Page 12 of Henhouse
He wondered what her name would taste like.Effie.Eggplant wasthe first thing that came to mind.That probably wasn’t how that worked.
“Are you going to brood this entire walk?” Schilling asked from beside him. They’d taken to walking off their angst together since their first week of freshman year at Keene State College when both of their roommates had locked them out with socks on the door. They’d been friends ever since.
“Just most of it,” he admitted.
“Bad day too?”
There was a droop in Schilling’s shoulders. “What happened to you?” Theodore inquired, happy to engage in someone else’s struggles instead of dwelling on his own.
“More of the same,” he said, shame marring his face. Theodore understood. Schilling had been in the midst of a bad breakup for what felt like forever. The woman who was once the light of his life had been unwilling to let him have the peace he so desired. Portsmouth was a big town, but it was small enough that skeletons rarely made it into closets. They just followed you down the street instead.
“Is there an end in sight?” Theo asked.
“I wish I knew.”
“Vacation is officially over then,” Theo teased. “Bet you wished you stayed on that island last week.”
“Yeah, but there are things I missed here too,” Schilling admitted, and the smile on his face had Theodore wondering how he could keep both things alive at once—his heartache and his hope.
7
Effie’s bones ached. She’d spent every day since the inspection bringing the store back to code, and quickly realizedwhythe things on Theodore’s list were necessary, especially on the day that she worked in the storage room and the fire alarm went off. She couldn’t make it to the exit because of all the boxes that were still waiting for new homes, and the door into the store had slipped its stop, locking her in the back. Thankfully, the alarm was a symptom of some curious two-year-old who pulled it while hoisted on his mother’s hip and not an actual fire. Otherwise, Effie might have been burned to death. She could imagine the smugness on Theodore’s face when he read the headline: LOCAL CRAFT CLERK TRAPPED BY KNITTING NEEDLES BURNED ALIVE.
Effie roared a yawn and desired a catnap in the sun that filtered through the window of the hobby room. It took all of her effort to keep her head up.
“This isn’t going to be a very flattering portrait if you keepdoing that,” Beatrice teased from behind her painting desk. A pad of cold-pressed watercolor paper lay before her as she translated the soft contours of Effie’s face as lightly as she could with a mechanical pencil.
“Don’t you already have four or a dozen portraits of me?”
“Yes, but I want one now. One that shows the woman that you’ve become.”
“It’s very flattering, but I don’t feel as though I’ve changed that much since my portrait three years ago.”
“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” Aunt Bea scolded, eyes bulging behind the bifocals she had to wear to do her paintings. Issa, who was only ten inches tall from head to tail feather, cocked her sunset yellow head to the side as though she too were chiding Effie from her perch on the desk.
She lifted off and swooped to the arm of Effie’s chair. Aunt Bea had never clipped Issa’s wings, and the little bird would frequently fly to her. Effie worried that it was a sign that her fate was linked to Bea’s. That she’d find love just to lose it—or never find it at all.
Aunt Bea was admirable. She was creative and intelligent. She’d taught chemistry for years at the university and somehow had combined her capacity for knowledge with her capacity for wonder to become an excellent watercolor artist. In a lot of ways, Effie should want to be like Beatrice. But she often wondered if there was more to Bea’s love story than she let on. If she had closed herself off and said no before she could be shown more of that blissful connection that kept the world spinning.
Effie stroked the parrot’s head with her forefinger, admiring how the orange and yellow feathers of her head and breast gave way to emerald and sapphire wings. “You’re very bold, little bird,” Effie said,struck by the proudness of her color.
“The boldness comes from being fully what you are,” Aunt Beatrice mused. “You remind me of soft pinks and dried flowers. Your essence, Effie dear, is cinnamon buns and embroidery threads and worn book pages. You are soft and sweet and timeless.Thatis who you are becoming.Thatis why I am painting you anew.”
Effie smiled. If that was how Aunt Bea saw her, then she’d be happy to be painted again. Just because books and cinnamon buns, crafts, and long walks were softer and less showy than the musicals, theater, and bright makeup that Louisa loved, or the pots of paint, tropical birds, and wildflowers Aunt Bea loved didn’t mean that Effie should take up less space in the world.
Beatrice began laying soft, light washes of color over her sketch, gradually building the rosy and tan tones of Effie’s cheeks. She liked to work in layers, not necessarily aiming to get the right pigment in one try but rather adding bits of color on top of one another to get her portraits to sing.
“Did you find Hope the other night?” Beatrice asked as she rinsed her brush.
“I did,” Effie confessed, deciding there was no harm in giving Aunt Bea the bare bones details. “She was in a state, didn’t want to talk at all. We had dinner and went for cocoa after. All I learned is that she’d closed a door.”
“She’s not one for second chances either.” Beatrice sighed, and it was the same sadness in her look that Effie had in her heart.
Hope appeared in the doorway and rapped lightly on the wall. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.
“Not at all! Come sit. Talk to us while this layer dries,” Aunt Beainvited.
Hope stepped into the room, wearing a pair of black leggings that climbed almost to her rib cage with a soft, cropped, burnt-orange sweater—whose baggy sleeves pooled at her wrists—tucked into the band. Effie had seen her in it a hundred times, but today, it had the added effect of showing off Hope’s baby bump. Effie almost couldn’t believe she’d been so blind. Hope was clearly pregnant.
