Previously in…the Vines Inquiry— Frank confides in his childhood best friend Harlow about the strange goings-on since he’s been back on Carlisle.
It had been his father walking into Frank’s room the previous night. Not even sneaking—a stroll. He came up like the Sandman. Sprinkled something on Frank’s head, and then he’d fallen back asleep.
No, he’d been asleep all night. He’d blinked and it was morning. He’d blinked and he was walking out the front of the manor, bundled in clothes from high school.
“Good morning, Francis,” Rosalind had said as he passed by the parlor.
“Good morning.” The noise echoed out of his chest, slipping through ribs over lips.
Back in the diner, Harlow grabbed a few packets of sugar from the caddy and put three out in front of Frank. “I know you like yours black, but trust me, you’re gonna want to slice this bevvie a little bit. Jean has a generous pour.”
The waitress Jean returned with the two Christmas coffees—and yes, it was hard for Frank to ignore that there was no whipped cream, but God’s toughest battles to His strongest soldiers—and smiled at the pair again.
“Seeing you two here, together. Brings back a lot of memories,” said Jean. “Midnight movies. Prom night. I did always think you two would end up together until…”
“Jean!” called Lester McCroy from the kitchen. Harlow and Frank turned at the shout. Jean… Jean did not.
“But here. Now. It’s a strange time of year. Isn’t it, Frank? During the storm. Did your parents invite you…or did you just decide to come?”
“It’s not so bad having him back,” said Harlow, rubbing Frank’s wrist.
“Of course.” Jean’s smile stretched further, threatening that taut neck. “It’s just you know how people act around the holidays. The tourists. And others. With the Drawson boy missing…Strange time. I wouldn’t think you’d want to stay.”
Frank took a sip of his coffee, unable to break eye contact with Jean as she glared back at him, head tilted to one side.
Drawson. Frank scanned the dusty card catalog in his mind, searching for the name. He found it suddenly, jumping out of the stack as the card slit open his thumb; a mental paper cut. They’re family that runs the ferry line. The kids always ran a booth under Lillian’s.
Jean pressed her lips together, disappeared them into a thin line; distinguishable from the rest of her sunbed-tan face only by umber eyeliner. Frank looked away and around. He tried to catch his eye on something, but when he turned back, Jean was there still, staring.
“Coffee’s delicious?” said Frank. Jean gasped in a breath and jerked back into motion. Her smiled stalled twice, but then refreshed and she massaged Frank’s shoulder.
“Whatever you say,” said Jean, staring out the window. She walked towards the front door to greet some more locals. “Henry, don’t worry. I saved an extra slice of mince pie for your niece. No, no. I just had a feeling.”
Harlow took a deep sip of her coffee and swirled it around her mouth, savoring. “What?”
“That was odd,” said Frank.
“Hush. You get used to it. Just take a big gulp.”
“I mean Jean. The storm.” Frank wiggled his fingers, evoking ominous flurries.
“This much snow freaks people out. You forget, oh Prodigal Son.” Harlow heaped on the Bay twang. “With your city boy snow plows and your electric sidewalks.”
“I take it you’re not up-to-date on New York’s municipal priorities…”
“There’s always that feeling you might get stuck here forever,” said Harlow. “For some of us, it feels like that all the time.”
Frank took another sip and felt last evening’s vomit rising up in his throat before signing a treaty with whatever Jean had spiked into his coffee. He had to admit, he felt better.
Did I vomit?? What IS the truth?
“Well if we’re stuck here, let’s take in the culture.”
“Cult-ture,” said Harlow.
“Isn’t there at least a local drag queen we could go see? Like the person who owns the hardware store or something? We could swim to Baltimore!”
“I do have a standing invite from Chase Lounge, but her Insta says she’s visiting her family in Tahoe for the holidays. Auto Man Fempire came into the bar last year! But that was just cause she was thinking about buying a house.”
“Here?”
“Something-something property flipping something. I’m surprised you’re not all queened out from the city.”
“There’s really no such thing,” said Frank. “You should come and find out. You’re always welcome to stay with me. As long as you want.”
“Weren’t we talking about you, and your problems? I couldn’t leave my parents.”
“Oh, so you’re allowed to be grateful for your parents enjoying your company, but I can’t be grateful when mine finally do?”
“Ignoring the fact that we’re comparing Tae-bo disciples to demon worshippers… When are they going to be grateful for you? For what you’ve become? But oh, oh. I know! They paid for your school! (With their semi-literal mountain of money). Never let you forget it,” she added out the side of her mouth.
“And I shouldn’t forget it. I should appreciate it. And they appreciate me! Just last month, Dad called me a ‘bitch.’ Like… Like joking. Like we’re buddies. People are grateful for buddies. People invite buddies home for Christmas.”
Harlow bit her lip, faux-excited. “Oh yeah! Every year I can’t wait to get together with my Mother-Friend so we can take turns insulting each other!”
Frank scoured his brain, trying to grab at something more substantial. Concrete evidence that his parents liked him, at least once. All that he could come up with were half-remembered nightmares of them chasing him with knives as he sprinted barefoot through the woods.
“Listen, with family, we all do what we can to keep the peace,” said Harlow. “Sometimes, my sister needs to be accompanied by tequila. Momma and Daddy have decided that there are simply two versions of Charmed and we don’t need to resolve which one is better in this life.”
Frank kept his own counsel on the matter, for once.
“But that doesn’t mean we hurt each other over and over and call it ‘family,’ Frank.”
He pulled one sugar packet from the caddy and unleashed twelve. “I know what I’m doing. Ignore the sugar! Something’s different with them. After Dick… they got tired. I think I made them tired. But now, I understand what they need from me.”
Harlow helped him gather up the packets, her tongue gracefully in its scabbard.
“Maybe I should change their gift…” said Frank. “I’m like a pen, really? Do you think Jean has extra dry pasta in the back for some DIY? Like good DIY.”
“You did not come all the way from Manhattan to make your parents a haunting portrait in farfalle. And you know we fundamentally disagree about the existence of ‘good DIY.’ If God wanted me to redo my own bathroom floors, He wouldn’t have given me these nail beds.”
Frank sighed and Harlow flashed her manicure at him, proof. He brushed her hands away and smirked at her.
“Pasta art has come all the way back around in SoHo. You’d know, if you’d come. And you wouldn’t be leaving her. You’d just be going and doing what you’re great at and then buying your parents a ranch in the Palisades.”
“The what?”
“I don’t know where they are either, but it sounds fancy, right?”
“It’s probably somewhere your spooky-ass parents summer,” she said. “As a verb.”
“You said it was a dream!”
“Yeah, well, it’s harder to lie when you’re drinking. My parents wouldn’t warn me about a dream, Frank. Okay, maybe Freddie Kreuger. But I was promised he was imaginary!
“Even his MLM?”
“I was promised, Frank.”
“And my parents?” he said, chewing his lip. He felt like he’d just done something awful. Dropped a wet dinner plate, or forgot to separate the lights from the darks when he did his laundry; and all he wanted was for someone to say “no big. Happens all the time.”
Harlow took a sip, as if she could hear him, weighing the lie.
“If even a third of what you told me happened… Let’s just hope you’re the final girl.”
“Harlow!” Frank whined.
“Also, our friendship ends now. I am not dying first.”
Like the previous night’s memories, Frank had two versions of his parents. The one he’d clung to for as long as he could remember—people who merely didn’t understand him. Maybe a pair that hadn’t wanted children but then ended up with more than one—and the one that was working its darndest to break through.
A version of them that was actually violent. Actively cruel rather than simply dismissive. Unkind, and scarily competent. A pair that needed him home for reasons that might have only annoyed him in the past.
Now, Frank realized, now he was afraid.
He’d read that it was useful to try and empathize with people you don’t get along with in order to repair the relationship. But how can you empathize with two different identities? What would his parents do—a surgeon on one side, a professor on the other—with two sets of truths?
Conflicting symptoms.
A second opinion.
“Wait, what did your parents say to warn you about mine?”