LOCATION: Library DATE: Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 (woefully early in the morning) Closed starter for @nurturercelia
There, nearest the window that overlooked the lawn, at the table with F.M.W. and another set of initials carved into the mahogany, was where Frankie had a meltdown over her trig final.
There, on the top shelf near the door, between Alcott and Austen, thirteen year-old Frankie stowed her creased paperback of Dream Girls: Anything to Win.
And there, crammed into the reading nook they all knew had the softest pillows, with an Oxford sweatshirt as a substitute blanket and a bit of dried drool at the corner of her mouth, was Frankie, dead tired and consequently, asleep.
Woodrow House had always awoken in pieces. The sprinklers on the lawn first, then Chef Pierre who roused the coffee and Mrs. Tristan who roused her people: the early runners, the newspaper readers, then the had-to-be-told-to-get-up-more-than-oncers. There was a choreography to it, accompanied by a gentle symphony. The creak of steps under foot, the soft whine of doors opening–
The percussive thunk of Frankie jolting awake and toppling from her surrogate bed onto the floor. Blinking her eyes open was a wincing, crusty business. She looked around. She was at Woodrow. She was on the floor. Everything ached and she wanted to drown herself in caffeine, or Bath & Body Works vanilla sugar soap and collapse into an actual bed for a nap. Celia was upside down.
"OH MY GOD!"
Frankie shot up, turning Celia the right way round, and threw herself at her for a crushing hug. "You're here!"
