Hold Me Close

by Megan Hart

  “Not here,” he says. And later, when she’s on top of him in his bed with the plain white sheets and lumpy pillows, “Call me Bill. My name’s Bill.”

  chapter thirty

  The trip to Philadelphia was, on a good day, a two-hour drive. That is if you could avoid traffic on the Schuylkill, and honestly, that was an impossible dream. Still, Effie had made it in just under three hours and didn’t have to be home at any certain time because she’d made arrangements for Heath to be there when Polly got off the bus. It had been an olive branch from her to him, and he’d taken it, but she wasn’t sure it had made much of a difference, overall.

  She didn’t want to think about that now.

  “Effie! Hi.” Elisabeth had worked with Naveen as long as Effie had been selling her art to him, though it had been only in the past few years that she’d taken over acquiring pieces on her own. “Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, soda? I have a bottle of wine somewhere around here, if you want a glass of that.”

  “It’s a little early, even for an artist.” Effie laughed and hung her coat on Elisabeth’s rack, then took a seat on the plush red couch. “Your office looks amazing. Wow.”

  “I told Naveen that if we wanted to get to the next level with clients, we had to show ourselves off as being worth the time. He was happy with bare-bones spaces, but I had to convince him that, sure, they like to go look at the pieces hung in the gallery, where they look spectacular, but they’re only going to buy what they can imagine will look fantastic hanging in their homes.” Elisabeth poured herself a mug of coffee from the maker on the small stand next to her desk and held up the carafe with a raised brow.

  “Yeah, thanks. Black is fine.” Effie took the mug the other woman offered and sipped the strong, hot coffee hesitantly at first. It was fine, of course. She took another drink.

  “So,” Elisabeth continued, “I redid my office here to have this little area that’s set up like a living room. Even if the clients don’t have the same decor, at the very least, they can picture the piece in a living room or foyer, not simply hanging in perfect lighting with neutral backgrounds. It’s been working out really well. I move so many more pieces since I did it. But, hey, tell me what’s up with you. I saw the piece you sent to the New York gallery. My God, Effie, it was amazing.”

  Warmed by the praise, Effie sat back against the cushions. “Thanks. Sometimes it comes out right, you know?”

  “I couldn’t make art if you put a gun to my head.” Elisabeth took a seat in the retro-styled chair across from Effie. “So I don’t really know, but I understand. Does that make sense?”

  Effie laughed. “I think so.”

  “Anyway, let’s go over the ideas I had for the show. We can start by looking at the calendar and going from there.”

  Together, they worked up a date and time for the show, how long it would run, how many pieces Effie would need that were similar to the one she’d sent in. Elisabeth assured her they’d fill in with the other work. It was going to be great, she said. Effie wasn’t so sure.

  “I’ve never had my own show. I’m not sure I can carry it.” The coffee gone, Effie had nothing to do with her hands but link her fingers in her lap.

  Elisabeth shook her head. “You’re going to be great. Really. And honestly, it’s as much about marketing and publicity, these days, getting people into the gallery. And if we can get them in, I can guarantee you’ll sell. You want to see the new gallery space? Check out what we have room for? I don’t know if it will help you figure out what you want to paint or not. I work with some people who insist on being guided by the muse no matter what form it takes, and others who are really more interested in making a living.”

  “I’m totally interested in making a living,” Effie said absently as she got up to check out the piece hanging on Elisabeth’s wall, not in the client section but to the side of her desk next to the window. “I make art like it’s my job so I don’t have to get another one.”

  It was a photograph. An 11 x 20 print, scattered stones on a bed of velvet with one heart-shaped rock set off from the others. It was more than just a photo. Someone had added lines and color to it, little hints here and there, using ink and pen to transform an already-beautiful shot into something unique. Special.

  “This is good,” Effie said, turning to look at Elisabeth, who’d stopped, still and silent, to also stare at the photo.

  “It was a gift,” Elisabeth said.

  Effie had bitten her own tongue for silence enough times to see the struggle in someone else. Wisely, she changed the subject as she followed Elisabeth out of the office and into the gallery space. It was bright, airy, welcoming. Various paintings, photographs and sculptures occupied well-designed spaces. Effie spotted a couple of her hidden clocks along a back wall but didn’t go closer to see them. She knew what they looked like.

  “Can you envision your work here? Oh, hold on. Excuse me.” Elisabeth pulled her buzzing phone from her pocket to look at the screen. Her brow furrowed. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and gave Effie a pained smile.

  “You need to take that?”

  Elisabeth shook her head. “No. It’s...”

  The phone buzzed again. Elisabeth put her hand over her pocket. Effie gave her a sympathetic look, woman to woman. That had to be from a guy.

  “Excuse me just a minute. Take a walk around, make yourself at home.” Elisabeth walked away to look at her phone, shoulders hunched, furiously texting.

  Effie watched her for a moment and took the chance to tug her own phone from her pocket. Messages from her mother, of course. One from Heath saying he’d be taking Polly bowling tonight if she got her homework finished in time, so if they weren’t home when Effie got there, not to worry. One from Mitchell, a simple smiley emoticon and one word.

  Hey.

  Hey, Effie typed.

  Immediately, the three small dots that indicated Mitchell was typing showed up on her screen. With an eye on Elisabeth, who was now pacing and typing, Effie waited for his reply. He typed. Then stopped. He typed, then stopped.

  Finally, Hey.

  She laughed, gave another look to Elisabeth, who was still occupied with her phone, and responded. That was a lot of typing for a single word.

  I was going to try for clever, but I didn’t know how the joke would go over, so I just went with the safe route. How r u?

  Fine, Effie began, meaning to write more but at that moment Elisabeth returned.

  “Sorry.” The other woman looked as if she’d been trying not to cry.

  “Everything okay?”

  “No, not really,” Elisabeth said with a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But it’s also nothing new. So, let’s take a look at the spaces I was thinking of using for you, okay?”

  This time, Effie’s phone was the interrupting buzz. The first time it hummed from her pocket, she ignored it. The second time, she assumed it was because she hadn’t checked the first message—her phone could be impatient with alerts. The third and fourth times it buzzed, she figured she’d better peek to be sure it wasn’t Heath with an emergency with Polly. She caught Elisabeth’s curious look.

  “This is something kind of new,” she explained, then after a second thought, she showed her phone to Elisabeth. “Boys being pouty? I don’t know how to deal with it.”

  I wanted to follow up about next week, First Friday?

  Hey, r u there?

  Guess you’re too busy to chat.

  Give me a ping when you have some time for me.

  “Ugh,” Elisabeth said, but she laughed. “Maybe he didn’t mean it to come off as pouty?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to say,” Effie admitted. “I’ve only just started dating him. But if that’s how he’s going to be, I’ll have to tell you, I’m not gonna have it.”

  Elis
abeth gave her a commiserating look. “Let’s go back to my office for the final details. And yeah, I know what you mean. It’s fine for them not to pay attention to your messages, to leave them unanswered for days at a time, but boy oh boy, you’d better be jumping to answer them the second they text you, huh?”

  As if on cue, Elisabeth’s phone jangled. A call this time. She slid her finger across the screen and gave Effie a twisted little grin.

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m not answering him this time. He can wait on me, for a change.”

  Effie had known Elisabeth through Naveen for years but hadn’t spent much time with her. Effie thought the other woman was married, had some adult kids, but something in the way her phone was blowing up didn’t sound like a husband. At least not the loving kind.

  “Oh, hey, I wanted to ask you if you’d consider bringing a few special pieces, too. I saw them on your website store. I...” Elisabeth paused, looking almost embarrassed. “I really like them. They spoke to me. I know you prefer to sell those yourself, so I’d be willing to take them here without charging a commission, if you sell them. I want people to see them.”

  Surprised, Effie nodded. “Sure, I guess. What pieces?”

  “Let me show you.” Elisabeth pulled up Effie’s Craftsy store on her desktop and spun the monitor to show her. “I’ve noticed these pieces have been for sale for a long time. Your stuff usually moves pretty quickly on there, so I thought...well, art is so subjective, you know? I know you have that collector audience who buy the clocks...”

  A beat of silence fell between them, and Effie filled it by moving closer to look at the screen. “Oh. Those? You like those?”

  Elisabeth had pulled up three oils Effie had painted, not a triptych on purpose, though they’d ended up being one. Similar themes as the ones the collectors bought—straight lines, simple subjects, with hidden images you had to search hard to find. They had clocks, but they were barely hidden, no challenge to find. She’d always assumed that was why nobody had wanted them.

  “They’re a secret. Aren’t they?” Elisabeth shifted in her chair to draw some lines in the air above the picture on the screen. She glanced at Effie, but her voice and her gaze were somehow...reverent didn’t seem to be the right word, but respectful. Yeah, maybe that.

  Effie tilted her head. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, the reason why people love your work is because it’s a challenge. Finding the clock. Right? You make them not only appreciate the piece as something enjoyable to look at...not always pretty,” Elisabeth amended. “Sometimes a little disturbing. But always enjoyable. Yet you also make them look behind what the picture is to what’s hidden in it. I’ve been on the forums. They love it, like a grown-up version of Where’s Waldo?”

  “Yes, but for freaks,” Effie murmured.

  Elisabeth didn’t laugh. “Yes. There’s the voyeuristic aspect to it. Yet these three...well, you barely have to glance at them to see the clocks. It’s not super obvious, but it’s there and there and there.” She pointed. “But that’s not the real hidden picture. Is it?”

  Effie sat back to study the other woman. “No. It’s not. What do you see?”

  Elisabeth used the mouse to click something, blowing up the picture on the screen. Her grin turned kind of secret, assessing. Something in her eyes glowed as she glanced at Effie.

  “You have the clocks, of course. You always do. But here, here and here—” Elisabeth traced the lines “—you have this. It’s the shape of a heart and two initials. E...and H.”

  It was true, and real, and nobody else had ever seemed to see it. Effie had shown the three pieces together and separately to several people and had featured them in her store. Elisabeth was right about that—they’d been in the inventory for a couple years, never selling. Nobody had ever inquired about them.

  “I’d always thought they were some of my best work,” Effie said quietly. “Not like the piece I sent to Naveen. But really good.”

  “They are more than really good. The piece you sent to Naveen is art. If you do more like that, they will also sell. They will make people talk, there’s no question about that. But these, Effie...” Elisabeth sat back and pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. She drew a hitching breath. In a broken, rasping voice, she finished, “You made these for someone you love. Didn’t you?”

  Effie swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “Yes. Someone I love very much.”

  Elisabeth gave her a watery smile and grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk to wipe her eyes and then her nose. “I can tell.”

  “Maybe that’s why they didn’t sell.” Effie reached for a tissue herself.

  They stared at each other across the desk.

  “Does he know?” Elisabeth asked after a moment.

  “About the paintings?”

  “No,” Elisabeth said. “How much you love him?”

  Effie shook her head. “No. He couldn’t possibly. I’ve never told him.”

  Elisabeth spun in her chair to look at the photo on the wall. “You should tell him, Effie. Even if he doesn’t love you back. Trust me on this, you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  The problem had never been about Heath loving her back. Effie pointed to the photograph on the wall. “Did you tell him? The guy who gave you that picture?”

  Elisabeth looked at her. “Yes, I did. More than once.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  “Yeah,” Elisabeth said. “Still.”

  Effie frowned. “And what happened?”

  “Nothing,” Elisabeth said. “But at least I can take comfort in the fact he knows. No matter what else happens, he will always know it.”

  “Even if you can never be together?”

  “Especially then,” Elisabeth said, and after that the conversation moved to other things.

  chapter thirty-one

  “Fucking you is like fucking a skeleton,” Bill says. “Jesus, Effie, what the hell’s going on with you?”

  “Thin is in.”

  She’s drunk. She raided Bill’s liquor cabinet the second she came through his door. He didn’t try to stop her, even with her being underage. Some cop. She lifts the bottle of whiskey in offer to him, and Bill takes it from her.

  “You’ve had enough. Let me make you a sandwich or something. Christ. Are you going to puke or anything? Go to the bathroom.”

  Effie’s not going to puke. She feels good, glowing, happy, full of...something, she doesn’t know what. It’s summer. The sun takes forever to set. She doesn’t have to be in the dark for hours.

  “I graduated,” she tells him.

  Bill looks at her over his shoulder. He’s still naked, and something about that makes Effie giggle. He frowns, brandishing the mustard-smeared butter knife.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Your butt has dimples.” Effie giggles again. “Hey. Hey, Bill. Hey, Officer Schmidt. I graduated. I fucking made it.”

  “Don’t curse, it’s crude.”

  Effie rolls her eyes. She wears Bill’s T-shirt and nothing else, and she pirouettes in place. Points her toes. She’s a terrible dancer, but she’s trying to make him laugh. She and Heath laugh together until they can’t breathe, but she and Bill...they hardly ever laugh at all.

  “I didn’t know if I could, you know? Like, all that time I missed, right, but I worked hard and I managed to make it happen, and I did it. I graduated with my class. Aren’t you proud of me, Bill?” She dances closer, letting the hem of that shirt ride up on her thighs.

  His gaze drops there, and to the shadow between her legs, and his gaze also shadows. Effie lifts the hem higher. Higher. She wants him to look at her. She wants him to see her.

  “So what’s the plan now? Go off to college? Get married, get the white picket fence, have a couple of kids?”r />
  Effie’s buzz is wearing off. She’d applied to the local college on the advice of her guidance counselor, who said she could take two years of interim classes before she’d have to think about applying someplace else. Two years to Effie feels like a very long time. “I don’t know. I’m just glad I did it. I guess I can think about what happens next later. Maybe after you fuck me again.”

  He tells her not to be crude, but it excites him. She sees it in the way he licks his lips, the way he shifts from foot to foot. Fucking Bill is everything anyone would ever say is wrong, but Effie can’t manage to stop herself from doing it, because fucking Bill makes her feel as though possibly, maybe, there’s a chance for her to do something with her life exactly like what he just described.

  “And what’s wrong with getting married or having kids anyway?” Effie spins again, slower this time. She pauses with her back to him so she can look over her shoulder through the filter of her hair. “Haven’t you ever thought about it?”

  “Yeah, sure. Doesn’t mean I want to do it.”

  “No?” Effie grins. “I could be a nice little housewife. Cook and bake and fuck...”

  Bill laughs, sharp and hard. “You? You’re eighteen years old. You have a whole life ahead of you. The hell you want to think about getting married for?”

  “It feels safe.” Effie frowns. Her stomach has started hurting, and her head, and the soft warm glow she had earlier from the way Bill kissed and held her is almost gone.

  “Well,” Bill said. “There’s nothing safe about it. Eat your sandwich, and I’ll drive you home.”

  There’s a bit more to it than the sandwich, several hours of it as a matter of fact, but when it’s over Bill does drive her home. He drops her off a block from her house so she can walk to her front door without her parents seeing them together. She made it home just as night is falling, so there’s no reason why they should be worried or waiting for her, but someone is there on the front porch. The sight of that long black trench coat, the dark and spiky hair, stops her heart from beating for a long second before her pulse thumps hard and fast in her throat and wrists.