Island Girls (2 page)

Atop those impossible heels, she stalked, head high, out of the station. She got into her car, fastened her seat belt, and drove away. She didn’t allow herself to cry.

Meg Randall sat in her ancient Volvo tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as she waited for the car ferry to bump into its place in the pier so the vehicles could be unloaded. She considered herself one of the most moderate, gentle, easygoing women she knew, but at this moment she felt as impatient as Secretariat stalled behind the starting gate.

The steamship
Eagle
rumbled, shuddered, and groaned into its berth. Chains clanked as the dockworkers raised the ramp into place, jumped aboard, and waved the cars off. With a flash of triumph, Meg drove onto Nantucket.

She was here before Arden!

It had been years since she’d been on the island. She’d never been old enough to drive here before, but her car carried her with perfect assurance down Steamboat Wharf, through the cobblestone grid of town, and along the winding narrow lane of Lily Street, into the driveway of her father’s house.

She stepped out into the sunshine and looked around. The
street, with its houses clustered closely together, its narrow brick sidewalk, and tidy trimmed privet hedges, lay in timeless peace beneath the morning sun. It was very quiet.

Meg stretched. She had actually arrived before Arden, and she passionately wanted to have first choice of bedroom. That was why she’d hardly slept last night, and had left Boston before six a.m. to make the nine thirty ferry from Hyannis. Meg was going to claim the back bedroom overlooking the yards, lawns, and rooftops of the other houses in the village.

She beeped her station wagon locked, reached into her pocket, and took out the small key to the front door. It lay in her hand like an icon, like a treasure. It
was
a treasure. She had never had a key to this house before. Even though she had lived here, she had never belonged.

White clapboard, three stories high, with a blue front door sporting a bronze mermaid door knocker, the house was similar to the others in the neighborhood. The driveway next to the house was short, ending at a privet hedge centered by a rose-covered arbor. Already some of the pale roses were blooming. On either side of the front door, blue hydrangeas blossomed, and pink impatiens spilled from the white window boxes.

A storybook house. A house with many stories.

Meg went up the eight steps to the small porch, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Cleaners had been in; she smelled lemon polish and soap. Ignoring the first floor, she took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. Like all old Nantucket houses, this one rambled oddly around, with rooms that had fireplaces or closets built in at odd angles. But the path to the bedroom,
her
bedroom, was embroidered into her memory like silk thread on muslin.

Here it was, at the back, with the morning glory wallpaper
and two walls of windows gleaming with light. An old-fashioned three-quarter mattress lay on a spool bed, covered with soft old cotton sheets and a patchwork quilt in shades of rose, lemon, and azure, echoing the colors in the hand-hooked rug covering most of the satiny old pine floor. An enormous pine dresser stood against one wall, still adorned with the posy-dotted dresser scarf that had been there when Meg was a child. This room had no closets, only hooks for clothes, but that had never mattered to Meg. She had cherished the room because of the slightly warped, ink-stained wooden desk and creaking cane-bottom chair placed against the back window, where she could sit and write or contemplate the starry sky and dream.

When she was a girl, for a year this had been her bedroom. Then Arden got into one of her jealous snits, claiming that since she was the oldest, she got first dibs. Meg had to take the side bedroom, which should have delighted her. It was twice as large as the odd back bedroom, and actually decorated. The theme was mermaids, and Meg’s mother, Cyndi, who at the time had been the current Mrs. Randall, had gone a bit wild, draping the windows with mermaid curtains, covering the twin beds with mermaid sheets and comforters, softening the floor with a thick Claire Murray mermaid rug. Even the bedside lamps were held up by mermaids. It should have been a young girl’s paradise.

It just made Meg cranky. She wouldn’t give her older, snotty half sister Arden the satisfaction of showing she preferred the back room, and she
really
wouldn’t beseech Arden to exchange rooms with her. She just accepted it. She was used to acceptance as a way of life.

Then their father married Justine and adopted Jenny, and Meg got to spend one blissful summer there. The next summer was when what Arden and Meg called The Exile began. After
Justine took over, Meg and Arden didn’t get invited to spend any time at all at their father’s house, not one summer month, not one summer day.

But that was then, and this was now, a new stage in life, a new day. Years had passed.

Meg would pretend to be selfless, thoughtful, taking the small back bedroom, allowing Arden one of the big front rooms. Jenny had the other front bedroom, years ago done up in pinks and greens.

She needed to unpack quickly, before anyone else got here. She needed to spread her belongings out all over the room, claiming her territory.

She clattered down the stairs and out the front door to the car. She regarded the number of cardboard boxes filling the open hatch, took a deep breath, reached in, and hefted the first heavy box.

Most of what she’d brought to the island was either books or notes or steno pads filled with research. In spite of the terrifying fact that she’d have to spend three months living with the two women who disliked her most in the world, Meg was thrilled to be here, because at last she’d be able to focus completely and solely on writing her book.

Because it was the last day of May, the humid heat of island summers had not yet arrived. Still, after Meg made a few trips up and down the steps carrying the boxes, her clothes were damp with sweat. She sank down on the top step of the stoop to catch her breath and gather her long, wild strawberry-blonde curls into a clump high on her head. The cool air on her neck felt sensational.

A soft breeze drifted over her skin, tickling her slightly, making her senses stir in the most pleasurable way. Leaning back on her elbows, she sighed deeply, closed her eyes, and breathed in the salty island air.

And allowed herself to think of Liam.

——

She’d been in her cramped office in the liberal arts building of Sudbury Community College, bowed over her desk with a pile of English composition exams. Occasionally she tilted her head to face the ceiling and relieve her neck and shoulders. She sometimes stood up and loosened her stiff back with some light exercises, knee bends, waist bends, arm swings. But mostly she worked steadily, not allowing herself to look out her window at the green lawn where students lolled in the warm sunshine.

Meg had been happy. Okay, if not exactly
happy
, she’d been content. She enjoyed her work; was amused, challenged, and annoyed by her students; and spent a lot of time wondering whether the semicolon and colon would fairly soon disappear from common usage, or at least blur and blend. In the Twitter age, punctuation was an endangered species.

So, she prized her work. But she missed having a love life. She was afraid she’d end up like the head of the department, Eleanor Littleton, PhD, a charming if rather homely single woman whose entire world revolved around the English department and her two Yorkshire terriers.

Meg’s desk was of battered metal with three drawers down each side and a shallow drawer in the middle where she kept pens, rubber bands, scissors, breath mints, and Scotch tape. Its top was layered with blue books, exams, and e-mails she’d printed out because she got tired of staring at her computer screen. She sat on a basic government-issue secretary’s chair with a squeaking back that provided little support. She kept calling maintenance about it; they kept promising to bring her a better chair.

“Big fat liars,” she muttered.

“Who?”

Meg didn’t have to look up to identify the man standing in
her open office door. She knew Liam’s voice all too well. That was a pleasure and a problem.

Liam Larson. Liam Larson, PhD. Professor Larson, full professor of English, author of the well-received
Nineteenth-Century American Poets
, a poet himself, published in several online and university reviews. Liam Larson, tall, fair, Camelot handsome, and five years younger than Meg. The first time she’d seen him walk down the hall, she’d said under her breath, “Oh, come on.
Really?
”

Probably five pounds lighter than Meg, too. At twenty-six, Liam was six three and as slender as a marathon runner. At thirty-one, Meg was five four, and while no one would call her fat, they might say—men had said—that she had a fine full figure. A big bust, wide hips, all of it highlighted by her white skin. She let her pale red hair grow past her shoulders and often wore it loose, trying to make her hair seem equal in volume to the rest of her body. She camouflaged her shape with khaki slacks and baggy skirts, corduroy jackets, tailored shirts buttoned to the neck. In the summer, she wore shapeless tunics. If she was ever going to get tenure at this college, she had to appear professional. Academic.

Liam looked academic and sexy at the same time. Chinos, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, blue tie to set off his blue eyes.

Meg smiled at him. Leaning back in her chair, she stretched her arms and yawned. “The maintenance men,” she explained. “They’ve been promising to bring me a decent chair for two weeks.”

“Let me take a look.”

Before she could object, Liam was in her space, filling up her incredibly small office. He squatted behind her chair and fiddled with the knob, trying to tighten it. His breath stirred her hair. His knuckles brushed her shoulders.

Please don’t say I’m too big for this chair
, Meg prayed silently. She knew the chair was too small for her; it was too small for almost anyone. She guessed the college ordered these chairs because they were cheap or had been discarded by some other university system.

“This thing is hopeless,” Liam decided. Standing up, he leaned over Meg and picked up her phone. He hit a few numbers. “Maintenance? Professor Liam Larson here in LB20. I need a new desk chair. This one’s broken. Immediately. Thank you.”

Hanging up the phone, he grinned at Meg. “The word
professor
has got to be good for something.”

“You could have said Dr. Larson,” Meg told him.

“Nah. Then I’d have to take out his appendix.” Liam pushed a stack of papers out of the way and slid his slender butt onto Meg’s desk. His long legs dangled down in front of her three drawers.

Meg shoved her chair away from the desk. And Liam. “Thank you.”

“We’ll see if anything happens.” Liam looked down at her piles of work. “Exams?”

“Always.”

“Only three more weeks till end of semester. What are you doing this summer?”

Meg rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m going to work on my Alcott book. I’m determined to finish it.”

“Seriously? You’re not teaching summer school? But you’re the best teacher we’ve got. The students will be devastated.”

Meg rolled her eyes in reaction to his compliment, but she knew he meant what he said. She was a favorite of the students, and Liam admired her for it. “Liam, I’ve scrimped for a year to save enough money to live on for three months. I’ll subsist on cereal and water. No movies. No frills. No clothes. Just work.”

A lopsided smile crossed his face. “No clothes? How about letting me come be your editorial assistant?”

Meg felt herself blush. “I mean I won’t buy any new clothes. Austerity is the rule for the summer.”

Liam lowered his eyelids into a bedroom eyes stare. She hated when he did it; it made her all shivery and silly feeling. “I’d better plan to take you out to dinner at least once a week. For the sake of the college. We don’t want our professors dying of starvation.”

Her resolve almost melted in the warmth of his smile. She reminded herself that Liam was five years younger than she was—significant years, impetuous, impulsive, romantic years, when you were allowed to make mistakes. That Liam was intellectually, academically mature was obvious. He’d skipped grades in elementary school and high school, sped through his BA and MA, won his PhD, and published his book of poems to great acclaim by the tender age of twenty-six. But emotional maturity was different, and brilliant scholars were often emotionally stunted.

She could tell he had a crush on her. True, they were the best of friends and they both were dedicated teachers. They read each other’s essays in draft form and expertly critiqued each other. But Meg couldn’t allow it to go any further. Liam was so handsome—he was almost beautiful. It would be easy to allow herself to respond to him. That would lead her, she was certain, to heartbreak.

Her phone rang. Literally saved by the bell. She snatched it up.

“Meg? Sweetheart, it’s Mommy.”

Meg straightened in her chair, alerted by her mother’s voice. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“Meggie, I’m fine. Listen, though, I have to tell you something. It’s a hard thing to say. Meggie, your father died.”

——

Seated on the front steps of the house on Lily Street, Meg blinked away the memory of her mother’s phone call. Since that day, time had accordioned into a blur of action: Packing for the island. The funeral. The reading of the will in Frank Boyd’s office and her father’s bizarre and manipulative last letter, so typical of Rory Randall, a lightning bolt from the hand of the all-powerful Zeus who even after his death arranged the lives of his daughters, without, as usual, asking their opinions, and especially without,
as usual
, being there to respond to the emotional fallout.

All right, Meg couldn’t control it, but she could contain it. She could use it. She needed three months to work on her book. Now she had them, and in a historic house on a magical island. That her half sister and stepsister were going to share the house did not mean this would be hell on earth. She would be polite but aloof. She would be poised, dignified, restrained. So would Arden and Jenny. The three of them were adults, after all.