Chapter 16
Paths unknown
The coffee steamed against Haymitch's face when he poured the hot beverage into a thermos. His duffel bag was already over-stuffed and he gazed critically at the gray sky through the window as he tried to force the zipper to close.
His old hipflask stood on the kitchen counter top but he didn't touch it. Today was a day he ought to stay clear-headed. But as soon as he thought it his resolve crumbled and he had a few good mouthfuls before he stalked up the stairs.
Somewhat clear-headed would suffice.
"Eff?" It was close to noon but in his bedroom the curtains were still pulled together. The bed dipped on one side when he sat down and he gave her shoulder a gentle shake. "Effs?"
When she didn't move he went over to her suitcase that stood in a corner. Unpacked. Normally she used garment bags for her dresses but since they left the Capitol in such a rush the clothes were more or less stuffed in. He got out a peach colored outfit and made a feeble attempt to smooth out the creases.
"Effs?" he said as he leaned over her again. He brushed away a few loose strands from her face. "There you are," he said when her eyes finally opened. It took her a moment to focus on him but when he squeezed her hand under the cover she squeeze it back. "Up, up, up, sweetheart. Big day comin' on."
"I'm so tired," she mumbled.
"Yeah, I know. You've been out for two days." He tugged at her arm, helped her to sit. "I've got something for you in the back garden."
"More geese?"
"Nah, they take care of that themselves. Get dressed, sweetheart and meet me outside. It cost a bloody fortune."
And he was gone.
Most of all Effie just wanted to lie down and go back to sleep but for Haymitch's sake she put on the dress and walked downstairs. The cool breeze made her shiver when she got outside and she buttoned her coat.
Someone's blue pickup truck stood parked next to one of the shrivelled flower bushes. Had she lifted her gaze a little higher she would have spotted Haymitch's surprise the moment she got outside.
She sucked in a breath when she turned a corner. Whatever she'd expected it wasn't this.
"Haymitch!" she breathed.
It was a hot air balloon. Just like the ones you saw in the Capitol. A huge, orange hot air balloon with its wicker basket anchored to the ground. The geese honked at it behind their fence and a boy, younger than Katniss and Peeta, smiled and shook her hand.
"Morning, miss," he said in the soft cadence of District 4. Haymitch grinned at the sight of Effie's stunned face.
"What has gotten in to you?" she asked weakly but he just shrugged.
"You said you always wanted to try it."
He extended his hand to help her aboard.
"Alright," the boy said when they were all in and he released the devise that kept them grounded. "Here we go."
Who would have thought District 12 could look so beautiful? The boy heated the air inside the balloon and they floated through the heavens higher and higher.
This was something different than the view from the Capitolium. There was the Meadow sprinkled with yellow leaves. And the Seam with children laughing and running about. Smoke rose from the chimneys. You could see the slag heap. And all the houses and shops in town.
Hazelle and her children who were on their way home all stopped and pointed to the sky. Haymitch lifted his hand in hello and knew all of Twelve were probably already talking about how he finally went crackers.
Soon they left the district behind. The wind brushed through their hair and even the Capitol couldn't have put up a more spectacular show than the woods below them right now, painted in fall colors. A quiet symphony of bright yellow, deep orange, brilliant red and green.
He felt Effie touch his hand and he entwined their fingers together without their young pilot noticing it.
"There it is," he said and pointed.
"I see it," the boy said. He opened the valve at the top of the balloon to let air out and they began their descend. Ahead of them the woods opened into a large clearing, an evergreen, surrounded by the big hardwood trees and with a small lake that reflected the gray sky.
A high branch brushed against the wicker basket when they sailed lower and lower. More branches scratched underneath them and Haymitch hands shot out to steady himself.
"I got it, I got it," said the boy. His gloved hands were on the burner and he released more gushes of fired air into the opening of the balloon. They began to rise but they weren't on a straight line anymore. The contact with the tree tops had steered them too far to the left and they began to sink again. "It's supposed to work," the boy mumbled. He added more fire and there was a hecticness in his motions that hadn't been there earlier.
"You've done this before, right?" Haymitch frowned.
"Um, yes," the boy said but the sheen of sweat on his upper lip betrayed him. "I mean, yes, with mum and dad."
They sunk further and further to the left and all three of them saw where they were headed. Haymitch pushed the boy aside to do it himself but it was already too late and he pulled Effie down and the boy too by the scruff of the neck the moment before the balloon and the wicker basket and all three of them crashed into the biggest tree on the green.
Twigs and yellow leaves rained down on them. The branches ripped though the nylon and the orange balloon shrunk and deflated over their heads.
"I'm sorry!" The boy repeated it over and over. "I'm so sorry! This never happens."
"You OK, Eff?" Haymitch asked and rubbed his elbow.
"I'm fine," said Effie, a little shaken. The wicker basket swayed precariously to and fro and she reached for a nearby branch and pulled herself out of it.
"I swear, this never happens!"
"Yeah,I heard you the first time," Haymitch snapped as he tried to haul himself out as well, with Effie's help. Second nature made him crane his neck to try and spot any tracker jacker nests. When he found none he heaved himself up to a fork in the tree and slumped down with a grunt. He peered through the sparse foliage all the way to the ground. Far, far below.
"Of course, you'll get your money back, sir," the boy said nervously at the sight of Haymitch's expression. "We'll get down. No problem!" He had already started to climb.
"Look out!" Effie called when his foot slid off the bark. Haymitch tried to grab him but he wasn't even close. And the kid crashed down the tree. His shrieks were worse than Effie's, he snug on one of the lower branches, making it snap and he landed on his back with a thud.
"My goodness, are you alright?" Effie shouted.
The boy's eyes flew open.
"I'm… I'm OK," he choked. The fall must have knocked the wind out of him. Slowly he pulled himself to sitting and stared from the tree trunk, now with no lower branches and to Haymitch and Effie trapped half-way to Heaven. He got up on shaky legs. "Don't worry", he said and gave them a wave of encouragement. "I'll go get help!"
"Not that way!" Haymitch shouted and stopped him in his tracks. "Straight ahead, then right!" The boy nodded and nodded and gave another wave. Soon he was swallowed up by the woods. "Shit, I hope Katniss is out," Haymitch muttered.
But as trees went this wasn't a bad one to be trapped in. It had multible trunks and many great forks, safe for hosting a misplaced mentor and escort.
"I should've known this would happen," Haymitch said. "He was the only one who agreed to come here."
"Was this Peeta's idea?"
"Nope. All my fault. I wanted to take you out on a… you know." He gave a wave of his hand like he couldn't take the word in his mouth.
"A date?"
"And I wanted to give you something worthwhile. I brought food and everything. Told him I'd drive that thing m'self but the kid said we'd just wind up in a tree." He heaved a sigh and looked down at the stranded wicker basket. His duffel bag was still in it. "Oh, what the hell," he muttered and pulled himself up.
"Be careful," Effie said as she watched him lower himself down branch by branch and past the orange rag that had once been their magnificent hot air balloon.
And you couldn't believe Haymitch had once used to harvest oak leaves for Madam's wine bottles.
Now he grunted and panted with sweat trickling down his back as he tried to remember any of Katniss's old tricks when she taught him and Peeta how to climb before the third quarter quell.
He reached for his bag, face almost purple before he managed to pull the straps over one shoulder and climb back to Effie. He wiped his hand over his face and hung up the bag.
"No, Haymitch, not…!" But it was too late. And they watched the bag crashed through the greenery just like the poor boy until it landed with a crack when the milk bottle broke inside.
They looked up and at each other and before Haymitch could even say anything Effie smiled. A small smile but it was good to see.
Whether it was because she was lighter and younger than him or just used to scurry up and down fire escapes to have sex with chimney sweeps he had no idea but she was by his side in a minute.
He scooched over to make room for her. It was cramped but he wrapped his arm around her and Effie leaned into his knitted sweater.
And say whatever you wanted, the view was something!
"I see a house," Effie mumbled. "Down by the lake. Is that where we…"
Haymitch nodded. Was it really 10 whole months ago since they sought shelter there during the blizzard? It felt like only yesterday.
"We were really heading out in the middle of nowhere," he mumbled.
They lapsed into silence with only the wind that brushed through the withered leaves.
"I wish I had a picture of him," Effie mumbled. "A sonogram. Anything."
During the time she was at the hospital and back home with her parents after Alex's death Kane moved his things out of her apartment. But that wasn't all. When she returned she found out that the few pictures she had of her baby were also gone. And when she said she wanted them back – the last time she ever spoke to Kane – he told her he had them destroyed.
Haymitch leaned his cheek against her hair. He knew that feeling all too well. Sometimes he thought about asking the boy to paint his family for him. Terrified he'd one day wake up and not remember what they looked like. But even if he could go through with telling him all the details, he knew if he woke up from one of his nightmares to his family looking down on him from the wall he would completely shut down. And he wasn't exactly without cracks to begin with.
"Can you forgive me?" Effie's voice was all but a whisper. "For sleeping with someone who helped selling victors?"
She loved her son with all her heart but what happened between her and Kane was one of her many big regrets. The fact that he was only at the beginning of his career back then, hardly even an assistant – despite his pompous boss-like attitude – didn't lessen her guilt.
Alcohol had always had a tendency to make her hot under the collar. And sure, the year she slept with Nicho on the roof they always shared a glass from one of her and Annabel's smuggled bottles. But she would have slept with him either way. Because he was funny and exciting and put dirt all over her pretty dresses. A forbidden fruit.
Years later when she looked back on it she thought the biggest reason why he made her come as hard as she did was because he was Capitol low-class in her parents' eyes. It'd been her own unconcious protest, even if they never found out about it.
She and Nicho parted as friends and she never regretted a single night spent with him.
But she would never have slept with Kane sober.
"I understand, sweetheart," Haymitch said. "We all do things we regret when we're drunk. I didn't exactly fuck a lot of rebellious Capitolians myself."
Panem knew, that wasn't something he eagerly talked about. Sure, in all his years as mentor, you could count the women he'd fucked on one hand. Well, almost one hand. But the number would be higher, if it wasn't for Effie.
There were women, and men, who gladly threw themselves at the victors of Panem. You'd think his liquored breath, snarls and general disgustingness would turn them off but no, it often had the opposite effect.
But really the biggest reason for his slight popularity or whatever was simply because he was one of the few victors you could have a go with for free.
Not that he pondered much over any of it. He just wanted to fuck someone when he was wasted and too horny to take care of it himself.
Luckily for his sorry ass though, anyone who wanted to get to him had to go through Effie first. And she didn't exactly have a low bar.
"Didn't know you needed a gate-keeper," one of the women had laughed, arms linked around Haymitch while a very sour-faced Effie pressed the elevator button.
"You will be gone by midnight," she said. "If you don't want me to have the peacekeepers throw you out." And then she'd give them access to one of the chambers at the penthouse and stationed herself in the living room with her clipboard.
A watchdog through and through. You could laugh at it but really he was lucky to have her.
Most of the capitolians who buzzed around the victors like bees around a honey pot were harmless. Air-headed and annoying, loud and self-centered but risk-free for a dumb mentor.
But among them, the real sociopaths hid. Those who weren't above slipping something in your drink, who enjoyed cutting and to share needles or simply got a kick from passing their own diseases on to you.
And unlike him who couldn't tell one capitolian apart from another Effie kept track of every single one of those women. He didn't know how the hell she did it but without her he'd probably test positive for every STD the Capitol had to offer.
The biggest reason why he almost never got to score during the Games was because he loved to drink more than he loved to fuck any of them. Once he reached a certain number of drinks Effie wouldn't let anyone near him. If they tried, and they did, she immediately called the guards and got him back to the penthouse herself.
"You're just jealous," he'd slur. Either that or she had to patiently and repeatedly push away his roaming hands.
If you thought about it, it really said something about her that she did all that. That she went to such lengths to make sure he was out of harm's way when he was drunk and didn't think straight.
In other people's eyes, say Katniss or Peeta, Haymitch was the one who protected Effie. But in her own way Effie had looked out for him as well.
"You know, I would've done the same as you," he said. "Gotten married. If I knocked someone up." Somehow it felt important she knew that.
The rain was coming on after all. Like a whisper in the leaves. Haymitch opened his jacket and wrapped it around both of them. Like once before.
"'m sorry for this mess," he mumbled in Effie's hair.
"Don't be," she said. "It was lovely." She leaned into his shoulder and gave a soft sigh. "I wish I didn't have to leave tomorrow."
Then don't, he wanted to say. But the words never left his mouth. He knew he couldn't ask it of her. In the end he only laced their hands together so both his arms were wrapped around her.
The image of Tara emerged before his mind's eye and he felt that old ache that always started in his stomach. A pain that would forever be a part of him. Kind, witty, beautiful Tara. His best friend. His first.
He rested his forehead against Effie's temple and suddenly it was hard to swallow.
He'd always love her. She'd always be his girl.
But Effie. She was the only one left in his pathetic excuse for a life who managed to light even the tiniest flicker of hope in him. Something he feared just as much as he hungered for it.
She was his Effie. His woman.
He never planned to be with someone like her and she probably never planned to be with him. He'd fought the good fight. They both had and they crashed into each other's love life not so differently from how they crashed into this tree. He just hoped he wouldn't end what they'd started the same way.
A mockingjay landed on a branch just near them. Haymitch peered at it and on impulse he whistled a few notes. The bird cocked its head curiously and then whistled the tune back to him. Another mockingjay, hidden in the foliage, picked it up and then another and another.
Until the whole forest sang to them.