Phoebe Will Destroy You

by Blake Nelson

We waited in the car for the bus. I found myself staring at the FOR SALE sign in the abandoned gas station.

  “So when does your school start?” Aunt Judy asked me.

  “Next week. Tuesday, I think.”

  “Are you looking forward to your senior year?”

  I didn’t feel like talking. But I couldn’t be rude. “Yeah, it should be fun.”

  “What electives will you be taking?”

  “Spanish. And journalism.”

  “Journalism? That sounds interesting.”

  “Yeah, they have good journalism at my school.”

  Finally, the bus appeared, coming down the highway. The two of us stared at it. “I hope you had a good time with us this summer,” said Aunt Judy.

  “I did.”

  “And give your dad my best.”

  “I will,” I said. “And thanks. Thanks for everything.”

  Aunt Judy stared forward. Her voice became serious. “You’re always welcome here, Nick. I hope you know that. No matter what happens. You always have a place to go. . . .”

  I nodded that I understood. “Thanks, Aunt Judy.”

  The bus pulled in. I got out and lifted my rolling suitcase out of the back seat. I dragged it across the gravel. The bus driver came out and helped me slide it into the luggage compartment underneath.

  Aunt Judy waited behind me and then gave me one last hug. She was starting to cry.

  “Good-bye, Aunt Judy.”

  I got on the bus and found a seat by the window. The driver took his place at the wheel. There was a loud hiss as the brakes were released, and then the large bus lumbered back onto the road. I got out my book, Letters to a Young Poet, and opened it to the first section, the first page, the first sentence. But as usual, the print seemed to blur on the page. I couldn’t absorb a word of it.

  So I watched out the window instead. The outskirts of Seaside passed by. Within a minute or two the view changed to trees and mountains and the shallow river that followed along the highway.

  I imagined myself then, driving a car on this same road, ten or twenty years in the future. I’d drive up from Eugene to visit my aunt and uncle. I’d be an adult, maybe a lawyer or a reporter, something like that. Naturally, it would be great fun to see everyone. Uncle Rob, Aunt Judy, whoever else was around. But after a few hours, I’d start thinking about Phoebe. Was she still here? What was she doing?

  So then I’d drive into town and walk up Main Street, asking at different places, “Is Phoebe Garnet still around?” Eventually someone would know her and direct me somewhere. Maybe she was a bartender at a local bar. So I’d go there, and walk in and there’d she be, older, a little worn down, but still attractive in an older person sort of way.

  She’d be standing behind the bar, chewing on a straw, one of the regulars chattering on about some local gossip. There’d be no recognition, not at first. I’d order a beer and she would pour it, without noticing me. But then she’d glance up into my face, and see who I was. . . .

  And then what would happen? Nothing, probably. She’d keep chewing on the straw. Maybe she’d say something. Maybe she wouldn’t.

  You wanted to think something lasted when you loved someone. Some part of that connection remained, that the person stayed inside you in a way. But maybe that wasn’t always true. And maybe with someone like Phoebe, you didn’t want them lingering on the outskirts of your heart, reminding you how unsafe the world was. Maybe it was better to forget some people completely. If you could. If that was even possible.

  42

  I got home at nine thirty that night. It felt good to get off the bus, to breathe the inland air, which was warmer, more earthy, more fragrant. Walking out of the bus station into downtown Eugene, I was struck by how clean and orderly the streets were. The expensive cars. The well-dressed people. Eugene was a college town. Everything was new and shiny.

  My dad pulled up and popped the trunk, and I lifted my suitcase inside. I hadn’t eaten, so we went to a new sandwich place that had opened down the block. It was very Eugene: The bread was organic; the produce locally grown. We sat by the window, while around us a scattering of college students talked or worked on their laptops. The academic life. It felt strange to be home.

  * * *

  I didn’t know how long Phoebe would stay in my thoughts once I got settled. For the first day or two I continued to feel that same painful tightness in my chest. Not heartbreak exactly, more like a low-grade panic attack. I didn’t sleep well. I forgot to eat. I couldn’t seem to not think about her.

  Part of the problem was I didn’t have much to do, or anything else to focus on. I tried to keep busy running errands. I bought a new laptop from the Apple Store and some new Gap corduroys at the mall. I picked up my parking pass and locker combination from my high school.

  At least I wasn’t in Seaside anymore. And Eugene was so different. Even buying things seemed different. Here, you just whipped out your parents’ credit card. It didn’t matter what something cost. And the other young people around me, they seemed so confident and pleased with themselves, as if they’d done something spectacular just by being alive.

  * * *

  Then Kate called. “You’ve been home for three days?” she said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  I could hear the concern in her voice. She had been worried about me, I realized.

  She invited me over to Edith’s, who was having a pool party since her mom was out of town. So I drove over there. Edith was making piña coladas and gave me one, and I took my place beside the pool. Other friends of ours were there, and I got to hear about everyone’s trips and the people they met and the other news of the summer.

  “Nick was in Seaside,” said Kate at one point. “Working at his uncle’s car wash.”

  Everyone looked at me with amazement.

  “A car wash?” asked Edith. “What was that like?”

  “It was okay,” I said.

  “Did you at least meet some girls?” asked Josh.

  “A few. Here and there,” I said.

  “Oh my God. But Seaside is so skanky!” said Libby Baldwin.

  “I know,” said Edith. “All those arcades. And the creepy locals.”

  “And everyone is so fat,” added Libby, as she sucked on her straw.

  “Libby!”

  “What?” she said. “It’s true. They eat too much fried foods!”

  “We went there once,” said Chloe Edelman. “And the hotel was so awful my parents refused to stay in it.”

  “I didn’t mind it,” I said, taking a sip of my piña colada. “It was different. It was a learning experience.”

  “Yeah, learning to be poor!” said Edith.

  “Oh my God!” said Libby. “Did you hear about Gigi? And her counselor at tennis camp?”

  The conversation quickly turned to Gigi and her tennis-camp romance. Which got me off the hook. Which was good.

  * * *

  Once school got going, that’s when I felt the first change in my feelings about Phoebe. My thoughts and memories of her seemed to shift into a slightly more remote place in my mind. She wasn’t the first thing I thought about when I woke up. Or the first image that came to mind when I was alone somewhere. I still had days when I couldn’t shake the hurt she had left in me. I felt “gutted” was what I told Dr. Snow. On those days I found myself going back to the questions that were never answered: What caused her to be like she was? What would happen to her? Had she cared about me at all?

  But on most days, being a senior, I had more urgent things to worry about: Class assignments. College applications. Prepping for my SATs. But even then, after a long night studying in the library, I would be packing up my stuff and realize that the memory of Phoebe had been hovering around me like a ghost. The walk home would turn into one more imaginary conversation with her, one last attempt to clarify what exactly had happened between us. Other times I would find myself trying to explain it to some future girlfriend or wife: The summer I was seventeen, I met this girl . . .<
br />
  And then there were the times when I wanted to remember her. When I actually craved that gnawing pain in my chest. Sometimes I would ride my bike for miles and let Phoebe come to me, and be inside me, and hurt me again. Which felt strangely satisfying and seemed to cleanse me in some way.

  * * *

  In general, though, the more time passed the better things got. Having my mom living in her own apartment turned out to be a huge relief. And my dad was actually in better shape mentally than when I left. He seemed genuinely happy for a change. Maybe he’d given up and was finally moving on.

  And my mom. Oh my God. I don’t even want to tell this part, but I guess I have to. It turned out my mom had kept a journal throughout her troubles, starting with her first DUI arrest six years before. Without telling anyone, she’d carefully recorded everything: the rehabs, the relapses, the affairs. She’d turned this journal into a memoir and sold it to her book publisher for a shitload of money. They were already planning the book tour. This was a hard thing for me to digest. MOM WINS AGAIN! But as Kate pointed out, it was probably for the best. The thing with my mother was, if all the attention was on her, she was happy. And when she was happy, she left the rest of us alone.

  * * *

  And then one cold morning in November I was sitting in senior history class when I got an unexpected text.

  Hey Nick, I wanted to let you know that I’m coming to Eugene tomorrow to take a tour of University of Oregon. It is currently my number one school, because it’s not too far away and my counselor says I can get good financial aid. Are you there? Would you want to hang out? I also wanted to thank you for telling me about colleges that time on the beach. That really helped me. Jace

  43

  I waited for Jace inside the university student center. I was pretty nervous to see her again. It had been three months. And now she would see me how I really was, not like how I’d been over the summer, trying to fit in at the Happy Bubble.

  But the moment I saw her, I knew everything was okay. She seemed thrilled to be there, in Eugene, at a big university, and to have a real friend to talk about it with.

  She was with her mother, who I hadn’t met. I was surprised by her mom. She was neatly dressed and totally smart and nice, not like Jace described her, as this uneducated person who couldn’t go to the Pacific Grill.

  They had already been on the official campus tour, so the three of us got smoothies and talked. I told them a little bit about my mother’s life as a professor, and about her new book.

  “Nick wants to be a writer too,” Jace told her mom.

  I shrugged and said, “I’m thinking about it.”

  After a while Jace’s mom went back to their hotel, and Jace and I walked around to some of the places they hadn’t shown her on the tour.

  I took her to the Collective, which was this art gallery/coffee shop place off campus where they had poetry readings and music. Then we checked out the basement of the student center where they had cheap snacks at all hours, and you could play pool or do karaoke. Then we went to the student lounge in the big library, which was one of my favorite places to hang out. It was open late, and you could study or read or just sit around with the college kids and feel like you were in college yourself. Jace really liked that. She liked everything about the university. In that way she and I were the same. We both loved the student life.

  * * *

  Jace and her mom were leaving early the next day, so we hung out in the library lounge as long as we could. We got hot chocolates out of the coffee machine and lay back on the couches and talked. There was no mention of Phoebe or Seaside or Emily. Now it was all about the future, our future, where we hoped to go, and what we hoped to do.

  After that I walked Jace back to her hotel. It got a little awkward, saying good-bye in the lobby. I finally gave her a hug. This started as a “friends” hug, as a “let’s stay in touch” hug. But once I had my arms around her, I couldn’t seem to let go. All these feelings came flooding over me. Tears filled my eyes. Jace was such a hopeful person. And I needed that hope. I needed it bad.

  She didn’t seem to mind. She seemed willing to stand there for as long as it took. So I settled my head on her shoulder. And I held her. And I held her. And I held her.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Liesa Abrams, Jessica Smith, and everyone at Simon Pulse. And to Jodi Reamer and Alec Shane at Writers House. Special thanks to invaluable readers: Jenny Altshuler, Laural Winter, Kevin Samuels, Celina Amaya, Paula Nelson, Penny Nelson. (Teenage) relatives whom I pester for information: Noah Nelson, Orion Wiebe, Cassandra and Vivian Wiebe, Misha Hindery, James Hindery. Other friends and advisors: David Colton, Steve Arndt, Sarah Pearlman, Lidia Yuknavitch, Liz Mehl, Gabe Cohen, Kari Luna, April Henry, Claire Dederer, Rachel Rifkin, Christa Desir, Renee Steinke, Natalie Standiford, Melissa Walker, Gayle Foreman, Nick Tucker, Peter Drake, Adam Weiss, Martha Grover, Jen Ziegler, Jason Etemad-Lehmer, Mary Suzanne Garvey, Laura Locker, Melissa Locker, Vanessa Gallagher, Kari Luna, Jesse Sposato, Alex Simpson, Chelsea Hogan, Nancy Petriello Barile, David Gutowski, Kevin Sampsell, Michelle and family (and everyone) at Seaside Coffee House.

  About the Author

  BLAKE NELSON is the author of many young adult novels, including Recovery Road (now a TV series), the coming-of-age classic Girl, Boy, and Paranoid Park, which was made into a film by Gus Van Sant. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Blake-Nelson

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  BLAKENELSONBOOKS.com

  Also by Blake Nelson

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

  * * *

  Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition June 2018

  Text copyright © 2018 by Blake Nelson

  Jacket photograph of people and beach copyright © 2018 by Anthony Suau

  Jacket photograph of sand copyright © 2018 by Thinkstock

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Sarah Creech

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Nelson, Blake, 1960- author.

  Title: Phoebe will destroy you / by Blake Nelson.

  Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2018. |

  Summary: To avoid his alcoholic mother’s problems, Nick, seventeen, stays with his aunt’s family near the Oregon coast, where he works at his uncle’s car wash and falls into a complicated relationship.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017
033159 (print) | LCCN 2017044653 (eBook) |

  ISBN 9781481488167 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781481488181 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. |

  Family life—Oregon—Fiction. | Car washes—Fiction. |

  Alcoholism—Fiction. | Family problems—Fiction. | Oregon—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.N4328 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.N4328 Pho 2018 (print) |

  DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033159