Island Girls (20 page)

Jenny went back to the hall, turned left, and walked. So he wasn’t on vacation. So he was here. Her mother had been right. She should go home, slow down, write Dr. William Chivers a letter, and do this thing with some kind of ceremony and dignity instead of flapping in like a startled chicken lost in a maze.

William Chivers, MD.

His name was on the door. She pushed the door open.

This room was small and quiet. Behind a desk a secretary sat wearing headphones, tapping at a computer. She was an older woman wearing a pink flowered dress and a pink cashmere cardigan. She looked up at Jenny and smiled with lips painted the perfectly matching shade of pink.

“Hello. May I help you?”

“Hello. I’m wondering … I’d like to see Dr. Chivers.” Jenny wound her fingers together tightly. She cleared her throat. “It’s personal.” Quickly she added, “It’s not about a medical thing.”

The woman in pink tilted her head sideways, blinked, then picked up the phone. “Dr. Chivers? A young lady is here to see you. It’s a personal matter.” After a moment, she said, “Thank you, Doctor.” To Jenny, she said, “Please take a seat. He’ll be available in a moment.”

Jenny’s legs were stiff as she made her way to a chair, and her body folded like a series of snapping sticks. She had barely sat down when the woman in pink said, “You may go in now.”

Jenny couldn’t breathe. She was trembling. Fear rushed through her. What if he denied being her father? What if he said he didn’t even know her mother? What if he was enraged and
ordered her out of his office? Dr. William Chivers had no reason to want to know her. Why should he, after all these years, be presented with someone who could only be a problem to him? What if he thought she were coming after him for money? What if—

She walked to the door. It was pulled open from the inside, and a man stood in the doorway, looking tired, kind, and curious. His white hair formed a circle around the exposed pink top of his scalp. His forehead was scored with lines of wrinkles. His eyes were brown, he was tall, he was slender, his Adam’s apple protruded sharply. He wore a tan summer suit, a white shirt, a blue tie.

Jenny’s lungs were frozen. Her vocal cords were paralyzed. She opened her mouth to speak, but she was terrified that she was going to cry, or fall apart in hysterical laughter. She forced a smile as she looked up at the man.

Dr. William Chivers’s eyes widened as he looked at Jenny. His mouth dropped in surprise. He looked stunned.

He said,
“Justine.”

Steam practically boiled out of Meg’s apartment on the third floor of the graceful old Victorian when she pulled open the door. Hurriedly, she flicked on the dials of the two small air-conditioning units that made it bearable in the small space, but the old machines were clunky and inefficient. It would be at least an hour before the place was tolerable. She’d forgotten what it felt like here in the summer, inland Massachusetts, far away from sea breezes.

She tossed her bag on her bed, kicked off her sandals, and faced herself in the mirror. Was she going to do it?

When she called Liam last night, she told him she was driving up to Sudbury. That she wanted to see him. He said he’d pick her up at six and take her out to dinner.

She wasn’t sure she could wait.

She wasn’t sure she could keep herself from running away. To cool herself off, she took a long shower and shampooed her hair. She put on a Coldplay CD to listen to while she slathered on
moisturizing lotion. Wearing only her undies, she slowly unpacked, finally lifting out her secret purchase, a white sundress dotted with strawberries. On the hanger, it appeared all innocence. On her body, it was dynamite.

When she tried it on in Vis-A-Vis, the saleswoman kept asking, “Are you okay? Can I bring you something else?” Meg had been mesmerized by her reflection in the mirror. The dress curved in and out, accentuating her waist. It dipped low in front, exposing more of her breasts than she’d ever dared—but then, she’d never dared. How grateful she was to her sisters, both of them so stylish and of the moment. Spending this summer around them taught her that she was stuck in the past, so entrenched in the 1800s she hadn’t even noticed herself ripe and ready in the present.

“I’ll take it,” she’d told the saleswoman. “And perhaps a little shrug?”

The saleswoman brought her a white shrug. “What about adding this?” she suggested. Stepping behind Meg, she’d clipped on a gold chain with dangling multicolored stones.

Meg had laughed out loud. “Or we could just draw an arrow to my breasts,” she said.

“Believe me,” the saleswoman had said, “in that dress you don’t need an arrow.”

Meg clasped on the necklace now. She stepped into her high-heeled sandals.

She smirked at herself in the mirror. She could do this.

But when Liam knocked at six o’clock precisely, Meg’s limbs went into lockdown. She could scarcely make it to the door.

She opened it. Liam wore cream flannels, a yellow linen long-sleeved shirt, and a blue tie. He looked so classy—suddenly, with her loose hair and low-cut dress, she felt like a tart.

Liam gawked. “Good Lord.”

“Would you like to come in?” Meg asked invitingly. “I’ve got some cold Prosecco. We could have a drink before we go out.”

Liam stepped inside and shut the door behind him, but didn’t sit down. “I don’t understand, Meg.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think you need to clarify your intent.”

Meg’s heart drummed triple-time as she felt his intense scrutiny. Oh, he was so handsome, so unreasonably handsome. His thick blond hair, his aristocratic profile, and the way he carried himself—he was like a prince. Or a king. King Arthur.

No, she thought, not King Arthur, because Guinevere betrayed him for Lancelot, and Meg would never betray Liam.

“Liam—” Meg reached out to touch his arm, but he stepped back.

“Meg, the last time we were together, we made love, and I thought we were—” He went still, blushing deeply. “I thought it meant something. Then you told me that it was a mistake, that I’m too young for you. Now you show up looking like
this
?”

Meg flinched. “I was wrong, Liam. I mean, I was telling the truth, but I was acting out of fear. Please, sit down. Can we talk about it?”

Liam sat at the end of the sofa. Meg poured the wine into chilled glasses and handed one to him. Liam watched her, waiting in silence.

“Arden and Jenny made me do this,” Meg began. With an awkward laugh, she added, “All this, the new clothes and hairstyle, and calling you.” She peered at him from under her lashes. “Do I look okay?”

“I don’t care what you wear,” Liam said brusquely. “You’re a knockout no matter what.”

“Oh.” His words gave her the courage to go on. “But, Liam, it’s true, you
are
younger than I am, and that frightens me.”

He nodded. “I can understand that. I suppose the most difficult thing about being precocious—because I have to admit, I was precocious intellectually—is that people assume I’m emotionally challenged. Still, I don’t think our dean would have given me tenure if she thought I wasn’t capable of handling any job she threw my way.”

“True,” Meg agreed.

“Eleanor’s a shrewd judge of character, don’t you think?”

“She is.”

“When she hired me, she definitely reckoned I’m trustworthy.”

Meg understood what he was tacitly telling her, that he was a man who could be faithful. “I know what you mean, Liam. Still …” She faltered in the face of his steady, patient presence.

“I suppose the only thing that would allow me to prove my adulthood even more definitively would be to get married and have a family.”

Meg stopped breathing.

“My parents got married when they were twenty-four,” Liam continued in his mellow, quiet way. “They’ve been married for twenty-seven years. I came along when they were only twenty-five, and my sister a year later. Somehow they muddled through.”

“Yes, but they were wealthy,” Meg reminded him.

“I’ve got some assets of my own,” Liam confided. “It’s because my grandparents left me some money that I can act on my ideals.”

“You should go into politics.”

“Don’t make fun of me, Meg.”

“I wasn’t,” she protested.

His voice was low and solemn, his expression resolute. “I’m not a child. I’m not a playboy. I’m not a pretty boy who wants his face on TV. I don’t want to sleep around. Believe me, I’ve slept around. I started early and accepted every opportunity, and there were plenty.”

Meg’s face went hot. She looked away, stunned by the fierce volcano of jealousy erupting inside her. No denying it: she was in love with this damn man.

“I can’t change the way I look or the way my brain works. But I can use them. I can use them for what
I
want. You know what I want. You know what I want for work, and you know what I want for my life.”

Meg nodded. “I know you care about teaching. About community colleges …”

“Right. You and I are philosophically attuned on this matter. I like challenges. I like diversity. I like mixing it up. I like teaching classes at night and on weekends, when people who work can attend. I like writing poetry and reading about nineteenth-century poets, and using the Internet to teach basic language skills.”

“Renaissance man,” Meg teased.

He didn’t return her smile. “I certainly hope so.” He was serious suddenly, as intent on her face as if studying his own future in a crystal ball. “I hope I can do great work and at the same time share a great passion.” He hesitated, then added, “And if that sounds sappy, I don’t care.”

“Not sappy,” Meg said, almost whispering.

“So can we agree that I’m not emotionally young?”

Meg nodded.

“Does that mean you’re willing to take a chance on me? A serious chance?”

She looked into his eyes. The intensity between them was like the pull of music. “Yes,” she said.

He smiled. “Of course you realize I’m taking a chance on
you
,” he continued, relaxing back against the sofa, aware that he had her now. “Some people would tell me I shouldn’t be with a woman
so terribly old, and especially one so, um, what’s the word I’m looking for?”

Meg waited for him to say
fat
.

“Ravishing,”
Liam finished. “That’s it. People might say I can’t trust a woman who looks like you to be faithful to me. You’ll be going to academic conferences where all sorts of intellectually dashing men will hit on you. Especially if you go around looking like that.”

Meg couldn’t resist preening just slightly. “So you like the dress.”

Liam stood up. “I’d better take you out to dinner before I show you exactly how much I like that dress.”

Arden waved good-bye to Meg and Jenny, watched them walk off toward the ferry with their backpacks and duffel bags, then shut the door. She had a lunch date with a summer resident, a prospect for her show, so she dressed carefully and prepared her proposal, then walked down to town for the meeting.

It was after three when she returned to the house. When she opened the door and stepped inside, the house was sleeping, silent as a cat in the afternoon sun.

They were gone.

She didn’t remember ever having been alone in this house before. She threw herself onto the living room sofa, kicked off her sandals, rested her feet on a pillow, and scanned her memories. She’d been in the house long ago with Meg and Jenny, babysitting them when her father and Justine went out. Perhaps when Meg and Jenny went off to town to buy magazines or ice cream, she’d been alone in her room, but Justine had always been there.

It was so quiet. The windows were open, but the wind was flat today, useless for sailing, not even enough to cause the curtains to flutter. The heat drugged the birds into silence. Her eyes closed.

She woke around four, with sweat pooled between her breasts. The front of the house got the afternoon sun, and the room was stifling. Yawning, she padded barefoot down the hall to the kitchen. As she ran herself a nice, cool drink of water, she stared at the backyard, shadowed by the surrounding trees. She looked at her watch: 4:05. She didn’t have to cook dinner for the three of them tonight, and no one would be cooking for her. She wouldn’t be watching a DVD with them or yakking or playing poker like they did when it rained. She could eat a pint of ice cream in her underwear if she wanted.

An irresistible urge surfaced right beneath her heart, the sort of inquisitive temptation that drove her professional curiosity to check out other people’s houses.

She could look into their rooms.

First, she called Meg on her cell phone.

“Hi, Arden,” Meg answered. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course. Just wanted to be sure you got there all right.”

“That’s sweet. Yes, we’re here, and I’m kind of busy now. Can I call you back?”

“No, don’t bother. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Arden clicked off her phone and climbed to the second floor.

It was hotter here. Arden paused, deciding which room she wanted to enter first. She knew much more about Meg, and besides, she thought Meg was just less interesting, really, with all her old-fashioned bookish stuff.

Jenny had left her door open. Arden paused in the doorway. It would be just like complicated, technological Jenny to create some kind of invisible trap that would provide evidence that Arden had entered her room while she was gone, then she could
have proof that Arden was, if not a thief, at least a snoop, and Justine’s accusation would be justified.

But Arden couldn’t resist. She squinted, checking for a thread, a hair, strung across the doorway. She’d seen that on TV. Nothing.

She stepped inside. No sirens went off, no flashing alarm. Jenny was such an odd duck. She’d had this entire house to herself for years, but she kept her workstation with all the computers, printers, scanners, whatever, on one side of the bedroom, leaving little space for the antique spool bed and dresser.

The bed was neatly made with a light quilt pulled taut. A clock and a book called
Chaos
by James Gleick were on the night table.

Arden turned to the end of the room occupied by desks, tables, computers, and other electronic devices. Jenny had tied a color-coded plastic tab around each cord corresponding to the color-coded list of machines they connected. Of course she had.