[Phoebe Pope 01.0] The Year of Four

by Nya Jade

  Phoebe was speechless for a moment. She felt a liquid warmth spreading inside, hearing Colten call her beautiful; she could almost forgive him for bringing up her abrupt exits.

  “How ’bout I drive you instead?” he said to her surprise, and then added with a grin, “It’s a more contained situation.”

  Phoebe felt her breath come more quickly. Her mind raced with the excitement of being alone with Colten in his car.

  There was a pause in which Colten smiled at Phoebe’s inability to speak. “I swear my car is clean,” he said. “No dirty smelly gym socks on the floor.”

  Phoebe smiled, opened her mouth to accept the ride, and then snapped it shut without uttering a word. Colten’s comment about his gym socks had jostled something in her mind: she was dirty. Sure, her clothes had been laundered but she hadn’t showered since before the game. She could almost feel a filmy layer of dirt, oil, and sweat suffocating her pores. Why she hadn’t thought to take a shower when she’d returned to the dorm was beyond her. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Phoebe thought.

  “Thanks . . .” Phoebe began slowly, her voice a bit higher than usual. “But I’m okay to walk.” The idea of her body odor seeping into Colten’s car, his private space, was too embarrassing a thought to entertain.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. The cold air will wake me up for a long night of homework.” She couldn’t quite mask the sound of vague disappointment in her own voice.

  After staring at her for a moment, openly confused, Colten tipped the bill of his baseball cap forward with a flourish and said, “As you wish.”

  Phoebe waved goodbye. She hadn’t even gone two feet when the sky split open and raindrops the size of pebbles began to patter down on her head. She turned to look at Colten, who tilted his head skyward and laughed as though sharing an inside joke with the weather.

  Grinning widely, Colten said, “The offer to drive you still stands.”

  The rain began to fall more heavily, and Colten, as if fearing they both stood a good chance of drowning if he waited any longer for Phoebe’s response, grabbed her hand and towed her after him. Phoebe looked down at her cold wet hand in his. The touch of his warmer skin shot a charge through every nerve in her body. Her senses were in overdrive. Phoebe felt like she could drown in giddiness. She’d been in desperate need of a shower and mother nature—bless her—had promptly delivered.

  The run to the brightly lit parking lot drenched them both, and Phoebe’s hair clung to the sides of her face.

  “This is your car?” she said, blinking her eyes in the rain.

  Smiling, Colten walked around the hood of the car to the passenger’s side and opened the door for Phoebe. “Not what you were expecting?” he said.

  “No,” she admitted. Colten’s car was a shiny black Smart Car with silver trim. Phoebe folded herself in and relaxed against the bucket seat, acclimating to the foreign smallness of the car’s interior.

  Colten climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine before Phoebe even had her seat belt on. “Were you expecting something a bit more movie star?” The Smart Car curved out of the parking lot and headed down the main campus road in the direction of the dorms, headlights illuminating the flurrying rain.

  I was expecting something a bit bigger, Phoebe thought, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Actually,” she said, having a sudden brilliant thought. “When you think about it, your choice of a Smart Car is very movie star-like.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You celebs are known to show your allegiance to causes, and since you’re all about the environment, it makes sense that you’d want to be seen in a vehicle that is considered green.”

  Colten gave Phoebe a sideways glance. “You’ve been doing a background check on me.” It wasn’t a question.

  Phoebe opened her mouth to say, “No, I didn’t Google you. I got that piece of trivia from this girl, Karli,” but thought better of it. “Sort of,” she said vaguely. Phoebe watched a grin stretch across Colten’s lips.

  “As long as it’s just the good stuff,” he said.

  “It is, if you count the new cover of Dish as good stuff.” Phoebe had spoken without thinking, and immediately felt a pang of regret. She didn’t want him to think she was a jealous-type or caught up in the media hype—especially since she normally didn’t even read that stuff. And especially since they had only spoken a handful of times. But if she were being honest, part of her was curious what Colten had to say about it. And when he said nothing, Phoebe, feeling awkward, gazed pointedly out of her window, watching the campus buildings slip by. As they rode in silence, Phoebe could feel Colten’s deep breathing. She didn’t need to tap into his emotions to know that she’d upset him. She could sense it in the tension in his body. She grabbed one of Hayley’s cookies from her backpack and began to chew it slowly—uneasy situations called for emergency baked goods. Not wanting to appear rude, Phoebe offered Colton a cookie, which he declined. The silence continued.

  “Did the picture bother you?” Colten said at last, his voice half an octave lower than normal. They were parked behind her dorm, and he’d turned off the car. Nothing but the sound of rain hammering on the rooftop filled the silence between his question and her answer.

  “Would it matter if it had?” Phoebe said evasively, trying to inject a note of playfulness into her voice, and instead leaking her anticipation.

  “Yes, it would,” Colten said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, “because I’d hate for you to believe everything you see in the magazines and read online about me.”

  “Fair enough,” Phoebe said softly. She decided to drop the subject.

  “Tanya is my co-star in the new movie,” Colten continued, speaking through tight lips. “And that photo is a still shot from one of our love scenes. It was leaked to the press by the studio.”

  “The studio? Why would they do that?”

  “Marketing. It’s good for the movie if folks think the co-stars are together. The execs want people talking about it and writing about it, especially when there’s a premiere around the corner. . . .”

  “You must have tough skin to put up with all that,” Phoebe said, her voice barely audible.

  Colten shrugged. “I see it as part of the job description. Wanted,” he said, affecting a supervisory voice, “someone who can fax, answer phones, and sometimes date a co-worker when needed to boost company profits.”

  Phoebe laughed lightly, relieved that the somber mood appeared to have broken. Colten’s ability to mock his lifestyle impressed her. Capitalizing on his joke’s effect, Colten then proceeded to entertain Phoebe with his top ten list of outlandish rumors about himself as the rain stopped.

  “I think my all-time favorite,” he said getting to the top of his list, “was the one that claimed I was secretly dating a mother and daughter pair and that they were both pregnant with my babies.”

  Before Phoebe could properly react to that, Colten had jumped out of the car and was at her door, opening it for her. “I’m sorry,” he said, peering down at her. “I’ve kept you out past curfew.”

  Phoebe glanced at the dorm and saw that Colten was right: most of the bedroom lights were out. As Phoebe went to step out of the car, a wave of disorientation suddenly spread through her and she half-stumbled out. Instantly, Colten caught hold of her. As he steadied her balance with a firm grip of her shoulders, he bent his head to hers, touching her forehead lightly with his chin.

  “Thanks,” Phoebe said. Her preoccupation with her strange dizziness distracted her from the fact that she and Colten stood a breath’s space apart.

  Colten stepped back from Phoebe, his eyes appraising. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Phoebe answered immediately.

  He gave her a skeptical look. “I think I should walk you to the door.”

  Phoebe, nodding her head, took a determined step forward and tripped just as she was saying, “If you don’t mind.”

  “Let me help.” Colten took
Phoebe’s arm.

  “Okay,” she muttered sheepishly.

  Feet still wobbly, Phoebe found herself relying on Colten’s support as they walked toward the dorm; she loathed the fact that he was distinctly amused.

  “Just so we’re clear,” she said with some vigor. “This is not a damsel in distress moment.”

  “Of course not,” he said, then unexpectedly added, “have lunch with me—”

  “Yes!” Phoebe said with an involuntary note of eagerness that surprised her. She bit her lip and added, casually, “When? Tomorrow?”

  Colten chuckled. “I wish. I have to be in New York over the weekend. Monday?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “Great. It’s a date,” he said, breaking into a smile. “Have a great weekend.”

  “You too.” Phoebe’s voice came out in a whisper.

  Colten waited at the bottom of the steps until Phoebe opened the door and slipped inside. Through the door’s fanlight, she watched his car disappear into the slick darkness and slowly became aware of one fact; her attraction to Colten Chase had just become a major, major distraction. It’s a date, she repeated to herself. An overwhelming sense of giddiness kept Phoebe up all night.

  EIGHT

  “Aren’t they the cutest rugrats you’ve ever seen?” Hayley gushed as Phoebe stared at a large bulletin board that had been completely papered with photos of three young boys making ridiculous faces.

  “Yeah,” Phoebe said. “I’d forgive them if they put gum in my hair.”

  Hayley giggled in response, her dimples deepening.

  “Hold on.” Phoebe took a closer look at the pictures. “Are they triplets?”

  “Yup.”

  “Wow. How old are they?”

  “Seven.” Hayley moved to stand next to Phoebe. She rolled down the sleeves of her blue tunic shirt. “They made that collage for me so I wouldn’t miss them too much, but it only makes me miss them more. That’s Harper, Henry, and Harvey,” she said, pointing to each cherubic face in turn.

  When Phoebe whirled to give Hayley a disbelieving look, her petite friend said, “Oh, I’m dead serious. My folks are Harold and Helen”—she indicated a framed picture on her desk—“so you can guess why they thought giving us all H names would be cute.”

  “What are your middle names?”

  “We don’t have any. Mom says it keeps the monogramming simple,” Hayley added with a laugh.

  Phoebe found that Hayley’s family pictures were beginning to make her unhappy. She felt a wave of all too familiar longing. Phoebe gave the boys one last look, then slid her gaze to the wall above Hayley’s desk, which was decorated with magazine cut-outs, posters, framed t-shirts, and drawings of hip-hop stars. She stared at the faces. Only a few looked familiar to her.

  “My roommate Maya thinks my shrine is over the top,” Hayley said, admiring her wall with a wide grin. “But that’s only part of it. You should see the one I have at home.” Phoebe cocked her head to one side, trying to picture it. “What do you listen to?”

  “Mostly indie acts,” Phoebe said, naming a few while helping Hayley clean up the ingredients they’d used in making their avocado face masks: honey, molasses, orange juice. All things Phoebe would never have thought to put on her face.

  “How long do we have to let the mask dry again?” she asked, tossing avocado peels into a trash bin.

  “Half an hour,” Hayley said, drawing her light-brown hair up into a bun. Phoebe wiggled her nose uncomfortably. “Trust me, this mask is good for the soul. We can do our nails while we wait.”

  Hayley reached under her bed and pulled out a large, silver storage case with PROPERTY OF MISS TEEN SPENCER COUNTY stenciled in pink on its sides.

  “You’re a pageant girl?” Wide-eyed, Phoebe sank onto one of Hayley’s two large beanbag chairs.

  Hayley gave a slow dimpled grin. “Former pageant girl,” she said, hauling the case toward Phoebe and settling herself onto the beanbag next to her. “For some reason my mom got exponentially more girly with the birth of my kid brothers. Pageants were one of her many let’s-be-girly-together ideas.”

  Hayley flipped open the case and pulled out its four interior shelves. For a moment Phoebe stared with her mouth open; she’d never seen such a vast collection of nail polish before. “How many pageants were you in?”

  Hayley shook a scarlet red nail polish bottle before setting it down on its shelf and choosing another one. “Too many, but—” As she began,the door slammed open and both girls jumped as though scalded. Blue drops of polish splashed onto Hayley’s foot.

  “What the hell!” she yelled.

  A pretty, dark-haired girl with a pixie cut entered. She had a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  “You scared the crap out of us, Maya,” Hayley said, reaching into her case for a bottle of nail polish remover. “What’s the emergency?”

  Maya gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I keep forgetting our door has no weight to it—Hey,” she said, looking at Phoebe. “You’re in my French class, right?”

  “Yes,” Phoebe said, smiling back.

  “If you’re ever looking for a study partner let me know,” she offered before saying to Hayley, “I followed your recipe but I can’t tell if my dough is rising properly. Could you double check for me?”

  “Did your yeast bubble before you mixed it in?” Hayley said.

  Maya scrunched her nose. “Yeast?”

  Hayley stared at Maya with frank eyes. “That’s not good,” she said, standing.

  While Hayley followed Maya out, Phoebe crossed to the window and unlocked its latch to let a crisp breeze brush against her cheek. She could taste the threat of rain lurking in the air. Phoebe liked Hayley’s dorm. Unlike the renovated farmhouse she lived in, Hayley’s residence was a modern glass and brick building. Her third floor room overlooked a garden of low, flowering shrubs that ringed a giant oak tree with thick branches, like longing arms, that reached to touch her windowpane. Phoebe was still standing by the window, staring at the creamy moon that tinted the blackness outside, when Hayley returned saying, “It wasn’t a complete disaster.”

  Phoebe turned. “What happened?”

  “She thought the yeast was optional,” Hayley explained. “So instead of fluffy bread rolls, she now has bread sticks.”

  After they’d settled back onto their beanbags and selected their nail polishes, Phoebe asked, “So what was your talent?”

  Hayley laughed. “You’re still on this pageant thing?”

  “You’re the only Beauty-Queen-soon-to-be-spy I know.”

  “Queen’s a big stretch,” Hayley said, resting her chin on her knees while painting her toes a bright blue. “I started with ballet—my mom’s idea—but got bored with it and switched to hip-hop.”

  Phoebe was impressed. “Wow. I wish I were coordinated enough to dance.”

  “Not dance. Freestyle.”

  “What? Really?” Phoebe said, a look of disbelief on her face.

  Hayley laughed. “Yeah. I’m a tiny little white girl so folks weren’t ever expecting me to drop rhymes. I won five pageants with that act. Even gave myself a moniker: Lil’ Blueprint.” At Phoebe’s questioning look, Hayley explained. “Lil’ for obvious reasons and Blueprint after my favorite Jay-Z album.”

  “So . . . you still got it?” Phoebe wiggled her eyebrows, expectantly.

  Hayley’s face lit up. “Do I still got it? Hell yeah!”

  Phoebe began chanting like an obsessed fan. “Lil’ Blueprint! Lil’ Blueprint!”

  “Hell yeah!” Hayley said, jumping to her feet. “This is Lil’ Blueprint representin’ all the short ladies out there,” she began.

  “I’m four feet eleven always gotta hem up my jeans / But I’m big fun like Mardi Gras in New Orleans / I like my gangstas polished like young DeNiro an’ Pacino / I can reach the top shelf liquor, thanks for askin’ me tho’ / You see height ain’t power, and should you forget / Like grain pound into flour, might be the worst beatin’ you get / I g
ot moves to remove haters, yeah I’m that pistol quick / Have you believin’ King Kong slayed ya an’ not some ninety pound chick.”

  And then Hayley did a few pirouettes coupled with elegant leaps before she collapsed laughing onto her beanbag.

  Phoebe could only stare; her mask had hardened and she couldn’t move her face muscles. “In case you can’t tell,” she said, bringing her hands to her cheeks. “This is me giving you a look of awe right now.”

  Hayley laughed until she could barely catch her breath. After rinsing off their masks a little later, Hayley said to Phoebe, expectantly, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Was I right about that mask being good for your soul?”

  Phoebe slumped back down to the floor. The dark mood she’d been fighting all night had managed to crush the joy of Hayley’s company. Phoebe looked around; she did not want Hayley to see a change in her eyes. “My soul’s feeling good,” she said so cheerfully her voice broke.

  “It didn’t work, did it?” Hayley said at once.

  Quickly, Phoebe brought a hand to her cheeks. “It did. My skin feels great.”

  “I’m talking about Spa Sunday. It’s not taking your mind off things, is it?” she said, her eyes straying to Phoebe’s slightly exposed bite marks.

  Phoebe, already feeling terrible, felt even worse as she took in Hayley’s disappointed face. “This was—is great. . . .” Phoebe was spared the trouble of attempting a smile by Hayley waving a hand in front of her face to dismiss Phoebe’s apologetic demeanor; then she deposited herself cross-legged in front of her and said, “Can I see it?”

  Phoebe nodded and pulled up her sleeve.

  Hayley whistled in her breath. There was a long silence in which she just stared. “Does it still hurt?” When Phoebe shook her head, Hayley allowed her fingers to gently trail over the puckered skin and said, “I still can’t believe they found the campus.”

  Unable to contain herself, Phoebe blurted, “They think they came for me and these three other cadets.” Hayley paled and Phoebe gasped at her own unbidden disclosure. “You can’t tell anyone this. Anyone,” Phoebe stressed. Now that it was out, she wanted, needed to talk about it.