“Any particular price range you’re looking for, Effie? Mid-luxury? Luxury?” she asked as she caught sight of the Facebook profile on Effie’s laptop and wondered if this handsome guy named David Eisen was a friend.
Effie didn’t have many friends. In fact, she was surprised to see she was on Facebook at all.
Effie gave a disinterested shrug as she went to stand by her big window in the living room, overlooking a row of barren trees. “Doesn’t matter, really. I just want to be somewhere warm when… I’m damn tired of the cold.”
George nodded, pushing together the brochures. “I get that. Buffalo can do you in with all the snow, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else. Have you always lived here, too?”
Effie’s gaze grew faraway as she fiddled with her scarf. “Not always. I used to live in Texas.”
Listen between the lines, George…
“Really? Well, yeehaw,” she cheered, moving to stand near Effie and look out the window with her, hoping to see what she was seeing. “It’s warm in Texas. What made you move somewhere as cold as Buffalo?”
As far as George knew, Effie was a single, retired prosecuting attorney for the state of New York who’d made a windfall in the stock market, had never had children, and probably had never even had a goldfish, if her warm-and-squishy thermometer was any indication. She’d never considered Effie had ever lived anywhere else.
“A job opportunity,” was her vague response.
“Do you still have family in Texas?”
Looking down at her flat shoes with shiny buckles across the top, she shook her head. “No one worth noting,” she offered gruffly.
“You were an attorney, right?”
Her lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. “I was.”
“Did you enjoy your work?”
Her slender shoulders lifted upward in a shrug. “I liked it well enough. Put away a bunch of hooligans, some worse than others, in my time. Paid the bills. That’s all that matters in the end.”
As per usual, Effie and her standoffish ways prevented much in the way of personal conversation, but she was trying to heed Dex’s advice to listen between the lines.
“Do you ever miss Texas, Effie?” she asked softly.
Effie sighed, and it wasn’t a wistful sigh. It was one of aggravation. “What’s with all the questions, young lady? Just book me the flight, would you?”
Okay, she might be an “angel,” but she didn’t have to be an angel who got tossed around like some dog’s chew toy. “You’re making that very hard to do, Effie. You’ve given me zero in the way of specifics, you won’t tell me what you want or don’t want. I’m not risking my Yelp rating for you to come back from that trip and give me a big fat zero, lady,” she only half-joked.
“What the hell’s a Yelp rating?” she snapped, the wistful expression on her face all but gone.
“Never mind. What I’m trying to say is, I just want you to be happy. That’s part of my job. To help you guys plan fun trips and events here at the village that will leave you all happy.”
Effie looked at her for a long time, looked right through her as though she might say something profound that would give George some insight into what this grumpy old woman needed, before her lips went thin and she said, “Happiness is overrated.”
George reached out to put a hand on Effie’s bony shoulder to ask her if everything was okay, not a move she’d normally make where this prickly woman was concerned, but there was something about her today that felt off.
No sooner had she touched Effie’s shoulder than George felt the world tilt, much the way it had when she’d felt Carl’s emotions the other night.
Stunned, she backed away a bit and tightened her grip on her tote bag. A deep, gnawing pain crept into her chest, burrowing against her heart. Loneliness, sharp and bitter, swept over her, leaving George feeling empty and desperate.
“Oh, Effie,” she whispered, her voice trembling, unable to craft a word for what was happening to her insides right now. Incapable of forming the words that would soothe the kind of inexplicable pain Effie was in.
Effie jerked her shoulder from George’s touch and frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you, girl?”
But a compulsion George couldn’t ignore overwhelmed her. She needed to—had to—take Effie’s hand in her own. Reaching out, she latched onto the woman’s cold fingers, letting Effie’s bony flesh rest against her palm.
Effie tried to pull away at first and then without warning, she stopped struggling, her eyes meeting George’s in wonder for mere seconds before fear crept into them and she gasped, yanking her hand away and shaking her head.
She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, her eyes wide, and then she yelled, “I don’t know what the hell that was, Georgina Maverick, but you get out of my apartment now! And don’t come back! Get out!”
Crap. Raising her hands to soothe Effie, she reached out to her again. “Wait, Effie! Please. If you’ll just listen to me, I can help you!”
But Effie swatted them away with sharp slaps. “Don’t you touch me again, girl! Get out!” she hollered, loud enough to make someone bang on her door.
“George! You in there? What the fuck is going on?”
Hearing Nina’s voice outside the door, she began to back away, all the while trying to soothe Effie. “I’m sorry, Effie! I didn’t mean to frighten you!”
Lo and behold, with those words, as Effie was plastering herself against the wall farthest from George, wouldn’t you know it—her wings appeared.
Like, wham-bam-alacazam, they just appeared on the floor at her feet. Their feathery, mother-of-pearl goodness plopped right there from out of thin air.
Sure. Now, when she was terrorizing a little old lady, they decided to effortlessly appear?
“What’s happening?” Effie screamed, curling her gnarled fingers into her colorful scarf, her slight body trembling.
Indeed, what the frack was happening? George vaguely wondered as she stumbled to pick up her wings, which, if
