Page 10 of Henhouse
“Anything I can help you with?” Chloe chimed, her face whollyunreadable.
“No. Sorry to bother you,” Hope said and fully meant it. She hurried off the steps and out into the street, turning left toward Market Square. She needed to be surrounded by people, happy, living people who wouldn’t remind her just how disappointing men could be.
5
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, ithad 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 mismatchedface. 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,patiencetasting 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.”
