Phoebe Will Destroy You

by Blake Nelson

  “Can we please go see the movie now?” said Emily.

  * * *

  We went inside, bought our tickets, and made our way into the theater. But once inside, I realized nobody cared at all about the movie. As soon as the previews started, Kelsey and Lauren jumped up and ran back to the lobby.

  “Where are they going?” I whispered to Emily.

  “They saw some people they know,” she said.

  Ten minutes later they came back. But then after some texting, some whispering, and some arguing, they jumped back up and went to the lobby again.

  Jace, meanwhile, was checking her phone for a response from Zach. Emily was also on her phone and then got up and went to the lobby as well, missing the first fifteen minutes of the movie.

  Everyone kept coming and going. At one point I was the only one in my seat. I tried to be cool and not worry about it. Eventually Emily and Jace came back, but when the movie finally ended, Kelsey and Lauren were still gone.

  “Uh, where did your friends go?” I asked Emily. She didn’t answer, and now Jace was freaking out because it had been two hours and Zach had not texted her back. She looked like she might cry.

  I was more worried about Kelsey and Lauren. I didn’t know what went on in Seaside. Was it normal for two fifteen-year-old girls to vanish from a movie theater on a Saturday night?

  When we got outside, I made Emily and Jace walk around the parking lot afterward, looking for her missing friends. Sure enough, we found them sitting in the back seat of a beat-up Camaro with two very sketchy dudes who looked like they were several years out of high school. These guys wore flat-brimmed hats and basketball jerseys and had wispy beards and mustaches. The car was full of cigarette smoke, with the clear smell of weed mixed in. I was still trying to act casual, but inside I was like, What if something happens to them? I brought them here!

  Nobody else seemed concerned. Emily started talking to the guys like they were old friends, which it turned out they were. She introduced them to me.

  “Nick, this is Wyatt and Carson,” she said.

  I bent down to look inside the car. The two guys were so stoned their eyes barely opened. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “ ’Sup,” said the nearest one.

  Emily wanted to leave. She started walking back to our car; reluctantly I followed.

  “So we’re leaving Kelsey and Lauren?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Emily.

  “And they can get home? Those guys are okay . . . ?”

  “They’re fine,” said Emily, giving me a look.

  So that’s what we did. We left Kelsey and Lauren with the two thugs in the Camaro.

  * * *

  Jace, Emily, and I started to drive back to Jace’s house, but then the two girls decided they wanted to go to the Sandpiper instead. I followed their directions, and we pulled into a restaurant that was basically a Denny’s with a beach theme.

  We sat at a table, and Jace immediately checked again for a text back from Zach, which had not come. She shook her head. “Oh my God, now he’ll tell people how I text him and bother him and stalk him!”

  “No he won’t,” said Emily. “And what do you care about Zach? Do you even like him, or did Lauren talk you into it?”

  Jace put down her phone. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I don’t like him.”

  The waitress came and wiped down our table with a dirty rag, which made it greasier than it already was. Then she brought waters, and we drank them and talked about the movie that nobody saw. I asked about the two guys in the car, Wyatt and Carson. Jace said they were from Astoria and that the boys up there sometimes came down to Seaside to party and hang out.

  “They didn’t seem a little sketchy to you?” I asked.

  “They’re fine,” said Jace. “They just get bored. Astoria is pretty small.”

  “We do the same thing,” said Emily. “We go up there.”

  “What about Gearhart,” I said, remembering the little town I had stumbled on.

  Both girls looked at me, then at each other. “What do you know about Gearhart?” asked Jace.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just walked up the beach and ended up there.”

  “That’s a long walk,” said Emily.

  “It wasn’t that long,” I said.

  “That’s where the rich people live,” said Jace. “And the old people.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what it looked like.”

  “I like going up there,” said Jace. “I’m not afraid of rich people.”

  Emily wasn’t saying anything, I noticed. She was reading her menu.

  “What’s Eugene like?” Jace asked me.

  I thought of how to answer. I realized I’d been in Seaside for almost a week, and nobody had said a word to me about Eugene, or even asked me where I was from.

  “It’s a college town,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “There’s college kids everywhere, for most of the year. And lots of stuff for students. Coffee shops, organic restaurants, bookstores . . .”

  “I would love to go to University of Oregon,” said Jace.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” I said. “My mom teaches there, so I get in free to the pool or the library or whatever.”

  “I hate Seaside,” said Jace.

  “Don’t say that,” said Emily.

  “Why not?” said Jace. “It’s true. Seaside is such a hick town. We don’t even know what hicks we are.”

  “I’m not a hick,” said Emily.

  “Yes you are,” said Jace. “You just don’t know it.”

  “I’ve been to Portland a million times,” said Emily.

  “Portland,” scoffed Jace. “That’s just a bigger hick town. I want to go to New York.”

  “I like Seaside,” I said. “I like how earthy it is.”

  “You’re just saying that,” said Jace. “I’m getting out of here the minute I graduate. And I’m never coming back.”

  “What happened to Zach?” said Emily.

  Jace got out her phone and checked again. “Still nothing. Oh my God, I can’t believe I let those guys talk me into that. He’s totally ignoring me!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Emily. “It was just a friendly text.”

  “Of course it matters. He knows why I texted him.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Zach’s pretty dumb.”

  Jace frowned. “He is kinda dumb, isn’t he?” she said. At that moment a huge plate of half French fries, half onion rings arrived.

  “Sounds like it’s for the best,” I said, reaching for the ketchup.

  * * *

  Later, after we dropped off Jace, it was just Emily and me in the car. “So those are my friends,” said Emily.

  “They seem nice,” I said.

  “I don’t like it when Jace says things against Seaside,” said Emily. “I mean, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I just don’t think you should say stuff about where you live.”

  “She wants to see the world, I guess.”

  Emily said nothing. She stared out the window for a while. Then she got out some gum and gave me a piece, and we chewed gum the rest of the way home.

  7

  The next day it was sunny again, and things got busy at the Happy Bubble. At noon I was sent to Freezie Burger to get everyone lunch. Freezie Burger was an old-school fast food place with chrome counters and big windows and red plastic picnic tables outside. The girls who worked there probably all went to Seaside High. They wore little white aprons and hats and wrote your order on a pad like the old days.

  My order was pretty simple: four Cheeseburger Deluxes, two with fries, two with onion rings. I could see the girls noticing my Happy Bubble shirt. You could tell they were curious who I was. A new boy in town! But they didn’t say anything. They just smiled a certain way. And made sure to pack my order carefully and with lots of extra napkins.

  * * *

  When I returned to the Happy Bubble, there was a guy i
n a van waiting to go into the tunnel. Another car was behind him. No one was helping them. I hurried into the office and put the lunch bags down. Nobody was in there, either. Then I heard laughing from the back parking lot. I opened the back door and saw Kyle, Justin, and Mike all standing around an open-top Jeep with two girls inside. The driver was blond and was grinning and laughing at something Kyle was saying. She said something back, and everyone cracked up.

  I wondered if I should interrupt or just go help the customers myself. But that wasn’t my job—I was on vacuum duty—and I didn’t know how to take people’s credit cards.

  So I walked out toward the Jeep. Everyone was focused on the blond girl in the driver’s seat. She was wearing fluorescent pink short-shorts and a white hoodie. The guys were joking with her. Justin grabbed the roll bar with his three-fingered hand and climbed up into the back seat, like he was going to drive off with them. But they shooed him away and he jumped out.

  “All right, we gotta go,” said the blonde. She started to pull forward, but the Jeep had a stick shift and it jerked once and died. “I still don’t know how to drive this stupid thing!” she said. Kyle reached over her bare legs, grabbed the stick shift, and jammed it forward. “Now you’re in first.”

  “Oh my Gawd . . . ,” said the girl. “Do that again!”

  Everyone laughed.

  She let out the clutch and the car lurched forward, stopped again and then bounced out of the parking lot and into the street.

  As the Jeep sped away, the guys turned back toward the office, laughing and grinning to themselves. Then they saw me gesturing that there were customers waiting. Mike and Kyle quickly ran around to the front, where they apologized and called everyone “sir” and “ma’am” the way Uncle Rob likes us to.

  Justin and I went into the office. We still had a couple minutes before anyone would need a vacuum. Justin pulled his cheeseburger out of the bag and unwrapped it.

  “Who were those girls in the Jeep?” I asked.

  “That was Nicole,” said Justin, without looking up. “Nicole and Phoebe.”

  “They looked like fun.”

  “Ha-ha,” he said, taking a big bite of his Freezie Burger. “They are fun,” he said with his mouth full. “They’re lots of fun.”

  * * *

  We were busy all afternoon. At one point there were five cars waiting in line. Justin and I vacuumed nonstop. Sometimes we’d work on the same car together. I’d crawl in from the passenger side and grab any loose garbage: empty water bottles, Big Mac containers, crumpled potato chip bags. Then Justin would come in with the vacuum and suck up whatever was left. He found a five-dollar bill under the seat of one car. He showed it to me and then slipped it into his pocket. As he promised, at the end of our shift we went through the vacuum dust bag and dug out all the change. On that day it added up to $12.20, which we split.

  “Beer money,” said Justin.

  * * *

  After work Justin and I ended up walking together to the Promenade. He stopped at a little market off Main Street and came out with a brown paper bag. He held the bag open so I could look in. There was a six-pack of cold sixteen-ounce Budweisers inside and a pint bottle of Jim Beam whiskey. He was clearly not old enough to buy liquor. “Wow,” I said. “How’d you manage that?”

  “I got ways,” he said.

  We walked to the circular viewing area at the center of the Promenade, and then down the stairs to the actual sand. I followed Justin as he circled around under the stairs and plopped himself in the shade. I wasn’t sure what his plan was, but I sat beside him. We were out of sight of the Promenade, but the people on the beach could still see us clearly, sitting there under the stairs. He reached into the bag and handed me one of the beers.

  I took the beer and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Open it? Here? Where everyone on the beach could see us? There were little kids kicking a ball right in front of us.

  “Don’t worry, we’re safe,” said Justin. “The cops can’t see us.”

  He cracked his beer open and took a drink. Then he opened the whiskey.

  I opened my beer too and took a couple sips. This was weird, though. We were like a couple of bums, hiding out beneath the stairs, drinking whiskey in broad daylight.

  Justin didn’t seem to have any problem with it. I watched his three-fingered hand while he took a deep chug of the whiskey. Then he offered me some. I still had to go home and eat dinner with the Reillys. I couldn’t show up drunk. So I waved the whiskey away and took another small sip of my beer.

  “So Nicole, the girl in the Jeep . . . ,” I asked Justin. “What’s her deal?”

  “She’s in love with Kyle.”

  “She and everyone else,” I said.

  “ ’Cept she used to have him.”

  “She did? Like how?”

  “Like they were together,” said Justin. “A couple years back. They were a big thing.”

  “But not now?”

  “He moved on,” he said.

  “And she didn’t?”

  Justin shrugged. “You saw it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  I took another small sip of my beer. The little kids kicked their ball in my direction. I reached over and grabbed it and threw it back to them. They stared at us for a second. We still had our Happy Bubble shirts on, which didn’t seem like the best advertisement for the car wash, two teenaged employees, hiding out under the stairs, drinking Jim Beam like a couple of alcoholics. But it appeared that Justin did this all the time. And I didn’t want to insult him. So I drank a little more of my beer and sat for a few more minutes. Then I said I had to get going. I was about to throw the rest of my beer in the trash can, but Justin saw that it was still mostly full. “Hey, don’t toss that,” he said. “It’s a sin to waste good beer.”

  I nodded that it was and handed over my Budweiser can. Then I got the hell out of there.

  8

  By now I’d been in Seaside for two weeks, but I still hadn’t had a real conversation with Kyle. I felt bad about that. We’d been close as little kids. And since I was an only child, he’d been the closest I’d ever had to a brother.

  I assumed he knew—and Emily, too—that the reason I was there was because of my mom. They never said anything, though. This made things awkward between the three of us. Like, were we really going to pretend I was in Seaside for some other reason? Because I loved the beach so much? Or was eager to pursue my car-vacuuming career?

  But really, Kyle was just too busy to think about his long-lost cousin. He was driving back and forth to Oregon State for his baseball workouts, and at the end of the summer he’d be moving there to start school. He supposedly had a new girlfriend, Britney, who I hadn’t seen. This was according to Justin, who told me Britney would get dumped when Kyle left for Oregon State, and that everyone knew it and felt sorry for her. She was hanging on to her last precious months with Kyle, which I guess any Seaside girl would do, if she were in her place.

  It was weird, that part of it, how insanely popular Kyle was. The best looking, the best athlete, every girl in love with him. And the locals so proud of him, people coming into the car wash, wanting to shake his hand or stare at him or tell him how great he is. And meanwhile, he’s still wearing his crappy Happy Bubble shirt and hosing the mud off their hubcaps. Even Aunt Judy was in awe of him, and Uncle Rob definitely was, though he tried to cover it up with his “bro vibe,” like he and Kyle were more best friends than father and son.

  Kyle handled it well, I thought. I didn’t know if I could deal with people gawking at me like that. It just sucked that I couldn’t spend time with him in any normal way. But I guess that’s what happens when you become a big star. Everyone wants your attention, your time, your acknowledgment. And all the while, you’re trying to keep your head clear and stay focused on whatever your great talent is—throwing a baseball really hard, in Kyle’s case.

  * * *

  Since I hardly saw Kyle, I talked to Emily instead, or I tried to. It g
ot a little easier after we went to the movie that night. At least she knew I wasn’t going to embarrass her around her friends. We watched TV together when there wasn’t a baseball game. She had her shows she liked, The Bachelor and some others. I would sit on the couch, across from her, and look at stuff on my phone or try to read Letters to a Young Poet.

  We were sitting together one night, when I asked what happened with Jace and Zach.

  “He never texted her back,” said Emily.

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  “Zach is in demand,” said Emily, not looking away from the TV. “He has a lot of options.”

  “He can have any girl he wants?”

  “Not any girl . . . ,” said Emily.

  “Who will he choose?” I asked.

  “Probably Taylor Kittman. She’s supposedly the prettiest girl in our class.”

  “So that’s the main thing? He wants the prettiest girl?”

  “Yeah. I mean, she’s nice, too. She’s nice to boys at least.”

  “Sounds like my school.”

  “Jace is too tall for him, I think,” said Emily.

  “She is kinda tall,” I said, remembering Jace. She was good-looking, in her way. But she wasn’t the type a truly popular guy would go for. Not at my school, and probably not at Seaside.

  “Do you like tall girls?” asked Emily. She didn’t look at me when she said it.

  “Me?” I said. “No. I mean, I don’t not like them.”

  Emily remained focused on the TV. The Bachelor wasn’t on that night, so we were watching Master Chef. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you ever?”

  “Yeah. This girl, Kate.”

  This seemed to interest Emily. She tried not to show it, though. “How long did you go out for?”

  “Ten months, three weeks, four days.”

  “Wow. You really keep track.”

  “At my school making it to a year is a huge thing. We came pretty close. But you know. Once it’s over, it’s over.”

  “Did she break up with you, or did you break up with her?”

  “It was pretty mutual.”