by Blake Nelson
* * *
I fell asleep for a couple hours and then woke up again. I lay in the dark and thought about other things: School. My mom. College. How, when I got back to Eugene, I would need to kick ass for that first semester of senior year, and then really focus on my college applications. I couldn’t get distracted. It was tricky, though, because one of the best assets I had was my mother. She had connections. She was famous in her field. I would need to use that somehow, but also not let her screw me up. She was like that. Sometimes she’d help you. Sometimes she wouldn’t. You never knew for sure.
Thinking about that made me anxious, and then I really couldn’t sleep. I decided to read some of Letters to a Young Poet. I grabbed my pants off the floor and looked for it, but it wasn’t in my back pocket. Where was it? I’d shown it to Jace while we were sitting on the blanket. Had she not given it back? Maybe someone else had looked at it. Or maybe it fell out of my pocket. I searched the entire basement floor and under the bed. It was not there.
Oh great, I thought, flopping back onto the bed. The one book I actually needed to read this summer, and I’d lost it. And it was a library book! I’d have to get another copy somehow. I pulled the covers over me, but now I was totally awake. I could see through the window that it was already getting light outside. I checked my phone. It was 5:23 a.m. Jesus. Could I go back to the beach somehow? That’s probably where it was.
I rolled off my bed and got dressed. I quietly opened the basement door and checked the driveway. Uncle Rob’s pickup was there; Kyle had brought it home. Nobody would be awake for several hours. I knew where the extra set of keys was—Uncle Rob had showed me, in case I needed the car for some reason. Those were his exact words: “for some reason.” Could I drive it down to the Cove really quick and get my book? I didn’t see why not.
* * *
I got the keys and took the truck. I was super careful. I pulled backward onto the road and then shifted to DRIVE and slowly made my way to the highway. The truck was easy to drive, especially with no other cars on the road. I followed the route Kyle had taken. Down the hill, south through town, and then taking a right at the last stoplight. It was kinda fun to be out at that hour, with no cars, no humans, no movement. I followed the road along Tillamook Head. The ocean, I noticed, was smooth, calm, a beautiful aqua green.
I pulled into the parking lot above the Cove. It had taken me twelve minutes to get there. I went to the edge and looked down. There was a lot of crap on the beach. Empty bottles. Plastic cups. A broken beach chair. An abandoned sleeping bag. Two of the fires were still smoking slightly.
I made my way down the trail. The ocean was much closer to our bonfire than it had been the night before. It must have been high tide.
I walked through the sand to our fire site. The beach looked strange and different in the morning light. Still, I felt like I could calculate where Jace’s blanket had been. I stood in that spot and looked around. When I didn’t see my book, I began to comb the sand with my fingers, in case it got buried somehow. But I didn’t find it. So then I began to walk around the fire. Did someone else pick it up? I walked around the logs where people had been sitting. There was one really big log; I looked under it. Something smooth and square was half buried beneath it. I looked closer. It was my book! I reached under and grabbed it and wiped the sand away. It was a little damp, a little wrinkly, but otherwise okay. Thank God, I thought. I stood up and crammed it into my back pocket.
So that was a relief. I looked out at the ocean, then at the beach. There was a lot of trash around: cigarette butts, a watermelon rind, empty beer cans, wine bottles. I wondered if I should clean up a little. It could be my good deed for the day, and it was so peaceful and nice there, I didn’t want to leave just yet. I would need a large garbage bag, though, or some sort of container. I looked on the other side of the big log and saw a tattered old sleeping bag. Maybe I could put the garbage in that and then dump the whole mess in the trash can at the top of the trail. I leaned over the log to grab the sleeping bag but stopped short. There was something under it. There was a person under it.
I jumped backward. I looked around the beach, which was totally deserted. Who would still be down here? And why? I inched forward, looking at the sleeping bag again. There was definitely a human-sized thing underneath it. I moved down the log a few feet, crawled over and approached the sleeping bag from the other side. I crouched down beside it and carefully gripped the top. I gently pulled it back.
The first thing I saw was hair. Black hair. It was a girl’s hair, but matted and wet, with sand in it and debris, and beneath it the very white skin of someone’s scalp. I pulled it back more. I saw an ear, a neck, the side of a face. And then I recognized the person.
It was Phoebe.
17
I pulled the sleeping bag down more. There she was. Phoebe. Curled on her side. In one way I was horrified. In another way I was thrilled. I touched her shoulder. She was warm. So she wasn’t dead.
But she wasn’t exactly alive, either. She was so still, so completely asleep. Or was she passed out? Jesus, what was wrong with people? Who left her here? And how drunk must she have been. Were people in Seaside totally insane?
I bent down and put my face near her mouth. She was breathing. That was good. My next thought was to get her off the cold sand. I would need to wake her up, though.
“Phoebe?” I said. “Hello?” I tried nudging her. Gently at first and then harder. When that didn’t work, I eased her onto her back. Then I got behind her and gripped her by the armpits and lifted her to a sitting position. I tried to keep the sleeping bag around her. She had her clothes on, thank God. I propped her up, my hands around her from behind. I brushed the sand off her, and then tried shaking her and squeezing her shoulders.
She began to make noises. Her head, which had been hanging forward, moved slightly.
“Uhhhhhhh . . . ,” she said.
“Phoebe? Hello? Are you okay?”
Her head rolled to one side. But then it lifted. Suddenly she was awake. She began to look around.
“Do you know where you are?” I said. I was on my knees, behind her, holding her up. When she realized there was a person there, gripping her, she pushed away from me, and then glared back at me with a vague, hostile look. Her eyes weren’t really focusing. “I’m Nick,” I said. “Remember? I work at the car wash. With Kyle.”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She was coming more fully to life. With unexpected energy she shrugged off the sleeping bag and struggled to her feet. I moved back and got to my feet as well. As the sleeping bag fell away, I saw that her pants were undone. She was covered with sand, and her clothes were damp and wet. Her face was ghostly pale, and her hair was a tangled mess.
“Jesus,” I said. “You don’t look too good.”
She didn’t answer.
“How did you get left here?” I asked.
She didn’t answer that, either. She glanced around the beach, squinting and looking pained. She must have had a brutal hangover.
“I have my uncle’s truck,” I said. “I can give you a ride.”
She didn’t respond. She wasn’t really seeing me, I realized. She was surveying the beach, doing a primitive calculation of what to do next. She decided to climb the hill and began walking through the sand to the trail. I followed along behind her. Again, she surprised me with her energy. She scrambled right up the steep hill, no problem. I stayed with her. In the parking lot, in her confusion, she turned back to me.
“Do you need a ride?” I offered. “Here. Here’s my truck.”
I walked her to the passenger side, opened the door, and helped her in.
I hurried around and got in the driver’s side. I started the truck and told her to put on her seat belt, which she did. She seemed to be physically functional. And yet she still said nothing.
I cranked the heat and drove fast along the asphalt road back to Seaside. At the stoplight, I turned left onto the highway toward town. Phoebe was staring blankly
out the front windshield as I did this. She began smoothing her hair and picking the stuff out of it, dropping the twigs and bits of moss onto the floor.
I tried again to communicate with her. “Seriously . . . ,” I said. “Are you okay? Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”
She didn’t answer.
“Where can I take you?” I said.
She said nothing for another minute but then started to point. I drove where she pointed. We ended up on one of the residential streets on the north side of town. She pointed to a small house, and I pulled up in front. “Phoebe,” I said, thinking maybe her name would return her to reality. “Phoebe, please. Can you at least tell me you’re okay? I can’t tell if you are. I don’t even know if this is your house.”
But I hardly got the words out before she sprung her seat belt and was out of the truck, running up the driveway of the small, modest home. I wished I’d driven slower, so I could have had a little more time with her. She disappeared inside, and I sat there for a moment, staring at the front door, trying to fully digest the last fifteen minutes.
What on earth had just happened? I had no idea.
* * *
“She was blacked out,” said Justin, when I quietly recounted the story to him later that day at the Happy Bubble.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s when you’re so drunk you’re walking around, but you don’t know what you’re doing. Your brain’s shut down, but the rest of you is still going.”
I’d never heard of this, but then I remembered times when my mother would show up late at night and be in a similar kind of trance. You’d talk to her, and she didn’t seem to hear you. I always assumed she didn’t want to be bothered right then. But maybe she was “blacked out.”
“And Phoebe?” said Justin. “That’s nothin’ new. I’ve seen her like that. She’s a party girl. She’s hard-core.”
We were cleaning the windows of a Jeep Cherokee as we talked.
“Yeah but she was lying on the beach,” I said. “Like right on the sand, under an old sleeping bag. Something could have happened to her.”
Justin laughed, then checked himself. “Hey. I feel you. You gotta be careful. Sometimes weird shit happens. You wake up somewhere, and you don’t know where you are or how you got there. It’s happened to me. Woke up by some train tracks in Vernonia once. Had to hitchhike home.”
The fact that Justin had done the same thing didn’t exactly make me feel better.
“She looked like she was dead,” I said, my voice tightening with emotion.
Justin shrugged. “She’s all right,” he said. “She’ll learn. Or she won’t. Ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. That’s how it goes with some chicks. They don’t know when to stop.”
I nodded at this. I’d already decided not to tell anyone else about finding Phoebe on the beach. I didn’t want to seem like a gossip or someone who talked about people in their most embarrassing moments. But I still had the image in my brain. The sight of her on the sand, the strange stillness of her body, the deathly pallor of her skin. And worst of all, her eyes after she’d woken up: the way they’d looked right through me, as if I wasn’t there.
PART TWO
JULY
18
The weird thing about finding Phoebe on the beach was how quickly I forgot about it. I mean, I didn’t forget about it, not at all; it was just so strange, so surreal, it very quickly became like a dream in my head. When I considered that Phoebe never once spoke to me that morning and, according to Justin, would probably not remember what happened, this made it even more dreamlike. It was as if the whole thing happened in my sleep. I knew it hadn’t. But it felt like it had.
Instead of Phoebe, I spent the next day thinking about Jace. And her kiss. That felt real. People knew it happened and would remember it. Which meant I needed to deal with it.
The main question was, could Jace and I go out? I honestly didn’t know. When I pictured us together, what I mostly saw was us being friends, talking, having a coffee, her being a person I would sit with at beach parties.
But maybe I needed to give the romantic side a chance. Maybe I needed to kiss her again. But how could I do that? I’d already blown it with her in the car. Now she probably assumed I didn’t want to kiss her. Could I just say something? Tell her that I wasn’t sure, that I didn’t know how I felt exactly?
* * *
One day went by, and then another. I could sense Emily watching me around the house. Since she and Jace were friends, they had no doubt discussed the situation. So far Emily hadn’t said a word. It made for some interesting meals: Uncle Rob and Aunt Judy sitting there oblivious, Emily pretending she didn’t know about the kiss, me pretending I didn’t know she knew about the kiss. I wondered if she might break down and say to me, So what’s up? Do you like Jace or not? but Emily was too cool for that.
Then Kelsey saved me by turning sixteen. Her birthday was July 2, and she was having a bowling party to celebrate. Jace and Emily and I were all invited. This would be our chance to hang out again in a casual way. Hopefully, this would make it clearer what I should do.
I drove Emily to the party in her mom’s Toyota. On the way over Emily put on extra lip gloss. I was wearing a new Western shirt I’d bought at Bill’s Army-Navy, since that’s what all the other guys in Seaside wore. I was excited to see Jace. I really did like her. But I still didn’t know what would happen.
We parked and went inside Sunset Lanes. We were instantly surrounded by the sounds of crashing pins and gliding balls. Classic rock played loudly from the ceiling. The bowling alley had that same time-warp feel as Freezie Burger. It looked like an eighties movie, with neon lights and old beer signs and pinball machines. You never knew if they were doing this on purpose, or if Seaside people just never got around to replacing anything.
Emily and I got our bowling shoes. When we approached the others, I saw Jace, but I got nervous and didn’t talk to her. Then we had to pick out bowling balls. Emily and I wanted the same ball, but when I said we could share it, she said no, she wasn’t sharing. So then I had to walk around to the other lanes to find my own ball, which took a while. I finally picked one, which still didn’t fit my fingers as well as the one Emily had. So now I was mad at Emily.
We split into teams with four people each. Jace was on the other team. Once we were actually bowling I tried to look at her, but now she was acting shy and wouldn’t look at me. So then it was weird for the first game, not terrible weird, just two people having a case of nerves.
After the first game we switched the teams, and Jace was on my team. I tried sitting next to her, but when I did, she looked away and then got up and stood in the back with Lauren. Had I offended her somehow? Did she think I didn’t like her now, just because I had hesitated when she kissed me? There was no way to tell.
So I waited until the next game and then tried to casually ask her about the library, like what her hours were. I was going to say, I’ll come by sometime. But just as I was asking, she suddenly turned and walked away, and she seemed pissed off. So now I was totally confused. I thought, Oh my God, I completely messed this up. And then I was super embarrassed and avoided looking at Jace or Emily or anyone else. Also I was totally sucking at bowling. I got like an eighty-four on my last game, which was the worst I’d ever bowled.
When the party was over, everyone walked back toward the main entrance. People started saying good-bye. Jace was still there, and again I walked over to her, but when I got there, I felt so stupid I couldn’t say anything. Kelsey came over and hugged Jace good-bye, and then Jace went to her car and drove away.
Emily said nothing through all of this. In the car I was so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to do. Like could I say, I like Jace—I just screwed up. But now I didn’t know if I did like her. Especially since she acted so pissed off. So I got nervous. Big deal. It happens. It was no reason for her to get mad.
Emily remained silent for the drive home. I felt like this was her
way of telling me how bad I’d screwed up. When we got home, I went straight downstairs to the basement and threw myself on the bed. Talk about epic fail.
19
And then it was the Fourth of July. This was a big deal in Seaside, the highlight of the summer for the locals. Uncle Rob’s family, who lived farther down the coast, came up every year to watch the big parade. They showed up that afternoon, two parents, one aunt, one grandmother, and five little kids. The Happy Bubble was closed, so I was home too. Emily had disappeared earlier, and Kyle was at Oregon State with the baseball team, but still, with five little kids running around, the house turned to total chaos. I bailed and walked into town and tried to read my book at the coffee shop. But even there the excitement of the Fourth was taking over. I kept checking my phone, too, hoping Emily might text and tell me what she and Jace were doing later, but so far I had heard nothing.
So then at seven thirty I walked up Broadway to where my uncle Rob’s family had saved a spot for the parade. They had chairs set up and blankets and a cooler with drinks and snacks. So then, since I hadn’t heard from Jace or Emily, I settled in with them. With just a few minutes before it began, I texted Emily:
Are you guys coming to the parade?
She wrote back a few seconds later.
No.
That’s all it said. No. Obviously they were pissed. How embarrassing. Jesus. Well, what could I do? I hadn’t done anything wrong. I stuffed my phone into my pocket and stared grimly into the street.
The parade started. Some little kids walked by with a banner that said the first Seaside Fourth of July parade was held in 1904. I was like, Thanks for the history lesson. After that some cowgirls marched by with flags. Then the Seaside High School marching band went by playing “Crazy Train,” which they could barely get through. Then a fire truck went by and some cops on horses.