Hold Me Close(3)

“Sounds like you’re busy,” Heath said.

“It’s work,” Effie said. “Keeps the lights on. Pays the bills. Lets me afford grilled cheeses.”

The first painting Effie had ever sold went for just over ten thousand dollars. Now her pieces went for under a grand. She priced them that way on purpose. More work, more sales, a steadier income. She was too aware of the precariousness of her popularity—people who collected bones from sideshow freaks and signed poems from incarcerated serial killers could be fickle, and she’d done her level best to stay as far out of the victim spotlight as she could. She could’ve sold more, earned more, if she’d been willing to keep talking about her ordeal. There were websites and forums devoted to that sort of masturbatory, voyeuristic exploitation. She settled for living within her means and being grateful she could make a living at all with her art.

That first painting had gone for so much because she’d actually painted it in Stan Andrews’s basement. She heard it was hanging in a billionaire’s entertainment room, which made her think she ought to have held out for more money, but at the time ten grand had seemed like a fortune.

Effie made a career out of skewed landscapes and still lifes, of things seen from the corner of the eye. Her paintings looked normal until you slightly turned your head. Then you saw the maniacal dancing figures, the squirming maggots. The destruction. And if you looked very, very closely, you could always find a clock woven into the design. Those details were what made the collectors go crazy. They were her bread and butter. But to Effie, they were not what made her paintings art. They had kept her from losing her mind, and that, she’d always thought, was the difference between a paint-by-numbers kit of an Elvis on velvet and a piece that someone paid thousands of dollars to hang in their entertainment room.

She hadn’t been genuinely inspired to paint anything in a long time. At least a year, maybe longer. It hadn’t bothered her, losing her muse. Painting on commission or regurgitating old themes for a few hundred bucks had kept her busy. Licensing her images for postcards and T-shirts had paid her bills. She and Polly didn’t need much, and so long as Effie was careful about putting money away for college, she didn’t feel bad about not taking her kid on expensive vacations or buying her all the latest trendy fashions.

“You can afford better than grilled cheese, Effie.”

She laughed and pushed a plate with a sandwich and some potato chips in front of him. His clothes were still in the washer. She’d told him to put on something from her dresser. God knew there was more than one of his shirts and probably a pair of boxers in there somewhere. He’d chosen the towel on purpose to get under her skin.

“Maybe I can,” she said, “but grilled cheese is what you get.”

He studied the sandwich, then smiled as if he had a secret. “You put pickles on it.”

“Of course I did.” Effie crossed her arm over her stomach and put her first two fingers of her other hand to her lips. She’d given up smoking when she was pregnant with Polly and had never taken it back up, but that posture had never gone away.


After the sex they’d just had, she wanted a cigarette. Badly. He would give her one if she asked, but of course like cookies or orgasms, one was never enough.

“You’re not eating?” Heath hadn’t taken a bite. He watched her, heavy dark brows furrowed. That mouth, his f*cking mouth, pursed in concern.

She had to look away or else she’d kiss him, and where would they end up after that? His kisses were worse than cigarettes. “I have to get to work. Anyway, I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat,” Heath said flatly.

She looked at him then. Silent. He was one to talk. His hip bones were jutting. Every rib clearly defined. Heath was fit and strong, but she’d known him to be heavier than this. She, on the other hand, had been noticing softness and curves where she’d once been sharply angled.

He broke the sandwich in half and held up one piece to her. She frowned and shook her head. He set it back on the plate and sat up straighter on the bar stool.

“I can swear to you, there’s no ground glass in it. No hairs. No floor sweepings. No pills.” Effie’s throat worked at the thought of it, but she forced herself not to gag. She hadn’t been hungry before, and now she was a little nauseous.

“I know that.” Heath turned the plate around and around, then lifted a chip. Keeping his gaze on hers, he put it in his mouth and crunched loudly.

“You can open up the sandwich and look inside,” Effie said, too loud. Too harsh. Her voice cracked and broke. “Go ahead! Make sure!”

Heath was off the stool and had her in his arms in seconds. She fought him for a second, but it was a useless protest. When he pulled her against him, she relented. Her cheek pressed his chest. She’d left marks of her own there, half-moon slices that would scab before they healed.

At least those wounds would heal, she thought. Some never did.

“I thought you’d be hungry,” she whispered. “That’s all. And it’s from me, Heath. You should know that something from me would never... I would never...”

“I know. Shh.” His hand stroked over her hair. “I was just being an *, Effie. I’m sorry.”

Countless times Heath had said those words to her, but Effie couldn’t remember if she’d ever apologized to him even once in all the time they’d known each other. She clung to him, though, for a few seconds longer before she forced herself to let go. She pushed away from him as the towel loosened and fell.