34. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
You did something stupid.”
“And you did something slutty.”
Hope glowered at her cousin. The blush of satisfaction was apparently obvious enough to Effie now that she chose to see it. “It wasn’t slutty, it was a reconciliation.”
Effie lit up. “Veritas?”
“Do you think I’d have sex with him if we weren’t getting back together?”
“I think you’ve been stealing my romance novels for the past three weeks and would have deemed an orgasm a public service at this point whether it made things complicated between you two or not.”
“Effie Rose, two and a half months with that man and you’re as debased as the rest of us.”
Effie rolled her eyes, but Hope noted the shame that clouded around her. “Do you want to talk about the stupid thing you did?”
“Why are you so certain that I did something stupid? ”
Hope raised her brows at Effie who lay sprawled like a starfish on a beach towel on the back patio.
The sun danced over her already tanned skin and the breeze fluttered the ruffles of her tank top.
Effie was effervescent, a sparkling champagne on a hot summer day, effusive in her femininity, elegant, and all things frilly.
She was a magnet and had no idea how the easy, wistful way she graced the world drew people to her.
Effie was smart and kind and so beautiful that Hope had always harbored a bit of envy toward her younger cousin.
Effie was also prone to overthinking to the point of trapping herself.
She, unlike Hope or Louisa or Pamela, thought her way through life instead of feeling it.
But it was a different kind of thoughtfulness, not the organized logical brain of Ellen and Tibby, but the frenetic imaginings of a woman that was still looking for a safe place to land.
“You’ve been out here for twenty minutes.
If you were sad you’d be baking. If you were happy you’d be baking.
Especially given the ball next weekend, but instead, you are starfishing in the sun.
That’s symptomatic of an embarrassed Effie.
You don’t get embarrassed unless you’ve done something truly stupid. ”
“Your baby is never going to be able to lie to you.”
“Good. Now, we were talking about your idiocy, not my family.” She loved how the word family sounded. That it was official. Hope bit her bottom lip replaying her morning with Brayden. An excited shiver ran up her spine.
“That good? Even with—?” Effie scooped her hands over her stomach indicating Hope’s baby bump—though bump seemed inadequate at his stage.
“It was an adjustment but then . . . Effie, I know you’ve always believed in God, but I think I met her today. ”
Effie nearly cackled. “Ew, too much information.”
“Hey, you started it.”
“And Brayden finished it apparently,” Effie joked.
“Badumbah. Since when do you make dirty jokes?”
“It’s your sex life we’re discussing, so I can joke all I want. You have a more physical relationship with your physical relationships. I think I need . . . more. ”
“What do you mean?”
The birds hushed as if listening to the confessions of their ethereal princess. The breeze rustled the grass and mimicked Effie’s sigh. “I think it’s a mental game.”
“So you need to get out of your head and into your body?”
“No. That’s what I mean. The way you talk about it, or Louisa, or even my novels, it’s all body forward.
It’s physicality and touch and that’s all there, but it’s not enough to fully turn me on, I don’t think.
I need the right headspace, I need to connect intellectually, I need words and romance, and I need it to be about intimacy, not just about getting off. ”
“Isn’t that what Theo’s been telling you? That intimacy is all-encompassing?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t matter though.”
“Why not?”
“It just . . . doesn’t.”
Hope tried to unravel the hidden meaning there.
She didn’t think Effie had broken up with Theo or she’d be more upset.
But maybe Hope was projecting. This was the first real relationship Effie had ever had, unlike Hope who had four or five serious boyfriends in college.
Maybe this was Effie post–break up. Hope didn’t want to pry but couldn’t quell her curiosity.
“Does Theo have his tux rented for the ball?”
“I never invited him,” Effie confessed. Hope wobbled to the patio stones from her perch in the shade. She sat down beside Effie and let the ground support her aching joints and swollen body. “Are you going to move in with Brayden?”
“Yeah,” Hope said and it felt like a confession.
It was almost too much to imagine life without Effie on the other side of her bedroom wall.
They’d grown up in this house together. Hope had once viewed it as a failure to have returned to her room here after college, but now she wouldn’t trade those three years together with the people she loved most for anything.
She reached out a hand and laced it with Effie’s. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you more.” Effie breathed around the lump Hope heard forming in her throat. “What does it look like?”
“What?”
“Your life from now on?”
Hope sighed. She had been on such a roller coaster since learning about the baby that the answer to that question seemed to change daily.
It had been dangerous to wish for a future she wasn’t sure was hers to claim until that morning.
“I think it looks like standing Book and Bar dates with you, and an office library where I write my next twenty books. It looks like a bigger guest list at Christmas dinner and learning what kind of mom I want to be. I think it has the same roots, Effie. I really do, but it’s heartier and fuller and better than I could have ever imagined. What about you?”
“I think Book and Bar dates will be the highlight of my week.”
“Don’t say that.” Hope couldn’t keep the worry from furrowing her brow.
She wanted to ask about Effie’s dreams and vision for her life, but she wasn’t built like that.
Hope had always known what she wanted to do and be.
A writer, a mother. But Effie didn’t dream up possible futures, almost as if she didn’t think it was safe to do so.
“It won’t feel like home without you.”
“I’ve spent time living away before.”
“Never for good.”
“Maybe you’ll need to renegotiate what feeling at home means,” Hope offered, a bit of guilt tugging at her insides about abandoning Effie amidst her turmoil when the Thatchers had been in rare form as of late.
“Yeah, maybe,” Effie whispered, and Hope knew there was more she wasn’t saying, but she let it lie.
Instead, she bathed in the sun, Effie’s hand in hers, knowing with conviction that they would always flock together, whether they shared a wall or not.
Effie kept to herself most of the rest of the week, not wanting to engage in any actual confrontations with her sister or mother. Only Ellen had sought her out to apologize for their behavior. The other two were either afraid to approach Effie or didn’t feel bad enough to say anything.
She’d managed to dodge them all weekend, keeping to her room with her nose in a romance novel or out for walks or lingering late at work.
Craft night at Glitter & Glue began with a box of chocolates left on the counter and a note from Theo. Apparently, he did his best to believe her strange departure wasn’t an actual breakup, though it had felt like one to her. She didn’t correct him, because her head and her heart disagreed.
Yes, she’d done well hiding, but it was Monday which meant it was her turn to cook breakfast and she could avoid no longer.
“You’ve been keeping well to yourself,” Dorothea mused from her place in front of the cast-iron skillet warming homemade sausages they had prepped and frozen last week. The sage and thyme in the patties balanced the sweet aroma of the waffles Effie piled onto a platter.
“I’m sorry,” Effie said. Grams tried to catch her eye, but Effie kept her head down. Everything felt wrong since that night, and despite all that occurred around the dinner table, Effie only had herself to blame for her current angst.
Louisa was the first one downstairs, Hazel on her hip.
She set the toddler in her high chair with a sippy cup of milk and a myriad of toys.
She slipped between Effie and Dorothea en route to the coffee pot that finished brewing an aromatic roast that Effie loved the smell of but hated the taste of. “Good morning,” Louisa chirped.
“Morning, sweetie.”
The gurgle of coffee into the ceramic mug drowned out the other sounds of the kitchen, Effie hyperaware of Louisa’s location and movements. Pins pricked the back of her neck. For all her talk of confronting everyone, she was never very good at it. “Morning,” Effie muttered.
Louisa huffed, resting against the counter next to the waffle iron Effie tended. “Look, I’m sorry we ambushed you. For what it’s worth, I assumed you didn’t know how extensive his history was and wanted to warn you.”
“You could have done that privately,” Effie said through gritted teeth, though she knew it wouldn’t have felt any better without Theo there to intervene.
“I promise it came from a good place.”
“I wish that mattered,” Effie spat as she plopped two more fluffy waffles onto the pile. She carried the platter to the breakfast table.
“Effie, come on.”
Effie spun around. “No, you come on! All you and Mom accomplished was getting in my head, unnerving me . You didn’t embarrass him or call him out or even tell me anything I didn’t already know! You just ruined things.”
“If he was so easily pushed away then we were right to say something.”
“He wasn’t! You ruined my confidence, my faith.”
Hazel fussed in her seat, not liking Effie’s rising sharpness. Effie stood beside her and smoothed back her featherlight wisps of hair. “I’m sorry, little bird.” She turned to Louisa. “You should have let it go.”
“We didn’t want you making the same mistakes we did.”