We drew up to the Starfish Sisters. The trees on top of the biggest sister were outlined against the clouds. I stopped to breathe it in, the moment, the sky, the trees, and the smell of the ocean. “When I’m in Portland, this is what I think about. This spot, right here.”
He stood next to me. “What about it?”
“The trees,” I said, pointing. “The tide pools. I love those tide pools with my whole heart. I’d like to be a starfish in a tide pool.”
He laughed. “Kinda boring, though.”
I laughed, too.
The rains suddenly started again, not drizzle, but solid rain. “Shit!” Joel said. “Run!”
We did, dashing over the hard sand toward the dunes and leaping over the stream. We didn’t stop until we smeared ourselves against the wall of a garage, sheltered by the roof and a tree. I laughed, wiping rain off my face. “Whew!”
He leaned on the wall beside me. “I had fun with you today,” he said.
My stomach flipped. I looked at him, standing a lot closer than any boy had ever stood. “Me too.”
“Would it be okay if I called you?”
“Yes!”
Right then, in the rain and the soft shadows, he leaned closer. It took me a second to realize he was going to kiss me, so our lips didn’t fit quite right at first, and then he cupped his palm around my cheek and gently turned my face toward him, and we connected.
It was the first time I ever kissed a boy. His lips were slightly chapped but firm. Sensations, heat and something buzzy, moved through my body like lava, through the hollow of my throat and the inside of my elbows and all through my stomach.
He lifted his head. “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered, and he moved around in front of me until our bodies were touching tightly, chests and thighs, and kissed me again.
It was heaven on earth.
He walked me home when the rain lightened up, holding hands. It was the most romantic day of my life. I ran inside, floating. It wasn’t until I got all the way in that I wondered how Suze would feel about those kisses. He was her friend, after all. Would she get mad? She did say that she didn’t like him as a boyfriend, though, so it was probably okay.
Suze
Sunday morning after church, I was washing dishes with two of the church ladies when my father stormed into the room. He never came in there, and I was suddenly on high alert. Did someone see me at the movies yesterday?
“Thank you, ladies,” he said to the women. “I need to speak with my daughter alone if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course, Reverend.” One touched my shoulder as she passed, so I wasn’t the only one who’d picked up on that mood.
I reached for a dish towel to dry my hands, but before I could do it, he slapped me so hard I staggered to the right and lost my grip on the towel. Stunned, I raised my hand to the burning spot. He’d never slapped me before. “What did I do?”
In his hand was a printed piece of paper, which he shoved in my face. “Are you in a play?”
Cold washed through me. Not the play. Please not the play. “It’s about Anne Frank, Daddy. It’s not a bad play or anything. She was a girl who hid from the Nazis—”
He swung his hand again, slapping me from the other side, and I gasped at the pain. “I know who she is! Why did you think you could prance around onstage parading your vanity in front of the whole world?”
I straightened up. “I got the lead, Daddy! I’m really good at this!” When he started to slap me again, I ducked away and ran across the room. “I deserve a life of my own!”
“Oh, you do, do you?” His hands were in fists. “You deserve the life I tell you you’ll have. Get yourself home right now.”
My hands were shaking. Keeping the table between me and his hands, I ran out the back door and into the house. I could feel him following me with deliberate steps, and I sank onto the couch, trying to come up with defenses, but there weren’t any. I started to cry, imagining another girl in the role of Anne Frank. It was the first thing I’d wanted for myself like this, wanted so badly I couldn’t stand to lose it.
When he came through the door, I said, “Daddy, I’ll do anything you want, serve extra, take care of the children in the nursery, whatever you want, but please let me do this! Please!”
“Oh, you’ll do anything, will you?” He slipped his belt from the loops at his waist. “You want to be a Jezebel like all those women out there, strutting their bodies in the street and tempting men to sin? You want to show off? You want to be admired?”
I sobbed. “No! I just want to act. I’m good—”
“Stand up!”
“No, Daddy. Not the belt, please!”
“Stand up!” he roared. And when I did: “Turn around and grab on to the back of that chair.”
I obeyed because it would be worse if I didn’t. Closing my eyes tight, I gripped the chair and braced myself, but I still couldn’t help crying out when the belt landed across the backs of my thighs. Again. And again. I don’t know how many times. I wanted not to cry, but the tears poured out of me and I fell down to my knees, sobbing. Blubbering. “You’re grounded for the week,” he said, putting his belt back on.
“No! Daddy, please! Phoebe is here!”
He didn’t even bother to answer.
Phoebe
The next morning I was tortured with guilt over the kiss with Joel, and terrified that Suze would hate me. She said he wasn’t her boyfriend, but maybe she’d be upset anyway. I mean, what were the rules? I wanted to talk to her about it before he did.
Twice I went to the house, but nobody answered, and when I peeked into the kitchen windows at the church, nobody was there.
Amma and I were sitting down to dinner when a boy about ten delivered an envelope to the door. I recognized Suze’s handwriting and tore it open. A single piece of notebook paper was inside.
Dear Phoebe,
My dad found out about the play and he gave me the belt, and I’m grounded for the rest of the week. I am so sad! I’m going to miss your entire visit and I won’t be able to do the play, and I HATE HIM SO MUCH!
One of these days, I’ll get away from him, I swear.
I am so so so so so so sad about the play.
Love,
Suze
PS Write everything down for the whole week and leave it with Amma so I can read it when I’m free. Love you. Have fun with Joel. He’s such a nice guy. (I think you like him, and that’s okay.)
“What is it?” Amma asked.
I raised my head. “Suze landed the lead in a play, Anne Frank, and her dad found out and gave her the belt and grounded her.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “This is so unfair! She never gets to do anything. Her dad is so mean!”
She reached out and took my hand. “He is mean. He is a terrible man, Phoebe, and there are a lot like him in the world. There is nothing you can do for Suze right now except be there for her when you can.”
“Can you do something?”
She took a breath. “I do what I can, honey. I’ll keep doing that, I promise.”
CURRENT DAY
Chapter Ten
Suze
I remember a Sunday school class in some church or another. The details of the place are murky. All the churches blurred together after a while, sanctuaries and basements and pulpits and kitchens melding in a single memory file. Sunday school rooms boasted kid-size chairs and scarred tables and coloring pages of Jesus and the disciples. We sang songs and memorized Bible verses, and it was a happy place, cutting things out to glue on paper, using crayons to explore the lesson of the day. Bible verses still float through my mind at the oddest of times: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness.” “Love one another.” “The greatest of these is love.” And one that singsongs through with power, though I would almost swear my dad never uttered it because it was too positive: “Our God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.”