Hold Me Close(20)

Then she picked up the phone.

“Hi, Dee?” Effie fell into the old nickname before thinking it was possible Delores didn’t go by it any longer. Then she decided she didn’t give a rat’s ass what the other woman preferred to be called. “This is Effie. Polly’s mother. Your daughter’s in Polly’s class.”

“I know who you are, Effie, of course.” Delores sounded bubbly, as if maybe she’d already started on the early evening cocktails. No wonder, since her husband had left her several years ago for not a younger woman, but an older one.

Maybe that was unkind.

“So listen, Dee, I’m going to cut straight to it. Keep your mouth shut about my daughter, your speculation about her father, and about Heath.” Effie drew in a breath as if she was dragging on a cigarette. “You know damn well he’s not my brother. And not that it’s any of your business, but he’s not Polly’s father. Get your own house in order before you start talking shit about mine.”


Dee sputtered. “What... I... Wait a minute. What?”

“My kid’s eleven years old. She should be worried about her science fair project and growing out of her favorite jeans too fast. Not any other bullshit you want to spread around.” Effie paused long enough to hear a snuffle from Dee through the phone. She smiled to be sure the other woman heard it in her voice. “She has a lot of people in her life who love her. She hasn’t suffered for the lack of knowing who donated the sperm that made her.”

“Oh.” Dee sounded confused. She’d never been the brightest shade of pink in the palette. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a sperm donor.”

Effie had in fact been knocked up the old-fashioned way and had been making a sarcastic comment, so now she sighed. “Dee, Jesus. It’s none of your business. Okay? Why would you tell your kid anything like that anyway? And as for my paintings, also none of your business. What difference does it make to you who buys them or supports them?”

Silence. Effie waited. Through the phone line she heard another snuffle.

“I’m sorry,” Dee said finally. “I didn’t tell Meredith any of those things. She must’ve overheard us talking.”

“Who was talking?”

“Friends, I guess.” Dee made a small, apologetic noise. “The subject came up at the last mommy meeting I had here. I guess she overheard us...”

It was far from the first time Effie had known herself to be the topic of conversation. For years after coming home she’d been approached by reporters and curiosity seekers wanting a piece of her story. After the debacle with the coming-home party, her dad had forbidden any of them from contacting her, but after he died, there’d been a few who managed to find her contact information. Some had been ballsy enough to approach her instead of just posting voyeuristic bullshit about her on that stupid f*cking forum for sickos who liked to collect memorabilia from crime victims. Someone had even made a documentary. Effie had been offered money to participate, but she had refused.

To hear it now, though...her stomach twisted again. She wanted a drink, something strong. Instead, she forced herself to breathe.

“Why the hell are you gossiping about me anyway?”

Dee made another of those noises. “They asked me. Some moms from school, I guess they found out we went to school together, and when they heard about Andrews being up for parole...”

“Wait a minute. What? What the f*ck?” Effie froze, her fingers cramping and curling around her phone.

“An alert came up, I guess, about how a convicted sex offender was possibly going to be living close by. I guess you know where the house is.”

Effie swallowed bitterness. “Yes.”

The same house. It had passed to Andrews’s children when he went to prison, and as far as she knew, they’d never sold it. Nobody had ever seemed to be living in it anyway, whenever she drove past, which was only on the rarest of secretive occasions. It had always been empty, the grass a little too long, merchandisers littering the driveway. At Halloween, no local kids egged it or strung toilet paper in the trees. The house had gained its own reputation.

Dee coughed. “Well. It’s only a couple blocks away from where I live now. If he gets out on parole, he’ll be living there. So, you know, they put out this petition to sign so that there wouldn’t be a pedophile living there.”

“I don’t think you can keep him from moving back into a house that he owns,” Effie whispered through her clenched jaw. “No matter what he did.”

Dee was very quiet then, only the sound of her breathing coming through the phone. “I didn’t tell anyone Heath was your brother, Effie. I told them that Andrews made you and Heath call him Daddy, that’s all. And that’s the truth, right? I didn’t make it up. I wasn’t lying! They asked me, and it’s not like any of them lived around here when it happened. They don’t remember the stories.”

“Oh, God. Well, aren’t they lucky they have you to catch them up.” Effie swallowed again, her throat closing. All those women in their yoga pants and matching hairstyles, matching smiles. She’d never quite fit in with them, and now they all knew about her...this, the worst thing. But that wasn’t what upset her the most. “Look, when it affects my kid, Dee, I get really pissed.”

“I’m sorry,” Dee said after a minute. “They’re really worried about him getting out and living so close. That’s all.”