Hold Me Close(82)
The thought of it, that he might’ve practiced this speech, slaughtered her into speechlessness. When Polly bounced into the kitchen with her backpack bulging and a wide grin, Effie managed to steer her toward the door with hugs and kisses and muttered words that sounded as if they made sense. At least enough that Polly didn’t even give her a curious glance as Heath told her to wait in the car. When she’d gone, he turned to Effie.
“I want you to be happy, and if it’s with that guy, then you should go for it. And you can’t do that if I’m still hanging around, messing it up,” Heath said.
Effie shook her head, still silent.
Heath coughed into his fist, then straightened and looked at her, dead on. No more flinching. No more evasion. “You were right. We can’t move forward if we’re both hanging on to the past. We both got out of a really bad situation, and all we do is remind each other of it. We’re bad for each other. You’re right about that, too.”
No.
No.
We’re not bad for each other.
She shook her head again and put a hand on the back of a kitchen chair. Locked her knees so she didn’t stumble, though she wasn’t even moving. Every word was a stab in her heart, a slice in her soul, but there was nothing she could say to stop him, because she’d been the one to put this in motion, and now she had to live with what she had begun.
“I want you to be happy, Effie. I do. But...I guess I’m a shit-heel son of a bitch, because I just can’t bear to watch it. It makes me want to f*cking die. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said through numbed lips. “Yes. I understand.”
“I’ll bring Polly home on Sunday.”
Effie nodded, and they stared at each other in agonized silence until the sound of Heath’s car horn bleating turned him toward the door. Surely he would say something else, or hug her, or kiss her, even on the cheek. He had to, she thought, even after the door closed behind him without another word or even one more look.
He had to, but he didn’t.
chapter thirty-six
Mommies and Margaritas. That was Dee’s clever name for the moms’ group. She’d sent Effie one of those funny e-cards with a line drawing of a Victorian woman holding up a glass and some joke text about how the only way to get through the day was by being drunk. Effie didn’t find jokes like that to be particularly funny. Yet here she was with a glass serving dish of chili cheese dip she’d made herself and a bag of tortilla chips, and why? Because it was that or sit alone in an empty house weeping into her glass of wine and making bad life choices, and she’d done too much of that lately.
“Effie! Great, you came.” Dee looked surprised but pleased, holding the door open wide for Effie to enter. “Everyone’s in the den. You can put the food in the kitchen. Yum, that looks delish.”
Effie followed her into the spacious, immaculate kitchen and set the glass dish on the waiting hot pad. Dee gave her a bowl for the chips, and Effie took her time filling it. She could see the sunken den from where she was. Lots of ladies with plastic margarita glasses filled with frosty green liquid. Low music played and the propane fireplace crackled. This was it, time to make some friends.
It was easier than she expected to smile as she was introduced to Dee’s friends. She knew a number of the mothers from the years of volunteering for Polly’s classroom when she was younger. She’d done flash cards with a bunch of their kids. Chaperoned more than a few field trips. She’d held the hair of Amy Kendig’s daughter once when the bus ride had made her sick.
“Hey,” Effie said with a nod at Amy, who lifted her glass in reply.
Dee clapped her hands twice. “Everyone, this is Effie Linton. Polly’s mom. I finally convinced her to join us.”
The greetings were effusive and seemed sincere. Effie accepted a margarita. She’d walked over here, just two blocks, and she suspected that after a couple of drinks the walk home would be a lot warmer than the one over had been. She took a seat on the couch next to a woman she didn’t recognize. Becky turned out to be Amy’s sister-in-law. She sold makeup, and since Effie had an unapologetic fetish for liquid eyeliner, they spent twenty minutes talking about how to do the perfect cat’s eye line.
“I’ll drop off some samples,” Becky offered and shook her head with a grin when Effie protested. “Hey, first taste is free. After that, I hope you’ll buy more.”
Amy brought over the pitcher of margaritas to refill their glasses. “I can’t even show my husband how much I spend with Becky every month. He’d kill me!”
“But my husband loves you for it, especially when he’s ordering new parts for his Jeep.” Becky laughed.
“I don’t have a husband,” Effie said, not meaning to be a downer, but it was the truth. At the sight of the other ladies’ faces, she realized, a little too late, that she was on her way to being drunk.
“I have an ex-husband,” Dee piped up, and the moment passed.
Effie had a third margarita, because that was the problem with margaritas. They went down so smooth that before you knew it you were dancing on a tabletop wearing a lamp shade...or worse, exchanging Crock-Pot recipes as if you knew what the f*ck you were talking about with a woman wearing a sweatshirt with a pair of Christmas kittens on it. Effie didn’t even own a Crock-Pot, though the way Cissy was evangelizing about it made her want to go out right now and buy three of them, just so she could make all the things. All of them.