under the bus by LSSU?” Frannie asks, eyebrows raised, swirling her glass in one hand. I rear back at her bluntness, somewhat unlike her, and Fred chokes on the sip he’s just taken. She reaches over and gives him a rough pat on the back, which nearly makes his drink spill over the edge of his glass. In my pocket, my phone starts buzzing, and I look down at my watch to see a number I don’t have saved across the screen. I swipe it away - spam.
