THIRTY-THREE
On a stifling hot and humid day in Orlando, the DiNapoli sale closed. That afternoon, Madeline’s brokerage firm gathered at the local watering hole to toast her. Madeline nursed a warm beer. It was the biggest payday in her life thus far, a milestone reached, and her broker predicted many more sales for her.
He based that on the fact that Madeline had picked up three new listings of big, ugly houses. That wasn’t exactly what Madeline had hoped would happen in selling the DiNapoli property, but suddenly, owners of ugly houses were calling her to sell them.
“A sale is a sale,” Bree said, when Madeline had taken another call for an ugly house in a bad location. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.” Bree had just obtained her realtor license and was hungry for listings.
Madeline invited Trudi to her celebration happy hour. Trudi was in fine form, taking center stage and telling stories about Madeline as a girl that were only loosely based in fact. But they were entertaining, and Trudi had Madeline’s office mates laughing. Madeline sat at the end of the table with her beer and quietly mused that it had always been this way. Trudi was the star in their relationship and Madeline was the support behind the scenes. The only time Madeline had shone on her own was when she stepped out from under Trudi’s light, in Colorado.
When she and Trudi drove home afterward, Trudi, who had imbibed a couple of chocolate martinis, put her foot on the dash of Madeline’s car and said, “You know who would have been fun to have there? Stephen.”
“Oh my God,” Madeline moaned.
“I saw him the other day,” Trudi said. “He’s selling his SUV. He bought a Lexus. That guy is going places.”
“Trudi, why do you keep bringing him up?” Madeline asked. “We are over, we are done. It’s like he’s paying you.”
“No, actually,” Trudi said cheerfully. “He was pretty upset with me for bringing you up. He says a lot of the same things you do. But I can see how great you guys would be together.”
Madeline rolled her eyes. She hadn’t even thought of Stephen in the last couple of weeks. She rarely thought of anything or anyone other than Luke. Of course she hadn’t heard anything from him, and she wasn’t naïve enough to have expected that she would. The only thing she knew of him until recently was the one phone conversation she’d had with Libby since leaving Colorado. Before Madeline had departed Homecoming Ranch and Colorado, Libby had reluctantly accepted her apology, and Madeline suspected she had only because Madeline was leaving. When Madeline called a week or so ago, Libby mentioned, in the course of her spirited description of the wedding that would take place at the ranch next month, that Luke had been out to add some showers to the bunkhouse.
“Oh,” Madeline said, trying to sound as casual as she could. “He’s been home?”
“I think he moved home,” Libby said.
“Moved home? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, that’s what I understood,” Libby said.
What about his houses? What about all that he’d hoped to accomplish with them, his dreams? “Well… how was he?” Madeline asked.
“He looked great!” Libby had said.
Fantastic. Luke was great while Madeline was splintering apart a little more every day, a little piece of this and that falling away from her.
She couldn’t seem to shake the blues. She couldn’t seem to find her happiness in Orlando, and she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever had it. Now that she had been out of her bubble, as Trudi would say, Madeline could see just how much she’d isolated herself from the world. The only friend she had was Trudi. She had no real life—she moved between work and late hours, and her mother’s house, and back to her condo with her streaming movies.
Soccer was Madeline’s only solace, and while she was excited to see the girls again, Teresa gave her the news that funding to Camp Haven had been cut, and the soccer league would be folded into the city park and recreation program.
“What does that mean?” Madeline asked as she handed out CapriSuns to the girls.
“It means that there is going to be one soccer league. A smaller one. And about twice as many volunteer coaches.”
Madeline understood her. There would be less opportunity for girls to find soccer as an escape from their lives, and less opportunity for her to coach these girls. It felt like the final slash of the knife. Madeline looked up through the haze of heat and humidity on that sweltering afternoon and longed for mountains and crisp air. She missed having a purpose that was shared with others. Even if the other was Libby, a sister who could scarcely tolerate her.
Madeline could scarcely tolerate herself.
She’d done a lot of thinking about her three weeks in Colorado, and she would give everything she had for the opportunity to do it all again.
It wasn’t as if her homecoming to Orlando was appreciated, either. When she’d arrived from Colorado, Madeline had gone straight to her mother’s house to check on her. She found her mother in a caftan, smoking a cigarette. The place was littered with beer cans, and some man was sleeping in the back room.
“Who’s that?” Madeline whispered.
Her mother glanced to the back room. “Ron,” she said. “An old friend. So? What’d you find out about that back child support?” she asked. “I’ve got some things I’d like to fix up around here.”
Madeline had looked at her mother—really looked at her. “It’s going to be tied up in court for a long time.”
Her mother took a drag of smoke from her cigarette and blew it at the ceiling, then shrugged. “Stupid bastard,” she said.
Madeline had left her mother’s house, resigned that she’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to her, and for what? For a job selling ugly houses? For a mother who cared more about child support for a thirty-year-old daughter? Yeah, this was the life.
But then, out of the blue, she got a text from Leo. He said he had a new texting machine, and that Libby had given him Madeline’s number. He asked if she followed the Florida Marlin baseball team.
No.
The next day, she got another text from Leo asking if she had ever heard of Javon Walker, who once played for the Florida Marlins.
No.
Look him up.
That night, Madeline looked up Javon Walker. He was a talented athlete, she guessed, because he had played for the Florida Marlins before turning to professional football and playing for the Denver Broncos, among others. She texted Leo back. Looked him up.
Leo fired back almost instantly. He thought he knew where he belonged, where his talents fit in best. Turns out, he was wrong. His talents fit a whole other game better. So he CHANGED GAMES. If he’d stayed with baseball he would have fallen into obscurity and would probably be shooting crack in some back alley by now. Get it?
No.
You will.
Madeline shook her head.
But she kept thinking about it. What was he trying to tell her? That she shouldn’t play baseball?
It so happened that Madeline was checking on her mother one afternoon when Leo texted again. Are you still thinking about baseball?
No.
Think about it!
“What’s that?” her mother asked.
“Oh,” Madeline said with a shrug. “Someone in Colorado.”
“Yeah, who?”
Madeline looked at her mother. She had been complaining about Ron, and how she was ready for him to take a hike, but that she had an insurance payment coming up. She had not once asked Madeline about how she’d felt about Colorado. Not once. “He is the brother of someone I fell in love with,” Madeline said curtly.
Clarissa’s brows rose to her hairline. She was speechless for a moment. “Well, well, well,” she said, a smile spreading across her face, “Maddie isn’t a robot after all.”
“Hey!” Madeline said.
“Well? It’s not like you ever have boyfriends for more than a week.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Madeline said. “Maybe that’s because I’ve seen how well you’ve done with them.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “You watch how you talk to me, miss. I never said I was no saint.”
“No, you never said that,” Madeline agreed.
“If you love some guy, what the hell are you doing here?” her mother asked, waving her hand at her daughter.
Madeline gaped at her; anger surged like a tidal wave through her—she wanted very much to punch a wall. “Good question. What am I doing here? Oh that’s right—taking care of you.”
“Me!”
“Yes, Mom—you. I am always taking care of you! Someone has to, because you damn sure don’t.”
Her mother looked surprised. And then she laughed. Laughed. As if the joke was somehow on Madeline. “No one asked you to take care of me, did they? Look here, Madeline Grace, what are you, twenty-eight?”
“I’ll be thirty next month, Mom.”
“Okay, you’ll be thirty. So think about how long you’ve been trying to make us into something we’re not, some cutsie mother-daughter story. Don’t you get it? I’m not going to change, I’m not going to miraculously turn into the kind of mother you’ve always wanted. I don’t want you taking care of me. I do all right on my own!”
Madeline wanted to argue that point, but kept silent.
“I’ll tell you this, though. I’m still your mother, and I may not be a very good one, but I love you, kid. I want you to be happy. So go be happy! Go be in love! Don’t do what I did—find a good man, settle down, have kids. And stop feeling like you need to take care of me, because you don’t.”
It was the first moment of genuine clarity in her mother that Madeline could remember. She was shocked by it. Her first instinct was to argue, but a second, stronger instinct took hold. How funny was it that in that moment, she thought of Javon Walker. He figured out his talents fit another game better than the one he was playing. Maybe it was time Madeline figured out she didn’t fit in so well taking taking care of a mother who didn’t want her help. If she kept on this path, she might end up like her mother—entirely incapable of maintaining a lasting relationship. The thought made her shudder. Madeline had to change, and her mother was giving her the freedom to do it.
Madeline suddenly smiled. She stood up, kissed her mother. “Thanks, Mom. For the first time in my life, I can say with all sincerity, thank you.”
“About time,” her mother said, and as Madeline started for the door, she shouted, “Don’t forget about that back child support!”
Madeline shut the door behind her, pulled out her cell phone and called Stephen. “Hey,” she said when he answered. “I heard you were selling your SUV.”