“So what was it like back then?”
Max readjusted his toothpick and looked at the horizon. “It was different. Used to be people wanted to be here. And now, well, now I guess they’re forced to. That makes a difference. But this here, this view, it’s the same. It’s the one thing that never changes.”
What I wanted him to tell me about was the in-between years after the hotel had closed. Where had Max been then? But before I could ask him, the door behind us swung open, and Mr. Noble emerged. He stood with his back to the railing, admiring the Fresnel lens.
“It’s a lot of work, but she’s worth it,” he said.
Something about Mr. Noble looked different. Perhaps it was that some color had come into his complexion, or that his coat added strength to his otherwise sickly appearance. But no, that wasn’t it either. It was the lighthouse. He looked at home here, like a wandering protagonist who had finally been dropped into the right story.
“You never know,” he mused. “Perhaps there are still a few wayward travelers out there somewhere. Perhaps, even in this day and age, Raker’s light can guide a few lost souls back home.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “This is the crown jewel, gentlemen. It’s beauties like these that ended the careers of many men, my great-grandfather among them.”
“I thought he worked all those years on that island?” I said.
“Thirty-eight years and not a day less,” Mr. Noble replied, never taking his eyes off the Fresnel lens. “And he would have worked longer, had they let him. But electricity came to Robbins Reef in the twenties, and with radar to boot, the Lighthouse Service didn’t need as many men.” He sighed. “Like they say, nothing lasts forever.”
When Mr. Noble took his cap off, I noticed lettering engraved on the emblem.
“The Keepers of Dawn,” I read aloud. “What’s that?”
“That is what my great-grandfather, along with a dozen or so other light keepers, had engraved in their emblems after the Lighthouse Service let them go. They started a movement to preserve their profession. They wanted to go back to the way things were. All those years lighting the night sky, of preserving at least a glimmer of the dawn, and they didn’t know how to live without it. Something very dear had been taken from them, and they fought with everything they had to not let it go.”
Mr. Noble ran his thumb over the emblem before putting his cap back on.
“Have you ever lost something so dear to you, that you would do anything to get it back?” he asked, looking in my direction.
Instead of replying, I looked to the horizon where the coastline hemmed in the Atlantic. All at once I felt something inside me constrict, and I gripped the railing to resist the onset of vertigo. The longer I stared, the more it looked like the coastline was retreating, as if all of Raker Island had broken loose and was drifting out to sea.
“No, I suppose not,” Mr. Noble surmised, his words bringing me back. “You’re probably too young for that.”
I remained on the catwalk long after Max had returned to the lantern room. Even when Mr. Noble said a quick goodbye, my eyes never left the horizon. But it seemed that wherever I looked, the Coast Guardsman’s departing words kept running through my mind.
“The past is a nice place to visit, but it’s not somewhere I’d ever want to live.”
CHAPTER 19: PROCURING CONTRABAND
The allure of girls coming to Raker wasn’t the reason I returned to the beach. Chris had pegged me as the sentimental type from day one, and he must have known I would want to see him off. Once he had access to a boat, there would be no stopping him from escaping the island. He was going to leave Wellington on his own terms, but not before breaking as many rules as possible.
Though the poplars and sugar maples had lost most their leaves, the undergrowth and thorns were still abundant. The remaining foliage still held its green—no autumnal browns or yellows like on Long Island—as if the change of seasons had taken the island by surprise. The sky to the south had darkened by the time I reached the cliffs. The sun shone brokenly through the clouds, and the air had a heaviness that precedes a storm. The Anvil looked harmless in the distance, the waves breaking around it resembling white frays at the edge of a vast blue rug.
I found Roland beneath the cedar that overlooked the final cliff. He was peering intently through Derek’s binoculars and didn’t notice me until I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Jake! Hey, didn’t think you’d show.”
“Where’s Chris?”
“At the beach with Derek.”
“Surprised you aren’t with them.”
“Got stuck guarding this,” he said, shaking the rope. “He’s paranoid they’ll take it like they did the other one.”
“Soldier,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m relieving you of your post.”
No sooner had those words left my mouth and Roland was putting on the gloves. “That’s great, Jake. That really is. You sure you don’t mind?”
“You kidding? I never want to see that place again.”
“Never thought of that,” he said, handing me the binoculars. “I just don’t want to miss anything.” He backed toward the edge as he talked, hardly noticing when the rope took his weight. “Holly, that’s Derek’s girl. She’s bringing some friends.”
He was already fifteen feet down, descending in leaps and bounds that would have made any military academy proud. “Kowabunga!” he called upon reaching the bottom.
Though I had come to see Chris off, I didn’t deny the rush of adrenaline that went through me when the boat appeared. The unthinkable was about to happen: girls were coming to Raker Island. Not a football player’s girlfriend, or a reporter covering the debate, but real girls our own age. They appeared on the horizon as if by magic, making me forget, at least for the moment, what Wellington would be like once Chris was gone.
I watched through the binoculars as the white boat cut through the waves. The girls’ ebullient voices and lighthearted laughter carried up the cliff and set my imagination in motion. Before I could stop myself, I had conjured up a dozen different faces, each more beautiful than the last.
The girls squealed from the cold water as they ran ashore. A sort of dance ensued, with the two groups tiptoeing around each other, skirting the edge of an invisible boundary that diminished with time.
“How long are they planning on staying?” I wondered aloud when one of the girls returned to the boat and waved goodbye. Then she guided the boat through the breakers and sped out of sight. Chris, Roland and Derek led the remaining four girls beneath the bare-limbed cedars toward the base of the cliff.
Chris was the first to make the climb. “Thought I’d seen the last of you,” he said, dusting himself off.
“You couldn’t be so lucky. How’d you get out?”
“There’s no stopping a man once he’s decided to go AWOL. Other than class, they only let me out to shit, shower and shave. Even had me sleeping in the same room as Henderson.” He paused long enough to light a cigarette. “So this morning I went to take a shower,” he said, flicking his wrist to extinguish the match. “And never came back. Henderson was out watching a helicopter land, or something. For all I know, he still thinks I’m in the shower.”
“When are you going back?”
“Never. I figure I’ll live off the land. You know, get a little fishing pole, plant some crops, maybe stone a few gulls and roast them over a fire. I mean, what can society offer me, anyway? I’ll be like that Robert Frost guy, sitting around his pond, hugging trees and loving nature.”
“You mean Thoreau?”
“Whoever. But tonight,” Chris said, his eyes lighting up. “Tonight, young Jake, boys will become men. We’re going to have what’s known as … a slumber party.”
“They’re staying the night? Here?”
Chris was peering over the cliff to where Derek was tying what resembled a harness around one of the girls. “Hey! Hurry up down there!” he shouted. “Stop flirting and start climbing!
”
“Think about it,” he told me. “We’re out here on this island that’s getting talked up in the news. The way I figure, we’re local celebrities and we don’t even know it. It’s all about mystery, Jake. If a girl thinks you’re mysterious, she’ll see you as a romantic. And they’re plenty curious about us.”
Chris filled me in on the details while we waited. Instead of relying on stealth, the girls were going to walk straight through Wellington’s front door. Thanks to the debate, the sound of high heels crossing the lobby’s marble floor no longer drew the attention it once had. Who would question students from Miskapaug High writing a debate article for their school paper?
They would enter the school shortly after the five o’clock bus arrived, making it appear that they had taken the ferry. Once inside, they would proceed to the auditorium, and if approached, would request an interview. They had even brought notebooks and a tape recorder to play the part. Once in the auditorium, they would go to the upper balcony and out the service door to a hallway that led to Kirkland Hall.
“But won’t they look for you in Roland’s room?” I asked.
Chris was guiding Holly up the first ledge. With most of her weight suspended in the harness, she scrambled up the rocks as best she could, stopping every so often to catch her breath and peer up at us with terrified eyes.
“All our rooms are off-limits,” Chris said, having some difficulty handling the rope while smoking. “Lawson knows my hangouts. But he doesn’t know about the Fuhrman brothers.”
“Who?”
“Gabe and Nick Fuhrman. They’re friends of Roland’s. Oh man, you’re gonna love this. Gabe’s our prefect, so he’s got a room to himself, and his brother, Nick, is right next door. They’re both pretty straight shooters, but Gabe has chosen to overlook Wellington’s no-pet policy. Get this. They each have a hamster.” Chris shrugged. “Everybody’s got their vice. They both went home this weekend, as well as Gregor, Nick’s roommate. The icing on the cake is that they asked Roland to check in on their hamsters while they’re gone, which makes their rooms party central.”
I helped Chris pull Holly up the rest of the way.
“Hi,” she said, somewhat bashfully after Chris engulfed her in a hug like they were old friends. She had blond, feathered hair with full bangs, her plain features offset by sparkling blue eyes that lit up her face whenever she smiled. She was out of breath from the climb, and her hands shook as she tried unsuccessfully to free herself from the harness. The climb had put quite a scare into her, but she seemed resolved to smile her way through it, as if this striking feature could get her through anything.
“You must be Jake,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“He might seem shy at first,” Chris said, slapping me on the back, “but Jake’s the sexiest man alive.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” Holly said, her smile getting wider.
The next girl to make the climb, Allison, smelled strongly of perfume and was prettier than I expected. Her short, dark hair was knocked out of place from the wind, a single motionless lock hanging down over one eye. There was something tomboyish about how she didn’t straighten it or tuck it behind her ear to get it out of the way. She didn’t seem to mind when Chris gave her a hug, and she laughed when he seductively untied the harness from her waist.
I knew right away Elizabeth was going to be a handful. Her dark cap kept blowing off her head, and she let out a bird-like screech when we lifted her off the ground. Despite Holly and Allison shouting their encouragement, I don’t think she opened her eyes once, not even when her cap blew off, nearly getting caught in one of the cedars before falling into Roland’s outstretched hands. When she finally reached the top, she was so overjoyed to find the ground beneath her feet that she leapt into the arms of her girlfriends.
Compared to Elizabeth, Kate took surprisingly little effort to pull up. She climbed most of the way on her own, only allowing us to lift her the last fifteen feet. Though by no means unattractive, Kate was ordinary compared to the other girls. Instead of being scared or excited, she looked disappointed over not finishing the climb unassisted. And as if he somehow knew she would disapprove, Chris didn’t greet her with a hug or even offer to untie her harness.
In the distance, clouds had collected over the horizon. Thunderheads towered over the ocean with dark shadows of rain suspended beneath them.
After Derek and Roland had joined us (Roland wore Elizabeth’s hat on the climb up and then gallantly returned it to her), Derek lifted up the girls’ packs, which he had fastened to the end of the rope.
“How long you staying?” he asked, pulling the bulging packs over the edge. “A month?”
“We brought you a surprise,” Holly said, rummaging through her pack.
“Surprise?” Chris said. “I like surprises.”
Holly pulled out a bottle of tequila. “You didn’t expect us to crash your party empty-handed, did ya?”
“You better hold on to this one,” Chris told Derek, putting his arm around Holly.
“You can thank Allison,” Holly said. “She raided her dad’s stash. We got some beer too, but it’s not very cold.”
“How did you guys find this place?” Kate asked, looking up at the continuation of cliffs.
“You’d be amazed what you do to keep entertained,” Derek said.
“How far is it to the school?” Elizabeth asked, squinting into the wind like it was her enemy. When a strong gust rattled the branches, she put a hand on top of her cap.
“Not that far,” Roland assured her. “Maybe half a mile.” But when Elizabeth’s eyes widened, he added, “Probably less than that. A quarter mile at the most.”
“And how exactly do we get back down?” Elizabeth asked, inching her way to the edge and peering over.
On the way back, the girls became fascinated with the most commonplace things. Elizabeth was constantly taking pictures with her camera, making us wait for the sun to peek through the clouds. Their barrage of questions seemed to reaffirm Chris’ statement of their curiosity. But perhaps just as our interest lay in the challenge of smuggling them into our rooms, they seemed more curious about the island itself than they did us. They acted like they were on a weekend getaway, like the Hotel Nouveau was back in operation and we were their tour guides. The fact that we were taking a great risk didn’t concern them in the slightest. They were giddy with excitement (with perhaps the exception of Kate), talking and giggling incessantly. Anything and everything was a joke, and we laughed right along with them.
Kate and I were behind the others, relatively close to one another, but somehow alone, not quite accepting the other’s company. Kate needed no help climbing over rocks or carrying her backpack. If anything, she fared better than I did. Height was the only category I had her in, but as it was a gangly, awkward height, it didn’t seem to count for much.
We veered from our regular path, circling through the trees to where the road approached the school. The girls went behind some bushes to freshen up and change into more appropriate clothing for their upcoming “interview.” We kept our eyes on the road, doing our best to ignore all the whispering and giggling behind us. Overhead, fast moving clouds crossed the island. The sky to the south was an ominous black.
When the girls returned, it was like a small miracle had occurred. Jeans and sweatshirts had been replaced with skirts and high heels. Allison was wearing a particularly tight blouse that got Chris grinning like a shark. Elizabeth’s cap now went with a burgundy shawl, and Holly was wearing a jean jacket. Kate was the only exception. Still in jeans and a pullover, the only change was a mud stain on one knee.
“The tequila spilled, so unless you want me smelling like a bar, I better not change,” she said.
“Somebody slap me, ’cause I must be dreaming,” Chris said, eyeing the girls over.
“Oh this is no dream, honey,” Holly said in an exaggerated voice. “It’s a friendly welcome from the girls of Miskapaug High to the—”
“Island savages,” Derek finished.
“Yes, the island savages!” Chris declared.
Roland hunched over and started to circle the girls while patting his open palm to his mouth. “Hey-ah-ho-ah-hey-ah.”
“What is he doing?” Holly asked.
“I think he’s supposed to be an Indian,” Elizabeth said, and then squealed with laughter.
“Don’t let him get too close,” Chris warned. “He might try to show you his totem pole.”
This got everyone laughing. But Roland, still chanting, circled the girls a final time before going over to Chris and pretending to scalp him with an imaginary knife. Kate rolled her eyes and smiled in my direction.
We carried on like this until the sound of an approaching vehicle prompted us to take cover. After the bus had driven by, the girls stepped out onto the gravel road. With tape recorders and notebooks in hand, and several uncertain looks back in our direction, they made their way toward the parked bus.
Derek, Roland and myself entered the school a few moments later. We were to proceed to Gabe Fuhrman’s room and throw a rope of strung-together bed sheets out the window so Chris could climb up. I got to carry Kate’s backpack, which I was rather proud of, though it carried the faint aroma of tequila.
It took an amazingly short amount of time for things to go wrong. We were passing through the lobby when we saw the girls in the administrative office along with a few reporters who had arrived on the bus. Why hadn’t they gone immediately to the auditorium? We huddled around a striated marble bust of a pensive man with a severe expression—perhaps one of the school’s previous headmasters—and discussed, as discretely as possible, the best course of action. We decided that Roland would continue to Gabe’s room, while Derek and I waited in the lobby.
After Roland had left, the two of us settled into one of the sofas and maintained a vigilant watch on the administrative offices. My blood went cold when Mr. Lawson stepped out of his office and approached the girls.
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