Two Bar Mitzvahs (No Weddings #3)(36)

A sniff sounded on the other line. “Cade, I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.” Her voice caught. A whimper sounded.

Fuck. I sat back down. “Madison, are you crying?”

Silence. Another sniff. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’m trying not to. I’ve never felt like this before.”

My mind spun. Memories flooded in of a time in our pasts, before we began dating in college, when she’d come to me after a bad breakup. But even so, Madison had rarely cried. Back then, her breakdowns began happening after the same upsetting situations with guys repeated themselves.

A twinge of guilt tripped through me, from treating her so harshly, over not giving the vulnerable girl I knew existed somewhere inside of her the benefit of the doubt. “Felt like what?”

“Out of control.”

I huffed out a dry laugh. “We never have control. It’s all an illusion. You know that.” We’d talked about it many times on the lawn at Penn State, when she’d been trying to sort out her personal life with me as a sounding board.

She inhaled a shaky breath. “I just want so much. I want people to like me again. I want you to like me again. But all I keep doing is screwing things up.”

I leaned back in Ben’s chair, staring at the ceiling. “You’re trying too hard, Maddie.”

“Maddie?” Her voice wavered with a mixture of surprise and hope.

I cringed. I hadn’t meant to use the nickname. But within the span of a couple of minutes, we’d fallen back into ingrained roles: Madison hurt and needing comfort, me providing it.

Not skipping a beat, I glossed over the slipup. “Stop trying so hard. You’ve done this before. You get so focused on the next thing you want, you forget how to treat other people. You forget yourself.”

“I have done this before.” Her amazed tone made it sound like a new revelation.

“Yeah. It’s why you had such trouble keeping friends. Why you don’t have any now. Relationships of all kinds, friends included, take acts of selflessness. Generosity. Your wants don’t figure into that equation. If all you’re focused on is what you want, and what you want involves people, you will never get it.”

Ed popped his head into the office. “We’re all set here.”

I gave him a nod and held the phone away from my mouth. “The bill’s covered?”

On a nod, he tore a report off a clipboard and handed it to me. “Yep. Part of the contract Ben set up. We’re square.”

“Thanks, man.” He headed out as I put the report under a stapler on the center of Ben’s desk.

“Sorry. Taking care of things at the bar.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to interrupt. So do you forgive me?”

I sighed. “Look, Madison. You say you want to be my friend, yet you verbally attacked someone I care about. Don’t. Walk softer. Be kinder. No one will want to be around you unless you attract them. And that happens when you find the good in yourself and share it with others.”

I heard her shaky inhale. Then she blew out a breath. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

She sniffed again. “Yeah. I could do that. Slow down. Be nice.”

Madison was so not nice to Hannah. Reforming would be difficult for Madison. But she had been nice for a time. I’d helped her get there once. “Nice would be a great start.”

***

Tuesday night. Another three-day stretch without seeing Hannah had gone by and it seemed like forever. Dinners had been suspended, and we communicated by text and phone call. She’d been slammed at the bakery, though, and I had inventory at Loading Zone and planning for the next two events. Shit had to get done. Yet even with our minimal contact after Loading Zone’s party, it had become clear that although no lasting damage had been done with Madison’s meddling, superficial wounds had been inflicted. Whenever we spoke about the double bar mitzvah, or my communications with Madison, Hannah’s easygoing spirit hardened.

Sitting on Hannah’s living room floor, my laptop and electronic notepad being furiously used with all the emailing and note-taking, was another one of those tense moments. On the cusp of an upcoming ten days of crazy, we had to buckle down and deal with collateral damage as best we could.

“…but Madison called you?”

“Yeah. Crying. She apologized for screwing things up. I feel sorry for her, actually. She doesn’t know how to make friends like normal people do.”

“Because she tries too hard.” Hannah’s tone deadened. “She could begin by apologizing to me.”

“Agreed. But she may need shock therapy to make that kind of recovery.”

Her gaze drifted down to the rug under us, eyes narrowing. “Did your sisters make any progress with Madison at the club the other night? Any discoveries?”

I shook my head. “Kristen said Madison was on her best behavior before she left the VIP area. Either she has nothing to do with the sabotage, or she’s very good at deception. Speaking from personal experience, I’m going with the latter.”

“I wish you didn’t have to deal directly with her.” She lifted another piece of pizza out of the box from the pepperoni and mushroom side.

On a sigh, I stretched my legs out and crossed them. I perched my arm along the couch cushion above me, putting her within touching distance. Then I rubbed my thumb on the soft skin on her neck, bared from her ponytail. “I don’t. Suzanne is my contact, but Madison replies when in a mood, which is a lot lately. Kristen offered to step in, but the extra burden isn’t fair to her. She is point on my parents’ party, and with Mom’s demanding details, Kristen has her work cut out for her.”