Saving Phoebe Murrow: A Novel by Herta Feely Read Free Book Online Page B

to do?”
    Before Noah could answer, Jessie’s voice rose above the din: “I’ll just have a diet Coke.”
    â€œMe too,” Phoebe said, trying to achieve the same relaxed attitude of the others.
    At once she felt Dylan’s hand graze the top of her thigh and rest there. As casually as possible, she brushed it away, hoping that neither Jessie nor Noah had noticed.
    â€œSupposedly the weed’s awesome,” Dylan said to her. “You should try some.”
    She wanted to shake her head and also tell him that she liked Noah, and didn’t he know that Jessie liked him? In any case, she definitely didn’t want to go to Sam’s to smoke.
    Suddenly everyone but Noah was laughing.
    â€œYou look like you just saw a ghost, Phoebe!” Nick said. She joined in the laughter, knowing it was in good fun, but wondered how they could be so cavalier. Her mother, and maybe even her father, would kill her if they found out. Didn’t their parents care?

Chapter Six
    Aqua buzzed with the chatter of clients and manicurists, and several TV sets were on, though the sound was off. The TV nearest to Isabel flickered with silent images of the Dr. Phil show. Captions scrolled across the screen. The talk show host sat there with two girls, about Phoebe’s age or maybe a little older, and two sets of adults who appeared to be their parents. Dr. Phil wore his usual serious expression as he spoke to the parents.
    Isabel read the subtitles. “So when did you first notice something was wrong?” Dr. Phil asked.
    â€œAfter things had already gone pretty far,” one mother said. The other mother agreed, saying she’d had no idea. Isabel wondered what they were referring to, though she’d felt similarly shocked when she’d learned of Phoebe’s “self-injury,” the label Dr. Sharma had applied to Phoebe’s cutting.
    â€œIt’s a way of coping with emotional pain by inflicting physical pain on one’s self,” she had explained. For a time Isabel couldn’t understand why her beautiful girl had done this. She could hardly look at Phoebe’s wounds and scars without bursting into tears, and Isabel was not prone to hysterical crying.
    She still experienced bouts of guilt when the memory picked at her, sure that her busy schedule had caused her to miss signs of trouble between Phoebe and Skyla. Ron had insinuated as much. Though of course he hadn’t noticed either. If she’d had an inkling of the depth of the problem, she would have intervened. Or at least handled things differently.
    Isabel knew that some of her friends found it surprising, contradictory even, that while she felt obligated to manage many aspects of Phoebe’s life, she tended to stay out of “girl dramas,” believing it best they resolve their own differences. It was what her mother had taught her. How else would they grow up? But it was painful when she recalled that Phoebe, attempting to uphold her philosophy, had refrained from revealing the severity of Skyla’s lengthy torment. Now Isabel prayed that the cutting had been an aberrant episode, as Phoebe insisted. And as Dr. Sharma claimed was possible.
    But she wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. She’d be watching Phoebe and urging her to talk about what went on at school. If only she would. After the initial revelation about Skyla attending Georgetown, and a week of seeking her advice, Phoebe had resorted to saying, “It’s no big deal, Mom, really.” She just hoped Phoebe would have the courage to keep the girl at arms’ length.
    Girls , she thought, and shook her head a little as she watched the two on TV exchange furtive glances. What had they done? She wished she’d tuned in to the beginning of the show.
    As Thuy rubbed her calves with cream, Isabel released a long muted groan. The memory of Ron massaging her feet slithered into her mind. In the early days, he’d often