Island Girls (32 page)

The first week, Liam came down, toting a laptop computer; a book bag of college directives, memos, and guidelines; and a duffel bag of clothing. Every morning he and Meg made the bed in the little back bedroom, organized their laptops and the book bag, and went off to the library to work on the fall course schedules and syllabus for freshman English.

Arden made coffee, dressed in professional clothes, arranged her voice recorder and iPad filled with notes for her show, and drove off to interview someone or to meet with someone else for lunch or to make notes as she sat on a bench in the restful corner park on Main Street and Fair.

Jenny pulled on shorts and a tank top, backpacked her Mac Air, and biked through town, stopping at Fast Forward to buy muffins and iced coffee. She carried these into The Computer
Guy shop on Airport Road, where Tim was already at work. She set out breakfast for them on a table at the back of the shop, and as they ate, they discussed prospective projects and how to divide the workload.

But by late afternoon, everything changed. Nantucket summer evenings were the glitter hours. Wealthy patrons threw lavish parties for their favorite charities: cocktail parties, dances, sunset cruises on fabulous yachts, intimate dinners for two hundred beneath white tents sailing upward, their posts rippling with banners like those of medieval kings. These were the fantasy weeks, the fairy-tale hours, the celebration of laughter, beauty, and camaraderie.

Arden, Meg, and Jenny would rush home at four or five, slip into bathing suits and gauzy cover-ups in sherbet colors, and hurry down to Jetties Beach for a quick swim to cool off from the heat of the day. Back home, they’d shower and dress, sharing jewelry and clothes, scarves, shoes, shawls. Liam would don his navy blue blazer and white flannels and drive the three women in the Volvo to whatever party was on that night. There they’d meet up with Palmer and Tim to sip champagne, slurp oysters served up from the raw bars, help themselves to scallops wrapped in bacon or deep-fried mussels. They danced. If there was a band, they danced until the music ended and their splendid clothes were completely soaked with sweat, their hair plastered to their skulls, their legs weak. If there was a band, Meg caressed the back of Liam’s neck during the slow dances, and Palmer whispered in Arden’s ear, and Tim, with each slow dance, drew Jenny closer against him, until finally she surrendered and wrapped both arms around his neck, allowing herself to hold on to this man.

But all the glitter was not at the parties.

Some nights the August meteor showers were in exceptionally showy moods. The six of them would take blankets out to
Madaket at the farthest edge of the island, away from the lights of town. They’d lie on the sand gazing upward as the Perseids streamed above them, flashing in a display of heavenly fireworks, shooting stars falling toward them, streaking across the night sky, lavishing the darkness with silver-white light. Nearby, the ocean lapped at the shore, and occasionally something would splash in the water, as if a star had landed there.

Suddenly, there was only one more week left in August.

People were leaving the island in droves. Families had to get their children ready for school. Students had to get back to their dorms and buy college supplies. Clerks, salespeople, waitstaff, all took off for more permanent jobs, and the island emptied out. No more musicians played on Main Street. At night, the summer breezes sometimes brought a hint of chill.

The night before Liam left the island, he asked Meg if he could take her out to dinner. She understood—in the house with her sisters and sometimes Palmer and sometimes Tim, it was hard to find a private moment.

Even though it was still hot outside, Meg knew there would be air-conditioning, so she tossed a silk shawl around her shoulders, pleased at the way its swirling hues accented her strawberry-blonde hair. She was secretly proud of what she’d learned this summer on the island from her sisters, knowledge college textbooks couldn’t give her: how to be feminine and adult without looking puritanical.

She was glad she’d worn the shawl when she discovered that Liam was taking her to the best restaurant on the island, one of the most famous in the country, Toppers at The Wauwinet hotel,
and they were going there by water. They strolled down Easton Street to the dock behind the White Elephant hotel and boarded the
Wauwinet Lady
, a small launch that took them through the harbor to The Wauwinet hotel at the end of Polpis Harbor. The evening was calm, the water an impressionistic mirror of the deepening blue sky, the air heavy and still. They were served sparkling wine to sip as they observed the shoreline with its inlets, sandbars, marshes, and mansions. It was like being whisked away by magic carpet to another world, and as they were handed out of the boat onto the hotel’s dock, Meg felt she was stepping into a fantasy world. All around on the beach were umbrellas, beach chairs, pots spilling with flowers, and then they were ushered into the bright restaurant with its sparkling crystal and crisp linen tablecloths.

After they were seated by a window, Meg asked, “What’s the occasion?”

Liam shrugged. “The end of a remarkable summer?”

“And the beginning of a remarkable semester,” Meg agreed. “Liam, I’ve been getting positive e-mails from the other instructors about my freshman syllabus. I was afraid they’d balk at using someone else’s organizational plan, but most people seem glad to have it.”

“I’m sure they are. It’s excellent. Plus, they’re aware your students had the best scores last semester.” He paused while the waiter poured them another glass of champagne and took their order. “How’s the Alcott book?”

“I’m almost there.” Meg sat back, sighing. “It’s more difficult than I’d expected. I want to get it right. It would help to have someone else read what I’ve done so far and give me a critique. I wonder, Liam, would you have time to do it?”

“I was hoping you’d ask. I’d be very happy to. Which reminds me, I have a question for you.”

“Yes?” She spread crab pâté on a cracker and munched it, savoring the taste of summer.

“Meg.”

His voice was serious. She glanced up.

“I want to have children with you.”

She swallowed her cracker, putting her hand to her throat, where her pulse suddenly fluttered like a bird taking wing.

“I want to have children with you right away.” One side of his mouth quirked upward in a sexy smile. “Because you, Meg, are so very, very old.”

She grinned helplessly at the way he’d turned the age difference around.

Terrified and courageous, she asked, “Liam—are you proposing?”

His voice trembled slightly. “I’ll do it again, formally, on my knee, ring in hand.”

Meg looked around the busy restaurant. “Perhaps not on your knee.”

Liam sighed with relief. “Good call.” Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a black velvet box. He handed it to Meg. Opening it, she saw a large diamond in an antique platinum setting.

“It was my grandmother’s,” Liam told her. “Shall I put it on your hand?”

Meg blinked back tears. “I feel like a Roman candle.”

Liam smiled triumphantly. “I feel like a match.”

“Oh,” Meg said in a long blissful sigh.

Liam slid the ring onto her finger. It was slightly too large, but she kept it on, turning it this way and that, watching it flash flares of light.

——

Later that night, Meg and Liam returned to the Lily Street house, slightly giddy with happiness and hope. Meg showed her ring to Jenny and Arden. Jenny promptly burst into tears, and Arden discovered one last bottle of champagne for them to share in celebration.

So Liam was exhausted and a bit hungover the next day as Meg drove him out to the airport to catch his flight back to Boston. Meg would join him in a week, when the Nantucket house was closed. They both had heavy fall teaching schedules. Liam was putting together another book of poems. And they had a wedding to plan.

The week brought more change. Palmer flew back to Boston, promising he’d meet Arden’s plane when she arrived and sit down with her to hash out the details of her Houston contract—and Arden would let him know whether she’d decided to take Zoey with her or not. She couldn’t leave Ernest and Channel Six in the lurch; they would all have to meet to strategize the next season of the show. She’d filmed enough on the island to keep them going for a few months. Arden could foresee a lot of travel between Houston and Boston in her future.

Invitations to parties diminished, then disappeared as families closed up their houses. Tim and Jenny rushed to complete projects for their off-island clients. Time, which had stretched in a golden dream during the summer, suddenly shook itself briskly, as hurricanes boiled and blustered off the southern coasts. Fresh air gusted over the island, carrying the electric energy of change.

The cupboards at the Lily Street house began to empty. No more jars of capers, bluefish pâté, beach plum jam. No more wine in the rack, no more champagne and Prosecco in the refrigerator door. The bowl that had held lemons and limes was washed and put away. The three agreed to spend one day washing beach towels
and bedsheets and going through the house choosing any objects they might want to keep.

Three days before September first, Arden, Meg, and Jenny lounged around the kitchen table, reluctant to finish their coffee and begin packing. They were all wearing shorts, flip-flops, tank tops. The heat remained intense.

Arden had pulled her auburn hair back with clips so it wouldn’t get in her face. She wrapped an ice cube in a paper towel and dabbed it on her wrists as she talked.

“Jenny. Meg and I have been talking.”

Jenny quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“According to Marcia Kirkpatrick, there are several clients poised to make an offer on this house. So you’re going to have to find another place to live.”

“Wait,” Jenny said sarcastically. “I didn’t realize that.”

Arden ignored Jenny’s tone. “So here’s what Meg and I thought: I’m going to be in Houston, and it’s going to be damned hot there in the summer. Meg enjoys it here in the summer and would love to have a place to come with Liam. The three of us should each get a nice big pile of money from the sale of the house, at least six hundred thousand. So Meg and I think that we should buy another house with you, or part of another house. We’ve agreed on the sum of two hundred thousand each. That would add four hundred thousand to the amount you could put toward a house on the island. That means you’d be able to buy a bigger house—which you’d have to, because it would need to have at least two guest bedrooms, one for Meg and one for me, for when we come in the summer.”

“Perhaps at Christmas, too,” Meg added. “I’ve never been here for the Christmas Stroll.”

Jenny had turned white. Softly, she said, “You two want to buy a house with me?”

“Um, yeah,” Arden said. “I think that’s what I just said.” Jenny began to cry.

Alarmed, Meg said, “Well, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It was just an idea. We can always rent a place, or, gosh, we don’t even have to come here—”

Arden said to Meg, “I think Jenny’s happy.”

Jenny nodded yes and made blubbering noises. After a moment, she repeated, “You guys want to buy a house with me.”

Arden spoke with precision, as if to someone slightly deaf. “Yes, Jenny, Meg and I want to buy a house with you. Or at least part of a house. We’d also agree to help with taxes and upkeep. We can have a lawyer work out the details.”

“This is wonderful,” Jenny said, wiping her eyes. “I never dreamed … I always wanted … So we’ll be spending time with each other, as if, as if, as if …” She stalled, unable to pronounce the words.

“As if we’re part of a family,” Meg articulated.

Jenny burbled, “I love you guys.”

Arden sniffed. “Love you, too.”

Meg had tears in her own eyes. Reaching over, she took Jenny’s hand. “We’re island girls,” she said.

Drop a coin in the water as you leave the island, the saying goes, and you’re sure to return. The first day of September was as sunny, hot, and bright as the last day of August, but on the island everything had already switched seasons. After her many years of living on Nantucket, Jenny was accustomed to this, but this day resonated deeply within her like the rings circling out from the pennies dropped into the water by the tourists leaving on the ferry.

She and Meg had driven Arden to the airport for her plane to Boston. Now Jenny stood on the dock at the Steamship Authority, watching as Meg drove the Volvo up the ramp into the great white ferry.

Meg paused at the top of the ramp, leaned out the window, and waved one last time at Jenny. Jenny waved back.

Meg steered the car into the hold of the ship, and for Jenny the summer was over.

Still, she stayed until all the cars were loaded and the huge groaning boarding ramp was raised and locked to the stern. Meg came out onto the upper deck, peered over, spotted Jenny among the others, and waved to her. Jenny waved back. Meg blew Jenny a kiss. Jenny blew a kiss back and cried a bit, but the tears were more sweet than bitter.

The vessel churned, hummed, and pulled away from the dock. Slowly it made its way toward Brant Point and around that significant landmark, and soon it was out of sight.

Jenny slowly walked home. The morning was too enchanting for weeping. Birds chirped and swooped from tree to bush. Honeysuckle spilled sweetness as it frothed over white picket fences. The low mutter of lawn mowers drifted through the air, carrying the fragrance of cut green grass. The sun was hot on her shoulders. She let her thoughts float free. When she got home, she would sit down with a fresh cup of coffee and consider the day ahead.

She was going to live in the house until it sold. Until papers were passed and checks cut and the closing carried out at the bank. She dreaded entering the house again. It would seem so empty—it would
be
so empty. Meg and Arden had left, and so had her mother. So had her father. Her father, who had, in his own way, given Jenny her sisters.

Perhaps it was thinking about her father that made her hallucinate a man sitting on the front porch of the house. She stopped dead at the end of the sidewalk, lifting her sunglasses to get a clearer view.