Extraordinary (15 page)

“You sound so hard, Ryland.”

“Is it not best?”

“Yes. Of course. It is only that I have had too much time to think these days. Empty time breeds useless regret for what cannot be helped. But let that go. Ryland? It is now time for your sister to return to court.”

“If you can manage without her, I ask that this not occur yet. My sister is still useful in taking care of the woman and I have not the energy for that myself. I need all that I have to manage the girl and complete what my sister has begun.”

Ryland had rented an apartment, a little studio in a brick building about five miles away from Phoebe's school. A week after the horrible scene with Mallory, Phoebe went to meet him there.

It was after school on the last day before spring break. Phoebe had been feeling so sad and depressed about Mallory. Mallory's bedroom across the hall from hers, with Mallory's stuff still in there, was a constant reminder. Phoebe had taken to keeping its door shut.

The end of their friendship was now a second secret to be kept from her parents. She knew at some point it would have to be confessed, but it was too enormous and painful to tell them right away. She would also have to come up with a lie about what exactly had happened, because she couldn't imagine telling her parents what Mallory had said to her. Even if she omitted the information about Ryland, she hated the thought of repeating to her parents what Mallory had said about her.

She had run to Ryland, though. That very night, she had called him and told him what had happened, and they had met the next day at Natalie's. She'd cried buckets, sitting across the table from him, and he had been amazing. She needn't have worried that he would take Mallory's side. He had said too that Mallory had always had a hard, mean streak, even when she was little, and that the only surprising thing was that Phoebe hadn't seen it before. “She has a very jealous personality,” Ryland said. “It's one of the reasons I thought we shouldn't tell her about us. You'll be lucky now if she doesn't make a scene about it at school. You'd never be able to cope with something like that.”

Phoebe hadn't even thought of that possibility. Ryland was just so smart and considerate and insightful. She was so lucky to have him.

She hoped he would eventually tell Mallory he loved Phoebe, though. Then Mallory would realize that a relationship took two people; that Phoebe actually hadn't chased Ryland the way she—for the first time she was ashamed of it—the way she had chased Mallory. Or
had
she chased Ryland in the exact same way? She wondered. She'd called him and invited him to meet her that first time. She had thought she was being honest and up-front. Also, it had really been to talk with Ryland about the garden—the weird, imaginary garden—

She winced away from examining the sequence of events too closely. She pushed the emotions, the doubts, and the confusion down and away and out of sight.

Bottom line: She hoped Ryland would tell Mallory that he found Phoebe to be smart and lovely and incredibly special. She hoped it would hurt Mallory to her core to discover that her brother and her friend had truly fallen in love. She hoped it would make Mallory feel even half as isolated and betrayed as Phoebe felt now. Even if Mallory did make a big scene at school—which was something Phoebe actually couldn't imagine her doing, but Ryland said he knew his sister better than she did—it would be worth it to Phoebe, if she was really loved.

Phoebe found Ryland's new apartment building in West Newton easily, but then had the thought that she needed to buy him a house-warming gift. The only shop nearby was a supermarket, though, and ten minutes later, she was still wandering its aisles. They had a flower shop, but the flowers all looked a little sad and wilted and picked-over. A cake? Too birthday. She thought longingly of the extravagant, perfect presents she could have gotten if she'd had the brains to think of this earlier—and then she remembered one of Mallory's comments about Phoebe trying to “buy” what she wanted. Finally she grabbed some chocolate-dipped cookies. In the end, by the time Phoebe actually rang Ryland's bell, she was three-quarters of an hour late.

He buzzed her in immediately and she felt her heart start pounding. Three flights of stairs and then she stood, finally, before Ryland's door.

This was the first time they would really be alone together, safely private. Suddenly, Phoebe realized that she was nervous. This was why she'd gone to the grocery store and wasted so much time there.

Oh.

She knocked once, tentatively. Twice. Then a third time. He was there—he had buzzed her in. Was he angry that she was late? Phoebe felt strange and illicit, standing in the hallway of an apartment building, more dressed up than she usually was, knocking on the door of a place she'd never been before, nobody knowing where she was or what she was about to do. It was exciting. But . . .

But she could also just leave. Part of her wanted to.

No! She straightened her shoulders and stayed where she was. She lifted her hand to knock again.

The door swung open and there he was. Ryland.

He seemed even taller than Phoebe remembered, and more handsome. He didn't say anything, merely nodded and stood back so that Phoebe could enter. His face was unreadable—not welcoming, not anything, almost empty—and, seeing it, Phoebe understood that she had expected an expression of happiness at seeing her. A kiss. An embrace. Something that would enfold her and reassure her and drown the anxiety inside her.

“Hi. I'm late. Sorry.” She held out the cookies. “I realized I should bring something. So. Um. I got this.”

“Thank you,” Ryland said. At least he was looking at her. He took the cookies, but didn't so much as brush her hand in the process. He closed the door, but still made no move toward Phoebe. She shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, and Ryland looked down at her shoes and said, as if he were a stranger, “Those look painful.”

She had hoped he would think the deep blue three-inch heels were sexy, with their lacy ties that wrapped in a crisscross pattern around her ankles. At school today, Colette Williams-White, queen of high-fashion shoes, had even paused to gush at Phoebe about them, seemingly quite sincere.

“I like these shoes,” Phoebe said. Her voice quavered.

“You don't really have the legs for them. Take them off.” Ryland turned his back on Phoebe, but threw over his shoulder, “Come in the kitchen. We can have tea.”

Phoebe was still wincing inside over the legs comment as she bent clumsily to undo the tiny, tricky laces of her shoes. Tea? That didn't sound very romantic.

What was going on? Had Mallory said something directly to Ryland about Phoebe, something ugly and bad? Did he no longer want her? With her shoes finally off, she straightened and looked around, trying to take her mind off the feeling of being pushed coolly away.

The apartment was a single room, with a kitchen area at one end that was separated from the rest of the space by a counter with high wooden stools. A desk sat in the middle of the floor, with a laptop computer open on it and an office chair behind it. The rest of the furniture was sparse; a couple of straight chairs, a bookcase, a futon sofa, a rag rug in shades of green and yellow and white, a lamp.

It wasn't exactly a love nest, not with the desk dominating the space. Covertly, Phoebe smoothed her hair. Then she put her shoes by the door, along with her backpack, and padded in her stocking feet on the wooden floor to the kitchen counter. She'd reached it just as the kettle began to steam.

“Is Earl Grey tea all right with you?” Ryland still had his back to her, and seemed quite busy with the tea bags. “And you don't actually need the cookies, do you? They're high calorie.”

“Okay,” said Phoebe feebly. “I mean, that's fine. I mean, yes. All right.”

“How was school today?”

Phoebe clambered up onto one of the stools. “Fine. I guess.” Her legs dangled; there was no crossbar on the stool on which she could hook her feet. It was true what he had said; she didn't have long, elegant legs. And she did need to lose weight. And—

“How was
your
day?” she said. Then, rebelliously, she replied for him: “
Fine
.” It came out in the most sarcastic tone that had ever emerged from her throat when talking to him. She was shocked at herself. And then defiant.

At least it made him turn and look at her. Then, and at last, he smiled, but the expression didn't reach his eyes.

Phoebe's last defense, the sarcasm, drained out of her completely. “What's wrong?” she blurted.

Ryland put a cup of tea down in front of her, and then moved to bring the second stool around to the other side of the counter. “Don't be stupid, Phoebe,” he said gently as he sat down across from her. “What do you think is wrong?”

“I don't know! You're acting like you don't even know me. And also—” She made a motion with her hand toward the rest of the apartment. “This doesn't look like you're planning to live here.”

“I'll be here sometimes,” Ryland said. “But as far as my mother and sister know, it's just my office. Think for a minute, Phoebe. It wouldn't be fair to Mallory if I moved out. She's very comforted by knowing I'm living with our mother too, and that she's not alone. You don't have an issue with that, I'm sure. After all, you and I talked about it.”

They'd talked about it? Phoebe didn't remember that. She could swear Ryland had told her he had found an apartment and was going to live there; that it would be his own space, a place where Phoebe could come. But if he said otherwise . . . she'd been so upset about Mallory. Ryland might have said stuff that she just hadn't taken in.

“No. I don't have an issue with it,” Phoebe said. Because of course he couldn't abandon Mallory and their mother. She had never meant that. “Office, apartment, whatever. I don't care. Just tell me what's wrong. Something is.” She ducked her head, her nose almost in her teacup. “Have you changed your mind about me? I mean, well, about us? Also,” she finished, “I'm not stupid. Okay? Don't call me that.”

She waited, her head down.

“Are you crying, Phoebe?” Ryland sounded affectionate. At last. But was it the wrong kind of affection? Was she losing him too?

“No.”

She wasn't. She would not cry.

Suddenly Ryland was holding her hands again, as he had at Natalie's Café. “Phoebe, look at me.”

After a few seconds, she did.

He said, “I won't lie to you. I'm having second thoughts. I've been selfish. I'm attracted to you—of course I am. You're so sweet.” Ryland's hands squeezed hers, and unconsciously, Phoebe squeezed back. “But this can't be about what I want. I'm too much older than you for that. It has to be about what you want. And I don't believe you really know. You're uncertain, aren't you? Admit it. You go back and forth in your mind.”

She could look at him again now. It was easy to look at him. Oh, he was beautiful. “No, no—”

“Phoebe. Be honest. Maybe you want to be here with me, but also, you don't. Not completely. You have doubts.”

For a moment, Phoebe sat frozen. He knew! How could he know? But he did.

A breath later, she knew why he knew. It was because he understood her. He truly did. Fully and completely, he understood her.

Later, she would think that this was the moment she came completely to believe that Ryland did really care about her. Because how could he be so sensitive to her ambivalence if he didn't? He really must love her, because he had hesitated. Because, in the end, he had waited for her to be the one to reach out to him. For her to make the decisive move. For her to make the invitation.

Which, in the next moment, she did, all her doubts and fears falling away like leaves detaching from a tree as it succumbed to autumn. She opened her arms so he could come into them.

“I love you, Ryland,” she said.

“And I love you, Phoebe,” he said. “I only want what's good for you.”

“That's you,” she said, sure now. “You're what's good for me.”

And then he kissed her, and it was just like the first time, only more. Much more.

“What do you mean, Phoebe? You have to come to Nantucket with us tomorrow.”

It was later that same night, and Phoebe's parents were staring at her as if she had sprouted wings before their eyes and was flapping them madly.

Phoebe avoided their gaze and instead addressed herself to her dinner plate, where she was using her fork to sculpt a little mountain out of buttermilk-mashed potatoes. Jay-Jay had given her too much. She needed to lose weight; Ryland had said so again that afternoon, very gently, very kindly and lovingly.

“I'd just rather stay here during spring break. I have a couple of papers to write and I'd focus better here at home. You guys should still go, though. Actually, I was thinking you'd probably really like some time alone, without me. And it's not like I'd be here all by myself or anything like that. There's Jay-Jay.”

Phoebe knew she was talking too much, and also that she was doing a bad job of making her case. The problem was that Phoebe loved the Rothschilds' home on Nantucket, adored everything about the island, looked forward to each and every vacation there. In fact, Phoebe had used to say that one day she was going to move permanently to Nantucket. So there was no way on earth that the Phoebe her parents knew would have decided to do schoolwork instead of going there.

But of course, as of today, Phoebe had become someone who was not quite her parents' Phoebe any longer. Today Phoebe had become a woman in love. Ryland's Phoebe. And if she stayed home, she would have one glorious week in which she could see Ryland alone, for hours and hours, every single day. Time in which things could develop the way they should, slowly and surely and naturally. He had told her there was no rush. But somehow the very fact of his saying that, and even the way he had said it, had made her feel like there ought to be a rush—a sort-of rush, anyway—that he would be disappointed if Phoebe delayed
too
much—