Safe from Harm (9781101619629)

by Evans, Stephanie Jaye

  Liz worried at one of the many zippers on her purse, zipping it open and closed, open and closed. “The very first day, I sat us all down for a family meeting and I set out our family plan, and the most basic of our hard-and-fast rules.”

  Her purse brrred again. This time she reached in and silenced it.

  “How did that go over with Phoebe?” My coffee had cooled but I drank it anyway.

  “I believe she was grateful. Everyone’s happier when they know what to expect and they know they can deliver. That’s key, Bear. She wasn’t happy about the no-sugar but she’ll adjust.”

  “What’s the no-sugar?”

  “That’s a hard-and-fast. I’m diabetic and I’m allergic to seafood. There is no sugar or seafood in our house. It’s one of our hard-and-fasts. Additionally, sugar makes you fat and there’s mercury in seafood which leads to retardation. I do not want to live with a bunch of fat retarded people.”

  My jaw dropped. Well, alrighty, then. Miss Liz had just cemented her standing for the Humanitarian of the Year Award. Liz looked perfectly normal. Above normal. On the superior side. But she was spouting the most senseless, insensitive garbage . . .

  “So, Phoebe’s settling in well?” I meant for Liz to hear the sarcasm in that. She missed it.

  Liz stopped messing about with the zipper and half turned on the bench, looking at me full on. “Bear. Does she look like she’s settling in well? Would you say Phoebe fits in in First Colony? For Clements High School? I have begged her to let me buy her new clothes. She can pay me back in chores. Or out of her insurance money. I’ve tried. And Bear . . .”

  Liz put her mug back on the carpet, set her purse down next to it and slid over the bench until she was right next to me. She smelled of coffee and rubbing alcohol and . . . was it starch? Did anyone still use starch? Way back when I’d come home from school and my mother would be ironing—that smell when she lifted the steaming iron off the linens? Liz smelled like that.

  She leaned into me. I could feel her breath against my cheek. “Bear, I believe that girl resents me! You have no idea what I saved them from, Mark and her, both. You don’t know how they would be living if it weren’t for me!”

  She leaned back so she could take in my expression. I had nothing for her. I resented her and I didn’t have to live under her rules, hard-and-fast or otherwise.

  “Well, Liz.” I knew I sounded feeble. “I don’t think it’s unusual for a stepdaughter to have some strong feelings about her stepmother. You might want to . . .” I pulled out my phone and notepad, clicked my contact list and wrote a number and name down. I tore the sheet off and handed it to Liz. “This is Carol Thompson’s number. She’s a family therapist. I think a lot of her. She’s going to be a better . . . ahh . . . the whole stepdaughter thing. Carol could help you with the, the hard-and-fasts.” I nodded my head, slapped my thighs and stood up. That meant we were done.

  “I solve my problems analytically and objectively, Bear. I don’t know what a therapist could bring to the table.”

  I said, “Okay . . .”

  “Lately, Phoebe seems angrier that ever, Bear. She’s acting out. Deliberately provoking. If she keeps up like this, that girl is headed for a fall. I see that coming. I do.”

  I checked the time on my phone. “Liz, consider calling Carol’s number, would you? I’m going to get those books out to your car now—there’s going to be someone coming to my office soon and I don’t want to make them wait.”

  We made our way to the end of the great hall, collected the books. I stowed them in the cargo area of her Mercedes GL. Yeah. Mercedes-Benz makes an SUV. Who knew.

  The person waiting in my office was Rebecca. She was on her way to Whole Foods Market to pick up lunch and did I want anything. Yeah. I asked her to bring me a tuna fish salad sandwich with sweet tea. Extra sugar, please. That’s my hard-and-fast.

  • • •

  One week after my talk with Liz, Phoebe came by the church.

  Phoebe hadn’t been back to the house in the month since the quarrel with Jo, and she had avoided me on Sunday mornings. But whatever had set Phoebe on her present course, that girl was after big game. Bear, evidently.

  I was trying to write my sermon and Rebecca tapped at my door, her eyebrows nearly to her hairline, and told me I had an unscheduled visitor. That’s nothing new—people have problems or worries and those can’t be foreseen, so I saved my document and got up to greet whoever it was.

  Rebecca stepped back and Miss Phoebe made her entrance in six-inch-high platform shoes.

  The shoes were the least offensive items of what she was wearing. Now, I know I’m conservative about what a young woman should wear. It didn’t bother me a bit when Annie Laurie and I were dating and she wore a bikini at the pool—well, it bothered me but in a good way. But I hate it when my girls wear them. I do. But at least that’s outside—at the beach or the pool, not right in my church office. Not paraded past all the other church offices to get to my church office.

  Phoebe’s skirt barely covered her bottom. She was wearing so much metal that a retired guy on a Galveston beach was finding his metal detector mysteriously drawn to the northwest. The tank top she had on was cut low in front and even lower in back and it was cropped short enough to expose her pierced and tattooed navel. Honestly. In suburban Texas. On a school day. At the church. It was dressing as an act of aggression.

  She propped a fist on a hip, jutted the other hip forward and tilted her head down so as to look up at me through her lashes. “I wondered if we could have a talk,” she said. She was trying to channel Lauren Bacall—she’d probably never heard of Lauren Bacall, but that’s who she was doing.

  I said, “Oh, my gosh, Phoebe, what the heck are you dressed up as?”

  Okay—I know it. It wasn’t a good thing to say, it wasn’t what Jesus said to the woman at the well or to Mary Magdalene or to any of the other problematic women in his life, but it came straight out of my mouth without taking the usual detour through my brain.

  Big surprise, I embarrassed her.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” She had flushed up to her roots—newly blackened, I noticed.

  Now I felt bad for embarrassing her. I said, “No, you’re fine. Have a seat.” I waved a hand over at the small couch and the chairs in my office. When Phoebe sat I said, “Oh my gosh,” and tossed her the throw that was folded over the back of a chair.

  She caught it and said, “What’s this for?”

  What it was for was for her to spread over her lap because the girl’s panties were showing when she sat down—that’s how short that skirt was. This time, my brain grabbed hold of my mouth before I could tell her just that and instead I came out with, “You look cold. It’s cold in here. It’s always cold in here. Rebecca, don’t you think it’s cold?”

  Rebecca said she thought it was warming up, which was unnecessary, and she took the easy chair across from Phoebe and crossed her slim ankles. She gave Phoebe her big, friendly smile. I sat down on the arm of a chair.

  Phoebe took in that Rebecca had joined us, looked all nonplussed and said, some sarcasm seeping in, “I thought we could talk in private.”

  I said “Oh! Absolutely,” and Rebecca reseated herself at her desk outside my office as I led the way down the hall to one of our conference rooms.

  It’s a big room, lined with framed architectural drawings of the church building—it holds a table for twelve, notepads and pens at every chair, and nothing else. Not so much as a potted palm to hide behind. There’s a couple of ficus trees, but they provide no cover at all. The conference room has a glass door, and one wall is floor to ceiling glass. Soundproof, yes, but there is not a thing that can go on in that room without it being visible to the entire church office staff and anyone else who happens to walk by. It’s designed this way on purpose.

  I took a seat at the table and looked expectantly at
Phoebe. She gave the space a slow appraisal before curling over the chair across the table from me, her hands on the upholstered back, swiveling it gently to and fro.

  “Mr. Wells, Bear.” I didn’t want her calling me Bear. I’m Mr. Wells at least until you’re out of high school. “I wanted a private meeting.” She swung the castered chair too far to the left, lost her footing on those mile-high heels and would have fallen to the floor if she hadn’t had ahold of the chair back. She nearly brought the chair down with her. As it was, she ended up knees splayed either side of the chair, arms wrapped around its back. I pretended not to notice the mishap. It was the kindest thing to do. Her cheeks were flaming now and I felt sorry for her.

  “Can you tell me what you want to meet about, because if it’s this thing between you and Jo, then it’s Jo you need to—”

  “I can tell you in private.”

  I picked up a notepad and pen and tapped the pad of paper with the pen. “Phoebe, this is as private as it gets.”

  She looked around the open, glass box of a room with contempt and gave the chair a shove.

  “Seriously?”

  I nodded, “It’s a safety measure, Phoebe.”

  That earned me a hard look. “I’m not afraid of you, Mr. Wells.”

  “It’s not about your safety, Phoebe.”

  Her mouth made an O. “For real?”

  “For real. We can talk in my nice, comfortable office, with the very discreet Mrs. Rutland to hand, or we can talk here, in the aquarium.” I gave a wave to Rebecca, who could see the entirety of the room from her desk, and she waved back. Sherry, who oversees our toddler-through-third-grade program, passed by with a load of books cradled in an arm. She gave a friendly wave, too. Phoebe looked over her shoulder in time to see the wave. It ticked her off.

  “With the door shut, no one can hear you,” I said, “And I won’t repeat what you say. Unless you’re about to confess to a crime, and then I’m going to advise you to call the police, and if you don’t, I’m going to do it for you, just so we have that straight. Now, what can I do for you?”

  Phoebe gave an eye roll that made the full circumference of her eyeballs before she pulled the chair out and sat down. I was relieved to have that expanse of leg underneath the table. None of this had gone the way Phoebe had envisioned it. I didn’t know how to rescue her.

  “Why do you think I’m here?” It was a challenge.

  I won’t play the “guess what?” game with my own girls. It’s a time waster.

  “Why don’t you tell me, Phoebe?”

  “I want to know what you think, tell me what you think. I got dressed up and I came down here and . . .” She trailed off, shook her inky hair off her face and raised an eyebrow.

  I considered, and then put the pen down and gave Phoebe my full focus.

  “All right. You asked what I think. I think when you come to my house, it’s not Jo you want to see, it’s Annie Laurie, for which I don’t blame you, because I like to spend time with her, too. Because you miss your mom. And Annie is a good mom.”

  Tears filled Phoebe’s eyes and she gripped the arms of her chair. Her chin went up.

  “But teenage girls don’t usually visit other girls’ moms, so you were ‘visiting’ Jo, and since Jo was rude to you the other night, you don’t feel like you can do that anymore and you’re mad and embarrassed and—”

  Phoebe pushed back from the table and stood.

  “—hurt and maybe you’re looking to give some of that back to Jo.”

  Phoebe turned her back on me and walked out of the room. I heard the clatter of her heels on the stairs.

  “And maybe the best way to do that was to embarrass me,” I finished in the empty room. I made a big X on the tablet in front of me and blew out my breath. “Well done, Brother Wells. Handled like a pro,” I told myself. But I didn’t go after her. It wasn’t likely I’d come up with anything better if I tried again, even if Phoebe would let me try again.

  My belly hurt, which meant I’d been a tad tense during the encounter. I went back to my office.

  When I had eased myself carefully behind my desk again, Rebecca came in with a cold can of Spicy V8 and a glass of ice chips.

  She said, “That went well.”

  “Did you see her departure?”

  “Bear, the whole building saw her departure. I’m not sure you won a soul for Jesus today.”

  I laughed and then groaned and held my stomach.

  “Thanks for the juice.” I held the glass aloft.

  “You’re so welcome. You want to tell me about it?” Rebecca sat down.

  I shook my head no. I wanted to talk to Annie Laurie and I wanted to talk to Carol Thompson who would have been less defensive and more effective with Phoebe, but then she’s a female therapist and I’m a male minister. I wanted someone else to tell me if I should go see the Pickersley-Smythes. I was out of my league. Way out. And this wasn’t a league I wanted to play in.

  • • •

  Phoebe’s payback came the very day she made her visit to my office. I was going to tell Annie everything when I got home that night. See, any way I looked at it, it came up as entrapment. Yes, that sounds dramatic. But there was the way she was dressed, her insistence on complete privacy and the amateurish seduction moves—I do think it was meant to be seductive, even if I didn’t think for a second that Phoebe had any more interest in me than she did in Big Bird. So I was going to see how Annie Laurie thought we should handle it. But Phoebe made her move first. I got a call from a jubilant Annie.

  “Jo and Phoebe have made up, Bear! It’s the best thing! They’re going to the movies together and then spending the night at Phoebe’s. It was all Phoebe’s idea. Oh, it’s such good news. That girl has been sitting on my heart. She seems such a lost thing.”

  No. Not the best thing. Not good news. What the heck was Phoebe playing at?

  “I don’t know, Annie. We need to talk about Phoebe. I think Phoebe has some issues.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Her mom died, she’s living with her stepmom and Liz isn’t an easy person. I’d have some issues. Did you tell me you didn’t want Jo to go out with Phoebe?”

  I hadn’t had time.

  “Did you tell me anything about Phoebe that should, ipso facto, mean I shouldn’t let Jo go out with Phoebe?”

  I was about to tell Annie Laurie about Phoebe’s appearance in my office that morning, but when Annie Laurie starts borrowing her dad’s lawyerspeak, it’s time for me to get off the phone.

  When I texted Jo, all I got back was “brb,” and I don’t know what that means.

  Annie laughed at me when I told her about Phoebe’s visit. The more I tried to explain, the harder she laughed. It was this close to being insulting. Annie made it very, very clear that she thought I was “reading too much into it,” and said I shouldn’t worry and could I please get ready because we were due at the Sugar Land Skeeters Grand Opening Gala in an hour. It was “cocktail attire” or “vintage jerseys.” I wanted to wear my old UT jersey but Annie wouldn’t let me because she didn’t think a football jersey was what they were talking about since the Sugar Land Skeeters play minor league baseball. If she didn’t want me to wear my old football jersey, she should have bought me an old baseball jersey. I put a suit on. I try to keep Annie happy because she keeps me happy. And it’s easier than dealing with her when she’s crossed.

  Annie and I went to the function where I made the rounds, greeting everybody I could and making lowball bids at the silent auction because I wanted to participate but I sure as heck didn’t want to win anything. I checked my phone every ten minutes or so but heard nothing from Jo. When we got back to the house at last, I made myself a cup of hot tea and went to bed.

  Our house is fifteen years old and with the Gulf Coast’s extreme shifts in temperature and ground moisture, a homeowner can expect their house to make some unexpla
ined noises. There was a time when I would have slept through any nighttime noise that didn’t involve running water. That would have been a time before I got shot. When I heard the noise upstairs, I went from deep asleep to wide awake.

  I slipped out of bed and grabbed the first thing my hand touched as I passed the bookcase—a three-inch-thick dictionary. Maybe I could pound the interloper over the head with it. Or hold it over the place where I got shot so I didn’t get shot there again. I started up the stairs.

  There was a shuffling noise coming from behind Jo’s closed door. She usually leaves it open—Bear likes to sleep in Jo’s room even when she isn’t home. A couple of months ago I discovered that Jo had been using the bedroom window that opened onto the top of the garage as her own private entrance and exit to the house. It was possible she had shared that trick with someone else and . . .

  I flung the door open into the room.

  “Dad!” Jo hissed. She was in the middle of pulling a sweaty T-shirt off over her head. She yanked it down quickly. “Can you knock?”

  Can anyone do outrage and indignation like a teenage girl?

  Baby Bear watched the scene from Jo’s bed—a sure sign that he hadn’t been expecting Jo, either. He’s not supposed to sleep on Jo’s bed.

  I said, “Your mom said you were spending the night at Phoebe’s. And it’s . . .” I checked the Hello Kitty clock over her bed. “Jo, it’s two thirty. How’d you get home? And why didn’t you use the front door instead of climbing in your window like a cat burglar?”

  “I’ll tell you, but could you please bring me an ice water? I’m dying.”

  “How about you tell me first?”

  “Dad, please?”

  I stared at my child in the dim light from her goose night-light. She looked okay. Hot and sweaty, but okay. I put the dictionary on top of her bookcase and went downstairs and filled a giant plastic glass with ice and water, added a cup of apple juice to get some calories into my girl, and brought it up to her. Jo sat cross-legged on her floor, a clean T-shirt on, her discarded sweaty clothes in a pile on the floor.