Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel (15 page)

Then, almost as if sensing her discomfort, he wrote:
gotta go to football practice. Later
.

Phoebe was surprised he had football practice at this late hour on a Sunday, but didn't give it more than a passing thought.

A while later, Skyla called. She wanted to know all the details of the dress she'd gotten. And she spoke of the coming dance. But nothing about Shane. Skyla always wanted to talk about the latest guy with whom she or Phoebe had become Facebook friends. This neglect surprised Phoebe a little,
and
, she realized, it disappointed her. While chatting, she saw that Shane had left her a private message.
Your eyes are so cool. I wish I could see them in person
.

A thrill coursed through Phoebe, and she actually felt herself blushing. Eager to end the call, she kept her answers brief without being rude. “What's with you?” Skyla asked at once. “Nothing,” Phoebe said, “let's talk tomorrow,” and then hung up.

Since Shane didn't attend her school, she felt less inhibited in her response, so she wrote exactly what she thought:
Thanks, maybe you can?
BTW: You remind me of the guy in
Twilight.

You remind me of Emma Stone. ;-)

Phoebe laughed aloud, feeling a sense of unrestrained glee. If he thought she looked like Emma Stone, then they truly were meant to be friends. She was about to ask how he knew she adored the actress's looks, but before she could, he'd written to her again.

Do you have a boyfriend? No, don't tell me, of course you do
. To which she wrote:
No, not really. How about you? Do you have a girlfriend?
To which he responded:
Of course not, otherwise I wouldn't be flirting with you!

She touched the word “flirting” on the screen and rubbed her finger across it, as if by doing so she could somehow reach through the netherworld of computers and connect with him. After they signed off, Phoebe printed out his Facebook photo and pinned it to her bulletin board. And studied it repeatedly. In bed that night, Phoebe tried to imagine what it would be like to meet him.

“Ron, is that you?” Sandy said. “Is this a good time?”

“Sure, sure,” he said, sitting at his desk, toying with a miniature basketball, “what's on your mind?”

“Well,” she said, “it's just that Jessie feels awful about having invited Noah. She told me Phoebe was upset, but she was just trying to help. You know? So I hope you can let her know that. And I hope the two girls can get back to the good old days.” A long purring sigh reached through the phone and grabbed him.

“Of course, not to worry,” he said in a rush. “These things always sort themselves out.” Though in this case he wondered if that was true.

“Do they?” she said, as if reading his mind. “I don't know. I'd like to think so.” She paused. “You know what I'd really like?”

“What's that?”

“To make you happy.”

Ron wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. Before he could ask there was a click on the line.

As Sandy hung up she watched her reflection in the round mirror she'd placed on her desk beside the computer screen. But it wasn't what it seemed, not some narcissistic addiction to her image, but rather a reminder not to eat. If she did, she'd have to watch herself do it. A very effective method, if she had to say so herself. It was one of the simple diet tips she sent out periodically to her list of customers.

Which, oddly, reminded her of Les, who'd taught her a few tricks. She recalled how, on occasion, she'd stood in front of a mirror with him off to the side behind her or he'd sat on her bed directing her. “Now take off your blouse. No, no, not so fast. Slowly, darling.” And so on. Of course it always ended with them pawing at each other, but she'd loved his stories, his impromptu explorations of her body. There was something languid and tropical about him. Or maybe it was French. He occasionally threw out a French word or two. “Je t'aime” were the only ones she recognized.

His voice though was a bit like Ron's, they had similar velvety baritones, she now thought. They even vaguely resembled one another. She sighed, recollecting how her mother's growing suspicions had precipitated a change in Les's voice. She could hear the anxiety. “We need to stop this,” he said one day during her senior year.

She'd looked at him quizzically. “Stop what?” She'd been so sure he was planning on running off with her the minute she graduated that when she told him so, he'd laughed. Not exactly in a mean way, but dismissively as if she were a child. “I can't believe you had any such idea.” And yet she had. She could have sworn he'd said as much.

“You've lost your mind, my sweet,” he added.

Sandy had fantasized a life with him, a life away from her mother, a woman so lacking in affection, so distant, so uninterested in her older daughter.

It all dated back to the divorce, when their father came to pick them up every other Sunday. Sandy began to dread those meetings as it cast her further and further from her mother; she became an island her mother rarely visited. And though Sandy wanted her father's love and understanding, how could a single day with him replace the thirteen in between when she felt adrift. Alone. As if understanding her quandary, he began to come less and less until she hardly saw him at all. Until she felt neither the love of her mother nor her father.

We don't fully understand such things as children, her one and only therapist had said, and maybe never, because all too often such experiences become one of those shadow feelings that follow us through life without our ever coming to terms with it. We run from it, hide from it, only now and then catching a glimpse of that shadow, seeing that it's still there, sewn to us by a thin but strong thread. And so we build castles around ourselves, armor ourselves against the pain of loss, never fully realizing what we've lost and never knowing what might have been had circumstances been different.

So it was with Sandy. She'd invited Les into her castle and wanted to keep him there. When she continued to pursue him, often taking unreasonable risks and threatening to expose their affair to the mother who'd neglected her, he took her for a drive one late afternoon two months before Sandy's graduation. He suggested the exercise club where she liked to go.

Darkness had already settled in for the evening as they pulled into the club's parking lot. But he stopped her from exiting the car. Instead, he kissed her with the fierceness of Genghis Khan, a little joke between them. Which was followed by stormy screwing. When the two of them climaxed, Sandy's orgasm came in explosive waves, unlike anything she'd ever felt. Then, softly, she heard him say, “I love you,” and he kissed her again.

Now, for sure, she thought, Les would start the car and they'd drive away together. As she waited, however, the deadening words arrived: “But we have to stop. It's over, darling. Don't you understand?”

She cried out and told him she didn't understand, not one bit, not ever. Without further discussion he started the car and aimed it home.

That's when Sandy decided to get back at Les in the only way she knew. She would find a very cute guy to begin hanging around the house with. To openly kiss whenever Les was around. See how he liked that.

Her thoughts returned to Ron, and she wondered how Isabel would like the kisses she'd give her husband. Staring in the mirror beside her laptop, she didn't see herself, but imagined those tousled looks of Ron's. Just like the Kennedys, and their very Irish charm. She'd send him another email soon, but she'd wait. It worked best that way.

“Jane, you have no idea what her arms looked like,” Isabel said, using the speakerphone in her office, and subconsciously staring at her own arms. “It was like a killing field. Stab wounds, cuts, scabs, raw tender flesh. Oh, my God, it was devastating. How could she have done that? And how could I have not known? I feel like the world's worst mother!”

“Oh, Iz, don't beat yourself up over it. You're an incredibly dedicated mom. You two will find a way through this.” Jane paused. “I'm so sorry for Phoebe. And for you, you poor thing. What are you going to do?”

Just hearing her friend's voice soothed Isabel's frayed state of mind. She described her plan of action. That Phoebe would see Dr. Sharma once or twice a week, depending on what she thought after the first session; that she planned to do more research on cutting; and that she really did think keeping Phoebe away from Jessie was the right thing to do. “Can you believe how that girl justified having Noah take her to the dance? It's sinful! Really. How does she come up with that crap?”

“Well, in a twisted way, I guess you could convince yourself that you're keeping your friend's boyfriend from other girls. But, I agree, who thinks like that? And without even asking Phoebe! You've got your hands full,” Jane said, then added, “but you know what they say?”

“What?”

“This too shall pass.”

“I suppose.”

“Anyway, Phoebe's a kind, smart girl, and she'll be all right.”

Her reassurance sounded like Alison Kendall's, but coming from Jane she felt better. “You promise?”

“I guarantee it!”

Generally, on Mondays Isabel tried to schedule as few meetings as possible. Which meant that now she had a few minutes to kill before her first of the day, a pro bono case. But her mind wasn't yet on that appointment.

After what she'd seen on Saturday in the dressing room, and despite Jane's no-nonsense pep talk, she was still angry with herself for having allowed Phoebe to stop seeing Dr. Sharma. Clearly, she'd been in denial. She logged onto the Internet and Googled “cutting.” It seemed far more information existed now than when she'd researched it before. The second site she landed on featured an article that grabbed her attention. “Cutting to Escape from Emotional Pain?” by Edward A. Selby, Ph.D. She printed out the piece and began to read. Automatically, she reached for her highlighter and began marking a few passages. As she went along, more and more lines of type shouted out at her.

The author was asking the question Isabel sometimes still asked herself: “Why on Earth would someone purposely want to cut his or her self?” The fact that something like 4% of the U.S. population self-injured, millions in other words, with the number of adolescents rising to “as high as 14%” was frightening. How had this happened? It only seemed like yesterday that so many girls suffered from anorexia and bulimia. Was this the new method of coping?

The unsightly highlights felt like an affront. She could hardly bear to read more. But she told herself to toughen up. She scanned the rest and made notes on one of the legal pads, things she'd discuss with Ron and also Dr. Sharma:

•
the number one reason for self-mutilating is to reduce negative emotions (author claims this seems like “such a bizarre reason!”)

•
like Phoebe, many people say they do it to “stop bad feelings”

•
they are trying “to cope with stressful situations or upsetting problems” the way some “people use alcohol or drugs”

•
many become dependent on dealing with their problems this way.

These things fit Phoebe's situation, she thought, but what didn't was the notion that people who self-mutilated often had problems in school or at work. Phoebe did great in school, or at least she had last year when this whole thing began. She wondered if she should ask Phoebe how her grades were. Of course not, she thought to herself.

The next thing she read stopped her. She flipped the cap off her highlighter and pressed the tip hard on the copy of the article she'd printed out, sliding it across several passages. “The worst thing of all about NSSI is that it is strongly connected to later suicide attempts and death by suicide.”

She jotted “strongly connected to suicide attempts” on her hand-written list. The only hope the article gave her were the soon-to-be-released “new and exciting findings on this topic.” Terrific! Isabel thought. Oh joy, she imagined Phoebe saying. And the only advice was to see a therapist. At least that she'd accomplished. Now she recollected what Dr. Sharma had explained to her last May – that cutting had similarities to eating disorders, both used the body as a means of self-expression. A kind of canvas, as with body piercings. She thought of Emma and wondered what, if anything, lay behind that girl's unhappiness, assuming of course that she was unhappy.

Isabel gazed outside. From her fifth story window she had a view of numerous other 19
^th
-century renovated brick buildings in DC's Penn Quarter and the tops of dozens of trees, a fall spectacle at this time of year. Though she knew the dome of the Capitol hovered somewhere in the distance, from her office neither the famous building nor the machinations of Congress were visible.

As much as she'd wanted more information on cutting, now that she'd read this, she found herself sinking into despair. How could her dear sweet girl do such a thing to herself? Was it all because she'd grounded her? Despite her own father's strictness, she'd never resorted to such extreme measures. Of course Phoebe wasn't a carbon copy of herself. But why this? Because of Noah and Jessie? The whole thing made her sick to her stomach.

On Saturday, after their shopping spree, her call to Dr. Sharma had been panicked. At least she'd had the presence of mind to schedule an appointment with her, not only for Phoebe but also one for herself and Ron, “to develop a strategy to help Phoebe cope.” Their meeting would follow the first three with Phoebe, which would take place over the next ten days. Dr. Sharma had suggested that she get the lay of the land with Phoebe before meeting with her and Ron. Isabel checked her calendar to make sure that she'd added the appointment.

Staring at the date, Isabel reassured herself there was no danger of suicide, not between now and then. Absolutely none. Especially if she saw Dr. Sharma. Why on earth had they ever agreed to let Phoebe end her sessions? Such a juggling act to be a parent, a loving parent,
and
to take one's child's thoughts, wishes, and opinions into account. But things had gotten in the way too: there had been several interruptions in her therapy during summer vacation, then they'd ended therapy with the start of the school year (a
new
school, for heaven's sake), and, of course, she couldn't leave out the world of wishful thinking. Phoebe had seemed happy, everything had seemed okay.