Peace of Her Heart

by Lyndie Strawbridge

  “He said you have to have some certain shoes to work there?” asked Karla. “And you don’t have them? Is that what’s going on?”

  “Oh, yes!” Maddie broke in, clarifying. “Like certain waitressing jobs you have to wear black work shoes to go with the uniform. And you don’t have those,” she said with sympathy and understanding in her voice. “When I went to work at Applejack’s they required black work shoes and I was like, ‘forget this, I am not wearing those ugly shoes all day; people will see me in them.’ But then eventually I had to break down and wear the shoes.” She was lost in the memory of that job. It had lasted three weeks and those ugly shoes had been donated to Goodwill on the very day that she’d quit. Maddie tapped her feet, her soles of her own shoes ringing out merrily against the hardwood floor.

  “But wait, there’s no uniform at Larry’s,” Karla said, her brow furrowing with confusion. “Hang on a second. How did this even come up? How did the subject of shoes even come up?” she asked Clover.

  Clover shook her head from side to side again. “He just said, ‘you gotta wear shoes,’ man,” she murmured sadly.

  The three girls sat in a moment of silence. Then Maddie said, “Wait a minute. Are you saying…are you saying that you went to this interview with no shoes on? Barefooted?” She almost couldn’t believe it, but the truth was descending upon her. “That’s not what you’re saying.”

  Clover nodded.

  “Have you gone to all the interviews this week barefooted?” Karla asked in a low, compassionate voice.

  Clover nodded.

  “Oh, Clover, why?” Maddie lamented.

  “Well, I don’t have any shoes! Clover said, her wide-spread eyes glistening with surprise.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Maddie yelled as she threw herself out of the black chair and clip-clopped across the room and down the hallway, her own shoes feeling lovely around her feet. “Come on, you silly goose!” she yelled. She heard Karla gently cooing, saying she’d call the diner and get the work arrangement hammered out.

  “Come in here and sit down,” Maddie bellowed as she flung open the door to her walk-in closet and sat down in front of her shoe baskets. There were three wicker baskets lined along the back of the closet, and each held about two dozen pairs of shoes. Clover appeared in the closet doorway, meek and sad. She sat down, and they were side-by-side, their heads being brushed by a hundred shirts hanging from the rods above.

  “Clover, tell me about your life in Colorado. What’s your everyday life like out there,” Maddie asked as she pulled pair after pair of shoes from the baskets. She held up singles and rooted and sorted and paired. She began to make a little pile to one side as she listened to Clover talk. Clover was tentative at first, still weighed down by her sad mood, but as she spoke, she grew more and more cheerful.

  Maddie listened to tales of hot summers and cold winters when Clover and her family would hunker down in a van or a tent or a cabin, keeping each other warm with the heat of their own bodies and the heat of their familial love. Her family snuggled and nuzzled and loved, and often paired off into loving couples. That, she said, was why Raffie was able to romance her the way he did. She hadn’t been a part of a couple for a long time, and she so much wanted to be part of a pair. He seemed to want that, too.

  “Put these on,” Maddie said, selecting a pair of cloth slipper-shoes with buckles. She dropped them in Clover’s lap and the girl slipped them onto her feet. They were only a little big on her. “Good,” Maddie declared. “They’re yours. You can have them.”

  Clover smiled with awe and gratitude, her freckly face shining in appreciation. “You’re giving these to me?” she asked, the smile gleaming on her face. “You’re really giving these to me?”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not very expensive, and they fit you just fine,” Maddie said, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. “They won’t hurt your feet because they’re basically just slippers.” She looked down into her lap and Clover leaned across to grab her in an embrace.

  “But they’re yours,” Clover whispered into Maddie’s hair. “They’re yours and you’re giving them to me. You two have let me stay in your house, and taken care of me and my dog, you’re—you’re really kind,” she said. Maddie felt it was too generous an assessment of herself.

  “There are lots of movies left to be watched, Clover. Are you sure you don’t want to hang around and, you know, watch them?” Maddie asked after a moment had passed. She smiled but felt unexpectedly depressed at the thought of Clover earning her two weeks’ pay and leaving Redwine. The Maddie-and-Karla twosome could have become a cozy little threesome.

  Karla appeared in the closet doorway and picked her way over piles of shoes and sweaters to the back half of the closet, where she sat down. “I called Larry,” she said. “Everything’s fine. You are to arrive at the diner tomorrow and start work,” she said happily, reaching over and patting Clover’s knee. “You’re on your way, girl,” she said.

  “Maddie gave me shoes,” Clover said, gesturing down at them. “Can you believe it?”

  “I kind of had an idea that’s what she’d do,” Karla answered. “You deserve a chance, and if Maddie hadn’t had any shoes that fit you, we’d have looked in my closet.”

  “I think we should celebrate,” Maddie declared. “Doesn’t it seem that way? We don’t have to stay out late or anything—since Clover will be starting her first job ever tomorrow—but shouldn’t we go out for a drink? Or a dessert? I think we should,” she said, and her tone indicated that the matter was settled. Maddie stood up and started flipping through the clothes hanging in her closet. “We should all look absolutely fabulous tonight, don’t you think?” she said, fingering a blouse she hadn’t worn in a while.

  “You guys are going to be surprised. I know how to get all beautiful for a night out. You’ll see!” said Clover, and the girls temporarily disbanded to go poking through their respective closets and duffle bags.

  ♥♥♥

  “To hot chicks with bright futures,” Karla yelled over the din of the bar as the three of them toasted. And they were indeed hot chicks that night. Karla looked pseudo-business-chic in short-shorts and a blazer. Clover had pulled out all the stops with a pair of foxy jeans and a babydoll shirt. She’d even toiled over her hair in the bathroom and with a little help had tamed the wild curls into obedient ringlets. She actually looked beautiful. And she was wearing her new shoes.

  Maddie had labored over her outfit. She’d settled on a short, swishy dress with boots. Now, looking around the bar, she didn’t regret the choice. She and her companions, she decided, looked better than all the other women in the place put together.

  As the night wore on, cigarettes were smoked and beers were drank. Friends came and went from the booth, chatting with Maddie and Karla and drooling over Clover. She hadn’t been out to the bars in the week she’d been in town, and being a mysterious stranger made her even more alluring than just her adorable freckles and perfect hair. She had a great little figure, too, Maddie had noted. When a few pals of Karla’s pulled chairs over to the booth and began dominating Clover’s attention—vying for it, even—Maddie was happy for her.

  “Isn’t it wonderful? Our little 34-year-old girl is all grown up, using hair products and wearing shoes,” Karla cooed laughingly as she gestured to Clover, who was smiling from ear to ear and bobbing her head in her love-child way. Her curls bounced. “I hope she makes some more friends before she leaves town. For some reason, it’s important to me that she has a good time while she’s under our care,” she said with a strange maternal tone in her voice.

  “I should probably stop drinking now,” answered Maddie, refilling her mug and lifting it to her mouth even as she said so. She accidentally clanged it against her front teeth. It didn’t hurt; the teeth had gone numb. The alcohol was helping her keep her mind off of Nick. She’d had a lot of trouble not obsessing over him that evening, battling the urge to pull out her phone and dial him up.

  Karla danced
a little in her seat to the music floating through the bar. “What are we going to do this weekend? Did I tell you about the new guy at work?” She bopped up and down as the two of them lapsed into chatter about the smoothie shop and cute boys and how it was time for Karla to find a boyfriend too, because wouldn’t it be wonderful to double-date, just like people did in the 1950s? And everything was going just swimmingly. Maddie was getting drunker, Karla was getting funnier, Clover was getting cuter, until Maddie saw them.

  Them. Raffie and Nick. Leaning against the wall over by the pool tables. Laughing. Nick giving Raffie a playful punch on the shoulder. And that punch felt like a punch in Maddie’s gut.

  “Look at that!” she hissed, jerking her head in Nick’s direction. “Will you look at that?” She whipped her hand over and slapped Karla on the arm, hard.

  Karla leaned across Maddie’s lap and peered across the bar. “Damn,” she said in disbelief. “What do you think all that’s about?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Maddie, the drunken anger welling up inside of her. “He said he had stuff to do today, that he couldn’t see me tonight. What the hell is he doing partying with my enemy?” The anger was so strong that it was beginning to make her stomach churn.

  Nick and Raffie began a pool game, with laughter and good humor exchanged across the green felt table. Nick broke the balls and they rolled this way and that. It was a good clean break.

  “It’s a good thing this booth is in the shadows,” Karla said, her elbows on the table, her palms cupping her chin as she stared unabashedly at the pool game. “They won’t see us unless they make an effort to check out this corner of the bar.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Maddie asked, feeling the tears welling up in her eyes. “Is it a good thing that I’m both betrayed and unnoticed?”

  “Do you think you’re betrayed?” Karla asked, her voice apprehensive. A slow nod began to build in Maddie’s neck, progressing from a barely perceptible movement to a harsh set of jerks. Karla turned Maddie and took her in a hug. “It does look pretty bad. But maybe it’s not; maybe it’s not.”

  “He said he had stuff to do all day. But here he is, playing pool with my enemy. Yeah, it looks bad. I want to go home. I feel like going home, swearing off of men, and turning lesbian,” Maddie said drunkenly. “Will you be my girlfriend, Karla?”

  “You know it, babe. I am so in love with you. The only problem is that I’m not attracted to women, so there will be no sex. Can you live in a sexless relationship?” Karla asked. Maddie spluttered out a laugh, despite her betrayal and confusion. She swiped the back of her hand against her runny nose as she took another look at the pool game.

  Clover’s new friends turned to incorporate them into their conversation, but Karla waved them off with a gesture and a laugh. They turned back to their own chatter, which was full of gasps and head nods and smiles.

  The pool game between Nick and Raff ended, and the two were engaged in a serious-looking conversation that culminated in the two giving each other a manly shoulder-hug. It was Maddie’s last straw. The tide of impending tears receded, and a surge of anger crashed in to take its place.

  “Is my makeup still good enough, even with the crying? Because I’m going to talk to him,” she asserted, running her fingers through her hair.

  “It’s fine, and you’d better hurry, because he’s leaving,” Karla answered. Maddie whipped her head around in time to see Nick pushing his way through the crowd to the exit. She leaped to her feet and began to weave through the little clusters of people, making her way to the door as swiftly as she could. She didn’t catch him; by the time she got to the door, he’d already exited through it.

  Maddie emerged out onto the sidewalk, her heeled boots slipping a little on the slick concrete. She spotted Nick’s car parked across the street in a small landscaped parking lot that belonged to a posh coffee shop. The headlights flickered on. She dashed across the street, charged into the parking lot, shoved her way between two floral bushes, and slammed her palm down on the hood of the car as it was pulling out of the spot.

  Nick jolted with surprise, and the BMW lurched to a halt. His eyes met hers and he was happy to see her—but only for a moment. The excited expression sagged almost immediately. She watched his shoulder flex as he moved the car into park, and then the door swung open and he got out, shutting the door behind him and coming toward her.

  “What’s going on, Nick?” Maddie demanded. “I’ve been watching you in there, being all buddy-buddy with Raff. Are you, like, best friends with him now?” In her mind she was making a brilliant, well-explained argument, revealing all the ways in which Nick had betrayed her by being friendly with Raffie. Unfortunately, her fat boozy tongue wasn’t fully complying, and she listened to her own sentences and felt disappointed in them.

  “Maddie, there’s nothing sinister going on here, okay?” Nick said, forcefully but placidly. He wasn’t drunk in the slightest, she realized, and that angered her even more. He reached out for her again, and her hand shot up to slap his away.

  “I saw you give him a bear hug before you left. That’s a betrayal right there,” she said, nodding meaningfully. “Did you two compare notes on me or something?” she accused, taking a step to the side to steady herself. The boots were suddenly working against her.

  “Look, Maddie, you’re drunk, okay?” Nick said, leaning back against the BMW, which was quietly idling, half-way in its spot and half-way out. “I wish you weren’t, because then I’d be able to talk to you and smooth this whole thing out, but you are. We should hold off on this conversation until tomorrow.”

  “Were you comparing notes on me?” Maddie asked again, plaintively.

  Nick crossed his arms over his chest and bobbed his head a bit, looking away from Maddie, out into the distance. “Yeah, we were talking about you. But Maddie, let’s just see each other tomorrow, okay?”

  “Oh, you traitor!” she snarled. She was as close as she could be to him without touching him, and she puffed herself up, staring up into his face. “What did you two jerks decide about me?”

  Nick didn’t look at Maddie; instead he looked over her head and yelled out, “Karla! Over here!”

  Maddie spun around to see Karla and Raffie crossing the street. When they spotted Nick, they sped up, jogging a little. She spun back around and found that he’d dropped his arms from their closed-off fold across his chest, and was trying to communicate something to Karla and Raffie with his eyes.

  Maddie stamped on his foot.

  “Ow! Good lord,” Nick yelled, hopping.

  “Have I got your full attention now?” she yelled. “I trusted you. I thought you were, like, the cat’s freaking pajamas. But you’re just a game-player like the rest of them, aren’t you?” She stamped his foot again.

  “Dammit, Maddie,” Nick yelled, as he tried to grab her by her upper arms. He couldn’t get a good grip on her, though, and she wriggled free and stamped his foot one last time before he extended his arms to their fullest, holding her a few feet away from him. She heard Karla and Raff coming up behind her. They were close; she heard the bushes rattling and their voices yelling for her to chill out.

  Maddie would not chill out. She thrashed this way and that in Nick’s grasp. She couldn’t stamp his foot from her current position, so she instead tried to kick his shin. He saw what she was trying to do and stepped to the side, resulting in her kick landing on the lower part of the car door. “Quit it, Maddie,” Nick ordered as he hopped this way and that and lost his grasp on her. She stumbled forward into his arms, and took another good hard stamp with her right foot, but missed and just stamped the pavement.

  “Come and get her! Come and get her away from me before I lose it,” Nick yelled.

  That misplaced stamp was the last shot she got in before Raffie’s arms wrapped around her and pulled her backward. She was repulsed, wriggling even harder. She cast her eyes downward, hoping to find Raffie shoeless so that she could stamp his bare, dirty foot, but was surprised
to see old tennis shoes instead. She stamped his foot anyway, angrier, in a way, by the fact that he’d chosen today, of all days, to start wearing shoes again. He yowled and stumbled backward to the flowerbed, then crashed down into the bushes. Maddie was still clasped in his arms. She had no leverage to stamp anybody’s feet anymore, and was unable to kick Raffie from her position.

  She looked up and saw Karla talking to Nick, who was pacing around angrily in front of his now-open car door. Karla reached out and took his arm in her hand, and the look on her face was pleading. Nick nodded angrily, gesturing harshly at his foot, his shin, his car, the bar. As she watched Karla plead with Nick, she was irritated to hear Raffie’s voice.

  “Man, Maddie, you really smashed my foot,” he said, still not loosening the bear-hold in which he clasped her.

  “Yeah, well, you deserved it. What kind of awful stuff did you and Nick say about me? How dare you try to turn him against me? I had every reasonable right to dump you, you know?” Karla’s gestures and Nick’s body language were driving her nuts. He seemed to be softening toward the whole situation, but Maddie couldn’t understand why Karla was so intent on calming him.

  “Yeah, I know, Maddie. I know that,” Raffie said reasonably, irritating her with his insistence on talking. “But I just kept thinking that maybe somehow I could undo what I’d done, make it work again.” His grasp on her loosened, and he let one arm fall away, his fingers toying with an azalea bush’s purplish flowers. “I mean, we had barely started our love together. You were right when you said that. But it seemed like, since we’d barely started, it wouldn’t be that hard to start over. But you wouldn’t start over.” He sighed deeply in her ear and she felt a little bad for him.

  “No, I wouldn’t start over. You turned out to be—” Maddie hesitated, evaluating her desire to be kind to him. He had just been kind to her, after all. It was almost as if he was the guy she’d thought he was originally, almost a month ago. And she liked that guy—loved that guy, almost. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore. After a pause, she said, “You turned out to be not the right kind of guy for me.”