Island Girls Read Free Page A

small for almost anyone. She guessed the college ordered these chairs because they were cheap or had been discarded by some other university system.
    “This thing is hopeless,” Liam decided. Standing up, he leaned over Meg and picked up her phone. He hit a few numbers. “Maintenance? Professor Liam Larson here in LB20. I need a new desk chair. This one’s broken. Immediately. Thank you.”
    Hanging up the phone, he grinned at Meg. “The word
professor
has got to be good for something.”
    “You could have said Dr. Larson,” Meg told him.
    “Nah. Then I’d have to take out his appendix.” Liam pushed a stack of papers out of the way and slid his slender butt onto Meg’s desk. His long legs dangled down in front of her three drawers.
    Meg shoved her chair away from the desk. And Liam. “Thank you.”
    “We’ll see if anything happens.” Liam looked down at her piles of work. “Exams?”
    “Always.”
    “Only three more weeks till end of semester. What are you doing this summer?”
    Meg rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m going to work on my Alcott book. I’m determined to finish it.”
    “Seriously? You’re not teaching summer school? But you’re the best teacher we’ve got. The students will be devastated.”
    Meg rolled her eyes in reaction to his compliment, but she knew he meant what he said. She was a favorite of the students, and Liam admired her for it. “Liam, I’ve scrimped for a year to save enough money to live on for three months. I’ll subsist on cereal and water. No movies. No frills. No clothes. Just work.”
    A lopsided smile crossed his face. “No clothes? How about letting me come be your editorial assistant?”
    Meg felt herself blush. “I mean I won’t buy any new clothes. Austerity is the rule for the summer.”
    Liam lowered his eyelids into a bedroom eyes stare. She hated when he did it; it made her all shivery and silly feeling. “I’d better plan to take you out to dinner at least once a week. For the sake of the college. We don’t want our professors dying of starvation.”
    Her resolve almost melted in the warmth of his smile. She reminded herself that Liam was five years younger than she was—significant years, impetuous, impulsive, romantic years, when you were allowed to make mistakes. That Liam was intellectually, academically mature was obvious. He’d skipped grades in elementary school and high school, sped through his BA and MA, won his PhD, and published his book of poems to great acclaim by the tender age of twenty-six. But emotional maturity was different, and brilliant scholars were often emotionally stunted.
    She could tell he had a crush on her. True, they were the best of friends and they both were dedicated teachers. They read each other’s essays in draft form and expertly critiqued each other. But Meg couldn’t allow it to go any further. Liam was so handsome—he was almost beautiful. It would be easy to allow herself to respond to him. That would lead her, she was certain, to heartbreak.
    Her phone rang. Literally saved by the bell. She snatched it up.
    “Meg? Sweetheart, it’s Mommy.”
    Meg straightened in her chair, alerted by her mother’s voice. “Are you okay, Mom?”
    “Meggie, I’m fine. Listen, though, I have to tell you something. It’s a hard thing to say. Meggie, your father died.”
    ——
    Seated on the front steps of the house on Lily Street, Meg blinked away the memory of her mother’s phone call. Since that day, time had accordioned into a blur of action: Packing for the island. The funeral. The reading of the will in Frank Boyd’s office and her father’s bizarre and manipulative last letter, so typical of Rory Randall, a lightning bolt from the hand of the all-powerful Zeus who even after his death arranged the lives of his daughters, without, as usual, asking their opinions, and especially without,
as usual
, being there to respond to the emotional fallout.
    All right, Meg couldn’t control it, but she could