Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel

by Herta Feely

  She didn’t remember how she got there, but she found herself sitting fully clothed on one of the toilets studying her feet, her small Swiss Army knife in one hand. The sadness and pain that had raged through her were beginning to subside, though she felt a killer headache coming on. Her left sleeve was rolled up and wads of bloody toilet paper were stuck to her arm.

  Today Phoebe was grateful that Jessie had a different lunch schedule, something that had happened when Jessie’s classes had shifted a few days ago. There was no way she wanted to see her. Bad enough they had biology together. Each time she even thought about what Jessie had done, fury galloped through her. How could she?

  Between morning classes, Phoebe searched for Emma, but her friend seemed absent from school. Finally, in the lunchroom she sat beside Skyla and blurted out the entire sordid story, hardly caring who heard, though only Skyla’s entourage – Molly, Cara, Daisy and a few others – sat within hearing range and listened with rapt attention.

  “So Noah is going with Jessie? I thought she was your friend?” Skyla said, underscoring the word friend.

  “I guess she thought it would be okay since I couldn’t go.” Phoebe could see the crazy logic in Jessie’s move, but still.

  Skyla arched her brows in her usual dramatic way. “Yeah, right.”

  Already Phoebe regretted having told her. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Do you still want to go?” Skyla asked in a silky voice.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a little,” she conceded.

  “Well, who would be your second choice?”

  Phoebe thought for a moment. She almost said, Dylan, but she wouldn’t do what Jessie had done. She shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “I know. Let me ask Kevin or Max if they have a friend for you. How about that? You don’t mind that he might be a sophomore?” Her tone was teasing and sly.

  The idea appealed to Phoebe more than she could have imagined and her spirits lifted. Still, she couldn’t believe she wouldn’t be going with Noah. Without realizing it she touched her arm where she’d wounded herself earlier. If she did go there’d be no sleeveless dress for her. She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should get going,” she said. She wanted to avoid running into Jessie at all cost.

  Before her last class, Phoebe stared emptily down the double row of lockers on the second floor, hoping to find Emma there. How would she get through biology? She’d thought of a dozen things to say to Jessie and a dozen ways to act, but on entering the classroom, she struggled to maintain her composure, her emotions as readily apparent as if stamped on her face.

  “What’s your problem?” Jessie asked, her eyebrows dipping into a V.

  “My problem? What’s yours? You asked Noah to the dance. What were you thinking?”

  She seemed confused by the question and hesitated before responding. “What d’you mean? Now you don’t have to worry that he’ll ask somebody else. I thought you’d be happy.” Jessie stood with one arm on her hip, looking aggrieved and slightly disgusted.

  “Happy? I’m totally NOT happy! Why didn’t you text me first? Then you would have known my mom said I could go.”

  “Yeah, and if you’d texted me last night none of this would have happened either. It’s your stupid mother’s fault, not mine.”

  Phoebe turned away. For several minutes she and Jessie refused to look at each other. Then Jessie said, “Anyway, I’ll tell Noah he can go with you.”

  “It’s ruined, Jess.” She shook her head.

  “Yeah? Well, here’s a crazy idea; why don’t you stop talking about me to Skyla!”

  When biology ended she ran into the bathroom again and cried. It took her several minutes not to look like a clown with red-rimmed eyes.

  Isabel was in the kitchen fixing dinner.

  “What are you doing home?” Phoebe snarled.

  “That’s a nice greeting,” Isabel said, giving her daughter a sidelong glance from her place by the stove, where she was stirring Phoebe’s favorite dumpling soup. “I thought it would be nice to have supper waiting for all of you.”

  Isabel was about to offer her daughter a snack, but before the words escaped her lips Phoebe shouted, “Oh, so you can feel like you’re being the good mom? But who cares about food when you don’t have friends? When your whole life is messed up?”

  “What on earth is going on?” Isabel couldn’t believe what she was hearing, not after last night’s embrace, after the best evening they’d spent together in a while. What had happened?

  Phoebe’s words tumbled out willy nilly, tears streaming down her face, as Isabel tried to make sense of them. As best she could tell Noah was going to the dance with someone else, Phoebe refused to say with whom, and the reason for that of course was all her fault, though Phoebe now was also angry with Noah. And for some indiscernible reason Phoebe was now relegated to attending the dance with “some loser” that Kevin or Max would find for her.

  Isabel wanted to ask who Kevin and Max were, but knew better than to interrupt her distraught girl. Clearly, an avalanche of pent-up resentment had broken loose. Isabel rounded the counter to put an arm around her, but Phoebe recoiled. “Don’t freaking touch me!”

  Isabel took a step back. Trying to keep her tone neutral, she said evenly but sternly, “Do not use language like that on me, young lady.”

  Phoebe scrunched her face in anger and mocked her mother. “Young lady? Well, thanks to you this young lady’s life sucks!”

  Isabel felt like yelling back, reminding Phoebe that she’d caused her own mess, but restrained herself by counting. Ten, nine, eight…seven…Who am I angry with? she thought. In that moment she truly didn’t know. Six, five, four…What do I really want now? She knew it was to get Phoebe to calm down. Once that happened she’d pour herself a little wine. Hopefully a teenage Jackson wouldn’t prove as difficult.

  At once Phoebe burst into tears. She slumped onto a bar-stool at the kitchen counter and released deep gulping sobs. Isabel watched her a moment before saying, “Oh, Phoebe darling, come here, honey. You’ve had a bad day, but it’ll be okay. You’ll see. I promise.” She opened her arms to her daughter, and though at first Phoebe resisted, with a bit more coaxing, she collapsed into them.

  That evening, as arranged by Skyla and her date Max, a sophomore named Michael called Phoebe on her cell phone and invited her to the dance. Without even thinking about it, she accepted. Shortly after the call, she looked him up on Facebook, and there he was. Not bad looking. Kind of cute even.

  A while later, Jessie texted her. I’m sorry. It’s not too late. You can still go with him.

  Phoebe texted back. Too late. Going with Michael Singer.

  The next day Michael approached her at her locker, seemed nice enough, and the drama that had heaved and pitched inside of her settled down. Of course, she would still prefer to be going with Noah, but if that wasn’t to be, oh, well.

  At home that night, Phoebe asked her mom to help her pick out a dress for the dance the following weekend, to which her mother responded, “Of course, honey, I’d love to.”

  Phoebe could tell that her mother’s huge smile was genuine. They hadn’t gone shopping together in quite a while, and she was looking forward to it as well. Only then did she remember all the gashes and wounds on her arm and thighs. Her stomach felt sick. How would she hide them in the dressing room? What would her mother do if she saw? Guilt and shame slid through her in equal measure. Maybe she would go alone, though the thought of it made her want to weep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Friday, October 10, 2008

  Sandy often found comfort cruising Westfield Mall, her second favorite place in the world, after her own home. Over the course of her fifteen years with Bill, she’d spent countless hours dipping in and out of stores, and so on Friday, still trying to erase the memory of the email from Mrs. Watson and that awful meeting with Isabel and Ms. Kendall, she decided to do the thing that most soothed her soul and took her mind off her troubles: she would go shopp
ing.

  Golf alone just wasn’t any fun. Today, the mere thought of golf brought on the long ago memory of her final date with her stepfather, Les. But now was not the time, and so she chased this tangent from her mind.

  After a quick coffee with a neighbor she’d recently befriended, Sandy spent several hours of concentrated effort poking through sale racks, searching for items on Jessie’s wish list and making nearly a dozen purchases.

  Around one o’clock, her arms weighed down by shopping bags, she decided to hunt for a place to have coffee, and maybe, just maybe, she’d treat herself to dessert. Sandy knew she ought to have a salad or a cup of soup, but just then the urge to satisfy her sweet tooth was winning out.

  The habit had developed in her teens, when she’d slipped over to Mrs. Eddinger’s Nantucket-style cottage across the street to escape yet another of her mother’s dreadful silences, the occasional memory of which could still bring tears to her eyes. No matter the time of day, Mrs. E had welcomed Sandy, had had gentle words for her and something sweet to eat. Entering her home, Sandy would relax into the elderly woman’s soothing voice, and the rich, sumptuous world of cakes, pastries, cookies, and pies.

  Now, it was a habit she fought. If she didn’t, she knew she’d end up like Margaret – what she called her mother on those rare occasions they talked, only twice since Jessie’s birth – who’d eventually lost her pretty figure. She brushed away that memory too as she came upon the café outside Nordstrom’s, where several people stood in line.

  Sandy plopped her bags on the floor as her eyes took in the assortment of pastries: thickly frosted carrot cake, lemon meringue pie (fluffy meringue piled high), chocolate decadence cake (one of her favorites), vanilla-frosted cupcakes, a variety of scones, and a pear tart. Though the slice of chocolate decadence beckoned her, she chose the lemon meringue pie. Fewer calories, and she wouldn’t eat the crust, or at least not all of it.

  “I’ll have a tall coffee,” she said to the teenager behind the counter, “and leave room for cream.” Pointing the long fuchsia nail of her index finger at the pie, she added, “And that. Yummy. It’s fresh, right?”

  The girl gave a disinterested nod as she went through the motions of preparing a cup of coffee. “For here or to go?”

  Sandy smiled brightly. “For here. I can hardly stand up with all these bags. Need a quick pick-me-up, you know.”

  “Yep.”

  Sandy’s enthusiasm refused to be diminished by the girl’s tepid response. She chose the nearest empty table and seated herself so she had a view of the mall. She sighed audibly after taking a sip of the creamy coffee and tasting her first bite of pie. “That is sooo good,” she muttered softly. “Mmmm.”

  Sandy had developed into a woman of indulgence only after she’d left home and after Bill began pampering her and making it his mission to make mounds of money for her to spend. He was the most generous man she knew. And, luckily, he harbored little jealousy. After a night of flirtation with other men at a party, she always made sure to be extra sexy for him. Made sure he knew she’d always be there for him. Made sure he knew that he was her number one.

  She gazed at the shopping bags, several of which contained items for Jessie, who’d been out of sorts the previous night. After considerable wheedling, she’d gotten Jess to reveal how hurt and angry Phoebe had been because she’d invited Noah to the dance. To ease Jessie’s confused feelings, she’d bought not just one but two dresses for the fall dance at Nordstrom’s, jeans from J. Crew, a white t-shirt from Banana Republic, and a strapless black bra from Victoria’s Secret.

  She never tired of seeing the expression of happiness on Jessie’s face when she bought her something, an item casually mentioned while she and Jessie chatted in the kitchen over a snack. Something that had ground to a halt at a critical moment in her own life.

  She took a sip of coffee, dipped her fork into the lemon curd, and began running her mind over old memories the way others ran fingers over old scars. It wasn’t often that she indulged or so subjected herself, but recent events prompted this train of thought. The way Isabel seemed to ignore and dislike her felt much like Margaret, who had, at times, spurned and envied her own daughter. For the natural curves of her youthful figure, because of Les’s wandering hands. But what could she have done? Her mother should have protected her – thrown her stepfather out of the house, not her.

  Adopting her mother’s words, Sandy had told a few of her very closest high school friends, “It’s a story as old as the hills.” She imagined that one or two had passed her account along, despite having sworn to secrecy.

  Of course that wasn’t the real story. And not the whole story that she’d kept to herself all these years. Even though Sandy hadn’t been the smartest girl in her class, she was clever enough to understand human nature. And she knew that women tended to gossip, especially about something as juicy and salacious as this. Salacious wouldn’t have been Sandy’s word, but that’s what it was.

  Now, as she took another bite of the lemon custard, she thought about events that had transpired more than half a lifetime ago.

  When Les—that was his name—had entered her life, she’d just turned fifteen. The first time she saw him, she couldn’t believe that such a handsome man was interested in her mother. Of course she’d failed to recall her mother’s once-upon-a-time beauty, by then a bit faded, but she remained elegant and attractive nonetheless. Besides, her mother had fallen into a small inheritance upon the death of her parents. Something that never hurt a woman, especially one with children, when it came to attracting a man.

  Not only was Les handsome, but he also had that rare thing called charm. And it drew Sandy because she’d spent so much time in the company of a mother who’d lost interest in her. The divorce had been difficult for her mother, but afterward the fact that Sandy had been her father’s favorite seemed to taint her. Never again would she have the same closeness with her mother as her sister Ashley, with whom Margaret often cuddled up to read bedtime stories. Perhaps for that reason, Sandy found herself hungering for attention, like a flower hungers for sun. Early to develop into a shapely and luscious girl, Sandy fell readily into boys’ kisses. So many boys. And for a time, this had stemmed the tide of her needs.

  One night, not long after Les married Margaret, which also wasn’t long after Sandy’s sixteenth birthday in May of 1993, her mother announced over the dinner table that she was going out with a group of women friends and that Les shouldn’t wait up for her. Sandy glanced at Les to see what he would say. For the briefest moment their eyes met, latching onto each other like sky and sea, and his mouth turned upward into a glimmer of a smile.

  Her mother left shortly thereafter, and the two of them went about cleaning up the dishes. Light banter, a bit of joking turned more serious when Les suddenly said, “So, tell me about your boyfriends.”

  The comment took Sandy aback because she didn’t know what he was after. “What do you mean?” she said.

  He rubbed a dishtowel across a shiny metal lid and lifted it up to see if it was properly dried. Sandy imagined he was examining his own striking, dark haired, blue-eyed image. “Well, do you like what they do to you?” he asked.

  “Do to me?”

  “Sure,” he said with a half smile, “the way they – ” he paused then as if evaluating his choice of words, “the way they, uh, kiss you?”

  She laughed at him. “Why, do you want to kiss me?” The words slid out smoothly, playfully. Daringly. She wasn’t sure whether her question had been an innocent flirtation or an invitation, but regardless it led to the next thing, which was him leaning in to kiss her. And she kissing him back. A long, slow, delicious kiss.

  The experience didn’t resemble the inexpert kissing of most boys she knew. Nor did the sensations he aroused in her approximate anything she’d felt with any teenage guy. What happened that night ignited something. A sensuality that radiated throughout her body, a desire that beckoned from between her legs.

  From that n
ight on they met often, simplified by the fact that as a freelance writer and video producer, Les mostly worked from home. His sensitive touch drove her wild. And it hadn’t taken long before they’d gone all the way. Despite everything else that happened, even now she relished the memory.

  Still, it was the worst kind of wrong to know you wanted something you shouldn’t have, and she thought he felt that way too. They never spoke of their taboo activity, and perhaps by not giving voice to it they were able to hang on to a fictional version of events.

  Being a fast learner, Sandy taught many a boy to better love and satisfy her, but few came close to those times with Les. During the summer, he also began teaching her the finer points of golf, a sport she became increasingly fond of and good at. On the way to and from they’d stop in assorted places. A remote bathroom in the country club, the lavish basement of one of Les’s friends, the backseat of his Range Rover.

  She felt daring and each encounter thrilled her until she began to feel dissonance in the air. Between herself and her mother. Her mother and Les. What she couldn’t know was that the sexual tension between herself and Les was palpable. It electrified the rooms they occupied. Her mother didn’t need evidence to know of its existence. She sensed it with every cell of her being. And resented it. Began resenting Sandy even more than before.

  This brought Sandy to the part of the story she didn’t like to remember. And with practiced precision, she turned off the memory like a spigot stops the flow of water.

  The idea that someone might uncover pieces of her past sometimes petrified her. Bill, especially, couldn’t know the way she’d deceived him. Surely he’d leave her. Their recent move to Bethesda had helped. When asked about her roots, she remained vague. “Baltimore area. So boring I had to come live near the President. And yes, I have been to the White House,” she’d say, beaming. She didn’t exactly lie, because she, along with hundreds of tourists, had visited the White House, but she certainly had no qualms about twisting the truth. The distinctions between the two had become malleable. “What’s the difference as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone?” she’d think. Though whether hurting someone truly bothered Sandy, well, that was questionable.