Personal Assistant (25 page)

Several
weeks later…

       
The
day had started off with a quickie. She felt a little off, but chalked it up to
the fact it was three in the morning and she was pretty tired.

       
Frankie
ignored the ache she was feeling as she dropped him off at the lot. They were
testing out some new sets, wardrobe, props, and extras today and she wouldn’t
see him until late if she saw him at all. In true fashion he had left his car
there the night before and asked her to come pick him up. She knew he did it so
he had extra time with her. Those rides gave them at least twenty more minutes
of face time in an otherwise text-messaged day.

       
She
had time to go back to the house and take a nap before starting the day proper.
She wondered if she was getting the flu or something. Her stomach cramped, her
back ached. It wasn’t PMS. Her birth control allowed her almost exact
calculation of those dates.

Later…

       
Frankie
pulled into the emergency room parking lot and headed inside. Something was
wrong. She signed in and asked the nurse, “Call my mom.”

***

       
He
had called nine times already. Something was wrong.
Very
wrong.
The day seemed to drag on. When a piece of the set collapsed he
immediately found his phone and started the hunt for Frankie all over again.
His final voice message, "Where the fuck are you?" came as a furious
shout followed by a temper induced slam of the phone to the ground. The screen
shattered.

       
Everyone
in the craft services area had stopped to stare at him. "Fuck!"

       
He
groaned as he picked up the phone. He wanted to drop to his knees and cry
because he felt so helpless. Something was wrong and he could do anything but wait
for the news. His gut twisted, he felt sick. He heard footsteps approaching as
he tried to make the shattered phone cooperate.

       
"She's
not answering the phone?" A feminine voice asked quietly.

       
"I'm
in no mood for sarcasm," he growled.

       
He
didn't look up at the woman until he heard her say, "Momma
MacBeth
, this is Shay. Do you know where Frankie is?"
Then she said, "Oh my God."

       
She
had his undivided attention.

       
"Yes
ma'am. I'll be right there. Jonas will come with me." Shay looked at him
and said, “Let’s go.”

       
"Where?"

       
"Hospital.
She doesn't know what's going on yet,” Shay
was leaving without thinking twice about it. “You
coming?"

       
He
didn't want to go with this particular woman, but he had no choice in the
matter if he wanted to see Frankie sooner rather than later. By the time he
called around to track her down he could be there if he left with Shay. He
walked after her and told a reliable Grip on the way out what to tell the
director.

       
"She
is not going to like this," he said as he followed Shay to her car. The
woman moved with a sense of purpose, and though he appreciated what appeared to
be genuine concern, he couldn't let his guard down.

       
"I
know. I don't blame her. I...I've changed a lot in the past six months."

       
He
made a grunting sound as he got into the luxury SUV.

       
They
didn't speak for a while. Shay was not like Frankie when it came to driving.
Frankie drove smoothly through traffic and was extra cautious. He was pretty
sure Shay just clipped the bumper of the car in front of them as it was turning
right. He decided to talk to her to keep his mind off the ride.

       
"I
thought they were only using agented actors for extras," he mumbled.

       
"I
have an agent," she said.
“A new one actually,
Harvey."

       
"Liar,"
he snorted before he could hold the thought back. He did not like this woman
because she had hurt Frankie. No matter how urgent she seemed to be to get to
the hospital he would not think she really cared. “Harvey hasn’t taken on a new
client in three years.”

       
He
watched her fingers open and close slowly and purposefully on the steering
wheel. She took in a deep breath and he could have sworn he heard her say ten
before she answered to his reply.

       
"Harvey
is my agent. I am not lying. You can call to verify it." She took in
another breath. Let it out and continued, "I am not the same person I was
six months ago. I am still a work in progress, but I am better for it. I know I
hurt her. I know I don’t deserve her, but I can't help but hope one day it will
be like it was, only better.
Because this time I know.
I know how much she means to me."

       
Now
he felt a bit awkward and jealous to tell the truth since he knew Frankie and
Shay
  had
an experimental moment in their past.
He looked out the window. He was unsure of all the meaning behind the words.

       
"I
love her," Shay said.

       
That
was it. He’d had enough. "So do I. Look, I don't know what you think you
are going to get from her but she is
mine.
And man or woman, when it comes to Frankie, I am putting up a fight to keep
her."

       
Shay
laughed out loud. It unnerved him. She explained, "I'm not
in
love crazy. I love her. She is
family. The sister I always had but was too stupid to realize what it meant. I
was a shitty person for most of my life. I get that now. I'm dealing with it. I
don't know. I just know that when we fell out in high school we would not talk
for a while and then one day we would run into each other, have a good cry, and
it was over. We were back to being
besties
. As we got
older, I became more…wicked. Bitter.
Jealous.”

       
“I
can’t really deal with this right now,” he admitted. He looked out the window
and realized they were going to a local hospital. What it meant was that
Frankie had not made the trip to Palm Springs as she had planned to do. She
hadn’t made it out of the city. His gut clenched, lurched. He grew more anxious
and irritated by the minute.

       
Once
inside the hospital they were met by Frankie’s mom.

       
“Hi,
honey,” she looked at Shay and opened her arms to her. Shay squeezed Frankie’s
mom tight. When she let go the woman looked up at him with a scowl. She sighed
and said, “You got here just in time. She just woke up. I’m going to do
something I am having a hard time
letting
myself do.
I’m going to let you go in to see my baby first.”

       
He
looked past her to the doctor in the doorway. “Sir, you can follow me.”

       
“Jonas,”
Mrs.
MacBeth
caught his arm as he passed. He looked
down at the older version of Frankie and tried not to let his emotions get the
best of him. She was sad, and hurt, and… “I’ll be right behind you, so just
know that I am waiting as long as I can to get to her.”

       
“Yes,
ma’am,” he nodded. He made quick steps towards the doctor and followed him down
the hall. He asked, “What happened? Was she in an accident?”

       
“I’ll
explain it to you both if you’ll just step right in here,” he opened the door
and closed it behind them.

       
Frankie
was in the bed. She was awake, a bit confused to see him, but her arms opened
up nonetheless and he moved to embrace her. His heart thundered as the fear
left him, replaced by relief. He stopped kissing her face long enough to pull
back and look at her, “What happened?”

       
She
shook her head no.

       
He
turned to look at the doctor and asked, “Doc?”

       
“Do
I have permission to discuss this in front of him?” the Doc confirmed. Frankie
nodded. “So he is the father. Okay. You should know that this just happens
sometimes. It isn’t anyone’s fault. You should be able to try again starting
next month. You don’t want to be intimate for at least two weeks…”

       
Jonas
was still processing the first sentence. “Wait…
wait
.”

       
He
held his hands up towards the man stopping him from his lecture.

       
“Start
over, and go slower. I don’t think I understood you.”

       
“You
are the father, right?” The doctor looked a bit nervous now. He looked past
Jonas to Frankie. “Oh, I see. You didn’t know. I was called in after you were
sedated. I apologize. You had a miscarriage. We performed a dilation and
curettage, commonly referred to as a D and C.”

       
If
he wasn’t already sitting on the bed he would have fallen to the floor. He was
feeling faint, his heart was breaking. Her grip loosened on his hand. He turned
to see her eyes round in surprise. She didn’t know. He didn’t know.

       
“This
morning…” Jonas started.

       
“No,
no. Don’t do that to yourself. There is no evidence that physical activity,
including sex, causes these things.” He said in a reassuring voice. “There is
nothing wrong with you. Try to go home, get some rest. No sex for at least two
weeks, okay? You can follow up with your regular doctor then and if you have
any questions, please feel free to give me a call. Take your time, call for the
nurse when you are ready for the release paperwork.”

       
He
walked to the door and that was when Jonas realized the doctor had locked it.
Frankie’s mother began giving him a piece of her mind in the hallway affording
him another moment with Frankie alone.

       
“Jonas…I,”
she was bewildered, still dazed from the anesthesia, and he could see painfully
clear she was nervous about his reaction.

       
“
Shhh
,” he pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m devastated.”

       
The
next moment her mother was in the room. “Well? What happened?”

       
“Can
I talk to her alone?” Frankie asked. Her eyes were cloudy. He didn’t understand
why she wanted him to leave, but he nodded, kissed her lips gently, and left
them alone.

       
Shay
paced the waiting room. When he emerged, she asked, “Is she all right?”

       
He
wasn’t all right. How did he know if Frankie was all right? Feeling more like a
zombie than a man he staggered to a seat and slowly lowered himself into it.
Everything surrounding him was distant, foreign, he was out of sorts. He shook
his head no.

       
“Are
you all right?” Shay propped her hand on her hip and tilted her head to look at
him. He shook his head no.

       
“She
is alive?” Shay prodded. He shook his head yes. “She is awake?” Again he
nodded. “Is she injured on the outside of her body?” He shook his head no. Shay
sighed. She moved to sit next to him and asked.
“Inside?”

       
He
looked at her. He didn’t nod or shake his head no. He just stared at her.

       
“Who
do you want me to call?” she asked.

       
“I…I
don’t know.”

       
“I’ll
call your momma, then. What’s the number?” Shay punched in the numbers as he
said them. She handed him her phone.

***

       
Frankie
was still a bit woozy from the anesthesia. She was also trying to process how
this had happened to her. She reached for her phone on the seat between them.
He grabbed it and moved it to the dashboard on his side of the car. They had
not spoken since the discharge directions where they both agreed they
understood everything.

       
The
silence was deafening. Her ears rang with unsaid words. Unexpressed agony from
a loss of something she didn’t even know she had, or wanted right now. In a
deep dark place, some part of her felt like a failure.

       
Frankie
had to practically force her mother to let Jonas take her home with him. She
was relieved when her father arrived. Jonas was not backing down about it, and
neither was her mom. The honeymoon of that relationship was officially over.
She understood why her mom wanted to be with her. Ever since Frankie started
working for him, her mother had been worried. Then the relationship, the moving
in before marriage, the press, the stress…yeah, her mom was at capacity for
tolerating the situation.  Her father, on the other hand, somehow knew
Jonas was the one for her. He consoled them both equally, brought calm to the
situation, and then tugged her mom out of the room with a ‘one day you will
understand’ look on his face.