The Long Winter #85
Media Blitz part three
Maddie thought the string quartet would soothe her nerves. She had not had a decent night’s sleep since the incident. At first it was fun, all the interviews, the fawning attention from an obsequious press, but the last reporter left their isolated little city two weeks prior. Two weeks of waking up throughout the night, of shaking when she got out of the shower. Two weeks of cold sweats and nightmares she could never remember. Once, she woke so disturbed she went so far as to walk across the room to Penny’s bedroom, but her roommate was sleeping so soundly she could not bring herself to wake her. So on this evening, she followed the half-Asian girl out to the atrium at Miller Hall to listen to the music department’s rising stars play their hearts out for their professors and classmates. She knew it would not help, but doing anything was better than doing nothing.
She took a long, deep breath, training her ears on the music pouring forth from the quartet. Long, sonorous notes providing a bed for the short quick ones or the violinist plucking her instrument’s strings like it was a banjo to lay in. In her head was a notepad where she was writing down all the songs they played to add to her phone. Pop had long since grown old, whether it was the new stuff her younger sister was into or the older stuff her mother recommended. Penny listened to a weird mix of heavy metal and Japanese music, both of which turned Maddie off. Clark listened to more conventional music, and she was not interested in the conventional at that moment. But she bet that if she talked to Leah about it the bespectacled girl would know all the best classical to listen to.
The music delved deep into her body, well past her ears. When she closed her eyes she could see the notes flowing into her, a welcome change from the flashes of Ralph’s deranged face as he attempted to kill her. She opened them and watched the violinist for one song. The Asian girl had her eyes closed, feeling what her bandmates were doing rather than watching. The cellist occasionally smiled at her, tossing his long, brown hair back from his face to do so. The other two were less remarkable somehow to Maddie. Perhaps because they were not so obvious a couple, or not a couple at all, they performed with less passion than the cellist and the violinist. Those two kept Maddie’s attention throughout the entire performance. She did not even ache from standing the entire time, enrapt as she was by them.
Penny suddenly moved, popping through Maddie’s bubble. The half-Asian girl waved at an older woman standing a few feet away. That was the professor Penny claimed she absolutely did not have a crush on. Maddie glanced over at the older woman. She was pretty, with a motherly appeal to her feminine curves. She wore a smart business skirt and jacket that accentuated them, and had her wavy brown hair pushed back over her ears to fall behind her shoulders. Maddie laughed to herself. Of course Penny, of all people, would have a crush on an older woman like that. She could not imagine herself indulging in such a thing. She had enough problems to worry about with boys her own age causing her problems, let alone seeking out even greater ones with an older man (or woman). Still, Professor (Whatshername?) was certainly attractive. If one was looking for that sort of thing. And was Penny? Even as she planned on moving in with that Becca the upcoming summer? Even as she flirted with every single girl in sight!
Maddie glanced up at Clark. He had a smirk on his face, having no doubt noticed Penny waving at her older woman. She knew what he would be thinking about. Maddie thought about it, too. She did, after all, like the idea of a sweaty night with Penny. A few of them, even. But it was just an idea. Same as it was for Clark, if she recognized the look on his face. That was an intriguing idea, being able to recognize the look on his face. She stopped short of smiling up at him, of sharing any more lewd thoughts about their little fascist friend. But you know, when she was ready for it, and if he was available…
The quartet finished their set and stood up to take their bows. Maddie clapped with the audience. One person whistled. The cellist and violinist cast shy smiles at each other before joining hands with their bandmates and bowing once more, then Penny peeled off from Maddie and Clark and rushed over to her professor.
“She does have a thing for her, doesn’t she?” Maddie said to Clark.
“Seems that way,” Clark said. “Leah mentioned that a little while ago. She said she always comes to these things with her. She was surprised the little chick was coming with you and me instead tonight.”
“Huh. How special are we.”
Clark nodded and they began filtering out with the crowd. He had his hands shoved in his pockets despite being a comfortable distance from the door and the cold air beyond. That was fine. Maddie was not ready to take his hand. Or to have hers taken.
“Is it different in the boys’ dorm since Ralph got taken away?”
“No. It’s been normal. It was sort of normal even when the whole thing was going on.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
They entered a stairwell and began their descent.
“We all knew we were innocent.” Clark paused to laugh. “Well, mostly innocent. I guess we can’t claim to be saints.”
“Did you join the counterprotest that first day?”
“No. I thought about it, but I don’t have a varsity jacket. I didn’t play sports and I wasn’t in the band.”
“No sports? You seem borderline athletic, though.”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
Maddie frowned at him when they reached the bottom. He opened the door for her and she continued frowning at him as she passed before him.
“I never liked sports. I never liked the guys who played them. My dad never watched them. I can do them, I guess. I like batting practice.”
Maddie nodded. She remembered suiting up for soccer games in high school. Something about the doors she and Clark passed through reminded her of leaving the locker room to engage in battle. Her teammates loved how aggressively she played, even when she got herself expelled from a match. The last game ended in tears when it was finally over, when she was gone for good and the underclassmen realized they would have to move on without her (and her fellow senior teammates). And in the summer she played friendlies with her friends and teammates at the park (without all her gametime aggression) and it was the last time she was truly happy. Everything was perfect. She was accepted at the Institute. She had a perfect boyfriend. Her family loved her.
And now, her fiancé turned into a monster. Her mother had basically disowned her. Another boy became obsessed with her and tried to kill her. She was no longer playing soccer, indeed almost no one she knew was even interested in the sport. It was not a thing she could use to forge a relationship with Clark. Or was it?
“Would you be willing to try?” she asked him.
“Try what?”
They stopped at the doors. The night was still outside, fresh snow sparkling under the lights.
“Sports. There are clubs to join. Flag football. Soccer. Baseball. Maybe even hockey?”
“Hockey? Now there’s an idea. You’d actually be able to use your red-card playing style.”
Maddie laughed. “How well you know me!”
“Sure. Why not? I could try. I spent my whole life not trying things.”
“How on earth did you get in here?”
“Well, I got good, rather, great grades, and my mom’s Hollywood with a suitably Hollywood bank account. Bank accounts go a long way here, you know.”
“I guess.” She bit back a further response. He had not grown up the way she had. He was not blessed with a billionaire father and summer retreats by seaplane to “an opulent lake palace” in Ontario. Or winter ski weekends in Maine at a private resort. Or African safaris or Asian retreats or nights on tropical beaches that glowed with phosphorescent plankton. But she knew he was going to learn what it was like. He was about to have everything he could ever want handed to him. She wondered if that Moroccan Princess of his would ever come back. They walked out into the cold.
“Well, I guess it’s a little late to find a hockey team to play on, but if there’s anything in the spring I’m sure I could make it work. I’m not running track, but if there’s baseball…”
“Or softball?”
Clark cringed. It could have just been a shiver against the cold, but the way he looked at her, out of the corner of his eyes, the way his mouth turned down, she knew she had touched something sensitive.
“I’ll be honest with you. Sandra played softball. She was pretty damn good, too. A real power hitter. It wasn’t an ideal relationship, and it did end in kind of a weird way, but I feel bad for her. For getting… getting hurt.”
Maddie looked down at the snow-packed path.
“Hurt because of me.”
“No.” Clark took her arm and stopped her. “Not because of you. Don’t think that way. I know—I mean, I can imagine what you’re going through is hard, and it should be, we’re not like, soldiers or something, we’re not supposed to just face death and be cool with it the next day. But it’s not your fault. It’s his, that fucking psychopath. He stalked you all fall until you put an end to it, but I’ll bet he turned to magic to keep doing it without you knowing.”
“But if not for me, Sandra wouldn’t have been hurt. Or Leah.”
“But it was all his fault. Who knows? If you had decided to go to Hillsdale or Stanford or something he could have fixated on some other poor girl. Maybe on someone who couldn’t fight back, or couldn’t stop him. Maybe he kills his way through the entire girls’ dorm, or goes across the street to the University and wreaks havoc over there. We don’t know.”
“I guess.” Maddie tried to will herself to look up at him, to meet his eyes, but her body would not comply. She saw the snow, the pathway lights, the bare tree branches. But she could not see what he was saying. “I know you’re right. I guess.”
“I am right.” He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look up at him. “If you can’t believe me, maybe you should be looking into seeing someone who can help you. You have a lot of friends up here, and we all care about you. We want to help you, and especially since this isn’t your fault, nothing about this was anything you could control.”
Maddie tore free of his grip and stomped away from him. It was her fault! Ralph fixated on her. He stalked her and followed her around and tried to kill people to isolate her and get her all to himself. Had it been him working some sort of evil magic on Travis?
“Maddie, wait!”
“No! I’ll deal with this, but… but…”
She let him corral her, let herself fall against his chest and cry under the cold winter stars. He held her and she stayed limp in his arms and she sobbed and sniffled and eventually lifted her arms and held him back. How good it felt to be cared for. To be loved—
No. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m still only a couple of months out of a broken engagement. And he still feels weird about Sandra.
“Come on,” he said as she stopped crying. “Let’s get back inside. It’s cold out here.”
She nodded and looked up at him.
“Thank you.”
“Hey. What are friends for?”
She smiled and stepped back from him. Yes. Friends. For the time being, at least. Who knows where the future would lead him? They did not take each other’s hands as they walked back to the dorm but she suspected that day was coming.