Time moves around me in eddies and waves. It’s both now and many other times. Beryl and Phoebe and I painting woodland creatures, learning to draw feathers, playing with patterns. She directed us loosely, gave us little lessons in all kinds of things, offered encouragement and praise. When Joel joined our little crew, his work was head and shoulders above ours. Phoebe was always the better of the two of us, but Joel was in a class apart and Beryl treated him accordingly. A memory of the pair of them bent over one of his nature scenes comes back to me. His black hair loose on his shoulders, Beryl standing next to him, one hand on her hip as she points to something. I wonder if he became a fine artist. His mother left town shortly after—
Well, after everything. After I was sent away. After he burned the church down.
In the today studio, music is playing, something with flutes, and Jasmine swings her foot, tilting her head this way and that. I dip my brush and let go of the outside world. I splash color on the paper and splash some more. I think of Peter, who traveled with me all over the world, and how he comforted me, sleeping on my pillow with me when I wanted to die of sorrow, right upstairs in the room where I slept last night. Beryl gave me refuge in a world that had been extremely harsh.
What a blessing she was in my life. I suddenly wonder if I could write about her. Lately I’ve been feeling the call to write, more than the journals I still keep.
But what? An essay, maybe? My gut resists. A short story. No, not that either. A letter? Yes, maybe. A letter of gratitude to Beryl.
We’re all startled when the door opens and Ben comes in. His hair is wet, springing up in curls. “You guys about ready to take a break?” He asks all of us, but Phoebe is where his eyes fall. I noticed last night that his eyes are all for Phoebe, just as they were that long-ago summer when everything went so horribly wrong. He was on the periphery, a little younger than us, and his crush on her was like a clutch of flowers he carried around for all to see.
“Sure.” Phoebe starts to wipe her hands and realizes she has many colors layered on her fingers, her palm. “Let me wash up.”
“Yeah, do that,” he says, pausing to look at Jasmine’s work. He taps the edge of the page. “Dude, this is really good.”
“Thank you. I messed up her eyelashes on this one a little bit.”
“They look great to me.”
Jasmine sucks her cheeks in, giving her a fish mouth, and I grin. Phoebe used to do the same thing when she was concentrating. “Time for the Pig ’N Pancake?”
Phoebe nods. “Sure.”
Pig ’N Pancake is an Oregon institution, known in part for their pancakes, served with buckets of whipped cream. I haven’t eaten there in ages, and while I don’t know that I want to wander out in public, I also don’t want to be alone. I want to be with Phoebe and Jasmine and Ben more than I want to hide. I wash my brush and wipe paint from my fingers.
“You’re coming, right?” Jasmine asks, taking my hand. I love how physical she is. Always hugging, touching, leaning.
I glance at Phoebe with a raised brow. Still okay? She nods.
“Yes,” I say. “And I am going to totally pig out.” I made a fake laughing sound.
Phoebe rolls her eyes. “Oh brother.”
It isn’t until we pile into Ben’s truck, Phoebe in front, me and Jasmine in back, that I realize I haven’t been in public in months. It’s not like I have a full-blown case of agoraphobia, but between the pandemic and Dmitri’s death and the loss of Phoebe’s support, I feel shaky in the world, without a spine. A ripple of anxiety threads upward through my chest. “Uh, maybe,” I say, “I should go home. Do . . . something.”
“Something?” Phoebe says, raising a brow. “You might want to come up with a better excuse than that.” But she’s smiling over her shoulder. “It’s only lunch.”
I focus on her clear eyes, the shape of her eyebrows. Nod.
Chapter Nine
Phoebe
When Suze hesitates outside the Pig ’N Pancake, I stand behind her and put my hands on her shoulders. “I’m right here with you.” Because even if we haven’t been communicating recently, of course I know she’s been having panic attacks. She’s prone to them, and considering everything that’s happened to her, it’s not surprising.
For a long time after her first movie came out and through the years of her very visible fame, walking out in public would cause such a stir that it wasn’t worth it. In Blue Cove, the locals have always given her space, and we’d often done little jaunts like this. The worry now is the lingering fear of strangers, of some random human trying to smash your head in.