Darren Effect Read Free Page B

Remembrance Day. They were all sleeping in, Heather thought, respecting the holiday.
    â€œWhich? The blond in the hat? Or the one in the blue jacket?”
    â€œBlue jacket.”
    â€œLet’s go. She’s too old to be a student.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say she’s too old to be a student,” Bill said crossly. “Theoretically, nobody’s ever too old to be a student.”
    But Mandy was out of the car. She shut her own door with some force, then opened Heather’s and said, “Come on, let’s go. It’s freezing.”
    Heather obeyed and Mandy flew up the steps and into the café, not awarding either woman standing there a single glance. Heather and Bill followed. Heather had never seen the woman before.
    They took a booth by the windows. Mandy opened Heather’s menu and then her own, as though there were some chance shewould not order the vegetarian omelette and Earl Grey, and Heather, nothing at all, and said, “Now let’s see. What would you like, Heather? What do you feel like? Bill’s treat.” Then she leaned over the table and whispered harshly, “Who is she, Bill?”
    â€œHonestly, I don’t really know.”
    Heather was aware of Bill glancing at her. She liked Bill, but had never been entirely convinced he and her sister were right for each other. Bill was a good deal older than Mandy. They often bickered, Heather thought, because they didn’t really know each other. Normally she helped them through this. Changed the subject, made a joke. Got them back on track. But she couldn’t think of anything to say. She looked out the window and felt her eyes welling up.
    â€œYet we all avoid her?” Mandy demanded.
    â€œMandy, I don’t know who she is.”
    Heather sensed he was telling the truth. Outside it looked almost cold enough to snow.
    â€œI wish you would order something, Heather.”
    Heather glanced at her sister, whose face looked too tight and unhappy. Mandy wasn’t going to let this go.
    â€œBill, if I discover — ”
    â€œShe’s nobody. I promise you, love, I don’t even know her name.”
    â€œWell, it’s your last warning.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    Before Mandy, Bill had had relationships with women that were casual, upbeat, short-lived. After Mandy, he had, he claimed, embraced monogamy, and Heather believed him. The woman in the blue jacket could be anyone from his past: as much as a weekend girlfriend, as little as a woman he had once exchanged glances with at a party — but someone, unfortunately, whose name and face he no longer remembered.
    Mandy turned to Heather and smiled, though her eyes were still glittering in a way that made Heather uneasy. “They were asking about you at the Writers’ Cooperative last month. Someonementioned that epic poem you wrote about a horse named Joy. They miss you. You haven’t been to a workshop in years. Why don’t you come next week? It’ll be good for you.”
    â€œYou mean I can work through my troubles by writing about them?”
    â€œOr you could come along and keep me company.”
    â€œMandy, I attended a grand total of three writing workshops, the last one at Spruce Cove . . . ”
    The time she met Benny.
    â€œBill really liked that poem, didn’t you, Bill?”
    Bill looked startled, as though he hadn’t realized he was still part of the conversation. Heather thought it wasn’t fair to put him on the spot like that. After all, he taught in the Anthropology Department, not Literature and Language. And her poem had been dreadful.
    â€œI think the horse was named Happy,” Bill said. “Not Joy.”
    Heather nodded. “It was meant for children. It was dreadful, wasn’t it?”
    â€œWell, I can barely remember it.”
    â€œSay no more,” Heather said, laughing for the first time that day. “It’s all over your face, Bill.”