The Sixes
Page 37
“And did you? Find a way to deal with it?”
“I think so. Mostly by acknowledging how big an effect it really had on me. Not just the abduction and the day I spent trapped in the crawl space, but the months of being ostracized and bullied. For years I’d tried to put it behind me and pretend I hadn’t allowed it to have any lasting impact. But that was a lie. Of course, I wish I could have seen the light without so many people being hurt at the same time.”
“I heard that the board accepted Glenda’s resignation. How’s she doing?”
“It’s been tough, but I know she won’t let this undo her.”
“I had the sense you weren’t crazy about Mark. But did you ever suspect he might be capable of what he did?”
The news about Mark’s involvement in a drug ring had been all over the campus and town. But only Phoebe and Glenda knew about his connection to Fortuna.
“I don’t think Mark is inherently an evil person,” Phoebe said quietly. “But Glenda’s success ate at him more than I ever realized.”
The bartender, who’d been in the back, moseyed over and scooped up Duncan’s credit card. When he asked if Phoebe wanted anything, she ordered a glass of red wine.
“So with Glenda on her way out of Lyle, where does that leave you?” Duncan asked after the bartender had wandered off.
“I’m going to finish out the semester, of course, but I’m not going to teach next year. It would feel like a betrayal with Glenda gone.”
“You’ll head back to New York then?”
“Actually, I’m going to stick around town through the spring,” she replied. “I’ve decided to write a book about what happened to me. Part true-crime story—I’ve always liked writers like Anne Rule and Bailey Weggins—but also part memoir.”
“That’s terrific,” Duncan said. His response seemed genuine to her. “So no celebrity book then?”
“Nope. The Johnny Depps of the world can sleep a little easier. Actually, I think I’ve been sick of the whole celebrity genre longer than I realized. That may be why I wasn’t paying enough attention to what the researcher on my last book was doing.” Phoebe smiled. “Oh, and don’t worry. The memoir part will focus mostly on what happened in boarding school. I won’t be delving into any romantic details from my life now.”
“Ahh, so my fifteen minutes of fame will have to be postponed,” Duncan said. He smiled at her, but to her dismay he quickly signed the receipt and slipped his card into his wallet.
“I know you’re just about to leave, so I won’t hold you up,” Phoebe said hurriedly. “But the reason I stopped by was to tell you how sorry I am about what I said to you that day by the Grove. It was awful, and I hope you can accept my apology.”
Duncan looked off for a second, his deep brown eyes betraying no hint of how he would answer. He returned his gaze to her and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
“That sounds a bit tentative,” Phoebe said.
He exhaled a little, making a frustrated sound, and turned both hands palm side up.
“Well, it’s not like you stepped on my toe, Phoebe. You suggested that I might have murdered Lily Mack. There’s a bit more of an ouch factor with something like that.”
She winced as he said the words. “I know,” she said. “Again, I’m sorry. I—I’d begun to feel like everything was closing in on me then. And I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
Duncan’s body seemed to relax. “Apology accepted, okay?”
“Thank you,” she said.
He slid from the stool. Just behind him was a row of pegs, and he tugged his coat off one of them.
“Are you going to be okay getting back to campus?” he asked. She didn’t allow herself to feel excited by the comment. The words suggested an invitation for a ride, but his tone had been totally perfunctory.
“Yes, I have my car,” she said. “I’ll have a bite to eat and then head home.”
“Well, enjoy. Good night.”
“Actually,” Phoebe said as he turned to go, “there’s one more thing I’d like to say. Do you have an extra minute?”
“Okay,” he said after a second’s hesitation. To her relief, he didn’t appear annoyed. He leaned against the bar, looking at her.
“Like I said, I’ve had a chance to really think about my life lately,” Phoebe said. “And I see now how much I always tended to hold back—you know—in personal situations. Maybe that’s why I liked writing about celebrities—I could observe them and dig around about them, but I could keep my distance, too. My former boyfriend called recently and told me I suffered from a failure to get my feet wet emotionally.”
Duncan didn’t say anything, just studied her. She could tell he was wondering where she was going with all this. Phoebe grabbed another breath.
“That day by the woods, you told me that you thought we had something special, and I did, too,” she said. “But at the same time I think I was looking for an excuse to pull back, and that’s why I let myself doubt you. It was a stupid mistake, and I regret it terribly. I know you’ll find this crazy—really crazy. But I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance.”
She saw his eyes widen. He hadn’t seen this coming.
He took a deep breath, held it, and looked off toward the dining room, searching, she assumed, for a response.
“I—I just don’t know what to say,” he said. “It just seemed over that day.”
“Don’t tell me you’re dating Val now,” she said, trying to be playful. She cringed inside at her clunky attempt at humor, but Duncan actually chuckled.
“No,” he said. “I’m not dating anyone. Believe it or not, this has been hard for me, too, Phoebe.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Phoebe said. She felt a surge of guilt but at the same time wondered: if their split had really troubled him, there might still be something there. “You don’t have to give me an answer tonight, but will you just think about what I asked?”
He held her eyes, parting his lips just a little.
“All right,” he said after a couple of seconds. “I’ll think about it.”
He said good-bye and slipped out of the restaurant. The waiter finally returned with her wine. She took a long sip, set the glass down, and smiled. Duncan may not have given her an answer, but he’d done something that left her hopeful: he had nodded his head unconsciously when he’d spoken. And Phoebe knew—from so many years observing people while she interviewed them—that that was what people did when, without knowing it yet, they planned to say yes.
Acknowledgments
Some terrific people took time out of their demanding jobs to help me in the research for The Sixes, and I am very indebted to them: Jonathan Birbeck, Esq., chief deputy district attorney, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania; Cheryl Brown, associate vice chancellor, University of California at Davis; Barbara Butcher, chief of staff, New York City Medical Examiner; Dr. Chet Lerner, chief, Section of Infectious Diseases, New York Downtown Hospital; Dr. Mark Howell, psychotherapist; Dr. Jill Murray, psychotherapist and author; author Sheila Weller; Kenneth Wagner, Ph.D., CLM, water resources manager.
Thank you as well to Kathy Schneider for all her encouragement and support; Sandy Dijkstra for her awesome agenting; Sally Kim for being such a terrific editor; and Maya Ziv for her fabulous eleventh-hour guidance; and Rachel Elinsky for her continuous awesome work on the PR front.
About the Author
KATE WHITE, the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, is the New York Times bestselling author of the stand-alone novel Hush and the Bailey Weggins mystery series—If Looks Could Kill; A Body to Die For; ’Til Death Do Us Part; Over Her Dead Body; and Lethally Blond. White is also the author of popular career books for women, including Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do. She lives in New York City.
Also by Kate White
Fiction
Hush
Lethally Blond
Over Her Dead Body
’Til Death Do Us Part
A Body to Die For
Nonfiction
You on Top
9 Secrets of Women Who Get Everything They Want
Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do
Credits
Cover design by Christine Van Bree
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE SIXES. Copyright © 2011 by Kate White. All rights reserved.
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