Peace of Her Heart

by Lyndie Strawbridge

  But the story of how Raff and Clover met over and over again was a bit more interesting. The next day, Raffie and his friends needed tickets again, and also, they’d decided they needed drugs, too. “We usually have a brother or sister who has something,” Clover explained, “but you know, we trade for stuff like that; we only take money for things we’ve made,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

  So, after trading some clothing to a different brother of Clover’s in exchange for some LSD and a bit of pot, Raffie offered to share a joint with Clover, who hadn’t turned down the offer. As they sat and watched the people go by, Raff had asked Clover how it was that her brothers and sisters were with her at the festival. Clover had explained that they weren’t really attending the festival; rather that when tours passed through their area, they followed for a while, trading or selling their wares before returning to their family in the forest.

  “Your family lives in the forest?” Karla asked, interrupting the story. Maddie was wondering the same thing. “You don’t mean you live in tents! You mean you own property in the woods?”

  “No man. You got it right when you said tents!” Clover grinned. “And it’s not my blood brothers and sisters. It’s my spiritual brothers and sisters, in humanity. I’m part of the Rainbow Family, man.” She smiled as if she’d just revealed that she had magical powers.

  “I don’t mean to sound dense,” said Maddie, unconcerned about sounding dense. “But what is the Rainbow Family?”

  “The Rainbow Family of Living Light,” Clover answered. “I left home when I was 14, hitchhiked to Denver looking for the Rocky Mountain High. They found me, man. They saved me. I was living on the street, and they saved me. There are thousands of us, man, thousands. We meet a couple times a year, all of us, all 20,000 of my brothers and sisters.” She sat back, propping herself on her hands, looking comfortable for the first time since she’d entered the house. She wagged her naked feet back and forth under the coffee table. Maddie resisted the urge to see if they were as dirty as Raffie’s had been. Instead she perched on the edge of the sofa and waited for Clover to provide more details of the story.

  “So you’re like a super-hardcore hippie,” Karla said.

  “I guess so, man. Child of the earth,” Clover cooed, and the two of them fell into a rhythmic nod, the smoothie girl in sync with the little hippie girl for a moment.

  Maddie couldn’t take waiting anymore. There were too many fuzzy edges to the story and it was driving her bonkers. She looked back and forth across the room and said, “So, wait. You have lived with a group of people in the woods for, like, five years?”

  “I live in the woods, in my car, in tents, in other people’s cars,” Clover laughed a little and shook her head. “Sometimes we stay at someone’s cabin, if they let us, for a few days. My Family group is about 20 people, sometimes 30. People come and go. And I’ve lived with them for about twenty years, not five.” She saw the look of disbelief wash over Maddie and Karla. “Yeah, man, I’m thirty-four years old.” She seemed to delight in their surprise at her age.

  “You’re thirty-four years old?” Maddie bellowed. “You mean that for twenty years, like basically your whole entire life, you have lived in a car in the woods—”

  “In the national forests and stuff, man,” Clover interjected.

  “—and Raphael Dulcetta came along and sweet-talked you into leaving your commune?”

  Clover nodded rhythmically. “Yes,” she said quietly, and sadness again bubbled up in her voice. “Yes. He convinced me that this world isn’t Babylon. That living in a family group in the city would be similar to living in my family group out in the world. I didn’t really know if he was right about that.” She hesitated, and a little embarrassment shone in her eyes. “But I really, really fell for him, man. He was so romantic. It was wild.”

  “What kind of romance did he pull on you?” Karla asked.

  “Oh, man. He laid me down under the stars and told me about the constellations. He pointed out which stars represented us.” She looked a little dreamy as she said the words, and then she looked sheepish. She sighed self-consciously as Maddie and Karla exchanged a look. “He got a bottle of wine and read poetry to me, out of a torn-up book. It blew my mind.” She took a long draw from the curly straw, and it made gurgling sounds against the bottom of the now-empty smoothie glass.

  “Don’t feel bad. He caught me through romance, too,” Maddie suddenly confessed, her heart melting for this tiny displaced woman. She was so glad she’d seen through Raffie’s games before she’d done something drastic, like move away from her family—even if the family was just a bunch of nature nuts in a campground somewhere.

  “Maddie, I have something else to tell you,” Clover said, as she took a deep breath. A look of strange apprehension clouded her wide-set eyes. Now that Maddie knew her age, she could see it on her face: there were fine little crenellations around the eyes, a certain softness of the skin. Clover’s hands, caressing her smoothie glass, were a little looser and spottier than Maddie’s own. “He gave me something.”

  Maddie snapped from her contemplations. “What the hell? Like an STD? What the hell?”

  “No, no,” Clover said, waving her hand to soothe Maddie. “No, he took me out to this little bitty closet-sized spot in the woods that he’d decorated. He had hung up chains of flowers all around, and he brought me there.” She stopped, looked down at her lap, and took a deep breath. “And he said that he was in love with me and that if I’d drive them all back here, that everything would work out just the way love wanted it to.

  “And then he untied his necklace from around his neck and tied it on mine. And it was a twine rope with a ring with red stones in a heart-shape.” She looked up again. “I didn’t know it was yours. I didn’t even know you existed. He asked for it back when you broke up with him, and he was really mad when I said I didn’t have it. I gave it to my brothers before I left, because I knew they could trade it for stuff our family needed.”

  Maddie sat stunned. She was angry, but not at the hippie girl fingering her drink forlornly.

  “Clover, you are forgiven,” she said. “Don’t even worry about it. You didn’t know. It’s his fault.” She stood up stalked over to the bookcase, seized by the sudden urge to clean things up. She snatched up a little receipt and crumpled it in her hand as she said, “It’s his fault for all of this. Romancing me, romancing you. Swindling me, swindling you.” She grabbed a little plastic bag and began filling it with junk mail. “Leaving me, leaving you. It’s all his fault. You know what I understand about him now that I never did before? He’s a player,” she said, waving her impromptu trash bag through the air. “He played you, Clover. He only wanted to see if he could romance you into doing everything he wanted you to do.”

  “He ruined my life!” Clover squeaked, growing excited and teary-eyed at the same time. “I’m 1000 miles from Denver and my car won’t make it, and even if it could, I’d be traveling alone—only me and my dog—and that’s scary.” The tears ran freely down her face. “And I don’t have any money. What am I going to do?” Karla got up and went to her, kneeling and taking her into her arms like a teen mom with a huge baby.

  Maddie stood up straight, abandoning the pile of books she’d been arranging. “I’m going to kick his ass,” she declared, a rush of delightful adrenaline captivating her. She shook off her maroon heels and felt her bare feet hug the floor for a moment before she strode across the den, down the hallway, and into her room. She crossed to her dresser and rummaged around inside until she found a good pair of athletic socks, then she grabbed a pair of running shoes and sat down on the pink and black rug. After properly outfitting her feet, she gave herself a quick evaluation in the mirror. The reflection was satisfactory. She exited her room and returned to the den where she found Karla with her arms still around Clover, and the two were talking quietly.

  “Come on, we should all go together,” Maddie announced. “We’re going through the fence. Karla, get your phon
e; we’ll need to call the police as soon as this is over.”

  “No!” Clover gasped, leaping to her feet like a grubby woodland sprite. “You can’t beat him up! Is that really what she’s talking about, beating him up?” she asked Karla, shock in her eyes.

  “Yeah, she’s really talking about beating him up,” Karla affirmed.

  “You just can’t do that! You can’t!” Clover stammered, springing across the room to Maddie’s side. “That would be incredibly bad karma! For all of us!” she said, tones of desperation coloring her words.

  Maddie took Clover by her twitchy shoulders. “I’m not going to kill him, okay?” she said. “I’m only going to beat the snot out of him.” She gently but forcefully shoved Clover aside and went back to the bookshelf where she began patting her hands around, looking for her keys. She planned to clutch them in her fist, and use them to puncture Raffie’s tummy in the event that he decided to fight back. But by the time she found the keys, the fight had gone out of her. Her shoulders sagged and she plopped to the floor, unlacing her running shoes.

  “She does this all the time but never follows through,” Karla whispered in the background. “It’s just a cathartic thing for her, I guess. She loves talking about beating people up.” Maddie heard Clover sigh in relief.

  “It’s not good for her,” Clover answered. “Maybe she needs alignment.”

  “Maybe,” Karla answered, and Maddie felt more deflated than ever.

  “I just feel so dumb,” Maddie said, as she stretched out on the floor on her back, staring up at the ceiling fan. “That ring. It represented my willingness to fall in love with him, and now it’s gone and I feel like an idiot.”

  Clover scrambled across the room and knelt over Maddie, looking down into her face. Maddie observed Clover’s thousands of freckles.

  “But your love isn’t really gone,” Clover said, and the words fell gently onto Maddie’s ears. “You have a heart full of it. You’ve been so kind to me today, even though I’m the reason everything went wrong.”

  Maddie puffed a breath out through her lips in an indulgent sigh. “Not really,” she said.

  “Clover, what do you need to get back home?” Karla asked, her voice calm and optimistic. “Maddie and I will help you. You can’t stay here, in Redwine, of all places. What do you need?”

  “Really? Really?” cried Clover, and Maddie watched as her freckly face broke into a wide smile. She hopped up and out of Maddie’s line of sight, revealing the ceiling fan once again. “Well, I need money for gas for 1000 miles. And I need a mechanic to look at my van and make sure it will go the whole way, because I’m scared of breaking down and me being alone. And I need a place to stay until everything is set up, and I need…I need a job, because I don’t want anyone to pay for all of this. I want to get myself out of this mess, but I just need a job so I can get money.”

  “You can stay here, but only for one week,” Karla said. Maddie didn’t turn her head, but she could imagine Karla and Clover in a hug, bouncing up and down. “The couch is yours to sleep on. And your dog can stay in the house, too, if you clean up after him and are sure not to let him in to our bedrooms.”

  Maddie rolled over and peered out the screen door at Clover’s van and the dog that was hanging out of the window. She’d heard he was really a wolf. And by the looks of him, that rumor was true. She made a mental note to ask about the dog later.

  “It should be no problem for you to get a job,” she continued, and Maddie flopped her head over in time to see Karla getting clean linens out of the hall closet. “We’re right next to the campus and I’m sure you noticed all these little diners and stuff within walking distance from here. You go around and apply for waitressing jobs. You don’t need to know a lot to be a waitress at a diner. Just write down whatever the people want, and give it to the cooks. Can you do that?” Karla asked.

  Maddie had a sudden fear that Clover couldn’t read or write, but she said, “No problem, man!” with enthusiasm. She propped her head in her hands and watched Clover rolling around gleefully on the sofa, under the blankets Karla was flapping out over her. They were blathering about girl-talk sessions and pajama party nights. Maddie thought about irony, and how most people think they know what that term means, but they’re actually wrong. She thought she’d tell Nick about this whole scene later. He could tell her if it was ironic or not.

  Chapter 15

  “He’s history. You’re done with him now,” Nick said. “And you’re here with me. I had to wait to get this chance, and I’m not going to mess it up.” The restaurant was calm and quiet, and Nick spun a slim straw around in his drink as the two of them shook their heads over the disaster that Raphael Dulcetta had turned out to be. Nick laughed a little, saying, “I may not be the master of romance, like he is, but I am so happy to be here with you tonight, helping you get over this thing with him once and for all.”

  “You act like I’m dating you or something,” Maddie teased, hoping dating was exactly what Nick had in mind. “I never said I was your girlfriend.”

  “No, you didn’t. But the kisses in the laundry room kind of had me thinking that we are a perfect match.” He smiled. She crinkled her eyes at him. He was so handsome and normal. Normal and not weird and so reliable—things she didn’t know how much she valued in a guy until she’d dated someone with none of those qualities.

  “I’m so happy to have a chance to wear this dress,” she said, gesturing down at the thin gray dress. It held to her body just perfectly—not too tight but not too loose—and the blue piping gave it a playful feel without detracting from its elegance. She well remembered the day she picked it out at the store; she knew she rarely had an occasion to wear such a dress, but it had sung to her in such a way that could not be ignored. “And about the kisses,” she continued, “I’ll have to have a few more of those before I commit to being your girlfriend. You’ll recall that my most recent boyfriend turned out to be no good; I wouldn’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me turning up on your doorstep in a long skirt,” Nick said solemnly. “I haven’t got the figure for it.”

  She laughed and watched as he sipped from his glass with a sincere face, playing the straight-man. Maddie said, “Seriously, though. Nick, I feel almost responsible for Clover. If you met her, you’d understand. It’s like she’s from another planet.” She thought of Clover’s hairy legs and freckled skin. “But what can I do for her, really? Nothing, except hope that Larry gives her a job at the restaurant. And I can try to find her a mechanic. Even then, that van is vintage 1972. Something tells me it’s going to cost a lot to get it really fixed right.”

  “Maddie, I don’t have a ton of money to throw at penniless little Rainbow girls, but I’ll help you guys out with the mechanic. I can at least hook you up with someone who won’t rip her off,” Nick said, pulling out his phone and tapping something into it. Maddie felt sure it was a note reminding him to call his family mechanic first thing in the morning. It was nice to be with a guy who would take care of things. “And if the repairs are only a couple hundred bucks, I’ll pay for it.” In response to Maddie’s stunned face, he said, “It’s not because I’m some great altruistic soul. It’s because the sooner Clover is out of your hair, the sooner the ghost of Raffie is out of your life, and the sooner I can get into your bed. I promise to shower first,” he said with a little twitch of his mouth, still playing the straight-man.

  “You’d like to get in my bed, wouldn’t you?” Maddie asked in her pretend-sexy voice.

  “You know I would, honey. I’ve already washed all your bedsheets. Now I want to know what it’s like to get them dirty,” Nick said, and his straight-face collapsed. They both burst out into fits of laughter. “Wow,” Nick chortled, “That was cheesy, even for me.”

  “Yeah, but it was great,” Maddie said. “Believe me, I much prefer the faux-naughty talk you and I have been doing to the faux-romance that Raff had me falling for.” She leaned back in her c
hair and took a long drink from her glass of wine. White. Not red, like so many girls pretended to like because it was supposedly more sophisticated.

  Nick leaned back in his chair, too. A calm but bemused look passed across his face. “But, to be serious for a moment, Maddie: is this not romantic? We’re at the country club. I’m going to sign for all this stuff; I don’t even have to pay. Look at what you’re wearing. Look at what I’m wearing. I’m wearing a tie, for crying out loud. Is this not romantic?” He gestured at the table, the real non-silk rose in the vase, the candle, the beautiful paintings on the wall and the waiters in white shirts.

  Maddie looked around the restaurant, and appreciated the traditionalism of a dinner date at a fancy place. “It is romantic, Nick,” she said after a moment’s thought. “But it’s like eating a real banana after eating nothing but banana-flavored candies for a few weeks. It’s subtle,” she concluded, setting her wine glass down beside her napkin. Nick took it and refilled it, pressing his lips together to suppress the smile that was pulling across his face.

  “Okay, I can understand that,” he said. “And I’ll take it as a compliment. A restaurant could be construed as subtle.” He propped his elbows on the table and leaned closer toward her. “I’m really fighting the urge to make a dirty joke about eating bananas right now,” he smiled. Maddie laughed again, and gave his face a push with the palm of her hand. “I’m not going to make the joke, but I’m fighting it,” he grinned, as he signaled the waiter and signed the tab. “Instead, I’m going to bring you home, like a gentleman, and call you tomorrow. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?” he asked.