Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel

by Herta Feely

  “Is that a sweet potato pie?” she asked, and when the answer was yes, she requested a slice, her eyes widening with delight, and her stomach suddenly ravenous. She could hardly remember the last time she’d eaten any real food, not that pie constituted a meal. She wolfed it down and considered having a second piece. Or maybe some eggs.

  The smells and sounds of cooking filtered out of the kitchen.

  Like a child, she took a couple of turns on the bar stool, then stopped to gaze outside. For a time, she watched the surf. A black pick-up swung into the parking lot. A muscular guy, wearing little more than jeans and a white t-shirt, got out and came inside. She turned a bright innocent smile on him. “Aren’t ya cold, like that?” she said. “Brrr,” and pretended to shiver.

  “Nah,” he laughed, then strode over to the counter and straddled a barstool near her. He cocked his head to the side and studied her. “Haven’t I seen you somewhere?” he asked.

  She wondered if he’d seen any of the awful stuff on the Internet. “Maybe,” she said with a coy smile. “I used to model for ads now and then.” Of course this wasn’t true.

  He seemed impressed. “What brings you to these parts?”

  With that opening, Sandy launched into a story that unspooled like a skein of silk, the threads changing color with each new lie that emerged from her mouth. She loved his boyish laughter, his rugged good looks, his straightforward eagerness, and couldn’t help the way her libido suddenly sprang to life. He seemed fair game. Maybe I’ll stop here a while, she thought. Start out fresh. Be somebody new and different. Why not?

  Over breakfast Ron told Isabel that he’d begun looking into cyber-bullying laws and some of the cases that surrounded the issue. The laws differed between Maryland and DC, but at least they existed; the strength of those laws, he believed, was another matter.

  “You remember that Megan Meier case? The 13-year-old who killed herself?” he asked.

  She flinched slightly. “The case where that sick woman, Lori Drew, did what Sandy did to Phoebe? That one?” she said.

  “Yeah, that’s the one.” His voice sounded far too enthusiastic to Isabel, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Well, basically she’s gotten away with murder. The government brought some pretty unique charges against her, but the judge didn’t uphold the jury’s guilty verdict. Granted that was before a number of the bullying laws came into existence, but I think it might be hard to convict Sandy since—” he hesitated.

  Isabel saw the sweat on Ron’s brow. It was obvious that Sandy Littleton now dredged up horrific and shameful memories for him. She felt him studying her.

  Frowning, she finished the sentence for him. “You mean since Phoebe didn’t die? I know, Ron,” she said softly. “Anyway, I’m not going to do anything right away, but I will look into it. And once Phoebe’s…well, once she’s better, I’ll check with her about what she wants me to do. I’m not going to push her. About this I’m going to take my cues from her. She’s been through enough. Whatever she wants I’ll do.”

  Ron reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, “really, I am.” Though she withdrew her hand, they sat awhile, staring out the large kitchen window, where a bright red cardinal flew to the bird feeder that hung on the empty branches of a dogwood. His plumage was stark against the drab bark of the tree.

  Though it was too early in the year, the sodden gray sky made Isabel think it might snow, something she and Phoebe had always loved watching out this very window, an event that, on weekends at least, often led to baking cookies and drinking hot chocolate. Isabel felt herself growing maudlin, in part because it seemed like such a long time ago that they’d done this together.

  She suddenly straightened in her chair. “Of course I’ll tell Phoebe why taking some sort of legal action might be the right thing to do.” She heard herself and almost felt like laughing.

  Smiling a little, Ron shook his head. “You know what they say.”

  “What do they say?” she asked.

  “You can’t change a tiger’s stripes.”

  “Nooo, Dad,” Jackson chimed in. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks! Hey, can we get a dog?”

  A couple of days later, in Phoebe’s new hospital room, Isabel came to an appropriate stopping place in her work before standing up to gaze out the window. Though early in the season, snow swirled to the ground, obscuring the earth behind a cloud of white. Isabel could make out little but the shapes of a few evergreens that stood in the distance. It was like being in a dream. She pressed her hand against the glass to feel the cold.

  “I want to go home,” a voice croaked behind her.

  Isabel spun around. Phoebe’s eyes were closed. She took hold of her hand. “Sweetheart? Did you just say that?”

  Her daughter’s eyes opened a fraction, and she nodded her head a little. “Take me home.”

  “Oh, Phoebe, I will. I will take you home.”

  “Now, Mommy,” she said in a plaintive voice.

  Tears gathered in Isabel’s eyes and her throat constricted. She squeezed Phoebe’s hand, trying to think what to say. “I don’t know if you can see it, sweetie, but it’s snowing outside. When we go home, I’ll make you some hot chocolate, and Jackson will build you a snowman. What do you say to that, my dearest child? Oh, Phoebe, I love you so much and I’m so sorry—” her voice trailed off. No, now was not the time to get into all that. She’d have time, plenty of time to apologize to her daughter and start anew.

  “I will take you home, baby, as soon as possible. I promise. With a little more rest you’ll be all better and we’ll have you back in your own bed. Just hang in there, okay, honey?”

  A few weeks later

  “Let’s see, where shall we begin, Phoebe?” Dr. Sharma said.

  It was Phoebe’s first face-to-face meeting with Dr. Sharma since her suicide attempt, though they had spoken a couple of times by phone while she was recovering.

  “I don’t know,” Phoebe said, leaning against the back of the beige leather couch with her hands tucked beneath her legs.

  “You’ve been through a lot.”

  Phoebe nodded. “I have.” She gave Dr. Sharma a little smile and studied the woman’s kindly face, her lovely complexion, and the slightly sagging skin that was the nicest color. Olive, her mother called it. She wished her coloring were a little more like that. So that her own pale skin could tan, but it was no use, the sun just turned her face bright pink, like her father’s.

  “We’ll talk about whatever you wish. So tell me about today.”

  “Today was fine, and I hope tomorrow will be too.”

  “Tell me something that makes you smile?”

  “My mother asked me to make her a jean jacket! Can you believe that?” They both burst into laughter.

  “Anything else good?”

  “Well,” she said, her eyes growing wide, “Emma and I are hanging out a lot. You can’t believe how hilarious she is! And if you knew her mother, you’d probably be surprised. So that’s really cool. And,” she elongated the word, “Noah called and asked me out. He did, and I’m going to go.” A shy grin crept onto her face.

  “Did you know that when I started to wake up in the hospital a few weeks ago, Noah was there? Emma, too. You know Noah? He’s the boy I’ve liked since last year. I mean all through eighth grade. And then things got all messed up, you know, after the Adams Morgan thing.”

  Dr. Sharma nodded. She sat in a chair opposite Phoebe. A window to Dr. Sharma’s right cast a halo of light about her giving her an almost angelic glow. The sight made Phoebe stop speaking for a moment and gaze at the older woman. Then she continued, her eyes rising to the ceiling as the sequence of events spun through her mind, forgetting that she hadn’t wanted to talk about the past, but perhaps needing to.

  “I couldn’t go with Noah to the dance, and then I forgot about Noah because of Shane,” she hesitated briefly. “Shane, who turned out not to be a person at all.” Phoebe’s face puckered, as if she m
ight cry.

  “I imagine you must wonder about Mrs. Littleton,” Dr. Sharma said. “But you know that her actions had nothing to do with you?”

  Phoebe nodded. “I do.”

  “And that…well, what she did was terribly wrong.”

  Phoebe nodded again. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “I heard she moved away and there might be a legal case against her, I don’t know,” Dr. Sharma said. “Are you worried she might do something to you?”

  “Not really.” She paused. “What about Jessie?”

  Dr. Sharma tilted her head. “What about Jessie?”

  “I’ve been thinking about her.”

  “What have you been thinking?”

  “That I miss her.”

  “I’ll bet she’d like to talk to you. Perhaps you should call her?”

  Phoebe thought about that for a while, imagining what it might be like to have her old friend back. “Maybe I will,” she finally said. “Maybe I will.”

  And a few days later, she did.

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  Bringing a novel to completion is rarely done alone, and so the list of people I’d like to thank is long. First, thank you, Ann Starr (Upper Hand Press, US) and Joel Richardson (Twenty7 Books, UK), for your excellent suggestions, which made the novel eminently better. I am terribly grateful to both of you for believing in SAVING PHOEBE MURROW and bringing it to fruition.

  Second, thank you, Emily Williamson, for all your hard work as an agent and also for the many hours you spent reading the manuscript and providing helpful suggestions for improving it.

  Third, a huge thank you to the many readers of the manuscript; the list is too long to include everyone, but please know I appreciated your help and encouragement. Special thanks to Reina Brekke, Myra Gossens, Christine Grimaldi, Connie Karageorgis, Katherine Kingsland, Roger Marum, Tricia Paoletta, Kathy Pasley, Elizabeth Patton, Christine Pride, Darlynn Slosar, Louise Farmer Smith, Joe Vucovich, Rangeley Wallace, and Gail Wilkins.

  A heartfelt thanks to my family, Jim, Max and Jack (Feely), my brother (Gary Burbach), my mother and now deceased father (Erna and Fritz Burbach), and my Tante Linde (Weimann) for all your support and encouragement throughout my years of writing.

  I am grateful to Dr. Edward Selby for allowing me to use segments of his article, “Cutting to Escape from Emotional Pain;” to Janis Whitlock, Director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, for her insights into the world of self-injury; to Dr. Martin R. Eichelberger and Dr. Brad Chaser for reviewing the medical segments of the story; and for legal aspects to Leslie Harris, Diana Rubin and Gail Wilkins. Obviously, any inaccuracies are mine. And thank you to Tina Meier and her staff at the Megan Meier Foundation for the resources they have provided related to the problem of cyber-bullying.

  Finally, I will be forever indebted to the graduate journalism school at UC Berkeley and the masters writing program at Johns Hopkins University. In particular, early encouragement came from Mark Farrington, Margaret Meyers, Elly Williams and Claire Messud. Likewise, I am grateful to the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, especially Wayne Johnson and Mary Morris.

  Cyberbullying Information

  The inspiration for SAVING PHOEBE MURROW came from an article I read in 2008 about a woman who posed as a 15-year-old boy on a social media site to prey on a vulnerable 13-year-old girl named Megan Meier. In 2006, this woman (Lori Drew) launched a cyber-bullying attack on Megan through MySpace, which resulted in Megan taking her own life.

  I was horrified by this report and couldn’t understand how a woman, a mother who actually knew Megan and her family, could do such a thing. Over time the fictional characters for my novel emerged. While my characters are nothing like the people involved in the real life incident, my fictional character, Sandy, like Lori Drew, conspires against a young girl, in this case Phoebe Murrow.

  I was deeply saddened by Megan’s death, and appreciate Tina Meier’s efforts to fight cyber-bullying by creating a foundation that honors the memory of her daughter. Not only is this novel written in memory of Megan, but I am also dedicating a portion of the proceeds from this novel to the Megan Meier Foundation. If you’d like to contribute, visit the organization’s website: www.meganmeierfoundation.org. The website contains many resources for parents, teachers and teens to deal with cyber-bullying.

  Resources to Combat the Problem

  Cyber-bullying has become a huge problem, in part because of the ease of social media, texting, and the use of assorted electronic devices. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, which has reviewed dozens of reports and studies, “it seems safe to conclude that about one out of every four teens has experienced cyber-bullying, and about one out of every six teens has done it to others.” With such statistics, clearly something needs to be done.

  There are many resources available that can inform you about cyber-bullying, how to combat the problem, and also what legislation exists in your state. Just a few organizations’ websites that provide invaluable information include:

  •The Megan Meier Foundation: http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org

  •Cyberbullying Research Center: http://cyberbullying.org

  •STOP!T features a cyber-bullying app to report cyber-bullying anonymously: http://stopitcyberbully.com

  •The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) and their website: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

  •This website focuses on both bullying and cyber-bullying and contains a variety of information about how to stop bullying, and the policies and laws in each state, information well worth knowing: www.stopbullying.gov

  Author Q&A

  What prompted you to write this book?

  A very troubling article I read about a cyber-bullying incident instigated by a woman posing as a 15-year-old boy on MySpace. I thought that I’d first learned of this in People magazine in 2008, but in fact I must have read about it in the Washington Post first because when I looked back at those two articles, The Post piece ran in January 2008 and the People one didn’t come out until December of the same year. I saved both articles, read each one once and knew I wanted to write a novel about a similar situation. I simply could not understand how or why a woman could do such a thing to a vulnerable girl she knew.

  How closely does your novel follow the actual story?

  Not closely at all, except that in both the real incident and in my novel a woman creates a phony teenage guy (on social media) to prey on a 13-year-old girl, her daughter’s best friend, or once best friend. In the actual case, the woman (Lori Drew) and her family had even gone on vacation with the girl’s family. It’s really quite monstrous, and to this day I can’t understand someone’s motivation.

  And yet in your story a woman also does such a thing. How were you able to create her?

  Sandy, the character who does this to Phoebe, is damaged, just as I imagine Lori Drew must be. Sandy’s backstory, which emerged over time (in my mind), became critical to her present story. I realized that she was damaged by her mother, through neglect and a lack of nurturing. And then she also suffered multiple betrayals. To survive she becomes vengeful. This vengeful side is again stimulated by numerous rejections and public humiliations she receives from Phoebe’s mother, Isabel, who it should be noted does not intentionally humiliate her. To get back at Isabel, Sandy decides to strike at Isabel’s Achilles’ heel – her family.

  All of the characters have been hurt in some way and deserve sympathy…but which character do you care about the most, or has the bulk of your sympathy?

  Without question, Phoebe is the one I care about most. Hence, the title: Saving Phoebe Murrow. But let me add, that I care about all the characters, even Sandy.

  There is a lot of love going on in this novel, especially the love between mothers and
daughters, as well as between girls. And love gone wrong, and the often poor timing of love between two people. But the publisher felt that title was too evocative of a love story or romance, and this novel certainly isn’t about that. Saving Phoebe Murrow came about at the very end of the process, when I realized that this story, essentially, is about Phoebe. Everything ties back to her. And we want desperately to save her. But the question always was: can we?

  Are you implying that women are mean and cliquish even into adulthood?

  I wanted to show the consequences of such behavior. I wanted people to talk about what better choices the women and the girls had, and what it might mean to do the right thing. In the novel, we have one set of actions and reactions. It’s stuff you hear and read about, and in some case, what people experience. But how can we rise above the petty differences, the cattiness, and so on. How can we be more loving and accepting toward one another? How can we stop gossiping and putting other girls/women down?

  Was there anything in your own childhood that resonated for you as you wrote this novel?

  I didn’t realize that anything in the novel related to my own life until well after I’d finished the final version of the novel and was discussing it with Emily Williamson. It was then that I realized I too had been bullied as young girl, after coming to the US in second grade. That children had shunned me just as they make fun of Phoebe in the novel. Not for being chubby, but for being German at a time when Germans were portrayed as Nazis. It was deeply painful, and I guess that emotion has resided there ever since. The emotion being one of non-acceptance, of somehow being ugly and unlovable.