Chapter Eleven
“Where have you been mother?” Jade was incensed. “I’ve been trying to reach you since ten o’clock yesterday!”
“Jade, what are you doing home, honey? How long have you been here? I didn’t expect you until Sunday.” Phoebe pulled wet layers from her body and dropped her clothes in a soaking heap on the kitchen floor. It had taken several hours for she and Steve to dig out and the drive home had been slow going.
Jade didn’t answer her mom right away. She left the kitchen and quickly returned with a bath towel. She handed it to Phoebe who stood shivering in her underwear and asking herself just who was the mother here and who the child. “Oh, thanks, sweetie…” But Jade interrupted with,
“Mom, where were you? Have you been with Steve this whole time? I mean, all night?” Jade adopted the position of motherly rebuke, hands on hips, corded brow, questioning Phoebe and watching her attempts to scrub some warmth into her blue body with the towel.
“Well Jade, the storm … I couldn’t get home. We were snowed in. I tried to call you at Jolee’s cabin but the phone lines were down and right after that Steve’s phone went out. I obviously worried you. I’m sorry.”
“Worried? I am not worried. I’m mad Mom. Don’t you get it? I had a horrible Thanksgiving thanks to you.”
“Horrible? What do you mean? Didn’t you have fun with Jolee?” Phoebe wrapped the towel around her shoulders and ran water into the tea kettle.
“No. I didn’t have fun at all.” Jade sat down on a kitchen chair and watched her mom pry the lid from the canister where the tea bags were kept.
“Jolee’s dad said there was going to be a big storm so we couldn’t go to the cabin. He told us when we woke up Thanksgiving morning and I tried to call you and tell you.” She started to cry. “But you must have already been with Ste-eve.” She stretched the offending name into two long syllables.
Phoebe pulled a chair out and put her hand on Jade’s head, smoothing the hair from her face and wiping the tears away with her finger.
“Honey. Come on. Tell me what happened.”
“Oh it was just awful Mom. Did you know some people put raisins in their stuffing? I couldn’t believe it. Plus we didn’t have any of the good stuff we always have. No pineapple whipped cream salad. Some gunky thing with baby marshmallows and Jello instead. Gross. I hated it.”
Jade stood up now and walked to the living room where she threw herself on the couch, her head draped to one side of a throw pillow propped against the arm of the sofa. She dug at something on the knee of her jeans. “Also, you won’t believe this, they have baked potatoes instead of mashed. It was the worst Thanksgiving of my entire life.”
“Oh, honey. I am sorry. It sounds disappointing.” Phoebe sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, still wearing only the towel and her underwear.
“I wanted you to come get me, Mom. You simply have no idea how horrible I felt. That’s why I kept trying to call you. I knew you weren’t planning to spend the night there. I thought sure you’d be home this morning!”
“Well, I’m afraid I had no choice, Jade. I’m glad you’re safe. Too bad you didn’t get the weekend at the cabin you were looking forward to. Are you home now to stay? Any plans with Jolee or should we make some together for the rest of the weekend?”
“I don’t know what I want to do. I just wish Dad was here. I just wish things were normal again.”
Phoebe leaned forward and put her hand on her daughter’s foot. “I hear you honey. Me too. But, that’s one thing neither you nor I can fix, so let’s see what we can come up with for new traditions, just for you and me, okay?” Now Phoebe rose and sat on the couch lifting her daughter’s feet to clear a space for herself. She held Jade’s feet in her lap, pulled off one of her socks and ran her fingernails along the bottom of Jade’s foot where she knew she was most ticklish.
Jade squealed, laughed and pulled her foot away then set it back on her mother’s lap. “Give me a foot massage, okay Mom?”
As Phoebe rubbed her daughter’s feet the two of them made plans. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving and the snowstorm had left a white Christmas atmosphere that made both of them think Christmas shopping might be fun. Knollwood shopping center was an easy walk from their house so they bundled up and mittened and booted their way through the snowdrifts and along the not yet shoveled sidewalks that lined the streets.
They entered the mall through a back door, the entrance closest to their house. A small Vietnamese Restaurant was on their right and they smelled the fragrant Asian spices.
“Maybe we’ll pick something up for our supper there on our way out. Sound good?”
But Jade wasn’t paying any attention to the restaurant or the fragrant spices, though Pheobe knew her daughter loved Vietnamese food. Jade hadn’t even heard her mother. She was standing by the display window of the shop on the left of the mall entrance
Phoebe joined Jade and peered through the pet store window. A miniature Collie puppy and Jade had locked eyes. Rarely had Phoebe witnessed a clearer mutual display of utmost longing.
Phoebe turned and rested her backside against the window remembering that before Marc got sick the three of them had agreed it was time to get a dog. It was clear they weren’t going to be able to have any more children and Jade insisted a pet dog, a “puppy” would be the next best thing. “Maybe even better,” she’d said.
“Mom, Mom, oh Mom. Look at him! He loves me already!”
Phoebe turned to look at the puppy, then back again to see her daughter’s face.
“It sure does look that way.” Phoebe said. Then, “Well, who wouldn’t though.” Phoebe was drawn to the puppy’s big dark eyes nearly as much as her daughter was.
Phoebe didn’t hesitate. She went inside and asked the store clerk if Jade could hold the puppy.
“Let’s just see how he feels in your arms honey.” Such a small thing, Phoebe thought, if a puppy can help relieve some of my little girl’s grief.
She jumped a little when the clerk said the dog’s price was $400. Then she looked at Jade caressing the little guy, already calling him “Warren” and she pulled the checkbook and pen from her purse. She decided it was destiny that brought them all together today, and $400 was a small price to pay if Warren could bring some measure of joy back into their home.
The store clerk gave them a book on raising Collie puppies. She had the two of them pose, sitting close together, Warren in Jade’s arms and took a picture of them on a wooden bench outside the store.
When the clerk handed them the Polaroid shot and went back inside the store a thought occurred to Phoebe. “Oh, you know what? We didn’t bring our car. We can’t take him out in this cold.”
“Oh no Mom. We can’t take him back in the store, he’ll …”
“No, no, no … I have an idea. Tell you what, Jade, you stay here with him, so he won’t feel we’re abandoning him after he thinks he’s found a new family to love him. I’ll go get the car and come back for you.”
On her way out of the mall she placed a take out dinner order with Nguyen at the Vietnamese restaurant and told him she’d be back by in a little over half an hour.
The rest of the long weekend was great fun for Phoebe and Jade as they introduced Warren to his new home and family. Jade was a little disappointed when Phoebe wouldn’t agree to Warren sleeping in her bed, but seemed to understand it was important to house break him before it would be safe to let him on the furniture. Jade set up a wonderful and cozy room for him — newspaper lined, of course — in a corner of the kitchen and spent the bulk of the weekend her nose pressed to his, cooing and singing to him and occasionally showing him the ropes of doggy toilet behavior.
On Sunday Jade and Phoebe worked together to prepare a full turkey dinner with all the proper fixings and celebrated Thanksgiving the way they both knew in their hearts Thanksgiving should be celebrated — with the people you love the very most in the world and a brand new puppy dog.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday night, after his girls came home and were safely tucked in bed, Steve called Phoebe. His children had no idea Phoebe had spent the night and by the time they returned home Sunday afternoon everything looked pretty much like it had before.
Jodie and Jacquie returned home from their traditional Thanksgiving with their mom in good spirits, talking in tandem and digging through the refrigerator to find the left over pie. It had been a good homecoming and once they settled down and went to sleep Steve’s mind drifted to thoughts of Phoebe.
He thought about the way she looked curled up and sleeping under the afghan on his couch. About how she seemed to enjoy the horseback ride they shared through the countryside … He thought of Friday morning when he’d come in cold and wet from the barn. How it felt when she asked him to hold her. Oh, and it felt marvelous! That feeling gave him hope that what had happened between he and Lani didn’t mean he’d never again feel a depth of intimacy with a woman.
After he dialed Phoebe’s number he stood listening to the phone ring two, then three times. He thought of hanging up and worried Phoebe would think him a pest. Just when he was about to lose his nerve he heard her voice at the other end of the line.
“Hello.” Phoebe answered the phone. She’d tucked Jade in more than an hour ago and soaked in a bubble bath reading further in her own copy of Girl of the Limberlost. She’d been thinking of Steve too, but, knowing Jade’s need to keep her all to herself as she recovered from her father-loss, was hesitant to hope for a way to be with him again.
“Hi Phoebe, it’s me, Steve. How you doing? House alright when you got home?”
“Oh, yes. Hi,” she said. “Yeah. Everything is fine here. Oh, but, Jade beat me home and was more than miffed I wasn’t here to greet her.” She told Steve the story. Warren yipped and jumped at her bare ankles as she stood talking in her bathrobe.
“What’s that ‘yip,yip’ I hear in the background? I didn’t know you had a dog? How did he fare during the snowstorm?”
Phoebe laughed, sat down and picked Warren up. She held him on her lap and stroked his coat as she told him how they happened to have a new family member named ‘Warren.”
“Warren, eh?” Steve laughed. “Not exactly the name you’d give a real bruiser of a watch dog, is it?”
“Oh, you know, I don’t think either one of us gave protection a thought. We simply fell head over heels, you know?”
“Oh, I know the scene alright. The girls had a dog here until just recently but she didn’t get on well with the horses, so now they keep her at their mom’s. Judy. That’s their dog’s name. A big, beautiful mutt with a temperament only those two little girls could love. I had my share of dogs too, as a kid. Can’t imagine childhood without a pet of some kind. That’s great. Warren, huh? Funny.”
“He really is a little beauty. You’ll have to meet him.”
“Hmmm. Brings me to the topic that was on my mind when I called. Can I see you again? I mean, soon?”
“Well I really would like to, Steve. I think I need to take a little more time to feel Jade out on this one. But, how about I give you a call in a few days when I see what her schedule is? I know this sounds sneaky but I’d almost rather keep the time I spend with you a secret from her for now anyway. Does that make sense?”
“Can’t say your response fulfills my wildest fantasy, but, yeah, sure, I do understand. And, really, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I can see you － you know, I had a great time with you. I want to get to know you better.” He wanted to ask if the feeling was mutual but thought that might be pushing it.
Phoebe didn’t want to make any commitments or promises that would add further disruption to her life with Jade, but she found comfort in the image she carried of the handsome and gentle cowboy. She loved the sound of his voice. She promised to call him with a plan within the next few days.
“Thanks for calling Steve. See you soon.”
“Okay, soon, Phoebe. Take care, huh?”
“I will. You too. Good bye.”
“Good bye. Rather … good night. Sleep well, Phoebe.”
She hung up the phone and sat caressing the new puppy. Something like longing washed over and through her and she determined she would find a way to see Steve again, and soon.
* * *
She slept fitfully, unable to reconcile her longing for Steve with her loss of Marc, her concerns for Jade and the necessity to garner the strength, from somewhere, to break out on her own and establish a life that reflected her long-suppressed dreams. She tossed and turned, chastising herself for that second glass of wine that siphoned its sugar into her tired and jittery brain.
“Brain, brain, shut up,” she said, “I have to work in the morning … Don’t you understand? I have to be up and alert for Jade, give Warren an airing… Fix breakfast. Iron something to wear. Oh God, what am I going to wear? And Jade’s jeans, I didn’t put them in the wash like she asked me to when I tucked her in… Oh, the morning will be chaos.”
The blue digits on the clock radio pierced her eyes with a two, colon, a four and a five, where, only moments ago, she could have sworn the two was followed by zeros.
She tried to put herself to sleep with self-hypnosis. There in the bed that lately felt too big for her, she tightened every muscle in her body. Then slowly, one muscle after the next, she let go, talking to herself in the hushed tones of a late night FM radio announcer.
“That’s it, ye-e-s, ye-e-s, let the mattress absorb your body. Nothing matters now. On-ly you, your peace … of … mind … rest now …. Rest.”
In the darkness in her head, behind closed eyes, she visualized a golden aura framing her resting body. She reached her vision into the heat in her chest and pulled from there the warmth of a silver glow. She carried the glow from chest to head and watched as it warmed, first the skin of her skull, then face. Peace began its visit as she visualized the warm glow descending into her neck, shoulders, chest and, gradually, careful not to rush for fear of breaking the spell that could mean sleep, let the silver seep throughout her body. Drifting, drifting … “There now,” she crooned. “There…” She slept.
She dreamed of Tom Selick.
“My husband looks a lot like you,” she told Tom, realizing as she said it, that it wasn’t Marc she was thinking of at all, but Steve. Steve looked a lot like Tom Selick. In the dream she thought, but didn’t say, “Only, really, he’s much better looking.”
In the dream Phoebe and Tom were on some sort of rescue mission. A little girl, maybe a dog too, in a hilly — Moorland-type — countryside park. A huge nylon orange and yellow tent fills with air then collapses on itself and refills like a lung. The little girl and dog go near the opening and are sucked with the force of a powerful vacuum to the depths of the thing where there’s the sense of an enormous raging walrus posed on hind legs like a towering Grizzly. Phoebe is in terror of entering the heaving orange lung. Fears she will be subsumed herself and therefore no help to the little girl and the dog.
At six her radio came on and she was suddenly awake trying to remember the details of this distressing dream to the tune of Paul McCartney’s “Don’t Let Me Down.” She couldn’t remember the details beyond her fear of entering the orange tent. She and Tom Selick had set some sort of trap or contraption. He’d flirted with her mildly and she felt desired and appreciated. Throughout the rest of the dream there had been only obstacles to their connecting again. Throughout the day a sense of haze, unrequitedness, and guilt kept her a limp prisoner, her mind tortured by the relentless words and music of the best looking and, she felt, most shallow, of the Beatles.
Chapter Thirteen
The week after Thanksgiving break passed in a blur. After a Monday of stumbling, tired, jittery and numb through a day of meetings she’d nearly forgotten; the fiasco with Jade’s dirty jeans and less than forgiving attitude and Warren’s anal retentive reaction to the great outdoors — seems he could only move his bowels in the comfort of a carpeted indoor space — the days took on a manageable pace.
Phoebe fell immediately into bed and deep sleep Monday night after her evening ritual with Jade and awakened fresh and somewhat renewed on Tuesday morning. If she’d dreamed she didn’t remember. It was a week of taking care of business that made no allowance for grief, longing or guilt. She sprinted through the necessary motions, slightly distracted and headlong, like a new mother determined to carry on while trying to recall if she’d left an open can of kerosene next to the matches in the baby’s room.
On Friday she had a meeting with Ned Blum at the Dorothy Day Shelter in St. Paul. Redeemer Baptist , through Phoebe, was making attempts to understand the needs of the larger community, beyond the church. Phoebe was increasingly disheartened by the role the church played in the lives of the Hopkins congregation. The church had become, for the most part and for the majority of the congregation, a place for momentary retreat, maybe a short-term balm for guilt.
Really, other than being the pastor’s wife, the only thing that had kept Phoebe in the church was her personal determination to bridge the gap between church and a community in need of love and attention. Now, with Marc gone, she wasn’t sure her involvement in Redeemer was the best way to reach the community. Phoebe felt the church congregation was far too isolated from the lives of people who needed food, clothes, shelter and a sense they mattered to someone. The guilt of certain well off members of the congregation resulted in hefty and regular contributions to the collection plate and solid funding for her community initiatives, though. And funding wasn’t something she dared snub.
She arrived at the Center about eleven thirty. She parked in the open lot across from the Civic Center. A cold wind whipped fragments of newspapers, Subway and Burger King sandwich wrappings and paper cups across the plaza and plastered the debris to the chain link fence or tangled it in the leaf-bare shrubbery. The sun was shining though, and melting the remains of the Thanksgiving winter storm.
Already the lobby of the Center was full to over crowding and hungry men, women and children huddled together outside the doors waiting for the lunch line to open.
Ned had been watching for her and pushed through the crowd, greeting many of the would be lunchers by name, touching the heads and cheeks of the children who smiled up into his eyes, as he approached Phoebe and ushered her inside.
Phoebe had never met Ned before, but recognized him easily, as the tall and handsome, deep-voiced Black man she’d seen interviewed on television and whose picture she’d seen in the newspaper. He was a Kenyan by birth, was educated at Macalestar College in St. Paul and, though he’d lived in Minnesota for many years, still carried in his voice the round musical cadence of his African accent.
“You must be Ms. Thorpe,” he extended an arm indicating the direction they could take for quiet conversation.
“Mr. Blum, I’ve looked forward to meeting you. I so admire the work you are doing in our community.”
Ned led her through an open door and into a small office outfitted with a tan metal desk. The small window behind his desk revealed the combined aspects of a growing St. Paul skyline and the deteriorating residences of the poor. Ned offered to take her coat and hung it on a hook on the wall. He went behind the desk and sat in a gray metal folding chair, signaling Phoebe to take a seat in an identical chair across from him.
For a moment she couldn’t find her voice. There was a poignancy and power in seeing this dynamic and physically commanding man in such humble surroundings.
He looked at Phoebe, beseeching. “Now Ms. Thorpe, what can I help you with?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I feel a bit overwhelmed here. And, it’s Phoebe, please.”
“All right. Phoebe, then.” He smiled and leaned forward placing his hands together on the desk in front of him. “Can I show you around the place? Would that be a good start?”
“I’d like that. I came to you to see if you can help me understand some of the most pressing needs of the community you serve here. A tour would be a good starting point.”
“Yes. I can certainly do that. That would be fine. I can even offer you lunch, I believe. Come with me.” Ned took her to the dining room where the first customers were greeting each other in line and offering the plates from their trays for servings of sliced ham, macaroni with cheese and heaped servings of green beans. Phoebe was surprised to see so many women and children among the more expected faces of unshaven, unkempt and disheveled men.
She’d been near the Center many times and was familiar with the groupings of men, their lives obviously stricken by a damaging addiction of one sort or another. She was aware, too, that many of the homeless and hungry were the victims of mental illness. That it was common for individuals with Schizophrenia to be among the street people.
“Will you excuse me for just a minute, Phoebe? I’ll get us some plates and we can join these folks for lunch. I’ll be right back.” He went behind the serving counter and into the kitchen.
Phoebe looked around her, feeling uncomfortable in her red business suit, silk blouse and high heels. She chastised herself silently for not being more sensitive to how “in your face” she must seem to these people, many of whom felt fortunate to wear second hand, worn and deteriorated clothing. She knew it wasn’t required of her to wear rags, but she could have dressed less like a Bergdoff-Goodman ad for lady lawyers.
She found a seat at a table where an older woman who appeared to be with her daughter and grandchildren sat. She felt awkward and shy. Didn’t know what to say or if she should say anything at all. The mother and daughter appeared to be American Indian. The little boy, who looked to be about three, had his mother’s face but a cap of tawny curls indicated his mixed heritage. His sister, maybe seven or eight, had straight black hair and wide set dark eyes. Phoebe noticed both the grandmother and the little girl had some teeth missing.
“Here I am. Sorry to abandon you like that.” Ned returned with plates of food and steaming cups, tea bags draped over the cup lip. He wore an ivory sweater that looked rustic and hand-knit over a blue and red plaid shirt and taupe Docker slacks. Clean, casual, business-like attire without screaming “privilege” the way Phoebe’s suit hollered it.
He set the tray on the table and turned to the Indian family. “Mrs. Price,” he greeted the grandmother, “how are you today?”
Mrs. Price lowered her soup spoon and smiled a toothless grin in Ned’s direction. She didn’t raise her eyes to his, but said a quiet, “’Lo Ned.”
The little girl seemed new to her surroundings. She refused to sit on the bench with the rest of her family. She stood, leaning close to her mother, her eyes darting around the room, trying to take it all in. She pressed her head to the side of her mother’s head and turned her face toward her a bit and Phoebe heard her ask, “Who’s that lady and man, Mom?”
“Shhh. Don’t be nosey, Gertie. Hush now. You sit down here and eat with Max. Just eat. Don’t ask questions.”
Ned turned from Phoebe and moved a ways down the bench to introduce himself to the mother and her children. “Don’t believe I’ve met your daughter, Mrs. Price. Gertie and Max here, your grandchildren?”
“Yah. My daughter here, she’s Milly.” She faced her daughter. “Milly, this man is Ned Blum. He kind of runs the place here.”
Ned extended his hand to Milly who reached hers in return and said a shy, “Hello.”
“Yah. Milly here, she didn’t want to come. Says it’s embarrassing.”
“Mom. Stop …”
“Oh, then this is your first time here, huh Milly? I don’t mean to embarrass you. I know it can be pretty awkward to find yourself accepting charity. But you know what? It takes courage to admit you’re in need, if you ask me. And you know what else? It happens to all of us one time or another and in one way or another.” Ned told her.
Milly looked at him like she wasn’t sure she could trust him. Her mother spoke.
“Milly, you should talk to this man. I tell ya, he understands. He does. Plus, like I told you before we come here, I bet he’s got some ideas to get you back on your feet.”
Milly still couldn’t seem to speak to Ned. She fussed a bit with her children, urging them to eat then focusing on her own plate.
“Well, Milly,” Ned offered, “I’ll leave you to finish your lunch. Let me know if you want to talk about the various services we offer here. You know, if you’re looking for work or childcare? That kind of thing.”
Ned turned to Phoebe and filled her in on a bit of the history of the center as well as some of the limitations they were up against in serving the people.
Phoebe wondered about Milly and her children. What had happened in their lives to bring them here? She was especially drawn to Gertie. She wasn’t that much younger than Jade. Had she lost a beloved daddy, too? What forms of grief and confusion visited her young life?
When Phoebe and Ned finished the tour of the center they returned to his office. Phoebe learned the center needed increased contributions of food, clothing, furniture and household supplies. They wanted to start a child care center and had the beginnings of a job placement service for parents in the works. Phoebe left with considerable food for thought and the determination to return to Ned with a proposal specific to the needs of under-privileged school aged children.
* * *
Phoebe left Dorothy Day around two o’clock with no other meetings scheduled and figured she could be home in plenty of time to be there when Jade came in from school. They hadn’t even talked about plans for the weekend. On the drive home she held Gertie’s eyes in her mind but they kept fading to the eyes of her own fatherless child.
Chapter Fourteen
It had been a busy week for Jade too. Monday night was “Odyssey of the Mind,” at Kara’s house; Tuesday she had to finish a book for a book report and “write the sucker;” she said on the phone to Jolee. Wednesday was swim team practice and Thursday evening she had her mom quiz her for a Spanish test she had to take on Friday. If she really stopped to think about it she supposed she was grateful for all the activity. All the busy-ness kept her from feeling so lonely for her dad.
Now it was Friday afternoon and Jade looked forward to going home and flopping on the living room floor to play with Warren. He was always so excited to see her. Of course, that meant he peed all over himself, but, hey, the way Jade looked at it, small price to pay for such total adoration.
She came in the back door and was greeted by the leaping, yipping, slavering, peeing Warren. She laughed and dropped her coat over the back of a kitchen chair, her back pack fell to the floor. She caught Warren in her arms as he hurled himself at her, jumping as high as he could.
“Oh, kiss, kiss, kiss, puppy-doo! I missed you! Did you miss me too? Did you, did you, did you?” she talked baby puppy talk.
“Hi, Sweetie.” Phoebe came into the kitchen from her bedroom where she’d quickly changed into a soft gray sweat suit after happily removing her corporate up-and-comer attire and hanging it at the back of the closet.
“Hi, Mom, how come you’re home so early?” Jade carried Warren to the living room. She sprawled on her back and held him up in the air above her face, lowering him between her playful words of affection to kiss his little doggy lips.
Phoebe laughed as she watched Jade and Warren. She sat on the couch and curled her legs under her. “I got out of my meeting in town early and thought it would be fun to get home before you for a change. Didn’t have time to bake cookies, but I did stop for some chocolate chip dough.”
“Oooh, puppy-doo, did you hear that? Want some hot chocolate chip cookies?” He dangled above her face, skinny legs kicking at the air. “Yeah, Mom. Let’s bake ‘em.”
“Great. I’ve already got the oven heating.” Jade jumped up and followed her mom to the kitchen. Phoebe clanged around in the cupboard and brought out a cookie sheet and Jade got the dough out of the fridge. She used the scissors to cut the end off and leaned against the cupboard scooping raw dough through the opening of the package and into her mouth.
Phoebe slapped at the air by Jade’s offending finger. Ducking Phoebe’s hand Jade sent a fake guilty look in her mom’s direction as she scooped yet another gob of dough into her mouth.
“Okay, okay. I just needed a little, Mom. I’m starving, aren’t you?”
Suddenly Phoebe saw the eyes of the hungry Gertie and felt a rush of gratitude at the privilege of being in her warm kitchen with her happy, well-fed child.
“Here, want some?” Jade poked the package at her mother and Phoebe grabbed it and hid it. She bent double in a football hold trying to guard the dough as Jade lunged around her trying to invade her block. Phoebe broke away from Jade and ran through the living room and down the hallway where Jade cornered her.
“Drop it Mom.” She came at her mother making tickling motions with her fingers. “Drop it. Drop it or else.” Her fingers tickled the air and Phoebe tossed the Toll House tube toward Jade and put her hands up.
Jade caught the package with a smug look and returned to the kitchen licking dough from her finger. Phoebe followed her and together they formed the cookies and placed them on the baking sheet. While the cookies baked Jade poured them each a big glass of milk and the two of them made plans to catch a movie together that night. They called Jolee to see if she wanted to come along and then stay for a sleep-over. “Ghostbusters,” “The Karate Kid” and “The Natural,” were all playing at nearby theaters. Phoebe was in no mood for “Ghostbusters,” and thought it might not be the best choice for Jade either, neither of them being in a joking mood about death or floating spirits. She insisted they choose between the other two movies and was delighted when the girls chose “The Karate Kid.”
Phoebe sat in the middle, cuddled against Jade and Jolee, an arm around each. The girls took turns putting kernels of popcorn in Phoebe’s mouth so she wouldn’t have to take her arms from around their shoulders. The movie touched Phoebe with it’s story of a young boy inspired to great things by a mentor and a father figure. The evening held a sense of intimacy Phoebe treasured in addition to the pure and simple fun of it all. The next day Jolee and Jade asked to be dropped at the shopping mall where Jolee’s parents would later pick them up and take them to her house for a return of the sleep over favor of the night before.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday afternoon Phoebe returned to her silent home with no plans and no responsibilities until Jade’s return the next day. She put a mix of old favorite love songs on the stereo and went to her room to change into her workout clothes for the treadmill. She sang quietly on her way up the stairs. She watched herself in the full-length mirror in her bedroom as she unbuttoned her blouse. The sensation of her fingers against her skin surprised her. She’d hardly been aware of her own skin — her body — during the entire week past.
Now as she removed her blouse she took a moment to admire herself in the mirror. She wore an ivory lace bra that hooked in front and presented her breasts round and full. She unzipped her jeans and slid them off over her bottom, revealing ivory satin bikini underpants, a smooth, flat stomach and her firm round behind.
She stood on her toes and turned this way and that, posing seductively, trying to imagine how she would look to a kind and admiring stranger if he were watching from inside the mirror. She leaned forward, pressing her breasts up and together with her arms and put a finger to her lips to feel her own kiss. The music played. Otis sang “that’s how strong my love is …”
She stood and pressed her body against the mirror, feeling the cool glass against her skin. Her nipples hardened and reflected their heat, steaming the glass. She looked at the swelled reflection of her breasts in the glass. With a careful lover’s touch she reached to open the clasp of her bra. Now the cold of the glass thrilled her and she felt a warm moisture develop between her legs.
Phoebe turned from the mirror and dragged a low back, upholstered chair from the corner where she often read at night. She positioned the chair within easy view of her mirrored image. She lifted her long hair from her shoulders and reclined letting her hair fall behind her over the back of the chair. The front of the seat cushioned her bottom and she put one leg over the left arm of the chair and the other straight out in front of her, touching the carpeting. Now, on the stereo, it was the Temptations crooning, “More love. I need your love. On and on forever. Can’t get enough…”
“Oh,” she let the word escape her lips in a whispered moan. She watched herself touch her face, her neck. Traced her finger with the lightest touch from her collar-bone where the memory of the touch of Marc’s tongue still lingered, to the swell of her breasts.
She wet her finger at her lips again and swirled the moisture over and around her erect nipples. She wasn’t watching now. Was in a swoon of desire, head thrown back, lips open and nearly panting. Each new touch, finger to breast, descending to belly, brought a delicious thrill and caused her heart to race faster.
Now she moistened the fingers of her right hand— and, this she had to watch — caressing her thigh with her left hand, slipped her fingers under the satin and felt her own body rising to her touch. First she pulled softly at the bed of curls she found there. Her own touch created a tingle and a surge of pleasure demanding she come closer, closer.
She teased herself. Held back until she could no longer wait. She used both hands and caressed her hips and thighs as she removed the silken underpants and revealed herself to the imagined stranger watching beyond the mirror. Now she let her fingers follow her body’s every urging. She teased her clitoris then slid her fingers just slightly inside her labia where her vagina gripped in powerful spasms begging her for more.
She stroked in and out, varying her rhythm, letting her finger dance inside and outside around the rim of her desire.
“I am so … so … wet,” she said and smiled to the lusty woman she saw was sharing her pleasure fully. She touched her clitoris with a lightness that took her higher and higher. Now she completely lost sight of herself. Lost all sense of the music that accompanied her lust.
She was all touch. All sensation. She nearly lost her breath and tried to calm herself, get ready for the moment she knew would come whether or not she was fully prepared to contain it. She thought she would explode from the sheer power of suppressed longing.
Lost now, given over to this overwhelming need, she caressed and stroked and teased herself to the point of complete abandon and utter release. The moment came as ecstasy and left her sobbing in its wake.
“So much.” she said, “So long. Oh, weeks and weeks and months and months. Such need …” she bent double now, naked, sobbing and rocking herself in her own capable arms.
Wrung out now, she climbed in bed and pulled the down comforter up around her chin, relishing the cool cotton comfort of an afternoon nap. When she woke she put on her shorts and t-shirt and did a sing along workout on the treadmill. She showered, and while towel drying her hair, almost as an instinct and before she could let common sense talk her out of it, she picked up the phone to call Steve.
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