The Lighthouse Chapter 2

Chapter TWO:

Eloise Hall reached for her phone as it rang, the last grades for the semester about to be finished. She just had one more class to go, and she’d be free until fall semester.

“Doctor Hall,” she said.

“Eloise,” a woman said.

A rush of memories filled Eloise’s mind with that voice. Slightly high, always a bit on the self-important side, but with a foundation of kindness. “Robin?” Her heart started beating in a strange, syncopated way. She hadn’t spoken to Robin—or anyone from Five Island Cove—in a long time. At least five years.

Too long, Eloise thought, as she had in the past. But she’d done nothing to bring the once-close group together. It was always Robin or Alice that did that, and Eloise shouldn’t have been surprised to get a call like this out of the blue from the power blonde.

“Yes,” Robin said. “How are you? Did you know you’re very hard to get in touch with?”

“Am I?” Eloise sat back in her luxury office chair, her grading forgotten. She pictured Robin from their youth, the image of the pretty, perfect, perky blonde girl a very hard memory to get rid of. Funnily enough, Eloise had never been jealous of Robin, though she’d been very popular. AJ had always had the most boyfriends, but that was because she wasn’t afraid to sneak off with the boys in the dark and do things Eloise hadn’t done until college.

“Very hard,” Robin said with a smile in her voice. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

Eloise didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She’d spent the last twenty-seven years in college, as a matter of fact, as she’d attended Boston University after leaving Sanctuary Island, one of the islands that made up Five Island Cove, gone on to get her doctorate at Harvard, and then returned to BU as a professor.

Biology she knew. How to have a conversation with someone she hadn’t seen in years she did not. Her mind niggled at her that she did know Robin, almost as well as she knew her own self. Still, it felt like the five years stretched until a chasm existed between them, with Eloise on one side and Robin calling to her from the other.

“Anyway,” Robin said, filling the silence. “I’m calling because Joel Shields passed away, and the funeral is next Saturday.”

There was no invitation there, but Eloise heard it anyway. “Oh, no,” she said, her past marching through her mind now. Damn Robin for opening that door. Eloise pressed against it from the other side, but it would not close all the way. “That’s terrible news. I knew he was sick, but…” She let the words hang there, because while she’d gone to visit her aging mother a couple of years ago, she hadn’t thought much about the Shields’ since she’d heard the news of Joel’s cancer.

“Yes,” Robin said. “And I really think the five of us should be here for Kristen.”

Eloise recognized that tone, even if she hadn’t heard it in over two decades. This was the take-charge Robin. The one who would not take no for an answer.

The five of us.

Once, the five of them had been Eloise’s saving grace. The only place she felt safe, loved.

Eloise sighed as she turned in her chair. “I don’t want to come back there,” she said. The reason why was a whole new door that Eloise would not let open, not even for a moment.

“Just for a few days,” Robin said. “Your dad isn’t here anymore, Eloise, and I’m sure your mother would love to see you.”

“You should’ve been a lawyer,” Eloise said. Not many people knew Eloise’s number one reason for leaving and staying away from Five Island Cove was her father. The door in her mind started to inch open, and Eloise shoved mightily against it. Only a few people knew what life had been like behind the closed doors of the beach cottage where Eloise had grown up with her parents and brother. Garrett had left the islands almost as quickly as Eloise had, and she twisted the key on the lock on that door in her mind.

“And Wes hasn’t stepped foot on the island since your divorce.” Robin was one of those people who knew the finer details of Eloise’s life, a fact she really wished wasn’t true right now. At the same time, Eloise thought someone should know the finer details of her life, and while she had friends on campus and neighbors on her street, no one truly knew her the way Robin did.

Point two taken. Eloise really had no reason not to go. “I have some work—”

“The semester ended today,” Robin interrupted. “So you’re probably sitting at home, finishing up your grades and wondering what you’re going to do with all your free time.”

“I am not sitting at home,” Eloise said, looking at the final class’s worth of grades. “And I have plenty to keep me busy.” Knitting, and her cats, and…

Suddenly a couple of weeks on Five Island Cove didn’t sound so bad. At least she wouldn’t have to say she had no plans for her break should someone ask her on her way out of the building that afternoon.

“You could stay with me,” Robin said. “I know you don’t like going back to your mom’s place.”

A third blow to Eloise’s flimsy tower of excuses sent it shattering. She drew in a long breath to make a big show. “I don’t know, Robin.”

“Please,” the woman said next, and Eloise’s defenses dropped.

“You don’t play fair,” she said.

“Kristen needs us,” Robin said. “And if that means I have to play dirty to get everyone here, I’m going to do it.”

“You’ve talked to AJ?”

“Not yet,” Robin hedged.

“You called me first, didn’t you?”

“Kristen needs us,” she repeated, which was code for You’re a softie. I knew I could get you, and that will help get the others.

“Fine,” Eloise said. “But I’m bringing both of my cats, so you better have somewhere for them too.”

“I can handle two felines,” Robin said coolly. A moment later, a shriek came through the phone, and Eloise should’ve known it would sound. But she’d forgotten Robin’s tendency to scream in excitement, and she startled, her heart pounding furiously now.

“Oh, I’m so excited, Eloise. We can go to Mort’s like we did growing up. And I’ll make the chocolate chip banana pancakes that won the fireman’s cook-off, and we’ll go to the beach and talk about everything.”

Everything.

The word inspired fear in Eloise’s heart, because she didn’t want to talk about everything. Some things, in her opinion, shouldn’t be talked about. Some secrets were worth keeping. “I need to finish my grades,” she said. “And look at flights. I’ll text you, okay?”

“I knew you were doing grades,” Robin teased.

Eloise managed to smile. “Yeah, but I’m not doing them at home.”

“I know,” Robin said. “I called you at the university.” The pure triumph in Robin’s voice wasn’t lost on Eloise.

She rolled her eyes, though she did love Robin. “I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up and stared at her laptop, that last class taunting her now. She acted like she would be really put out with a return visit to Five Island Cove, but maybe it was time. Maybe she could finally put to rest the simmering secrets that she kept in the beach house not even Robin knew about.

Maybe a bit of excitement bubbled through her too. She didn’t have any plans for her break, though she had been looking forward to attending her power yoga classes at a more sane hour. And that was when she realized her life had been reduced to knitting, cats, and a half an hour of power yoga at five a.m.

Maybe she could just look at airplane tickets for a few minutes before she finished her grades…