Peace of Her Heart

by Lyndie Strawbridge

  She entered her room ready to collapse back into her soft sheets only to find Raffie in her bed. He was propped up against the pillows like a king in his chamber and he’d pulled his shirt off. Maddie’s calm burst and her skin flushed with anger. He was framed by the weak light from the little bedside table lamp, and Maddie got a full picture of Raff in all his Neo-Dead Tour glory.

  There, in her white wicker bed, lounged Raffie, one arm folded behind his head and the other arm stretched across the tops of the pillows adjacent to him. Her pale green and white pillows with the precious ruffled cases were being bent to his will. He’d never slept in her bed before; the pillows didn’t even know him. And now he was laying all over them, his naked back pressed into them. Her fluffy white comforter and pale green sheets were also being subjected to his body. He’d thrown a leg atop the blankets.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Maddie hissed, not wanting Karla to wake and see the circus show underway in her bedroom. “Get your dirty butt out of my nice clean bed and take a shower!”

  “Baby, were you serious about that?” Raff said. “I’ve been gone for weeks—”

  “You’ve been gone eight days,” Maddie corrected him. “Eight freaking days. Stop trying to make it sound like you’ve been gone on some epic journey. It’s been eight days.” She stood framed in the doorway, her arms folded tightly against her chest.

  “Whatever, numbers, calendars, they don’t mean anything to me anymore,” Raff said.

  “Then why do you keep mentioning how long you’ve been gone?” Maddie countered.

  “Baby, what matters is that I’ve been gone, and now you won’t even give me a hug and a kiss. You’re placing more importance on soap and water than you are on our love,” he said, frustration clouding his face.

  “How long has it been since you showered?” Maddie asked, fear suddenly setting in as she realized that with Raff’s already lackadaisical approach to the science of running water it was possible he hadn’t showered in days.

  “You say I’ve been gone eight days, so I guess it’s been nine days,” he said, with a little shrug of his shoulders.

  “Shower,” she commanded. He sat forward and leaned his head into his hands. Then he lifted his face and looked her in the eyes. His beautiful golden eyes seemed different to Maddie than before. The allure they held had faded. He swung his legs out of the bed and crossed toward the doorway. She stepped aside. But then, in a motion so quick she barely saw it coming, he grabbed her by the waist and threw her into her bed. He threw himself down on top of her, pinning her and burying his face in her neck, nuzzling and kissing.

  “Let me go, let me go!” she squealed, angry and a little desperate. He was so, so dirty.

  “Kiss me,” he answered.

  “Hell no, I will not kiss you,” she said, writhing and squirming beneath him in an effort to escape his grasp. “If it’s been nine days since you showered, it’s probably been nine days since you brushed your teeth,” she wheezed, whipping her head this way and that, trying to avoid his mouth. He slipped his hands underneath her pajama shirt.

  Panic rippled through Maddie. “Please don’t,” she whispered, as a rush of tears came to her eyes.

  He raised his head and looked down into her face. Apprehension slowly washed over his expression. “Please don’t what?” he asked slowly.

  Maddie found that she couldn’t say anything. Her lips wouldn’t come together to form words; her breath wouldn’t catch long enough to let them.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you,” he wheedled. “I’m just so in love with you, Maddie. I just want a sweet kiss from my girlfriend.” He rolled from atop her, but left one heavy leg and arm pinning her down. “None of this went the way it was supposed to go,” he continued, a quality of musing filling his voice. “I arrive on your doorstep, ready to sweep you into my arms, take you to your bed and make love, and you spoil it all. I just wanted to have a romantic evening with the girl I’m in love with.”

  Maddie lay very still. When his breathing had become slow and heavy, she extricated herself from his grasp and went into the den, where she lay down on the sofa with the pillow and blanket she’d put out for Raff. As the sun came up, she drifted into a fitful sleep.

  Chapter 12

  Maddie heard Karla get up for work a few hours later. She remained motionless on the sofa under a throw blanket, listening as Karla showered and then clanged around in the bathroom. Eventually, the door opened and wet feet padded down the hallway.

  “Maddie, do you smell that?” Karla asked as she perched on the black chair, her white bathrobe wound tightly around her. She pulled her fingers through her wet hair, untangling it.

  “Mm hm, I smell it,” answered Maddie with a grumble. She turned on her side and twiddled with the tassels on the blanket.

  “Something really stinks. It smells like tires mixed with rotting food,” Karla answered, sinking back into the black chair and making a little face of disgust.

  “You’ve got it almost right. It’s motor oil mixed with B.O.,” said Maddie, propping herself up on one elbow and reaching out for the coffee table. She fingered around in the junk atop it until she found a half-empty bag of Skittles. “Raff came home in the middle of the night. He’s in my bedroom,” she said, popping two yellow candies into her mouth.

  “Whoa,” said Karla. “Are you happy about that? Did you sleep in there with him?” Maddie could tell she was trying to be nonchalant. Karla was of the opinion that Raffie needed dumping and she would be disappointed if they’d slept together.

  “Are you kidding?” Maddie answered with exhaustion in her voice. “No, I didn’t sleep with him. He’s filthy and stinky. I didn’t even want to hug him.” She tossed two red Skittles into her mouth. “I think I’m done with him, but I don’t want to break up with him by myself,” Maddie said, her mind made up. She rolled the little candies around on her tongue before crushing them with her teeth. “Do you have time today, or do you have to rush off to work?”

  “I have time,” Karla replied, pitching forward in the chair and clasping her hands. “Do you want me to make us some breakfast first?” she volunteered.

  “No, I need to get these issues resolved before he wakes up,” Maddie answered, scooting into a sitting position, her bare toes propped on the edge of the coffee table. “I’ve got to tell you about last night.”

  She began to talk. She told Karla all the details, from start to finish, of the previous night’s events. Karla was mostly quiet, nodding and harrumphing now and then.

  “Those poor linens,” she said sadly upon hearing of the violation he’d inflicted upon the green and white sheets. But then a wash of irritation passed over her face and she said, “You’re right. You have to break up with him this morning, before he leaves this house. You have to break it off.”

  “I know. I’m going to get my ring back from him and then tell him it’s over,” Maddie said, pouring the remaining Skittles into her mouth and swinging her feet off the coffee table. Her soles hit the floor and she stood up. “Let’s go get dressed,” Karla said. “To stay strong for a break-up like this one, I’m going to need to look good while I do it.”

  “You don’t want to over-do it,” Karla said, as the two of them made their way down the hall. “You don’t want to look like you put effort into it. It has to look natural.”

  “Yes, I need to look naturally stunning,” Maddie said, feeling her decision strengthening as she gave the closed door to her room a gentle push. It swung open. Raffie had rolled around in Maddie’s bed quite a lot, leaving the sheets, blankets, and pillows in complete disarray. His feet stuck out from the end of the blankets.

  “Whoa there, horses,” whispered Karla, when her eyes found the flats of Raffie’s feet. They were blackened, absolutely blackened, from walking around shoeless for days upon days. “I thought it took years for feet to get that way,” she whispered. They backed out of the doorway and retreated to Karla’s room.

  “I thought only tribes
people who lived in jungles had feet like that,” Maddie said. “Every new observation I am making about this post-festival Raffie is making it easier and easier to break up with him. This stuff is only fortifying my resolve,” she murmured as she shimmied into a pair of Karla’s jeans while simultaneously eyeing the clothes rack in the closet.

  “Fortifying your resolve,” said Karla. “Listen to you. One week with Nick and you’re talking like a real college girl. He’s the perfect guy for you.”

  Maddie laughed a little. “I don’t know. One thing at a time.” The sound of Raffie’s dirty feet hitting the floor in Maddie’s bedroom radiated through the wall, so she poked her head out of Karla’s room and said forcefully, “Raffie, go shower. We have a lot to talk about when you come out.” To her surprise, after a brief moment of tense silence, she heard him begin to cross the hallway to the bathroom. She ducked back inside Karla’s room.

  When Maddie was sure that Raffie was securely enclosed inside the bathroom, she took a deep breath and looked at Karla for strength. Karla nodded, and the two of them slipped down the hallway into the den. As they listened to the shower spray, they quietly conferred as to how to arrange themselves in the room. They decided that Maddie should sit in the black chair, and that Karla should sit on the pink couch. They placed a rickety kitchen chair in the den as well, sort of in the middle, interrogation-room style.

  Maddie jiggled her knees in her seat as she listened to Raff exit the bathroom and move around in her bedroom. A few moments later he appeared in the den wearing a tie-dyed, floor length hippie skirt, a dirty white t-shirt, and no shoes. He smelled heavily of patchouli, and Maddie was willing to bet a hundred dollars that he hadn’t bothered to brush his teeth while he was in the bathroom.

  “Hello, ladies, what’s up?” he asked, darting his eyes around the room. His guard was up. He pushed his damp hair back with both hands, looked around a little, and sat in the rickety kitchen chair. Karla pretended to read a comic book. Maddie took a deep breath.

  “Raff, I’m going to get right to the point, here,” she said, her voice strong and confident, yet sympathetic. It was perfect. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” she said, shaking her head a little and pursing her lips.

  Raffie slowly leaned back in the wooden chair. His eyebrows crept up his forehead and he haltingly shook his head from side to side, like he was trying to get water out of his ears.

  “Is this about last night?” he finally asked as he fingered the pleats on his skirt.

  “It’s about more than just last night,” she answered immediately. “I have discovered a lot about you in the past week, and I have come to believe that you and I are just not compatible,” she said, pleased with how diplomatic she was being. She leaned over to the coffee table and pulled a kazoo from amongst the jumble. She toyed with it, hoping that the little instrument would make her appear disinterested. “I think I’ll spare us both the embarrassment of listing out those things,” she said as she tapped the tip of the kazoo against the front of her chin. She gazed up at the ceiling above Raff’s head.

  “Maddie, I was completely delirious last night. I didn’t mean to do anything to make you feel bad,” Raff said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He was giving her his most sincere, golden-eyed gaze. He was just as handsome as he was a week ago, but for some reason she didn’t find those eyes as mesmerizing as she used to.

  “You cheated on me while you were gone, Raffie. And, not to sound stuck-up or anything, but I like dating guys who have real jobs and running water and electricity.” His chin shot up and he looked her in the eye, surprise on his face. She shrugged her shoulders at him. “Yeah, I found out about your lack of utilities. Sorry.”

  Raff sat back in his chair and gazed at her. His eyes began to look very wet. Her pulse thumped in amazement as she watched tears streaking down his cheeks. He dropped his face into his hands and began really sniffling and snuffling. Maddie and Karla exchanged a look across the room. Karla mouthed the words, “Oh my God!” and Maddie again shrugged her shoulders, this time in confusion.

  After a moment, Karla put down her comic book, stood, and crossed the room to stand by Raffie’s side. She put her hand gently on his shoulder, and his snuffling intensified.

  “Raff, it’s okay,” she said, as she knelt down to try to look into his face. “You guys just barely dated. It’s actually not that big of a deal,” she said soothingly. “Just return Maddie’s ring, and then go back through the fence to your own house, where your friends are waiting for you, and put all this behind you. Go to your friends and laugh about all the good memories you made on Neo-Dead Tour,” she said, rubbing his arm.

  “But I’m heartbroken,” he said, lifting his head from his hands and locking his red eyes onto Karla’s sympathetic ones. “My heart is broken. My lover doesn’t want me anymore.” He dropped his face back into his hands. The girls exchanged another look across the room.

  “It’s okay,” Karla cooed, turning back to him and patting his arm. “You’ll be fine. Maddie is going to go get your things from her room and bring them in here. You just take a moment to regain your composure.” She waved her arm at Maddie, who was completely befuddled by the turn of events and scrambled from the black chair to sprint down the hallway.

  In her room, Maddie found Raffie’s dirty clothes scattered about. Based on the state of the garments she had to handle, she realized that he had probably put on his cleanest clothes after his shower. What happened to all the clothes he had departed with? He didn’t own three peasant skirts when he left. But he did own shoes, pants, and blue jeans, and he had brought those things with him. Where did those things go? She stuffed the dusty, muddy clothes into the quilted bag that he had apparently picked up somewhere along the journey, and she was about to leave the room when she was struck with a thought.

  “I’m going to dig through his stuff,” she whispered quietly to herself.

  And with not a second thought, she swung shut the door to her room and sat down in front of it to prevent anyone from coming in. She dumped out the quilted bag and began pawing through the contents. Here were the clothes she’d just handled, here were some little scraps of paper, here was a zippered bag. She took it in her hands and unzipped it, pouring the contents into the space on the floor between her legs. It contained four dollars, an assortment of necklaces and other little jewelry items, a few little vials, and a couple of ticket stubs. She opened each little vial. One was filled with patchouli oil. The others were filled with strange scents and she didn’t know what they were. She turned her attention to the jewelry and looked at it with interest. None of the necklaces were the twine one she’d made, and her sapphire ring wasn’t tangled amongst any of the chains. She scooped up all the little things and put them back into the zippered bag, then stuffed everything back into the larger quilted bag.

  When she re-entered the den, she found that Karla had gotten Raffie to his feet, and he seemed to have collected himself. She held his quilted bag out to him and he took it, looking at her hands and arms but not at her face.

  “Raff,” Maddie said as emotionlessly as she could, “I need my heart ring back—my heart ring. The one I made a necklace with and gave you on the day you left.”

  “I don’t have it with me,” he said.

  “You don’t have it with you,” Maddie repeated, trying not to panic. “Does one of your friends have it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I’ll get it back to you later,” he said. “I’ll send it with Lauren, or somebody else, since you probably don’t want to see me again.” He sighed deeply and flopped his arm against his side. Then he straightened his spine, gazed into the empty air above Maddie’s head, and said, “I am in love with you, Maddie. If your heart softens for me, I’ll be waiting.”

  He walked across the room and toward the door, his hippie skirt swirling around his naked ankles. Karla bounced ahead of him and opened the door wide. Raff crossed the threshold, padded down the stairs of t
he porch, and crunched across the gravel parking lot toward the hole in the fence.

  Maddie reached out and swung the door shut behind him. It closed with a satisfying thud.

  “Thank God that’s over,” sighed Karla as she tossed herself down into the black chair.

  “But it’s not over,” said Maddie. “He still has my ring.”

  Chapter 13

  A few hours later, after indecisively fingering the telephone for a while, Maddie dialed Nick. She didn’t know if he’d answer, but she was glad when he did.

  “Nick, I need your help,” she said with mock seriousness. “I have a lot—I mean a lot—of laundry to do today, and I absolutely cannot do it alone. I need a nice, smart guy to do it with me. Do you know any?”

  His voice rustled across the line. “Uh, maybe. Do you want this smart guy to go to the Laundromat with you? Because I only have one smart guy available at the moment, and he prefers to do laundry in his own house, in his own cozy washer and dryer.”

  “Do you have your own washer and dryer?” she asked excitedly, unable to conceal the optimism in her voice. “Are you inviting me to come do laundry at your place?”

  “I guess I am, Maddie. Would you do me the honor of washing your dirty socks in my machine?” he answered. Maddie’s mind raced, wondering what Nick’s apartment looked like.

  “I would be pleased to wash my dirty socks at your house, but actually, I have to wash all my bedsheets and my comforter and pillows. There was kind of a disaster in my bed last night,” she said, not realizing until after the words were out how sexually charged they might sound. She actually felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and laid her hand on her face to touch the unexpected blush.