I was already walking toward the Promenade when I ended the call. Now I turned in the direction of Phoebe’s.
It took about ten minutes. I didn’t let myself think too much. It seemed possible that I might lose my nerve if I did. So no thinking. That was the rule I set for myself: No thinking.
I arrived at her house. I didn’t let myself hesitate and kept right on walking, up the empty driveway and along the little path to the front door. I rang the bell, or I tried to. It didn’t seem to be working. So I knocked, in a polite way, and then knocked again louder, in case she was in the workroom in the back.
A moment later I heard footsteps. My heart rose to my throat. I took a deep breath and waited.
The doorknob turned, and with some difficulty the door opened.
It was Phoebe. She was barefoot, in shorts. She looked like she’d just woken up. “Oh,” she said, peering at me with drowsy, blinking eyes.
“Hi,” I said.
“What are you doing here?”
The tone in her voice stung me. But I remained calm. “I was, uh . . . just walking around . . . ,” I managed to say. “They let me off early . . . from the car wash.”
“Oh,” she said. I could see the house was dark inside, even though it was the afternoon.
“I wanted to see you,” I said in a serious voice. “And I forgot to get your number. So I figured this was the best way.”
She looked at me. She seemed unsure what to do. “Okay,” she said.
“I can go,” I said. “I just wanted . . . to say hi.”
“No,” she said. “It’s all right. You can come in.”
She opened the door more, and I stepped inside. She saw the scrape on my cheek. I had taken the Band-Aid off that morning.
“How’s your face?” she asked.
“It’s a lot better,” I said, touching the scab. “Thanks for fixing me up.”
She led me into her kitchen. She was wearing a man’s shirt. No bra. Her thick black hair was sticking out on one side.
I looked around the kitchen. This was where we’d come the other night, after the fight. That had been the most thrilling night of my life. And here I was, back again.
“Uh . . . so . . . yeah,” said Phoebe, scratching her head. She looked at me. “Do you want a beer? Or some coffee?”
“Coffee’d be good,” I said.
As usual, my eyes followed her around the room. There was a slowness to her movements, but also a kind of composure, a controlled energy. I couldn’t look away from her.
“So your mom’s not home?” I asked.
She looked at me as if this was an odd question. “No,” she said. She put two scoops of coffee in the machine and then poured water into it.
“What have you been up to?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Nothing much. Making T-shirts.”
I didn’t believe her, but I said nothing. I took a seat at the small table. Phoebe remained standing. As the coffee brewed, she cleaned up a little. She dumped out some ashtrays. Then cleared the counter of empty beer cans.
Eventually, she took a seat across from me at the table. She lit a cigarette. She hadn’t really looked at me yet, but now she did. It was not an affectionate look. It was more like she was studying me. There was something going on with her. Did she want me there? Did she not want me there?
“This must be peak T-shirt-selling time,” I said.
“Summer always is.”
I nodded.
The coffee began to brew. She smoked. It still looked weird to me, someone that young smoking. Nobody at my high school smoked; that would be considered a sign that something was seriously wrong with you. In Seaside lots of people smoked. I didn’t know what it meant.
“Do you ever worry,” I said, “about cigarettes?”
“Like what? That they’ll kill me?” she asked.
“Yeah. Or they say they make your skin bad.”
“My skin . . . ?” she said, thinking about it. “No. I don’t think about that.”
The coffee maker began to gurgle. She stood and went to the cupboard and got two cups. She looked inside one of them. It must have been dirty, because she put it in the sink and then looked for another. She didn’t seem to like any of the ones on the lower shelf, so she pushed up onto her tiptoes and reached for one on the next shelf up.
That was the moment. When she stretched upward. In her too-big man’s shirt, and with her bare calves and bare feet and her arm stretched upward and her tangled mess of black hair.
I was up before I could stop myself, and then I had my arms around her, holding her from behind. She didn’t react at first. She continued to hold the cups in her hands, while I buried my face in her neck and shoulder. I breathed in her hair. After I’d held and squeezed her for a moment, I released my grip. She put down the cups and turned to me and slid her hands up my chest and around my neck and kissed me deeply on the mouth. So she does love me, I thought. A tremendous surge of happiness poured through me. My soul felt like it was turning itself inside out. I wanted to give Phoebe all of myself, everything I had. I wanted to surrender to her completely.
“Come on,” she said in a scratchy whisper. She took my hand and led me into her bedroom.