Hold Me Close Read online

  Effie pushes herself up off the bed with a wince at the pain in the back of her head. A tentative exploration reveals a few tender spots but no blood that she can feel. Her blistered feet hurt at the scratch of the rough concrete. Her shoes were missing when she woke up. The man must’ve taken them off her along with her white cotton socks. She shudders at the thought of him touching her anywhere while she was unconscious. If he took away her shoes and socks, did he also touch her in other places?

  Repulsed, she wants to run her hands over her body to check for any signs of being violated. She settles for forcing herself to stand up straight. Unlike the boy in front of her, she’s not even close to touching the ceiling.

  “I’m Effie.”

  “That’s a weird name.”

  She shrugs. “It’s really Felicity, but I hate it. I shortened it to F when I was ten. Now I’m Effie.”

  “I’m Heath.”

  “You’re named after a candy bar,” she says, “and you think my name is weird?”

  Heath makes a small noise, not quite a laugh, and looks up at her again from under his bangs. He’s older than she is, by at least a few years. Probably old enough to have his driver’s license. If they’d met at the swimming pool or in school, she still wouldn’t think he was cute. Effie likes soccer players. This guy looks like a stoner, the kind who’d hang around the metal shop making raunchy comments as the girls walk past. Effie knows how to deal with boys like that. You ignore them even when they say nasty things.

  “Haven’t you ever tried to get away?” she asks.

  The boy shrugs again. His voice dips low. It’s really deep, his voice. And rough. It’s almost a man’s voice, but not quite. Not yet, but it’s easy to imagine how it will sound in a few years when he is a man. “Yeah. I’ve tried.”

  Obviously he didn’t make it, but she asks anyway. “What happened?”

  When he looks at her this time, it’s not the cold room that sends a shiver all through her. “He caught me.”

  Effie is silent at this. She looks around the room, which is set up like a bedroom, though it’s nowhere near as big as hers at home. One wall sconce casts that horrible, dull orangey light, and the one on the opposite wall isn’t any brighter. The double bed she’s sitting on sags, a stained patchwork quilt covering the otherwise bare mattress. Flat pillows in decorative shams rather than regular pillowcases. A battered white laminate dresser that doesn’t match the rest of the furniture is in one corner. The chair in front of her. The table. Yellow wallpaper patterned with old-fashioned clocks peels off the walls, exposing dirty plaster. The doorway has no door, and she tries to see beyond but can’t. Too dark.

  “What’s out there?” She points. “A bathroom? I really have to pee.”

  The boy looks startled and then embarrassed. “Yeah, but he has the water turned off. So you can’t flush, really.”

  Effie’s not sure if she ought to be afraid to push past him, but her bladder isn’t going to let her wait much longer. The room outside this one, though, is dark, and she looks at the boy. “Is there a light out there?”

  “Umm...” He shakes his head. “The bulb broke.”

  “Can you show me, then?” Effie only learned over the summer about the power of a smile when it comes to boys. It’s not easy to find one, but she forces it.

  It must work, because the boy stands up so suddenly he cracks his head on the ceiling and lets out a low, muttered curse. It shouldn’t be funny. None of this is. But she laughs anyway before clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles that are going to become sobs if she’s not careful. And she can’t do that. Has to keep her head on straight.

  “Please,” Effie says. “I really have to go.”

  The boy nods and leads the way into a space not much bigger than the bedroom. She can make out the outline of a couch and what looks like an armchair along one wall. A small glint of metal that might be a doorknob. Same concrete floor, and Effie hesitates in the small square of dirty light spilling from the doorway.

  “Be careful. There’s stuff set into the concrete.”

  Her blistered feet already hurt. She doesn’t want to cut them any more. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Broken pottery and some glass. He put it there on purpose, I think. To make it hard to walk around out there, so you can’t rush him when he comes in. I’ll take you to the bathroom. You’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks.” After a hesitation, he moves and she follows. Three steps, then four, beyond the light as he guides her carefully, telling her where to avoid the sharp places in the floor. It’s not pitch-black, but even so, the shadows here are thick and deep. When he stops, Effie bumps into his back. “Sorry.”

  “It’s through here.” He takes her hand, startling her, and puts it out in front of them.

  She feels a wooden door frame, also without a door, and empty space behind it. There’s no light at all in there. By now she has to pee so bad she’s afraid she won’t make it, but how can she go into that room without seeing what’s there? What if it’s all a trick? What if he’s working with the guy and has been all along?

  “Feel along the wall to the right,” the boy tells her. “The toilet’s there. There’s no seat, and you can’t flush unless we fill the tank with water. I usually, um...well, I try to only do it when it’s full.”

  Effie cringes. “Oh. Gross.”

  “Sorry.” He sounds truly apologetic.

  She can’t wait any longer, or she’ll wet her pants. With mincing, timid steps, she feels her way in the dark along the wall until she bangs her knee against the porcelain. She bites her tongue to keep from crying out, but it hurts bad. She fumbles with her skirt, then her panties, and manages to get them down while crouching over what she hopes is the toilet. Her mom taught her to hover-squat over public toilets, but in the dark Effie’s not sure she won’t pee all over herself.

  She risks it, letting go. Her bladder empties, urine spanging loudly against the porcelain. She lets out a long, low sigh of relief. Her thighs are almost cramping by the time she’s done, and she did splash herself a little, but it’s not as bad as she’d feared.

  “Hey! Is there any paper?” She looks toward the sound of shuffling and sees a shadow moving.

  “No.”

  “A paper towel? Scrap paper? A washcloth, anything?” She wriggles, trying to drip dry and balance while keeping her skirt up and out of the way.

  From the open doorway, a shadow shifts. “Nothing. I used the last of it yesterday. Sorry.”

  “Stop saying that,” Effie snaps as she pulls up her panties and stands to let her skirt fall around her thighs. “I guess you can’t really help it, can you?”

  He doesn’t answer her. Effie holds out her hand, waving into the darkness to find him. She’s afraid to move without him guiding her, although her eyes have started to adjust to the dark.

  “Where are you?” she says.

  “I’m right here.”

  Effie gives her hand another slow wave. “Help me?”

  In a second, she feels the heat of his fingers curling in hers. Heath’s hand is big and rough. He doesn’t squeeze too tightly. Just enough to give her the confidence to take a step toward him. Then another.

  As he guides her through the doorway into the other room, she can see the square of light from the bedroom. She lets out a small noise. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been yearning to see it.

  From above them comes the creaking of footsteps. Then...music? Effie stops short and loses Heath’s grip.

  She knows this song. Something about sailing away. Her mom sometimes listens to the soft rock station in the car, and this song is always on. Effie makes fun of her mom for singing along to the high-pitched lyrics, yet right now she thinks she’d give anything to be in the front seat of her mom’s Volvo rolling her eyes and trying to convince her
to change the station. Bright lights from above blaze so fiercely Effie has to cover her eyes, wincing at the pain.

  “Hurry,” Heath says in an urgent yet somehow flatly blank voice. “That means he’s coming.”

  chapter four

  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 shit
ty 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.

  “Of course I hate him,” Mom answered. “What I don’t understand is how you don’t.”

  For a moment, Effie sagged. It was too fucking hard to deal with her mother sometimes, even on the best days. With this old argument rearing its head, all she could do was hold up her hands like a surrender. She shook her head, silent.

  Her mother slapped the plastic container down on the counter. “You’re better than he is.”

  “Why? Because his parents split up when he was a kid or his mother wears her skirts too short and his dad works in a convenience store, or because he never went to college?”

  Those were all part of the reason, though she doubted her mother would ever admit to such snobbery. Effie ran a hand across her mouth, smearing her lipstick onto her palm. Now, shit, she would have to redo it. She rubbed the pink streaks into her skin.

  “I’m going to be late,” Effie said. “I’m just going to freshen up in the bathroom and then get going. I’ll pick Polly up tomorrow after school, if that’s still okay.”