Phoebe Will Destroy You

by Blake Nelson

  “People say that,” said Emily. “But it’s never mutual.”

  “She broke up with me,” I said. “She was sick of my family stuff.”

  Emily didn’t respond. This was the first mention of my family between us. I wanted to say something else, to show her it was no big deal, that I didn’t mind talking about it. But I couldn’t think of what.

  * * *

  Aunt Judy was the easiest of the Reilly family to talk to. Sometimes I’d hang out with her in the kitchen. She’d chatter away about whatever: local gossip; town politics; the old widow who owned the flower store. Or tourist stuff she thought I might be interested in: surfing lessons, or horseback riding on the beach, or a zip line someone was building in the mountains.

  At one point I got a fairly long e-mail from my dad, telling me the news from home. So then I relayed this information to Aunt Judy while we were cleaning up after dinner: how mom was still sober, and going to her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and getting her classes ready for the fall semester.

  “She still has her job?” said Aunt Judy with amazement. “After all that?”

  I nodded. This was one of my mother’s many talents. She somehow never got fired, no matter what crazy things she did.

  I asked Aunt Judy what my dad was like when he was a teenager. She told me how he threw this giant senior party the last month of high school, with ten kegs and a live band; it was this legendary thing. Their parents weren’t home of course, and it got out of hand, and then the police came and everyone got busted. Still, it was considered the best party of the year, my dad was considered a hero. The yearbook even devoted a whole spread of pictures to it.

  My aunt Judy was loading the dishwasher as she told me this. She said, “Your dad always had a lot of friends in high school. And also in college. He was very popular in those days, and very happy. . . . People loved him—they looked up to him.” A serious look came over her face. “He seems very different now. He isn’t really himself.”

  I nodded. She was obviously talking about being with my mom.

  “But that happens to everyone,” she said, quickly changing her tone. She stood up straight and dried her hands with a towel. “You change when you get married. And when you have children. You become more serious. You have to. It’s perfectly normal.”

  9

  Justin and I continued to bond as the vacuum crew. We worked well together. A car came out of the tunnel, and, depending on what kind of car it was and how dirty, we divided our labors and went to work: cleaning the windows, vacuuming the carpets, wiping out the cup holders and other dashboard nooks—in most cases finishing an entire car in under two minutes. I always liked being good at a job, even a crappy job. Justin seemed to be that way too. And so the two of us quietly killed it, car after car, day after day.

  Then one afternoon Nicole and Phoebe showed up again in the Jeep. Everyone snuck out to the back parking lot to bask in the glow of Nicole’s sexy smile. This time I watched the other girl, Phoebe, as well. She was quieter and definitely more “the friend,” but she was also cute in her own way, and had a more alternative style.

  Nicole had come to tell Kyle some urgent piece of news, which turned out to be nothing. While that was going on, Phoebe climbed out of the Jeep and came toward the office to use our restroom. I was hanging back, standing by the back door in case any customers came. I watched Phoebe approach. She had a pretty face, despite her dyed black hair and overly pale complexion. She didn’t look at me. She wasn’t paying attention to anything, really. She looked bored, or oblivious, I guess.

  When she got to the door, I moved out of her way. Normally I wouldn’t talk to a girl like that, but for some reason I felt like I could. “Hey,” I said.

  She glanced once at my face.

  “I’m Nick,” I said.

  “Hi, Nick,” she said, going past me. I started to direct her to the bathroom, but she already knew the way.

  When she came back out a few minutes later, she walked past me again. I politely moved aside and watched her walk back to the Jeep. She had an interesting walk. She was interesting in general. There was definitely something about her.

  Later, as we cleaned the windows of a large RV, Justin told me that Phoebe and Nicole had graduated from high school that spring, with Kyle. So they were a grade older than me. I was relieved to hear that. It made it okay for me to have crushes on them. I didn’t have to worry they would like me back. Since I was just a kid to them.

  * * *

  Besides coworkers, Justin and I were starting to become friends. I had to be careful, though; I didn’t want to become too good of friends with someone who got drunk under the Promenade stairs in plain sight of everyone. It was a difficult situation. He started asking me to come hang out with him and his friends after work. Usually I’d make up some excuse. But he kept asking, and, finally one Friday, I said okay.

  We drove up to Tillicum, which was another small town up the coast. We stopped off to get beer and then continued in Justin’s crappy Ford Focus. (He couldn’t even put it through the car wash because the passenger window wouldn’t stay up.)

  In Tillicum, we followed the one paved road to a dirt road, and followed that to a small, falling-down house deep in the woods. We got out, and I swear, it was like the Garden of Eden in there, quiet and peaceful, the late afternoon sun shining down through the gaps in the trees. You could even hear a babbling brook somewhere. That was the thing about the Oregon coast. So much natural beauty, and then in the middle of it there’d be an old rusted washing machine lying on its side with its tubes and wires hanging out.

  That’s kind of what the house was like—the window frames coming apart, moss on the roof, junk around the outside. We went to the front door and Justin knocked. When nobody answered, he pushed the door open with his shoulder.

  It was a mess inside as well: computer crap, gamer stuff, cords, wires, screens everywhere. Justin called out, and this huge guy appeared. He must have weighed three hundred pounds. He was in shorts and a dirty T-shirt and flip-flops. His name was Calhoun. We gave him a beer, and the three of us sat in his trashed living room. Justin told him I was Kyle Reilly’s cousin and I was working at the Happy Bubble this summer. Calhoun seemed impressed. So we talked about that for a while: the car wash and how you could meet girls there, and the different kinds of girls you might meet. Calhoun had a lot to say about girls, so we kept on with that: what California girls were like versus Oregon girls, how Seaside girls compared to Portland girls, which girls were snobs and which might want to fool around, and how you could tell, and what the signs were, and what was the best thing to say to a girl, depending on what your intentions were, et cetera, et cetera.

  Calhoun was doing all the talking, and eventually I stopped listening and found myself thinking about Phoebe and the moment she walked by me at the Happy Bubble. Hi, Nick, she had said. It was very cool, her tone of voice, but not entirely unfriendly, either. Would I talk to her again if I saw her? Maybe. Though I couldn’t imagine a girl like Phoebe being interested in me. I would be too boring for her. She and Nicole, they were party girls, wild girls; they drove around in an open Jeep, flirting with guys like Kyle. On the other hand, this was Seaside. It was a small town; maybe things were different here. Maybe the normal rules didn’t apply.

  * * *

  I was halfway through my first beer when Calhoun reached behind his recliner chair and pulled out the biggest bong I had ever seen. It was four feet tall. It was so big, it seemed impossible a human could actually smoke out of it.

  But they did. Calhoun fired it up, and he and Justin started taking gigantic bong hits. I sat watching. That bong looked lethal. I started telling them I didn’t want any, I was good, I had small lungs, but Calhoun looked deeply hurt and offended. So then I thought I could probably survive a very small hit. So I tried that, sucking up what I thought was the tiniest possible amount of smoke. But even that burned into my chest like a hot iron. I immediately started coughing and choking and pounding on
my sternum. Calhoun and Justin thought this was hilarious. Then they took more gigantic hits themselves. I couldn’t believe they could smoke more.

  After that we drank more beer. I needed the cold liquid to soothe my scalded throat. So now, not only was I totally high, I was pretty drunk, too. Then I realized it was almost eight, and Aunt Judy would wonder where I was. I dug out my phone and texted her that I was going to eat with Justin and hang out with him that night. She texted back right away saying that was fine, they wouldn’t wait for me.

  So that was easy. And now I was free to do whatever. I opened another beer.

  After the bong hits, the conversation was mostly laughing and saying random things. Justin talked about how trees communicate with each other through energy fields. Calhoun had read something about how long a human would remain conscious in outer space without a space suit. Three seconds, he claimed. Which would give you time to really experience the vastness of the universe. Unfortunately, your brain would then be freeze-dried by the cold. Or would explode, depending on the exact conditions. Still, reasoned Calhoun, that wouldn’t be a bad way to “go out.”

  * * *

  Driving back to Seaside, I was so drunk and stoned I literally couldn’t see straight. When we waited at an intersection, I tried to focus on the traffic light, but found it kept veering off to the right.

  There was no way I could go back to the Reillys’ like that, so I told Justin to let me off at the Promenade. When he pulled over, I couldn’t figure out how to get my door open. When I did get out, I didn’t know where I was. I was lost in downtown Seaside, which had, like, two main streets. I stumbled around and managed to find the Beach Mart, where I bought a two-liter bottle of water. Somehow I made it back to the Promenade, where I flopped on a bench. I stayed there, paralyzed basically, drinking water and waiting for the worst of my drunkenness to pass.

  A couple hours later I began the 2.4-mile walk home. It was very late when I found myself in front of my basement door. I was still drunk and tried desperately to be quiet, which was hard in the dark, with the key and the creaky old door. When I finally got in, I quickly took off my clothes and crawled into bed before anyone could come down and ask me any questions.

  Sure enough, the minute I pulled the covers over my head, the upstairs door opened. Someone came partway down the steps.

  “Nick?” said a soft voice. It was Emily. Thank God.

  I lifted my head out of the covers. “Oh. Hi,” I said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “It’s two-thirty a.m.”

  “I know. Did I wake everyone up?”

  “No. I was already awake.”

  I looked up at her. “I am so drunk right now,” I said.

  “Where did you go?”

  “I was hanging out with Justin.”

  “Well that explains it,” she said. She was sitting on the steps with her elbows on her knees. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. The bed is starting to spin.”

  “If you have to puke, you can go in that basin by the washing machine.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “How did you get home?”

  “Walked.”

  She remained sitting on the stairs for another few moments.

  Then she stood up. “Okay well, good night,” she said, heading back up the stairs.

  “Good night.”

  10

  The next morning, Uncle Rob called down to my basement room that Kyle was going to be working out at the high school, before the car wash opened, if I wanted to come watch him pitch.

  After everything I’d heard, of course I did, despite probably the worst hangover I’d ever had in my life. I stumbled out of bed and put on my pants and climbed up the stairs. The first floor was bustling with activity. Aunt Judy was cooking, Kyle was eating, Uncle Rob was calling people on his phone. There was an open cooler by the door with bags of ice and some Gatorade in it. There were two large buckets spilling over with baseballs and a plastic tub filled with other assorted gear, as well as a gym bag, a duffel bag, and some electronic stuff. Kyle, I noticed, was wearing brand-new orange-and-brown Nike sweats with the little beaver head that was the mascot of Oregon State.

  Kyle working out was a big deal, apparently.

  After breakfast, the three of us loaded up the truck. We drove to the highway and then north to Seaside High School. We pulled around to the baseball field. It wasn’t much to look at. Brown grass. Rickety bleachers. There were already several cars in the parking lot, and some guys standing by the backstop. These people turned out to be Kyle’s teammates from his high school team the year before. They were happy to show up, if Kyle needed a workout. They all came right over to say hi to Uncle Rob. There was a lot of back-slapping and teasing Kyle about his fancy sweat pants and Nike gear.

  * * *

  Kyle and his teammates spread out across the grass to stretch. This went on for about ten minutes. Then everyone partnered up and played catch. I threw the ball back and forth with Uncle Rob. The fuzziness in my brain was beginning to clear.

  Eventually, Kyle made his way to the pitcher’s mound and began throwing practice pitches to a guy in a catcher’s outfit. He did this for another five minutes, stopping occasionally to chat with people or fiddle with his glove or adjust his hat.

  One of the guys put on a batting helmet and batting gloves and began taking practice swings. Kyle was pitching a little faster now, and with a little more force. Uncle Rob pulled out an expensive-looking radar gun and started checking his speed. He yelled out to Kyle: “Seventy-one!” “Sixty-eight!” “Seventy-five!” I was standing behind the backstop, watching all this through the fence. Kyle’s warm-up pitches cut through the air with a pleasing sizzle sound. And they came fast. SLAP! went the catcher’s glove, a little cloud of dust coming off it with the impact. And Kyle wasn’t even throwing at full speed yet.

  So then everyone paused for a minute while the first batter strode to the plate. He was nervous, you could see, but also trying very hard to appear confident. He tapped the tip of the bat against home plate a couple times and then backed away, taking a deep breath and crossing himself.

  Some of the other guys had run out into the field with their baseball mitts, to field any balls that got hit. A couple more guys began swinging bats and getting ready to take their turn against Kyle. Meanwhile, about a dozen younger kids had shown up on bikes and gathered beside me behind the backstop. They were chattering excitedly among themselves. “That’s Kyle Reilly!” I heard one say.

  I had noticed a steady stream of cars pulling into the parking lot since we arrived. Now, when I looked behind me, I saw an actual crowd had gathered. People were sitting in the bleachers. Nobody wanted to miss this. People were texting their friends.

  The guy with the batting helmet stepped back to the plate. A tingle of excitement passed through the crowd. People started to yell stuff. The catcher got down in his stance and everyone became very serious. Kyle stared at the batter. Then he wound up in a slow deliberate motion, turned away from us for a moment, then uncoiled himself in a fast, fluid flow. The ball came out of his hand like it had been whipped somehow, building velocity as it approached and then dropping suddenly as it crossed the plate. The batter made a stab at it with his bat, and missed it totally. SLAP!

  “Seventy-five,” called out Uncle Rob.

  * * *

  The first guy was gone in three pitches. The following guys could barely make contact with the ball. It was basically strike out, strike out, strike out. Kyle’s old teammates were laughing and shaking their heads. “I still can’t hit you, bro!” yelled one guy, tossing his batting helmet into the dead grass.

  After a half hour of this, I wandered over to where Uncle Rob was standing with his radar gun. Without looking at me, he said: “You wanna take a few swings?”

  I laughed. I assumed he was kidding. But he wasn’t.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really want to. It
looked terrifying out there.

  Some of the other players standing nearby had heard Uncle Rob’s offer. They kind of smiled but then looked away, so as not to embarrass me. They understood my hesitation. They were baseball guys, they were used to good pitchers. I was just some guy.

  On the other hand, I didn’t want to look like a wuss. I was a decent athlete. There was no reason I couldn’t try to bat against my cousin.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Uncle Rob looked surprised. So did the other guys. But they approved. They immediately began to encourage me. Someone found me a batting helmet and a special pad to put over my elbow, in case I got hit. They told me what to do. Where to stand. They applauded my bravery, or my stupidity, it was hard to tell. Anyway, a minute later, in my $9.99 sneakers and Happy Bubble shirt, I walked around the backstop.

  Oh God, I thought as I approached home plate. There was a lot of empty space out there. And not having the fence between me and those sizzling baseballs made my knees go weak.

  I had no choice now. I’d said I’d do it and here I was. I stood at the plate. I took a couple practice swings. The bat was small, so that was good. I took a couple more practice swings.

  Kyle, meanwhile, looked skeptical. He stepped off the rubber and gave his dad a look like, What are you doing? When his dad just shrugged, he looked at me like, Are you sure you want to do this?

  I nodded that I did. I stood in, taking more nervous practice swings.

  Kyle took his stance. He looked into his mitt and gripped the baseball. A queasy liquid feeling immediately spread from the top of my neck down into my stomach. Kyle went into his windup. I could feel my feet trying to back me out of there. My whole body wanted to dive for cover. Kyle completed his motion and suddenly the ball was in the air, there was a hissing sound, and then SLAP! The ball was past me before I could think, before I could move.

  I stepped away, my whole body quivering. Holy shit.

  “Seventy-one,” announced Uncle Rob.

  I tried to calm myself. I tried swinging the bat again. But my arms had become rubbery and my hands felt numb and detached from the rest of my body. Fear: it could really mess you up.