Phoebe and the Rock of Ages Read online

  “Chew your food, Reuben Dixon,” Renata chided from the bed.

  Reuben rolled his eyes at his mother. “Why don’t you tell Charise to chew her food?” he retorted, and then ducked when Tim threw a little stuffed animal at him. It wasn’t the mouse from Trevor and Ricky.

  “Good comeback, Reub,” Gia snorted, and nudged him again. The boy grinned smugly, but he did chew more.

  And the tension in the room had dissipated, the young teenager’s ready—albeit age-appropriately crude—acceptance of his mother’s exposed breast putting everyone at ease.

  Except that Trevor couldn’t completely quiet the slightly unsettled feeling in his gut. A secret part of him—one he refused to give voice to—was worried about Phoebe Gustafson, and why everyone was tiptoeing around her absence.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Phoebe was drunk.

  Going on her second day of it, to boot, if the early morning easterly sun peering through the huge studio windows was any indication. She squinted against the too-bright light and her eyes homed in on the nearly-empty green bottle of Glenfiddich perched on the ugly clay stand she’d fashioned around it sometime in the middle of the night. She’d dozed at her potter’s wheel, her head resting on her folded arms on the flat surface, and clay had dried and hardened on her hands, under her nails, sticking to the undersides of her arms. She straightened up slowly, groaning at the crick in her back. The mounting pressure behind her eyeballs foretold a hangover headache from hell whenever she stopped drinking long enough to let it kick in. When she closed her eyes, the room spun like a carnival tilt-a-wheel ride, so she pried them open again, and planted both feet firmly on the floor, lest she topple off the stool.

  She reached for the bottle and wrested it from the clay that had hardened around it. It broke free, making her whole body lurch back with the release, and she whimpered into the mouth of the bottle before swallowing a long gulp of whiskey. Then she held the bottle aloft as the golden liquid seared its way down her convulsing throat.

  “Hair of the dog,” she saluted, her eyes too bleary to focus on her reflection in the grouping of framed mirrors on the wall before her.

  A few moments later, the additional alcohol not helping her balance any, but at least wetting her parched throat, she pushed to her feet and stumbled over to the sink. She turned the water on, pulling the spray nozzle from its base and lowering her head and arms into the deep basin. As the shockingly cold water sluiced over her, she groaned and braced herself against the counter. “Safer than a shower, safer than a shower,” she muttered repeatedly, just sober enough to remember the last time she’d stepped into the shower in a similar condition, only to slip and fall, coming around much later with the water running cold over her, and a tender lump above her split left eyebrow.

  She finally turned off the water, pulled her long hair around to one side, and grabbed a dishtowel from the stack folded on a shelf above the sink. She wrapped it around the ends of the loose, dripping strands, and straightened slowly, giving the wobbly world time to settle into her new perspective.

  “I’m a wretched woman,” Phoebe muttered to herself as she sized up the stairs leading up to her loft bedroom. Could she make it? She took a tentative step away from the counter, and although the room shifted with her, at least it seemed to be moving in the same direction as she was.

  A chill shuddered through her as water dribbled down her back. Her shirt was soaked, the towel around her hair was too small to be very effective, and she needed her hands free to hold on to furniture. And since her left hand was busy holding the Glenfiddich, that meant she had to lose the towel. She left it lying on the floor and continued to the stairs, then mounted them, pausing every few steps to rest. She didn’t look up or back down the way she’d come; either angle made her dizzy and a little nauseated. “One more step, Phebes. Then one more again.”

  Somehow she made it to the top of the stairs where she sank to her hands and knees to crawl across the floor toward her bed, pushing the bottle along ahead of her. “Come to mama, little angel cloud bed of mine.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Phoebe awoke to the incessant buzzing of bees, a pulsing rhythm filling the air around her. A thousand of them maniacally fluttering their wings without letting up. “Stop,” she groaned, and then bit down hard on her lip to quiet the sound of her own voice rattling like a bag of rocks inside her head. “Oh, stop,” she whispered, covering her ears against the buzzing that wouldn’t let up.

  She finally realized it was her alarm clock going off, the black plastic box with the LED numbers on her nightstand letting her know it was ten o’clock in the morning.

  Just out of reach.

  Tears of frustration and pain began to build like hot lava behind her eyes, but she rolled onto her side and tried again. This time, her grasping fingertips found the edge of the table and the dangling electrical cord. She pulled the plug out of the wall socket with a quick jerk that made her head spin, but the angry bees fell silent.

  “Thank you.” She mouthed the words, not daring to actually speak again, and covered her face with her pillow, and then feared she wouldn’t have the strength in her arms to remove it when the oxygen ran out beneath it. Maybe it would be better that way….

  But Phoebe knew she didn’t have it in her to harm herself, at least not physically. Okay, at least not with anything but alcohol, her throbbing head corrected her. She’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried. But no matter what she did, she could never quite bring herself to make the final cut, take the step out into space, pull the trigger. Slow and steady wins the race, The words drifted through her thoughts, caustic and cruel. You’re going to die slowly and painfully after a long, lonely, miserable life. The need for air forced her to bat the pillow off her face with a sloppy swipe of her arm.

  The buzzing started up again. “No,” Phoebe moaned, squinting her eyes against the daylight to look for the clock. It wasn’t on her bedside table.

  But this time, it was her phone vibrating on the hardwood floor near the top of the stairs where it lay, face up, beside her shoulder bag. She vaguely remembered dropping them there when she’d come home from the hospital in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning; she’d come straight upstairs to change out of the clothes that smelled like childbirth and hospitals, the reek of them assaulting her senses, and then burrowed under her covers, begging for sleep to take her far, far away.

  There was no way she could get out of bed to her phone before whoever was calling gave up. She closed her eyes, swallowing hard against a sudden urge to vomit, and reached for the pillow again. This time, she kept one end elevated so she could breathe, and the fluffy down effectively shut out the intrusive piece of technology.

  She must have passed out again, because when she next opened her eyes, the shadows in her home were long. The days were short this time of year, but if she was thinking clearly—ha!—she’d spent the whole day in bed. Where was the bottle of whiskey she’d brought upstairs with her? Had she actually polished it off?

  It took her quite some time and no little effort to haul herself out of bed and into her bathroom where she filled the tub, the sound of rushing water loud to her ears. While she waited, she rooted around until she found the box of Blowfish at the back of her make-up drawer. She tore open one of the pouches and dropped the tablets into a glass on the counter. The fizzy drink might not work the miracles it claimed to in the commercials, but it did help take the worst of the edge off the rare times she’d found herself under the crushing weight of a hangover.

  On the vanity sat her electric kettle and coffee bean grinder alongside a wire basket containing the components of her Aeropress, appliances as necessary to her morning ritual as her blow dryer and hot rollers. She eyed the grinder, hoping she wouldn’t have to run the loud machine, and was greatly relieved to find that the canister already held enough grounds for at least one or two cups of coffee. She plugged in the kettle and prepared the coffee press while she waited for th
e water to heat up.

  By the time she’d brewed a strong cup of Italian Roast, the deep tub was full. She dropped a couple of scoops of an aromatic detox bath salt she’d purchased at Nettles and Nests, her favorite herb shop. She couldn’t remember all the ingredients, but along with Epsom salt and finely-ground green tea, it included a selection of essential oils, like lavender, vanilla, and frankincense. She didn’t care for the smell of lavender by itself, but the blend was quite soothing. She usually used it to help her relax sore muscles after a long stretch of work—it always surprised her how tightly wound she could get when she was in the throes of creativity—but she figured it might be just as effective in this situation. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  As she replaced the jar on her vanity, she spotted a watch bracelet and picked it up to check the time. Almost six o’clock p.m. Was it still Monday? Or was it Tuesday? It felt like she’d been asleep for weeks. Her phone still lay on the floor by the stairs and nothing in the bathroom gave her any clue as to what day it was.

  “Bath first. Then find out how much of the week you’ve lost.” She didn’t even want to think about who had called her; she wouldn’t be answering or returning calls any time soon, that was for sure.

  Phoebe was beginning to feel a little more human, albeit a trembling and wobbly human, but the tub was drawing her to it like a magnetic force. She sank down into the water, the heat at first making her gasp, turning her skin bright pink, but as she grew accustomed to it, she began to relax. She laid her head back and peered up through a skylight above her, strategically placed there for this very purpose. The sky went from turquoise to peach to diamond-studded indigo velvet as she let the bath work its magic on both her body and her soul.

  Lying there, she ruminated on all that had transpired to bring her to this moment, this place of complete isolation. Most of the time, she liked the hours she spent alone, but more often than not, she found she was lonely.

  Today, she wasn’t just lonely.

  Today, she was afraid she might always be lonely.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Monday morning came and went while Trevor poured his heart into his music. His visit to the hospital the day before had inspired him in completely new ways, and he found himself tapping into emotions and ideas he didn’t even know he had.

  By midday, he’d laid down tracks for two more new songs and over the course of the afternoon, he edited and mastered one of them. When he sat back and listened to what he’d worked on, he nodded in time to the tempo, pleased with the near-finished production. The lyrics spoke of the longing he was experiencing, not for a baby, but for a connection that mattered. A deep intimacy between a man and his God, between a man and those around him. It was something he knew many people never experienced in their relationships.

  As the last notes of the song faded out, his thoughts drifted to Renata and her new baby. They’d have been discharged from the hospital by now, according to what she’d said Sunday afternoon, and he sent up a quick prayer that all had gone smoothly, and that mother and child were safely home.

  He selfishly wished he could pay them another visit, hold that baby again, but no matter how hard he wracked his brain, he simply couldn’t come up with a sound enough excuse to do so. Especially now that they were home. Tim Larsen had been perfectly polite at the hospital, in spite of the awkward moments, but Trevor had sensed the man sizing him up, and something about the way he did so made Trevor think Tim would find it especially odd if he showed up on their doorstep with anything less than a really, really good reason. As well as he knew Gia, Vic, and Juliette, he was still virtually a stranger to Renata and Tim. He’d simply have to wait until Sunday when, come hell or high water, he was going to be at the Gustafsons’ for the family meal. Surely, the Dixon-Larsen gang would all be there, Baby Charise included.

  And surely, Phoebe Gustafson would be there, too, and he’d be able to talk to her about commissioning her to work on his album art.

  The thought of Phoebe—the memory of her driving that topless jeep beside him, her skirt mocking him as it billowed around her long legs, the huge sunglasses that hid most of her face, those lips—he sat back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head, his eyes closed so he could focus on the mental images longer.

  “She’s beautiful,” he murmured, his voice husky with appreciation. But he didn’t mean just on the outside. Yeah, she carried herself with the confidence of a woman who knows what she’s got and knows how to work it, but what drew his eyes to her memory again and again was the slight hesitance in her gaze, the fleeting flash of vulnerability that showed itself when he first came around the pump at the gas station. She’d been embarrassed at her circumstances, he could tell, and he’d done everything he could to put her at ease.

  But he was glad he’d first met her that way; had he been introduced to her in her own element, he might not have caught the glimpse of that Phoebe, and he might not have felt the earth shift under his feet the way he had in that moment.

  Trevor knew people. He studied them. He watched how emotion played across features and how human nature responded to circumstances and events. He spent much of his time evoking responses from people and then honing in on those responses and going deeper, deeper, until his audiences became their feelings, even if just for a moment. He knew how to use his voice, his eyes, his body language to push buttons, to touch those triggers, and he knew how to tap those places in himself, too, how to simply release himself in the moment, like he’d done when he held Charise and poured out his heart over the baby in his arms.

  And he knew, just by spending those few minutes with her, that Phoebe knew the same things he did—how to elicit a certain response, how to manipulate with a look, a movement, that voice. But he’d caught a glimpse of something more, something deeper that she kept tucked away, clutched tightly to her where she didn’t think anyone could see. He didn’t know what it was she kept so close to her heart, or why she kept it hidden, but he was sure that whatever it was had the potential to destroy her…or make her even more beautiful.

  More than that, though, he remembered her beauty. The more time he spent thinking about her—she’d not been far from his thoughts in over a week now—the more he knew it to be true. It was a visceral knowledge of her, like something about her had been stamped on his heart and mind long before he’d stepped around the gas pump to offer her his help. Sure, Juliette talked about her—quite often, in fact—and so it was possible he just felt like he knew her already. But that wasn’t it, he was certain.

  He’d known her…in another time, another place, another life. Try as he might, though, he could not conjure up the memory that would tell him how.

  He leaned forward and shoved his rolling chair backward as he stood, not caring that it careened off the wall behind him. He had to figure this out before it consumed him. With an urgency that matched the one he’d felt yesterday about meeting the new baby, he needed to know. He would just come right out and ask her when he saw her again. When? When? Sunday dinner was still almost a week away.

  “I can’t wait that long,” he growled to himself as he paced in a tight circle in front of his desk. “Why didn’t I get her number from Gia yesterday?” And now, if he asked her for it, the girl and his cousin would turn it into something it wasn’t…. But then, who was he trying to kid? The draw to her was far more than just the desire to have her create his album art.

  He stopped and braced his hands on the edge of his desk, his eyes on the huge monitor that still displayed the digital audio tracks he’d been editing. Pulling the keyboard forward, he minimized ProTools, opened up the Internet, and typed Phoebe’s name into the search engine. He hadn’t done this before because he’d disciplined himself to be so careful about going on random searches online when he was alone, and part of him worried what he might find under her name. From what Vic had told him about her, from what he’d seen of her himself, from the flamboyant artwork displayed in Juliette’s home, he
could tell Phoebe lived passionately…which wasn’t a bad thing. So did he. But he lived passionately for Christ, and Phoebe, well, Phoebe appeared to live passionately for herself.

  And that meant it was possible he might see more of her than he wanted to if he searched her name online. He wasn’t being judgmental or self-righteous. He just knew his own weaknesses, and now that he was acknowledging the draw to her was more than just professional, he knew he had to tread carefully, respectfully. For her sake, as well as his.

  The first page of the search engine flooded with site after site attached to Phoebe’s name, the majority of them art related. When he clicked on the images tab—he narrowed his eyes and prayed for protection—image after image of dazzling artwork filled the screen, interspersed with pictures of Phoebe, close-ups of her startlingly beautiful face that took his breath away, snapshots of her in evening attire, pretty little dresses at fancy events, a few family pictures of her and her sisters that looked like they’d been pulled from one of the social network sites, candid shots of her out on the town with varying groups of people, often with an arm around some smiling man—who wouldn’t be smiling with Phoebe Gustafson pressed up against you?—and page after page of stunning photographs obviously taken during professional photo shoots. Not of Phoebe herself, but of other people, all attributed to her.

  Mixed into the bunch were images of several bodice-ripper type romance novels from a publishing house called Vineland Press, but Trevor assumed the connection to Phoebe was through her photography. Several of her male models, especially, looked like they also graced the covers of the Vineland novels, and the company’s address had it based out of Monrovia, not more than an hour’s drive away.

  If Phoebe designed book covers, surely she’d be open to working with him on his album.

  He clicked on a link to Gossamer Magazine because Phoebe’s name was listed as a contributing artist. He closed it quickly when he saw the content warning stating that it was for adults only.