A/N: Hey guys, I usually try to keep author notes short before chapters but I just want to apologize again for the late update. I think I'm going to stop trying to update at the same time every week, I want to make this story as good as possible without trying to rush chapters out. Good thing the next two have been pre-written. I'll be on vacation though, so I'll update if I find wifi.
Also, I'd like to thank the guest who left me a lengthy review filled with constructive criticism. I took your suggestions to heart and am so happy you care about my story enough to help me out. I didn't publish your review, I hope you're okay with that.
I didn't want to publish this chapter and just skip it because it just felt like more of the same, but I couldn't find any way around it, I think it's kind of important. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! It's been a hard few weeks, so please leave me a review if you have the time. They mean the world to me.
Time is passing excruciating slow as Madge sits in meetings all Tuesday afternoon. She scribbles figures in her journal and writes brief notes of everything being discussed, but otherwise she's left to stare blankly at the ceiling and drum her fingers on the table. Thank god she needs to slip out in ten minutes to go pick up Kota from school.
It's all the important personnel from the company, discussing "big picture" stuff. The topic is so vague that half the room is rarely involved in what's being talked about. After a few minutes, she gets a text from Finnick.
Finnick: Dozing off? ;)
Immediately she straightens her back, shooting him a glare from across the room. She's not usually the lethargic type, and if Finnick noticed her getting bored she doesn't know who else could've seen.
Madge: Haha. As if you're enticed by budgets and finance.
Neither of them are. That's why they're texting each other.
Finnick: I'm sorry about Saturday by the way.
Madge: What?
Finnick: With you and your baby daddy. I know it was awkward.
Madge: No, you were fine. Why was it awkward?
Finnick: I'm not sure. You were so… cordial.
Madge tilts her head in confusion and thinks hard. Cordial is one way to put it, she likes to think that they're actually friends. But sometimes it does feel forced, it feels like they're just ignoring the bigger problems. Some bigger problems she can't even put a name to herself, but it frustrates her that her friend could see right through it.
"Mr. Odair, are you listening?" one of the station's partners asks from the head of the table. He and Madge quickly put their phones away and look up to the front. Maybe they'll get to talk about this later.
"So anyway, we want to hire some curators. People who can put together playlists for certain holidays and events that are not just your generic songs for those occasions. It would set us apart," Haymitch explains. "They could also improve the songs we're playing now. We're taking too many requests."
"Don't we have those already?" another company member asks.
"We have people who gather analytics about the top songs, and people who collect requests and sends them to our hosts. But I want to start playing different music, actually introduce the public to songs they might not hear hundreds of times a day."
Often, Haymitch will suggest radical new changes like this. They're most of the time hard to execute and seldom come to life, but they're what convinces Madge that he's not a complete lazy oaf after all. The propositions are idealistic, but they prove that he cares about the station at least a little bit.
"Okay. Should we make a job posting? Or hire from within?"
Haymitch rubs his stubble. "Well, could we hire within? Is anyone even qualified?"
"Madge majored in music," Finnick blurts out to his boss, causing her eyes to open wide and for her back to shoot up straight. "Did you forget?"
"No, Finnick, don't worry I-"
"Madge?" Haymitch interjects, looking straight down the room.
"Yes, Madge. Your assistant," her friend kids, not even looking at her to gage her reaction.
It's not that she wouldn't want to do it. She would do anything to just work with music again, she never had the funds to buy her own piano and even when she works at a music station, she's never part of the music process. But it's just that she would never volunteer herself like this, she doesn't want Haymitch to think that she's dissatisfied.
Finnick is still talking. "I'm just saying, if you want to hire from within you have a qualified person sitting right outside your office everyday."
"Haymitch, this was not my idea at all," Madge insists. "I don't need a new job. I mean, I did major in contemporary music but that's besides the point."
"Good," her boss says curtly, and for a second she's confused. Screw Finnick, for even planting the idea in her head. "Because we're not hiring from within."
And her heart drops only a little bit.
"Let's move on."
So they get through other mundane items on the agenda while she wallows, hoping that Haymitch doesn't think any different of her. Madge knows that sometimes she has trouble stepping out of her comfort zone, but this, in her opinion, isn't the way to do it.
"Okay folks, it's three right now, let's take a ten minute break and then finish up the rest," Haymitch offers after a while, but Madge's ear shoot up.
Three? How did she miss the time, she was supposed to pick up Dakota ten minutes ago! Hurriedly, she rushes out of the conference room past the other people and grabs her coat and her purse, bolting out of the building. Madge knew that today was going to be a bad day, she could feel it as soon as she woke up.
Thankfully in the early afternoon the streets are clear enough for her to hail a cab and rush to the school. Dakota gets out at three, and usually she tries to get there right on time.
When she's sitting in the backseat, patiently waiting to arrive at her destination, her phone buzzes once more.
Gale: Don't forget to hand out the invites.
"Shit," she curses under her breath. The invites to Kota's birthday party, the ones that are currently sitting on her kitchen table that she couldn't hand out to any parents even if she did have them. Most of the children have probably already been picked up, and now Madge truly doesn't think her day could get any worse.
When she gets to the school she tells the driver to stay there and keep the meter running. Kota is sitting on her customary bench next to her teacher, and when she sees her mom she smiles dimly.
"Hi Mommy."
"I'm so sorry baby," she cries, giving her baby girl a tight hug. "I got caught up in a meeting at work. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," Dakota insists, turning back to look at Effie. "Ms. Trinket and I played 'I Spy.'"
Madge turns to Ms. Trinket with an apologetic look. The woman looks tired, not her usual peppy self, and Madge feels bad about making her stay longer than necessary. "I'm so sorry Effie."
"Don't worry dear, I told you Kota would be fine with me if you're running late."
"I still feel awful about it, though. And I was supposed to hand her birthday party invitations today. But now I'm late, and I forgot them anyway."
"If you bring them tomorrow morning, I could hand them out for you," the teacher says kindly, and Madge almost sighs at the kindness this lady gives to her and her daughter.
"That would be so helpful. I'll bring them tomorrow for sure."
"Alright then. Bye now, Dakota!"
"Bye bye," the four year old says with a wave, and then they hold hands walking over to the stalled cab. "Is it a special day?" she asks, looking at the interior of the car with confusion.
"No, I just called a cab because I was in a hurry. And I know it was a long day, we're all tired."
"I thought that Daddy picked us up," Kota laughs, giggling happily. "Because whenever I'm with Daddy we drive everywhere!"
Gale had started saving up for that SUV the minute they decided they would be raising a child together. Madge supposes that it's good for when they drive out to meet his family, but otherwise she has no use for one. In the city it's faster most of the time to walk or take the subway, and that's what she likes best.
"What are we doing now, Mommy?"
"Well, I need to clean the apartment tonight, baby. I promise Auntie Jo that I would." The bookshelves and living area is getting cluttered, and they both would like to see it organized and clean. "But is there anything you want to do now? We could go for ice cream, or go to the park for a little while."
"Can we go to Daddy's?"
"Pardon?" she sputters, asking for clarification. Madge is in disbelief for a second. It feels like a blow to her parenting abilities, although she's sure it's nothing like that.
"I miss Daddy. Also, I want to go there with you."
Dakota just misses her parents together, and Madge understands. But the initial words still shock her though. She thought that it was enough for each of them to have her half the time, but apparently it doesn't average out like that. It's a good thing that on her birthday they're going to spend the whole day together, they'll put up with each other for their child.
"I don't know baby, Daddy's probably busy right now, he didn't plan for us to stop by. How about we go to the supermarket for a little bit and then head home? Johanna's making dinner, can you help me pick up some stuff for her?"
Kota agrees hesitantly, pouting her bottom lip and putting up a little bit of protest. By the time they get dropped off at the supermarket near their apartment though, she's too busy staring at the colourful fruits and asking to buy every piece of candy on the shelves to remember. Madge is happy that she's happy, but she quickly grabs what she needs and buys a lollipop for Kota, just to thank her for the company.
For dinner Johanna is making fresh pasta, and Madge was confused by the grocery list until she realized that her friend was making pesto from scratch. It's delicious and decadent, by the end everyone's full, and they sit on the couch playing and chatting with Dakota until she's tired out. They aren't going to start tidying until the kid is fast asleep, otherwise she'd be far too distracting.
"Okay, I think we can get started," Madge states after Kota is all washed up and tucked into bed. Johanna hands her a glass of white wine happily and turns to inspect the cluttered mess of the living room.
It's not a disaster, there's just a lot of stuff that they should probably get rid of that's been sitting around the home. Old magazine, papers and books that they don't read are pushed into their bookshelf tightly.
"Wow, we really have so much shit in this corner," Johanna exclaims, pulling her hair back into a messy bun and laughing. "How long have we been hoarding all of this?"
"From when we moved in, probably," she answers mundanely, looking at some of the items on the cluttered shelves. There's even an old textbook from her last year in college. She sits down and takes out a box from the bottom shelf opening it and smiling with nostalgia. "Look, I found some of my photos."
During college, she had an affinity for printing the photos that she loved instead of keeping them on her computer. In the small stack of photographs, there are some pictures of friends and of her family, but most of them are pictures of Gale, and some of them make her chest tight and her breathing shallow.
Because they were so in love. It was naive, sure, but when she looks at a particular one, a shot that they set up with the timer on her camera in her dorm room, it makes her wish that she could feel half that amount of happiness sometime soon. She's sat crossed legged in front of Gale on her tiny single bed, his hands wrap around her body and meet with hers. Both of the have barely changed in looks, and when her eyes travel up to their faces, their lips are locked yet their still beaming with joy.
There are a couple other pictures, one that she took herself from above while she was probably on top of him, he was shirtless and groggy from having just woken up and there's a tiny purple love bite just below his mussed up hair. Gale's smiling boyishly, a smile she hasn't really seen in years.
"What are you looking at?" Jo asks, bringing Madge back to reality. She instinctively tries to hide them, but realizes that it's no use. She shows her friend some of the pictures, flipping extra quickly through the personal ones.
"Gee, what year were these from?"
"Our third year," she estimates. It had to be, that was the year when things were best, before Gale moved to the city and before they started doing long distance.
"Feels like yesterday."
"Yeah," she exhales, putting the stack back in their box and places them on the shelf. "It sure does."
"Are you alright?" Jo asks earnestly, crossing her legs next to her friend. She's always been observant, and maybe she'll know even better than Madge herself, what is wrong with her.
"I'm okay. Just, everything stresses me out lately. I thought I was done with neuroticism."
"No one is 'done' with neuroticism," she replies, rolling her eyes and scooching closer. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I don't know if there's anything to talk about. I think it's just a combination of things I'm dealing with. Everything feels so hostile, even though I know nothing is personal."
"Like what?"
"Like today KoKo said that she wanted to go over to Gale's when I asked her what she wanted to do," Madge blurts, alleviating some pent of anxiety.
Jo laughs softly, and that's how Madge knows she was being silly. "Hey, being shocked by that is a perfectly valid response to something when it's already been a bad day. But know that it doesn't mean anything. KoKo probably says the exact same thing to Hawthorne all the time."
"But I know that he doesn't deal with it by sulking and taking it to heart," she points out. Maybe Gale isn't all calm and cool composure like the way she always sees him, but she doesn't have any evidence to prove the contrary.
"Please, if anyone were to take something too personally, it would be him," her friend jokes, making Madge laugh a little bit and shrug silently. "Is that all?"
"No," she shrugs, thinking about what Finnick was talking out this afternoon. "I don't know, do you think that we're 'too cordial' with each other?"
"What does that even mean?"
"Like, too polite. Awkwardly so."
"Hm." Jo stops to think for a second. She seems to already have an answer, just not a good way to frame it. "I think that you guys have a lot of things to deal with, and it's kind of weird how you choose not to deal with them and just pretend nothing is wrong." That makes sense, Madge feels the exact same way. But what else are they supposed to do? It can't just be constant arguing all the time, there has to be some sort of equilibrium. "You know, the whole thing with Gale's family, your parents, unresolved feelings…"
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Unresolved feelings?" Madge stares at her best friend, not really sure how to approach this concept.
"Sure. I mean, if I'm wrong and there's nothing, then that's fine. But you can't speak for Gale. And you two didn't break up because you didn't love each other anymore. It was other things, time, circumstance, whatever. You guys never dealt with that."
"Well when we realized we'd be raising a kid together, all of that mushy stuff kind of fell through my list of priorities," Madge admits, not really knowing how else to put it. Even though she knew it wasn't true, feelings just felt like a juvenile thing. She didn't have time to deal with the fact that her love just broke her heart when she was about to become a mother. There were short-term bursts of emotion, but she's been trying to hold it in.
"Look, I'm not saying you should go to couples therapy or something, I'm just saying you should keep it in mind when you guys are talking. That there's a lot of things undealt with that should be dealt with."
"Thanks Jo," she concludes, knowing that they could talk about this forever but shouldn't, for her own well being. Madge hates discussing Gale's hypothetical empathy and emotion and pondering about what if's. "Kota's birthday is next week. Things will be good then, I hope."
"They definitely will be. I'll be there," her friend grins, definitely never wanting to miss an opportunity to play with KoKo at the park.
But even while she says that things will be okay, she doesn't completely believe it. Because Madge is Madge, she can only listen to Jo comfort her so long before the stressful thoughts start building up again. And it pains her because even if what her best friend said was right, and that there were unresolved feeling between them, she wouldn't know how to sort those feelings out.
For now though, she'll pretend.
A/N: No Gale today, sorry. You'll get plenty of him next chapter! And then the chapter after that will be the flashback chapter, which I'm so excited about.