Chapter 11: Not Talking

The morning after the party, Madge woke up early so she could catch her parents before they were sucked into campaign meetings. She wanted to confront them about the lame student group idea while the frustration was still hot in her mind, and mentally rehearsed her speech as she foraged in the refrigerator for party leftovers that she could eat for breakfast.

She would be firm but supportive. They needed to understand that they should talk to her directly about her involvement in the campaign. They couldn't be disappointed in her about that, could they?

To help show that she wasn't being unreasonably selfish, she started a pot of coffee for them. While she nibbled on nearly-stale leftover dinner rolls and waited for the coffee to perk, Madge turned on the kitchen TV for company and checked her phone to read the press coverage of her father's candidacy announcement. The Daily Sentinel had a short, perfunctory story, with an accompanying photo of the three Undersees on the stairs. Squinting at the tiny picture, Madge was mildly annoyed to see that her family did look picturesque together, thanks to her mother's careful wardrobe planning. Worse, though, were the accompanying reports of her involvement in the campaign, the reporter employing cliches like "the apple not falling far from the tree" and describing how Madge was "following in her father's footsteps." Madge skimmed a few of the other local newspaper websites and political blogs, but they all just rehashed the campaign's press release. The coverage was remarkable only for being unremarkable; nobody seemed surprised by the announcement. Madge's father was clearly the frontrunner and the real news would be if someone with a chance of challenging him entered the race.

When the coffee was ready, Madge poured two steaming mugs, doctored them the way her parents liked (cream only for her father, cream and lots of sugar for her mother), and then carried them upstairs to her parents' bedroom suite. The door was open so she knocked... only to discover that the entire suite was vacant. Lights off, bed made in that half-hearted way her mother did on days when the cleaners were scheduled, closet doors open...

Where were they?

Madge set the coffee mugs on the end table near the sofa and pulled out her phone to call her father. Voice mail. Same with her mother's number. She couldn't reach Maysilee or Haymitch either, though she knew they were hunkered down with the IT consultant this morning, working on the campaign website. Embarrassment building, she finally dialed the number for Ruth Ann, her father's assistant, who luckily did pick up.

"I think they had lunch scheduled with a potential donor over at the club in White Oak Valley," Ruth Ann reported apologetically, clearly aware that she wouldn't have been the first person Madge called. "This man is only in town for the weekend," Ruth Ann added. "They want to lock him in while they have momentum. He's very influential."

Madge could almost hear her father enthusiastically telling her mother how important it was to "strike while the iron was hot," as though he needed to convince her. He didn't.

"Do you know when they'll be back?" Madge asked in a small voice.

"Probably late," Ruth Ann admitted. "They have some other meetings this afternoon and are staying for the club's holiday banquet tonight."

Madge thanked Ruth Ann and hung up, more upset than she wanted to acknowledge. Her parents had barely talked to her since she came home from school, unless it was about the campaign, and even that they delegated to others. She felt her throat starting to get tight. Her eyes fell to the two mugs of coffee on the table and she had the urge to hurl them at the wall. Wouldn't it be satisfying to hear the ceramic shattering, to see dark brown liquid staining the eggshell carpet and historic wallpaper? Her parents would have to ask why she'd been so destructive, would have to realize all was not well.

Her phone rang, pulling Madge out of her fantasy. Had her parents seen that they'd missed a call from her? Remembered they hadn't told her where they'd be today?

No. The name on the screen was Katniss.

Madge was so surprised, she stared at the phone until the ring tone started its second cycle. Then she hesitantly answered.

"Katniss?"

"Hi." Katniss's voice sounded uneasy, like she was unsure of Madge's frame of mind. "Do you have a second?"

Madge had loads of seconds. An entire day. An entire winter break. "Yeah."

"Peeta said you might be upset," Katniss blurted. "With me," she added. Then she paused and Madge couldn't tell if she was waiting for Madge to confirm that she was upset, but before Madge could say anything Katniss plowed ahead, her words tumbling out. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I know you wouldn't do anything with Gale—not that you couldn't—I mean, you can do what you want and so can he—but I didn't think it would be a good idea for you, and I guess it didn't come out that way. But... I really didn't meant for you to feel bad."

"I know you didn't," Madge said quickly, anxious to put Katniss out of her misery, any lingering frustration with her friend evaporating. "But thanks for calling to tell me." She could almost hear Katniss's relief and said a mental thank you to Peeta for steering Katniss toward clearing the air between them. To Katniss she asked gently, "Are you okay? Peeta and I were worried."

Katniss didn't answer right away. Eventually she said, "Everything's... weird." She didn't elaborate, and before Madge could think of a way to get her to explain, Katniss asked, "What about you? How are you... about the campaign?"

Madge felt a wave of gratitude that Katniss had asked. She related the Undergrads for Undersee debacle, and how she still hadn't been able to talk to her parents about it. Katniss understood immediately Madge's discomfort, and expressed the right amount of outrage at the situation, which felt good to hear. Katniss got it about Madge's family and the campaign. She reminded Madge of Gale, actually, and how he'd such been a good listener the night before—the only person willing to listen to her—and she took a moment to appreciate both Katniss and Gale. They both had a certain intensity about them, and Madge had seen a glimpse of it last night with Gale: when he was listening, he was really listening, like Katniss.

"And now they're gone again for the whole day and I didn't even know," Madge said dully. "I had to call my dad's assistant to find out where they were."

There had been over 300 people in her house last night, and this morning it was just Madge and the TV in the kitchen. Later the house cleaners would be arriving for the post-party cleanup, which wasn't exactly a comfort. Madge got the feeling they didn't like an audience while they worked, so she'd have to keep strategically moving from room to room to avoid them.

"What're you doing today?" Katniss asked.

Madge sat down delicately on the edge of her parents' bed and stared glumly at the glass sculpture on her mother's nightstand. "Practice, I guess. I still haven't picked a song for my audition." Guilt pricked her, but she swatted it away. She had bigger problems at the moment.

"If you want some company, you could come over," Katniss offered hesitantly.

"Really?" Madge asked. Usually Katniss visited Madge's house, not the other way around. But even the idea of retreating to Katniss's cozy little home in Twelve Springs made Madge's mood lift. Prim and Mrs. Everdeen were always happy to see Madge, too.

"I'm at work now," Katniss said, "but my shift will be over at 3, so anytime after that."

Maybe there was hope for the day yet.

#

Katniss and Madge spent the afternoon and evening consuming unholy amounts of Christmas movies, Christmas cookies, and flavored popcorn. Prim and some of her friends had gone on a baking spree, and one of Mrs. Everdeen's coworkers had given her one of those popcorn tins divided into sections of caramel, white cheese, and plain popcorn. All the treats were strewn across the Everdeens' coffee table, while Katniss and Madge sprawled on the couch in front of the TV.

"Get that thing away," Madge groaned as she nudged the never-ending popcorn tin with her foot. "I don't think I'll be hungry again until next Christmas."

Katniss grabbed another handful of caramel popcorn and shoved it into her mouth. "Mmmmm," she said as she chewed exaggeratedly toward Madge, taunting her. "I wish we had more."

Madge made a face at her friend and rubbed her hands over her belly, which looked pregnant with popcorn. Gross. She sat up, grabbed her water glass and Katniss's, and dragged herself into the Everdeens' cramped kitchen. The dim overhead light made the worn, checkered linoleum look even older than it probably was, but gave the room a cozy glow, a welcome contrast to the pitch black of the backyard.

A glance at the clock above the microwave confirmed that it was after 9:00 p.m. now, still probably too early for her parents to be home yet from the country club. Her mother had finally called in the late afternoon to let Madge know they wouldn't be home for dinner. They were in between appointments and Mrs. Undersee had sounded tired, and frustrated because the donor they were courting was holding out on committing funding and other donors were waiting to follow his lead. Madge could hear her father in the background on another call on his own phone, no doubt doing more fundraising. She had tried to tell her mother that she needed to talk to them about her role in the campaign, only to be answered with a tense sigh and a long rant about how booked their schedule was, since they were trying to squeeze in as many appointments as possible before everyone stopped taking meetings for the holidays. Maybe, her mother offered wearily, there would be time to talk in the car on the drive to Aunt Emily's for Christmas.

A regular Christmas miracle to look forward to.

Madge had dropped it.

She knew Katniss had overheard the conversation—she'd taken the call in the kitchen but the Everdeen house was small—and was grateful that Katniss hadn't said anything. There really wasn't anything to say. "Sorry your parents are too busy for you unless there's a press event" wasn't something Madge especially wanted to hear. When she returned, Katniss had simply handed Madge the remote and said, "You're in charge." A small comfort, but Madge had been grateful.

And still was, Madge thought as she filled their glasses with water. On her way back to the living room, she paused in front of the Everdeens' refrigerator. Nearly the entire surface of the door was plastered with holiday cards, family snapshots, and press clippings of Katniss's races; it was nothing like the Undersees's double-sized stainless steel contraption that made Madge feel like she was stealing from a restaurant whenever she wanted a snack.

Without realizing she was looking for him, Madge located a picture of Gale on one of the holiday cards. He was surrounded by several dark-haired kids, a middle-aged woman with smile lines around her eyes, and a scary-looking dog wearing a neon pink collar. Surprisingly, Gale actually looked happy. On closer inspection, Madge noticed that the card was from the previous year, before his knee injury, which might have explained his broad smile.

Seeing the lighter, happier version of Gale left Madge with a vague sense of loss. He'd directed that smile at her last night, and she probably wouldn't see him again during his trip home. He lived near Katniss—just a few blocks, if Madge remembered correctly—but he might as well have been back in North Dakota for all the likelihood of Madge encountering him again, especially after the way Katniss had reacted last night. They hadn't talked about Gale since Madge had arrived. Or Peeta, though Madge knew from Peeta's text last night that he'd successfully driven Katniss home and hadn't been anything other than a supportive friend. Madge figured that as far "making his move" that was actually a pretty smart one, at least as a long-term strategy.

Returning to the living room, Madge found Katniss smiling softly as she scrolled through messages on her phone.

"Water?" Madge said, placing the glass for Katniss on a gardening magazine. There weren't any coasters. The Everdeens' coffee table had seen better days, but Madge was hardwired to avoid even the possibility of water rings.

"Thanks," Katniss said, coloring faintly and leaning forward to place her phone on the coffee table directly in front of her spot on the couch. She emptied her water glass in a few determined gulps.

Had Katniss been reading texts from Peeta? He was the only person Madge had ever seen Katniss smile at the way she'd just seen Katniss smiling, a uniquely Katniss blend of shyness and surprise at the attention directed toward her. Madge hesitated before sitting on her side of the couch again as a thought occurred to her. "Do you have something else going on tonight? I don't need to stay overnight; I could go home."

Katniss looked confused. "No, just hanging out with you." She followed Madge's gaze to her phone, waiting expectantly on the coffee table, and roughly returned it into the pouch of her hooded sweatshirt. "I was just looking at something from earlier. It's nothing." Katniss nodded toward the remote, waiting on Madge's cushion. "What's on next?"

Curling her knees under her blanket, Madge settled back onto her end of the couch and started skimming through the channels, relieved Katniss wasn't going to ditch her tonight. Was that selfish? Madge felt a twinge of guilt for thinking it. Glancing at Katniss out of the corner of her eye, she thought her friend seemed all right with a quiet girls' night in, not visibly itching to be elsewhere.

"There," Katniss said, pointing at the TV. The screen had filled with the bright, cartoon colors of a scene from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Madge shook her head and kept channel surfing. It was a contender, but it was too close to the end. The Grinch was already getting nicer. Someone should remake the movie and let the Grinch stay grinchy. She could really go for that tonight.

After at least one full cycle through all the channels, Katniss's phone pinged, the text message alert dulled but still insistent through Katniss's sweatshirt. Katniss yanked her phone out of her pocket, but then frowned and stowed it away again without responding.

Madge had stopped flicking through the channels to watch Katniss, and must have looked curious because Katniss said in a flat tone: "Gale."

Madge frowned, still holding the remote aloft and watching her friend rather than the TV. "Have you talked to him?"

Katniss shook her head in a way that suggested the idea was absurd.

"Isn't he going back to North Dakota soon?"

Katniss shifted uncomfortably and made a vaguely affirmative sound.

Madge felt a surge of irritation on Gale's behalf. She lowered the remote to her lap and turned toward Katniss, who was watching her with a guarded expression. She didn't want to get into the touchy topic that was Gale Hawthorne—Madge had been grateful to get out of her house and not have to think about her parents or the campaign for a little while, and figured Katniss probably needed a break from her boy complications—but it was hard to hold her tongue when Katniss's handling of her problems seemed to be hurting other people.

"Gale saw you and Peeta leaving my house together last night," Madge announced, formally ending the no-talking-about-Katniss's-Gale-and-Peeta-problem grace period. She explained how Gale had been forced to go back into the Undersees' house to leave through the front door because of the security fence in the back yard.

"Oh." Katniss went quiet and looked down at her lap. "How... did he seem?"

Madge thought back to Gale sitting in his truck in her driveway, watching her before driving away.

"Tired," she said. "Resigned." Like a warrior who'd lost. Like an adult with problems, a far cry from the smiling boy in the Christmas card on Katniss's refrigerator.

Katniss winced. She fiddled with a black digital sports watch on her wrist for a few moments and then said softly, "I guess he started to have... feelings for me?" She sounded like she was reporting that Gale had contracted an embarrassing infection.

"Do you like him?" Madge asked quietly.

"Of course I do, he's one of my best friends." Katniss's response was automatic, robotic.

"You know what I mean."

Katniss paused and then said mournfully, "I don't know." She sounded utterly defeated, which for her meant thinking that she'd let someone down. But who was that, Madge wondered. Gale? Or, possibly, Peeta? It hurt to think that Katniss was beating up on herself for feeling, or not feeling, a certain way.

"Are you sure you don't know?" Madge asked, again using her gentlest tone so Katniss would understand that Madge was trying to help her, not attack her. "Or is it that you do know and don't want to tell him?"

Katniss didn't respond right away, which to Madge's ears was an answer in itself. She watched her friend tug on her watch, buckling it and unbuckling it. A television commercial for a last-minute Christmas sale shrieked in the background, catchy and annoying.

Eventually Katniss just shrugged helplessly and Madge decided not to press any further. This was the longest conversation they'd ever had about boys and Katniss was clearly not at ease. Madge turned her eyes back toward the TV and cruised through channels until she stumbled across Bad Santa.

There. That should do it. The least syrupy, most aggressively inappropriate Christmas movie available. Madge looked over at Katniss, who grimaced but shrugged in acceptance. Madge smiled sadly and nestled against the arm of the couch.

#

That night, Madge tried—and failed—to fall asleep on the camping air mattresses they'd set up on the floor of Katniss's bedroom. While she'd take the physical discomforts of Katniss's house over the cold isolation of her own house any day, the real problem keeping her awake was not being able to let go of her frustration with her parents. What if she just stayed at Katniss's house indefinitely? Would her parents notice? Probably only when her mother realized that Madge was still borrowing her car, since Madge's car was being repaired near campus.

Katniss's voice broke through the darkness of the room, quiet and hesitant.

"Madge, can I ask you something about Greg?"

Even hearing his name made Madge flinch. She'd been doing her best not to think about that jerk, and had largely been successful.

"I guess so," she said reluctantly. Was thinking about Greg better, or worse, than thinking about her parents?

"How did you know you liked him? Before you guys got together."

Madge tensed, bracing herself for another round of what-on-earth-was-I-thinking Greg-related regrets. But as she combed through her memories for an answer to Katniss's question, she realized they didn't hurt as much as she thought they would. As terrible as Greg turned out to be, the beginning had been good: thrilling, and, unlike the perpetual dance that Katniss and Peeta seemed to be caught in, Madge hadn't agonized about whether or not she liked Greg or whether he liked her back. It was obvious, to both of them.

"I didn't think a lot about it," she finally said, eyes on the glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers that Katniss still had on her ceiling. "I was just... happier when I was around him. I couldn't wait to run into him in class or in the practice rooms. Everything was a little more exciting if I thought I might see him."

And now, the thought of him—and how things had turned out—made her want to throw something. She scrunched her eyes shut, and willed herself to think of something else. Anything else. Anyone else.

An image of Gale popped into her mind, the smiling Gale from last night and from Katniss's refrigerator. How far away from Katniss did he live? Madge opened her eyes and gazed toward the window. Which direction was his house? What was he doing? What did he do, now that he wasn't running and wasn't in school? Was he bored? How was he dealing with Katniss ignoring him?

"What are you going to do about Gale?" she asked Katniss, the question escaping before she had a chance to second-guess herself.

There was a delay, as though Katniss's thoughts had been elsewhere and it took her a moment to recognize that Madge had asked her a question.

"He's leaving soon," Katniss said slowly. "We'll get back to normal after he leaves. We can forget about all this."

Madge was grateful for the darkness, so Katniss wouldn't see her cringe at that plan. What was "normal" for Katniss and Gale, anyway, now that they weren't in high school or running together anymore?

"So... ignore everything? Not talk about any of it?"

"I don't know what I could say to him that wouldn't make him feel worse," Katniss said defensively. "I just want us to stay friends."

"Friends talk," Madge said quietly.

"Gale and I understand each other. I don't need to tell him things; he knows."

"I knew, too," Madge countered, pushing up on her elbow and looking in the dark toward where Katniss's head probably was. "I knew you didn't mean to hurt me last night, that you were concerned about me and it probably just came out sideways. But I still felt weird about it and I feel a lot better now."

"It's different with Gale," Katniss insisted. "And if we don't talk, he'll know what that means: that we should just go back to how we were before." Madge could hear the stubbornness underlying Katniss's words, the same tone she took when she was talking about needing to shave some time off one of her events, or beat a rival on a competing team. "I can't hurt him," Katniss said adamantly.

"Fine," Madge said, flopping back onto the air mattresses. "But not talking hurts, too." Like when your family assumes you'll spearhead a stupid student group that you specifically already told them you didn't have time for, or when your parents get so used to having you out of the house that they don't even tell you where they are for the entire day during your short visit home again. And maybe, if you're lucky, they can spare a few minutes for you on Christmas.

She didn't push the point any further with Katniss, letting the advice hang in the air and hoping Katniss decided to catch it.

A/N: I struggled with this chapter and am not quite happy with it, but I know it's been a long time since I updated so here you go. The good news is that the next chapter is in good shape and nearly ready to go so the wait shouldn't be as long. Thank you everyone for reading! And as always thanks for your patience with my updating pace!