Phoebe and the Rock of Ages

by Becky Doughty

  Trevor reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, gripping the taut muscles that gave evidence to the turmoil inside his friend. Juliette, too, stepped closer, sliding an arm around her fiancé’s waist.

  Gia whispered something to Ricky, and the two of them slipped out of the room. Trevor acknowledged their sensitivity as they angled past him.

  No one spoke for a few moments, but silence was not an uncommon state around Vic. He didn’t talk unless he had something to say, and he didn’t require that anyone else fill in the blank spaces, either. Trevor was certain Juliette knew that about the man she loved, and when she rested her head against Vic’s chest and closed her eyes, he couldn’t help but thank God, once again, for bringing the perfect woman into his friend’s life. She wasn’t demanding answers or panicking about what might be wrong. No, she was simply offering her man comfort with her quiet presence.

  Victor finally took a deep breath and let it out slowly before saying, “I think you nailed it, Taz.” His voice caught on the old nickname. “That last song, Broken Man? It’s as though you put my life to music. I’m that guy; the one who looks everywhere but here.” He pressed a fist into his sternum.

  Trevor nodded, but didn’t speak, giving Victor the time he needed to put his thoughts and emotions into words. “I’m the guy who works like a maniac to set things right in the world…but this—this—” he thumped his chest with his knuckles—“this is where it needs to start. Every day, I need to start with me. If I’m not willing to work on me, then who am I to try to get anyone else to change?”

  Juliette still leaned against Victor, her eyes open now, studying their shoes, but Trevor knew she was listening to every word. She kept silent, though, letting the guys have the air space.

  “I think I just forget. I forget that my salvation isn’t my own doing. I forget that when I make rules and regiments and criteria and scales, that I turn God into a—” he paused, seemingly at a loss for words. “I don’t know. Into a preservation device, I suppose. If I can live up to the rules and regiments and criteria, then God will preserve me. But what am I preserving? A black heart?”

  “Like a hyperbaric chamber,” Juliette murmured.

  “What?” Victor asked, leaning away from her a little so he could look down at her face.

  “A hyperbaric chamber? One of those things Michael Jackson used, you know? I know what you mean, Vic. It’s like we’re trying to preserve this…this person we’ve worked so hard to become—with all our terrible plastic surgery and failed attempts to be perfect—as though what we bring to God is even worth preserving at all.”

  Victor chuckled and hugged her tightly. “Exactly. Me and M.J. in our hyperbaric chambers.”

  Trevor nodded and grinned, happy for his friend. Juliette’s transparency, her unabashed willingness to say what was on her heart, was so refreshing and endearing, and he found himself once again thinking of Phoebe. He didn’t begrudge Victor Juliette, not by any means, but it was moments like these when his own empty arms mocked him, and his heart ached.

  “You nailed it,” Vic said again. “You’re going to stir up a hornet’s nest with this. This album is going to shed a whole lot of light into the dark corners of the church body everywhere, and I have a feeling there will be some who won’t care for that kind of exposure. You know I’ll be praying for you—I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

  “I will too,” Juliette chimed in.

  Trevor nodded again. “I appreciate your prayers. And thanks for the feedback. I needed to hear you say these things today, Vic. I appreciate it.”

  Victor turned to look over his shoulder toward the door that led into the Trevor’s living room. “Ricky? Gia? Come on back.”

  The teenagers returned, Ricky leading the way, his hands shoved into the back pocket of his skinny jeans. “Everything okay?” he asked, his tone casual, but his eyes wide with concern. Gia stood behind him with a similar expression. They’d obviously been talking about what might be going on.

  “All is well,” Victor assured them. He didn’t expound, and Trevor thought that might be just fine with Ricky. He figured Gia could talk to Juliette later if she wanted more information. “Just thought you might want to join us as we pray for your cousin and this new project,” Vic said.

  They all bowed their heads together, overwhelming Trevor with their requests for God’s blessing and protection, and for their friendship made richer because of their shared beliefs.

  Just as Victor closed the impromptu prayer, Juliette’s phone started vibrating in her back pocket.

  “It’s Ren,” she reported, sliding open the screen to read her text. She looked up at the sound of a water drop; Gia had just received a text, too. “She’s at Phoebe’s place—what is she doing there?—and she’s calling for an Emergency G-FOURce.”

  Gia held her phone up and nodded in affirmation. “Yep.”

  “Sorry, guys,” Juliette said, looking back and forth between the men. “This doesn’t happen very often, and if Ren and Phoebe say it’s an emergency G-FOURce, then that’s because there’s an emergency.”

  Her phone buzzed again, and Gia’s echoed it with another water drop. “A sleepover? At Phoebe’s?”

  “That’s what mine says, too.” Gia looked just as stunned as Juliette, but Trevor wasn’t surprised. In fact, if he were to guess, he might think that one of his prayers was in the process of being answered. An emergency G-FOURce after the evening Phoebe had shared with him could only mean one of two things. Phoebe was either calling for his blood, or she was going to tell her sisters about Lily.

  “Looks like you three will have to fend for yourselves tonight. Will you be okay?” Juliette asked, always looking out for everyone.

  “We’ll be fine,” Victor assured her.

  “We’ll have a boys-only sleepover,” Ricky quipped. “We’ll have extreme meat pizzas and all-bacon burgers.”

  “Go,” Trevor said. “And tell Phoebe I’m still praying.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  By the time Juliette and Gia arrived at Phoebe’s door, she and Renata had sorted through all the sordid details of that awful night fourteen years ago, and the difficult journey they’d walked since. Renata had grieved with her, for all of it, everything from the loss of their parents, to the loss of Phoebe’s childhood, to the ongoing pain of losing Lily, brought so acutely to the surface by the birth of Charise.

  When Renata suggested she tell the rest of the family, Phoebe had balked, not sure she could do it all again anytime soon, if at all. She didn’t want to see Grandpa or Granny G’s faces. But Ren had insisted they not wait, at least to tell the other two sisters. “We can tell the grandparents later. When you’re ready,” she’d said.

  Phoebe hadn’t missed the we her sister used, and it warmed her heart and made her brave.

  “But we’re a team, Phoebe,” Renata continued. “We’re the G-FOURce. The Gustafson Four. You shouldn’t have had to go through this alone; that’s what the G-FOURce is all about. When we stay quiet, we only cheat each other out of opportunities to do what we do best. We stand together. We love each other unconditionally. We hold each other up and come to each other’s rescue. Like all of you have for me these last nine months, especially. Like we did for Juliette…although that kind of backfired, didn’t it?” Renata laughed at how disastrous the Monday ManDates intervention plan had turned out to be. “Like we’ll most certainly have to do for Gia one day whenever that girl discovers her teenage rebellious streak.”

  “She’s only got two more years and then she won’t be able to use the teenager thing as an excuse anymore.”

  “Wow, Phoebe. Can you believe it? We were just talking about when she came home from the hospital, and suddenly, Gia is an eighteen-year-old adult! I can hardly wrap my head around that one,” Renata declared.

  And so, over Granny G’s yummy tuna noodle casserole—she’d insisted on sending over a meal when Gia told her about the sleepover—the box of pastr
ies from Mona’s Market—Juliette’s usual offering—Phoebe’s Italian Roast coffee, and Renata’s contribution, the truth fairy Baby Charise, Phoebe told her story. Again. For the third time in less than twenty-four hours.

  And this time, with the weight of it all spread equally on all four sets of shoulders, the burden was somehow easier to bear. In fact, Phoebe found that she could even hold her head up again. And with her head up, she could look around her, and she could see her sisters beside her, standing with her. For her.

  She wasn’t alone anymore.

  ~ ~ ~

  Phoebe had slept so much the night before that she lay awake, listening to her sisters slumbering on the floor around her. They’d pulled all the cushions off the couches and chairs, brought down most of Phoebe’s bedding from the loft, as well as a couple of extra blankets and pillows she kept in the hall closet, and had created Pillowland on her living room floor. It was so peaceful, so reassuring—it really was like hearing God breathing, even though she knew it was her sisters—but wasn’t that pretty much the same thing? Weren’t her sisters God personified in her time of need? Isn’t that what she’d heard Grandpa G say time and again?

  “We are the body of Christ. We’re his hands and feet. His voice and his ears. We need to be God’s representative to those around us.”

  If that was the case, then this night, this pile of pillows and blankets, and the love of her sisters—their willingness to drop everything and come to her side—was one more bit of evidence of who God was. One more way he was reaching out to her to show her that he loved her, that he could be trusted.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Renata got up to nurse her hungry baby girl. She sat with her back propped against a pile of pillows, Charise in the crook of her arm. Phoebe rose up on one elbow and smiled in the dim light from a night light she’d plugged in so no one would stumble around in the dark during a bathroom run.

  “Hey,” Renata whispered.

  “Hey,” Phoebe whispered back.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “I slept more than twelve hours last night. You woke me up when you came to see me.”

  Renata laughed. “That would do it.”

  A moment passed, and then Phoebe said, “Thank you for coming to me today. For not waiting for me to come to you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Then she added, “You’d do the same for me. You have done the same for me.”

  “Still, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  A few minutes later, Charise produced a sound that let them know she’d just filled her diaper. “Of course,” Renata groaned. “You couldn’t wait until morning for that?”

  Phoebe pushed herself up before Renata could. “Give her to me. I’ll change her. You sleep.”

  “What’s going on?” asked a sleepy Gia.

  “Poopy diaper,” Juliette answered from beneath another pile of blankets.

  “I’m going to go change her in the bathroom. Go back to sleep,” Phoebe said.

  “Just change her in here,” Juliette suggested, sitting up. “I need to use the toilet.”

  “I don’t mind,” Gia agreed. “Just warn me if you’re going to turn on the light so I can keep my eyes closed.”

  “I’m turning on the light, then,” Phoebe laughed, reaching for the pull string of one of the myriad decorative lamps around the living room. “I’m not about to attempt changing a poopy diaper in the dark.”

  By the time Juliette returned, Charise had on a clean diaper, Gia was still burrowed under her heap of blankets, but she’d created a tunnel so she could look out at her sisters without having to see the lamp, and Renata lay curled on her side, not quite asleep. “You can put her in the carrier when you’re finished holding her,” Ren said, waving a hand at the contraption they’d brought in from the car.

  After Juliette had settled back in, Phoebe turned off the light, and the darkness settled around them again. She held Charise close to her chest so she could watch the little face in the faint light shining from the hallway.

  “You need to call that man in the morning.” It was Renata.

  “I thought you were asleep.” Phoebe whispered.

  “She’s right,” Juliette chimed in.

  “Who? Taz?’ asked Gia. “If you mean Taz, then bells, yes! Call him.”

  “Love at first sight,” Renata said. “I’m a believer.”

  Gia giggled. “I’m a believer.”

  “I guess I’m a believer, too, then,” Juliette said. “At least Vic claims it to be true, so if you’re all in agreement, then I’ll go with it.”

  After a long pause, Phoebe echoed her sisters. “I’m a believer, too.” But she didn’t just mean she believed in love at first sight. Although she believed in that, too.

  Something about the way she said it must have sounded odd. Juliette sat up straight and turned on the light again. “What?”

  Gia and Renata both groaned, and Phoebe covered Charise’s open eyes.

  “What did you just say?” Juliette asked, her sleepy gaze fixed on Phoebe’s face.

  “I’m a believer, too,” she repeated. “I believe in love at first sight. And—” A quick burst of uncertainty swept through her, but she quelled it with one look down at Charise. “I believe in God. I trust him with all of this.”

  Juliette scrambled out from under her blankets and threw her arms around Phoebe and Charise. Gia wasn’t far behind.

  Renata muttered, “Can you four bring the hug-fest to me? I’m too tired to move.”

  So they did, giggling and tickling, complaining about bad breath and too-sharp elbows. They took turns snuggling with Charise for a few more minutes, and then Phoebe tucked the droopy-eyed baby into her carrier and crawled under the blankets herself. Maybe she’d sleep now.

  “You’re going to call him, right?” Renata persisted.

  “Oh. My. Gosh, Rennie. Go to sleep!”

  “You’re going to call him, right?”

  “Yes! I’m going to call him, you crazy woman.”

  “Good. Now I can sleep.”

  “Me, too,” Juliette muttered.

  Gia’s muffled voice came from under her blankets. “Me, too.”

  “Me, too,” Phoebe said. “I love you guys.”

  A peaceful stillness settled after an outburst of ‘I love you, toos’ from around the room.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Early the next morning, before anyone else was awake, Phoebe tiptoed upstairs to her loft and slipped into a thick terry cloth bathrobe the color of French lavender. Each of the girls had one from Granny G: Juliette’s was pink, Renata’s was peach, and Gia had a blue one that matched her crystalline eyes. Her phone was still on her night table where she’d left it all week long, completely powered down. Greatly relieved to find it was still at more than 50% charged, she began tapping in a text to Trevor. It was too early to call, but this way, he’d see it as soon as he got up.

  Good morning, Trevor. Phoebe here. I have some freshly-ground Italian Roast ready to be brewed. I was wondering how you take your morning coffee and if you’d like to take it here with me. Call me when you wake up.

  She pushed send, and then she tapped out one more text. BTW, I said yes to God last night. I’m not going to run, Trevor. You don’t have to wait anymore.

  She swiped the phone off and stood to go back downstairs when the screen lit up in her hand. She grinned at the sight of Trevor’s name.

  “Hi,” she said, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t disturb the sleeping beauties downstairs. “Did I wake you?”

  “Hi, yourself.” His voice had a hint of gravel in it. “You did, but it’s all good.”

  “I’m sorry.” Phoebe felt awful. “It’s so early. I should have waited to text you.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he assured her. “I can’t think of a better way to wake up.”

  Phoebe smiled and sat back down on her bed, leaning her back against the padded headboa
rd. She wished she’d brought her comforter back upstairs with her, but last she’d seen it, Gia had rolled herself up in it like a piggy in a blanket. Mon cochon, My wee piglet. It didn’t matter that Gia was now the tallest of the Gustafson Girls—she towered over Phoebe and Renata and had finally passed Juliette up a year ago—she would always be their little sister.

  She pulled the lapels of her robe closed and tucked her feet underneath her. “So how does coffee sound? Maybe in an hour?” She hadn’t anticipated he’d be awake and ready any time soon. She might have to kick her sisters out in order to have him over.

  “Actually, I will have to wait a little longer. Remember? I can’t be alone in your house with you.” He chuckled dryly. She liked the way his voice sounded first thing in the morning. I could get used to that, she thought. “Which could create a problem since I’d like to hire you to do my album cover.”

  “Oh, really?” The man and his rules. But she was still smiling; his response didn’t surprise her at all. He was a man of strong convictions and she was learning to appreciate him for it.

  “You said you wanted to photograph me, right? Well, here’s your chance. You can take as many pictures of me as you’d like if you’ll say ‘yes’ to doing my album art.”

  Of course she was going to say ‘yes,’ but she had to play a little hard to get, didn’t she? “Well, we do seem to have a dilemma then, don’t we? My studio is in my house, after all. You’ll have to come inside if you want me for the job.” She was actually thrilled at the prospect of photographing him; she couldn’t wait to find out what he had in mind.

  “I’ll come inside your house any day, Phoebe. Just not when we’re alone anymore.” He hesitated only a moment and then said, “Not if you’re going to share your fries with me, force me to slow dance with you, and then try to lure me up to your loft bedroom with the promise of coffee ambrosia.”