Well Enough Alone

Frieda Frasier stirred her tea as her little sister tried solving her murder.

“But we know that she went to the convenience store after stopping to get money out of the ATM. If there’s one thing I can tell you about Frieda, it’s that she NEVER went to convenience stores.”

Frieda went to convenience stores all the time. Who didn’t? What person was able to avoid going to convenience stores? Where else would somebody buy gum or a scratch ticket or those shareable size bags of Peanut M&M’s?

The cat jumped up on her lap and she tenderly set him back down on the ground. Rupert hated it when Frieda listened to the podcast. Either he could tell that it rankled her or the sound of Fanny’s voice got under his skin. Possibly both.

“The cashier at the store says he doesn’t remember Frieda, but is that true? Subscribe to the Fan Club if you want a deep dive on what he may be hiding.”

That poor man. Just doing his job and he has the bad luck to stumble into somebody else’s disappearance. Now some nosey woman with a microphone and a laptop is digging into his personal history as though she has every right to.

Even when true crime became a national sensation, Frieda never imagined her case would one day be the subject of one. After all, there wasn’t really a crime. She woke up one day and decided that she’d had it--with everything. Her job, her apartment, that miserable man she’d been dating for three months off-and-on. Even her sister, her only family, who she had great pity for, had become more than she could bear.

Leaving Fanny behind was the only part of her departure that caused Frieda to feel guilty. At least, it did until she was scrolling through the news one day and saw an article about a hot new podcast all about a sister’s quest and a missing woman and all episodes from the first season being readily available.

“Fanny,” she said out loud in the middle of her kitchen, “Tell me you didn’t.”

But she did. She had. Her little sister, who could never follow through on anything--jobs, relationships, or even keeping a cactus alive--somehow found the time and energy to put together an investigation into what happened to Frieda and document it once a week for three years. Frieda thought about sending her some kind of message letting her know that she was fine, but please discontinue that horrendous invasion of privacy where one whole episode did nothing but discuss what kind of birth control Frieda used.

The only reason she didn’t is because (and this was hard to admit), she didn’t trust Fanny not to use the miraculous reappearance of her sister as content for the show. It was clear that this podcast was the only thing Fanny had ever been good at, and one had to wonder how willing she would be to give that up.

What put so much worry in Frieda’s mind was the idea that Fanny might actually manage to find her one day. That was why she started listening despite her own resistance. Luckily, it became clear early on that while Fanny may have had an enthusiasm for true crime, she wasn’t particularly skilled at solving anything. She went down every rabbit hole known to man and chased leads that led nowhere. Frieda began to wonder at the start of season two if she was doing it on purpose. After all, if she ever did manage to solve the mystery, that would be the end of her meal ticket. It was the same reason Frieda didn’t pick up the phone after finishing the episode where Fanny confronted Frieda’s poor dentist. Her sister had been indoctrinated into the cult of people-with-too-much-time-on-their-hands. Who knew how difficult it would be to speak sense to her?

“Next week, we’re kicking off a five-part series where we look into whether or not my sister may have been--wait for it--abducted by aliens.”

Frieda nearly threw her phone into the fireplace.

After vanishing without a trace, she’d found an adorable little home for rent about two hours from where she grew up. The woman renting out the place listened to her made up story about a deranged husband for about five seconds before she smiled at Frieda and said “Honey, as long as you slip the rent under my door on time every month, I don’t care who you used to be.”

She got a job teaching private piano lessons to anyone who could pay in cash. She took up golfing. Money would have been tighter if not for how well she’d done at saving up her whole life. It was as though she’d always known she was going to disappear. When she finally did it, nothing would have made anything think foul play was involved. Frieda thought disappearing was the right of every human being on earth, but it seemed that nowadays people didn’t want to believe that somebody could just cut ties and run.

Now, if you forgot to return a text message, they sent the FBI out after you and hired Toni Collette to play you in a limited series.

Couldn’t people just leave well enough alone?

“I will not stop until I get justice for my sister.”

Frieda wanted to write apology notes to everyone Fanny had been harassing. The cashier and the dentist and, most of all, her ex-boyfriend. As the podcast became more popular, Fanny wasn’t the only person breathing down his neck. She managed to get the police to bring him in for questioning even though he was so dull the only thing that ever went missing around him was a woman’s affection. Pretty soon, he had to move out of state, and that just made even more people hop online and insist that he must have been involved in some dastardly scheme.

“Don’t forget, Fan-ny Fan Club, you can now purchase ‘I Think The Boyfriend Did It’ t-shirts on my website!”

She told herself that eventually Fanny would run out of things to talk about. Frieda’s life had not been all that interesting--hence her checking out of it. The police had long since given up, and despite hints on last month’s episode that there might be some kind of serial killer connection, Frieda could tell that her sister was beginning to spin her wheels.

At this point, even if she did start to miss Fanny, she knew that going back would cause more hurt than joy. After the initial hugs and tearful displays (and a seventeen-part exclusive interview leading directly into a book deal), Fanny would come to understand why Frieda had left, and her heart would never recover. Not being enough to keep someone around when everything in their life is dreary is nothing to be ashamed about, but contributing to that dreariness is something else entirely. Fanny always held a high opinion of herself and her value despite all evidence to the contrary, but most of that, ironically, was based on her high opinion of Frieda. She assumed that because Frieda had her act together and was a respected musician and teacher that anyone related to her must be respected and admired as well.

The truth was, this had probably worked out the best for the both of them.

Now, Fanny had a legion of fans who hung on her every word. She was a businesswoman who had won several awards for podcasting at awards shows held in places like Reno and Sarasota. People bought tickets to see her in person when she did live shows around the country…also in places like Reno and Sarasota. Even when the podcast dried up (which would hopefully be soon), she’d have (again, hopefully) have made enough money to spend the rest of her life relaxing by a pool or a lake somewhere knowing that an entire community of busybodies thought that she was their queen.

Frieda would enjoy the new life she’d made for herself. It wasn’t that it was more exciting than her last one. It just involved far fewer people. She had her students and the people she played golf with and her new dentist. The other day while getting a cap replaced, he asked her if she had any family. She tried saying “I have a sister” but her mouth was numb.

“What was that,” he said, only half paying attention as he looked for one of his sharper instruments.

She managed to eke out the word “Nothing” and then closed her eyes.

Better he didn’t know.

And better if he never had to find out.