GET IT TOGETHER; robin buckley

ii. frankie

       STEVE HARRINGTON IS CUTE, her mom tells her when they get home, a smirk dancing on her lips. She's putting down the JCPenny's bags on the carpet floor while Frankie is busy trying to get little Richard to not put the house keys on his mouth. The aspirin she took is already making an effect.

"Sure," Frankie responds just to answer, not really thinking about the way her mom's voice seems to insinuate something.

"He has nice hair," she hums to her daughter. "Handsome smile."

That makes her raise an eyebrow. "You've known what he looks like for ages, mom."

"I'm just making conversation."

Frankie scoffs at the comment. Sure. Her mom never just "makes conversation" when she talks about boys. Frankie remembers all those names she'd casually mention during dinner and the way her mom would ask about them the day later, hoping the next one would be the boy her daughter would finally bring home and introduce as her high school sweetheart. The cute quarterback; the son of some important local business; the tender-hearted bad boy — Hell, even a secretly handsome nerd. It didn't matter who as long as Frankie had a boy to call hers. Her mom is a romantic, so whenever Frankie told her that some boy in High School had asked her out and she gave a poor excuse to why not she'd listen and silently frown, her face crumpled in disappointment.

"You looked happy talking to him."

"I've missed him," she admits, realizing it's true. "He wasn't my best friend or anything, but we were friends, and he's a familiar face, I guess."

"No, I mean -" she corrects herself. "You looked miserable when you came back. And it was the first time I've seen you actually smile since you got here."

It's true - it was good to sit down with Steve and just talk about old times, laughing about the past and how awful they both were. Steve is funny and charming and does have gorgeous hair - but she's never thought of him like that. She shakes her head, trying to clear it, quickly changing the topic of the conversation.

"Did you know he and Tommy H fell out?"

"I've heard," she nods, picking up her son and rising him to her lap, rocking him to calm his nerves. "Tommy's mom made sure to tell everyone how disrespectful and mean Steve was - the other moms ate it up."

"She did?"

"Oh, yes," she nods again, frowning. "What a rude woman, talking about a kid like that. Anyway, it was the talk of the town back then after little Will Byers came back to life."

"Came back to - what?"

"Oh darn," her mom sighs. "I forgot how much you missed out on."

Frankie and her mom spend hours sitting on the couch talking about the revival of Will Byers, nicknamed zombie boy, (Frankie recalls his big brother: creepy Jonathan Byers, as she and Carol used to call him, and feels herself grow a little embarrassed when she remembers how much she and her friends used to make fun of him for being so goddamn weird, inventing stories about how he'd crawl all over town at night and take pictures of girls changing in their rooms with that camera he'd carry everywhere); the Chief of police has a daughter and he might be dating the unstable Joyce Byers; there's apparently a new guy in town and everyone seems to be in love with him, who works as a lifeguard in the local pool.

"Jeez," Frankie smiles slightly. "I really did miss out on a lot."

For the rest of the day, her mom encourages to try and phone her old friends — but when they pick up and she says her name the line goes dead. Her mom tries to reassure her that there's surely a problem with their telephones and that she could just visit them at their home at any moment, but Frankie has a feeling it's not really just because of their phones. She's known for a while now, deep in the pit of her stomach, that these people who she had considered her friends didn't want anything to do with her anymore. Something had happened during her last days in Hawkins that she can't quite pinpoint or recall that forced the frail rope holding their friend group together to finally snap.