Clockwork Daisy

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Deacon

"In Your Eyes" is not exactly a fist pumper. As the song quietly trickled out of the boom box, I could feel Beth growing anxious beside me. She impatiently turned the volume dial. I tensed as the sound rose, and crossed my fingers that Madge didn't live by any snoozing newborns. My heart rate increased as I saw a shadow move in the window. I nudged Beth and she peered up, trying to get a better look at the scene.
"I can't tell what's going on up there, can you?" Beth had to raise her voice a little over the music.
I felt defeated, and we'd only been playing the song for about a minute. "This was a stupid idea." I curse myself.
Suddenly, something caught Beth's eye. "Maybe it wasn't. Look."
At first I didn't see her. She was standing at the very edge of the windowpane, hardly in sight. Her hair was messy, her face unamused, but she was staring right at me. Without thinking, I released my right hand to shoot her a wave. Beth immediately jumped into action as one side of the boom box went lopsided from my sudden switch of weight. In the process, she must have bumped the volume button because everything around me went fuzzy except for the smooth voice of Phil Collins. Beth screamed a couple expletives before managing to find the power button. We waited a moment for a curdling cry or an annoyed yell, but were relieved when we heard none.
Madge was in full view now, maybe she had been laughing at us, maybe she hadn't. I couldn't tell. "Come down." I yelled as softly as I could. She stood in silence for a moment, looked down at her feet, nodded, and then turned away. I was worried, thinking she might not leave her room, but eventually the light went out. She was coming outside. I heard a soft "ding" not to far away from me, and turned to see Beth's face all aglow with the light of her cell phone.
She studied what must have been a text, and then looked up at me. "I need to make a call." She slipped into the darkness behind the Spell house, leaving me alone with her boom box.
"Nice work there." Madge seemed to come out of nowhere, pointing at the boom box, which I had managed to set back down into the Radio Flyer. "I guess I liked it."
"You guess you liked it?" I couldn't help but chuckle. "I thought it was pretty clever."
"A little too romantic, don't you think?" Madge pulled the sleeves of her t shirt over her hands.
My laughter faded. "That wasn't the intention." I clarified. "This was supposed to be a grand apology sort of deal."
"So where's my apology?" Madge wasn't hesitating to challenge me.
"I'm sorry." I said, letting it roll off my tougne. "I was rude, and I shouldn't have used something Dirk told me against you."
Madge kicked the soft ground under her feet. "Well, Dirk wasn't wrong."
I sighed, digging my hands into my pockets. "Madge, I don't know what you expect me to do."
Madge looked up, and she was slightly smiling. "I've done a little thinking since our falling out. I realized that I need to be supportive. I shouldn't be dragging you down."
"But it's also not fair to make you watch me pursue another girl." I reasoned.
"It hurts like a knee to the chest." Madge agreed. "But I can't lose a longtime friend over it."
I was in awe. I had never seen Madge so level headed. "Are you serious? I was expecting to apologize and then have you never want to speak to me again."
"I'm not so easily shaken." She shrugged. "I forgive you, Dee. Now go to bed." Madge headed back to her front door, leaving me to feel a little confused. But I was getting too tired to question it so I picked up the handle of the Radio Flyer and walked toward the direction of the street light flooded road. Beth caught up to me seconds later, still clutching a cell phone in her hand.
"I have to go." Her face looked flushed. I wondered who had been on the other end of her call.
"What do you mean? We still have to drop this off at your place." I motioned to the boom box.
"You just take it back. My garage code is 2424. Don't worry, the noise won't wake my parents." I noticed that Beth was starting to turn in the opposite direction, toward Wisteria Hill.
"May I ask where you're going?" I was starting to feel concerned.
Beth bit her lip. "A friend needs me." She tried to look relaxed as she strolled further and further away from me, promising that she'd text. What was up with the girls in my life? More importantly, where was Beth going? My brain nearly made a clicking noise as the connections piled up. A friend. Wisteria Hill.
Ellie.