Lighthouse Beach

by Shelley Noble

  Diana’s hand pressed against the wood. The weight of her body keeping it closed.

  Of course, it would be her.

  Lillo wrenched at the knob, but the door barely gave as Diana leaned against it.

  “Our bad,” she said. “We’re sorry. If you want us to leave, we will.”

  What was the point? Too late to pretend like it didn’t happen.

  “Or you can come sit down and tell us what really happened. Because I can tell you right now, none of us think you committed murder.”

  Chapter 19

  “Did you?”

  Lillo shook her head, a small jerky movement that reminded her of a dog drying off.

  “So why are you trying to escape?”

  How could she answer that? She couldn’t. It was just too complicated. So she just shrugged.

  “Well, it’s a stupid idea. It’s pouring rain out there. So you might as well come on back and enlighten us.”

  Before Lillo could do more than shoot a panic-stricken glance at the door, Diana took her by the shoulders and guided her back to the couch. She could have gotten away, run back to the door; she didn’t think Diana would try to stop her twice. But she really didn’t want to run; like Diana had said, where would she go?

  She sank down on the cushions.

  Jess immediately sat beside her. Allie hesitated, then sat on her other side, virtually trapping her between them. Diana pulled over a chair to face her.

  Like an inquisitor, thought Lillo.

  “Spill,” Diana said. “I have a feeling it’s about time.” She frowned. “Definitely not your ordinary town.”

  Lillo laughed. It surprised them all, but she couldn’t help it. Diana could make her laugh at the most inappropriate times. She knew she was about to spill her guts, she could feel the words coming, and she just didn’t have the strength to hold them back, so she stopped trying.

  “It was stupid. A stupid thing to do. We were both residents at Holy Name Hospital. In surgery. We should have been more careful. We were always careful. But we were happy and on the cusp of success. The top two students in our class and the top two surgery residents that came out of that class.

  “We were going to be married. Practice side by side. The best of the best. Unstoppable together. We were going to do great things. We were both up for a big grant. We were competing, but as long as it went to one of us, the other would be happy.

  “There was a picnic on the beach, a bonfire, hot dogs, marshmallows, beer. Not healthy but fun.

  “He challenged me to climb the palisade. I knew I could beat him, but I agreed. Everyone egged us on. He jumped up and ran toward the cliffs. I ran after him.

  “We started together, with everyone yelling advice and having a great old time. I made it to the top easily. And turned around to gloat.” Her voice cracked.

  Why was she doing this? How many times would she be made to relive those final minutes? Picking at it to keep it festering. Hoping it would scar over and gradually fade away. But she knew that would never happen.

  Jess moved closer to her and she felt claustrophobic. How did you tell someone who cared about you that you didn’t want their compassion. It just made things worse.

  And suddenly she was there again, standing on top of the palisade, looking down at Kyle, who was looking up at her. He was laughing, too, even though they were both competitive, and she knew it galled him that she’d made it to the top first. It didn’t matter that she had years of being a camp child in the out-of-doors. He was from Chicago and she’d easily beaten him up the side of the cliff. And she couldn’t help but gloat a little.

  She shouldn’t have laughed at him.

  “So you’re standing at the top gloating and …” Diana looked her squarely in the eye. She wasn’t going to let Lillo off the hook. Who the hell did she think she was?

  But Lillo went on. “He started to slide, but he was laughing, too. And I called him City Boy just as the earth gave way beneath his feet and he was sliding down the side.

  “Someone screamed. He landed on his back, but he was still laughing.

  “I couldn’t believe it, he looked so silly lying there in the dirt laughing. I yelled, ‘You’re such a klutz.’”

  She gulped in air. “And then he stopped laughing, looked at me with this look on his face, like surprise, and closed his eyes.

  “I thought he was acting at first. And told him to man up. But he didn’t get up or open his eyes and I knew something must really be wrong.

  “I slid all the way down.” It had been the fastest and slowest descent of her life.

  “A few people came over from the campfire to see what was going on. A couple even tried to rouse him. They knew the drill. We all did. Someone called the EMTs.

  “He wasn’t breathing, so I started CPR. It was a good twenty seconds before someone noticed the blood oozing from behind his leg. He’d fallen on a broken limb and it severed the femoral artery. It didn’t occur to me to look until it was too late.

  “I should have noticed earlier. I should have checked him for external wounds first. But I didn’t. I just knew he wasn’t breathing and I didn’t think properly.”

  “Understandable. He was your fiancé. You were traumatized,” Diana said. “It sucks, but it’s understandable.”

  “Understandable? I was laughing at him while he died.”

  Something like a cry escaped from Jess and she threw her arms around Lillo. Lillo wanted to push her away. She didn’t want to be comforted; she wanted to go back to the past.

  Jess hugged her tighter. Lillo felt suffocated. “Why didn’t you tell us? We’ve been imposing on you, and I’ve been so self-absorbed about my own misspent life I didn’t even think about what had happened to you all this time. I’m sorry. I should have kept up.”

  On her other side, Allie put a tentative arm around her shoulders. It felt like prison. Diana was the only one who didn’t try to console her and she was still blocking Lillo’s path of escape.

  “You tried to save him, you couldn’t have done more; from what little I know, he probably bled out before you even reached him.”

  “Diana!” Jess admonished. “Have a heart.”

  “Just saying.”

  “She’s right,” Lillo said, thankful for the dose of reality. “He probably did. And intellectually I get that.”

  “But it still hurts,” Allie said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that why you quit medicine?” Jess asked. “Nobody could blame you for not trying.”

  “Oh, they didn’t,” Lillo said, wishing she could just get away from them. But she never would now. They’d made a place for themselves in her life, whether they realized it or not. Even if they left this minute and never returned, Lillo knew her life would never be the same. “At first.

  “And I didn’t quit, not right away. I went through the motions. I went to lectures, did my rounds at the hospital, saw my friends on occasion.

  “But after a while, once I came out of the numbness, I noticed my colleagues weren’t the same. A little cooler than they’d been before. The looks that passed between them when they thought I wasn’t watching. The whispers in the cafeteria, the glances in the operating arena.

  “As if they didn’t trust me anymore.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t overt, not really, but it got to the point that I could never walk into the hospital, the staff room, or anywhere without wondering what people were thinking.

  “Some people didn’t even try to hide what they thought.”

  “And what was that?” Diana asked.

  “That I didn’t try to save him, maybe even let him die because we were both up for the same fellowship.”

  “Nobody lets someone die for a grant!” Allie exclaimed.

  They all just looked at her.

  “At first it was just a few, but you know how it is. Where-there’s-smoke kind of thing. After a while it felt like everyone thought I was incompetent, maybe even a k
iller. I guess maybe I began to believe it myself.

  “Then—” She broke off, tried to laugh, but what came out of her mouth sounded like the wounded animal she was. “They awarded me the fellowship, even though I had told them to withdraw my name.

  “That was the end of things. I could see it on everyone’s face, what they thought of me. The resentment, the distaste. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t, so I quit and came home.” She tried to smile but it hurt her face. “And here you find me.

  “So you see, Jess, you didn’t need me to save you. I couldn’t even save myself.” Lillo’s face twisted as she tried to fight away the tears, the pain, the waste of it all. It was useless. The tears fell, not flowing tears, but big fat ugly ones that dropped into her lap like water balloons.

  “I didn’t know,” Jess said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lillo tried to pull away but Jess held firm.

  “But none of that was your fault. It was the reaction of stupid, insecure, mean-spirited people. God, I know them. And I know what they can do to you. It makes me so angry. They wrecked your career.”

  “No, I pretty much did that myself. My parents sold their camp and our home to send me to medical school and this is what they got.”

  “Is it too late to go back?” Allie asked.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m already a year behind. And the story will just go around again. And it will be the same looks and the same … just the same everything.”

  “Don’t you miss it, though?” Allie asked.

  God, how she missed it. “I do. I tried not to, but …”

  “That’s why you wouldn’t help out at the clinic,” Diana said. “It’s like a dangling carrot that you think you can’t have … maybe think you don’t deserve.”

  “You should have been a shrink instead of a geek,” Lillo snapped.

  “Not me.” She was looking at Lillo with an odd expression Lillo couldn’t read.

  “You’re really annoying, you know that?”

  Diana bared her teeth.

  “And that fake nah-nah smile is annoying, too.”

  “Too bad you can’t rustle up some of that attitude for the asshats that ostracized you.”

  “What if they were right?”

  Diana shrugged. “You’re the only one who can answer that. I think it’s happy hour.” She stood and wandered into the kitchen.

  Jess and Allie sat as if they were stuck to the upholstery.

  “She didn’t mean that,” Allie said.

  “Yeah, she did,” Lillo said. “And she’s right.”

  “No,” said Jess. “Those people are just bullies. Subtle maybe, but just as mean as if they’d chased you and poured soda in your hair. And I should know.”

  “Don’t let it get maudlin while I’m gone,” Diana called from the kitchen.

  Jess clutched Lillo’s arm. “You have to stand up to those people. You stood up for me my whole life, and the other kids, too. Now you have to stand up for yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Well … because if you don’t … you’ll end up like me.”

  Before Lillo could even frame an answer to that, shouting erupted from outside.

  “Kids,” Diana said. “I recognize the pitch of their precious little voices from yesterday. Ignore them.”

  “It’s sounds like they’re fighting.” Jess jumped up and ran to the door. Allie followed her.

  “Now, suddenly, she grows a pair,” Diana said. “Jess, maybe you should just let them have their fun.”

  “Fun? They’re probably picking on that poor little boy from the other day.”

  “Bobby,” Diana said.

  Lillo looked at her in surprise.

  “I heard the whole story yesterday at the stables. Many times. Each telling more lurid than the last. Though, maybe we should kibitz. At least the rain seems to have stopped.”

  Lillo went outside gladly. Sad but true, she welcomed the interruption. A couple of bloody noses was par for a summer day around here. But unraveling her life in front of an audience had left her depleted.

  Jess was already outside. Hands on her hips, looking around.

  “They’re probably on the beach near the jetty,” Lillo said.

  Diana gave Lillo a woeful look. It made Lillo laugh; bless her.

  Jess started across the sand, shaking her fist, Allie at her heels. “You stop that right now. Stop it!”

  “You gotta love her,” Diana said.

  “Diana and I’ll cut them off at the jetty, they’ll run that way,” Lillo called after Jess.

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” Diana said as they walked quickly up the path to the parking lot.

  “Fistfights and hasty retreats are major means of communication around here. Children and adults alike.”

  They reached the jetty and the group of boys just as Tommy Clayton pushed Bobby’s older brother, Joey, into the wet sand. It was a bedraggled group; they must have been hanging out in the rain all afternoon. Lillo knew them all. There weren’t that many families with children left in the town.

  Joey pushed to his hands and knees, but two of Tommy’s friends pushed him down again.

  Behind them, Jess appeared like an avenging petite-sized Valkyrie. Grabbed them both by the back of their shirts and yanked them away.

  “Damn, did hell just freeze over?” Diana asked.

  Jess pulled Joey to his feet. He wriggled away from her and grabbed his brother’s arm.

  “C’mon, Bobby. Let’s go home.”

  Joey’s nose was bleeding and Lillo knew she should take them both inside and clean them up before sending them on their way. But she also knew better than to interfere with juvenile pissing contests. It was something that Jess should have remembered. Intercede and it declared open season on the underdog.

  Bobby yanked away. “Don’t wanna. Wanna go in the boat.”

  Joey grabbed him again. “Tommy ain’t gonna take you in his boat. He wants to be mean to you.”

  “Nuh-uh. He said I could be in the gang, and he’s gonna let me break into the lighthouse with them. He said. Didn’t you, Tommy?”

  “Sure I did.” Tommy smiled one of those hateful smiles kids learned either from their bully parents or from watching too much network television.

  “He’s lying to you. He ain’t gotta boat.”

  “Fuck you! I do, too,” Tommy screamed, and lunged at Joey.

  “Man, I didn’t even use that kind of language until I was an adult.” Diana strode over to the two fighting boys. Leaned over, pulled them apart, and held them at arm’s length. She shook the one in her right hand. Tommy. “You know what we do with thugs like you on the streets of New York?”

  “What?” Tommy drawled, and tried to jerk away.

  Diana just grasped him more firmly.

  Everyone, including the other boys, watched raptly.

  “We hang them upside down until their eyeballs pop out.”

  Tommy’s eyes narrowed. But he bit his lip. “No, you don’t.”

  “No? I can demonstrate right here. Your friends can watch. Jess, Allie, come give me a hand.”

  Two of the boys took off. Diana and Tommy had a brief stare-off, then suddenly she let go. “Beat it, kid.” Tommy took off after the other two.

  She turned to Joey and Bobby. “News flash. Those guys aren’t your friends. If you want a ride in a boat, ask Ian to take you in Mac’s rowboat.”

  “Would he do that?”

  Diana looked over their heads to Lillo. “Sure he would.”

  She let go of Joey. This time when he grabbed Bobby, Bobby went willingly. She made a show of flinging sand off her fingers.

  “That’s awful,” Allie said. “You’ve probably scarred them for life.”

  “Hopefully,” Diana said, inspecting one of her nails. She looked at the other three. “Oh, really, girls. You’re still living in an Anne of Green Gables world. Kids these days are raised on Hitman: Sniper and Street Figh
ter. I should know. I make apps and I know what sells.”

  Allie craned her neck to see the retreating boys. “Should we just let them run off like that? Shouldn’t we call their parents?”

  “And say what?” Lillo said. “‘Your kids have been fighting again’? Unfortunately I have to go with Diana on this one. Most of the kids are left to their own devices for the summer. And it’s either television or hanging outside waiting for something to happen. What usually happens is they get into trouble.”

  “What about the community center?” Jess asked as they started back to the cottage.

  “You saw it: there are no programs, no one to even manage them. During the school year, they have someone to watch them and make sure they get their homework done until their parents come get them. Some of them just sneak off between the bus and the door to the center. Life in these United States.”

  “That just isn’t right. There should be a camp.”

  “There was a camp,” Lillo reminded her. And got a painful stab of sadness for her trouble.

  “I know and it was a great camp, but I meant a day camp.”

  “You want to volunteer to run it?”

  “Huh. Is there anything for dinner?”

  They went inside; Jess, Allie, and Diana migrated toward the kitchen. Lillo headed for the DVD player. While the others were rummaging in the fridge and cabinets, Lillo ejected the disc. Held it long enough to make herself feel sick, then placed it back in the case.

  “The cupboard is bare,” Jess said, looking into the fridge. “Should we invite ourselves to Mac’s?”

  “Doc Clancy is taking Mac out to dinner,” Allie said. “I think he’s going to push her on the cataracts thing. Here’s those vegetable sticks from the other night.”

  “No thanks.” Jess opened the fridge again.

  Lillo eased past the others and opened the bedroom door wide enough to slip in and return the DVD to obscurity.

  Diana was waiting for her when she came out again. “Anything besides pizza in town?”

  Lillo jumped. Closed the door. “There’s Mike’s Bar. Decent burgers, but don’t expect fancy.”

  “Burgers sound good.”

  Lillo tried to ease past her.