It seemed to Mac that it had just been minutes since she’d closed the curtains on the night and yet here she was opening them again. Beyond the kitchen window, the sun was just coming over the rooftops of Lighthouse Beach. It was going to be another bright day. Good. Summer was a time for sunshine, for days warm enough to sit out on the sand, not that she did much of that. Maybe the good weather would bring a few visitors. She hoped it held. There was always plenty of winter for storm clouds.
She went to the pantry and turned on the light. She was stocked. She had everything for Sunday’s barbecue and then some. She wasn’t sure if Lillo’s friends would actually stay or if Lillo would open up to them. Whether they would want to fend for themselves or let Mac feed them a few times while they were here.
She missed those days when stray fishermen, lonely wives, boaters who suddenly needed a port in a storm would stop in for a chat, or to dry in front of the fire, or just sit over a cup of coffee and a hastily prepared meal. No one much came anymore. Not so many fishermen left. Most had moved away, taking their families with them. The lighthouse no longer warned ships of the nearby shoals.
There was barely any traffic in the gift shop and it seemed like no one wanted to climb the stairs of the lighthouse to look at the old Fresnel-type lights that no longer worked.
The world was at their fingertips without ever leaving their computer screens. They could visit any number of lighthouses, have a guided tour, even ask their questions of some unseen face, whether real or robot, at the other end of the chat box.
What was that doing to the new generation? Weren’t they lonely? Mac knew she was. And all the Internet in the world hadn’t made her feel any different.
She turned on the light above the counter, got out the coffee, and made a full pot. She always did, even though most days she ended up pouring half of it out. She didn’t mind. Better to be prepared.
The coffeemaker had just beeped when she heard the knock at the screen door. It wouldn’t be Clancy. In the fifty years she’d know him, he’d never knocked even when she was entertaining—especially when she was entertaining.
They were best friends. For fifty-some-odd years. They’d married other people, both of whom were now dead. She still worried about him.
“Come in. Coffee’s made,” she called.
The door opened.
“Ah, up early again?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “I didn’t want to wake the others. Just tell me if I’m being a nuisance.”
“Not at all. I don’t get nearly enough company these days. Have a seat.”
Mac poured out two large mugs of coffee. Put milk and sugar on the table and sat across from Jess.
“Black is fine.”
“I remember you as a healthy girl.”
“Fat.”
“Strapping. It didn’t slow you down. I remember you and Lillo racing down the beach, looking for things swept in by the tide, climbing over the jetty rocks. I could hear you laughing all the way up on the lighthouse widow’s walk. I’m not hearing so much laughter now. What have they done to you, girl?”
Jess breathed a cheerless, almost silent laugh. “Girl . . . It’s been a long time since I felt like a girl. These days I feel ancient. Ancient and tired and . . . ugh, listen to me. I’m in a gorgeous place with wonderful people, and I just can’t seem to relax and enjoy myself.”
“Could be because you left a fiancé at the altar, pissed off Mom and Dad, and are on the lam.”
This time Jess’s laugh almost rang true.
“Well, from where I’m looking, all four of you are in the bloom of youth and you oughta be enjoying it, ’cause all too soon you’ll be too damn old to be good for anything.”
Jess looked up and wagged her finger at Mac. It made Mac smile; she was usually the one who did the finger-wagging. “You’ll never be that old. Everybody depends on you.”
“Used to.” Mac carried the cake tin over to the table and took off the top. “Made raspberry strudel.”
“Oh, Mac, I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Nobody’s making you eat the whole damn thing.”
“I’m so hungry all the time, I feel like eating everything in sight. No, actually that isn’t true. These days food hardly even tempts me.”
“’Cause you’ve messed up your stomach with all that binge dieting.”
“And my metabolism with diet pills and fad diets. And I know that I’ve done it to myself.”
“Well, you did have help.”
“I’m a classic case, aren’t I? My parents gave or withheld food as reward or punishment. When I figured it out, I ate to piss them off. By the time I went off to college, I was totally whacked out.
“But a therapist on campus really helped me. Diana and Allie were great, supportive friends. I thought I was really normal, then the wedding, and it all started over again. I knew the role so well, I just slipped right back into it. And now I’m back to where I started.”
“Nobody is ever back where they started. Use those tools from college to get your life together once and for all. And damn it to hell, stop listening to those parents of yours.”
Jess eyed the strudel. Pulled over a plate and cut herself a slice. “That’s why I begged Lillo to come to the wedding. I think I knew I had to make a final move and I knew I could never do it alone. That’s selfish of me, isn’t it?”
“Self-preservation. We’re all selfish when it comes to survival.”
Though how Jess had lasted this long was astounding. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. The way she was deliberately eating that piece of strudel, Mac could almost see the willpower that kept her from shoving the whole thing in her mouth. And if Mac could see it, then so could everyone else.
Poor Jess. Even her name, Jessica, had “Bully me” written on it. And boy, did the kids make fun of her. To one group she was a fatty, to another not fat enough, her parents flaunted their wealth, and she had that prissy name.
The first thing she did after meeting Lillo was to shorten her name to Jess. But it had taken two weeks before she and Lillo finally settled on something that she could answer to for her whole life. Only to her own family did she remain Jessica Braithwaite Parker.
The real Jess was buried under their expectations, and even when she briefly emerged she was like a supporting character in her own young life. Mac had watched it all unfold. Summer after summer. Watched her blossom as the summer went on, watched it all unravel as she drove away in the back seat of some fancy limo.
And Lillo? She had everything going for her: brains, heart, parents who loved her so much that they were willing to let her fly solo. And one mistake had driven her back here. Her parents had moved away, her reason for being here gone. And yet here she was.
“What if I can’t stick it out? I’ve embroiled my dearest friends in what could become a real bloodbath, figuratively speaking. But it could turn nasty; for them, too.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, that’s what friends are for.”
Jess slumped back and pushed her cup around in a circle. “Why am I just now getting it?”
“Getting what?”
“Every summer I would come here a total mess, and while I was here I’d start to think I was . . . you know, okay, then I’d go back home and fall into all my old habits and . . . and it wasn’t me; I was me here.”
“Well, like the sign says, once you visit Lighthouse Beach, life will never be the same.”
“But it was the same. Summer after summer, I thought I had changed, had gotten stronger. When I was away at school. When I was working in Manhattan. But I couldn’t maintain it; in real life, I just couldn’t stay me.”
“Real life? Honey, this is real life. Where a community only has two itinerant doctors who show up every month or so. Half the populace is out of work, and the ones who do work are squeezed for taxes and inflation and the price of bread. They believed promises made to them that no politician ever intended to keep. The kids, when they go to school at all, have to ride a school bus an hour each way, so most of them just stay home until the truant officer comes around. And leave home as soon as the law says they’re old enough. And the kids with special needs? They’re serviced by a visiting teacher three times a week. During the school year. Shall I go on?”
“You sound bitter.”
“Me? Nah. Just pointing out that your idea of real life . . . well, it ain’t real.”
“Entitled.”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
“I’m not sure how to exist in this real life.”
“Well, then you’d better go back to your anorexic life with a cheating husband and greedy, manipulative parents. No one’s stopping you.”
“Mac . . .”
“Well, what do you want me to say? You have choices.”
“I wish I could stay here. I’m not sure I can make it out there.”
“Lighthouse Beach is a sanctuary, not the end of the line.”
“But you stayed here. Lillo stayed here. All the people who live here stayed.”
“For some people it becomes a home. For some an excuse. But get over thinking you stage-managed the four of you ending up in Lighthouse Beach.”
“Then who did?”
“Just in the stars, I guess.”
“Mac. When did you start believing in astrology?”
“I don’t. I believe in celestial navigation.”
“We have GPS.”
Mac barked out a laugh. The girl still had a spark of life in her. Now, if they could just keep it burning . . . She got up to pour them more coffee.
“Okay, so why did Diana and Allie come? Besides to help me. I mean . . . Allie, after losing her husband, just can’t seem to get interested in making a new life. I get that.”
“It’s hard to lose someone you thought you were going to spend your life with. It takes time.”
“Will being in Lighthouse Beach help her?”
“It will.”
“How?”
“I haven’t got a clue, but it will. It always does.”
Jess pushed her hair out of her face. It was looking a lot less coiffed today, and it softened her thin, harsh features. “Okay, how about Diana? Diana is in control of her life. Her company is totally rocking it.”
Mac chuckled and pulled the strudel plate closer. Cut them both another slice. “All that means is she’s headed for a big fat unexpected detour.”
Jess dropped her fork and gave Mac a worried look.
“That doesn’t mean it’s something bad, but it always happens. Life doesn’t like slow and steady. No matter how much you want it to. How much you plan, prepare, persevere. It just has a way of knocking you on your ass. Sometimes for the worse, like Allie’s husband dying, and sometimes for the good, like getting you to eat a second piece of strudel . . .
“Even keeping a lighthouse, day after day, year after year, where things were most unlikely to change, I’ve had my share of bumps in the road, ships in the night, storms, and . . .” She shook her head.
“But you stayed here.”
“I found what I needed to find here and it was Lighthouse Beach. Most people need to find something that isn’t a place; they find sanctuary here, it provides the safety to look at things in new ways, and then they move on. Some don’t even know what’s happened to them while they were here.
“But those who do know have a power they didn’t have before.” Which was a bunch of malarkey, but Mac figured Jess needed all the help she could get.
“And what about Lillo? She doesn’t talk about herself. Doesn’t really reminisce. She left, but she’s back. Is it because what she needs to find is in Lighthouse Beach?”
“That remains to be seen. Now finish up your coffee, I gotta take the van to get a new tire before Doc has a fit.”
Jess took their plates and cups to the sink. “Thinking about getting away had become such an obsession; this road trip seemed like an answer to my prayers. I’d like to think it would be good for the others, too. But I’m afraid it’s going to turn into something scarier. Not just for me, but for everybody.”
“Nothing is too scary if you’re with people you can trust. Now skedaddle. I have work to do.”