Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel (28 page)

Isabel couldn't believe Phoebe's stressed out call, the way she'd just hung up, and then her refusal to answer when she phoned her back. She kept glancing in her rearview mirror to see if the cop who'd stopped her a few minutes earlier was behind her, but she didn't see him. How could she have left the scene? Now she stepped on the gas though she kept an eye on the odometer. And that gibbous moon, staring down on her, a mocking grin on its misshapen face.

Oh, God, she could kick herself for having called the police on Saturday night. She always said you shouldn't do things in the heat of anger. Now she'd have to explain everything to Phoebe. She tapped their home number and waited for someone to answer. Despite two more calls to Phoebe, plus one to Ron, she got no answer.
Damn it!

Ron pulled away from the curb where he'd parked for about five minutes while he and Sandy spoke. She'd made him rock hard, and now he was pounding his hand on the steering wheel to a Stones' tune. “Who says you can't always get what you want?” he shouted. With a smooth sweeping motion, he turned the steering wheel hand over hand, and headed north on 16
^th
Street away from the
Washington Post's
offices.

“I am on a roll,” he said, punctuating each word, and then shouting, “On-a-fucking-roll!”

At the top of his game, that's how he felt. He'd just gotten approval from the White House for an interview with President Obama! Christ! I've got a great job, great kids, perfect everything, he thought. Well, maybe not everything. He was having a little trouble balancing a wife with the notion of a fuck buddy. He'd just set up “lunch” with Sandy for Friday.

A wife and a mistress didn't really go together, but he knew guys who did it. And he couldn't stop thinking that she was a vixen. He'd always love Isabel, but he wanted to fuck this babe. The honk of a car reminded him that his driving had slowed to a crawl. He sped up and turned his thoughts to dinner, wondering what Milly had made.

Phoebe fought back her tears. Jessie and Shane had been right. Her mother
had
called the cops. And now everyone would HATE her for what her mother had done. Worst of all, Shane was no longer interested in meeting her and he WASN'T coming to her party! She'd NEVER get to know him. She'd never be his “number 10!”

Phoebe marched over to the dollhouse and retrieved the box cutter, then marched back and saw what Skyla had written:
This better not wreck our party. What the heck did you do? And your mom!!? Whoa!? So uncool
.

Oh, please, not again, Phoebe thought as she stared at Skyla's note. Not another year like the last one. And now this one seemed infinitely worse.

How low! You are such a piece of trash!
someone else wrote.

Phoebe gaped at the words when suddenly a post appeared from Vanessa, a former Woodmont friend of hers and Jessie's, who she hadn't seen since the summer:
You're a cutter! I saw the scars. How weird! What's wrong with you?

“No! Please,” she whimpered. Vanessa and Emma were the only girls besides Jessie who knew about her cutting. And now her secret was exposed! How could she?

Oooh, ick. How sick
.

Shane:
God, you're such a loser!

Vanessa:
Your mom called the police! If I were you I'd leave home or slash my wrists. Get it?

The words on the screen grew into a grating noise. She closed her eyes and covered her ears. This can't be happening. Please make it stop. When she opened them, she saw another note from Shane:
The world would be better off without you. Don't you know that?

Phoebe slammed the computer shut. Somewhere in the distance the phone rang. She vaulted off her bed and ripped Shane's photos off the bulletin board, the thumbtacks flying across the room. She tore his image into shreds, allowing the pieces to flutter onto the thickly carpeted floor.

Engrossed in sending Phoebe one last message, Sandy jumped at the sound of Jessie's voice. “What the heck are you doing, Mom?”

Sandy hadn't heard her arrive. Now she felt Jess right behind her. “What are you talking about?” she said without turning around. Her fingers fumbled with the cursor and finally managed to close Facebook.

“Mommm!”

“Oh, stop your yammering,” Sandy said, keeping her back to Jessie.

“How'd you do that? How could you write a message from Shane?” Jessie asked, a rare urgency in her tone. “Turn around! Answer me!” shouted Jessie.

Sandy should have known that it would only take an instant for the neurons and synapses in Jessie's brain to put two and two together: Shane hadn't come to her party because there was no Shane. Because she, her mother, was Shane! Which is why she was writing messages that appeared to come from Shane.

In those same few moments, Sandy collected herself and rotated the swivel chair to face her daughter, all traces of guilt and anxiety erased from her countenance. She, Sandy, had rectified an injustice. Jessie, on the other hand, looked like she might puke.

“Sit down, honey, we need to talk,” Sandy said.

In a trance, almost as if sleepwalking, Phoebe entered the bathroom without closing the door and without switching on the light. She laid the box cutter on the edge of the tub and began peeling off her clothes. One by one, each article fell to the floor as water splashed and filled the tub. Light from the hallway spilled inside, illuminating a vertical slice of the darkened room. The water shimmered as she entered. Shadows hovered and climbed the walls like so many wraiths.

The words
you're such a loser
and
I don't want to see you ever
cycled through Phoebe's mind.
The world would be better off without you
. A shiver ran through her body as she sank into the tub. Steam rose into the air, obscuring the dim light in the room. She lay there for a few minutes, tears seeping from her eyes, dripping down her cheeks, and running along her slender throat. Everyone hated her. Everyone.

She lifted the box cutter and twisted the dull metal tool in the air before dragging the blade across her left wrist. The gash separated the skin. She stared at the open wound with cold detachment and waited for the blood to appear. At first there was no sensation, then, as always, the pain of the cut overtook the thoughts in her head, and all her confusion began to recede, like a wave rushing back out to sea. But this time relief lasted only a few precious moments. Then the cacophony of voices assaulted her anew.
Ooh ick, you're sick. I never want to see you. You're a liar. A slut. We don't trust you. We hate you. Why don't you just end it? The world would be better off without you
.

Phoebe balled her left hand into a fist and made several more slices across her thin bluish veins. The skin curled open and more blood pulsed to the surface. She tilted her wrist and watched dark pearls of liquid splash into the water – drip, drip, drip – then spread like ink. She'd actually never seen ink in water, except once on a show about squids and the way they squirt the toxic substance at their enemies, giving them time to disappear behind an ever expanding bluish-black cloud.

Isabel maneuvered the car along the curves of Rock Creek Parkway. She pressed harder on the gas pedal, watching the speedometer climb to fifty, half an eye on her rearview mirror, the other on her iPhone. “Damn it,” she said aloud, fumbling with the icons, touching the wrong one, banging “end,” striking another, wishing she'd learned to use voice commands. Finally, she tapped Ron's name and listened to the phone ring. “Damn it,” she said viciously, “answer the fucking phone!”

Driving north on Wisconsin, Ron glanced at his cell reluctant to answer Isabel's call. But, finally, he turned down the volume on the radio. “What's up?”

“Are you home yet?” Isabel's tone was urgent, borderline hysterical.

“No, what's wrong?” Since Saturday's fiasco, things had been touchy between them. He'd made it clear he thought calling the police had been unnecessary, and in an added imperious tone told her it could have negative ramifications for Phoebe, a comment that had been met with stony silence.