He was beautiful. Every single thing about him. His cheekbones and his eyebrows and his ripe red mouth that made me think of kissing, and his long hands and even his bare feet, which were tan and high arched and perfect. He tugged her hair, and I could tell he liked her. She smiled up at him, and I could tell she liked him, too.
Of course he already liked her. I tried to quell my jealousy, but once in a while it would be nice to be the one noticed.
The weeks before my trip to Italy were some of the best times Suze and I ever had. Something was different about her, something easier, softer. She was very affectionate with me, looping her arm through my elbow, brushing my hair after we swam in the ocean. We walked everywhere, miles and miles—up to the house, which still stood empty and （to my mind） lonely on the top of the bluff. No other houses had been built up there, so we were always alone and safe. We hiked in the hills around Blue Cove, taking picnics to the top of the outlook reached only by a challenging hike through the steep pine forests, and ambled through the clearings alongside the Blue River, careful to keep an eye out for bears, rattling the walking stick Joel had made for Suze last Christmas, a hand-carved and painted length of pine hung with sleigh bells, a gift I still coveted.
The only thing missing, really, was Joel. I longed for his presence and asked Suze over and over when he’d be back. She said she didn’t know. She missed him, too, but whenever I brought him up, she changed the subject. Maybe she was tired of my crush on him. It wasn’t like there was anything between us after that Thanksgiving two years ago. We were friends. Just friends.
And I mean, I guessed I wouldn’t have blamed her.
The most fun we had was at the hippie house. Music was always on the stereo, and a handful of people were always sitting on the porch or on the couches that lined the living room, or working on the bus. People smoked cigarettes and bongs and drank beer, which freaked me out at first, but I got used to it. No one pressured us, and in fact, the whole group looked after us, aware that we were quite a lot younger. They called us baby hippies, a label both of us loved.
We spent time with the kittens and helped paint the bus. Victor was in charge of the painting on the outside, and when he found out I could paint flowers and vines as easily as write my name, he put me to work. I drew an entire garden with grass and flowers and butterflies as a mural on both sides, and Victor came behind with black paint to trace my lines very carefully.
He was the most amazing person I’d ever met. He was a vegetarian, like Mary, who cooked all the meals and made all the bread they ate, sprouting grains and buying lentils in bulk when she went to Portland every few weeks. They had a garden we all helped to weed, rows of corn and vast expanses of squash and melons and beans climbing up the fences. I liked weeding in the hot sun, feeling the heat beat deep into my spine and the top of my head, but mainly I liked it because Victor would sing while he worked. His voice was lyrical and hypnotic, and he sang all kinds of old folk songs about fairies and princes. “You look like a fairy,” I said one day as we painted a stretch of the bus. I was carefully filling in the detailed petals of a red dahlia.
He smiled. “Do I? That’s a nice thing to say.”
I realized too late that he might take it another way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“That I was another kind of fairy?”
I blushed, hard. “Yeah. Sorry.”
He touched my cheek. “But I am a fairy, Phoebe. You know that.”
I didn’t actually know what he meant, but I played along. “Can you enchant people?”
“Sometimes,” he said, and dipped his paintbrush into the green we’d mixed for the grass, growing like swords from the bottom of the bus.
I was happy.
And then I had to go to Italy.
CURRENT DAY
Chapter Sixteen
Suze
After a dinner of spaghetti, Jasmine and I are reading together silently in the living room while the rain falls, a dog and a cat keeping us company. I’ve lit a fire and it’s cozy and comfortable and I feel more at peace than I have in months. Maybe years.
Jasmine is half sprawled on the couch, her paperback propped on her knees. It’s a mystery of some kind, which Phoebe says is the only thing she’s reading at the moment. I get the comfort of reading mysteries. It’s reassuring when things are wrapped up. Unlike life.
I haven’t been able to settle into any books for a while now. All I can manage are shorter pieces—essays and long-form articles. I wandered through a collection of short stories. Tonight my mind jumps from one thing to the next. To the surprise of seeing Joel, so surprising that I don’t even know how to think about it yet. To Phoebe and our friendship, which seems to be healing, although it’s even more important now to tell her the secrets I’ve kept for so long. That I loved Joel. That he loved me.