28. Phoebe and the Ducks
TWENTY-EIGHT
Phoebe and the Ducks
CALEB
Caleb dropped his duffel bag on the floor and flopped face-first onto his bed before the door to his dorm room clicked shut. He breathed through the stuffy mess of his sheets and comforter until he ran out of air and the gnawing pain in his lower back forced him to find a more comfortable position on the bed. The pain medicine after his surgery worked its magic on his ankle, too, and the air cast only remained in place because he didn’t pack any left shoes in his rush to go home. He unhooked the straps and let the boot clatter to the floor.
His fingers twitched around an imaginary football he tossed at the ceiling while calming his thoughts. Before he rushed to sweep her off her feet, he had to have a clear head and a plan—a better plan than simply falling on his knees and begging her forgiveness for being a jackass when he left her in jail, and an even bigger one in the library the day before. He’d grovel if that was what she wanted, probably make a massive fool of himself and either propose or ask her if she wanted to fix his hair. Maybe both, but neither seemed like the right approach yet.
She was happy to see Jags and get the pen, he reminded himself, and patted his own back for his optimism in buying the thing weeks ago, just in case she didn’t hate him one day. He puzzled over what to do with her draft. In his uneducated eyes, it was perfect, but that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It wasn’t the assignment. But working on the paper was the only excuse to see her that wasn’t laden with pressure and expectations, fear and apprehension, love and lust and a wobbly balance of his desires to protect her and to hide in her arms forever. He had to write something to bring to the table when she presented whatever she’d done with his.
Rolling off the bed, he cringed when he put his full weight on his ankle before righting himself. He dug through his backpack for his laptop and plugged it in before noticing the red folder with a sticky note on top parked atop his finance textbook.
Mark let me in before he left. Shannon asked if I’d get this to you. Call the girl before I start charging you for my services—her number’s in there. Jags.
He threw his phone on his bed so he wouldn’t be tempted to ignore everything besides her number. Eyes closed, he swiped his hands across the edges of the thin folder and absorbed the unfamiliar heft of it—more than a few sheets of paper. The slick plastic sheet protectors he encountered in one pocket explained the additional weight and slipped through his fingers like ribbons .
He opened his eyes and dropped the folder, fanning the sheets onto his desk.
In the margins surrounding his musings, she created a work of art. Her red fountain pen danced and bobbed around his page numbers and last name in the upper right corner of every sheet. In quick, sketching strokes, she traced his narrative. A Pencey Prep banner sported a logo lettered like their own school’s, stabbed into a pile of fencing swords. A battered baseball glove rested on an unmade bed.
Caleb flipped the pages and noted locations—Grand Central Station, the New York City skyline, the park, the hotel, the apartment—all peppered with silhouettes of Holden Caulfield and his supporting cast. They moved among bright lights, barren trees, and taxis—a sea of red ink sometimes tangled in his black text, broken only by the red hunting hat outlined in metallic gold gel pen everywhere it appeared.
He didn’t read his own words as he shuffled the pages, sketches spilling onto the backs of each one. She’d connected each scene to the vignette next to it with power lines strung from poles of differing sizes, creating the illusion of depth as his eyes wandered from scene to scene. Here and there she worked a word into the landscape, a power line pole forming the ‘t’ in ‘connection’ on one page. More acted as letters as she doodled ‘what are you hunting?’ along the train tracks from Pencey to New York City.
And everywhere, ducks. Ducks with silly faces and smiling beaks, ducks kissing, ducks in hats and prep-school sweaters chatting with Holden’s ten-year-old sister, the novel’s embodiment of innocence .
“What are you hunting, Phoebe?” a duck in a red hat asked a girl carrying a suitcase.
“The self-indulgent malaise and nihilism plaguing the new American adolescence,” the little girl replied in her speech bubble.
Caleb choked out a laugh so hard his eyes welled. He scanned the next page, thumping his chest as he caught his breath.
“Why are you here, Phoebe?” asked a duck next to another small girl.
“I am saving my brother from his crisis,” Phoebe said, brandishing a fencing sword. “And then we will go to the zoo.”
One tear fell, and he wiped it from the sheet protector.
“Phoebe, let’s go,” said another duck. The silhouette of a girl next to him wore long braids and a red cap outlined in gold like a halo. “The lake might freeze.”
Phoebe addressed a sky full of stars, her hand on the duck’s head. “It might. But I’m not afraid of that anymore.”
Shannon picked up her buzzing phone and smiled at the unfamiliar number with the same area code as her cousin’s.
Unknown
Pack for the weekend and meet me where I dropped you off.
The second message appeared before she finished reading the first one.
Please.
He barely met her eyes before she flung herself against his chest, dropping a bag at his feet while he caught her in a tight embrace.
“Shan,” he said, his voice nearly cracking. “God, I don’t know what took me so long. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry I trusted what anyone said about you over what I saw with my own eyes,” she sniffed. “I just thought?—”
He cut her off with a kiss, cupping her face in his hands for a moment while he opened her lips with his. As she closed her eyes, she let her fingers wander up his shoulders and neck to the back of his head, pulling him down as she sank into his arms. Nearly every kiss before had been infused with hurried heartbeats in a dark night that would bleed into morning, or a dark library that might glare its harsh lights at any moment.
Wrapped in a cool spring breeze under flowing gray clouds, he had time to slip an arm around her waist and a hand on the back of her neck to press her closer without losing his breath. He had the leisure to drink her in and trace the tiny ridges of her teeth with his tongue as he lowered his hand from her waist to her hips, lower still to stroke the curve of her thigh and shiver at the sudden bite of her nails into his back.
“How could you do that?” Caleb asked, whispering in her hair, keeping her close as he leaned against the Jeep. “How could you mess with Hayden like that when you knew he was dangerous? He could still be dangerous to you. ”
“Because I could get something to help that girl he hurt in the accident. I was… that’s my long story.”
“Whenever you’re ready. I just about lost my mind worrying.”
“I was worried about you. Jags told me.”
“I’m fine. As surgeries go, this one is pretty easy,” he said.
“I meant I was worried about how it went with your dad,” she said. “How you’re feeling, after everything you told me.”
He couldn’t let her go. Could barely loosen his arms enough to pull back and look in her stormy eyes he’d missed for weeks. Her breath was hot on his chest and warmed the air in his lungs.
“I guess that’s another long story.”
She reached up to stroke his loose hair. “A chaotic one.”
He twisted her hair in his hand and held her close, lowering his lips to her head. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he choked. “I don’t even remember everything on the list I wrote on the way here.”
“I’m so sorry, too. I’m sorry for projecting everything everyone else did wrong on you, and for not believing you’re exactly the person you’ve always shown me you are.”
“I’ve missed you every night. I’ve been a stubborn punk my entire life, and I never want to believe I was wrong, but Shannon, I was childish and wrong in how I handled this.” He thought about the afternoon with the writing group. “The person I showed you was a self-righteous jerk. You were right not to believe in that guy.”
“Excuse me. ‘That guy’ had plenty of reasons not to believe in me. I kept so much from you, and I shouldn’t have. God, Caleb. Getting this wrong for six weeks felt like I’d be missing you for the rest of my life. ”
He snorted a laugh and ran his thumb along her cheek. “Thank you for understanding. Please call Eli and Luke and tell them I was not alone in my doomsaying.”
“We should sit them down with Elouise and a case of beer.”
“You’re packed for a few days?” Caleb brushed her cheek with his lips.
“Of course. I always obey instructions in text messages from unknown numbers.”
He grabbed her hand.