Lost | R | Bridges of Madison County/Nearest to Heaven
Title: Lost
Prompt: Are you supposed to be in Iowa?
Fandom: Francesca/Fanette, Bridges of Madison County/Nearest to Heaven
Requested by: kitnkabootle
Rating: R
Word Count: 1048
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were. Please don't sue.
Author's Note: I hope that my first foray back into writing after my impromptu little surgery has managed to be a good one! This was a tricky prompt to write, mainly because I don't know Nearest to Heaven very well. I was intrigued by the idea of Francesca meeting a woman (as opposed to Clint Eastwood) and really, who better than Fanette? I'm sure kitnkabootle meant this as a fun way to put Meryl Streep and Catherine Deneuve together, but these two characters are essentially perfect for each other because they're both equally lost in their own lives. You don't have to have seen Nearest to Heaven to follow this little fic, but I would recommend the movie!
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Francesca frowns at the sight of the heavy downpour currently drenching her front yard with torrents of angry rain. She worries that the fair will be rained out and that her family, disheartened and ever-demanding, will return earlier than planned. A sudden call from Richard puts her mind at ease: the weather is fine in Illinois. Francesca can breathe.
It's not that she doesn't want her family to return home. It's that she needs four days to be completely selfish for the first time in twenty years.
She is just finishing making iced tea when she hears the crunch of gravel in the driveway. She frowns at the unexpected visitor, though this isn't the first time a stranger has appeared and it won't be the last. Pushing the screen door open with her shoulder, she stands under the cover of the porch and watches suspiciously.
A woman gets out of the car, her lank blonde hair and clingy clothing suggesting that this is not the first time today she's been in the rain. "I think I'm lost," the woman says, standing at the edge of the porch.
Francesca immediately appreciates that the woman doesn't assume she's been granted entry. Her guard lowers slightly and she makes out the woman's features through the rain. She's beautiful and it takes her aback. She licks her lips. "Are you supposed to be in Iowa?"
"No," the woman responds, "I don't think so."
"I'd say you're lost then," Francesca concedes, motioning for the woman to step onto the porch. The woman introduces herself as Fanette and Francesca tries to place the origins of her thick accent. French, perhaps?
Fanette explains as she lights a cigarette in the kitchen that she'd taken a wrong exit and got completely turned around in trying to get back to the highway. Her cell phone died and, because of the lack of road signs in Madison County, she'd been unable to locate a motel.
Francesca finds herself increasingly aware of the damp clothing hugging the curves of the other woman's body. She feels a warmth inside that she has not experienced in many years and the intensity of it shocks her.
Fanette follows her into the bedroom as Francesca places a pair of slacks and a blouse on the bed. She waits outside the door for the blonde to pass out her wet clothes so that she can stick them in the dryer. As the seconds pass, Francesca surprises herself by thinking about the woman's nakedness in her room. No one but family has ever been in that room in a state of undress.
It's unsettling.
When Fanette pulls open the door a crack to pass through the drenched clothing, she smiles. It renders Francesca momentarily breathless, a feeling that is magnified at the glimpse of bare shoulder. Fanette smiles, her disposition almost shy, before she closes the door.
Francesca feels her cheeks flood with color as she disappears back downstairs and into the laundry room. Placing the wet garments into the dryer with careful consideration, Francesca focuses on the necessary knobs before releasing the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
She catches her reflection in the flat surface of the iron and she stares at the distorted image, tilting her head as she examines herself. Am I really so old? She looks at her profile, at the slope of her nose, at the bags beneath her eyes. She wonders if she's always been like this and if there really was a time when she was a beautiful young woman living a carefree, hopeful existence in Italy.
She hears movement on the stairs. When Francesca has reached the entrance to the kitchen, Fanette has reached the bottom stair. They regard each other shyly. Fanette's cheeks are tinged with red. It makes Francesca wonder if this is what it feels like to be a teenage boy about to ask a girl on a date.
"Would you like some iced tea?"
Fanette's smile is apologetic. "Do you have anything stronger?"
Francesca laughs. "Brandy?"
The blonde nods and takes a tentative step into the kitchen. Her hesitancy, her formality, is endearing to the Italian woman.
Francesca stands by the table and pulls out a chair. "Come. Sit."
When the brandy has been poured into crystal glasses that Francesca has to wipe the dust from, they fall into easy conversation about their backgrounds. Francesca has never had an easy time opening up about her past but finds herself sharing intimate details that not even Richard is privy to. It's not that she's an intensely private person; most people just don't think to ask about her life beyond being a housewife.
It's easy to find a kindred spirit in Fanette; this woman knows what it's like to be displaced, to be in a country where you're expected to adapt. She understands what it's like to be an outsider.
Fanette does not ask many questions about her husband or her children. She talks very little of her own daughter, of her brother. She talks freely of the art she studies and writes about. She talks of France and her love of classic American movies
Francesca discovers that Fanette has been hurt by love, much in the way that she's been hurt by circumstance.
Fanette's eyes mirror the sadness and loneliness in her own.
When Fanette whispers, "I am lost in every way imaginable," Francesca finds herself wanting to find her. Perhaps if she finds Fanette, she'll find herself.
Francesca doesn't hesitate to invite her to stay for dinner, nor does she hesitate when she offers the guest bedroom. Fanette appears moved by her generosity, but Francesca has ulterior motives. She will kiss Fanette tonight. Perhaps she'll do more. She wonders if her easy propensity for infidelity makes her a bad woman. She wonders if she'll go to hell, if Richard will find out, if it will be written on her face.
But, as their fingers brush when Francesca passes a refreshed glass of brandy to Fanette, she realizes that it has nothing to do with Richard. It's not about who he is as a man or as a husband.
It's about Francesca. It's about anchoring herself to something real before she continues to fade into nothingness in this life of quiet desperation.
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