Chapter 10: Summer Thaw
"Here's my latest inventory," Perri tells Madge, passing a thick folder of papers across the kitchen table. "The caretaker will be expecting you. But are you sure this is how you want to spend your time off? It's tedious."
"What else am I going to do?" Madge viciously stabs a strawberry in her cereal bowl. "It's not like I can take Zipper on a walk." Since he appears to be on semi-permanent loan to Gale.
"We can ask Gale to bring him back if you'd like," Dusty offers, walking into the kitchen and pouring a cup of coffee.
"No, it's fine. I'll work on the inventory." Madge hastily drops the Zipper issue, which strays dangerously close to the Gale issue. She suspects her aunt and uncle have figured out that all is not well on the Gale front; her surprise at learning about Zipper's extended stay with Gale and her refusal to respond with anything more than non-committal noises when his name surfaces in conversations say what she hasn't.
She also hasn't told them that her "time off from work" is not voluntary. They know not to ask many questions about her job, and when she called last week from the District 2 train station asking if she could stay with them for a few days, all Dusty said was that he was on his way to pick her up. She slept a lot when she first arrived, trying to recalibrate her body, but she's feeling better to the point of restlessness now. So she proposed that while Dusty and Perri were at work today, she could go to her grandparents' old house to work on the inventory of items Perri thinks were wrongfully seized from their family. The list is necessary for some kind of tedious claims process and Perri is fired up to get back the rugs, paintings, vases and other furnishings she says are theirs.
What Madge really intends to do is investigate Simon's brother's plan to re-open the old quarry. She's hoping to find records in the mansion, now that the government uses it for meetings and whatever else. Even though none of her electronic searches showed anything unusual about the deal, she knows something is suspicious about it. And Simon isn't looking closely enough because he wants too badly to believe his brother is reforming, which has become a sticky point between him and Madge. She thinks it's part of why he put her on involuntary temporary leave, despite his insistence that it was for her own good so she could 'relax' and 'be with her family' and 'stop taking those damn pills.'
"Call either of us if you need anything," Perri offers. "I'm in meetings most of the day, but just tell them you need to speak to me—"
"I'll be fine," Madge cuts in, sitting up straighter in her chair so she looks less like a surly brat. "I'll see you tonight."
"Take care, Madge," Dusty says as he herds Perri out the door. After they leave, Madge sits in the kitchen by herself for a few minutes and listens to the distant sounds of the neighbors starting their day, feeling once again like she doesn't truly belong anywhere. As frustrated as she is with Simon's reaction (overreaction!) to discovering her stash of pills and his willful blindness about his brother, she misses him. She won't speak to him when he calls to check on her, but she does miss their routines and that comforting awareness that he saw things the same way she did and would always be on her side.
Eventually Madge clears the breakfast plates, packs a few things into her backpack, and walks over to the mansion in the middle of the village. It's a sunny summer day and the mountains are looming over the horizon, standing watch over the district. The idea that anyone can explore them, instead of being restrained by fences, is still novel and a little exciting. She wonders if she could get Dusty and Perri to take her to the recreation area for a hike this weekend, although the idea leaves her vaguely sad as a reminder of something she and Gale were supposed to do together.
The caretaker lets her inside the house and sets her up in the study after she explains that she wants to check her aunt's list of family books against the books still on the shelves to be sure nothing is missing. But as soon as she hears him retreating down the stairs she pulls her kit out of the backpack and picks the desk's lock.
The desk is a bust: nothing interesting about the quarry. She moves on to the filing cabinet, but doesn't find anything useful there, either. Everything is too old to be relevant. Looking out the window in the direction of the quarry, she notices a small building at the top of the downward sloping road that leads to the valley just outside the town where the quarry is located. Maybe that building is associated with the quarry… She makes some token progress on Perri's inventory list but keeps an eye on the building. When a couple of hours pass without anybody entering or exiting it, Madge packs up her backpack and walks over.
Rock slabs near the front door and a weathered 'Hyland Quarry' sign dangling from a nail confirm that the building is indeed related to the quarry. Unfortunately, people are inside, which will seriously limit the investigating Madge can do. She knocks anyway.
A broad-shouldered man wearing a tan worksuit uniform opens the door. "You lost?" he asks, bushy salt and pepper eyebrows arching suspiciously. "Town's the other direction."
Madge launches into her conveniently true cover story. "My grandfather was the village magistrate before the quarry closed. I thought maybe I could find someone here who knew him… I grew up in another district and was hoping to learn more about him…"
"Sorry. Didn't know him."
"Oh." Madge looks behind him into the building at the enticingly messy pile of papers on the counter. "So is the quarry re-opening?"
The man nods. "Soon as we can."
"Are you the new owner?"
"You could say that." He moves to close the door. "Try asking around in town."
Madge smiles pleasantly, though inwardly she wants to kick this guy for being here and for not being talkative. "Sorry to bother you."
The door shuts nearly on her face, leaving her at a loss as to what to try next. She gazes into the valley below at the quarry, a vast cliff face with ragged chunks carved out, the scars of harvested rock still obvious even after a multi-year closure. Rubble and debris clutter the ground below the cliff, although several bulldozers are attempting to impose order by piling the loose rocks off to the sides. Madge watches the machines for a few minutes before concluding that any further venturing would be foolish: there are 'no trespassing' and 'hardhats required' signs every few feet along the road.
Dejected, she returns to the mansion and quietly sets up to do more inventory work in the living room. Her thoughts are elsewhere, though. Maybe she's been wrong to assume that Simon's brother has malicious plans. Is it possible she's jealous that she's no longer the most important person in Simon's life, the way she was during the war? Obviously she can't compare to a real sibling… Maybe Edwin's sliminess is limited to being a smarmy jerk; he might only be targeting the former Undersee quarry out of a sense of poetic justice to triumph against the hardship Madge's father caused his family. Because somebody else buying the quarry poses no actual harm to her family… Their only tenuous links to the quarry are through the few disputed furnishings in this mansion.
And these furnishings are really not holding her attention. Around midday, she tells the caretaker that she's done and leaves to start walking back to her aunt and uncle's house. Maybe she can read more of Perri's books to pass the time until they come home for dinner. As she walks, she notices with interest that someone is standing outside the quarry office, speaking to the same unhelpful, bushy-eyebrow-plagued man she had encountered earlier.
She doesn't make the connection that the figure is Gale until she spots the black and white canine torpedo careening up the hill toward her, barking excitedly. Madge barely has time to register Gale swiveling in her direction before Zipper launches himself into the air and nearly knocks her over.
She can't help but laugh at the spectacle Zipper is making as he greets her and tries to get him to calm down, but he's working himself into a frothing frenzy.
"Zipper. Off." Gale's stern voice travels up the hill and Madge looks up to see him approaching. Shockingly, Zipper stops trying to jump on her and turns to watch Gale, wagging his tail like Gale is the best treat imaginable. "Sit," Gale orders when he's closer, prompting Zipper to quickly connect his rump to the ground, still watching Gale expectantly.
"He did what you said," Madge says in disbelief.
Gale stops a few feet away from her, guarded. He's wearing street clothes rather than his uniform and almost looks like the Gale she remembers from home. Especially because he seems unsure of how to react to her, which was all too common before they became friends.
"We've been working on commands." He squints at Madge as though he can't believe she's standing in front of him. "Madge, what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Working."
"Perri said there were meetings today."
"Perri has meetings today. But I'm not on the education sub-committee like she is." Gale seems surprised at her interrogation, and glances at her backpack. "Do you work in District 2 now?"
Behind Gale she can see the quarry man looking up the pathway in their direction, which reminds her that they're standing in the open where anyone can see them and that people probably are actually looking since Gale is so well-known. She pulls her sunhat out of her backpack and slides it on, hoping its broad rim hides her features enough that she won't be identified as anyone other than one of the anonymous groupies the tabloids show following Gale around until he invariably lashes out at them.
"I'm taking some time off from work," Madge says in a less confrontational tone. "I was doing some family stuff for Perri at my grandparents' old house. Remember when we all came here before to—"
No, he wouldn't remember when she and Dusty and Perri visited the house the day after she found him again because he didn't show up. And she had naïvely believed his story that he was busy with another commitment rather than figuring out that he was busy not liking her anymore. "I guess you wouldn't remember," she amends awkwardly. "Perri thinks some of the things in the house belong to our family, but there are these lists and they don't match up and… Well, it's confusing." Mostly because Madge hasn't bothered to learn what the dispute is and doesn't particularly care.
Gale looks queasy, as though he ate something rotten. He shifts the stack of papers he's holding from one hand to the other and says quietly, "I know it's too late, Madge, but I'm sorry I didn't come with you to see the house that day. And I'm even sorrier I didn't tell you why I couldn't go to 12 with you."
Madge lets her eyes fall to Zipper, who's sitting between them, head twisting back and forth attentively in case one of them suddenly starts a game. It helps to hear Gale apologize, but she notices he didn't say he would have gone with her to District 12, just that he wishes he'd explained why he wouldn't, clarifying that she's still only a secondary concern for him. The knowledge is like a fresh hit to a still-tender wound, but does it really mean she doesn't want him in her life at all? Maybe she needs to adjust her expectations: if she knows not to expect more than whatever limited friendly feelings he has for her, then her hopes can't be crushed and she won't do things like yell in hallways when he talks to her. Managing her expectations was how she always fought disappointment when she was growing up… Assuming her father would work late and that her mother would be sleeping off a headache meant that if she did actually get to see both of them for dinner it was a special occasion.
And if Gale's blaming himself for Katniss' sister's death and for Katniss and Peeta being burned so badly because of that bomb he may have designed, he's grappling with some pretty intense guilt. Which may not even be warranted. No matter what else, they were friends once upon a time and he's from home and is the best person she knows; she can't cut him out of her life. Maybe she can even help him by being a friend. So she takes a deep breath and says what she's been thinking about since the last time she saw him.
"Gale, I'm sorry I acted so weird at the loyalty hearings. I was under a lot of stress and I was mad at you even though I had no right to be, and I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. You were right to be angry and it was my fault. Everything is my fault."
Madge meets his eyes. "That's not true. And blaming yourself for more than you should isn't helping anything."
She can see his internal struggle between wanting to contradict her and wanting to believe her, and feels a growing uneasiness that he's about to make one of his sweeping accusations about how she just doesn't understand. Maybe she doesn't—he's always been so cryptic and mysterious about Katniss—but this is too public a venue for a big emotional discussion and she doesn't want to let him stake out a position on these topics that she'll have to fight him on later, or for him to be 'scared off' again as Simon put it. Before he can speak again, she decides to distract him into safer territory with a change of subject.
"We don't have to talk about it." Not right now, at least. She gestures toward the building behind him. "So were you talking to them about re-opening quarry?"
Gale hesitates momentarily, but then seems grateful to be let off the hook from the weightier topics and nods slightly. "The loyalty hearings turned out to be good advertising: they have so many pre-orders that they already want to open a second quarry. They requested special, early permission to buy a parcel outside the old borders. But I couldn't figure out what land they meant because the district's maps are shit." He looks accusingly at a small map in his hand and Madge feels her fingers itching to rifle through all the other papers he's holding beneath it. What information does he have about the quarry? Surely some kind of application form for their land request that would have details about the corporate structure or funding…
"So I was trying to clear up the confusion," Gale continues, "and now I'm going out to the area to see for myself." He nods his head toward Zipper. "And taking him so he can get outside."
Madge smiles slightly, thinking Zipper probably isn't the only one eager for an excuse to tromp around on a mountainside instead of being cooped up indoors. She kneels down to scratch Zipper's ears.
"You know," she says, looking back up at Gale, "weren't we supposed to go on a hike together? I don't think it's fair that you'll take Zipper for a hike but not me."
Gale seems surprised, but then he smiles faintly as he picks up on her teasing tone. "Come with us. We're going right now. If you're free."
"I'm totally free." Madge stands up again so they can start walking toward town, the unfamiliar feeling of happiness radiating outward from her chest. "How lucky I ran into the two of you. I've really missed spending time with Zipper."
She grins impishly so he knows she isn't talking about Zipper and is pleased when he laughs, a sound she hasn't heard in she can't even remember how long.
"You sure about that? He's a real pain in the ass. I don't know how anyone puts up with him."
"Oh, he's definitely a pain. But he's worth it," she says lightly, aware that they're still not talking about the dog.
Gale grins back at her over Zipper, who's trotting happily between them, and then Madge asks what she should take with her on their excursion. As Gale proceeds to insult her sandals as flimsy and woefully inadequate and lists the food they should pack so they can have a picnic dinner on their hike, Madge decides that working on the inventory today was the best idea she's had in a long time.
#
After stopping at Dusty and Perri's house so Madge can change into shoes that meet Gale's approval, pack water and food, and leave a note that she'll miss dinner, they get situated in Gale's car. Madge has to fight Zipper for the front seat until Gale intervenes and orders Zipper into the back. Then they start driving on the road that leads beyond the district's western border. Madge savors the warmth of the early afternoon sun shining brightly over the canyons and the breeze from the open window whipping her hair around as she listens contentedly to Gale pointing out the peaks and other features they're passing. He's been exploring the area with Zipper lately, and seems more animated while he's talking. Madge starts to feel more relaxed than she has in weeks, comforted by the sound of his voice and how normal this outing feels.
Eventually the road transitions from pavement to gravel and finally to bare earth that's so dry they have to close the windows to avoid choking on the dust. It's difficult to judge distances now that they're driving at a slower speed, but after a while the road widens into what Gale describes as a staging area, which is occupied with several other vehicles and large pieces of equipment. It looks like an active construction zone to Madge, with workers directing machinery and conferring with each other over schematics.
"The road turns south here and will connect to District 3," Gale explains as he parks off to the side. Madge sees that the road does make a turn beyond the staging area. "Dusty has been working on the road. But we're heading north, over that ridge and up the next valley. We're just parking here."
It's strange that Gale knows more about her aunt and uncle's lives than Madge does. She knew Dusty did something with the new roads, but he doesn't talk about himself much and she realizes guiltily that she hasn't asked. Perri usually dominates the mealtime conversations with exasperated stories about other members of the Reconstruction Committee, which reminds Madge of Gale, who has a similarly low tolerance for idiocy. Madge can't talk about her job, so she usually just listens or tells them about meals Simon has cooked for her.
They get out of the car and Zipper immediately runs over to a parked bulldozer and pees on its dirt-encrusted blade. Madge worries that one of the construction workers will get mad at them, but nobody seems to have seen and Gale's already ordering Zipper to come back. Gale shuts him in the car so he and Madge can ask the construction workers if they know anything about the prospective quarry location.
"Wait." Madge calls, ducking inside the car to grab Gale's sunglasses from the dashboard. She gently pushes them over his eyes, lingering slightly to brush road dust out of his hair. "There. Incognito."
He smiles wryly. "I don't think sunglasses will help me."
"Maybe not," she admits. "But why not try?" She omits that she's getting an uneasy feeling about this staging area. Maybe it's because of her admittedly unsubstantiated suspicions about Simon's brother's company—if they're up to no good they won't be happy to learn that Gale not only went to the quarry but also came out here.
As they walk toward a group of workers congregated on the other side of the staging area, Madge asks, "It's not really the Reconstruction Committee's job to deal with individual applications for land, is it?"
"Not really. This is a special request, which we could ignore—we still don't have a proposal for how to distribute the land, and the country would have to vote to approve it—but the president doesn't want to discourage new businesses, so we could make an exception and deal with this request. I said I'd look into it." He frowns as a nearby rumbling draws his attention to an excavator chugging into the staging area from the road to District 3. "Mostly I don't trust Simon's brother. There are old quarries all over. Why go after the one that was your family's? Didn't your father get their mother arrested a long time ago?"
"Yes." Madge likes that he remembered, and feels flattered at the implication that Gale's personal interest in this quarry application might be tangentially related to looking out for her. "I think Edwin is a creep," she confides.
"He hasn't bothered you, has he?" Gale asks sharply. She momentarily pictures Gale as a bird with his feathers fluffed out in agitation. It's comforting in a way; whatever he thinks of her, at least he still wants to protect her from creeps.
"No, he's just generally a Capitol sleaze and Simon doesn't see it. But what can I do—he's Simon's older brother and practically raised him. You saw him in action at the hearing—he's good at political maneuvering, which to Simon is important. In a non-life-and-death way it might even be a little like hunting was for you, something he needed to be good at in the environment where he grew up. So I think Simon's got a bit of hero worship blinding him to what his brother may really be like..."
Gale exhales loudly and then kicks a rock, sending it hurtling into the nearby trees.
"What?"
"I was just thinking about my own brothers," he says stiffly. "I haven't seen them since the war ended."
"Maybe you should visit. Could they come here?"
"They will at some point. Probably pretty soon. I don't know, I haven't talked to my mom in a while."
Madge feels a flash of jealousy that he still has a mom and not only that, three siblings. How he hasn't seen them since the war ended is mind-boggling, but she doesn't say anything because they're approaching a knot of workers clad in orange vests.
A petite woman wearing a hard hat and a stern expression turns to face them. "Yes?"
"Are you familiar with the valleys north of here?" Gale asks brusquely. Madge usually likes to warm up her interviewees with some compliments or introductory remarks, but Gale appears to prefer directness.
"We're a little focused on getting this road built before autumn," the woman says in a huffy tone.
Madge steps forward and smiles. "Sorry to disturb you, we can see how busy you are. Have you noticed other parties traveling to areas north of here? Beyond that ridge?"
"So many people treat this area as their own personal parking lot I can't keep track of where they all go. As long as they stay out of my crew's way I could care less."
"Is our car all right over there?" Madge asks. "It's not blocking anything, is it?"
"It's fine," the woman says with a sniff.
"How about that trailer?" Madge points to the small trailer on the far side of the staging area. It isn't branded with the same logo visible on the construction vehicles or the workers' vests and she wants to know more about it.
"They keep it off to the side. Usually not a problem."
"So they aren't part of your operation? What do they do?"
The woman's patience appears to be wearing thin. "Heck if I know. Rock collectors? I don't care as long as they don't block my pavers." She turns toward her coworkers, effectively ending the conversation, and Madge and Gale walk back to the car to retrieve Zipper and their backpacks.
Madge gently steers them past the trailer on their return trip and makes a mental appointment to look inside it later. The good stuff is usually hidden and she can tell from a cursory scan that its lock won't pose a challenge. Maybe when they get back from their hike and the construction crews have left for the day she can sneak inside…
She hears Gale make an exasperated sound and realizes that Zipper is frantically barking at a cement mixer and bouncing all over the driver's seat of Gale's car, slobbering on the windows and doing who knows what to the buttons on the control panel.
"I'm starting to think he's only good when he's within a certain magical distance of you," she observes.
Gale looks like he has similar suspicions and shakes his head in annoyance as he unlocks the car door, releasing Zipper.
"Come on, let's wear him out."
A/N: Whoa, they're talking again! But not about the important stufff... ;) Forest date next chapter. Thank you so much to everybody who's been reading and reviewing!