by Evie Claire
Chapter 5
Phebe
“Isn’t John divine?” Jenn, who for all intents and purposes was one of Phebe’s few “people” in life, squeezed her hand across the table. It was Sunday girls’ brunch. A standing monthly gig for the last who-can-remember-how-many years. There were six of them total but only two of whom still truly made time for Phebe. Only two who still found value investing it in her.
Not that the others would ever admit it aloud. But the fact that Phebe had zero to offer on the topics of diapers or daycare waiting lists had considerably lessened her position in the group. Their lives had taken different trajectories in recent years. She could hardly blame any of them for that, and honestly, their differences didn’t matter to her.
They’d all started off the same—ambitious twentysomethings with a point to prove. Somewhere along the way, all but Phebe had succumbed to the temptations of men and motherhood. They’d basically become their mothers. And that was a fate only Phebe feared more than death.
While they’d scooped up dazzling suburban McMansions in desirable school districts, Phebe had personally invested in an abandoned industrial space in one of downtown Atlanta’s sketchy boroughs. They’d thought she was mad and spent an entire brunch telling her so. When she finished converting the space into condos and a third-story bachelorette pad for herself at the same time the city of Atlanta completed a major urban revitalization project steps from her new front door, their husbands had proclaimed her a genius.
“Oh…um…” Phebe paused, resting her chin in her palm. How could she gently break the news that John wasn’t so divine?
“Phebe?” Jenn questioned, her gaze hardening as Phebe squirmed.
“I’d had a total shit day…” Phebe sighed, drumming her nails on her cheek, trying to think of anything nice to say about the agonizing half hour spent trying to find common ground with a man who most assuredly was not her soul mate, as Jenn had promised. “He seems to be a very successful day trader,” she finally offered with a shrug. That much was clear from the first five minutes of interaction. And just in case she didn’t catch on, John had spent the remaining twenty-five minutes driving the message home with aggrandized stories of his successes.
“Phebe!” Jenn scolded. “Did you even give him a chance?” Her tone snatched Marie’s attention away from the table-wide discussion of nanny-cam confessions.
“Give her a break, Jenn.” Marie, who sat beside Jenn, came to Phebe’s rescue. Allowing her dark hair to fall over her face in an attempt to muffle her voice, she continued. “This was the day I was talking to Brent about.” She gave Jenn a pointed look that instantly deflated her.
“Oh,” Jenn said quietly, tucking her own hair behind her ear and softening her attack. “Then maybe you guys should try again? I really think you’ll like him.”
“He checked his phone incessantly,” Phebe confessed, shaking her head helplessly, as if it wasn’t her fault.
“Did you check yours?” Jenn asked with a tone that said she already knew the answer.
“Of course. But only after he did.” Phebe knew what it meant to check your phone on a first date, even if it was just drinks. John wasn’t feeling it. Fair enough. She really wasn’t, either. Sure, she’d gotten a blowout and hoped for the best, but something about his smile was off. Nothing at all like the broad grin of a certain bartender she’d stumbled across earlier that day.
“Maybe it was an urgent work call?” Marie offered.
“He’s a day trader. It was six o’clock.” Phebe shrugged, grabbing her phone, her armor in moments of discomfort. She didn’t care that the date hadn’t gone anywhere. She had enough going on in her life at present. Besides, she’d accepted the fact that love probably wasn’t for her. It was just that her friends weren’t giving up so easily.
“How’s your mom?” Marie asked, tactfully changing the subject to the very reason why Phebe wasn’t running to the altar anytime soon.
“Still the same. I saw her yesterday. She hasn’t regained her speech from the last stroke. I’m not even sure she knows I’m there.”
Jenn reached across the table and took Phebe’s hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. “We just want to see you happy, Pheebs,” she pleaded with an honest smile. One that tightened the muscles across Phebe’s chest. Concern crumpled Marie’s brow, causing a similar effect. The two of them staring her down like an abandoned shelter puppy was enough to throw Phebe off her game.
“I’m happy…enough.” Phebe looked away, avoiding the pity she felt oozing across the table. “My mom’s health isn’t going to improve. I’ve made my peace with that. I focus on work. I do everything I can to provide a comfortable life for her. If my boss weren’t being such a douchebag about this latest deal I’m working on, I’d be fine.” Phebe smiled for the sake of it all.
“Ugh.” Marie allowed the sound to mellow into a disgusted grunt. “What a jerk.” She rolled her eyes for effect.
Phebe was no quitter. But after that day she’d reassessed her options, put some feelers out. Her network was vast, and with her loyalties to BHI compromised, she no longer felt obligated to them. BHI was the industry’s thousand-pound gorilla but they weren’t necessarily the best.
“Don’t you want to settle down? Have babies?” Jenn’s question zoomed in from left field, once again turning Phebe’s thoughts away from work. She looked to the side, taking time to genuinely consider the question.
“Not really. Kids, maybe. Babies, no. And you don’t get one without the other.” Phebe traced a watermark on the butcher-paper tablecloth with a finger. On occasion she’d imagined kids in her life. Waaaay down the road, when she’d finally gotten her C-Suite and could relax a little. In her mind, becoming a mother meant becoming her mother. An aversion her friends could only try to understand. “I’m not to be trusted with anyone who can’t tell me exactly what they need.” She exhaled a silent laugh, admitting a universally accepted truth.
“But you’re so good with our kids. They love their Aunt PeePee.” Marie’s kids were the oldest, and the nickname they’d given Phebe was too ridiculous to be anything but adorable. Especially when uttered in a toddler’s broken speech.
“Of course they do.” Phebe gave Marie a sassy look and winked at Jenn. “They know I’m the cool aunt they’ll want to hang with when they hit puberty and hate you. But be honest. Would you trust me to babysit right now?” Jenn and Marie shared a quick look, pursing their lips, knowing they’d never asked that favor for a reason. “Exactly.”
“What about Tom? He was So Hot.” Marie fanned herself for effect.
“Too hot. I don’t have time to constantly coddle an ego that big,” Phebe answered. Marie’s fanning hand stopped cold at the absurdity.
“Okay, the other John. The one you dated for a hot minute last year. He was soooooo nice.” Jenn voted for her favorite. Nice always won in her book.
“Too nice. It made him passive in the sack. He insisted I come first. Every. Single. Time. That shit’s exhausting.” Phebe dropped her head, feigning death.
“Your standards are about a million miles too high.” Jenn reached for her drink and looked away, unimpressed by Phebe’s constant excuses.
“Listen, I get the joke,” Phebe gently pushed back, owning what she was, hoping they’d give up and let her enjoy her mimosa. “I’m harder on men than most. But I have more reason than most.”
Jenn and Marie leaned forward at the same time, resting their elbows on the table, ready to listen. Phebe took a sip of her drink. And then another one for good measure.
“I chose to work in a male-dominated industry, and I’m not complaining about it. I love what I do. But I also have to work twice as hard for half the credit. That’s not fair, but it is what it is.” She studied the bubbles in her glass and took another sip. “What I underestimated was how many men would automatically discount my work just because I h
ave an extra X chromosome. Do you have any idea how ugly men are when they’ve been bested by a woman?” Phebe paused for effect, letting them think about it. “I see it on a daily basis, and what’s more, I’m usually the cause of it. So, yeah, I am hard on men, but only because they’re harder on me.”
Contrary to popular belief, she was not a frigid bitch. Of course she wanted to find him. However, the normal search methods weren’t going to work for her. Online dating was totally out of the question. That inevitably led to men Googling her. Never in the history of ever had an industry publication written a flattering article about Phebe Stark. For a woman, possessing a wicked business acumen and the most tenacious of wills turned her into some strange androgynous creature. One who was wholly undateable. At least in the eyes of male journalists.
And even if a man didn’t cyberstalk her, there was still the looming problem of his innate psychology. God had yet to make a male ego that could handle a woman who was, arguably, more successful. It just wasn’t in the male psyche. And it wasn’t in Phebe’s psyche to be anything less than everything she could be.
“How’s your dad?” Marie asked, again cutting right to the heart of why Phebe didn’t have a problem dominating in a man’s world.
“You mean the asshole who abandoned my mom and turned her into an alcoholic wholly incapable of daily life functions?”
“Yeah,” Marie said slowly, not prepared for such a reaction.
“Fine, I guess.” Phebe rubbed at her temple. “I’m sorry. It’s just, every time I visit Mom it pisses me off when I think about how he left her. Left us.”
“No.” Marie raised her hand. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I know how stressed you are with everything right now. Too much champagne. I wasn’t thinking.”
Marie and Jenn exchanged weak smiles that said more than words ever could. Out of the spotlight, Phebe inhaled deeply, but it did little to ease her shoulders away from her ears. Slowly, her best friends rejoined the rest of the table’s conversation, and the topic flowed back to benign chatter. Phebe sat quietly listening as she ate her eggs Benedict and had two more mimosas.
Brunch began to wrap up and she turned to her phone to see how long she’d have to wait for Uber.
It was then that a single gray box appeared at the top of her screen.
Hey, Phebe, it’s Brody. This is your last chance to buy me a cup of coffee, so get off your lazy ass and hit me up already.
“What the hell?” she whispered under her breath. His earlier voicemail had gone ignored…on purpose. Who in their right mind called these days when you could and should text? He was either crazy or shameless. An ignored voicemail was an answer for most people.
She thought back to their chance meeting, the assured smile, the way he’d teased her when he’d caught her admiring his junk. Her annoyance softened, and she couldn’t help but grin at the memory. He was hot. And nice. There weren’t that many nice men in her world. Well, there was the other John, but she gave herself better orgasms than he did. Brody…she was certain he knew the way to every woman’s G-spot. A man with that much rugged manliness must. Beards as impressive as his require lots of testosterone.
“Wait a minute. Hold the presses. Jenn, is that a smile on Phebe Stark’s face?” Marie asked in a mocking sportscaster’s tone.
“Holy shit, Marie. I think you’re right.” Jenn pulled Phebe’s hair away from her face to double-check the expression hidden behind it. “Yes, Marie, that is most definitely a smile.”
“Spill it, girl. Who is he? And why the hell are you holding out on us?” Marie cleared the table between them, pushing the dishes away—leaving the mimosa glasses—and leaned in.
“Girl, yes.” Jenn poured refills from a seemingly bottomless pitcher and turned to block the rest of the table from their conversation. God bless her, she knew how Phebe detested her love life being dissected in public. Phebe had planned on forgetting Brody Cantrell, even though she had conveniently forgotten to erase his voicemail. Now he looked like the easiest way to get her friends off her back. And well, it wasn’t like he was an untouchable troll. In college, Phebe probably would’ve hit that without a second thought. But today he just wasn’t who she saw herself with.
“He’s…um…” Phebe bit her lip, thinking back to the day. What was he? What was it that stuck out in her mind the most about Brody Cantrell? “He’s…a bartender.”
“Shut up!” Marie hissed. “If you’re sleeping with a bartender, he’s obviously hot as fuck.”
Phebe giggled behind her mimosa glass. Marie didn’t cuss anymore. At least not since her three-year-old daughter dropped the f-bomb at Sunday school. But give her a few cocktails and the promise of some Fifty Shades shit, and she reverted from soccer mom to single girl in a nanosecond.
“I’m not fucking him. He works at a bar next to my office. After the shit show on Monday I needed a drink.” Phebe’s casual shrug tried to imply it was nothing.
“But you gave him your number,” Jenn accused.
“Actually, I didn’t. I almost gave him my number. Changed one digit.”
“Yet he’s texting you. How’d he get the right one?”
That was a good question. One Phebe’s crazy schedule hadn’t really given her time to ponder. Yes, she’d definitely been impressed when Brody’s voice purred from her phone as warm and inviting as she’d remembered his eyes being. The question of how that had happened was still an unanswered one.
“I honestly don’t know. He was pretty cute about it.” Phebe drummed her nails on the champagne glass and flashed the automatic smile. “We both love the Times crossword. When I was leaving, he slid a napkin over the bar with ten blank lines to ask for my number.” Phebe giggled again. Jenn and Marie exchanged incredulous looks.
“You’re going to fuck him.” Marie nodded.
“Totally,” Jenn agreed.
“Ladies, no.” Phebe hid her face in her hand to hide her flush. “He’s a legitimately nice guy. I don’t want to lead him on.”
“Why would you lead him on?” Jenn asked.
“It can’t possibly go anywhere.”
“You don’t know that.” Marie shook her head.
“Yes, I do. Work is my life. I’m up at five, in bed by nine. He works until…what…two a.m.? At least? Those schedules aren’t compatible. My life revolves around closing deals. His around closing times. What’s the point of even trying?” Phebe laid out the evidence like it was an open-and-shut case and completely out of her hands.
“I don’t know, maybe because he’s hot and you like him?” Jenn laughed through her answer like it was beyond obvious.
Phebe nodded, ceding some ground. “He is the most genuine man I’ve met in what feels like forever. He volunteers at an after-school program, and he didn’t try to impress me with a résumé to match my own. His ego didn’t need—or want—my stroking. He was just…Brody. And he was fine with that. But still…”
Marie and Jenn looked at each other to restrain what Phebe could only assume was a shared emotion. Without saying a word, they let their amusement give way to headshaking, and then Jenn turned to Phebe as if speaking for them both.
“Okay, well, as your loving friend, I must say you sound ridiculously narcissistic right now.” Jenn stretched her arms across the table toward Phebe, leveling a motherly glower her way.
“What? I’m being nice. We couldn’t be less compatible. So why lead him on?”
“You assume he wants it to be something.”
“Ouch!” Phebe flinched like Jenn’s words hurt. Actually, they did. Lost in all her reasons why it shouldn’t work, she’d never thought Brody might have his own. But Phebe wasn’t ready to admit that possibility. “A second message after I ignored the first pretty much screams he wants it to be something.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You said he’s a bartender. Those guys are to
ns of fun—something you could totally use right now.”
“Come on, guys, we all know fun is the last word anyone would ever use to describe me.”
“Okay.” Ever the optimist, Jenn refused to give up. “In three words tell me exactly what you’re looking for in a guy. I’ll wait.” She reached to refill her mimosa.
“Um…” Phebe thought. “Integrity. Confidence. And…” Phebe giggled at what she was about to say. Mimosas did that to her. “Sex that doesn’t make me miss my vibe.” She grabbed her stomach and kept laughing.
“Great. Two out of three. Majority wins. You’re calling the guy back.” Jenn made a move toward Phebe’s phone.
“Wait!” Phebe protested, removing it from her reach.
“What? The guy obviously has confidence to keep pursuing you. And he’s also obviously sexy as hell or you wouldn’t have that smile on your face when you talk about him. We’ll figure out the integrity part later.” She moved for Phebe’s phone again.
“She’s right, Pheebs. If you like him, call him. Don’t be a pussy.” Either Marie’s voice was amplified by the champagne or the entire restaurant decided to stop talking at once. Her expletive echoed in the small room. Eyes turned their way.
The three froze, silently looking at one another with growing grins. The grins erupted into belly laughs as they hid their faces. The rest of the table eagerly watched them falling apart, desperate to know what was so funny.
“Annnd I’ll be taking this away now.” With two fingers on the base, Phebe slowly dragged Marie’s flute across the table. “That’s two ‘fucks’ and one ‘pussy’ too many from you, Soccer Mom Extraordinaire.”
Marie’s desperate double-handed death grip on the stem sent them into another fit of giggles. Brody was forgotten. The prying eyes returned to their plates, and the table reverted to the topic of babies. Out of the spotlight and breathing easy once more, Phebe leaned back. Hiding her phone under the table, she pulled up Brody’s text, reading it again. Her friends were drunk. They might also be right. When was the last time she had fun with a guy?
