Author's Note: You'll notice that for this chapter, which is set during the train ride to the Capitol during the 74th Hunger Games, I've used the scene of Haymitch's introduction to Katniss and Peeta from the film instead of the one from the book. I did this because I really liked the "Embrace the probability of your imminent death" line and felt that it worked better with the scenario I've written about in this chapter.
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life's mystery seems so faded
74th Annual Hunger Games
"Embrace the probability of your imminent death?!" Effie says in disbelief as Haymitch passes her on his way out of the sitting room. She had arrived there just a few seconds after he had, but, instead of interrupting his introduction to the new Tributes, she had stayed discreetly in the hallway, listening.
Haymitch groans at the shrillness of her voice, knowing that he's in for a lecture but not feeling at all up to it; he woke up from his nap with a hangover and he hasn't yet had enough alcohol to alleviate the pounding in his head. He speeds up his steps in an effort to get away from Effie, though he knows the effort will prove futile. As predicted, she easily keeps pace with him, even in her absurd high-heeled shoes. The whining of her voice follows him as he walks toward the bar car.
"Really, Haymitch, do you think that being surly with them is the way to train them? Do you think that's going to help them to win the Games?"
They've reached the bar car by the end of Effie's tirade, and when the automatic door opens and Haymitch steps inside, Effie follows, obviously expecting an answer. Haymitch shoots her what he hopes is a condescending sneer, but he can't be entirely sure, because he can't think straight and he's currently seeing two very irate, magenta-suited Effie Trinkets hovering in his field of vision.
"Sweetheart," he says, plopping onto a barstool and grabbing the nearest bottle he can find, "Nothing's going to help them to win the Games."
"Well, your failure to provide even a modicum of support and encouragement certainly doesn't help anything."
"Oh, and you do so much to prepare them for the arena. I'm sure that knowing which fork to use for the salad and how to be ladylike when walking does wonders for them when they find themselves with a dagger to their throats."
"I at least try to keep their morale up," Effie says defensively, knowing in her heart that Haymitch is right about how useless she is to their tributes but feeling the need to defend herself and her job anyway, if only to soothe her own conscience.
Haymitch snorts. "Right," he says, "Well, all the morale in the world isn't going to save either of those kids. They have no chance of winning. I know it, you know it, the people of Panem know it. The only good thing about this arrangement is that I get all the free drinks I want until those two bite the dust."
Effie's eyes go wide in shock, though Haymitch can't figure out why. They've worked together for five years; his extreme pessimism and refusal to sugarcoat anything surely aren't new to her. She's definitely heard him say worse. Hell, he's said worse things about her right to her face.
"What's wrong, Princess? All this getting just a little too real for you? It's about time. You've spent five years shepherding children off to the Capitol's slaughterhouse and up until now it seems to me like you've been just fine with it."
"Well, then, you don't know a single thing about me," Effie says in a small, unstable voice. She sits gently upon a stool next to Haymitch and grabs one of the bottles of white liquor on the table.
"I don't want to do it, Haymitch," she says, filling a tumbler to the brim with the alcohol and topping it off with a tiny bit of cranberry juice, "I don't want to live in an apartment with those children for a week, getting attached to them, only to send them off to die."
"I don't think you have much choice. You know how your precious Capitol feels about people who don't follow orders. Besides, if you cut and run, those kids and I won't have anyone to keep us on schedule, and then where will we be? We'd just have to muddle around figuring things out for ourselves and using the wrong spoons at dinnertime. It'd be insanity!"
Haymitch pronounces the last word a little too loudly, waving his arms wildly in the air and spilling a good portion of his drink in so doing. Despite her dismal mood, Effie has to smile at his antics, though she doesn't think she could possibly manage a laugh. After putting down his arms, Haymitch takes a long drink from his own now almost empty glass and then watches Effie with a look in his eyes that could almost pass for admiration as she does the same, downing half of her liquor in a single gulp.
"Princess can drink, that's for sure," Haymitch says teasingly, earning himself another glare.
"Is this how you live with yourself, Haymitch?" Effie asks, finishing off her drink and feeling it all rush to her head, which suddenly seems to weigh about a ton, "Just keep yourself drunk constantly?"
"I have no damn clue how I manage to live with myself," he replies. Effie nods as if she understands.
"You know, when I first took this job, I thought it was all just going to be glitz and glamor. I grew up watching these Games as a sporting event; I wasn't raised or taught to see them as anything other than entertainment and a way to fame for the people who work with the tributes. I thought maybe I'd get assigned to a Career district, or at least work my way up to one, and then I'd have a string of victors under my belt and I'd get to appear with them in parades and on television and the whole Capitol would know my name and they'd love me."
"Didn't work out the way you planned, sweetheart?" Haymitch asks. Effie searches his face, unsure of whether or not he's being sarcastic or if she's annoying him. When she finds no signs of mockery or anger beneath his calm, if slightly inebriated exterior, she continues.
"All I could think was how much attention I'd get, and how maybe I'd finally manage to make my overbearing mother proud, if I rose to prominence as an Escort. I was so fucking stupid, so shallow and ignorant."
Effie reaches for the bottle again, pouring herself another generous amount of the liquor and not bothering to top it off with juice this time.
"Did you see that little girl, the one whose name I pulled from the bowl? Katniss's sister? She was so scared, Haymitch, so damn terrified." Effie's voice trembles noticeably and she takes another swig of the alcohol to keep herself under control. In her short tenure as District 12's Escort, she hadn't had the miserable luck of drawing the name of someone so young until today. All of the District's Tributes of the past few years had been at least 15 years of age, she supposed because the older children had simply had longer for the slips of paper bearing their names to accumulate.
Even Effie herself was surprised at how much Primrose Everdeen's terror and the sister's sacrifice had affected her, and she had been even more surprised when she'd simply been able to coldly continue on with the ceremony, never dropping her saccharine Capitol mask as she welcomed Katniss to the stage, pulled Peeta Mellark's name and then escorted the two Tributes onto the train. It even frightened her how she had managed to quickly smother her emotions and carry on, giving the Capitol viewers exactly what they wanted and expected from her. She hadn't yet had time to reflect on how she felt about her ability to simply go on with the show, and what it said about her as a person. "If Katniss hadn't volunteered, we'd be sending a twelve-year-old off to get slaughtered, and it would be my fault! I'm a monster, Haymitch!"
Effie squeezes her eyes shut to stem the tears that she know will just ruin her makeup and advertise to everyone that she's been crying. Her chest rises and falls, shaking with the effort of holding her emotions in.
"Okay," Haymitch says, grabbing the tumbler in Effie's hand, "I'm cutting you off. Obviously this stuff is making you crazy. Now listen to me." He grabs her shoulder, shaking her just a bit, "You're going to go to your room and take a little while to calm down and sober up, and you're not going to talk to the kids again until you do so. And then, for their sake and yours, you're going to keep your prim and perky little face on always, and you're never going to let on that you're not just having the time of your life. No reason to piss off anyone in the Capitol. Besides, these kids have already got a useless drunk for a mentor; the last thing that's going to help them is a hysterical, tee totaling escort."
Effie nods. He's right, of course. No sense in making Katniss and Peeta pay for the fact that her vanity and ignorance led her into a brutal job that was too much for her to handle.
"Well," she says, "Look at you, Haymitch Abernathy, being the responsible one for a change."
"Yeah; scary, isn't it?"
"Horrifying. Never do it again."
"You're better at it, anyway, Princess." Effie smiles weakly and then walks over to a mirror hanging on the wall, where she proceeds to make sure her wig is straight and her makeup still perfect.
"I left Katniss and Peeta in the sitting room," she says as she smoothes the lapels of her perfectly-tailored jacket, "In fact, I only left them to find you. Do go and see about them, Haymitch; it's rude to leave them all alone."
Haymitch watches her as she sashays primly out of the room, trying to force himself not to focus on the sway of her backside. He leans against the bar, takes a swig from his glass, and, for the first time in the five years he's known her, considers Effie Trinket as something more than a ridiculous, pampered Capitol elitist. He knows that this harsh judgment of her isn't entirely fair, and that it was born more from a general disgust with Capitol culture than from anything Effie's ever done. Indeed, he has to admit that she's even managed to endear herself to him over the years. After all, it was kind of hard for Haymitch not to feel for her after last year's Games, when the death of their last tribute sent her running from the room in a fit of tears.
And, besides that, in their five years as co-workers, Effie had become the only person on earth who could tolerate Haymitch for any long stretch of time. She infuriated him frequently, and he knew the feeling was mutual and mixed with a healthy dose of disgust on her side. In spite of all of that, though, they sometimes had fun together, during down time in the Penthouse or on the train, and had even developed a few inside jokes. All in all, he had come to consider her as something like the irritating, clueless little sister he had never wanted.
And, then, sometimes, she would do or say something that would shock him, tip him off to the fact that Effie wasn't as much of an airhead as he thought. Something like what she had just done, in admitting her horror at pulling Primrose Everdeen's name and her frustration with the whole process of the Games. That wasn't something one just casually shared, especially someone who worked for the Games and had the kind of ties to the President that Haymitch knew Effie did through her family. Effie's confiding in him meant that she trusted him, and Haymitch didn't know how to feel about that.
For the first time, Haymitch begins to think that perhaps the wigs, the makeup, the stupid Capitol-accented voice, were Effie's defense against reality, against pain, the same way that alcohol was his. He kept himself drunk throughout the games and was rude and surly to the tributes in order to prevent himself from caring too much about them, getting too attached. Maybe Effie's shallow chatter, her obsession with schedules and routine, and her blatant and insensitive disregard for anything but giving the Capitol the kind of show it wanted were simply her methods of detaching herself.