Everything That Follows

by Meg Little Reilly

  “We can let you on,” Sean said.

  “Really? That would be great.”

  Orla looked skeptical.

  “Of course we can,” Sean added. “The cops won’t bother you if you’re with us. It’s a ten-minute walk from here if you want to go now.”

  “Yeah, that would be great!” She put her arms through the straps of her pack and smiled eagerly. “I’m Ashley, by the way.”

  “So who are you here with, Ashley?” Orla was tired of having experts on her beach, delivering grim information she was helpless against.

  “I’m a marine geology student with Woods Hole. I’ve been studying erosion patterns.”

  Sean smiled and went in for the shake. “I’m Sean, and my mother’s name is Orla. The house on the cliff is her glass shop. It’s basically our whole life.” He didn’t mention his girlfriend who lived above it all.

  “I understand.” Ashley nodded sympathetically, but with no less urgency. “And I appreciate your help.”

  Orla nodded and set out on their walk, with the other two behind.

  Ashley chatted throughout about how much she loved the Vineyard and how cool it was that they got to live there all year. She described the town in New Hampshire that she’d grown up in and the occupations of each of her brothers. The wind from the ocean made it difficult to hear every word of it, but if Ashley knew that, she didn’t seem to care. It was just polite talk to pass the time.

  They walked along the paved pathway for a while until it changed to sagging boardwalk, the wood still wet with morning. Grasses pushing up through the cracks had turned an anemic shade of yellow in the autumn cold. The boardwalk ended at the place where the bluffs took a steep turn upward toward Island Glass. Instead of following it up to the shop and studio, they turned right, toward the shore.

  “Here we are,” Orla said, ducking under a barrier of orange ribbon.

  Ashley looked up at their cliff.

  The upstairs lights were on in the house, which meant that Kat was awake, but hadn’t opened the shop yet. Sean wondered if Hunter was up there with her.

  Ashley nodded, as if it all made sense to her. “It’s like the Gay Head Lighthouse. Different topography, but similar layering here.”

  “How do you mean?” Sean had heard something about the Gay Head cliffs being in danger, but it never occurred to him that this was a similar situation.

  Ashley ran her hand along the wall, and wet sand fell to her touch. “I think we’ve underestimated the groundwater effect. In both places, it seems like the water is exacerbating erosion faster than expected.”

  Sean watched her examining the wall. In a matter of seconds, Ashley had changed from a chatty girl to a formidable expert. She was alluring in this light.

  “Can you tell us how bad this is?” Orla asked. “How long it will hold?”

  Ashley shook her head. “No one can really do that. It might hold for two years if we do nothing. It could probably hold much longer with groundwater mitigation. But then, if we have a really rainy season... Well, I hate to prognosticate.”

  Orla nodded. She didn’t want to hear these things but she was coming around to their truth. She seemed to be coming around to Ashley The Expert too.

  “I’d like to come back this afternoon with all my stuff if that’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay,” Sean said. “If anyone stops you, tell them we gave you permission.”

  Orla looked up at the shop. “I should help Kat open up. Ashley, it was nice meeting you. I don’t mean to be rude. I’m glad to know all this. It’s just a lot to take in right now. Sean’s probably your best resource. I’m in a bit of a fog.”

  “Of course. Thank you again.”

  Sean leaned in and kissed his mother on the cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

  She walked away from them, toward the long, warped staircase that led up to the street.

  “I didn’t mean to upset her,” Ashley said when they were alone.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Sean didn’t have the energy to explain what all this meant to his mother.

  Ashley looked around impatiently. “Anyhow, I should go. You guys have things to do.”

  The sun was well above the water, which meant that Sean would need to be at the boatyard for work soon. He had two boats scheduled for detailing before being put to bed for winter. Still, he hesitated. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You want one?”

  Ashley smiled. “I would love coffee.”

  Sean couldn’t tell if her enthusiasm was for him, for coffee or just her personality. He liked it.

  They walked together up the stairs to the street and then in step toward the only coffee shop that was open in town at that time of year. Ashley clearly knew where she was going, which granted her a patina of localness and an upgrade in trustworthiness by Sean’s accounting. Anyone who chooses the island’s harsh winters and empty streets over the more photogenic seasons probably had their head on straight.

  At the shop, they ordered two drip coffees and went back outside to sit on the cold iron chairs that were left over from summer.

  Sean pulled the hood of his coat up over his head and looked into his cup. “So you’re here a lot?”

  “Back and forth all season,” Ashley said. “It was getting tiresome, actually. I can go a whole week in Aquinnah and barely talk to another human. It makes you a little crazy. But then the buckling happened on your beach and my research got a whole lot more interesting.”

  “Glad we could help.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s really awful.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Neither wanted to talk about the buckling.

  Ashley looked around, searching perhaps for another topic. “Hey, what about that body they found on the beach? That’s pretty crazy.”

  “Kyle. Yeah, really sad. I didn’t know him well, but everybody kind of knows everybody here, eventually. Wicked sad. I hear it was drugs, maybe.”

  Ashley cocked her head. “Maybe.”

  Sean turned to her, eager to focus on something that had nothing to do with himself. “What? You think it was something else?”

  “I don’t know anything.” She put her hands out to disavow any theories she might have on the matter. “And I probably shouldn’t talk about it. It’s just... I know these ocean currents really well, and I know that something as big as a human body wouldn’t have washed up on Katama Beach unless it floated down from much farther up shore.”

  Sean raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh, you know better than the cops? They’ve been finding the stuff that washes ashore for decades here. They know these shores.”

  “Yeah, but they’re still relying on old current patterns,” Ashley said. “Those beaches have changed in the last thirty years and the water isn’t moving the same as it used to. I don’t expect the cops to know that. It’s not their job. But I’m telling you they’re wrong.”

  Sean took a sip.

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said into her cup. “It’s none of my business. And it’s kind of a creepy thing to keep bringing up with people, I guess. But it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Hmm.” Sean didn’t know what to make of this information. He hadn’t thought much about Kyle Billings’s death and he didn’t have an opinion about who knew the most about ocean currents. “Okay, well, I have no reason to doubt you, Ashley The Oceanographer. I haven’t thought much about it.”

  “Of course. You’ve got a lot to think about right now.” She took another sip. “It’s not, like, an obsession of mine or anything.”

  “That would be a little morbid.” Sean didn’t have much to add to all this Kyle business.

  Ashley turned to him suddenly. “You know Hunter Briggs?”

  Sean stiffened. “Yeah, why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s the other person I brought
this up with and he said it was morbid too. We were out the other night and it just came up. I figured you guys knew each other because everyone seems to know everyone here.” It seemed like a story she’d been waiting to tell someone.

  “Yeah, I know him.” Sean felt an irrepressible anger well up inside of him at the sound of Hunter’s name. They were out together—that’s what Ashley said. Had Hunter slept with her already? He didn’t want to think about Hunter, but he couldn’t stop now. “So what’s up with you and Hunter?”

  Ashley pulled her hands into the sleeves of her coat and held her coffee with fingerless mitts. “I don’t know, probably nothing. He couldn’t push me out the door fast enough, so I’m guessing it was the last I’m going to hear from him.”

  Sean wasn’t sure how to feel about this information. If Hunter was sleeping with Ashley, then there was a possibility he wasn’t sleeping with Kat. On the other hand, he could be sleeping with both of them. And did Hunter Briggs have to fuck every female Sean had ever felt anything for? Not that he had feelings for Ashley, but he had something. And now suddenly it felt like he’d been relegated to the friend zone, a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on about Hunter.

  Sean stood up. “I should probably get to work.”

  “Already?”

  He didn’t really want to go, but his mind was reeling again. He was back to Kat and Hunter and—

  “You wanna come to Katama Bay with me?”

  “What? No, I have to work.”

  “Skip it.” Ashley shrugged, like someone who didn’t understand the rules of real jobs.

  Sean found her maddening and magnetic all at once.

  “It will only take an hour or so. I want to take a few soil samples.”

  Sean frowned. “Does this have something to do with Kyle Billings? This is some Nancy Drew shit?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe. So what? Come with me anyway.”

  Sean didn’t really need to open the boatyard yet. Nothing on the schedule was urgent. He exhaled in defeat. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Ashley smiled. She stood up and tossed her coffee cup in the garbage bin.

  Sean did the same. He followed her lead toward her car.

  And like that, they were a strange sort of friends, bonded by curiosity and private turmoil.

  Sean sat in the passenger seat as Ashley drove them to Katama Bay. She talked ceaselessly and exceeded every speed limit, accelerating into every curve. Clouds moved into the steel sky above them and strong winds bent the trees along the road. It was exhilarating and strange to be there in the car with Ashley. She was new, and sitting beside her made the island feel new. It made Sean feel new.

  Being with Ashley on that day wouldn’t solve any of the problems in Sean’s suddenly heavy life; he knew that. No, she was a break from those things. She was something else entirely.

  Chapter 7

  Kat leaned her head against the cool glass of the ferry window. A nearby baby cried while the parents argued in hushed tones. A young man wearing a backpack and a ring through the center of his nose chatted with the leathery older guy who always seemed to be on the ferry. Kat had done this ride a million times, but she hadn’t done it—or much of anything—recently. Leaving the apartment was work now. Even the nearly empty ferry of late October felt too loud and bright to her on that afternoon.

  She tried to focus on the dark, choppy water outside. The gulls that normally balanced atop the buoys were all gone for the season. Kat had only left her house three times that week, for provisions at the co-op and some library research, and it seemed she’d missed the last gasp of autumn.

  It was good to be out. They needed new wood paddles for the stemless wineglasses Orla wanted to make, so Kat had been sent into Boston for supplies. There was no way she would have done it without Orla’s prompting, but it still felt good to be out. She was glad she had done it, but she was even gladder to be on her way home.

  In a previous life—the one she had before she’d pushed a man to his death—Kat liked these excursions into the city. She usually recruited Erika to join her. They’d try a new restaurant and do some window-shopping. When the weather was nice, they’d buy sandwiches to eat in Boston Common. It was a periodic reminder of her native continent and its inhabitants. Today’s trip wasn’t so blithe. She didn’t even bother inviting Erika.

  Kat reached into her bag and pulled out the book she’d acquired on the mainland: Bird Species of Osceola. It wasn’t exactly what she’d been looking for—Kyle was from somewhere west of that—but it was the closest she could find at the big chain bookstore next to the glassworks supply shop. And she learned years ago that when you were on the mainland for something necessary, get something unnecessary as well because you wouldn’t have that opportunity again for a while.

  Kat flipped through the pages of dense text. She studied the glossy photos of Florida bird life. Apparently, the Osceola National Forest and Okefenokee Swamp regions of northern Florida are known for their vast array of bird species. Their crane population doubles in the winter when northern cranes come down to join the native sandhills. Kat studied the various pictures of sandhills on wet, scenic beaches. Ugly birds, really. Sandhill cranes can live to be twenty years old and they’re doing just fine, but the whooping crane—a close relative—is nearly extinct today. Kat wondered if Kyle had noticed any of this when he was growing up there. Most kids wouldn’t have, but maybe he was more of an observant type, the sort of boy who might notice the disappearance of whooping cranes.

  She circled a section about flash floods in low-lying areas. It seemed pertinent to understanding who Kyle was—the fact that he’d moved from one wet place to another. But maybe it wasn’t. She didn’t give a flying fuck about the waterways of upstate New York, so why would he care about the Okefenokee Swamp?

  Kat knew it was crazy to obsess over a dead man she hardly knew, but she couldn’t stop. All she saw when she closed her eyes was his petrified face in the moments before his fall. She imagined his mother wailing as she got the news of his death over the phone. In this vision, Kyle’s mother is sometimes sitting at a kitchen table smoking a cigarette with her girlfriends. Other times, she’s walking down the grocery store aisle and she just crumples to the floor with her cell phone at her ear. There are a million possible formulations for how a person can receive tragic news while going about their day. Kat was working her way through all of them.

  The images of Kyle’s mother, his childhood home and former life were coming into focus with Kat’s obsessive research. You can learn a lot from online obituaries—that’s where she started. After that, she went to social media, which was full of old photos people had scanned and posted. And she was alarmed to learn that there are aerial photos online of basically every house on earth, if you look hard enough. It’s all there. It’s not like she was doing anything creepy or illegal. Just searching the internet, and checking out a few books here and there. The microfiche options at the library had filled in some gaps with archived newspapers and such... But that was basically it. This book was the first actual purchase associated with her Kyle inquiry, and it was only twelve dollars. Kat considered her research more of a casual hobby than an obsession.

  A sullen teenage girl from the adjacent ferry booth stared at Kat, who was circling factoids with a red Sharpie. Kat stared back and the girl finally looked away.

  Kat dug into her bag, looking for the pages she’d printed up. Sometimes if she examined the big, pixelated image of Kyle—the one she’d blown up from The Undertow staff photo that was posted on their website—she could sort of tap into who he was. She’d squint her eyes, blurring Kyle to just a blob of pink skin and dark hair, then refocus and hope to see something new in his face, something that helped her understand who he’d been. Did he look like the kind of guy who would have cared about the native wildlife of northern Florida? Did he seem like a man who would have forced himself upon a wom
an?

  The teenager was looking at Kat again. She could feel it.

  Kat stared at the printout. The other bartenders’ faces had been scribbled out, but she could still see half of fat old Jerry’s smile, which was distracting. Kat dug into her bag for the black Sharpie. She fished around and the ferry lurched as it pulled into Vineyard Haven. Her marked-up photo slid off the table and under the bench seat in front of her.

  As Kat jumped up to retrieve her paper, the sullen teenager jumped faster, eager to see what this strange lonely woman had been obsessing over. They reached for it at precisely the same moment and as each pulled a corner, the page ripped down the middle.

  The girl pulled her hand back and made a weak expression of apology before looking down at the torn page. She looked right at the picture of Kyle and then back up at Kat. And for a moment it seemed that she recognized the man in the photo. Was that possible? Could she have understood who and what she was seeing in that brief glance? But then the expression on the girl’s face turned to pity, or maybe it was disgust, and she went back to her seat. Maybe she wasn’t interested in any of it.

  Kat’s fear of looking like a crazy person was suddenly subsumed by her fear of looking like a suspicious person—someone who might know something about Kyle’s death. He was fresh on everyone’s mind. The case was still open; the cops were still looking for answers; and Kat was still waiting for a shoe to drop. Everyone on the island knew who Kyle Billings was now. His image had been on TV for a week. Local stations all used the same old picture from a previous job, before he’d gotten the shorter haircut and filled out in the arms. Kat felt a little sorry for Kyle about the picture they used because he was actually much more handsome than that.

  The vibration of the ferry quieted to a hum and everyone headed for the doors. Kat stuffed her book and printout pages into her bag, checked on her new glass-working paddles, and felt for her phone. It was all there. She reminded herself that she hadn’t committed any crimes on that day and didn’t need to be so goddamn nervous about just riding the ferry like a normal person. Carry on, she told herself. Carry on as usual.