Island Girls (23 page)

“I wish I could meet them,” Jenny admitted hesitantly.

“You do? Yes, of course you do, it’s a natural instinct. All right, then, you shall. We’ll arrange it. Not until after August, I think. You’ve got enough drama going on for the summer, and I have some plans myself. Vacation, I mean, nothing as exciting as what you’re up to. But I need time to contemplate all I’ve come to learn today.”

Jenny froze. Perhaps he thought she was unstable, impulsive, even a bit daft, showing up as she had at his office, clear out of the blue without so much as an introductory phone call or note, and now knowing the crazy thing she’d done with the house. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to be associated with her.

As if reading her thoughts, Chivers reached over and patted her hand. “Jenny, I am so glad you found me. I hope we will stay in touch for the rest of our lives. I believe I’m a more deliberate man than your stepfather, but I am a resolute man. You can trust
me. Now that we are in each other’s lives, we will remain that way.”

She would not make any kind of a scene in this elegant restaurant, with her distinguished father sitting across from her, but she could not hold back the tears. She carefully removed her hand from the table so she could open her purse, find a tissue, and wipe her eyes.

“Thank you,” she told him quietly. “I would like that more than I can say.”

Meg awoke in a strange bed. It took her a moment to realize she was at Liam’s. She’d been in his apartment before, but never in his bedroom. She closed her eyes again, allowing herself to savor the moment. The aroma of warm male next to her, and the sound of his breath. The appearance of his room, all navy blue and antique wood, elegant, as he was.

The memory of their night in bed together. The words they had murmured to each other. Words of love.

Liam shifted next to her in the bed. “Good morning.” He bent to kiss her.

“Morning breath,” she warned.

“Me, too,” he told her, and then they didn’t talk again for a long time.

She showered and dressed while he prepared a light breakfast of coffee, bagels, and cream cheese.

“I have to go back to Nantucket today,” she told him.

“You’re sure?”

“Because of our father’s silly inheritance clause. It’s not for much longer. Just till the end of August. Will you come down and visit me?”

“How many times can I come?” he asked. When she blushed
at his double entendre, he said, “Would you like me to drive you back to your apartment?”

“That would be good. I have to pick up a few discs and folders I need for my book.”

“How are you getting back to the island?”

“Jenny’s going to pick me up around ten thirty, so we can make the one o’clock fast ferry.”

“Okay, then, I guess I’d better let you go.”

“No,” Meg said. “Don’t let me go.” She blushed again. She wasn’t used to flirting with him in this delicate, amorous way. She certainly wasn’t used to sitting across the table from him in a low-cut sundress.

He drove her to the Victorian house and stopped in front.

“Shall I see you in?”

“Thank you, no.” It seemed they couldn’t stop gazing at each other, smiling at each other. “I think I can find my way from here.”

She put her hand on the car door.

“Meg.” Reaching out, he took her arm and turned her toward him. “This isn’t a frivolous thing we’ve got here, you know.” She nodded, close to tears.

“It’s as serious as it gets,” he continued. “At least it is for me.”

“And for me.”

Leaning forward, he kissed her. “I’ll see you soon. And please, buy more of those dresses.”

She laughed and nearly skipped from the car, up the walk, and into the house. Had she ever been this happy? She didn’t think so. She fairly flew up the stairs to her room at the top, unlocked it, and went in. She needed to find—oh, where had she left that one folder on the Paris art exhibition? As she rummaged through the piles of paper on the ornate antique table she’d bought for a desk, she remembered she’d left the folder at the college.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she set off for the college, only a few blocks away, where even her small cell of an office was centrally air-conditioned. She could check any snail mail that had piled up in her absence, find the folders, and be back home in time for Jenny to pick her up.

The main building housing the college’s administrative offices was a dignified edifice of brick and stone built in the early nineteen hundreds by a flourishing national men’s club that by 1970 no longer had any local members. The state bought it and refurbished it, constructing less attractive cement block wings for classrooms and instructors’ offices. Later on, plantings had been added to soften the harshness of the annexes, and now in summer, trees and bushes cast a lush green shadow over the sidewalk as Meg took a shortcut to the door to the liberal arts section.

She had just stepped inside, onto the hideous gray-green linoleum, which must have been bought at discount, when she heard her name called.

“Meg! Just the person I want to see!”

Meg froze in place. It was Eleanor Littleton, PhD, head of the liberal arts department. A brilliant woman with a quick wit and a depth of knowledge, she had not been equally blessed with beauty. But she had great charm and genuine respect for the college and its students.

Meg turned. “Eleanor. Hello.”

Eleanor came down the hall toward Meg, carrying, as usual, a stack of folders up against her bosom. She wore a plain tan sleeveless dress and sensible heels.

“I thought you were gone for the summer,” Eleanor said. “And don’t you look pretty.”

“Thanks. I
was
gone. Well, I am. I just returned for a day or so.”

“I’m glad. I want to talk with you about something. Come with me.”

They strolled side by side down the long, empty hallway, chatting about easy topics—the weather, the Red Sox, new books—until they entered Eleanor’s large and precisely organized office.

“Sit down, dear.” Eleanor gestured toward a chair as she took her own behind her desk.

Dear
, Meg thought. That was a good sign.

Stacks of folders, papers, and envelopes covered Eleanor’s desk, but they were neatly arranged, edges tidily aligned, topped with colorful paperweights. Eleanor crossed her arms on her desk and said, “I’ll get right to the point. Your freshman writing students perform better on national exams than the students from any other class in this college.”

“Oh!” Meg smiled, pleased.

“I’ve been looking at the syllabus, reading assignments, and worksheets you’ve compiled for your students. I’m impressed.”

“Thank y—”

Eleanor held up her hand. “Wait. I’ve talked this over with the dean of liberal arts, and we’ve come up with a plan. Writing is not the favorite subject of many of our students, but it is the most necessary. Many of our students are ESL, or come from high schools with abominably low standards, or have been out of school for a long time. But you know all that.”

Meg nodded.

“Frank and I want you to turn your class material into a bound document that we can distribute to all our freshman writing instructors.”

Meg’s jaw dropped.

“We understand this will take some work on your part. We’re prepared to compensate you in two ways. First, we’re offering you tenure as a full professor. Second, we’ll increase your salary.”

Meg was speechless.

“We wouldn’t expect you to have it completed until the beginning
of the spring semester in February. We would expect you to continue to carry your teaching load as well as put the text together. You’ll have the rest of the summer, and the month of January during midwinter break. Do you think you can do it?”

Meg bit her lower lip, thinking of her cherished May Alcott project. She was so far along; she couldn’t abandon it now. But it was a stunning compliment to her that both Frank Ruffalo and Eleanor Littleton found her freshman writing preparations so good they wanted to turn them into a textbook used by the entire freshman writing faculty. And tenure? And a raise? Why was she even hesitating? She would find a way to do it all. The fall semester would have plenty of weekends and evenings when she could work.

“Eleanor, I’m so pleased.” As the realization of it all set in—tenure!—she wanted to jump from her chair and perform a victory dance, but attempted to retain her dignity. “It’s wonderful to know my students have done so well, comparatively. You know I’m committed to this college and to working with these students. I’d be so glad to have tenure, and of course to have a raise.”

Eleanor clapped her hands on the desktop. “Well, great. Just what I was hoping you’d say. Now, what I propose is that you work on this directly through me. Some of our other instructors are going to feel slighted by this, or at least propose suggestions, additions, alterations. You could be overwhelmed with politics, egos, suck-ups, and so on. Don’t deal with any of them. Tell everyone to come straight to me.”

Meg’s eyes went wide. “Oh. I hadn’t even thought.… But do you want to deal with all that?”

Eleanor smiled her endearing crooked grin. “Absolutely. You’re good at teaching, I’m good at administrating. Frank and I are thinking that once the handbook’s completed, you might teach a couple of seminars to our instructors before each term
begins. So we don’t want them to hate you. It’s fine if they hate me.”

“Eleanor, you’re amazing.”

“Hah. Thanks. I’m experienced, that’s what I am. I’ve been doing this a long time. Also, I go to conferences where we discuss research on negotiation and strategy. Most of all, I’ve learned not to take campus politics personally. If I want to get things done, I’ve got to be prepared to take the flack. For our less fortunate students, education can be an economic challenge, but it’s nevertheless an absolute necessity. We need to make adult education as appealing as possible, which you do in your classes.”

Eleanor stood up and extended a hand across the desk. “You realize the tenure bit has to be passed by a committee,
blah blah blah
, but consider it done. I’ll start e-mailing you about the composition syllabus soon.”

Meg shook her hand. By the time she’d turned to leave the office, Eleanor was tapping numbers into her phone.

Back at her own office, Meg just sat for a few minutes, giving herself time to absorb it all. Tenure. A raise. A book! She was a good teacher. She was a
really
good teacher!

She wanted to celebrate.

And she wanted to celebrate with Liam, who would know exactly how fabulous this all was.

Jenny and Meg agreed to remain on the mainland for one more day, and Meg told Jenny she’d make her own way to the island by bus and boat or plane. They arrived home to find that Arden had prepared a picnic dinner for the three of them. Once Jenny and Meg had unpacked and caught up with their e-mail, they slipped into shorts and tank tops, piled the Jeep with coolers, blankets, and baskets of food, and drove the long six miles to Madaket. This area of the island was the least known, because on Nantucket, six miles was considered far away, especially when you could bike or walk from town to several other beaches.

They got up to a speedy forty-five miles an hour on the straight part of the road, but closer to the western tip of the island, the road curved, and after they passed the creek leading to Long Pond, where several boys were crabbing, they slowed to maneuver the curves. Handsome shingled houses lined the two-lane road, creating a small village with even narrower roads leading off to Madaket Marine and the harbor on the calm, less surfy Nantucket
Sound side. They parked near a tremendous sand dune that rose up like a shifting wall between the paved road and the long stretch of white-gold beach on the west side of the spit of land.

Lugging the coolers and beach blankets and baskets, they went barefoot up the dune and down, and along the sweeping western finger of the island. Their feet sank into the warm sand. In the distance, a group of people were gathered for their own picnic, but since few families with children ever came here, where the surf was rough and treacherous, much of the beach was empty and quiet.

They set up camp, helping one another flap out the big blanket, holding down each corner with a cooler or basket, and finally, flopping down onto the blanket to ponder the blue Atlantic. It was calm today, as if stunned by the summer heat, and the surf rolled in lazily, making gentle shushing sounds.

Meg got to her knees, opened her beach bag, and brought out a bottle of champagne. “Now,” she began.

“What?” Jenny asked. “Champagne? Wait! I brought champagne, too.” She opened her cooler and took out a bottle.

Arden laughed. “So did I. Plus,” she added smugly, “I brought glasses.”

“Did anyone bring any food?” Jenny asked.

“Of course.” Meg opened her basket to display a platter of cheese, crackers, and fruits. “I’ve got sandwiches, too.”

“But
champagne
,” Arden said. “We each brought champagne? What’s going on?”

Meg puffed out her chest. “Meet the new
tenured
head of freshman English at Sudbury College.”

“Congratulations!” Jenny said.

“That’s wonderful,” Arden agreed. “I’m not sure how you went to see Liam and ended up with tenure, though.”

“I saw Liam, too.” Meg smirked. “How can I put this …? My new style was a great success.” Suddenly her cheeks were red. “I
spent both nights with him. We talked so much about so many serious things. I think—I believe he loves me. I know I love him. And I don’t think I’d have had the courage to take this risk and trust if you two hadn’t helped me believe in myself. If you hadn’t helped me sort of reinvent myself. So thank you.” Fearing she’d sounded sappy, she hurriedly asked, “Arden, why have you brought champagne?”

Arden said, “First, a toast to you, Meg.” She poured the bubbly.

The sisters toasted and sipped, toasted and sipped again. They sat back, Indian-style, legs crossed in front of them, like Girl Scouts by a campfire as they talked. Arden explained about Palmer’s offer of a job in Houston.

“But Arden,” Meg said with a pout. “Houston’s so far away!”