Lighthouse Beach

by Shelley Noble

  “Actually, it was Allie. I know we did the right thing.”

  “I’ll just put on some more coffee,” Mac said, and headed for the sink.

  Allie came around the table and sat down beside Jess. “Did we make you do something you don’t want to do?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Well,” Mac said, drying her hands on a dish towel before tossing it on the counter, “while you girls discuss it, Lillo and I will get out some breakfast things from the pantry. Allie, you’re in charge of coffee. It beeps when it’s ready.”

  Lillo rolled her eyes, but Allie merely said, “Yes, ma’am,” and got up to watch the pot.

  Mac lifted her chin and Lillo followed her to the back porch and an adjacent walk-in pantry where shelves of preserved food, the deep freezer, and the second fridge lived.

  As soon as they were in the pantry, Mac switched on the light and turned to Lillo. “What’s going on with you, girl?”

  “Me?” Lillo asked, surprised. “I went to a wedding that I didn’t want to go to, then got lassoed into abducting the bride-to-be because I was the only one with transportation. And now they’re thinking about going back?”

  “You forgot the part about the flat tire.”

  “Yeah, we had a flat. I had to stand out in the rain to change it—”

  Mac dipped her chin, her pants-on-fire chin-o-meter: the lower the chin, the bigger the lie detected. Mac’s chin was practically resting on her chest.

  “Okay, Ned and his band of merry do-gooders stopped and insisted on finishing the job.”

  “After he had to wrestle you for the lug wrench, the anorexic runaway bride attacked him with the damn thing, and all he got was a wave good-bye.”

  “It was raining. I guess you heard all this from Clancy before he left.”

  “Ayuh.” Mac opened the fridge and pulled out a dozen eggs, bacon, and a gallon of orange juice and set them on a chopping block next to the fridge.

  Lillo eyed the food skeptically. “I think you might be overly optimistic with all that breakfast stuff. Jess’s practically anorexic. Diana, big business person from Manhattan, probably only eats free-range egg whites, and wouldn’t be caught dead near a carb or fat or salt or—” She stopped. “Though she did make quick work of an order of nachos … was it only last night?”

  “Can you see what preserves are up on the top shelf? I think I still have some strawberry and maybe some blackberry. Strawberry season is almost upon us again. Now, where’s that butter?” She reached back into the fridge. “You know, Lillo. This would be an excellent opportunity to … oh, I don’t know … break out of this rut you’re in. Ah, there it is.” Mac added a container of hand-churned butter to the growing pile.

  “I’m not in a rut.”

  Mac’s chin-o-meter went to work.

  “The way I live is my choice.”

  “And a bad one, if you ask me.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Oh, don’t get all huffy. Just give it a try. If they decide to stay, enjoy the weekend. Sit out on the beach. Talk about whatever women your age talk about these days.”

  It sounded so normal. “I have no idea what they talk about. Diana designs apps.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, for your phone.”

  “Oh.”

  “Allie is a vintner.”

  “I know what that is. So make some app–etizers and drink some wine. Have a blast.”

  “And if Jess wants to go back and marry that jerk?”

  Mac shrugged. “You’ll have to drive them back. But I hope they talk her out of it. He sounds like a real donkey’s backside.” She began stacking the food on Lillo’s outstretched hands. “It’ll do you good.”

  “No, it won’t. They can’t stay with me. They all have money, lots of it. Diana was going to spend the next week at an expensive spa, Jess was going to Aruba for her honeymoon, Allie lives on thousands of acres in a huge house. Instead they’re here, staying at my cottage, which if it were any smaller would be a tiny house.”

  “It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

  “Don’t mention him. One tiny bathroom, hardly enough room for Thumbelina, much less four adult women with cases of makeup and beauty products … well, three women with beauty products, I have shampoo and soap.”

  “I’ll leave the back door open. They can use my bathroom. Having them here will do you good. And I’m thinking it will do them good, too. For sure, it will do me good. You’re not the only one trying to figure out the meaning of life.”

  “Oh, give me a break.”

  “Well, what else do you want to call it?”

  Lillo hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  Mac repositioned the butter on top of the food Lillo was holding. “How ’bout … starting over?”

  “Mac.”

  “Ayuh. It’ll be just like the old days. People filling the kitchen, hungry for food and conversation.”

  And safety, thought Lillo. And here they were again. “And what if, like the good old days, the Parkers descend on us with goons and a lawsuit?”

  Mac turned a crooked-tooth grin on her. “Oh, they won’t. The camp no longer exists, your parents have moved to Florida, and no one here knows your whereabouts, especially not this weekend when the whole town knows you’ve gone to Kennebunkport.”

  “Until someone sees me skulking about town.”

  “O ye of little faith. What do you think living on this island is all about?”

  Mac took the eggs and carried them out. Lillo followed, turning off the light switch with her elbow and closing the pantry door with her foot. She should have joined the circus as an acrobat instead of wasting all that money preparing for a career that would never be.

  Lillo and Mac literally ran into Diana coming out of the kitchen. “Hey, I came out to the porch to see if I could get cell reception,” Diana said, sounding like a cruise director and dressed like she was ready for drinks in the Hamptons.

  “Uh-huh,” Mac said. “I have a landline you can use.”

  “Thanks, if this doesn’t work …” Diana moved over to let Mac pass, but when Lillo followed, she herded her off to the side and to the far end of the porch. “I think we’d better make a trip to the clinic,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Jess is in a lot of pain and I’m afraid she’s about to cave and go home.”

  “Great.” Why was Lillo not surprised. Jess had never been able to stand up to her parents, or anybody else, for that matter.

  “I assume that was a satiric ‘great’ and you’re not happy about it.”

  Lillo blew out air. “If she’s going to cave, it would be better to cave now and get her back in time for the wedding.”

  Diana took Lillo by the elbow and Lillo had to juggle the jam, the bread, the bacon, and the butter to keep from dropping them.

  “Look, Jess has her problems, I get it. She can be a big pain in the butt with her lack of backbone, but she’s a loyal friend. I don’t want her to make the biggest mistake of her life, because once she marries that fu—oaf, she’ll never get away from her family or her lack of self-esteem. She’ll live in total humiliation and she’ll take it because she doesn’t know how not to.

  “She called you because she needed you. Not me or Allie. We would have come anyway. We were sorority sisters. At college, she wasn’t like this. She studied hard, she had ambition; a passion, if you will. We were on our way up in the corporate world. Then the parents got on to the marriage thing. Totally blew everything she’d worked for.”

  Allie’s head appeared in the doorway. “Mac says she needs the bacon.”

  “On my way,” said Lillo, and tried to sidestep Diana.

  Diana followed her, saying into her ear, “Please. Give her one more chance.”

  Lillo stopped, stared at Diana. Really studied her. She wanted to ask, What’s in it for you? Successful, obviously rich, and comfortable in her own skin. Why did she want to help Jess Parker, rich, spineless, harmless—

 
; Why did Lillo?

  “I wish we were sisters.”

  “Me too. I could come live in your mansion in Boston and have lots of clothes.”

  “No, we could live here in this comfy house at the beach, and your mom would make French toast.”

  “Burned around the edges.”

  “That’s my favorite part. My mother never makes French toast … or anything else.”

  “That’s stupid. You have a cook that can make you everything you want.”

  “Not everything. Especially not French toast.” And Jess had cried.

  Lillo swallowed, as if that could stop the memory—the remorse of that memory. The sick burn of wishing she had been more understanding, even then.

  To a chubby, unloved girl, French toast was the embodiment of someone loving her. Even burned French toast. Lillo hadn’t understood then. She did now. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “Let us stay here for a few days, maybe a week. I know it’s an imposition and you don’t really want to be stuck with us. But I need time to de-brainwash Jess again and then get her to come to work for me. Once she’s back on a normal track, making her own money again, she’ll be able to see the future more clearly.”

  Lillo wasn’t optimistic; she’d spent several summers bolstering Jess’s self-esteem only to have her return the following year, back to being the same human pincushion she’d been before. It was tiring. And yet they’d had wonderful months together. Explored nature and the nature of their hearts. Hormones and heartaches and hopes for their futures.

  Together they’d made great plans, shared deep secrets, and enjoyed their girlhood. But apart … Jess never escaped her family’s demands and expectations. Lillo’s parents gave up everything for her to go to medical school. Two ends of the spectrum, and they’d both failed miserably. Jess still couldn’t please her parents, and Lillo? Lillo had totally betrayed hers.

  “So?” Diana had stepped back, almost as if to give Lillo space for her memories.

  “Okay. But first we’ll make sure this is what she really wants, and that she wasn’t just swayed by our desire to help her.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 5

  Ned’s eyes were gritty when he stumbled downstairs after too little sleep. He’d been so tempted to ignore the alarm and take another hour or two. As it was, he’d set the snooze button twice. He didn’t allow himself a third twenty minutes. There would be people waiting before the clinic even opened. And if you started behind, you got worse behind before the day was over.

  There was no sign of Ian; either he was out with the animals or finally sleeping. Seemed like nothing ever changed with him, nothing got worse or better. Ned snagged an apple out of the basket on the kitchen counter. It was bruised and probably mealy, and on its way to the horses.

  Well, Ned would be sure to thank them later. He took a bite out of it. Yep, mealy, the end of the winter’s store. But it would go a ways to quelling the pangs of hunger assaulting his stomach. It had been a long time, several beers, and a rainstorm since his last meal.

  Hopefully Agnes would have the coffee on. He’d ask her to send out for a sandwich or something. Kyle at the pub would have someone send it over. And Mac would be making her lobster stew for tonight. She always invited him over the first night the guys came to town. Later there would be a clambake or something for all of them. His stomach growled.

  He clamped his teeth on the soft apple while he zipped up his windbreaker, and shook the moisture off his helmet before shoving it on his head. Finished the bite of apple as he trotted down the porch steps.

  By the time he stowed his bag in the hard case on his Harley, there was nothing of the apple but the core. He thought, What the hell, and ate that, too.

  It was chilly under the trees surrounding the clearing in front of Ian’s house. When the Grays owned the house and camp, you could see the ocean from the front yard. And a swim was a short run down the hill to the beach. But Ian liked his solitude and he’d let the brush grow wild.

  Doc shook his head and climbed onto the bike. Ian liked his solitude too much. But what could you do? He started up the Harley and headed down the drive, breathing in the fresh after-a-rain air.

  He wouldn’t have this if he worked in an office, kept regular practice hours, and spent several days a week doing surgery. There were plenty of those doctors. The people of Lighthouse Beach and people like them needed health care. And it was a mite easier to bring the doctor to them than try to get them to travel to the nearest health-care facility.

  He rode into town and down Main Street, all two and a half blocks of it. Town was bustling. Old Man Rafferty lifted his hand from the rocker on the porch of the general store. Barbara Carroll made sure to be standing in the doorway of her consignment shop.

  He lifted his chin to several other locals, and a block later turned onto a narrow street of shingle and shake houses. A crowd had already formed outside the door of the two-story fisherman’s house that served as the clinic. News traveled fast in Lighthouse Beach and it looked like it was going to be a busy day.

  Doc rode the Harley around to the back and parked in the narrow strip of dirt behind the house. It looked like he’d beaten Clancy to work, but the back door was open. Good. Agnes had already arrived. He jogged up the steps to what had originally been the kitchen but now served as both kitchenette and storage overflow.

  The chaos was less than when he’d last been here. Agnes Tucker had been busy. Receptionist, soother of owies, and holder of nervous hands, coffeemaker and cleaning lady, Agnes ran the part-time clinic like a benevolent drill sergeant. And never accepted the smallest token of payment from the day she was “hired.”

  “It’s every man and woman’s duty to help out where they’re needed. You and Clancy Farrow know that and so do I.” How could they argue with that? Even when they tried to share the lobsters, the jars of homemade preserves, the heads of cabbage that people brought in payment, she’d politely refuse. She did hang the drawings of the children they treated on the walls. She saved every single one and soon the waiting room walls were so filled with pictures they had to continue them into the hallway.

  Not only was it a nice gesture on Agnes’s part, but also a brilliant move, because it kept anxious children busily employed looking for their pictures and those of their friends while they waited for their appointments.

  Coffee was made and smelled fresh. He poured a mug and went out to tell Agnes to open for business.

  He was savoring his first sip of strong Maine coffee when he opened the door to the waiting room and stopped dead. The room was packed. He could see the line of people waiting outside through the window.

  “Good morning, Doc.”

  “Mornin’, Doc.”

  “Welcome back, Doc.”

  “Good to see ya.”

  Agnes waved to him from her desk. She scooted her chair back, took a stack of folders from her desk, and brought them over to where Ned stood in the doorway, coffee mug lifted halfway to his mouth.

  “Full house this morning,” she said brightly. She handed the folders to him. “And Doc Farrow called to say he had to go over to the mainland with Mary Alice Grotsky. Her boy’s got appendicitis and she wouldn’t take him without Doc going along.”

  “When will he be back?”

  Agnes shrugged. “As soon as he can. You’ll have to handle things until he gets here.” She smiled out at the sea of faces. “Mr. Amancio. The doctor will see you now.”

  No one spoke much while eggs and bacon and toast made the rounds. Everyone had a hearty appetite except for Jess, but Lillo wasn’t going to push her to eat. She wanted to stay out of that particular power struggle at all costs. When Jess got hungry she’d eat.

  “They’re whoopie pies. Mrs. Glasgow just made them from scratch and she gave me two.”

  Jess shook her head. Bit her lip. “I can’t.”

  “Come on. They’re delicious.” Lillo shoved one of the whoopie pies toward her friend. She could hardly wa
it to bite into her own. They were still warm from the oven and the filling was oozing out the sides. It was everything she could do not to lick the edges before giving it to Jess. “One whoopie pie won’t make you fat.”

  “Fatter.”

  “You’re not fat. Here.”

  Jess practically snatched it from Lillo’s hand. While Lillo savored the first taste of chocolate-and-cream bliss, Jess devoured her pie in three bites.

  “Hey, Lillo.”

  Lillo jumped. “Sorry?”

  “Can you pass the milk over to Allie?” Mac asked.

  “Sorry.” Lillo shoved the pitcher across the table.

  “Having deep thoughts?”

  “Nope, making a grocery list.”

  Mac gave her a look. “You concentrate on snacks and booze. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Mac, we don’t want to impose,” Allie said.

  “No imposition. I never have enough people to cook for. And it’s something I love.”

  “And she’s good,” Lillo added. “Wait until you taste her lobster stew.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Diana said. “But not all the time and we’ll pay for the food. No arguments. We’ve descended on this little village like three harpies and I for one don’t cook.”

  “I always help in the kitchen at home,” Allie volunteered. “I could be the sous-chef. And maybe you’d give me some pointers on making your famous lobster stew. Only …”

  “Only what?” Diana asked.

  Jess looked alarmed.

  “I have a flight back to California Monday. I don’t know if I can stay away longer than that.” Allie turned to Mac. “I have a little boy who I left with my in-laws. He’s only four. I haven’t left him very much.”

  “No pressure,” Mac said. “Stay as long as you feel comfortable then go home. The only rule around here is to enjoy yourself for whatever time you’re here. How about you, Diana?”

  “I took off the whole week from work, so I’m available to set the table and do dishes.”

  Jess looked from one to the other and burst into tears.

  Great. Allie was missing her kid. She’d probably get on that plane. Diana would have to get back to work sooner rather than later. You didn’t start a company and then go on vacations.