Hold Me Close

chapter four (#ulink_6ec5b1c6-1eaa-5fee-bd4d-6c3ab42487d2)

Polly was settled at the breakfast bar working on her homework while Effie’s mom pulled a pan of cookies from the oven. Oatmeal raisin, Polly’s favorite. Effie hated raisins in anything, especially cooked. Their soft and gooey texture made her gag. But then, she wouldn’t eat chocolate chips, either, even though she liked the taste. She simply couldn’t bring herself to trust them, because they looked too much like rat turds or broken bits of cockroaches.

“Nana, I’m going to be in the school play.” Polly’s blond ponytail swung as she rocked a little on the stool.

“Polly,” Effie warned. “Sit still, or you’re going to tip the chair.”

In perfect tween style, Polly sighed and rolled her eyes, so much Effie’s mini-me that she couldn’t even be annoyed. God help her when Polly hit teenagerhood in a few years. Her mother’s wish that Effie would be blessed with a child just like her had never been meant as a compliment.

Effie wanted to squeeze and kiss her daughter but held herself back. Polly would suffer the embrace, of course, but Effie had decided when she was pregnant that she wouldn’t be that smothering kind of mother. The kind who licked her thumb to clean a smudge off her kid’s soft, fat cheeks, or who hovered. Anxious. The kind who baked cookies, she thought as Mom slid the edge of a metal spatula beneath each perfectly shaped cookie to lift them onto the cooling rack.

“What part are you going to play?” Mom turned with a smile.

Polly shrugged. “I’m in the chorus. I get to be in all the scenes where they need people in the background.”

“That sounds like fun.” Mom tugged open the fridge to pull out the jug of milk. She poured a glass and set it in front of Polly.

“It’s not a real part,” Polly said.

“It will still be fun.” Effie went around her mother to open the fridge herself. She pulled out a can of cola and popped the top, then grabbed a glass from the cupboard. She poured the clear fizzy liquid into it and held it up to the light before turning.

Mom had been staring with that look on her face. The one that meant she was trying hard not to comment. Effie sipped slowly without looking away, daring her mother to confront her about the habit and knowing she wouldn’t. Not in front of Polly, anyway.

“I’ll wash the glass, Mom, don’t worry,” Effie said.

It wasn’t that, of course. Mom was in her element when she was scrubbing and sewing and baking and cleaning. A single dirty glass was nothing to her. It was Effie’s reason for using the glass instead of drinking straight from the can that bothered her, but what was Effie supposed to do about it? Some things never left you, no matter how much you wanted them to.

Polly closed her math book. “I have to be an office worker and a hot dog seller, with a cart. Meredith Ross gets to be the ice cream seller, which I think is better, but they wouldn’t let us trade parts. Meredith thinks she’s so great, though. Can I have a cookie?”

Mom nodded. “Sure. But only one. You don’t want to spoil your dinner.”

“Sure she does,” Effie said. “Who wouldn’t want cookies instead of meat loaf?”

“You used to love meat loaf.” Mom’s voice was sharper than usual.

Effie looked up. “I used to love cookies more.”

“I like your meat loaf, Nana. And scalloped potatoes. And red beets,” Polly said. “But no green beans!”

“No green beans,” Mom said with another long look at Effie. She took a cookie from the cooling rack and gave it to Polly. “If you’re finished with your homework, why don’t you take Jakie out into the backyard and play for a bit until it’s time for dinner?”

“Mama, when are you leaving?”

“Soon.” Effie watched as Polly hopped off the stool. “Jacket.”

When the girl had gone out the back door with Mom’s aging Jack Russell terrier at her heels, Effie braced herself for the lecture. It was better to take it than avoid it. Otherwise, it would be twice as bad the next time. Kind of like letting a teakettle heat without the lid down on the spout—you could avoid the screaming, but you could also forget it was on the stove until it caught the burner on fire when the water all boiled away.

“You’re too thin,” Mom said flatly. “You have to eat, Effie. You’re going to get sick, and then what will happen to Polly? You don’t have health insurance!”

Effie had not actually been sick in years, not longer than a day or so anyway, and nothing more serious than a few sniffles or a cough. “I do, actually, Mom. There’s a little thing called Obamacare, remember?”

“And if you get sick and can’t work, how will you pay for it?”

“I just got a very nice royalty check from SweetTees, and one should be coming in from The Poster Place.” The two biggest companies to which Effie licensed her images. “That’s the great thing about doing what I do. The money comes in so long as stuff is selling, even if I’m not making something new. I have my Craftsy shop for new commissions that come in regularly, too. And I don’t live above my means.”

“A regular job with benefits, steady hours...”

Effie shuddered at the thought of going back to corporate work. “I spent the first few years of Polly’s life working to afford day care for her, Mother. It’s not like I don’t know what it’s like to work in a cubicle. This is so much better. I’m home to get her off to school. I’m there when she gets home. If I want to work until two in the morning and nap from ten to noon, I can do that.”

“It’s just...your work...it’s so unstable,” her mother said. “That’s all. I worry.”

“I’ll eat an apple a day and keep the doctor away. Okay?”

“You need more than an apple. Look at you.” Mom plucked at Effie’s sleeve. “Skin and bones.”

“Men like skinny women.”

It was a mistake, Effie knew that at once, but the words had hurtled out of her before she could stop them. Mom frowned and backed up, then turned, shoulders hunching. She went to the rack of cookies and began putting them into a plastic container. They couldn’t have been cool enough yet. They were going to mush and stick together.

“Well,” Mom said. “I guess you’d know all about what men like. Wouldn’t you?”

It made it hard to feel bad for her mother when she came back with a crack like that, even if Effie deserved it. Which she didn’t. Not really. At least, not anymore.

“There’s nothing wrong with knowing what men like, Mom. You could try it yourself, you know. Then you wouldn’t have to sit around here alone all the time.”

Mom didn’t turn. “Maybe I like being alone.”

“Nobody really wants to be alone, Mom. C’mon. Dad’s been gone a long time...” Effie stopped. Her father had died of a heart attack, too young. She still missed him, and no doubt her mother did, too. “I’m just saying, there’s nothing wrong if you wanted to go out sometimes.”

“I have plenty to keep me busy. I have no need to paint myself up and whore myself around, Felicity. I don’t believe my value as a person is reflected in whether or not a man wants to put his penis inside me.”

“Liking sex doesn’t make me a whore,” Effie said.

“No,” her mother said. “Letting them treat you like one does.”

Effie’s fingers curled into fists that she forced herself to open. “It’s not the fifties, okay? If a woman wants to date a lot of different men, that’s her...that’s my choice.”

Mom turned as she pressed the lid onto the plastic container. It shook a little as she gripped it in both hands. So did her voice. “What kind of example are you setting for Polly?”

“That’s a shitty thing to say.” Even during the height of what Effie thought of as her “experimenting” phase, she’d never brought any of the men home. Nor had she brought around any of her thus-far lackluster LuvFinder dates. “You know I don’t expose her to strangers. What I do with my business as an adult person is just that. My business. Don’t you dare give me grief about Polly.”

“No, no, you don’t expose her to strangers.” Her mother’s voice dripped with derision. “Just that one man. Probably the worst of them all. Him, you let slink around all the time, don’t you?”

It was an old and tired argument. “Heath loves Polly like she’s his own. And she loves him. He’s good to her.”

“He’s no good for you,” Mom snapped. “He’s the opposite of good, Effie. He’s horrible for you, and that means he’s no good for your daughter!”

“I know you hate him,” Effie began and thought of more words but stopped herself before she could say them. They wouldn’t matter. All these years later, all the same words. Nothing she said would make a difference.