Page 22 of Henhouse
“Yes, but I bet your writer friends would be more discerning and tell you how to make it fantastic.”
“My writer friends have helped along the way, but I like your perspective. I like to know what you liked and didn’t like. You’re a discerning reader. Why shouldn’t I want to know what you think?”
“Isn’t great art supposed to be a reflection of you, not pandering to your discerning readers?” Effie quipped.
“Yes, but it’s better if it can be both. Are you going to do this for the next series? It’s getting tedious telling you how much I value your thoughts.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Good.”
Effie handed Hope the pages. Hope’s eyebrows shot up at the red marking the pages here and there as she flipped through. Effie looked at her feet, fiddling with her fingers while Hope scoured the chapters.
A sip from her Aperol spritz gave her the courage to say, “I mostly noted typos. And a few places where you fell into some romanticclichés when I know you had something more . . . truthful . . . vulnerable to say.”
Effie dared a glance at Hope who had sighed as if she knew that criticism was coming.
“I know I don’t know how it ended, or why—and I’m not asking, I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready—but you said it was real. While it was, anyway. Use that more. It’s like ninety percent there, add the last bit you held back. Purge yourself of it so it can be remembered fondly and can inspire the rest of us to seek out a Dom and Kiernan kind of love.”
“And you say you’re not a writer,” Hope joked, but her smile was faint.
They were quiet for a long moment. Effie thought maybe she had gone too far, said too much. She didn’t like to give advice. She didn’t think she’d earned that right with what little she knew of the world.
But Effie knew her own heart, how it yearned for romance and connection. How it stopped completely when she let herself imagine a life that was made beautiful and wondrous by doing it with the right person. It was how Grams had always described the love she had with Herman. It was what Effie knew was budding with Hope and Brayden. It’s what had her daring to say, “Maybe you and Brayden could give things another shot.”
Hope’s glare could have cut glass.
“Grams always says friendship is foundational, forgiveness is freeing. Maybe—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hope snapped.
Effie swallowed hard. Hope didn’t use that tone with her. Not since she was fifteen, Hope seventeen, and Effie had accidentally let slipthat Hope had a crush on Tim Marcroft in biology class. They weren’t exactly popular and he was. It made for a pretty hellish week of razzing and sideways glances.
“I’m sorry. I just think—”
“I don’t care what you think!” Hope jerked up in her seat, fire in her eyes. She slammed her heavy fantasy novel on the coffee table between them. Effie flinched at the resounding thud. Hope dug her manicured nails into her hair. The assertion that she valued Effie’s opinion evaporated with the steam that billowed from Hope’s ears. But she wasn’t the only one bubbling with anger.
Effie was fed up. They told each other everything. Always. Hope had been betraying that for over a year, apparently, and Effie couldn’t take it any longer. Couldn’t bear feeling like they were splitting apart at the seams. Didn’t want to imagine a day where she was left standing on a ledge, Hope inaccessible across the rift between them. “Just tell me! I have done nothing to deserve you keeping me out of this. I am your friend, Hope. Just fucking let me in!” She hated cursing, it tasted like iron, blood, forbidden. She bit down on her tongue, controlling her face.
“So you can fix it for me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“What you did with Louisa and Gil?”
“Wow, that’s a low blow,” Effie huffed, but guilt shaded her face. Hope must have seen the shame and angst mingling and viewed it as an opportunity to push Effie over the edge.
“You know how you don’t like to give advice because you’re soinexperienced?” The word was a scathing insult. “Maybe stick to that.”
Hope snatched her book from the table and beganreading. Conversation over. Like everyone in Effie’s life, Hope had the final say. Effie’s dad used to tell her whenever she confided that Louisa and Ellen always got what they wanted from their mother, thatthe squeaky wheel gets the grease. Effie moved through their childhood quiet as a wraith. She had never been a squeaky wheel. Never saw the point. If things were going to come her way, she wanted them to come freely, easily, with love and affection. Not because she whined for an hour straight until her mother finally gave in and let her have the nail polish, or go to the movie, or stay up past her bedtime. The trouble was it kept her from living the other bit of wisdom she’d stored in her seven-year-old memory like a time capsule—if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
Not wanting their relationship to devolve any further and desperately wanting to move beyond the lingering sting of Hope’s condescension, Effie eased to the edge of her seat and rested her elbows on her knees. She’d ask for what she wanted without uttering a word. Effie stared at Hope, unrelenting. She waited one minute. Two minutes. Hope shifted in her seat trying to ignore Effie’s stare. Three minutes. Finally, with a huff, Hope closed her book. She stared right back at Effie. It never failed to amuse Effie that despite her inexperience, her quiet floating way of living, it was the other Thatcher women who needed lessons in maturity.
“I’m sorry,” Effie said, sweet sparkling strawberries on her tongue.
“Me too,” Hope whispered.
“I don’t want . . . I don’t want things to change.” Effie’s glance landed on Hope’s belly, though the bump was barely visible beneath her oversized sweatshirt—presumably worn because she still hadn’t told Brayden.
