Chapter 7
Memories

"Bye, dear ones."

Effie wrapped her arms around first Katniss and then Peeta, patting their hair like she always did no matter how old they got.

The morning sun reflected itself in the silver train that would take Effie home. The bags were already in her sleeping car but Effie lingered on the platform, not wanting to part just yet. She squeezed Katniss's and Peeta's hands, swallowed and swallowed.

"Take care, Effie," Peeta smiled.

Haymitch said nothing. He stood there, hands in his pockets, squinting from the bright light. His eyes were so red from last night's drinking they looked like they bled. Effie wrapped her arms around him.

"Bye, Haymitch," she whispered. Her eyelashes tickled his skin when she dropped a kiss to his cheek. "I'm going to miss you."

Haymitch patted her awkwardly on the back.

"Better get on that train, sweetheart," he muttered.

Effie released her hold on him. She drew a trembling breath, looking between the three of them.

"Thank you," she said. "For everything. Don't forget that I," she said and her voice caught at the end. "Don't forget I would feel very reassured to know you will drink plenty of water when it is hot outside. And use sunscreen."

There was a blow of a whistle and Effie boarded the train. Katniss and Peeta smiled and waved at her when she blew them some kisses. Seeing Haymitch standing there in his shabby, wrinkled shirt that was missing a button she was almost overcome with affection towards him but then another passenger wanted to board, forcing Effie to step back into the train corridor and she couldn't see them anymore.

Tears stung her eyes and Effie just kept on walking through the narrow hallways, past her sleeping chamber until she entered the warm, sunlit dining car. There was never many getting on or off in District 12 and the restaurant was mercifully empty of people, save herself and the woman behind the counter selling sandwiches and hot and cold beverages.

Effie bought herself a coffee and sat down by the window. Looking out at District 12's grimy little station she almost hoped Haymitch and the children would walk up to her window but of course they must already be on their way back to the Victor's village.

Effie pressed her lips together trying to compose herself, her heart almost breaking with homesickness for the place that she was leaving. She opened the clasps of her handbag and got out her planner, trying to focus on tomorrow's meetings, feeling pathetic for dreading the thought of her empty, silent apartment so much.

She'd always been used to managing everything on her own and when she couldn't she learned to cope with the help of sleeping pills. You didn't share your pain in the Capitol. Just the mentioning of any ugly sides to life sent most people running – even those who considered themselves being your close friends and family.

But Haymitch hadn't. Not when she was at her ugliest, her absolute worst. Not even when she threw a shoe at him, leaving a red mark on his cheek.

When she would break into fits of sobbing, often just after the sun had disappeared, leaving her terrified of things she couldn't even formulate to herself Haymitch was never far away.
He didn't dismiss her, didn't mutter at her to pull herself together, that she knew nothing about real pain, that she was weak and pathetic. During these past few months she'd spent with him Haymitch must have hugged her more times than any other person in her life.

Even after things had started to get better, there were still times when she came into his room in the dead of night, face pale, just wanting to escape the shadows and ghosts in her room. And he would lend her a book or she would pull the armchair up to his bed and they'd play chess together, using the stone chessboard she got for his birthday, while Scotch slept soundly in his basket.

They didn't talk much. They didn't need to. And it wasn't one of those uncomfortable silences Effie felt she had to fill with words. Only a silent understanding; a wish to keep the darkness at bay.

Effie took a sip of her coffee and when the train made a slight jerk, rolling out of District 12's station she couldn't keep a tear from running down her cheek, dropping into her cup.

And that was when Haymitch poked her in the ribs, right on her tickle spot.

Effie shrieked and her cup toppled over, sending a sea of coffee all over her planner.

"Haymitch!?" Effie cried staring up at her ex-colleague who looked like he'd just sauntered in by coincidence. "What on Earth are you... My planner!"

She sprung to her feet, getting out her white hankie while Haymitch just sat down across from her, his silver hip flask already in hand.

The woman behind the counter brought paper napkins with Effie begging a thousand times forgiveness. Haymitch who was just having a few good mouthfuls from his hipflask received a look from the woman before she left again without a word.

"I wish you wouldn't flaunter your drinking in her face," Effie said, falling all over herself trying to save her planner. "It's not even legal to drink here. What will she think of us? Oh, just look at my planner!"

"What a scene out there," said Haymitch. "You're going off to war or something? You're coming back in a week."

Effie shot him a glare as she dabbed the napkins against her planner, against the table with agitated, flicking motions.

"Can't live without me, huh?"

"If there's anyone who can't live without the other it's you!"

"Yeah? What's that in your eye?"

"Train dust!"

Haymitch smirked and swallowed another mouthful from his hipflask. Then he reached for Effie's bag.

"I can have this, right?" he said, getting out the wild turkey sandwich Peeta had made for her.

"That's my sandwich," said Effie with a huff of impatience, tossing a ball of coffee stained napkins onto the table.

She sighed.

"You can have half of it."

xXx

Effie's fingertip left a line in the dust on the mahogany table and she looked at it as if it had personally offended her. There was the telltale clinking of glass and she turned, seeing Haymitch by the liquor cabinet.

"Now, Haymitch, remember. Those are not for drinking all at once."

"So for the next bunch of hours I'm gonna do... what?" he asked, having a mouthful from his glass.

"Oh, there are plenty of things you can do," Effie smiled. "You can... relax in the bathtub. You can run the treadmill. You can visit my library. All mahogany," she added as is that decided things.

She was already dressed for work in a chocolate brown suit that made her look annoyingly fine and with a matching, brown head wrap. Haymitch sipped his drink and admired her ass in that tight skirt while she called for the cab that would take her to the Academy.

"So, a couple of rules," she said, when she turned to him again. "No drinking in the bathtub. Nu using the bathtub until two hours from now, at the earliest. Always use a coaster if you put any glasses on the mahogany table. Don't drink in the white arm chair. Don't drink standing on the carpets." Haymitch rolled his eyes. "If you get hungry you can take whatever you like from the kitchen and…"

Only the flash of light through the window when the cab pulled up to the curb would finally shut Effie up and she reached for her bag.

"Please, don't drink too much", she said.

Haymitch leaned against the frame to the front door, thrumming his index finger against his glass. He took a sip and just when Effie opened the car door he could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from across the street. But when he looked closer, there were only empty windows.

"Bye, Haymitch. I'll see you soon!" said Effie, the window rolled down on her side. Haymitch emptied his glass and made a motion to go back inside. "And Haymitch…"

"What?"

"I'm very happy that you are here", she said. "I think it's going to be…"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, delicious, de-lovely, delectable. Bye, Eff."

"Bye, Haymitch."

The car drove off and the last thing he heard was Effie's voice saying,

"Remember, no drinking in the bathtub!"

Haymitch kicked the front door shut and headed back to the drinking cabinet. He took a bottle, not caring which one and snapped the seal, gulping it down right from the neck. Some of it escaped down his chin, disappearing into the carpet and Haymitch rubbed his hand against his mouth, a little out of breath.

He eyed the remaining bottles in the cabinet. He'd never shared Effie's preference for rainbow drinks but alcohol was alcohol. Maybe he could get away with adopting a few of them for the journey back if he let her take him out to dinner later. It'd been a dry trip here with just his hip flask.

His glass was put aside on the table and it wasn't until he'd got out a second bottle that he remembered Effie saying something about coasters and he quickly removed it again, wiping away the wet ring with his shirtsleeve.

He retreated to the couch with his bottles and for a long moment he just lay there, drinking and relaxing.

He wondered how things were going back home with the geese.

The look on the kids' faces when he stopped the train attendant from closing the door told him he'd given them ideas again. Yeah, well. He'd give them that little moment of amusement then, even though they were wrong. He was just making sure Effie would be OK.

Yeah, right. For some reason the thought spoke exactly in Johanna Mason's voice. She doesn't need you for anything now. You could've spent the rest of the week shitfaced but instead you followed her to the Capitol! Can't be that you actually enjoy spending time with her?

He drank the bottle dry and then he pulled himself up and to the kitchen. There was a note on the fridge and he remembered Effie saying something about Venia helping her watering the plants and getting some fresh groceries in town.

Hope you enjoyed your recreational visit to District 12, he read. "Recreational visit"? Well, that was one way to put it. He poked his head in the fridge and the pantry filling a plate with a little of this, a little of that. Crackers, cheese, chunks of chicken, black olives, purple grapes. Back in the living room he pulled the curtains apart, looking out on the street, wondering about that pair of eyes he'd seen in the window. But a cloud of dust was released when he did so and he backed away quickly to keep his food from getting soiled.

He popped an olive into his mouth, spitting out the seed on his plate in a way that would've made Effie shudder. The sun illuminated the specks of dust in the air and he let his eyes wander.

Maybe it was the booze; that pleasant, half drunk feeling that often filled him before getting flat-out drunk but he felt a genuine desire to have a look around. He never had before, not really. Most of his days here he'd been too busy either quarrelling with her or trying to keep her in one piece.

Plate in hand, every once in a while stuffing himself with something, he looked over the paintings. Buildings mostly. He vaguely remembered seeing some of them here in the Capitol but most of them he didn't recognize at all, with names he couldn't pronounce. He ran a finger against one of the frames revealing the gilded hue underneath.

Attached to one of the mirrors was a sun bleached greeting card with an over snowed cluster of rowanberries. He detached it carefully and turned it over. A birthday card, signed "Annabel", whoever that was.

Blue and purple potted plants stood on the window sills. They had blooms like small trumpets and on the side table, in a tall glass vase was one perfect peacock feather.

His naked feet brushed soundlessly against the carpets as he walked over to the bookshelf. No books in it except a couple of folios, all of them about architecture. On one shelf was a glass miniature of the Capitolium, surrounded by a whole array of paper animals. No geese but frogs and flamingos, cats and fish, penguins, butterflies.

On the shelf below was a small box with letter papers and envelopes and in another, lying on a bed of velvet, was a pretty fountain pen as blue as Effie's eyes with a lethal looking metal nib. She had a magazine rack next to the empty wastebasket; all fashion magazines and a few numbers of her Capitol newspaper.

Bringing a bottle as only company he went out into the corridor, feeling the doors as he went. Some of them, like the room she used for running, he closed shut immediately. Others like her dining room he poked his head in momentarily, looking around at the furniture covered with white sheets. The library was all mahogany, although it was smaller than he'd expected, with bookshelves covering all walls except one where you could relax in an armchair by the window.

His eyes wandered across the titles and he was just about to get out one of them when he saw something else. A large leather bound thing with two different years elegantly written on the back. He got it out and opened it but even though he'd guessed it right that it was an album, these were no regular photos.

He sat down in the armchair, the album opened in front of him. The photos looked like they were made out of glass. He touched one of them with a light fingertip and the photo lit up like a button.

The library disappeared. He could still make out the ceiling and bits of the floor but he was looking into another room. Effie's living room and it was filled with pink balloons and flamboyantly dressed men and women in every corner, their eager voices reaching him as if they were actually there.

He knew this type of images. It was the same kind you could get projected onto your window at the penthouse. Although this one was more lifelike. As if you'd walked right into a movie.

One of them, a woman in her mid thirties with elegant hair dyed neon yellow sat in the middle of the circle, in the middle of the attention. She was holding a tiny bald baby in a frilly pink gown that everyone was swooning over – the baby and the gown.

"Little Euphemia," one woman cooed. "Look at those long eyelashes. Those pink lips. I'm sure she's going to grow up into a very beautiful woman."

"To think finally, after all these years…"

"What a doll!"

"If only she had more hair. But it will grow I'm sure."

"We hope she'll be in that new bouncy seat commercial", said Effie's mother. "They're holding auditions next week."

Little Effie slept soundly despite the commotion going on around her. So tiny, with pink flowers painted on her cheeks. One of her hands clutched around a piece of the gown. Effie's mother beamed, looking down at her.

The scene changed. Haymitch had but a second to see the library again before another room was shown. He didn't recognize it at first but then he realized it was the guestroom Effie always lent him.

Now it was a nursery. The pinkest nursery he'd ever seen. In the middle of the room, sitting around a children's table were two kids, about four or five years old. They were coloring under complete silence. One of them a boy with orange hair. The other kid could be no one other than Effie, dolled up in a pink dress with a purple belt forming a bow at the back.

He'd never seen a calmer, more straight-backed five year old. Maybe it was different when the camera was off but still. Didn't seem natural.

She put her pencil down now, looking straight at him.

"You finished?" said a voice, the man who held the camera.

"Yes, daddy."

"Can I see?"

She got up from the chair with her drawing between her hands and even though she walked perfectly like a lady you could still feel her eagerness like electricity in the air. Haymitch came face to face with little Effie Trinket who smiled at her father and even though she couldn't see him of course Haymitch couldn't help but return her smile. He'd never seen a cuter kid in his life. Her reddish blonde hair was pulled back and formed some kind of odd hair bow on top of her head. To match the bow at her back, he guessed but her hair wouldn't conform and tests and curls of it stuck out here and there.

She extended the drawing to her father and Haymitch got a glimpse of something that looked like a rainbow.

"Oh," said Effie's father, and there was disappointment in his voice. "That's good, Effie but you need to do better. And not just a rainbow. You want them to publish it in the magazine, don't you pumpkin?"

"Yes, daddy," she said. Her father gave her the drawing and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. Effie sat down at the table again, reaching for a pencil.

When the scene changed the next time Effie was older but only slightly. She sat on the edge of her bed while her mother put the finishing touches to her hair that was pulled back in a bun this time. Effie sat completely still with her hands folded on her lap, dressed in pink tweed with shiny, black boots that didn't touch the floor.

"This will have to do, I guess," Effie's mother sighed with a look at her hair. She squeezed Effie's hand and smiled at her. "Are you excited, Effie?"

Effie nodded.

"You be a good girl today. You want to make mommy and daddy proud, don't you?"

Effie nodded.

"Look into the camera and tell daddy what you will become today."

"School girl," said Effie and her mother chuckled, kissed her temple and dabbed a handkerchief where her lips had touched her skin.

"Let's get your coat. You don't want to be late for your first day."

The scene changed again and Haymitch's bottle stood completely forgotten on the table.

xXx

The tub Effie had spoken about was sunk into the bathroom floor. It was dry and empty now but at the press of a few buttons, water, bubble bath and oil filled it to the edge with fragrant bubbly water. Haymitch stripped, leaving clothes all over as he went and when he lowered himself into the hot, silky water he couldn't stop a sigh and leaned back with only his head poking up above the bubbles.

Glimpses and images of what he'd just seen kept re-playing in his mind. It was astonishing really, how little he knew about Effie's past. He hadn't wanted to know anything about her in the beginning of course. But even after she'd become more of an ally and even a friend she had almost never confided in him about her past. She would give him "fun facts", like when she told him about her parents' first date at the Capitolium. But almost never any of the deep stuff, anything that could help him figure her out.

After what he'd just seen and in the wake of everything that had happened lately he wondered more than ever. He thought back to the skinny chit of a girl Effie had been when he first met her and had actually been grateful over (the first ten minutes or so) because how could she be any worse than Dandridge?

What had Effie's life been like up to that point?

Was she happy? Had she been loved?

Her parents had paraded her around like a damn show dog. Prepping her for beauty contests and ice skating contests, TV commercial auditions, fashion shows and other equally stupid things but they still looked like they loved her. Something in the way they interacted with her. It might be just the thought of the future glory she would bring them that they loved but he wasn't sure on that one. Effie's parents weren't quite how he'd imagined them.

There'd been a time and for many years when he would have scoffed and said Capitolians can't love. Not for real. But even if it was damn hard to admit, he knew deep down that it wasn't true. Even if they were foolish scarecrows they were still human beings under all that crap and they must care for their own. The parents' reaction watching their children being blown to bits outside the President's mansion was proof of that if anything.

To say they can't really love, not like you and I love must be as arrogant as the Capitolians saying the district people aren't really people like you and me.

Effie's parents had looked at their daughter with eyes shining with love. And still she was a disappointment to them? Something told him there was a clue for him right there.

A low, bad-tasting belch escaped Haymitch's lips and he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

And then there was that boy with the orange hair. He'd seen him in frame after frame, always by Effie's side.

Was that him? Alexander. He'd never stopped wondering about him. Back when he first moved in with Effie after her overdose he noticed she'd moved the box with the embroidery with Alexander's name on it.

Was he a cousin? Maybe he was her brother.

After one of their wakeful nights in Twelve when they sat on his porch, he'd flat-out asked her.

But she wouldn't speak of it. And then Peeta appeared and Effie took her chance, following him into town. She'd thrown a look at Haymitch over her shoulder, guilt written all over her face, but she didn't stop.

On the hospital back when Effie was rescued from prison and Plutarch came to visit she'd asked him about her family. Haymitch remembered holding her hand. He also remembered that neither of the relatives she'd asked after had had such a common name as Alexander.

It would probably be an easy task to go search her apartment and once and for all find out. He was good at leaving everything exactly where he found it when he had to.

But it just felt too rotten to do that. He would have hated her if she did it to him. She might get pissy at him for just watching those photos. That thought hadn't even crossed his mind until now and he made a mental note to himself to not hurry and tell her.

Haymitch sipped his bottle and looked at his toes peeking through the bubbles, his mind getting hazy even from Effie's lame alcohol.

The last thing he thought about before he drifted off to sleep was little Effie Trinket and her eyes following her parents around the room.

xXx

"That was the very last time I find you asleep in the bathtub, Haymitch."

The artificial air brushed balmy against their faces but Effie's lips were pursed in displeasure, her arm looped around Haymitch's. "And Panem knows I've seen enough of your private parts to last me a lifetime."

"Oh, give it a rest", said Haymitch. "Like you didn't always take that extra look when you stripped me down during the Games."

"Don't be preposterous, Haymitch. Of course I didn't," said Effie but her cheeks flushed pink.

They were walking across the Promenade with the blue water of the barrage glittering on one side. An invisible forcefield separated you from the edge except for the archway overgrown with green leaves and lemons where you could board the public riverboat that slowly and steadily took its passengers to different parts of the city.

"It stops by the National Library of Panem," Effie told him because she could never miss an opportunity to act tour guide. "It's opened to the public now, maybe you heard."

Haymitch muttered something in affirmative. He was silently grateful that he had Effie there to support him. He didn't feel too steady. More than anything he'd like to lie down.

His eyes fell on a stone bench a couple of meters ahead and he immediately pulled Effie towards it, sitting down with a grunt and leaned his arms against his thighs. Effie sat down as well, so straight you could balance a wine glass on her head. He expected a lecture about posture but it wasn't coming.

Effie looked out at the barrage. The sun turned the water to diamonds.

"Look," she said and Haymitch glanced to where she nodded. Far up there a bright purple hot air balloon floated through the heavens. "You see them all through summer here", said Effie. "People climb aboard in Cupid's Garden and it takes you around the city."

"Talk about not having better things to do."

Effie smiled.

"I know it's silly. It's just that I always wanted to try it when I was a child. But my parents didn't think it was safe."

"Figures," muttered Haymitch.

"I have something for you," Effie said. "I know it's a little early but I thought..."

And from the depths of her bag she got out a small round box, all wrapped up.

"You know you don't have to keep getting me gifts," said Haymitch.

"Of course I know I don't have to," said Effie. "I want to. Happy birthday, Haymitch."

He unwrapped it and got out a round box. Inside was a small glass cube. He held it on his palm and first he thought it was some kind of ornament, like the glass miniature in Effie's bookshelf. But then Effie brushed her fingertip on top of the cube and immediately an image lit up from it.

"I wanted to give you something special and not just things like a chessboard", said Effie. "So I thought I'd give you a memory of... well, a family." She said so almost apologetically. As if afraid he'd take offence for her taking that word in her mouth.

Unlike the life size moving pictures he'd seen in Effie's library, this one was more like an actual photo. Of him sitting by the garden furniture next to Katniss and Peeta, with the geese pen at their backs.

"I hope that was alright," she said.

"Why aren't you on it?"

"I took the picture, remember," said Effie. "I really like this photo of you."

"You should've been on it." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them but once they were he knew they were true. He hadn't averted his gaze from the photo all this time but he looked at her now.

Effie Trinket had many smiles and having known her all these years Haymitch thought it was safe to say he knew all of them. There was her wide Capitol smile that had fooled even him in the beginning. Her dazzling smile she put on when she needed to charm someone. Her teasing and/or malicious smile which always seemed to end up with her out-bitching him. Her sad smile that was positively heart wrenching. Her bright, cute and genuine smile that made you think Effs Trinket might actually be alright.

But then there was this one. The one on her lips right now that he wasn't at all sure he liked and absolutely not used to get. A smile so full of warmth and love he swore she could melt snow with it and he always looked away then or else he'd start noticing how pretty Effie's eyes were and that was never good for him.

For a long moment neither of them spoke.

"No one's ever done what you did for me that night and after," Effie said quietly. "I never thought…"

"You have people who care about you, Eff," Haymitch said. "That never changed. If you spiral out of control again don't drug yourself out. Just call me, OK?"

"I will. I promise." She hesitated and her gaze fluttered to his pocket where he kept the silver hipflask. "You know the same goes for you, don't you? Instead of… If you need me I would…"

"Wish it were that simple, Eff."

"But you know you have people who care about you as well?"

His gaze dropped to Katniss and Peeta, smiling up at him from the photo.

"Yeah. Sure. Can't say I know why."

"Oh, Haymitch." She gave a small sigh. "And you were known for being clever."