13. Meredith
MEREDITH
At some point, the moon rose—though I’m not exactly sure when.
It’s pretty late when my back starts to ache and my eyes begin to blur.
I had moved to the floor of the Shack’s office a few hours earlier, poring over decade-old receipts and profit reports to try and piece together some kind of order.
I’ve been at it for days now, but every step forward feels like two steps back. Nothing seems to add up.
In the quiet of the room, my yawn is embarrassingly loud.
Sophie had left the Shack hours ago after an admittedly herculean clean-up effort that left the place smelling like citrus—with a heavy note of bleach, as if someone doused a lemon tree with Clorox.
June was needed back at the gallery, but she had messaged on and off with her designs for an investment pack that was starting to look promising.
Yet all I’d managed to do was cover the office floor in paper and despair.
I try to suppress my dissatisfaction as I stand and carefully make my way through the room so I can pick up exactly where I left off tomorrow. The weight of another wasted day, with July quickly approaching, is heavy, especially when all my efforts have only raised more questions.
It’s only as I’m locking up that I realize Birdie’s is still open. The glass front oozes warm, welcoming light out into the street, and I find myself drawn in before I can help myself.
A bell twinkles as I walk in, greeting me with the same joviality as the soft eighties rock in the background and the old man perched at the bar.
“Mer-bear!”
I cringe inwardly and slap on a smile. “Hey, Roland.”
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” My dad’s best friend tries to dismount the barstool, but I quickly place a firm hand on his back to keep him steady. He swats me away with what sounds like a “quit your fussing” under his breath—but stays seated, nonetheless.
“What’s wrong with looking at Eddie?” I say as I gesture to the man in question.
Eddie smiles over from the other side of the bar, waving a card reader in greeting before returning to his customer.
“He ain’t as pretty as you.” Roland nudges me with a wheezing laugh that ages him about ten years.
I make a face. “Thought you quit smoking.”
“I did,” he says as he thumps his chest. “The old lungs just keep playing up.”
Sixty-three, just as my dad would have been, and already reaping the rewards of a youth spent fishing, eating, and drinking in excess.
Dad had left to take over the Shack just as Roland had been forced into early retirement by his heart—a decision Dad always said wasn’t influenced by the latter, as if we ever believed him.
Either way, Roland repaid the sentiment by buying the bar across the street.
I try to smile to hide a critical assessment.
The years apart haven’t been kind to him.
His full head of hair is now a mix of gray and white, curling around his hollow cheeks.
His skin is looser, and his movements are more sluggish.
The stick hidden under the bar is a clear sign of his reduced mobility.
In my memories, Roland was never the picture of health, but now it seems like he clings to his age as if it’s racing to escape him.
It’s a sobering and guilt-laden thought.
“He isn’t complaining again, is he?” Roland’s son finally wanders over with a towel thrown over his shoulder.
I feel my guilt churn into something defensive. “Roland’s never complained a day in his life.”
“That’s my girl!” he whoops, earning me another nudge. “You always were my favorite.”
Eddie just rolls his eyes. “Yeah, until June swings by with coffee from Linda’s.”
“Bribery has always been the way to my heart.”
I relax a little as we settle into a familiar sort of humor—teasing and self-deprecating but always in good spirits.
Eddie comes and goes as I catch up with Roland, learning about his surgery the year before, the fact that Eddie completely bought him out of Birdie’s, and how hesitant Roland is to admit that the new decor has been good for business.
At some point, a bottle of beer was pushed my way and now sits empty on the bar, just as Eddie waves off what will likely be the last customers of the evening.
Once he’s behind the bar again, Eddie jerks his head toward the window at the dark face of the Shack. “So, how’s it going?”
I shrug, not wanting to get into it. “It’s going?”
He slides another bottle of beer over to me, and I take it gratefully.
“The plan is to do a trial run, an unofficial launch day, the first weekend of July,” I explain before taking a generous sip. “More of a photo op than anything else, but June thinks it’ll help drum up some support.”
“Plenty of folks in here asking about Holloways. We could advertise it if you’d like?”
“Thanks.” I smile softly. “It’s been a while since I’ve been behind a grill.”
He busies himself with drying a few glasses before stacking them on a shelf. “You worried?”
“Kinda.”
“You were always the face,” Roland chimes in. “Wouldn’t touch the shucking station with a barge pole.”
“I shucked plenty of times, I’ll have you know,” I say with futile pride. “Besides, Sophie is going to be out front, since she never officially worked the kitchens.”
“Pretty sure I remember her beating you all in a cook-off when she was what, thirteen?” Eddie teases.
“The judge was biased.” I shoot a pointed look in Roland’s direction.
The older man throws his hands up in surrender. “She was the only one of you that didn’t give me any grief!”
“Yeah? How’s the heart these days, Roland?” I bite back, the beers effectively softening the guilt in the face of familiar banter.
“He’s off saturated fats indefinitely,” Eddie pipes up before his dad can answer.
“Sounds to me like we could have given you a bit more grief.”
Roland scowls. “I didn’t come to my own bar to get harassed.”
With that, he moodily disembarks from the bar stool, muttering to himself about the bathroom, “disrespect,” and other things I wouldn’t care for him to repeat. I shake my head fondly as I go back to my beer, resting my arms heavily on the reclaimed wood surface.
“You look tired.”
I glance up to see Eddie staring down, clearly bemused. “Gee, thanks.”
“You sure you don’t want to head home?”
I arch a brow at him. “You trying to get rid of me?”
“Maybe I just don’t want you falling asleep on my bar.”
With a groan, I slump back again. “I don’t get it. I used to pull all-nighters reading literal copyright documents and still make it to court in the morning. But as soon as there’s math involved?” I shake my head and take a heavy drink.
“Have you considered that you’re not twenty-one anymore?”
“Have you considered being nice to me? I’m a paying customer?”
“I don’t think you’ve paid for a thing since you got here.”
I feel my face heating up at the implication—right, I’m supposed to be making it up to him.
However, the second I reach for my purse, he swats it away. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then don’t complain,” I quip back.
With a sigh, he reaches below the bar for his beer, then leans back against the counter.
His usual plaid shirt is rolled up to his elbows, and he lets his bottle hang precariously from his fingers.
“So, why are you doing math at ten o’clock on a Thursday night?
” he asks with all the power of those dark, gentle eyes and a lifetime of bartender therapy.
“Trying to figure out why all the Shack’s spending reports say one thing and our taxes say another,” I admit with ease.
“Weird. Recently?”
I shake my head as I swallow so I can speak without choking. “No, back when my dad was still running things. The receipts are like fifteen years old, so I’m probably missing something. Either that or my math is wrong.”
“How much are we talking?”
“Couple grand.”
He brings his beer to his lips, but before taking a gulp, he asks, “A year?”
“A month.”
Eddie lets out a low whistle. “I hope your math is wrong.”
“Yeah.” I take another long drink, tipping my bottle back. “Me, too.”
“What would Aiden even need to spend that much on? He wasn’t running his boat, was he?”
“Nope. Sold it in 2005.”
His face twists thoughtfully. “Maybe a secret boat?”
“He had the Bluebird for sailing and Old Pete’s for fishing,” I point out. “Besides, if Dad had a secret boat, half the harbor would know about it. Remember when Mason Winthrop tried to buy a speedboat for his wife’s birthday?”
Eddie shakes his head in faux despair. “Gossipy fish-wives, the lot of them.”
“Does she still have it?”
“Used it twice, then left it to rust.”
I smirk at him. “And how do you know that?”
“Hey, Dad?” Eddie calls out instead. “You don’t remember any of Aiden’s weird spending habits, do you?”
“Holloway?” Roland says as he hobbles back over to us. “Man loved a sundae from the…” He looks around with animated suspicion before leaning in to loudly whisper, “Ice cream chain store on the Cape.”
I slam my beer down a little too aggressively. “Lies and slander!”
“I’m telling you, he’d go every time we passed through—” He tries to continue, but I already have my hands over my ears for comedic effect.
The memory of Aiden Holloway buying a mint choc-chip from Maya’s place every morning on his way to the Shack, come rain or shine, was a warm one.
That was the thing about my dad—his fierce passion and loyalty to local businesses were well known and documented.
The man I knew would rather drive to Martha’s Vineyard on the ferry than import lumber from the mainland, to the point where Dan would yell at him for exceeding the weight limit every time he tried to come back.
“I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead,” Roland says with a chuckle when I return to the conversation.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie snorts. “So, he never bought anything bigger than ice cream?”
“I don’t know…aside from that treasure he said he had buried out in Wauwinet?” Roland rubs his face as if trying to jog his memory. “He was always a bit crazy about his tackle. Went over to the West Coast a few times to pick it up himself.”
I share a look with Eddie, and he shrugs once.
“Yeah, I’ll check his flight history. Thanks, Roland,” I say before finishing my beer.
Roland takes the cue to make his leave, citing age and ailments, with a kiss on my forehead and a halfhearted salute to his son.
Eddie watches the door close behind him before returning to the conversation. “You really think he was out there every month? He’d have to be flying first class.”
“It’s a start,” I say tiredly. “A better lead than I had a few minutes ago.”
And a better alternative to some of the other theories that my tired mind had been contemplating, such as loan sharks, bad business deals, or owing money to a Mafia kingpin who ordered his death to look like an accident.
Yeah, maybe I do need some sleep.
“Hey, you’ll figure this out.” Eddie offers me a knowing smile when I inevitably yawn again.
“And the good news is, if your dad did have a secret spending habit, at least you know the Shack was actually profitable. All you need to do is to make sure you don’t accidentally buy yourself a speedboat or bury it all in some chest out in Wauwinet. ”
Some of the tension in my chest eases up at his words, and I can feel a small but genuine smile creep across my lips. “That’s some sound business advice, Jones.”
There’s a moment when he just looks back at me, something uncomfortable slowly creeping into his posture before he coughs and straightens with a stretch. “Well, that’s the Birdie’s guarantee.”
“Free advice and free beer?” I joke to try to lean away from whatever tension was brewing between us for a moment.
“Careful, or I’ll make you pay me back.”
I hold up a hand, palm out. “As your lawyer friend, I’d advise you not to go down that path.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nod earnestly. “Only leads to heartbreak.”
“Lord knows I’ve had plenty of that.” He says it lightly as if to tease, but the words still scrape uncaringly against my conscience.
I find myself swallowing down something quite bitter. I stand to leave, hesitating as I turn to the door. “I’ll pay you back on opening night, okay? All you can eat.”
If I weren’t looking so intently, I might have missed the flicker of sadness that crossed his expression. But then I blink and he’s smiling again.
“Get out of here, Holloway.”