“Ew, I don’t want to wash those kinds of sheets in my machines, Maddie!” Nick teased, but she could tell that he was joking, and that he didn’t really think they were morning-after sheets. “Put all your stuff in your trunk and come on over,” he said. “Your comforter will fit in the washer, but we’ll have to baby it in the dryer, do fifteen minutes and turn it, you know.” He gave her the address and asked if she knew how to find the place; she said she thought she did and that she’d see him in a half-hour.
Since it was near lunch time, Maddie wondered if she should bring something for them to eat. That would be a nice surprise. But as she stripped her bed and hauled the blankets out to the car, she realized that she had no idea what to get. Anything she brought might turn out to be wrong, and she didn’t want to make any wrong moves with Nick. Because now, maybe, she wanted to try to make all the right moves with him.
The area of town he’d directed her toward was a little unfamiliar. She’d driven through it dozens of times, but never stopped. It was an area full of law offices and boutiques, salons and upscale jewelry shops. Maddie didn’t use any of these kinds of places, so she’d not paid much attention to the area. Now, however, she peered at every street sign until she found her turn, wheeling past a pastry shop on her way into a residential area. She found the building he’d directed her to and pulled into a spot.
Already, without even getting out of her car, she was impressed with how lovely the place was. The broad, flower-lined street meandered this way and that, encircling a clubhouse with a beautiful pool. The condominiums were two-storey brick-and-plaster affairs with landscaping that looked like it could be featured in a magazine. There were only a few cars parked in sight; Maddie realized that there must be concealed parking somewhere behind each condo. She turned her key, shut off her engine, and tried to get her nerves under control.
Moments later she found herself at his door, debating between knocking or ringing the doorbell. She settled on knocking and looked down at her feet while she waited. She’d spiffed up her makeup and hair but left her dumping-Raffie outfit on; it was casual yet really quite cute. Perfect for this sort of thing. Nobody got all dressed up to do laundry.
When Nick opened the door, he gestured at her empty hands and said, “I thought you were going to do laundry!” Maddie laughed, shrugged, and felt a little silly, but before she could explain, he said teasingly, “I suppose you expect me to go get it.” He ushered her back out to the curb, took the keys from her hand and opened her trunk. He tossed the keys over to her as he reached into the trunk and grabbed a laundry basket. Maddie took the other basket and they headed back up the walk to the open doorway.
The apartment was decorated in a style that surprised Maddie. The sofas had wood embellishments along the arms and feet. The fabric of the drapes was visually opulent, and the coffee table and end tables were adorned with scrolls in the ironwork. The color scheme was a little bit dark—manly, Maddie thought—but she was ready to sink into the plush sofa and declare herself a resident of the place no matter how masculine it looked. It seemed absolutely posh.
She followed Nick through the kitchen into a small laundry room—an actual laundry room, not a laundry closet—and set her basket down. Nick leaned back against the doorway as Maddie knelt to gather the sheets and stuff them into the washer.
“Dang, Maddie,” he said, making a sour face. “You said something horrible happened in your bed but I thought you meant you spilled coffee in it or something. This smells like ten wet dogs rolled in your blankets.”
“Ugh, I know,” Maddie answered. “It wasn’t wet dogs, but I wish it had been. No, this smell was left behind by a human. And it wasn’t me!”
“I didn’t think it was,” he said with a laugh. “You’ve never smelled as repulsive as these sheets in all the weeks I’ve known you.”
“Gee, thanks. I have to say, smelling better than these sheets is easy,” she answered as she stood up and the two of them strolled to the kitchen. She took a seat on a barstool as Nick looked in the fridge. “Nick, I thought about bringing something to eat, but I didn’t know what to bring.”
“Paralyzed by indecision, huh?” Nick answered as he emerged from behind the open refrigerator door with a bottle in each hand. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but it seems to me that if an incredibly filthy human sullied your bed last night, you’re probably going to need a drink in order to tell me about it.” Maddie smiled and nodded, and then Nick opened the two glass bottles with a golden bottle opener shaped like a Koi. He plunked them down on the counter and sat down on the barstool next to her.
“Is this root beer?” Maddie asked, tilting the bottle to the side and inspecting the label.
“Locally brewed,” Nick smiled. Maddie chuckled and took a long gulp. It had been ages since she’d drank a root beer.
“I thought it would be beer-beer,” she said, wiping the back of her hand against her lips.
“It’s bad form to drink booze before noon,” Nick answered with a little grin. “Tell me about the dirty bedsheets.”
“It is quite a story,” said Maddie, clasping the cold bottle between her palms and tapping her outstretched fingers together. “The first thing I want you to know is that I really appreciate you letting me come over here today, and secondly, I’m so glad that you’re my new friend. I need to get some new people in my life,” she said, nodding optimistically. And then, for the second time that day, she launched into the story of the night before.
Unlike Karla, Nick wasn’t amused by any part of the story at all. He didn’t like how Raff had treated Maddie on the phone. He didn’t like that Raff arrived virtually unannounced at Maddie’s house in the middle of the night. He didn’t like that Raff was wearing a hippie skirt with no underwear. At this point, Nick got up and got himself another root beer. Maddie hadn’t finished her first one yet.
Nick continued to dislike the story. He didn’t like that Raff resisted taking a shower. He really didn’t like it when Raff stripped down. He didn’t like Raff’s attempt to say he’d been gone for weeks. He grew absolutely apoplectic when Maddie explained how Raffie helped himself into her bed. At that point in the story, Nick said, “Maybe I should punch this guy in the face,” as if it were a fact rather than a resolution or desire.
By the time Maddie finished the account, complete with the details of herself going through Raff’s bags and the fact that he didn’t have her ring in his possession, Nick had achieved a level of calm again. Eventually, after he’d thought the story over for a few moments, he said, “So you’re really done with this guy, right? For good?”
“Yeah. It was actually kind of pathetic, Nick,” she said, shaking her head. “There toward the end when he was crying. He was actually crying, Nick.” Nick pressed his lips shut tightly and shook his head in a curt, small way. “You don’t think so?” Maddie asked.
“I don’t care if he was crying, Maddie. He’s a player. Don’t spare a charitable thought toward him. Just don’t.” Nick folded his arms across his chest and revisited his curt, small shake of the head.
The washing machine buzzed.
“I’ll do it for you,” Nick said, gesturing for Maddie to stay seated. “You’re not going to touch any of that stuff again until every last trace of him is gone from it.” He strode across the kitchen into the laundry room, and although Maddie offered a weak protest, she didn’t get up to stop Nick from moving her sheets to the dryer and her comforter into the wash.
“Do you want to talk about him anymore right now? I hope not, because I’d like to forget this guy ever existed in your life,” Nick said, as he went to the fridge and took a pitcher of iced tea from it. Maddie watched as the tea splashed into the tall glass he’d chosen. “No more root beers left. Back to mother caffeine. Do you want a glass of tea?”
“Sure,” she said, enjoying being waited on.
“Let’s do something else while the wash runs,” he said. “Let’s find something on television,” he said as he pa
ssed through the kitchen and back into the lush den. He flopped down on a sofa and grabbed a remote control. Maddie noticed that the remote controls and magazines on the coffee table were lined up neatly. She stood in hesitation for a moment, wondering where to sit, but then Nick moved a few throw pillows aside and waved at the spot next to him; she took it.
He flopped his head towards hers and said, “What kind of stuff do you like to watch?”
“Anything,” she answered. “No, that’s not true. I don’t like car races.”
“Well, I’ll see if I can find anything that’s not a car race,” he said, flipping the channels. He stopped on a nature show about giraffes. “Do you like giraffes?”
She laughed. “Who doesn’t like giraffes?”
“You’d be surprised, Maddie. There are a lot of bad people in the world. I’m glad you’re one of the good guys,” he said with faux earnestness, and then tugged his serious mouth into a little smile. She gave him a push, and then the two of them rearranged on the sofa until they were comfortable. She was surprised to find that he leaned his head against her arm as he slipped into a lazy slouch. She was also surprised to find that he left the television tuned to the giraffes.
Five minutes into the giraffes, she adjusted her position so that a bit of her knee was touching his leg. Five minutes after that, he leaned over to put his iced tea on the coffee table, and when he leaned back, his head found her arm again and his own arm draped over her leg. Five minutes after that, a giraffe gave birth and they both expressed comic dismay at how far the baby had to fall to the ground. Five minutes after that, Maddie leaned forward to have a drink of tea. When she went to lean back, she found that Nick had slumped entirely into her spot.
“You have to make room for me,” she said, twisting on the edge of the sofa and looking down into Nick’s face.
“I’m too tired. The laundry wore me out,” he said. “You’ll have to hoist me up and flop me back over into my spot.” He smiled drowsily and let his eyes close.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she answered, slipping onto her knees beside the sofa. She raised her arms over him tentatively, but couldn’t quite figure out where to grab him. She decided to slip an arm beneath his head and grab his shoulder with her other hand. But as she did, she felt his arm snake around her waist.
“Maddie,” he said, his eyes closed. “You can’t really pick me up. I’m far too heavy for you.”
“I’m not trying to pick up all of you,” she said, and her heart was thumping. She was close enough to kiss him, and she let her arm lay across his chest. “I’m only trying to pick up the top half of you.”
He opened his eyes and looked up into hers. The dryer buzzed.
“Ah, duty calls. A housewife’s work is never done,” Nick said, as he began to prop himself up on his elbows. His arm disentangled from her waist. He tossed a throw pillow out of his way.
“Wait,” Maddie said.
“Wait for what?” he asked.
She couldn’t think of anything witty to say. She just gaped at him as he looked at her questioningly.
“For this,” she finally said, as she leaned over and kissed his mouth. His face was a little scratchy and he smelled like soap and he didn’t kiss her back.
He didn’t kiss her back.
She pulled away immediately, mortified. Her stomach lurched into her throat as her gaze hit the floor. She jerked her arms away from him and scrambled to her feet.
Her mind began to function again when she had her head in the dryer and was feeling around for the last pillowcase. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She’d humiliated herself. She had to think of something clever to say, and then she had to leave.
When she stood up, she was dismayed to find that Nick had sneaked into the laundry room. He was placidly folding her bedspread. He was just going to pretend nothing had happened; it was humiliating. She mumbled, “Don’t worry about it,” and tried to snatch the big blanket from his hands.
He said, “Wait.”
She said, “For what?”
He said, “For this.” And then he tossed the folded comforter onto the floor and caught her in his arms. His mouth found hers and Maddie floated away on the bliss of their first real kiss.
Chapter 14
“I’m going to let her in,” Karla said definitively. She turned the lock and opened the door. Maddie braced herself.
“Hey, are you Maddie?” asked the small bedraggled girl standing on the doormat, her sing-songy voice bouncing from high to low and back again.
“No, I’m Karla. And you’re Clover, right? I can’t say we’ve been expecting you, but it’s pretty neat to meet you,” she continued, as the girl entered the room with a slow bounding gait. Although she was a small being, she smelled heavily of patchouli and filled the room with its scent.
“Then you’re Maddie,” the small girl said as she saw Maddie, who had been hanging in the back of the room attempting invisibility. “You’re pretty,” she said with a kind of breathy awe in her voice. “No wonder, no wonder,” she said next, as she collapsed into a shabby little heap on the floor in the middle of the room.
Karla shut the door and immediately slipped away, disappearing around the corner.
Maddie seated herself on the pink couch and watched as Clover plopped her big, woven hippie purse onto the coffee table in front of her.
“Thank you for the compliment,” Maddie said, tucking her feet beneath her. She twiddled with the hem of her jeans, twisting a long loose string through her fingers.
“Look, man, this is totally awkward,” Clover said, looking up into Maddie’s eyes as she picked her fingernails, down in her lap. “I know we don’t know each other, but in a way, you’re like, the only person I can turn to here in this town,” she said, her brownish face and blackish freckles exuding a kind of lost sorrow.
“People are not talking to you?” Maddie asked, curiosity overwhelming her. She peered at the big-eyed, melancholy girl. Raffie’s little hippie group had only been back in town for two days. She couldn’t imagine what Clover had done in such a short time to fall out of favor with all of them. “What happened?”
“They all blame me for you and Raffie breaking up,” Clover said, and Maddie thought it looked as if her big eyes were beginning to gleam with tears. “I didn’t know he had a girlfriend when I met him,” she explained, flopping her woven hippie bag into her lap. She dug through it absently, pulling out a little tin box which she laid on the coffee table. “‘He’s really special,’ I thought. ‘He’s really kind,’ I thought. But now…oh, Maddie, I really just want to go home!”
“Well, you should just go home, then,” Maddie said as Clover opened her little tin box. She removed a wad of plastic wrap, opened it on the coffee table, and revealed a small pile of marijuana. Maddie was bewildered; she’d never had a stranger presume that it was okay to roll a joint on her coffee table without asking. There is a first time for everything, she mused.
“I wish I could just go home. It’s not as simple as that,” Clover said as fat wet tears finally escaped her eyes and began to roll down her cheeks. She produced a small blue pack of rolling papers and began pinching her way through her little pile of marijuana, choosing bits she wanted to include in the joint.
Karla emerged from the kitchen and eased a tray onto the coffee table. It had three big smoothies on it. Upon observing the tears and the dope, she slipped across the room, retrieved a bottle of vodka from behind a potted plant, and poured a couple of shots into each smoothie. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I want to go home to Colorado, but my van won’t make it, and I don’t have any money,” Clover said, ceasing work on her joint and clasping her hands over her face to hide her tears. Her shoulders hunched as she said, “I thought Raff was this pure, wonderful soul, and that he and I were going to make a life here. But I was so stupid, because he doesn’t even want me around anymore, and none of his friends will let me stay with them.” She looked up at Maddie and Karla, her
eyes red and face wet.
“Wait, wait,” Karla ordered. “Stop crying. Drink this. Don’t roll that joint yet. Raff made you believe you two would be a couple, once you guys got here? That sleaze!” she exclaimed, looking over at Maddie and snatching one of the smoothies from the tray. She waved it in the air angrily. “Did he think he’d have the two of you at the same time? Sleaze! I can’t believe it!”
“Nothing about him surprises me anymore,” said Maddie sullenly as she leaned back into the sofa. A long moment passed as they all listened to Clover sadly slurp her smoothie through the curly straw Karla had put in it.
“I would never have slept with him if I knew he had a girlfriend who wasn’t into it,” Clover said, earnestly. “I just want you to know that. I know there’s a difference between free love and getting used.”
“You slept together,” Maddie said flatly.
“Yeah,” Clover answered flatly.
“You know what?” Maddie asked with determination in her voice. “I think I want to know the whole story of you and Raffie hooking up on Neo-Dead Tour. Not the sex details. The relationship details.”
So she listened as Clover told the tale. The two of them met the first day, when Raff and his traveling companions were trying to score tickets to the festival. They’d been surprised, Clover said, by the fact that tickets were required to gain entrance to the show. For some reason they thought the shows were all open-air, free-to-the-public sort of things, which they of course were not.
Clover had been with some of her family selling woven bags, “like this one,” she said, gesturing at her own bag, when she’d met Raff. Her family knew how to get tickets, she told him, although they themselves weren’t going into the show that day. Raff wanted to know how much the tickets cost, and Clover explained that one of her brothers had the tickets, and he wouldn’t take any money for them, only a thing in exchange. So the two of them had looked through Raffie’s things and Raffie’s friends’ things, and found a suitable trade for the tickets: a pair of nice work boots that would make a fair barter. Then, they’d found Clover’s brother, offered him the shoes, and Raff got three tickets. And that was the story of how Raffie met Clover.
Peace of Her Heart Page 11