He doesn’t respond.
She uses her own credit card, has no idea how close to the limit they are. It works and the tank is full. She checks the pressure on all four tires. Two need air, and she pulls the Explorer over to the air pump but doesn’t have quarters, so she leaves, will do it later.
She counts the six lanes of traffic. She has no more appointments, is dizzy from withdrawal and counting the white lines on the gray freeway. Her head is light from not eating. She’s on the 101, passes signs for San Bernadino and Santa Ana. The 405 is what she needs, but she’s not paying attention and is pushed into the right lane. She has to get left, and there’s a green light, but it’s a flashing X, which makes no sense, telling her to go but it’s wrong, there’s clearly no room at all for her. As tractor-trailers and Harleys roar past her in the far right lane, there’s simply no opening. Phoebe’s gripping the wheel tightly when she guns it. A black Dodge Charger is feet from her rear bumper. There’s nowhere to go. She speeds up. The Dodge swerves, passes, cuts her off. Her throat is tight. She can’t swallow. The traffic won’t slow. She accelerates. Texts pour in and she can’t resist the urge to look down and click the icon, then looks up, hugging the concrete divider, pulls the wheel to the right, charred remains of a crash lie in a heap on the shoulder. The text is from a doctor with a raging hard-on until I had to shoot all over my wife while picturing you.
Another from Nick that says Nice list in response to a Post-it with tasks for the rest of his Friday and the weekend.
You do realize I worked overnight last night and am just getting home. Will be sure to squeeze this shit in before the four jobs I have this weekend.
The sunlight around a sharp bend momentarily blinds her. Without seeing, she swerves, switches lanes. Two more lanes and she’s over, brakes hard, and is off the freeway. The engine idles, the company car in park on the shoulder as traffic flows past, indifferent. She exhales and starts tapping the steering wheel that she still grips with her thumbs until she’s pounding it. Her extreme dream.
• •
At yet another post-college party off of Boylston Street, Nick complained to an Emerson friend about getting stuck with a water bill because a running toilet went unaddressed by the landlord (along with two faulty outlets, a leak in the ceiling, and mold). The bill was a week’s salary for Nick, whose days were spent in a windowless basement office managing the schedules of unpaid interns and cataloging the PR firm’s client reels.
The words that introduced Phoebe into his life he said more to himself and were less about the apartment or job than his life: “I might just burn it down and start over.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He took her in: athletic with thin shoulders, green eyes, and a jaw he wished he had. Her lips were full, her cheekbones sculpted, and her eyebrows thin and arched; there was a sharpness to her.
“Two words: tenant’s rights,” she said. She instructed Nick to stop paying rent and file a claim with the help of the public advocate’s office.
“There’s such a thing?”
“I have a friend.”
“And if I’m evicted?”
“Won’t happen. Landlords feed off tenants’ fear. Especially kids. Smack him upside the head and watch what happens.”
The landlord caved, paid the bill, and replaced the toilet.
They quickly fell into an easy rhythm of weekend mornings with bagels and coffee while Nick read the Globe and Phoebe went online or scheduled her week and paid bills and returned calls to friends. They went to the farmers’ market and movies at the Outer Circle or the Uptown. Nothing they did together ever felt like work. They’d stand in line outside Pasta Mia on thirty-degree nights, sniffling, holding each other, her cinnamon breath visible. Invitations always poured in for Phoebe. Yet there was no party or event Phoebe declined that made her feel like she was missing something. Instead of taking the party cruise down the Charles, they welcomed the new millennium on the roof of her building in a sleeping bag with a bottle of wine. She wondered what Nick would look like with his head shaved, so he let her do it. He liked that she always seemed to smell as though she’d just stepped out of the shower.
“You have really long fingers,” he told her one morning in bed, not long after she shaved his head. “You should let your nails grow.”
She stared at him and said, “You look better with hair.”
She was self-conscious about her overbite and the slight gap between her front teeth. Nick loved it. What he was less fond of but also appreciated was her forthrightness: Phoebe’s tendency to goad Nick, accuse him of settling too easily, accepting average outcomes for himself. When he didn’t follow up on a production assistant gig for MSNBC in New York, she was livid and wondered aloud if his lack of killer instinct might be their undoing. She had rough edges.She had ambition and volatility that aroused Nick. She knew people: bouncers, managers, bartenders. She seemed to know everyone. They once brought home a friend of hers with the intention of having a three-way, but the girl got sick before anything happened and spent the night on the bathroom floor. Phoebe twisted his balls once during rough sex, and he spent an hour nude, in the fetal position, battered by tsunamis of pain. She grabbed a blue gel ice pack from the freezer and tickled his back with her fingernails.
She could pull off any look: Nick’s Mets cap and V-neck T-shirt and jeans or strappy little black dress from Bebe. She was the most gorgeous woman Nick had ever dated. She was tall and angular. On their couch (she moved in after five months), she ate ice cream from the container with an appletini, her phone constantly buzzing, someone always asking a favor: Could she cover a shift, pick a person up from Logan, let her crash on the floor for a night after a fight with the boyfriend? She always said yes. Favor asked, favor granted. Up and out the door. She knew Nick felt slightly intimidated, and she liked that, reveled in it.
Her father, the merchant marine, volunteer firefighter, and finally, driver for UPS, who left the family when Phoebe was twelve and had been in touch only three or four times, called her on September 12, 2001. It was the first time they’d spoken in six years, and the call lasted twenty minutes and ended with Phoebe in tears, her father still talking, cursing the women in his life, who were all leeches and takers. Within a week she’d applied for a job as an FBI agent. She trained relentlessly: On days when she bartended the lunch-to-close shift at the boutique hotel in the city she woke up at six thirty to get to the indoor pool to swim, lift weights, run a few miles. Nick called her “Special Agent” and bought her a fake badge. They drove to a shooting range and blasted holes through Osama bin Laden. She ate a Paleo diet: leafy greens, nuts, and fish. She cut her hair shorter than Nick liked, but he was so turned on by the whole mission that it didn’t matter. Nick would come on her as she clenched, and he’d watch it slide down the smooth surface of her taut stomach. But Phoebe’s pursuit of a career in law enforcement sputtered. Dark winter mornings made getting out from under the covers with Nick more difficult. More shifts were available at the bar, and they needed the money, so she took them. Worked later, slept more. Her hair grew back. She craved Pasta Mia and Belgian waffles for Sunday brunch at the diner. Nick didn’t mind. There was no shortage of adventure, she said. They’d find another mission.
“This is going to be fun,” Nick said when he asked her. They were twenty-six. It was the weekend after Labor Day. They’d driven to the Cape. He had an artsy handcrafted silver ring with an emerald-green stone that cost ninety dollars. They’d each gotten a week off from their jobs: By then Nick was at a small PR firm with mostly commercial clients, and Phoebe had just completed orientation for new hires at an investment firm downtown. She was meeting partners, she told Nick. The first week. She was having lunch the next week with a senior manager. She was making an impression. She worked insane hours. She was up at five thirty, at the office by seven. She had a new mission.
Their after-tax income was stable. They had
Saturday-morning co-ed soccer and Sunday Pats games with a keg and wings and mutual friends. There was an easy rhythm to their life together that allowed Nick to overlook the lull Phoebe hit when the FBI thing came to an end. There was a month, maybe two, during which she withdrew, sleeping too much, watching daytime TV, letting calls go to voice mail until the box was full and you couldn’t leave a message. She gave no more rides to friends. She and Nick fucked, but it felt strange; she was indifferent, never saying no but never seeming to enjoy it. Once or twice he stopped and told her he wouldn’t finish until she did. “Then don’t finish.” And it was winter and she hated winter and Nick wanted to think that was it but he knew better.
What he’d learned from spending those years together and what gave him some peace of mind about the lull was this: She would find something else and the fire would return and calls would be answered, rides given, television turned off, fucking until they both finished, like it mattered to her. What he didn’t concern himself with then and what would surely become relevant to him in ways he couldn’t begin to anticipate was this: Where would she channel her manic energy if she didn’t find another mission? When it was time for Phoebe to cycle up again, all of that drive would have to go somewhere. And Nick couldn’t see or refused to recognize an unavoidable outcome: She would eventually turn it on him, and he better be ready.
• •
It’s almost four. She’s in Hermosa Beach because she had one more appointment today, but it was in Tustin, and when she saw how far that was on the GPS, she canceled it. Seagulls cry out overhead, steady themselves in the wind while the surf rushes over Phoebe’s bare legs, her shoes dangling in her right hand, iPhone in the other. The sun has burned through the marine layer and the sky is bright blue. She doesn’t want to leave the beach, refuses to return to the car, head east, two hours with traffic. Picking up Jackson is her only motivation. When they found the house on Carousel Court, went all in and bought it, Nick promised: “And we’ll have a summer rental on the beach.” But they aren’t on the beach. They’re nowhere near it. She resolves to bring Jackson back here this weekend whether Nick’s working or not.
There’s a small team of people shooting footage of a surfer. When they were first living together, Nick was showing her all this footage from documentaries and newsreels he most admired, from far-off places ravaged by war or natural disaster. “On the ground,” he would say. “In the middle of it,” he’d add. “Someone has to be there, go there, put the pieces together, and bring it to life. That’s all I want to do. Be in the middle of it.” It could be a tsunami or some civil war or famine or disease-ravaged place; he ticked off a list of topics for pitches he’d already written and sent off to production companies in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. The quiet certainty in his tone convinced Phoebe that it was realistic: He would be going overseas to make documentary films, and she would go, too, and their reality, their life together, would revolve around immunizations and efficient packing, checklists and emergency procedures, local militias and rogue fighters, moments of sheer terror—lawless states ravaged by civil unrest, the stench of human remains—all so Nick could capture it, bring the tragedy home, raw and unfiltered. And Nick and Phoebe would live to tell about it. She’d go with him. When she got pregnant, Phoebe simply added a nanny to the fantasy. They’d skip the dangerous trips but tag along for the others. When Nick traveled alone, Phoebe would immerse Jackson in French classes. She’d find them a cabin in Maine or the Shenandoahs where they could spend Christmas, chopping wood for the stove. But after Jackson was born, even a move to New Orleans or long weekends in the mountains felt beyond their reach. Worse, Nick seemed okay with that.
And Nick killed it, slowly, with purpose, Monday through Friday, eight thirty to six, week after week. He was in Hartford instead of Havana, calling her to say the commuter flight was canceled and he was renting a car and driving home to Boston and could she record the Celtics game and reminding her that tomorrow was recycling day and to bring the cans down to the basement of the building.
He snapped at her once in Boston, before their new plan took shape. The ones who made a career of it, all those documentary filmmakers, were trust-fund kids, he hissed, staked by their parents. He was convinced, and Phoebe didn’t argue, that the young filmmakers could afford to travel the world and shoot footage of disasters or soccer teams because, unlike Nick and Phoebe, they didn’t have to earn money for a living. Options are limited, he said, when you have to work for a living.
• •
Her iPhone vibrates. She reads the text:
You didn’t leave a message.
It’s JW.
She doesn’t respond. She called an hour ago, hung up after one ring.
She’s at her car, brushing sand from the bottoms of her feet. Two surfers pass by with longboards, oblivious to her. A man with a boxer on a leash ignores her, studies his handheld. She’s anonymous here.
I’m flattered that I’m still in your contacts, she writes.
Top of the list and it’s alphabetical
How’s that?
AwesomePhoebe
What about Amanda?
Who?
Ana? April? Araceli??
Funny
Let me guess: Martha’s Vineyard. Maine. Lisbon?
My ex’s basement apartment. I have nowhere else to stay.
There’s nowhere you can’t afford to stay
It’s a divorce thing. Complicated
Don’t you have layoffs to recommend? Some lives to wreck?
;)
How were the Galapagos?
You still read my emails. Thought you tuned me out.
White noise.
The yoga instructor: breathtaking. Older woman, too. Like fifties and just stunning. And her grad school daughter . . . and two other women. Have you been to Sardinia?
She doesn’t respond.
You sent me that SOS in June. And two months later I respond, you’re thinking, Typical, right?
And another: Are you ok? Do you still need me? You had me worried when you wrote that.
And another: And yet . . . do you realize how hard it gets me to think about you needing me?
And one more: Totally inappropriate but honest, right? Can never be too honest.
And a last message from him in the string: Of course I don’t expect a response. I never do. Your self-restraint is commendable. Can I take some credit?
Will try you again when I’m out there, which will be soon.
Days, not weeks.
She taps out a response: Nearly three months, not two. And you’re not hiding out in a basement apartment. Who are you really with?
But she doesn’t send it. Instead, she deletes it. She’s sure he’s somewhere else, with someone else, and not his wife or one of his ex-wives. She doesn’t care who he’s with. It doesn’t matter. That’s what she tells herself as she turns off her iPhone. Her neck is stiff. She rubs it until the skin burns.
7
The semiautomatic pistol Nick found in the uncovered toilet tank of a house they trashed out in Loma Linda had no rounds in it. He’ll never load it, but he’s glad he’s got it. Despite the gun and Metzger and the floodlights and ADT, Nick and Phoebe stay awake late, leave most of the lights on inside until morning. It has nothing to do with the strange noises they hear, something metallic, scraping, from somewhere inside the house, as if it’s alive, or the relentless moaning winds and anguished cries coming from the bone-dry hills that surround and seem to close in on them. He lies awake because he knows the fracture never healed between them. It’s a matter of time before the nerve is struck.
He hung wind chimes their first week here, took them down because they kept clanging and getting tangled in the wind. Even with the heat and lack of rain, Nick takes pride in keeping the lawn thick and green. He applies all sorts of synthetics to beef up the turf, keep it lush. The thre
e white chaises by the pool are arranged just so. He swims laps daily. He brings Jackson in with him. When he does, Phoebe warns him to please avoid the deep end. Rings from Phoebe’s tumblers of her special-recipe mojitos dot the glass table. Jackson’s toys gather neatly around his playhouse, which is finally free from wasps after Nick sprayed it and hosed it down, yet again. Nick habitually circles the perimeter of the house with a flashlight and the unloaded pistol. The water in the pool glows; sharp ends of palm fronds scrape the windows. The dead ones are easily torn loose by the wind, end up floating on the clear water until Nick fishes them out. Cicadas clutch the screens on all the windows, land on the chaises, pelt the living room and kitchen windows. When Jackson was floating on his back in the pool yesterday, a cicada landed on his face. Before his son could react, Nick carefully plucked it from his forehead and crushed it on the poolside concrete.
He checks entry points and blind spots. He finds a living room window unlocked and secures it; one of the ten motion-sensor bulbs is out, so he climbs a ladder two stories and changes it. He scales the fence separating their property from the young neighbor, whose backyard smolders from a recent fire he set: computer monitors, athletic equipment, garbage, end tables. All the lights are on and music plays from inside the house. It will be like this well into the night, and Metzger will call the police, but they won’t come or will arrive hours too late. Metzger cursed them out once: “This isn’t goddamn Compton! Taxpayers live here.” Nick has an eye on the neighbor and Metzger, too, like everything else. He misses nothing.
8
Did you feed him?” Nick asks Phoebe. There’s no response. “Did he eat?” She’s facedown on the sectional, passed out again. The house is quiet and cool. She’s bathed in seven-thirty twilight that floods the living room on a hot Thursday in August. Nothing’s changed since June: a ten-hour day for Phoebe spent in the car means a Klonopin blackout at night.
Summer is almost over, but it’s now clear the heat is here to stay. It’s the seventh consecutive day over ninety-five degrees. The forecasts warn of no break from the dry, hot pattern. Wildfire and high-wind warnings every day. Nick’s been working since nine this morning on a house in North Hollywood after two consecutive night shifts. She can’t hear him, and he knows it but asks again: “Did he eat?” He being Jackson, who is slouched against Phoebe’s ass, his pacifier dangling from dry lips, his diaper bulging, heavy with urine. “Did he eat?”
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