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2025
(The Ten Year Anniversary of The Dinner Where Robert and Sol Told The Truth)
Grace wakes up.
The first thing that strikes her is how comfortable she feels. Suspiciously so. She hasn’t felt this good in years. In ever. For a moment, she wonders if she’s dead. If so, it’s not bad.
She opens her eyes.
Curled up beside her, in a bed she can’t quite recognize, in a room full of light and the distant murmur of the sea through the window, is:
“Frankie??” she cries, scrambling back. As she does it, she realizes she needs to clutch the top sheet to her chest.
“Hey, mama.” Frankie’s eyes are closed. Her mouth curves in a pleased, catlike smile. Her hair is the craziest Grace has ever seen it, and that’s saying something. What did she do right before this, wrestle a hurricane? “What did I tell you? Is Nap Club the best or what?”
Grace almost doesn’t want to say it. It’s too perverse. Too insane. But it’s also too elephant in the fucking room to ignore. “We’re–” She lowers her voice, absurdly, as if there are witnesses hiding in the closet: “naked!”
“Duh,” says Frankie. She stretches her arms over her head with very little care for the top sheet. Grace averts her eyes. “That’s one of the major selling points of Nap Club. That and the snacks.”
“There are no snacks in bed,” Grace says automatically.
“Damn. I hoped maybe I’d rocked your world enough for you to forget about the no-snacks-in-bed rule.”
“Did you drug me?” Grace demands.
At last, Frankie opens her eyes. “What?”
“I mean it, Frankie. Did you put something in my drink? Did you try to go on a vision quest together again? How many times have I told you: the vision quest is never happening! And why are we at the beach house? What the hell is going on?” Her eyes fill with tears from sheer confusion. So now she’s naked in front of Frankie and she’s crying in front of Frankie. Fantastic.
“Honey.” Frankie’s voice is softer than Grace has ever heard it before. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? I’m in Naked Nap Club with my least favorite person on earth. That’s what’s wrong!”
For a moment, Frankie’s face is full of hurt, and Grace feels a pang of remorse. Frankie isn’t really her least favorite person. Not while Robert’s mother still draws breath. But God, she’s a pain in the ass. Frankie must feel the same way about her, right? Grace had always thought that the feeling was mutual.
The look on Frankie’s face doesn’t make it feel mutual.
But then Frankie gasps, going from crestfallen to ecstatic in a millisecond. “Oh my God, Grace. It worked.”
“What worked??”
“Time travel!” Frankie waves her arms, rhapsodic. “Or, to be more precise, There-Is-No-Time Travel. We did it, baby. We cracked the temporal ceiling. The block universe theory is real. Time is but an illusion. Everything is everywhere all at once! – oh, but you haven’t seen that yet.”
“Haven’t seen what?”
“God, what I wouldn’t give to experience Oscar Night 2023 again. EEAAO sweep! Suck it, Banshees of Inisherin. Justice for Colin Ferrell’s donkey!”
“For fuck’s sake, Frankie, what are you talking about?”
“Magic, Grace. A spell to loosen the bonds of time itself and travel back and forth within our lifespans on especially significant dates. I knew TikTok user GenZDruidess420 wouldn’t steer us wrong, no matter how many times you told me to stop watching before I got a virus. And before you ask, yes, I’m still only watching the reposts on BlueSky. I’m never fucking with the clock app again after all that President Cheetoh propaganda!”
“Maybe I am dead,” Grace muses.
Frankie puts her hands on Grace’s bare shoulders. “When did you last see me?”
“I don’t know.” Grace shakes her off. She doesn’t like how inexplicably familiar it feels, Frankie touching her with such easy, worn-in intimacy.
“Don’t I look a tad older than usual? While more radiantly beautiful than ever, of course.”
“I don’t pay attention to how old you look,” Grace scoffs.
“Yes you do,” Frankie says with a knowing smirk, “so you can be sure you look younger.”
Damn it. Busted.
Now that Frankie’s pointed it out, she does seem older than the last time Grace paid attention to her: a few more wrinkles, a little more gravity.
“What year is it?” Frankie asks.
“What year is it? Trust you to ask that question,” Grace says, mostly to make herself feel better. “2015.”
“Try 2025, chica.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“Oh, all right. Who can argue with that? How’s 2025?”
“Full of sociopolitical horrors beyond what you can possibly imagine,” says Frankie, “but there are three Paddington movies. How’s 2015? Oh, you sweet summer child.”
“It’s fine. I’m supposed to see you tonight, in fact, for that stupid dinner with our husbands where they’ll finally announce their retirement, God willing.”
“Oh right,” says Frankie. “Those guys.”
Grace stares at her, unsettled. "Where are Robert and Sol? Dead? They must be dead, right? Robert died and I lost my mind from grief and did this?” Grace pauses, impressed. “Wow. I guess I was a good wife after all." She hadn’t seen that one coming.
"Especially considering the present circumstances," Frankie says, "boy, do I have a funny story for you about Robert and Sol."
“Oh yeah?” Grace crosses her arms. “What’s that?”
Frankie considers her. “You better get dressed first. You don’t want to be cold for this.”
While Grace averts her eyes again, Frankie fetches a flowy paisley robe from the floor for herself, then tosses a sweatshirt Grace’s way. Grace would prefer to dress less Winnie the Pooh, but she’ll take what she can get.
She shakes out the sweatshirt and examines it.
On the front, in gigantic letters, it says PICKLE SLUT.
Grace stares at Frankie.
“Don’t look at me like that. You love your Pickle Slut sweatshirt!”
Grace stares some more.
“On second thought,” Frankie says, “it’s an inside joke. Maybe you wouldn’t get it.”
“We don’t have inside jokes,” Grace says crossly, pulling the terrible sweatshirt over her head.
“We didn’t have inside jokes,” Frankie corrects, “until Robert and Sol.”
Then she tells Grace the whole story.
***
“So they’re husbands.”
“Yes.”
“And they were cheating on us with each other for twenty years.”
“Uh huh.”
“And we moved in together here when they left us.”
“Right.”
“And we became best friends who run a–” Discreet whisper. “–vibrator business?”
“Say it loud, say it proud, girlfriend. Buzz, buzz.”
“And I married a handsome younger billionaire who was obsessed with me and then divorced him because I loved you more.”
“Far be it from me to brag, but absofruitely.”
Grace considers this. “Do you have a picture?”
“Pfffffffft,” Frankie says zestfully. So that’s a no.
“That still doesn’t explain why we’re naked in bed together at …” Grace consults the alarm clock on the bedside table. “4:17 in the afternoon.”
“We like an early bedtime. Afternoon delight is more our speed these days.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Grace puts her face in her hands. “How could this ever happen, even if we do become best friends? Don’t take this the wrong way, Frankie, but I have never wanted to sleep with you. I’ve never even thought about– all that.”
“Not even when we did that danceathon fundraiser in 2002 and I taught you how to tango, and you found my Gomez Addams-esque ability to lead with both poise and sensuality oddly arousing?”
The memory bubbles up for the first time in ages to stick its tongue out at her. Grace gasps. “Who told you about that?”
“You did. Ha ha!”
“I’m not a lesbian, Frankie!”
“Well, I’m not either. Although you probably shouldn’t check out your new haircut.”
“Oh, God.” Grace reaches for the phone on the bedside table. It’s different, but her passcode is still the same. Gosh, these things have gotten sleek. After a moment of fiddling, she successfully opens the camera app, turns it to selfie mode, and: “What have I done??”
“You’re a silver vixen, hot stuff. Own it!”
“This is a nightmare.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you’re thinking about growing it out again. Don’t worry. In queer circles, you’re what the kids call lapsed high femme. I’m bog witch bicon.”
“I really go out like this? In public? The length I can work with, but Frankie.” Grace doesn’t mean to whisper it, but can’t quite not: “My hair is gray.”
“Before you waste your time checking - yes, it is everywhere.”
Grace allows herself the respite of collapsing backwards and covering her face with a pillow. “How can this be?” she asks, voice muffled. “Who has sex in their eighties? Who has sex in their seventies, for Christ’s sake? Robert and I don’t." I guess now you know why, says a voice in her head that she chooses to ignore. "And no, this is not an invitation for you to regale me with tales of you and Sol’s geriatric hippie sexcapades.”
She can feel Frankie’s pitying eyes on her. “What? Just because you’ve got no bone density, you can’t bone down? Oh, 2015 Grace. I forgot just how tragic you are.”
“Isn’t all this a little absurd? The two of us so lonely that we start, what, going to bed together because no one else wants us? Talk about tragic.” Even as Grace says it, there’s a tiny stab of guilt. Frankie probably doesn’t deserve that.
“Tragic?” To her relief, Frankie doesn’t sound hurt. “Nah. Sure, some things aren’t as bendy or as–” She stops. “Will you forgive me if I use the word ‘moist’?”
“No,” Grace says darkly.
“Okay then. As … responsive as they used to be. But you and me, we love figuring out a challenge together; it’s kind of our thing. Not to mention you’ve got an in with the inventor of the world’s premier organic yam lube.”
“Oh, goody.”
“Homemade with NO palm oil, for the record.”
“Great. I was really worried.”
Frankie’s tone gets more solemn. “And sure, this is a time of life where your body betrays you in a lot of shitty ways. You don’t have to tell me that. I’m living it, sister. But that’s what makes it even sweeter to remember that our bodies can also make miracles.”
“Like turning yam lube into vodka, I hope.”
“You’re funny when you’re trying to outrun all your feelings.”
“Thank you,” Grace says into the pillow.
Frankie laughs quietly. It stirs a troublesome warmth in Grace’s chest. She finds herself asking, “How in the world did we ever start–”
“Making miracles?”
“Sure. That.”
Frankie hmms, thoughtful. “I guess it all started with painting.”
“What do you mean, painting?” Grace peeks cautiously out from under the pillow. “I don’t paint.”
“Ordinarily, no. But you did, for me. When my arthritis started getting bad, I thought I was going to have to give it up. And that was hard. I wasn’t coping too well. But you didn’t let me give up. You held my hand. You kept me steady. And we did it together. And then we, ya know.” Frankie wiggles her eyebrows. “Did it together.”
“I don’t believe you,” Grace grumbles, and goes back into pillow hiding.
Frankie chuckles. “Your loss.”
“I would never …” Grace tries to find the words. She tosses the pillow aside, even though her face is on fire. “Listen. Sure, it seems like I’ve … loosened up since when I’m from. If this is really happening, and I’m not having a stroke somewhere, which I absolutely am. But I know myself. I would never– nothing could ever make me– even if I wanted– not that I would ever want to–” She stares hopelessly at Frankie. “I just wouldn’t.”
“I know,” Frankie says. She sounds perfectly zen.
Something about it makes Grace want to scream. “You do?”
“I do. Believe it or not, I know you really well. This version of you, too. Not just Pickle Slut Grace.”
“So ...” Frankie waits for Grace to speak. It’s infuriatingly patient. Grace settles, at last, on, “So how?”
Frankie looks pensive for a moment. Grace isn’t used to that, Frankie stopping to think before she speaks. Then, with the tone of someone telling a fairytale: “A long time ago, I asked Sol about how it started with Robert. And he told me this story about their first kiss. It was in an elevator on a work trip, out of nowhere, after they’d already known each other forever. Sol said that Robert looked at him some kinda way, and just … kissed him. And it felt different from anything he’d ever felt before. It felt like … more. And when you started to hold my hand, when we started to paint together, to stand that close all the time, to touch each other…” Frankie shrugs. “We had already chosen each other in every other way; this was just one more. And after a while, it was just there, waiting. Boom. Rocket fuel.”
For a second, Grace can picture it. Holding Frankie’s hand in hers. Letting Frankie guide her across the canvas, watching colors bloom together. How easy it would be to turn around and face her, close enough to–
“This is insane,” Grace interrupts herself.
“It sure is,” Frankie agrees happily. She rests her chin in her hands. “Can I tell you something?”
“Oh, now what? Mallory got sick of Brianna pretending not to know her kids’ names and finally killed her?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what is it?”
Frankie takes both of Grace’s hands in hers and squeezes. “I love you like crazy, Grace Pauline Hanson. You’re the coolest, fiercest, smartest, scariest, tenderest, hottest, most annoying, most wonderful human I’ve ever met. You’re my soulmate. You’re all the missing pieces of the puzzle. I thought maybe the dog ate them or something, like maybe they got vacuumed up, and I’d never find them again, and there would be all these blank spots forever, but no – you had them all along, and now the picture’s complete.” Helpfully, she adds, “It’s a metaphorical dog. And a metaphorical vacuum. And a metaphorical puzzle.”
“I get that,” Grace says. She discovers that her voice is quavering.
“Good.” Frankie touches Grace’s cheek with one affectionate fingertip. “And I’m going to make you really happy for the rest of our lives, and you’re gonna be so damn good at returning the favor. So you just hang in there. Okay?”
Grace is in serious danger of crying in front of Frankie again.
“Okay,” she says, her voice a small flutter.
Frankie pulls back chivalrously. “I won’t kiss you, because of respectful boundaries.”
“Oh, so now you care about boundaries? What about that family vacation where you got us the hotel room with the Twin XL mattress?”
“What can I say? You’ve taught me a lot.”
It occurs to Grace how badly she’d like to be kissed. She can’t remember the last time Robert kissed her, really kissed her, the way he apparently kissed fucking Sol in an elevator once.
“I suppose,” she says, even as she can’t believe the words are escaping her mouth, “if you’re not too busy …”
“Me? I’m positively bedeviled with meetings, etcetera, TM Moira Rose. It’s a rat race out there.”
“Really?”
“A ha ha! No. I am climbing the decidedly uncorporate ladder to Etsy Witchdom, but that’s more of a work-from-home sitch.”
“Oh, good,” says Grace. “Whatever the fuck that means.”
“Now, what is it you’re getting at?”
Grace is quiet. You won’t say it, she thinks. You won’t really say it. It’s absurd.
“Maybe if you do it,” she says, a brave traitor to herself, “I’ll believe you.”
“Do you want to believe me?”
“Oh, Frankie. Just do it!”
“Do what?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
Frankie’s expression is uncommonly serious. “I think I’d like you to say it.”
“Kiss me,” Grace barely exhales.
Frankie considers her for a moment, like she’s still trying to tell whether Grace really means it. It’s strange, to be looked at so deeply. With such care.
Finally, Frankie nods, and leans in, and kisses her. Grace expects it to be awkward, to be horrible, or at least wants to expect that – but it isn’t. It’s perfect. It’s home. Frankie kisses her just the way she’s always wanted to be kissed. Like Phil Milstein might have kissed her, but she can’t remember for sure just now. This is so much more real than any faded memory.
Grace can tell somehow, bone deep, that they’ve done this a million times before. That this is only one drop in a vast, wonderful sea.
“Boom,” Frankie says softly when they part.
Grace rests her forehead against Frankie’s. It’s a very comfortable place to be.
“You are so loved, lady,” Frankie murmurs. “Don’t you ever forget it.”
With a shaky breath, Grace looks down at their entwined hands. It strikes her after a moment that they’re both wearing rings, and not their usual old ones. Her stomach fills with frightened, giddy butterflies. “What are these?”
“Third time’s the charm, Mrs. Purcell-Mengela-Hanson-Bergstein,” Frankie says with a joyful cackle. “Have I mentioned that we’re having a really good time?”
2015
(The Dinner Where Sol and Robert Tell The Truth)
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Frankie demands, staring warily at Grace across the restaurant table.
“I’m not,” Grace protests.
She really hadn’t meant to. She’s still trying to adjust to how horrible she feels – physically, bodily. This should be a nice break, without an extra ten years of aches and pains, but the amount of tension her old self has managed to carry inside is unbelievable. It’s like she’s barely held together by all her careful tactics against aging or softening; one false move and the whole facade will collapse. She had forgotten she used to feel like this all the time. At least looking at Frankie makes it quiet down.
The calm isn’t mutual. Frankie squints at Grace, suspicious. “I mean it. What’s going on? Are you picturing Ronald Reagan’s head on my body? Because you can stop now. We’re never procreating. In fact, I may be able to trace my infertility back to this exact moment, a revulsion so profound it rippled back in time and turned my ovaries to dust.”
Grace snorts.
“Why are you laughing? You hate my whimsical hypotheticals about time and space. And my Reagan roasting.”
“Well, that was a good one.”
“First the heart eyes, now this? Grace, what’s wrong with you? Have you been body-snatched? If so, welcome to our planet, kind extraterrestrial. Thanks for giving this one a major personality upgrade.”
Grace laughs again.
“Seriously, Grace. Is this a body-snatch situation? Blink twice if you’re being controlled by an alien. Or a talented rat underneath that extra hair we’re supposed to pretend isn’t fake.”
Grace can’t entirely remember why it is that she’s here and not home with now-Frankie where she ought to be. It should freak her out. But she knows that this is okay, that this is where she belongs for the moment. She’s on a mission.
“No body-snatching,” Grace tells then-Frankie. “No Ratatouille. I’m in a good mood, that’s all. It’s nice to see you.”
“Are you high?”
“Not currently,” says Grace. “But if you want to go out into the parking lot, I’m down.”
“Oh, I see. This is some kind of narc operation. You’re undercover. You’re trying to bust me.”
“Wow. I’m really no fun, am I?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘no fun,’” Frankie protests.
“Then what would you say?” Grace rests her chin on her hand, eyeing Frankie. It’s fun to see her flustered.
“Well, now you’ve put me in an awkward place. I wasn’t expecting any follow-up questions. Oh, would you look at that? I’ve got a – phone situation.” Frankie dives for her cellphone and starts texting rapidly.
“Sending Coyote your ‘call me with a fake emergency’ text?”
Frankie looks up, alert. “Since when are you psychic?”
“I’ve picked up a few things.” Grace grabs a roll from the bread basket and bites into it with what she likes to think is a fair amount of swagger.
Frankie’s eyes are wide. “Don’t tell me you’ve become cool. I don’t think I can psychologically withstand it.” She eyes the door. “Where are Sol and Robert?”
“Oh, who needs them?”
Frankie looks back at her, interested. “This is new.”
Maybe Grace should be used to it by now, but she still can’t quite resist the charm of Frankie’s intrigued attention.
“Frances,” she grins, “we’re gonna have so much fun.”
“What, when we finally snap and fight to the death? I’m not not looking forward to it.”
Grace kisses her own fingertip, then reaches over the table to press it to Frankie’s lips. Frankie stares down at Grace’s finger, adorably cross-eyed.
“It’s a surprise,” Grace says. “Just you wait.”
2025
“I had the strangest dream,” Grace says groggily. She rolls over to look at Frankie.
“Me too!” Frankie pokes Grace’s shoulder, excited. “What about? Maybe we were dream buddies.”
Grace frowns, trying to summon any of it back. No luck. “I can’t remember.”
“Me either. God, I hope Pedro Pascal was there. I feel like that guy knows how to hang.” But before she can fall into the depths of her Pedro Pascal crush, Frankie sits up with the posture of a dog who heard a noise outside.
“What?”
“I’m checking the air for psychic vibrations. Do you think the spell worked? From earlier?”
“No, Frankie, I don’t think the spell worked.”
“Oh, nuts. But how am I going to go back in time and tell you it’s all gonna be okay?”
This had sprung from a melancholy late night conversation - there have been a fair few of those lately - where Grace accidentally fell into remembering aloud how unhappy she was in her marriage to Robert. She’s been thinking a lot about her marriage lately, as Robert forgets more things that she’ll be the only one to remember. It’s been hard. Robert left her once, a slow lonely departure, but this is different. She hadn’t been prepared for such a blow. She still isn’t.
And here she is, happy with Frankie, while Sol endures what would have been her fate.
It’s a lot. It’s life.
“I guess I’ll just have to figure it out as it happens,” Grace says.
“But that takes so many years,” Frankie protests. “And I still hate that you were in so much pain.”
“Me too. But I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before. Happier than I ever could have imagined being, even.” She gives Frankie a quick kiss. “That’s got to count for something, right?”
“It’s not chopped liver,” Frankie concedes, going in for a second kiss. “But still, I wish I could go comfort that poor emotionally and literally malnourished WASP. Feed her some gluten and compliments.”
Grace chuckles fondly. “She’ll be okay.”
“I hope so.” Frankie gets her phone from the bedside table and glares at it. “I can’t believe GenZDruidess420 steered me wrong.”
“I can’t believe she hasn’t stolen your identity by now.”
“You can’t steal someone’s identity through a TikTok you watch on BlueSky. I think.”
“Oh yes you can,” says Grace. She makes a mental note to look it up later. With Frankie’s online habits, it’s best to play offense.
“I have to keep practicing, Grace. My eventual side hustle as an Etsy Witch is my late-2020s destiny. I just know I'll do great things.”
“I'm aware,” Grace says with a laugh. “You’ve mentioned it once or twice.”
Frankie makes puppy dog eyes at her. “Can I borrow your Pickle Slut sweatshirt for emotional support in this discouraging moment?”
“Considering you bought it for me and you’re the only one who ever wears it, yes.”
“Huzzah!” Frankie fishes the sweatshirt off the floor. Instead of putting it on, she bunches it up and uses it as a pillow, smiling blissfully.
Grace stares at the alarm clock. 4:17. “We should probably get up and get cooking. Everyone will be here at six for dinner, and you’re going to need at least a half hour to de-ravish your hair.”
“Righto.” Frankie tosses her messy curls proudly. “I hereby declare this highly successful meeting of Nap Club adjourned. We shall reconvene tomorrow for XOs and Zs. Now, up and at ‘em, Mrs. Purcell-Mengela-Hanson-Bergstein.”
“Chop chop, Mrs. Bergstein-Hanson,” says Grace, who’s made her case several times about the maiden names being overkill. (They’ve agreed to disagree. The most important part is the matching Mrs.)
Time ticks on. Neither of them moves a muscle. The bed, and Frankie’s warmth in it, feel even more irresistibly cozy than before. Grace – always a go-getter, a lover of an endless to-do list – never would have imagined that one day her very favorite place in the world would be bed. Thank God for the wisdom that comes with age.
“Five more minutes, wifey,” Frankie says then, brightening with laughter. She buries her face in Grace’s shoulder; Grace can feel that brilliant smile against her skin. “Please!”
“Let’s make it ten,” Grace decides, pulling Frankie close.