Frank Iero: P.A.

It takes me a few minutes to compose myself before I leave the guest room and head to Alicia’s. The door is closed but not fully clicked into place. I push it open tentatively and am met with the sight of Alicia looking at herself in the dresser mirror. She’s scrutinising every square inch of her face through puffy red eyes. I consider stepping back out of the room as if I was never there, but there’s something about that look on her face that tells me she needs to talk. I take a seat on the bed and wait for her to notice me.

Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t speak, just looks at my reflection. I want to know what she’s thinking.

“What’s up?” I asks all to casually, regretting the words the instant they’re out of my mouth.

“My husband is dead – nothing is up, everything is down.”

I cringe at her answer; I expected just as much, but it doesn’t make it any easier to take. She takes hers eyes off my reflection and continues to look herself over.

“Why are you staring at yourself like this?” I try again. That shouldn’t put my foot in it too much.

“Mikey always told me that I was the most beautiful girl in the world, and I’d feel it and see it every time,” she says softly, “but it’s gone... just like him...”

Her face is vacant, completely numb. I take in her appearance in the glass; she still looks beautiful to me. Her eyes are rimmed red, her cheeks are blotchy, and there are faint traces of black make up beneath her eyes. Despite that, her beauty shines through. It is a travesty that she can’t see through her grief like I can. Alicia is truly a stunning woman; she should feel it, no matter what happens in her life.

My eyes travel from her reflection to her dresser itself. The surface is covered with perfumes, makeup, brushes, and other feminine products, but one thing in particular catches my eye. Next to where her hands lay limp on the white wood is a hair straightener. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched one of these, but I think I remember all the necessary skills to give her a little confidence boost. I push off the bed and bend down to turn on the powerpoint that the straightener is plugged into.

“What are you doing?” Alicia asks as I take a section of her thick black hair in my hands.

“I’m going to make you see what Mikey always saw.”

Her eyes tear up, but she doesn’t object to what I’m doing. Sometimes a woman needs a makeover to feel beautiful; I’m happy to give that to her if it will bring a smile to her face again.

I begin curling her hair, using the technique my mother always used because she hated curling wands. Apart from the occasional pause to brush some tangles from her hair, I keep the curls coming at a steady pace. Alicia seems to be deep in thought most of the time, but every so often I’d catch her looking at me through the mirror.

“Where did you learn how to do this?” she asks when I’m almost finished, plucking up one of the curls for emphasis.

Horrible memories from my past come to mind at the question. Since I’ve come to work for Gerard I’ve taught myself to block out the memories of what led me to be on the train that day I first met him. This is the first time in months that I’ve really, seriously thought about my past. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to talk about it.

I grab another section of her hair. “I used to do my mother’s hair sometimes.”

That’s all I intend to divulge to her, and as she goes back into thought it seems that what I’ve told her is enough to satisfy her curiosity.

After a moment, she says, “My parents are both dead.”

“I wish I could say that.”

The words are out of my mouth before I have enough time to actually think of an appropriate response. Guilt surges through me; her husband and her parents are dead, and here I am telling her that I wish I my parents were dead, too. I’m an insensitive fuck.

“We all say that at some point in our lives,” she says vacantly, “but it’s not so great when it actually happens.”

I inwardly cringe as I see the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

We don’t say another word to each other as I let the last curl fall and sprits hairspray over my
handiwork to keep it all in place. I arrange her hair around her shoulders and meet her eyes in the mirror.

“What do you think?”

“It’s lovely, Frank,” she says, lacking the enthusiasm I was hoping to achieve. “Thank you.”

“Well, ’lovely’ just won’t do,” I say with mock sternness.

Alicia’s make up bag is open on the dresser and catches my eye. I take hold of her waist and twist her around in the chair until she’s sitting sideways. Makeup really isn’t my specialty – I’ve never worn it before and only applied it to my mother two or three times in my life – but a little touch of it might just bring a smile to her face. I reach into the bag and take out a bottle of primer, applying it to her skin gently. While it dries I search the zebra print bag for liquid foundation. When I find it I squeeze some into the palm of my hand then rub it onto her face with my finger. I use her black eyeliner lightly to make her eyelashes look fuller. Next I take some silver eye shadow to her eyelids and dab a little bit of charcoal shadow to the corners for effect; the colours really bring out her slate eyes. I coat her lashes with mascara, really making her eyes pop. Lastly I add a touch of blush, dust some powder over skin, and apply a deep red lipstick to her full lips.

“I think you’ll like this,” I tell her as I admire her. “Take a look.”

She turns around to look at her reflection. Her lips part a little and she brings her hand up to touch her cheek. The makeup covers all evidence that she’s been crying and restores her to her full beauty. Slowly, her mouth turns upward into a small smile.

“You look so beautiful, sweetie.”

My head snaps to the doorway. Gerard is standing there, looking at Alicia appreciatively. He walks over to her and takes her hands, pulling her to her feet. They look each other in the eyes, like they’re sharing a private message. Somehow I think Gerard’s telling her how beautiful Mikey would think she is right now. He kisses her forehead and pulls her in for a hug. Over her shoulder he mouths a sincere ‘thank you’ to me.

“Now,” Gerard says, “why don’t you put on something nice and come join us for dinner?”

“Okay,” Alicia replies quietly.

Gerard looks at me and nods to the door, meaning for me to follow him out. I head for the door, rubbing Alicia’s back as I pass. Gerard’s waiting for me in the hallway a few feet away from the bedroom door.

“I didn’t think I’d see her smile again, Frank,” he tells me truthfully.

“I had to do something; she told me she didn’t feel beautiful anymore.”

He looks downcast. “She’s such a beautiful woman; Mikey was saying that from the first moment he saw he right up to the last.”

I step closer to him and place a hand on his should comfortingly. “Dinner with a side of distraction?”
Gerard nods and we head to the dining table where Ray is already waiting. Dinner is something simple, just vegetable lasagne, but I love the fact that Gerard took the time to make it from scratch instead of heating up a frozen store bought one. A couple of minutes later Alicia emerges from the kitchen and joins us at the table. It’s only day two of PM time – Post Mikey Time – I figured it would be far longer before Alicia would eat dinner with us, but I’m glad it’s happened sooner rather than later. The only issue is that it’s not exactly a cosy affair.

“This is really good, Gerard,” I comment in an attempt to break the silence consuming us. I’m not afforded a response.

Everyone’s heads are down with glum expressions on their faces. I don’t know what caused Gerard to be so distant with Ray earlier, but whatever is going on between them clearly hasn’t been resolved. The atmosphere around the pair is tense to say the least. Alicia is seemingly oblivious to it all, consumed by her own thoughts; her eyes are glazed over, but she’s not crying, which is a dramatic improvement.

“Well, I like it,” I mutter quietly when no one picks up the conversational ball.

The silence keeps up until the end of dinner when Ray offers to clear the table. I hastily finish my last mouthful of lasagne and hop up to give him a hand. Gerard also gets to his feet to help, but Alicia remains seated with her hands resting limply on her thighs; her features are blank. It only takes a moment for Gerard to spot her expression; as I walk past him he adds the baking dish he was hold to my already precariously stacked pile of dinnerware. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair, the gesture drawing a few tears from her eyes. My heart breaks for her and I want o comfort her, too, but I leave the pair as they are; they need to grieve together to get through this.

“I hate seeing her like this,” I tell Ray as I meet him by the sink.

He nods in agreement. “I hate seeing both of them like this.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take before we’ll all feel normal again?” I ask quietly.

“I’m not sure,” Ray replies. “Maybe we need to create a new normal.”

I contemplate this as I help Ray wash up everything from dinner. To an extent, he is right. There’s no way any of us can return to what we used to call normal because what was normal for us was having Mikey around. That rings true for Alicia and Gerard more than anyone who knew Mikey; for them the process will be longer and harder. We’re all going to have to revaluate our understanding of what ‘normal’ is. I’ve been struggling with what normal is for months now; I know it’s not easy, and I feel like it’s only going to get more difficult.

After everything is all clean and put away, Ray heads off for a shower and I risk stepping back into the living room. Alicia and Gerard are sat together on the lounge, he with his arms around her, their heads tilted together. They aren’t talking, aren’t crying, just simply sitting there together. I stand motionless, watching them for a while until I begin to feel like a creep, which doesn’t take too long. Back in the kitchen, I check the time n the microwave and see that it’s only eight o’clock; it’s too early to sleep and too late to go out. I think over the events of the past few days and decide that I should give Ellie a call. Through all our constant concern for Alicia and the baby’s wellbeing we’ve neglected Ellie and her feelings; Mikey was like a son to her and she is probably grieving in a similar way to Alicia. With that thought in mind, I head to the guest room and dig my phone out of my pocket.

“Hello?” Ellie answers on the fourth ring, sounding very detached.

“Hey, Ellie, it’s Frank,” I say, failing to keep the sadness from my voice. “I just wanted to check in and see how you are feeling. Are you holding up okay?”

“Oh, Frank, chérie, c'est si beau de vous appeler,” she says sincerely. “Honnêtement, ne peut pas dire que je me sens bien à tous. Je m'ennuie de Michael beaucoup.”

Oh, Frank, dear, it's so lovely of you to call. Honestly, can't say I'm feeling well at all. I miss Michael very much.

I don’t have it in me right now to speak in French, so I opt for English and hope she’ll do the same.

“We all do,” I reply sympathetically. “It’s just a matter of staying strong – for each other and his memory.”

She sniffs. “I’m trying, but it is so difficult knowing my beautiful Michael is no longer here. There are so many reminders everywhere.” She pauses briefly and asks, “Have you seen the headlines?”

Honestly, I haven’t really been paying much attention to what’s happening outside the walls I’ve been contained in since Mikey’s death. “What headlines?”

“Oh, it’s dreadful, just dreadful,” she says dramatically. “All the papers and magazines are writing conneries (that means ‘bullshit’ in French) stories about Gerard. They’re trying to say that he is abandoning his buyers and breaking contracts with galleries – they even had the nerve to say he was at a rehab centre being treated for a drug problem! Such lies!”

As Gerard is such a private person, he didn’t want it made known to the public that his brother had passed away. We all understood that, and so when people rang to speak to him I’d give them some stock excuse like he was in a meeting or he had just left for an exhibition. He, at least for as long as I’ve been working for him, has never let the media get to him, but I know he’d be pissed to hear what they’re making up about him. However, I have no intention of being the one to break that news to him. When I get back to the office I’ll find a way to fix all this for him.

“How ridiculous. We know the truth, though, so there’s no reason to let it bother us.”

“Yes, yes,” she agreed, clearly unhappy about all the rumours being spread. “How are he and Alicia doing?”

“They’re taking it pretty hard – Alicia is a wreck – but they’re handling it together, really supporting each other. Gerard’s more moody than usual, but I guess it’s just part of the grieving process,” I tell her truthfully. “How about Bernard and the kids?”

“They’re being strong for my sake, but I know this is hurting them, too; we all miss him terribly.”

We continue talking for another half hour, sharing our coping mechanisms with each other and theories with how to handle the people around us while they grieve. Ellie promised to bring by some meals for us all tomorrow to take away the burden of cooking for us. I probably should have mentioned that Gerard was using cooking as a distraction, but I figured that it was also her distraction and she needed it as much as Gerard did.

When I got off the phone with Ellie I changed straight into my pyjamas and got into bed. I was feeling exhausted after talking about the situation so much – it really put me though the emotional ringer – that I suddenly needed to sleep. Tonight I chose to lay in the middle of the bed instead of the left side; I figured that Gerard had no intention of sharing the bed with me again after what happened last night. My theory, however, was proved wrong.

An hour after getting into bed, the time spent lying there thinking about Mikey’s death, the bedroom door opened and in came Gerard. He stripped down to his underwear quickly and slipped into bed beside me. I was paralysed when he entered the bedroom, and because of that I didn’t move over to my side of the bed, meaning that he had very little space to lie in himself. Our arms touched as did our thighs simply because there was no where else for him to lay. I felt him try to shift away from me, but he only had about an inch of bed keeping him from rolling onto the floor. My brain kept telling my body to move, but my body seems to be saying ‘fuck you’.

“I’m an asshole,” Gerard says quietly.

His voice finally gets my body to cooperate and I move over. “I’m not disagreeing with you.”

“Good,” he says sharply. “You shouldn’t.”

The room goes quiet. I assume his asshole comment was his way of apologising for his actions last night and today. I know apologising and admitting to being wrong is difficult for Gerard, so I don’t press further for the word ‘sorry’. We lie there quietly and I assume that he’s ready to go to sleep.

“I heard you today,” he says quietly a moment later, “talking to Alicia... about your mom...”

His voice startles me, as does the confession itself. “Oh... I didn’t think anyone else was listening.”

“It wasn’t my intention to eavesdrop, but I’d never heard you speak about her, or your family, before.”

“There’s a reason for that,” I reply seriously, with no intention of elaborating further.

Just when I think he’s about to drop the subject and let me go to sleep, he opens his mouth again.

“Tell me about your parents,” he says softly.

“I don’t like talking about my parents.”

“Neither do I, but I still shared that with you, Frank,” Gerard replies quickly. His hand finds mine in the dark and squeezes it encouragingly. “So, tell me.”

This isn’t something I’ve ever felt comfortable talking about. I’m kind of ashamed of my family. I consider feigning sleep so I don’t have to discuss them, but then I remember just who is asking –Gerard. He has a difficult family, and he is by no means proud of his family either. He’s also experienced personal hardship with his addictions and self harming. If there’s anyone who would understand, it’s him.

“My parents got divorced when I was a kid – about ten years old. They fought a lot, so I never particularly resented them for divorcing; I was actually kind of glad,” I begin. “My dad quickly found someone new; she was young enough to be his daughter – that, I resented him for. Like most gold diggers, she fell pregnant within a few months of being together. Mom, while she was happy to not be married to him, was hurt by that because it took her years to get pregnant with me.”

“I get that,” Gerard says. He is still holding my hand. “Go on.”

I sigh. This is harder than I thought it would be. “I used to be close with my dad, but I felt really betrayed by him. So it was only natural that when he and his heavily pregnant girlfriend moved overseas to France that we slowly lost contact with each other.”

“France?” Gerard asks. I can imagine his face contorted in that way he does when he’s drawing connections between things. “Is that why you learnt to speak French?”

“Yeah. Things changed with my mom when I started high school, so I kind of wanted to have the skill if I ever bit the bullet and went to live with my dad. I never did of course, but it ended coming in handy at least.” I take a breath, preparing myself to share the thing that I hate the most about my family situation. “Mom worked very hard to support the both of us – I was always grateful for that. It took it’s toll on her, though; she became lonely and tired. I did what I could to make her happy, but she’d been married for sixteen years and never really got used to living without a partner.”

“She got a boyfriend, right?”

“No – she got an asshole. The fact that she happened to be dating him was a coincidence,” I reply snidely. “He came into the supermarket where she worked and was the kind of man any woman would have wanted, on the surface that is. He was good looking, suave, well educated, and wealthy – not as wealthy as you, but wealthy enough to impress.” I paused. “He could take care of her, but she was nervous about dating again. To give her more confidence I would do what I did for Alicia today – make her up until she felt special and beautiful. If I had have known what an asshole the guy was, I would have never encouraged her to go out with him.”

Gerard rolls over on his side; I feel him looking at me in the dark. “Please don’t blame yourself for this.”

“I don’t – mostly – I blame Dad for crushing her confidence,” I tell him. “The guy was nice at first, but then when he realised that my mom and I were a package deal he turned her against me. He made up all these lies about me drinking and sneaking into clubs, or smoking weed outside of school. It was a load of shit, but mom trusted him – and Mr big-shot lawyer could make up convincing lies at the drop of a hat. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“Did she kick you out?”

“No. He asked us – although he really meant her – to move in with him just before I finished high school. I chose not to go. Neither of them were too bothered with that.”

“So, what did you do?” he asked gently.

“I lived off welfare in a shitty apartment. My grades from high school were pathetic so no one wanted to hire me; I started stealing food to survive and sneaking onto trains to get around. It was what I had to do. I was desperate.” I let out a relieved sigh. “And then I met you, and this job became my everything. You took a chance on me when everyone else let me go.”

He releases my hand and drapes his arm across my stomach, hugging me comfortingly. The gesture stirs up my emotions and tears prick my eyes. I really am so thankful for Gerard, for him giving me a place to live and a job, and for being with me now. He places a kiss to my temple.

“Frank, I promise you, no matter what happens from now on, I’m always going to protect you from going back to that life. You’ll never have to struggle like that again, or feel like no one wants or cares about you.” He pauses, taking in a deep breath. “You’ve got me.”