Hold Me Close Read online

  Effie had a third margarita, because that was the problem with margaritas. They went down so smooth that before you knew it you were dancing on a tabletop wearing a lamp shade...or worse, exchanging Crock-Pot recipes as if you knew what the fuck you were talking about with a woman wearing a sweatshirt with a pair of Christmas kittens on it. Effie didn’t even own a Crock-Pot, though the way Cissy was evangelizing about it made her want to go out right now and buy three of them, just so she could make all the things. All of them.

  “I fucking love tequila.” Effie lifted her glass to tap it against Cissy’s.

  Cissy blinked. “Oh. Um...”

  Shit. She shouldn’t have let the f-bomb drop. This crowd probably said goshdarnit or shucks. This crowd, Effie thought with a look around the room, probably didn’t like blow jobs. And that was just too fucking sad.

  Effie drained her glass and wisely looked for a sink to put it in. She wanted another, of course. You always wanted another one. But she wasn’t going to have one. Nope. She was going to restrain herself from making that mistake. At least that was the plan before Dee brought over the pitcher again, swirling the dregs of melted margarita in the bottom.

  “Top you off?” she said to Effie. “I’m not sure I should make another pitcher. It might go to waste.”

  “No more for me,” Cissy said.

  Effie held out her glass. “Sure. I’ll take the last bit.”

  Cissy eased away and Dee set the now-empty pitcher on the kitchen island. She pulled the decimated platter of veggies and dip toward her and plucked out a carrot stick. She dipped it directly into the bowl of dip, an action that made Effie shudder. She hadn’t eaten anything here, not even the dip she’d made herself. The drinking had gotten in the way, and by the time she thought to put something other than booze in her stomach, the chili dip had already been besmirched by chip crumbs and double dippers. Sober Effie would have forced herself to eat some, but she’d passed sober two hours ago.

  “I’m really glad you came.” Dee scrunched another carrot and held out the platter to Effie.

  “No, thanks.” Effie sipped her drink. “Yeah, it’s fun, thanks for inviting me.”

  Dee looked past Effie into the den. A lot of the women had left half an hour or so ago, and when Effie glanced back to see what Dee was looking at, she saw a couple more putting on their coats. She laughed.

  “Shit, I’m going to close this party down.” She drained the last of the drink, waiting for the brain freeze, but it had melted enough that she escaped that torture.

  “Where’s Polly?”

  “She’s with Heath.” Effie paused, trying to gauge Dee’s reaction. “Who is not my brother. Or her father.”

  Dee laughed, but uncomfortably, with another glance over Effie’s shoulder. “I know that. I told them all that, too.”

  “It’s okay.” Effie shrugged. She’d been drunker than this, but not for a long time. She put a hand on the kitchen island to make sure she wasn’t weaving. The floor beneath her felt a little tilted. Was she slurring?

  From behind her, a waft of perfume announced Becky’s presence. The other woman reached past Dee to also grab a couple carrot sticks, slathering them with dip. Effie kept her lip from curling, but barely.

  “I feel like I can pretend I’m eating healthy,” Becky explained with a longing look at the plate of cookies next to the vegetable tray. “But let’s face it, I’m about to murder those cookies. Wish I had your willpower, Effie.”

  Effie laughed. “Trust me, there are plenty of things I can’t manage to resist.”

  Several of the other women came through the kitchen, saying their goodbyes, and Dee moved off with them to walk them to the front door. Becky took a piece of celery and crunched it with a sigh. Effie tried to think of something clever to say, but all she could manage was a smile.

  Dee came back. “That’s almost everyone. Beck, is Gene coming to get you?”

  “Yeah. I called him. He’s on the way.”

  That was Effie’s cue to leave. “I’ll get going, too.”

  “You didn’t drive, did you?” Becky asked.

  Effie laughed. “No, no. I walked. It’s only a couple blocks.”

  “We can give you a ride home, if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay. I like to walk.” Effie looked around, trying to remember where she left her coat. Dee had taken it from her when she came in, she remembered that much.

  Becky snagged another carrot stick but didn’t eat it. “You’re not...scared?”

  The circle of Effie’s vision narrowed, like the closing of a camera aperture. Becky’s face swam for a second. “Why would I be scared?”

  “After what happened,” Becky said. “I think I’d be afraid to walk by myself anywhere.”

  Effie let go of the kitchen island, no longer afraid of weaving. Her back felt as stiff and straight as if someone had replaced her spine with an iron rod. “It was a long time ago. If I was still too afraid to go by myself anywhere, I’d have a helluva time, wouldn’t I?”

  “At night,” Becky amended. “In the dark, I guess.”

  “He took me at three o’clock in the afternoon,” Effie said.

  Dee coughed uncomfortably. “Hey, Effie, let me get your coat.”

  “Sorry.” Becky looked embarrassed. “Liquor loosens the tongue. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I’m not offended. Better to ask me to my face than whisper behind my back.” Effie ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, hating that leftover booze flavor. “Can I get a drink of water before I go?”

  “Sure, of course.” Dee bustled to the cabinet to get her a glass, filling it from the fridge’s filtered water spout. She handed it to Effie with a glance at Becky, who’d stopped pretending to be healthy and was now eating a cookie.

  Effie drank the cool, sweet water, letting it fill in all the leftover space in her stomach. “If there’s something you want to know, Becky, you should ask me now. I’m fucked up on tequila.”

  Becky gave a small, uncertain laugh. “No, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not any of my business.”

  “Here’s the thing.” Effie went to the fridge to help herself to another glass of water. “Nobody asks anymore. In the beginning, when I first came back, it was all anyone could seem to talk about. But it’s been fifteen years, you know that? Most people don’t even remember it happened.”

  “But you do,” Dee said quietly.

  “Me and a bunch of freaks who talk about me on some sicko forums,” Effie said flatly. “And women who go to moms’ groups.”

  The silence would’ve been way more awkward if she hadn’t had so much to drink, but all it did now was make her laugh. Becky bit her lower lip, looking away. Dee frowned.

  “I was thirteen. I was coming home from my art class. He grabbed me and took me into his van. He hit me on the head and jabbed me with a needle, and I woke up in a basement lit only by these weird fucking orange lights. I should’ve run away from him, you know? And I tried. But my mom had made me wear these new shoes—” Effie kicked out a foot to demonstrate “—and I had blisters. And he was fast. Nobody even saw him take me, at least that’s what the story was. I mean, I was missing for three years. He kept me in a house not twenty minutes away from my own. If someone had seen him take me, don’t you think they’d have said something?”

  Becky winced. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yeah.” Effie nodded and drank half the glass of water, then added ice. She looked at both women. “They did a documentary on it. Part of one, anyway. They interviewed a whole bunch of people about him. They interviewed his ex-wife. His kids. The neighbors who called the police, finally.”

  * * *

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God, what the hell? Where’s Stan? Who are you? What the hell?”

  The woman’s words