by Lucy Carol
But Toonie grabbed her arm and held her there, saying, “Those don’t look like cops.”
ExBoy pointed up to a window way over on the other end of the building from where she and Toonie were watching at the moment. He then gestured to the ground, seeming to explain about his clothes and missing wallet, but one of the men leaned ExBoy over the car and began frisking him. The other went walking around the cars in the lot and zeroed in on Madison’s car, shining flashlights in her car windows.
Toonie asked, “Your mama is FBI, right?” Madison nodded. Toonie said, “Do you have anything you don’t want found? Because I think your place is about to be searched.”
Madison flew out of Toonie’s door and heard Toonie say, “I’ll try to buy you some time,” as Madison went tearing into her own apartment. She jerked open a drawer in her kitchen, the contents of the drawer rattling from rough treatment as she felt with her hands in the dark, till she found the flashlight she was looking for. She kept the light pointed down at the floor as she quickly looked all around the living room for her purse. She would never be able to explain the fake handgun hidden in it. There it is! She saw it against the wall, not too far from her laptop on the floor. She remembered stories of the FBI taking people’s computers into custody, and though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, paranoia set in fast.
Throwing her purse straps onto her arm, she slammed her laptop closed, sandwiching the large envelope of pictures inside, held it all pulled in to her chest, and turned for a frantic run out of the apartment door. Out in the hallway she heard Toonie’s voice coming from the stairwell. “I’m so sorry. It’s heavier than I realized.” Madison rushed back to Toonie’s door and saw the back of Toonie, standing a few steps down into the stairwell, carrying one of her large stuffed chairs. Damn, that woman is strong!
A man’s voice said, “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, we need to get around you.” Toonie said, “Well, I’m a little committed now. If one of you could help on the other end, it’ll go faster.” Madison slipped into Toonie’s apartment and quietly closed the door. She set her things down on the couch.
Then, she couldn’t resist, she had to go look out of the peephole in the door. After a moment she saw the two men walking past, heading for her own door. She barely heard the knock on her door down the hall. At least they had the courtesy to knock. As she waited and strained to hear something, anything, her heart pounded and made her breathing a bit heavier. Standing so close to the inside of Toonie’s door, trying to see more through the peephole, her own breath bounced back at her from the door and sounded loud in her ears. Her heart rate accelerated. The heat bore down in the cramped little space at the peephole, making the sweat unbearable. She was wound up like a spring ready to pop. Stay still. Stay hidden. After a second knock, she heard the door to her own apartment swing open.
Every second of waiting, knowing that they were in her apartment, added to her growing queasiness. She had never experienced that before. She felt looked at, even though she was alone in Toonie’s apartment. Just knowing that someone was looking at her stuff, her mess, her home… What the hell would they want, anyway? Her time with Ann today showed zero indication that Ann knew anything about what had happened at Grandpa’s house earlier. In spite of finding out that Ann had orchestrated Madison’s move into this apartment building, the visit from these men didn’t feel like Ann’s doing. It wouldn’t make sense. If nothing else, after her afternoon with Ann, Madison now believed that Ann wanted them to spend time together. She wouldn’t want to make Madison pull away.
So what was happening here?
She heard a faint sound. Someone closing a door. The two men walked past the peephole, leaving. The guy with the buzz cut was carrying the metal box.
*****
Madison could tell that Toonie was trying to make herself invisible. That’s what people do when they are witnessing a family fight, although Toonie was only witnessing one half of that fight. Madison poured her fury into the phone, with Ann. She wondered if she should put the whole thing on speaker phone so she could have a witness to Ann’s words, which Madison assumed were going be a ridiculous and exaggerated assessment of Madison’s life. But that would be cruel to Toonie. Best to let Toonie think that she was invisible.
“He had no right to tell you,” said Ann. “This isn’t the way I wanted you to find out. It was my gift to you.”
“You tricked me into it,” said Madison. “Now I’m just supposed to accept it?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Xander,” huffed Ann. “He’s one of those artistic types. Unpredictable.”
Madison’s mouth dropped open. The crack about artistic types got to her. But her comeback was, “Can’t be trusted to keep up a lie, huh?”
“How many times have you lied to me because you thought I would never understand?” Ann’s words were increasing in their heat.
“But this one is huge!” said Madison.
“This one is nothing,” said Ann.
That stopped Madison. Nothing? Was there something even bigger?
Ann continued, “What did you expect me to do? I didn’t know how else to get you out of that dangerous low rent district, and into something nicer. Safer! You cut me off as if you didn’t need me, when you obviously did.”
“Cut you off?” said Madison. “You’ve never been supportive of me. You cut me off first! You rejected me first!”
“What? You never wanted me in your life! Don’t pretend you didn’t prefer your grandmother over me,” said Ann. “Don’t pretend you ever cared if I wasn’t there. That was the way you both wanted it! You got your way.”
“Well, why didn’t you fight harder for me?”
Emotion was creeping into Ann’s voice, “I couldn’t win. If I wasn’t there, I wasn’t a good mother. If I was there, she would prove that she was better for you. Everyone, except Dad, seemed happier if there was distance between us.”
Madison had never heard this from Ann before. Deep down she knew it was probably true. But damn it, she didn’t want Ann to be right at a time when Ann needed to be busted.
“This fight should have stayed between you and Grandma. I was a child. All I knew was that she loved me, and you didn’t even like me.”
“Madison, I loved you then, I love you now! I did a lousy job of trying to wrench you back from her. After she died, you hated me even more—”
“I was only twelve—”
“… and Dad needed you in his life.”
“… I didn’t understand.”
“I had to let go again. You were good for each other. Later, you wouldn’t even let me send you to college. I offered to pay every cent—”
“I wanted—”
“… but you refused to even go.”
“… to be a theater major! You acted like I wanted to set fire to a pile of money!”
“You could have added all those classes later after getting a real education first.”
“Like yours? You want me to be a spy like you, Ann?”
“I’m proud to have served my country!”
“You didn’t answer the question. Do you want me to be a spy?”
Ann paused. “What are you getting at?”
“I was wondering what it would take to get your approval.”
“Since when do you give a rat’s ass about my approval? You only want the fun parts of having a mother. Is this my cue to offer you homemade cookies, call you pumpkin, and tell you how great you are?”
“You’re the mother! You’re supposed to be encouraging!”
“Encouragement is not the same as approval. You want my approval? Do something constructive with your life, then we’ll try this conversation again.”
Madison’s emotions were hitting a wall. She had little left to care with. “It’s my life…”
“You’re not a real actress, Madison. Playing with wrestlers? Singing telegrams? That isn’t what your dream was. You’ve been making those choices to prove that you can, but not because you
actually believe in them. You’ve been holding your own happiness hostage.”
In a quieter voice, Madison said, “It’s not my fault you got knocked up. Quit punishing me.”
Ann’s voice was on the edge of crying, “That’s not what happened! I tried to get pregnant. I need to explain it to you. There’s so much to tell you and—”
“Let’s go back,” said Madison, “to the way we had it.”
“Madison!” Ann was crying.
“You won’t have to give a shit about me, and I won’t have to worry about your opinion.”
“Madison, please! I—”
Madison disconnected.
She stood there, limp, arms hanging loose at her sides. She looked down at the phone she was holding, realizing that she had never told Ann about the men searching her apartment. In those minutes of fighting with her mother, the raw pain from the years of feeling abandoned had stripped everything else from her mind. Saying all those things to her mother, some of them fair shots, some of them cheap, had taken precedence over all other considerations. She felt the grip of her own self-righteousness slowly open its fist from around her heart. She blinked. What have I done?
Toonie, who seemed to be weighing whether or not it was safe to stop being invisible, stood in the bedroom doorway.
Madison turned and looked at her, tears running down her cheeks, and said, “I think I broke my life.”
Toonie, towering the way she seemed to when she stood in a doorway, said, “It takes a lot to break a life. Believe me, girl, you’re just confused about yours. It ain’t broken.” She came forward and opened her arms. Madison, numb, accepted the offer. But once the old arms enfolded her, it hit, and she finally gave in to a good hard cry.
Chapter Eighteen
Toonie busied herself in the small kitchen, cleaning up and putting things away. She scrubbed a stubborn stain in a cooking pot. Madison had gone through several tissues to dry her eyes and blow her nose. Her nose always seemed to leak long after a good cry was over. She was doing her best to toughen up and get past her deep disappointment in having the hope of getting her mother back in her life, only to lose her again. Toonie had assured her that Ann wasn’t lost, but how could Toonie understand?
Madison gazed at the pictures on Toonie’s wall. She said, “I noticed these earlier but I didn’t have a chance to ask you about them. You worked in Vegas?”
Toonie seemed to be chuckling to herself before answering, “Yes, a very long time ago.”
Madison saw that there were colorful ribbons and trophies, as well as all the black and white glossy eight by ten framed headshots on the walls. Madison said, “That’s you lifting barbells, isn’t it? And picking up those men?”
Toonie said, “Yup, that was me. Las Vegas isn’t as impressed with those kinds of vaudeville acts anymore.”
“So you were a weight lifter?” asked Madison.
“Back then we were called Strongwomen. Before my time, you mostly saw Strongmen and Strongwomen in the circus. Later, most of the circus acts modernized and went on vaudeville circuits, or later still, places like Las Vegas. In my day you didn’t hear scandals about steroids and overtraining. Strongwomen like myself were natural born, growing up unnaturally strong. That’s what made us something of a novelty to pay money to see. My manager loved to dress me up in those showgirl outfits with the huge feather headdresses. Made me even taller. Then I’d go out on stage with some foolish comedian and do skits that always ended with me picking him up and throwing him around. Then I’d pick up men from the audience. The audience ate it up back then.”
“You didn’t get hurt?”
“Nah. Rarely, anyway. It wasn’t hard for me, till after I starting getting older. Then I had to train to keep up. Now it’s much harder than when I was young, but I think I’m still stronger than the average woman.”
“I’m certain you are. I saw you carrying that stuffed chair into the stairwell earlier.” Madison noticed pictures of a whole host of women together. She asked, “Who are all these women with you?”
Toonie was quiet for a moment, then answered, “We were an act. Hit the road together. Had a lot of great times. At one point they were some of the best friends I ever had. Our competition in lifting weights was mild. But our competition for men, well, that got pretty fierce over time. It was stupid. I miss them all. We all let our pride get in the way.” She was shaking her head, scrubbing harder at the pot she was cleaning. She stopped, wiped her forearm across her brow, and looked at Madison. “You and your mother remind me of me and the girls. You’re letting your pride get in the way.”
Madison looked away. Toonie said, “It ain’t none of my business. I won’t say anymore. And my offer still stands. If you still don’t want to go back to your place, you can stay here till you figure out what to do.”
For Madison, the idea of going back into her own apartment made her queasy again. It felt dirty somehow. Toonie had offered to let Madison stay there all night if she wanted to. Madison hadn’t decided yet, what to do. She sat by Toonie’s window staring out into the night trying to make sense of things. It had only been twenty-four hours since Fight Cabaret with her dangerous dive from the low hanging pipes and twelve hours since witnessing her grandfather’s fist fight. What the hell is he doing in DC? Him and his lifelong secret. Humph! It erupted in front of her, and then he left with little explanation. He and Ann had secrecy in common. They wouldn’t trust her to hear whatever it was that they kept hiding from her. Even hiding secrets from one another, by the looks of it. She was sick of it.
As the day had progressed, she had decided to give ExBoy a chance, then ruined it, given her mother a chance, then ruined it, become drawn to Jason and ruined it. Let’s see, there must be something else she had ruined since she was on such a streak. Oh, yes. Her favorite costume. The beautiful fairy godmother costume that she had made herself. Ruined. What else could she add?
Knock it off, Madison. Suck it up and fix it! She gazed out the window. How? She didn’t know how. She just knew she had to try.
Men in suits had shown up, flashed ID at ExBoy, searched her apartment, and driven off into the night. Her first guess would be that they were FBI, but she didn’t believe her mother would be involved. But if Ann wasn’t involved, how long would they be able to hide from Ann that they had conducted a search of her daughter’s apartment? She saw that ExBoy’s car was gone, so she was certain that they hadn’t taken him away. There would be no point in that. He hadn’t done anything except get mixed up with a girl from a troubled family. She should call him and find out what they said to him, but she knew she’d better let him cool off first.
She put the side of her face down on her arms, her dark silky hair a blanket on the windowsill as she looked out the window. Even if she didn’t need to get information from ExBoy, she still needed to apologize to him. She had acted like an idiot, overreacting to his taunting remarks. She needed some rest. She looked down into the parking lot and saw her fairy godmother costume lying in a rumpled heap on the ground where ExBoy had dropped it to put his pants on.
She sat up suddenly, knowing that she didn’t have time to let ExBoy cool off. As soon those men forced open the metal box, which might be right about now, they would see her fairy godmother items, and know they’d been had. They’d be back. She grabbed her phone and called ExBoy. No surprise, he didn’t answer. She would have to go to him.
*****
After making a few calls, she located him. Daniel told her ExBoy was back at the Sound Beating bar, watching the Fight Cabaret guys try out some breakable furniture props. Daniel added that ExBoy did not look happy. Madison hurried over there and parked under a street lamp in their parking lot. She walked inside, feeling the indoor heat left over from a summer day, and saw ExBoy at a table in the middle of the room, talking on his phone. The only staff member on duty was the tattooed waitress with the rainbow hair. She was doing double duty as the bartender, and seemed more than enough to handle the few customers scattered aroun
d the mostly empty barroom.
Daniel and Dewey Decimator were on the side of the stage with their new props, taking turns shattering chairs over each other’s head, then reassembling them. Madison felt much more comfortable seeing Daniel in normal clothing. The shadow on his scalp had deepened since last night, while Dewey’s dark brown hair still sported his samurai style ponytail. Dewey saw her from across the room and raised his eyebrows in salute. Madison stopped at the counter and ordered a few drinks, taking them over to ExBoy’s table.
His phone was on the side of his face as he looked up at her, his blue eyes unimpressed, his expression not changing. Madison wondered if he knew how handsome he was. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry,” as she set the drinks down on the table. She sat down and waited for him to say something. He looked the other way and continued a conversation he had going on the phone. “I was making sure you’ll be open in the morning,” he said into his phone. “For the convention. Yeah. I only have a few days left.” He rubbed at his temple with his other hand and exhaled. “You can turn almost anything into a horror backdrop,” he continued. “Uh-huh. All you need are some broken things lying around and enough fake blood to make it look like carnage. It just has to be portable and cleanable. Yeah. I’ll come by with a truck. Looking forward to it. Thanks.” He hung up, and without even looking at Madison, he left the table. Madison watched him walk over to the bar and order his own drink.
Dewey Decimator called over to her from the stage. “Hey, Madison.”
She returned the greeting in a gloomy tone. “Hey.”
“Did you change your mind about doing next week’s show? Everyone’s talking about what you did in the show last night.”
“That was harebrained of me,” she said. “I’m lucky I didn’t ruin the show by breaking my head open.”
With a small laugh, Dewey said, “Well, that would have been inconvenient.”