Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel (4 page)

With the parents' party in mind, Isabel left her law office early so she could spend a relaxing hour getting her nails done. Work had left her frazzled. Though she often enjoyed running into friends at Aqua, today she just longed for some peace and quiet.

About to enter the neighborhood salon, Isabel heard the chime of her cell phone. She didn't much feel like talking, and prayed it wasn't one of her law partners, or a needy client. Rummaging through her purse, she finally located the phone and saw that it was Phoebe.

“Hi, honey, where are you?” she said automatically.

“Just leaving school.”

“Did you have a good day?” she asked.

“Yes. But I was wondering if, uh—”

Isabel grew alert. “Wondering what, honey?” Phoebe sounded as if she were about to stretch the truth. Isabel knew that lying came with the tricky territory of adolescence, but still, she didn't think deception should be tolerated. She had enough of that with her clients. She reminded herself to be patient; after all, Phoebe hadn't lied yet.

“Well…don't say no, okay, Mommy?”

“Okay, no—I mean I won't automatically say no. But listen, honey, I have a nail appointment, so can we just get to the point?” “Yeah, well, we're going to this thrift shop—”

“Thrift shop?” she said. The very words annoyed her as her mind conjured up the pile of smelly used clothing in Phoebe's room. “Who's we?”

“Jessie, Emma, and a few other kids.”

Isabel heaved a sigh. “Which thrift shop, honey?”

“Second Chance, and maybe another one.”

“Another one?” Isabel asked. “And where is that?”

“It's over in,” pause, “uh, Adams Morgan.”

Aha, Isabel thought, with some relief. Even when Phoebe knew she might object, she told the truth, and Isabel truly appreciated this in her daughter. So she felt a tiny bit bad when she said, “No, honey, I'm sorry, but you're
not
going to a thrift store in Adams Morgan.”

“But Mom—”

“You know that's not a safe neighborhood. Too many things can—” she hesitated,
go wrong
, she thought, but then supplied what she hoped would be just the right solution. “There are plenty of secondhand shops in Georgetown. I'm okay with that. Go ahead, hang out in Georgetown with your friends. Anyway, don't forget you have to be home by six to babysit your brother. The ninth grade parents' party – it's tonight. Remember?”

“But Maawwm—”

“I'm counting on you to make a good decision here. No Adams Morgan. Listen, I'm about to be late, but you can reach me if anything comes up, okay?”

“All right, bye.” The call ended abruptly.

Isabel stared at the phone. She had the urge to call back – had Phoebe really heard her say no to Adams Morgan? – but she stopped herself.

As she stepped inside Aqua, Isabel was thinking that more than anything she wanted to crack the code on teen behavior. In lighter moments, she knew she'd be worth a fortune if she did. It was ironic, actually, since she'd broken the code on dealing with white-collar criminals long ago. Sure they were liars, but most of them wanted to tell the truth, to someone. They wanted to brag about what they'd achieved, how they'd pulled the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting colleagues or board members or whomever, and tell her how they'd managed to defraud them, how their schemes had worked, how they'd gotten away with murder. Well, until they'd gotten caught. But getting a thirteen-year-old to talk, to tell you what's on her mind, that was like trying to break into Fort Knox. Heck, Fort Knox would be a breeze by comparison.

Over the past couple of years, Isabel had learned that raising children required a delicate balance. Too much intervention and you ended up with rebellion, not enough and who knew what might happen?

But Adams Morgan? Not a good idea. Again tempted to call Phoebe back, her finger hovered over the send button until she heard the receptionist clear his throat. She looked up. With little more than two hours to go, how much trouble could Phoebe get into?

Afraid her mother might hear the rumbling of the bus, Phoebe quickly ended the call and switched the phone to vibrate, then stuffed it deep into one of several pockets she'd sewn onto her jeans jacket. She gave Emma and Jessie a thumbs-up. The alibi had worked. Well, sort of. At times like this Phoebe wished she could be more like Jessie, who had no qualms about lying to her mother, though Mrs. Littleton was so lax Phoebe couldn't imagine why she'd have to.

“Five Guys is that way,” Jessie said, pointing down the street. Jessie amazed Phoebe; she seemed to know everything: innocent lies to tell your mom, the location of Five Guys in Adams Morgan,
how to get Noah to invite her to the fall dance
. When she'd pondered this after lunch, Jessie had said, “Just kiss him and see what happens. I bet he'll ask you.”

Now she could hardly wait to meet not only Noah and Dylan, but also Nick and Sam. She had wondered a bit about why Noah would be hanging out with Nick and Sam, who were part of the fast crowd, while Noah had always been known as more of a geek. Well, whatever the reason, going to this Five Guys and not the one in Georgetown had caused her anxiety over the course of the day. Emma had shed light on the subject – Sam lived in Adams Morgan – but this had only sent Phoebe's mind spinning.

“What do you think we're going to do?” she now asked again, feeling her stomach tighten at the thought of kissing Noah, and what that might lead to. She wasn't ready for anything more yet, though she knew the same might not be true for Jessie or Emma. Nick and Emma had gone out a few times over the summer, and she'd admitted to him having
finger-fucked
her, which sounded gross to Phoebe, who'd hardly even kissed a boy. And she knew that it had been no big deal for Jessie and Emma to hook up with guys at the movies, and at a few parties.

“Who knows? And who cares. I just want to be with Dylan,” Jessie said.

They talked a little about the possibility of the guys inviting them to the fall dance, though they agreed that might be awkward for Sam, since there were only three girls and four guys. For some unspoken reason Emma smiled mysteriously, then brushed off Phoebe and Jessie's demands to know what she knew, and insisted on taking a few photos to commemorate the afternoon.

“Right over there,” she said, pointing at a colorful window display of balloons, paper plates and napkins, which reminded Phoebe of the joint birthday party she'd agreed to. Maybe she ought to break the news to her friends now. Then, instead of mentioning it, she begged Emma not to post the photos on Facebook. “My mom'll go ballistic if she finds out I was here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Emma said, and they all burst into laughter. Emma, with her Modigliani-like curtain of hair, dark smoldering eyes, and nose, brow and ear piercings, wrote poetry and endlessly aimed her phone or camera at events surrounding her, often posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Her Facebook profile claimed she aspired to record their teen lives much the way Edward S. Curtis had chronicled Native Americans. Though hopefully “we're not a dying breed,” she'd written.

The three girls arrived at the glass doors of the fast-food restaurant, and after a quick glance at their reflections and some last minute primping, they stepped inside. The guys were crowded around a table in a back corner, where they seemed to be in the midst of a heated exchange. At the sight of the girls, they fell back in their chairs and waved them over.

“You have appointment?” the young man with bronzed spiky hair asked Isabel as she approached him. He was Vietnamese, like all the petite, dark-haired women in the shop.

“Yes, yes,” she said and aimed at her name in the appointment book. “Mani-pedi with Thuy.” As she searched the long narrow room, she heard him say, “Pick a color, please.”

Isabel nodded, finally spotting Thuy toward the back finishing up with another client. They exchanged a small wave. On occasion, Isabel brought Phoebe with her, treating her to a pedicure or manicure, and the two of them would sit on adjacent chairs and chat. In the shop, she now saw several such mother-daughter couples and a pang of envy stirred her. How long had it been since she was last here with Feebs?

As she stood before the rows of nail polish, she tried to decide on her mood and match it with a color. She tended toward shades of pink, but today she felt like something different. It may have sounded silly, but whenever she left the shop, armored with perfect nails, she felt ready to battle the complexities of the world, of which there were plenty.

A few hours earlier, a local DC politician, accused of misusing campaign funds, had shown up at her office. Most likely, news accounts were accurate; the guy was guilty. A charming man, really, she could understand the voters electing him, but now he was in trouble and he'd turned to her. She hadn't said no, but her client list was full. Could she manage the case by passing it on to one of the new associates and overseeing her?

The real problem was managing the success of her firm, something she occasionally felt Ron envied. He'd grown unhappy with his AP reporter's job and aspired to more, perhaps in part because he was a descendant of the famous Edward R. Murrow. Never mind that she brought in nearly three times the income he did, which didn't matter to her in the slightest, but on occasion she detected it bothered him.

Relationships were fragile, she knew, and small fractures could develop into deep ruptures. Perhaps she ought to pay more attention, encourage him to move on. That's when she remembered that she'd forgotten to call him to remind him of the evening's event. First, though, she needed to pick a color.

As she scanned the shelves, her eyes briefly rested on a row of polish worn by so many girls these days – turquoise, metallic blue, lime green, violet, yellow, puce, purple, black. For a fraction of a second, she toyed with the idea of painting her nails one of these rather exotic, youthful shades, until the vision of Jessie's and Emma's nails, invariably bedecked in black or blue, flashed through her mind.

She didn't really approve of these girls: Emma with her piercings and morbidly pale skin, and Jessie who exuded a kind of wild girl aura. They seemed to be on the fast track to trouble – Jessie overtly boy crazy, and Emma part of the “stoner” crowd, according to her friend Jane. Add to that the matter of drinking, which apparently Sandy had allowed at a party over the summer. Emma's mother she didn't know. She'd never attended a single Woodmont event. All these things, and more, made her uncomfortable. Perhaps Phoebe would find a new set of friends now that she was a freshman. Friends Phoebe would have for life, just as she had.

“Hello, Eesa-bell?” Thuy's lilting voice called out, startling her.

“Be right there,” Isabel said, examining a bottle with the name Key Largo. The name itself lifted her mood as she recalled a trip to Key West with Phoebe. They'd romped on the beach and built sandcastles. Phoebe's five-, seven- and ten-year-old selves would be forever imprinted on Isabel's heart, but what about this new, almost-fourteen-year-old version?

What plagued Isabel now was how to keep her daughter safe. Especially after last year. Which again made her want to call Phoebe. “Oh, heck,” she muttered softly and dug the phone out of her purse. She tapped Phoebe's name. The phone began to ring.

What should she say? Just checking on you, honey? You're not going to Adams Morgan, are you? Trust between mother and daughter was essential, and she so wanted to trust her. I do, she told herself. With a click she ended the call.

Stowing her litany of concerns, she grabbed the tiny bottle, ready to be transported, ready for Thuy's special form of magic, a pedicure followed by a manicure.