5. CHAPTER FIVE
Effie plodded into the great room past Louisa and Dorothea, her lilac apron still tied around her waist. The tufted burgundy chair that sat beside the old hearth called her name. When her head found the wooden curve of the chair back, her face turned heavenward, she closed her eyes and breathed.
Effie let the ache in her joints from moving boxes all afternoon melt off her as she listened in to Louisa and Dorothea chatting.
“I think this year we need to clear this whole room,” Louisa suggested. The pause that followed told Effie that Grams didn’t agree. “Just the furniture, so there can be more dancing inside and we don’t have to cease the music altogether if there’s inclement weather.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Dorothea said, and Effie heard the scratch of her pen on paper. They were planning the summer ball.
It was a tradition that Dorothea and Herman had started back when they first bought the estate before they had kids.
They were enamored with the history of the home.
Built in the early 1800s, it had seen many celebrations hosted within its walls.
When Grams had heard of the annual balls thrown in the great room that spilled through French doors onto the back patio, she was immediately struck with the desire to continue the tradition.
She thought it a great way to meet her neighbors and do some good in the community.
And it was romantic as hell, as Grams always said.
Effie thought the balls fun and creative but had never gotten swept up in the romance of them.
They decorated the house with flowers and garlands.
Dance cards were printed, champagne was poured, and decadent pastries—courtesy of Effie—filled doily-lined plates.
A live orchestra played instrumental versions of modern music with a few classical pieces mixed in.
The ladies donned ball gowns, and the gents wore suits with tails and cummerbunds.
Normally, Dorothea left the furniture in the great room as conversation sets and now voiced her concern about not accommodating guests who wanted such a space.
“We could move the breakfast table to the veranda and arrange a seating area in the breakfast nook,” Effie suggested, eyes still closed.
“That could work, but would the dining room be better?” Louisa asked.
“Let’s not go rearranging the entire house for one event,” Dorothea said, and Effie smiled.
She imagined that Grams, at Louisa’s age, would have emptied the home completely for the one event because the two of them shared a penchant for the dramatic and the wondrous.
Louisa with her leading roles in the community plays year after year and Grams with the main character energy she lived by.
Effie fell into comparison again. Was she even the leading lady of her own life?
She let her mind wander to soggy cardboard and its mismatched face.
She thought about how obnoxious Theodore had been like it was her fault he had to inspect the store at all.
She also thought about his hair, which made her grit her teeth with frustration.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there replaying the annoyance and intrigue of the afternoon when Louisa finally asked, “What’s wrong with you? ”
“God is testing my patience,” Effie murmured.
“Again?” Grams asked, a twinkle in her voice.
Effie straightened in her chair and opened her eyes.
The sun set through the French doors, casting an orange glow over the twice-refinished oak floors that danced across the room in a herringbone pattern.
She rubbed her eyes and let her gaze float to the arrangement of porcelain vases on the mantel that Aunt Bea and Grams had collected from antique shops across New England.
“I suppose it’s a lesson I’m not really learning . . . to be patient.”
“I would argue you’re very patient,” Louisa suggested, and Effie knew it was because, in comparison to the rest of the Thatcher clan, she was, in fact, quite patient.
She didn’t mind biding her time for the right pair of shoes, or the perfect weather for a picnic, or even the love of her life.
She held no eagerness to go out and make things happen.
She didn’t have a passion to study or a feeling to chase.
She’d always been content to let life show her how beautiful it could be instead of forcing it into submission.
Being the youngest of her generation, she was used to waiting for the bathroom, a ride, a moment, a word.
She wasn’t as boisterous or outgoing as Louisa.
She wasn’t as smart as Ellen. She wasn’t as creative as Hope.
And though the Thatchers insisted that Effie was splendid in her own ways, she wondered when someone outside these four walls would deign to notice.
Perhaps she would have to realize it first .
“Maybe it’s not my patience that’s being tried,” Effie mused, patience tasting of steamed rice, bland but savory. “Maybe instead, I am being challenged to broaden my capacity for kindness.”
“Why’s that?” Louisa asked as she flipped through sample swatches of napkins.
“Because we failed a safety inspection at work today and the guy that ran it was . . .” Effie trailed off, unsure how to describe Theodore. The truth of her opinion got stuck behind the same walls and locks that protected her heart and her virtue.
“Was what?” Dorothea asked.
“Infuriating,” Effie decided, and her tongue burned with the cinnamon of Red Hots. “I get that he’s doing his job, but I don’t want to have to see him again next week.”
Grams looked over at Effie, a knowing glint in her eye. Effie decided the oil painting hung above Grams’s head that rendered a lavender field in impressionistic strokes was safer to look at. “His name tastes terrible, and I didn’t hide my face,” Effie confessed, finally meeting Dorothea’s gaze.
“We’ve talked about your face, dear,” Grams chided.
“I know, but it’s hard,” Effie whined. “Sometimes speaking in general is hard. I either have to choose perfect words or rush through them hoping they make a bland mush in their combination by the end of my rant.” Effie scowled, the punchy tang of pineappley perfect slamming into the honeyed ham of hoping and the rancid-raspberry rant.
“And he’s cute,” Louisa guessed. She didn’t bother to hide her teasing grin.
“He’s insufferable, and his name tastes like cardboard,” Effie retorted .
“That’s not so bad.”
“Soggy cardboard.”
“Soggy from what?” Louisa asked, but she didn’t actually look like she wanted to know. Effie shrugged. It didn’t matter. Soggy was soggy. Cardboard was cardboard. And Theodore was Theodore.
The sun had set completely. Effie spent the last hour or so bathing and nursing a cup of tea while she read alone in her room.
She was currently halfway through a pirate romance novel that would likely scandalize the entire Thatcher family if they discovered it.
They’d never known Effie to have a sultry bone in her body, but that had been by design.
Many of them had flaunted their desires, and look where that got them .
Effie hadn’t wanted to let her desire to see the light of day and be tempted to act on it.
It felt too much like tempting fate. But just because she had vowed to keep her legs closed didn’t mean her mind had to be.
She wanted to discuss the book with Hope, who had read it before her. They were in the habit of swapping criticisms, favorite characters, and passages they loved. It was often like research for Hope, but for Effie, it was just fun.
Effie checked the hobby room off the front foyer where a wall lined with bookshelves housed their beloved novels, and a credenza under the bay window stowed paints, brushes, yarns, and threads.
She found Aunt Bea instead, painting another portrait of her pet conure parrot, Issa, who sat perched like a perfect model on the golden roost that stood atop the antique desk.
“Have you seen Hope?” Effie asked .
“Not since this morning. I think she was going to talk to the father today.”
Effie scowled; she would have left word if she’d be out with him all night. That is, if the reaction had been positive. If, however, as Effie now feared, Brayden didn’t take the news well, home would be the last place she’d find Hope.
“Must have gotten caught up café writing again,” Effie lied before ducking through the double pocket doors into the foyer, through the great room, and into the kitchen, where the bustle of dinner prep was overwhelming and a bit comical.
Ellen and Pamela’s night always descended into chaos.
Mostly because Pamela led the charge, pulling out virtually every dish they owned while Ellen struggled to make efficient sense of the recipe in poor time to her mother’s frenetic cooking style.
It always ended with Ellen following Pamela with a dish rag and a compost bin, throwing away scraps and wiping up spills.
Pamela’s food was always fantastic, but she somehow couldn’t cook without making an absolute mess.
It drove Ellen crazy. The only thing that would have made her crazier would have been not tending to the hurricane chef as she passed through the kitchen.
“I don’t think Hope and I will need places tonight,” Effie said.
“Okay!” Pamela chirped from behind a cabinet door.
“What could you possibly need now?” Ellen reprimanded as she scrubbed an endless mountain of pots in the sink.
“The salad spinner,” Pamela remarked as though it were obvious.
“I’m going to start cooking in my kitchenette for dinner.”
“You’d miss me,” Pamela teased.
“Plus, you only stock that kitchen enough to make instant ramen,” Tibby added from across the room. “This is much better.”
Effie turned to catch Tibby’s gaze. She sat at the breakfast table with the littlest Thatchers reading a newspaper.
She went from relaxed to on edge as soon as they locked eyes.
Still overwhelmed, Effie guessed, with the news of her impending grandchild.
Soon, though, Effie knew that Tibby would be thrilled.
Effie grabbed her coat from the closet in the foyer by the front door.
It was a dusty-pink wool peacoat that belted at the waist to show off the curve of her hips.
She pulled on a knit, cream-colored hat with a matching pink flower crotched into the side and gloves that made the set.
It may have been spring, but the temperature dropped off significantly after the sun went down.
She could drive her beat-up old Jetta that she kept parked down the street, but it was too quick.
She needed the ten-minute walk in the chill of the air to soothe her nerves and steel her resolve.
Effie assumed the news was taken poorly.
Effie assumed that Brayden had disappointed her.
And if Effie was heartbroken that the Thatcher curse had caught up to Hope, her cousin would be too.
The least Effie could do was help her nurse her wounds with a pile of pasta and a cup of cocoa for the walk home.