15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Effie, flour-dusted with tendrils of hair falling into her eyes from the messy bun atop her head, eased a pan of hot raspberry tarts from the oven and placed them on a waiting iron trivet.
She worked in near darkness, the dimmed chandelier over the breakfast table the only light on in the whole house.
It was after midnight, and the cocoon of quiet was heavy with her unspent feelings.
The pastries, perfectly puffed squares with heart-shaped centers filled with homemade raspberry compote, felt like they were taunting her.
It would have been wise to use a different cookie cutter.
Still, she lifted a tart from the parchment on her pan with the tenderness of a mother cradling her newborn baby and placed it on the cooling rack beside.
Halfway through her task, she turned to the oven on instinct.
Guided by scent alone, she knew her scones were perfectly browned.
She retrieved their pan from a secondary compartment in the oven and set them on a separate trivet.
Effie pivoted again, grabbing a small bowl from the counter filled with a simple icing glaze of milk, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla.
The warm scones melted the icing as it drizzled over top.
It would cool like a sugary crust on the decadent lavender and honey confections.
There was something peaceful in the predictability of a pastry. Unlike the torment of the evening.
When the tarts were cool enough, Effie wielded her shaker of confectioner’s sugar high above them and tapped the side so that a perfect dusting, like a featherlight snow, covered the golden-brown crusts.
She dropped any lingering embarrassment to pick up her favorite plate, one painted with a smattering of red and pink roses, and placed one of each treat atop its porcelain surface.
At the breakfast table, a small pot of mint tea steeped atop a pot warmer with a single tea light burning beneath.
The teacup and saucer that waited for her there matched the plate.
She sat before her tea party for one and poured her cup full to the brim.
Effie held it daintily between two hands, blowing off the pillows of steam before taking a sip.
Her shoulders relaxed and her eyes closed as she found respite in her rituals.
Much as it seemed her emotions were felt and handled with care as they arose, they had the unfortunate habit of lingering, bottling, and fermenting before bubbling over in messy waves.
A lot had transpired over the last weeks, and Effie’s feelings demanded the stage.
That’s why she had started baking, to quell the tide and ride the current in solitude.
Effie took a bite of the raspberry tart, the flaky crust depositing crumbs on the tabletop.
She glanced directly at the photo of Herman.
Gramps. He held her gaze as if daring her to be braver than the voice in her head.
The one that said that she’d never find love.
That it was hard. Difficult. A fool’s hope.
The voice that sounded an awful lot like her mother’s.
She swallowed hard as her throat constricted and her eyes burned. The quiet started to feel an awful lot like loneliness as Effie chewed on her lip, her vision blurred behind her tears. She only let a few escape before she steeled her resolve at the sound of footsteps in the hall.
Effie composed herself the best she could as Hope rounded the corner into the kitchen rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I thought I smelled something delicious.”
She padded farther into the kitchen as Effie discreetly wiped her nose on the back of her hand and smiled. Hope helped herself to a scone and some tea, taking the seat to Effie’s right.
“Why are you baking in the dark?” Hope whispered, but Effie was certain her cousin knew that she was better at sharing her life as a series of activities and not so good at telling people how she felt. But her baked goods could always handle her moods.
“I had a bad night,” Effie confessed, even though it was so much more than that.
She had been trying to work out all night how to bring this up to Hope, how to convey all that she’d learned.
Effie, however, felt rather sorry for herself and kept getting hung up on her own disappointments.
On the fact that she’d literally gotten excited over the man who’d picked Hope first. It was unnerving how small it made Effie feel, knowing that she now scored zero for two in her social experiments, playing second fiddle to first Talia and now Hope.
She didn’t want to envy them, but she did.
Effie hoped that baking would clear her head.
Give her the time to lick her wounds, shed her embarrassment at the almost not-really-even-in-the-realm-of-possibility kiss, and organize her thoughts well enough to broach the Brayden subject with Hope.
She apparently landed on a quick and dirty approach, because she bit out, “I met Brayden, he’s been separated from his wife for two years. ”
Hope nearly choked on her scone, her eyes big as moons. “What? How? Effie did you go and find him—”
“Of course not!” Effie snapped, and she let the sting reflect on her face. “I’ve been trying to take your advice . . . Aunt Bea’s advice . . .”
Effie looked to Hope whose face was a bundle of confusion. She looked ready to puke. “Effie, could you spit it out? I’m freaking out over here.”
Effie bridled her irritation and continued.
“During my class last week, this guy I met doing a safety check on the store pity invited me out with him and his girlfriend after he spilled wine on my bag. While we were at the bar, his friend Schilling showed up. They only ever used that name, and there was a bit where I was being called Eggplant so he didn’t know my name either . . .”
“Huh?”
Effie backtracked and filled her in on her first encounter with Theodore, how her synesthesia got in the way, and how it came back up in class.
She brought her up to speed on the candle-making request, the follow-up inspection, and the ensuing incidents that brought her to revealing her real name.
Hope, seemingly satisfied that this was all evidently an act of God, settled into her chair.
But her gaze turned sharp as she asked, “How did he know I met his wife?”
Effie swallowed hard, bile rising in response to the anger she felt simmering off Hope’s vampire-white skin.
Effie didn't tell him about the baby, didn’t tell him that Hope had already decided to cut him off, didn’t confess or meddle as best she could.
But when he slumped onto the stool, his eyes brimming with tears, and asked how Hope could keep ignoring him when the last time they spoke they’d said I love you , Effie couldn’t bear it.
“If you had seen him, you’d understand why I told him,” Effie explained, straightening her spine.
“All I said was that you’d gone to find him that afternoon at the house and met his wife.
He went into a colorful string of curses, a bit of manic laughter, presumably because Chloe is insane, and then he explained everything. ”
“Everything?” Hope asked, and Effie thought she’d be relieved, but instead, she looked like she wanted to rip Effie’s head off. “Good to know he’ll confess his whole sordid backstory to you , and not the woman he supposedly loves.”
It was Effie’s turn to stare wide-eyed. She understood Hope feeling like he should have told her about Chloe, but how could she make this a bad thing?
It was good. He loved her, he was dedicated to her, he was doing everything in his power to be with her, all the while trying to keep Chloe away from her.
“I think he was trying to spare you from Chloe. The divorce has been dragged out because she virtually married him for his money and now she won’t go quietly. ”
“ Spare me your opinions, Effie. It doesn’t matter. He kept it from me.”
“So you’re not even going to talk to him?”
“No, and neither are you,” Hope said with such finality Effie wondered if there would ever come a day when she would rightfully and truly win an argument.
“Fine,” Effie huffed. “But don’t act like you’re being any better.”
“It’s my body!”
“It’s his baby!” Effie screamed.
Hope rose from the table, leaning heavily on it like she was about to breathe fire in Effie’s face. “I mean it, Effie. Stay out of it. Don’t see Brayden or Theo or any of them. Find other friends to experiment having a life with.”
“You can’t tell me who to hang out with. Schilling is a nice guy, we were starting to get along as real friends. And Theo, well—”
“Theo has a girlfriend. He obviously doesn’t want you.”
If Hope saw how Effie’s heart bled at her words, she didn’t show it.
Effie wanted to yell even louder, scream in Hope’s face that she was not everyone’s punching bag, but instead, she did as she always does.
She took a deep breath and looked at Hope deeply.
She saw the bubble of hurt behind her eyes ready to pop, the anxiety in the white-knuckle grip on the table, the walls that were being built around her block by block so second-chance citizens would need a grappling hook to access her warmth and her heart.
Hope’s anger and fear were talking. It wasn’t Hope.
Effie knew that even if Hope didn’t. But if she loved her, she had to help her see that she pushed away something good, maybe even fantastic.
Effie summoned her nerve, took a deep breath and whispered, “He loves you.” Bright, thirst-quenching lemon water slid over Effie’s tongue. “He loves you so much.”
Hope barely looked at her. Didn’t register the tears that were returning to Effie’s eyes. “Please, just stay out of it,” she barked.
Dorothea and Louisa shuffled into the room, the former in a quilted robe that brushed her ankles.
“Would you two keep it down?” Louisa scolded.
“What’s going on?” Dorothea asked, settling her drowsy bones on the seat beside Effie. Hope moved to exit the kitchen.
“Effie’s poking her nose where it doesn’t belong . . . again.” Effie’s heart stopped as Hope turned to Louisa. “You might want to ask her about Gil.” She stormed out of the room on a wave of fear and ignorance so big, Effie wondered if it would drown her.
Louisa’s brow ruffled. “What is she talking about?”
“Louisa, I’m so sorry. I didn’t . . . I only wanted you to feel loved.”
“What did you do?” she demanded.
Dorothea took hold of Effie’s trembling hand, worry painted on her lips.
Effie was fried. She wasn’t sure she could handle another argument, but she knew Louisa wouldn’t let it go.
“It was before Hazel was born, about a week before your shower. I went to Mario’s with Hope.
We sat in the bar and Gil was there with one of his friends.
He didn’t see us come in. We were seated right behind him at a high-top, so I heard everything .
. . his friend asked about you and the baby, and he said with such conviction that the baby probably wasn’t even his.
That as soon as she arrived he was demanding a paternity test.”
Louisa bit back a laugh like she’d expect nothing less from Gil. “And what does that have to do with you?” Her tone indicated she thought Hope had started some drama out of nothing, but Effie knew it wasn’t nothing.
She wasn’t sure she could get the words out.
Her throat was dry, her tongue thick. “When I went out to get the balloons from my car for your shower a few days later, I saw him standing on the curb. He was dipping—which I knew he told you he’d stopped doing.
I confronted him.” A metallic bite tingled her taste buds.
“I told him what I’d heard and said he was daft if he thought you’d try to trap him.
Told him how wonderfully bright and amazing his life with you could be.
He insisted he was still demanding the test. I told him if he was going to break your heart, why wait? ”
Louisa was stoic and Effie’s tears spilled over.
“I didn’t want that beautiful little girl to come into this world surrounded by anyone who didn't already love her,” Effie sobbed. “I didn’t want you to break on the happiest day of your life. I’m the reason he left. I challenged him. I pushed him toward it. I’m so sorry, Lou. I’m so, so sorry.”
Effie stole her hand back from Grams and buried her face in her palms. She cried for what she’d done, for Hope’s harsh words, for the crushed friendship with Schilling, and for the ache in her chest that never really went away.
It didn’t do to let things build up this badly.
She felt utterly insane and like she was overreacting to the umpteenth degree.
But that knowledge didn’t stop the tears.
The dam had burst and now she had to ride it out.
Louisa eased off of her seat and came to kneel before her sister, grabbing Effie’s wrists and pulling her hands from her face, so they rested on her lap.
The only thing behind Louisa’s eyes was an unwavering calm.
She gripped Effie’s hands with one of hers and used the other to brush the fat drops from Effie’s flushed cheeks.
Grams watched them silently from the other side of the table.
“I think,” Louisa whispered, pausing to clear her throat, “that if the worst thing you’ve done is challenge a man to reevaluate his priorities in the name of protecting me, my heart, my honor .
. . then you truly are the best of us, Effie Rose.
” Louisa took Effie’s face in both of her hands and brought her bow of a mouth to rest on Effie’s forehead, planting the most tender of kisses. “You are far too hard on yourself.”
Effie threw her arms around Louisa and pulled her tight.
She missed her sister. Missed their late-night slumber parties beneath sheet-walled forts, the way that Louisa used to brush and braid her hair for school.
How she, Hope, and Effie had once been a trio at the Book and Bar or down at the beach.
The space between them had grown so big that Effie didn’t know how to reclaim it.
Didn’t know if she could. “I thought you’d pitch into a classic Louisa screaming fit if you found out,” Effie admitted into Louisa’s sleep-mussed braid.
“I’m not sure any of us miss those,” Grams chirped from behind them.
Both girls smiled as they separated. Louisa wiped another smear of tears from Effie’s cheek. “Maybe if I found out back then,” Louisa admitted. “But I’d like to think I’ve matured, maybe thanks to Hazel.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t learned much about the new you.”
“Likewise,” Louisa said, smiling. “Are those tarts up for grabs?”
“Absolutely.”
Louisa filled a plate for her and Dorothea while Effie poured the tea. They sipped and munched until Effie’s bad night ended with an unexpected lightness that only the Thatcher women knew how to bring.