Everything That Follows

by Meg Little Reilly

  “We missed the ferry.”

  Sean looked up. “Nooo.”

  “We did.”

  “Fuck.” Hunter shook his head. “We’ll have to stay over and get the first one in the morning.”

  Kat, who’d nursed two glasses through it all, reached for a bottle of the white wine and poured it right up to the rim. No point in holding back now.

  Ashley looked pleased.

  Sean stood up. “Excuse me.” He walked to the men’s room with an intoxicated sway.

  Ashley folded her napkin on the table and looked around for the ladies’ room. “Me too.”

  It was just Hunter and Kat again, looking down at their beautiful plates. The food had been cut into neat geometric shapes and arranged artfully high. It was preposterous.

  Hunter stabbed his fork directly down the center of his precious food tower and pushed the enormous forkful into his mouth.

  Kat watched in amused horror.

  “This is fucking terrible,” he said through his food.

  “Your dinner?”

  “No, dinner is great actually.”

  Kat laughed. At first it was just a giggle, and then she was laughing harder, until finally she had to use her white napkin to catch the snot coming from her nose.

  Hunter was laughing and nearly choking as he worked to swallow the entire meal he’d just pushed into his face.

  “This is terrible.” Kat wiped an inexplicable tear from the corner of her eye and composed herself. She took a bite of supple, buttery scallop. The evening was terrible, but she was glad to have Hunter there.

  The other two returned and they seemed displeased by the scene.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Hunter said.

  Everyone ate their tiny food and drank their wine in silence for a while. The reality of this endless evening was beginning to sink in. They would need to rent a room—no, a bunch of rooms—in the adjoining inn and carry this project into the morning.

  Kat worried about the cost of this adventure. She didn’t have the money for any of it, and she figured Sean didn’t, either.

  Sean looked miserable, even more so than the others maybe. Kat was angry with him for his association with Ashley, but she still missed him, and it still broke her heart to see him sitting beside this attractive, adoring woman. This woman didn’t come with an ugly secret that would hover over the rest of her life like a dark cloud. Kat couldn’t compete with that, even if Ashley was a little nuts.

  Hunter made eye contact with the waiter and pointed at an empty bottle. They’d have another of the Cabernet, he said.

  Ashley reached for her water glass, hitting her wineglass in the process and sending a wave of crimson liquid across the table.

  Sean jumped up. “Oh shit!”

  Kat collected everyone’s napkins and began sopping up the wine. She must have made a disapproving face because Ashley got defensive.

  “I’m sorry! It was an accident.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” Sean said, putting a hand on Ashley’s back. “It’s not you.”

  “Good thing you got out when you did,” Ashley said under her breath.

  Kat stopped cleaning. “What?”

  Hunter leaned back in his chair, content to watch this fight unfold.

  “I just mean,” Ashley started. “I’m probably a better fit for Sean.”

  The waiter approached and Hunter waved him away. Other diners were looking now.

  “Whoa.” Sean stepped in. “Things are complicated with us, but I haven’t... Kat and I aren’t officially over... I don’t know.” He looked at Kat for help.

  “Right,” she said, happy to receive this olive branch, but also unsure of what to do with it. “We’re working through things.”

  And before all of their eyes, Ashley changed. Her expression hardened and her breath seemed to stop. She stood up quickly, banging a knee into the table and ensuring that every sentient human in the room turned to watch them.

  “You three,” she said, looking from Sean to Hunter to Kat. “I don’t know exactly what you’re hiding in this fucked-up little love triangle, but I know it’s something. I know it. And it has to do with Kyle Billings.”

  She said the last part as a whisper.

  “Two of you were there that night, and none of you wants to talk about it. That body didn’t float down from the swimming beach, and there’s no possible reason for you to disagree with me...unless you’re hiding something. And you are. You’re all hiding something from me!”

  Hunter stood up and took Ashley firmly by the arm, pulling her out of the restaurant through the front door.

  Kat sprang to collect everyone’s coats from the back of their chairs.

  Sean tried to tip the waiter, but Hunter had already taken care of the bill.

  They stepped out into the freezing rain to find Hunter yelling directly into Ashley’s face.

  “What do you want from us?”

  Ashley looked enraged. She’d seemed so drunk minutes before, but now she was searing with hot, focused anger. “I want to know what you’re keeping from me. I’ve been doing the work on my own and I know more than you think. I’ve been talking to the cops and studying the tide patterns. I have proof that there’s no way Kyle was swimming where the cops said he was swimming. And I know the three of you were with him earlier that night. And no one seems to have any proof that he was using drugs or high when he died. All of these things...all of these little pieces! You guys are keeping things from me and I’m going to find out what it is.”

  The frozen rain hit their shoulders and heads with an audible patter.

  Kat began to shiver. This was it. Ashley was close enough now to undo them all. She looked menacing under the yellow light with her wild, wide eyes. The strangest thing about it all was that she didn’t really seem interested in Kyle. This was about them. She was mad and hurt, and she wanted to punish them for keeping her on the outside. Kat had the feeling that if only Ashley had won over Sean, or maybe Hunter weeks before, she would have let all this go. Their fate was in the hands of this irrational girl in search of affection.

  Kat looked up at the sky and shuddered. “We have to go inside.”

  Sean nodded, and the four of them walked around the side of the restaurant to the entrance of the inn. It was crazy that they were going to spend the night together after everything Ashley had just said, but they had no choice. All four of them were drunk and there was no way to get back on the Vineyard at this hour. If there had been any way to get rid of her, they would have. There was no way.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Kat said, reaching for the doorknob.

  So Sean, Hunter and Ashley stood outside, dripping under the awning while Kat went in to book four separate rooms at the reduced winter rate.

  “Family holiday trip?” the old woman at the front desk asked.

  “We missed the ferry.”

  The woman shook her head like it was a damn shame and she’d seen it before.

  “Ice machine’s in the lobby. You want a call in the morning? Make sure you don’t miss the early boat?”

  Kat zipped her credit card back into her wet purse and considered what morning would look like. They had a thirty-minute drive together, followed by the ferry. Maybe she shouldn’t get on the ferry at all. If Ashley was so close to figuring it all out, maybe Kat should just run. Leave the car, go out the back door of the inn and try to start over somewhere.

  “Yeah, a call would be great. Thank you.”

  Outside, Kat led the other three to the row of rooms, which were stacked next to one another like an incredibly quaint Motel 6. No one spoke. They just went to their respective doors and inserted their keys. Each room had a special name. Kat took the Sandpiper Room, between Sean and Hunter. Ashley’s was on the end, beside Sean’s. Whether their rooms w
ere also shorebirds or not, she didn’t notice.

  Ashley got her key in first. She went inside and slammed the door.

  Hunter went into his next.

  Sean looked pitifully at Kat as they both struggled with their keys. He seemed sorry about it all, worried for her. It made Kat feel worse to know that he was worried. She wanted to tell him she’d be fine, but that probably wasn’t true. More than that, she wanted not to care so much about his feelings. It was her life that was about to end, not his. Sean’s key finally turned and he disappeared inside, leaving her alone in the freezing rain before a locked door.

  Kat jiggled her key fruitlessly. She’d never been prone to fatalism, believing it was a luxury for people who didn’t have real problems. But at that particular moment she had the feeling that she’d already seen all the joy her life would ever know. Everything was going to be different tomorrow. Ashley would make sure of that. And it was with this realization of her life’s end that Kat also realized what she wanted to do on that last night of freedom.

  She left the key dangling in its broken lock and walked five steps to her right. Kat knocked on Hunter’s door.

  Chapter 15

  The phone must have rung ten times before Kat realized it was her wake-up call. The ceaseless trilling from the other side of the wall had to be the old lady at the front desk, just as planned. Kat pictured the woman holding her black office phone in her hand and shaking her head in disapproval—not that the old woman could possibly know she was lying naked beside Hunter at that moment, or that anyone had the right to disapprove of how she spent her likely last night as a free person. It was none of that lady’s business.

  The events of the previous evening came crashing back to Kat in an instant: the ill-fated car trip, the disastrous dinner, Ashley’s meltdown. Her head hurt, but it seemed silly to feel pain moments before an apocalypse. Kat had forgotten all of it in the brief window of unbridled pleasure she’d had with Hunter hours before. Even the memory of that sex was enough to nearly push the problems of her life out of her mind. Nearly.

  The phone was still ringing and, shit, Kat realized it would wake Sean up on the other side. And then they would all know that Kat wasn’t in her own room, which she didn’t need on that morning. She didn’t need those new problems.

  Kat jumped out of bed and searched around for her clothes. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to fall asleep in his room. She realized that now.

  “Wait,” Hunter said into his pillow.

  “No, I gotta get that phone before it wakes Sean up. Anyhow, we all need to make the early ferry.”

  Hunter rolled over and watched her lace her boots. “Does it matter?”

  It probably didn’t matter which ferry they got. The earlier the ferry, the faster their demise. Probably. But this field trip needed to end.

  “Get dressed,” she instructed.

  Hunter nodded and sat up.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Hunter, Sean and Kat were talking to a receptionist at the front desk. It wasn’t the old lady. She apparently didn’t work the morning shift. This was a young man with a round face, who Kat figured didn’t care whether she had spent the night in Hunter’s bed emancipating the weeks of mounting anger, frustration and sexual tension between the two of them. He didn’t seem as judgy about stuff like that.

  “Your friend checked out about forty minutes ago,” the man said. “Seemed like she was in a hurry, so I called her a cab.”

  Sean and Hunter exchanged a look. They were both puzzled by this information. And for that moment, they were allies. Sean didn’t know that Hunter had been naked with his ex-girlfriend moments before, and he had no reason to suspect it.

  Kat tried to focus. “Where would Ashley go?”

  Sean nodded to the door, indicating that they should have this discussion in private. They all took ten steps away from the nice receptionist man.

  “I have no idea where she would have gone, but we should just get back,” Sean said. “Nothing we can do about her now.”

  Hunter ran a hand through his unwashed hair. “Do you think she’s going to do something crazy?”

  “I don’t know.” Sean looked at Kat. “Listen, I have to be at the boatyard in two hours. Can we just go back? I’ll pick up the shelves another time.”

  “Yeah, of course.” Kat had forgotten about the shelves. She would do whatever Sean asked at that moment to ease some of her guilt.

  They walked outside and headed for the car.

  The temperature was about twenty degrees warmer than it had been the night before and all the leftover snow piles were washing away to nothing. Sean took the driver side and Hunter went to the passenger side, leaving Kat in the back. The seating made her feel cheap, behind the boys. She tried to sleep as they pulled onto the main road.

  * * *

  When Kat woke up, it was to the sound of the ferry docking on Martha’s Vineyard. She had the reflexive relief of being home, followed by the panic of reality. Her head hurt even more than before, and she suddenly felt like she might throw up.

  The rain was letting up, so Sean turned off the windshield wipers, which screeched miserably with each stroke.

  Hunter reached back and handed her a water bottle. He smiled. Kat smiled back. She wanted to run her hands through his greasy hair and relive the things they had done last night again. It was unbelievable to her that she could feel so terrified for her future and simultaneously so aroused by his presence. Her aching, hungover body was somehow tingling with adolescent excitement at the memory of their night together.

  “You okay back there?” Sean looked into the rearview mirror and Kat remembered that she deserved whatever terrible fate awaited her on the island. How could she have done this to Sean?

  “I’m fine, thanks. Do you mind dropping me at home and hanging on to the car for your mom? I don’t feel well.”

  “It’s my first stop.”

  Kat wondered whether Sean and Hunter had spoken along the way. They weren’t fighting anymore, which either meant that Sean’s anger toward Hunter had softened or that he just didn’t want to pour salt into the wound of their impending problems. Personal beefs were a rather quaint idea in the face of murder charges. Because that’s what this would be, eventually, right? Murder? Manslaughter? Who on God’s earth would still believe that Kat and Hunter hadn’t pushed Kyle over? They were guilty people now.

  Ashley could be at the police station at that very moment, with her proof.

  Sean pulled the car up along the curb in front of Island Glass. It would be another hour until the shop opened, so Kat thought she might go straight into the garage and get a few bowls into the furnace before she had to shower and work. She needed to keep moving today. Whatever was coming would come, but she had to keep moving if she wanted to avoid dying of panic. Suddenly, she was desperate to get to work and feel the heavy, hot iron in her hands.

  “Hope you feel better,” Sean said into the mirror.

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah,” Hunter agreed distractedly. Kat could see the same panic setting in for him.

  She got out and shut the door, standing for a moment in the cold, wet air as the car pulled away. Everything looked just as it had one day before. The only sound was the water lapping on the beach below.

  Kat put her key in the lock of the garage door to find that it was already open. Orla was inside.

  Orla held a long rod into the glory hole, turning slowly with her strong arms. She nodded at Kat, but didn’t look up through her goggles. Kat realized she hadn’t seen Orla work glass in months. She’d said she didn’t feel the same desire to create any longer, which Kat couldn’t fathom. But here she was, creating again.

  Orla pulled the rod out and held the cool end up to her lips and blew. Her blast of air moved through the tube, and they watched the glass bubble grow slowly at the other end.r />
  Kat pulled on a pair of gloves and went to assist. It worked better with two sets of hands—so one person could blow and another could shape the glass at the other end. She picked up a nearby paddle and began to flatten the bottom of the bubble. It was already clear that this would be a double-walled bowl. Orla liked to blow them up like balloons and then collapse and invert the walls. It was one of the first things she’d taught Kat.

  With large pliers, Orla snipped the balloon off the end of the rod. Kat watched as she used a rounded shaper to depress one side in like a deflated soccer ball.

  “Did you get the shelving?”

  “No one was there. I’m sorry.”

  Orla nodded. She seemed unhappy with Kat.

  “And Sean has your car.”

  She nodded again, holding the round shaper firm into the center of the glass.

  Kat deserved Orla’s frustration, this coldness. She’d been absent in mind or body so much lately that it was a miracle Orla hadn’t confronted her about it sooner. She deserved what Orla was doing to her now, but she wasn’t sure she could handle it. No one’s disapproval stung Kat more than Orla’s. In her entire life, there’d been no one she respected more and wanted to do right by than Orla, not even Sean.

  “You should go clean up before we open. You smell like alcohol.”

  Kat nodded and went for the door, embarrassed. She could hear the furnace slide open behind her and the new bowl being placed inside. She imagined that all the tension between them would be baked into that glass bowl for eternity. It was a superstition she shared with Orla, the idea that each piece carried all the energy it was created with, good or bad. The furnace sealed it in. Before that stage, everything was still malleable and capable of change. But once it was baked, it held those emotions for good. Hopefully, the angry bowl would sell quickly and be gone.

  Kat turned the knob of the door that connected the garage with the glass shop. And as she did, there came a sound so unrecognizable, she froze.