A Vineyard Crossing

by Jean Stone

  As Annie stood in the burial ground now, she looked out at the vista of clear blue water that was not accented by a skin of wintery ice as it had been on that Christmas Eve, but by colorful, luminous kayaks. She thought about how she’d admired John before having met him, and how only a few weeks later, she’d fallen in love.

  John Lyons was an amazing man. She didn’t doubt that he cared for her. But they were not teenagers; they were not each other’s first love. His ex-wife might have been his first, or maybe not. He might be planning to go back to her, or maybe not. No matter what the future might or might not hold, the road to commitment felt more treacherous now, paved as it was with past mistakes, lessons learned, and hesitations to take a chance again.

  Or maybe it was just her.

  Still, he should have listened to her explanation. It was the first time she’d been the subject of his anger, his jealousy, his doubt about her feelings for him. The timing might have driven his behavior; Abigail’s return and trying to keep peace between his daughters must be stressful for him. Especially since he also needed to keep peace, day and night, throughout the crowded streets of the much-heralded town that had somehow gained a reputation for glamor, glitz, and, incorrectly, anything-goes.

  In short, if Annie was going to be his wife, how much slack should she cut him? Was being a fiancé supposed to raise the level of the bar of tolerance? And if so, why hadn’t he done that with her? Were his stressors so much worse than hers? They might be, she supposed, if one included a desire to move to Plymouth to reunite with his former wife.

  Despite her questions, as she strolled through the graveyard, Annie felt the calming presence of the souls at rest. As she walked, her priorities came into focus. She knew it was time to gather the facts.

  Fact one was that she could not pretend she hadn’t been a teensy bit smitten by Simon, thanks to his attention—and perhaps his damn sexy charisma. But no one would know that, except Murphy, who probably was listening to her thoughts right then.

  Fact two was that Simon was married. And had kids. Three of them. And though Trish had said it made the story more titillating, the comment had made Annie shudder.

  But fact three might be the most important: Annie must figure out who had taken the picture, who had posted it on VineyardInsiders, who had leaked it to the Times—as in New York Times, not the MV one. It had to be the same person. And though it would be convenient to believe that Abigail was behind it, Annie doubted that the eighteen-year-old had connections to national or international media, or a way to coerce the Times into including it on their site.

  But Simon Anderson would know the right people.

  Fact four was that Annie needed to find out if John really intended to go back to Jenn. Or if Abigail had been testing Annie.

  Yes, Annie needed answers, starting with the photo. Her first stop would be Simon, as Winnie had suggested. Because, if Annie had the most to lose, did Simon have the most to win? Or at least did he think he might have?

  Good question, Murphy suddenly whispered.

  Leave it to Murphy to be hanging out in a graveyard. At least she hadn’t commented on Annie’s self-admission that she’d been a teensy bit smitten.

  I would have been, too, Murphy added, most likely to prove to Annie that, indeed, she read her every thought.

  “Ugh!” Annie cried. “What am I going to do, Murph?”

  Talk to him, like Winnie said. And talk to those you trust. Winnie and I aren’t the only ones who are on your side, you know.

  Drawing in a long breath of Vineyard air, Annie really wanted to believe that.

  Chapter 16

  Annie made it to the Inn in record time. She knew she should find out if Francine needed her. But Francine surely had seen or heard the latest island gossip, and Annie didn’t want to lose time—or her nerve—by commiserating with her. So she parked quickly, jumped out of the Jeep, and went directly to the cottage. She doubted that Simon could be far because it was only Thursday—he still didn’t have a rental vehicle. Which also made her wonder who had given him a ride to Oak Bluffs the night before.

  The screen door was closed, but the main door was open. Annie knocked on the doorframe. “Hello?” she called, trying to sound friendly. “Simon? It’s Annie. Are you there?” She cupped her hand to the screen and peeked inside, but the bright sun behind her dimmed her view. Then she heard footsteps.

  “Annie?” a voice asked.

  It wasn’t Simon. It was Bill. He was dressed in a wrinkled T-shirt and jeans that looked as if they’d been worn many times since they’d been washed. Compared to the care with which Simon dressed, Bill was definitely a production guy and not a news anchor.

  “Is Simon here?”

  He opened the screen door and stepped outside, but not before Annie caught a glimpse into her living room that surprisingly did not look trashed. Then she scolded herself for thinking it would be simply because Bill was there.

  “Hey,” he said, “that Illumination thing was pretty cool. When Simon first told me about it, I figured it would be hokey. You know, small-town stuff ramped up for the tourists.”

  Annie stiffened. “It’s not hokey, Bill. It’s an island tradition.”

  “Yeah, we figured that out. Like I said, it was pretty cool.”

  She forced a smile. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. But how’d you get there? You could have come with us.” Sometimes being nice was challenging.

  “We hitched a ride with some Chappy people—Lottie, I think her name was? Plus her husband and another woman. The ladies were decked out in red-white-and-blue like it was the Fourth of July.” He scoffed, then scuffed his feet on Annie’s pristine porch. So much for him being tidy. “We met them when they were crossing to Edgartown on that sad excuse of a ferry.”

  As badly as she wanted to suggest that he might want to be careful what he said about the people of Chappaquiddick or the beloved On Time in front of, well, in front of anyone, she decided not to waste her time or breath.

  “So where’s Simon? Sleeping off all the excitement?”

  “Down at the beach. He took one of your porch chairs. I told him you wouldn’t mind.”

  Of course she minded. Her Adirondack chairs belonged on her porch. Not on the beach where the paint could get scratched by the sand and scraped by broken pieces of shells. Nonetheless, she smiled. “Okay, thanks. I’ll go find him.” She turned to leave.

  “Annie?” Bill called. “You’re not upset, are you? About the picture?”

  She spun back around. “What do you know about it?” There was no point pretending she didn’t know what “picture” he meant.

  “Me? Not a thing. Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers as if he were ready to recite the pledge to honor whatever. “All I know is everyone was talking about it at breakfast.”

  She cringed. “And what did Simon have to say to ‘everyone’?”

  “He wasn’t there. He only had two boiled eggs for breakfast. He tries to do that every day. He says it keeps his mind sharp and his loins lean.”

  Annie wished he hadn’t referred to Simon’s loins as if she had—or wished she had—any kind of relationship with them. “Well, good for him. Did anyone at the breakfast table say if they knew or heard who’d taken the shot and posted it?”

  Bill shook his head, but his mouth had twitched up into a slight smile that made her feel that he was mocking her. “Not that anyone admitted.”

  She was seething now.

  “It could have been one of Simon’s fans,” the mocker continued. “They’re everywhere. They suck up whatever gossip about him they can find. If you ask me, it’s pretty lame, but it’s part of the game. He knows that.”

  “It’s hardly a ‘game’ if it involves innocent people.” She wanted to add so much more. But she’d already said too much to someone who could diss the Inn with “one or none” TripAdvisor stars. Tossing him another fake smile, she started to leave again when he said:

  “Wait.”

  She stopped b
ut did not turn around.

  “Maybe whoever did it was hoping to give a shout-out for the Vineyard Inn. Like maybe they thought they would help you. Free publicity, you know?”

  Free, indeed. Except for the cost to Annie’s relationship. And to Simon’s family, not that she needed to care about them. Gritting her teeth, she replied, “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Then she flashed him the best innkeeper’s hospitable wave she could muster and trotted toward the path that led down to the beach.

  * * *

  The Adirondack chair was burrowed in sand up to the pitch of its fifteen-degree-angled seat. Annie wondered if another inn would tack the cost of refurbishment onto a guest’s bill.

  “Simon,” Annie said.

  He looked up from the tablet he’d been reading and shielded his eyes against the sun. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite mystery author.”

  Based on what he’d said when they’d first met—and until Meghan had seen him in the library—he hadn’t read anything she’d ever written, nor was she one of his “favorite” authors.

  “I’d offer you a seat, but as you can see, I only dragged one chair down here. Care for a spot on the sand?”

  She could have told him they had plenty of real beach chairs available to guests up at the Inn. Instead, she ignored his remark and simply said, “What happened last night? And what did you have to do with it? Did you post it on the island website or get it to the Times—or both?”

  He grinned. “It never ceases to amaze me how quickly word travels these days. You can have a good time one night and then—boom!—just like that, the whole world knows about it.” He snapped his fingers when he said “boom.”

  “I’m serious, Simon. While my editor is delighted at the publicity of the two of us supposedly being linked, it’s causing a boatload of trouble in my personal life. And I can’t believe it hasn’t damaged yours.”

  “It’s a well-known fact that John Wanamaker, who, in 1876, founded what became one of the world’s largest retailers, once said, ‘I know that fifty percent of my advertising dollars are wasted, but I don’t know which fifty percent.’ I remind my wife of that often.”

  Annie had no idea what any of that had to do with this. It was, however, becoming obvious that he was behind the photo. Though she still could not imagine why.

  Simon turned off his device and donned sunglasses. “Neither you nor I have to ‘advertise’ in the old-fashioned way, but our ongoing visibility is as critical as if we needed to sell a line of fall women’s wear. We are our own brands, Annie. You’re the brand for your books; I’m the brand for my journalism. Like it or not, our brands need constant selling. In order to sell, we must advertise.”

  “You’re a jerk,” she wanted to say. Oh, how she wanted to. She tried to recall the young man she’d seen every night on the local Boston news, the rising star who once had presented himself as humble and truthful, not someone with an agenda. Perhaps he’d had one all along and had been good at pretending. “I let my books speak for my so-called ‘brand,’” she said. “As for advertising, I leave that up to my publisher.”

  “Today’s world is too competitive to leave your brand up to anyone but you. For example, don’t you have another book coming out soon? You must know that this kind of PR, this widespread exposure, is going to help sales.”

  The sun was burning the back of her neck. The angrier she became, the worse it tingled. Without further invitation, she dropped onto the sand and draped the hem of her sundress discreetly between her knees. “We aren’t in the same business, Simon. Yes, our audience is important to each of us. But all I try to do is give my readers a good story they can enjoy for a few hours. I write one, sometimes two, books a year. I am not on the evening news. Every night. Night after night.”

  He fell silent for a moment, as if letting her words sink in. “You’re originally from Boston,” he said.

  She hadn’t expected that. And yet, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised if he had Googled her in order to learn all he could about her, brand-to-brand. Or maybe he’d just read it on the book jacket in the library. She was beginning to wonder if his ratings, indeed, had been falling, and if he were frantically trying to invent a promotional pot wherever, whenever possible. Maybe she wasn’t his first “hit.”

  “I am from Boston,” she replied. “Born and raised there.”

  “As was I.”

  “I used to watch you on the local news. But I didn’t know you’re a native.”

  “It took lots of coaching to get rid of ‘chow-dah’ and ‘pahk the cah.‘”

  Annie would have smiled, but she was too intent on her mission to let down her guard. Besides, if she did, Murphy surely would give her a spirited tongue-lashing.

  “I was brought up in the projects in Dorchester,” he continued. “Columbia Point. Ever hear of it?”

  She nodded, as if she cared. Though, from what she recalled, the disrepair and danger in that era would have made for a frightening place to grow up.

  “We got out before the end of revitalization. My dad was dead by then—alcohol—and my mom, my two brothers, and I went to live with her sister, my aunt Betty. We never figured out how it happened, but Aunt Betty married a guy who was a big-shot city lawyer. They had no kids except us. And everybody loved Uncle Harry. So while I spent a little more than the first decade of my life in absolute squalor, in the second, I became a preppie. Rags to riches. Filth to frills. From Columbia Point to Columbia University School of Journalism. Worked my butt off because my mom needed to feel good about something in her life. And I’ve made it to pretty close to the top. Though I’ve had to slay a few dragons along the way.”

  She supposed she should comment that his mom must be proud of him, but Annie didn’t feel like it. Besides, for all she knew, he’d made the whole thing up. “That’s all very commendable, Simon. But I fail to see what it has to do with what happened last night. Or what didn’t happen, as we both know it didn’t.”

  After a pensive, perhaps intentionally well-timed, pause, he said, “Nothing. Never mind. It’s crap, anyway.” He lifted a can of seltzer that she hadn’t noticed earlier. “Cheers to the old days. May they be forgotten. And to all our days. May they be forgiven.”

  “Is that an admission of guilt? Did you have Bill shoot the picture? And did you post it and send it to the Times?”

  “Nope,” he said. “I don’t stoop that low. For starters, I never heard of that gossip thing you have here. And I have friends at the Times—all of whom texted this morning and wanted to know why I didn’t give them the exclusive. I explained that it was bogus and asked them to track down where it came from; a few said they’d already tried and had gotten nowhere. But I had their word that the story or the photo won’t be repeated, at least not there. Believe me, though I know my brand’s important, I do have bigger fish to fry. No island reference intended.”

  Annie hated to admit it, but she thought he was telling the truth. She did, however, know how she might be able to confirm his denial.

  * * *

  On her way to the Inn to see Francine and try and correct the chatter that had infiltrated the breakfast table, Annie called the Chappy community center. She got voice mail.

  She left a message: “Lottie? It’s Annie Sutton. Could you please call me?” She left her number in case there wasn’t a readout.

  Then she texted John.

  PLEASE CALL BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR WORK.

  She checked her phone and saw that in less than two hours he’d have to be on duty if he was on his normal four-to-midnight. Still plenty of time for him to comply. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her sundress and continued her trek up the hill.

  Francine was on the floor in the great room, playing with Bella and half a dozen rag dolls that Annie suspected Claire had made. Bella was designating chores to each doll: the orange-haired one was to write a list for food shopping; the brunette was to pick blueberries for dinner; the blonde—whose yarn hair needed serious mending
—was to mop the floor where a sippy cup had mysteriously spilled. Watching the little girl’s imagination blossom grew more fun every week.

  “Annie,” Francine said, “I was thinking about you right this second.” Her beautiful, dark eyes had lost some of their sparkle in the past couple of weeks; her once shining pixie-cut black hair had lost some of its vibrancy. Annie worried that a day and a half hadn’t provided her a long enough break.

  “How are you?” Annie asked.

  “I have a little stomach ache. No big deal. Too much going on, I guess. But I’m the one who should be asking how you are.”

  Slumping onto one of the seaglass-colored wing chairs that sat by the wall of windows that looked out to the harbor, Annie said, “I guess you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about me. Or rather, talking about me. Or so I’ve been told. What a nightmare.” She scooped a few pieces of wampum from a small dish on the end table, closed her fingers around them, and tumbled them in her palm as if they were worry stones. Perhaps they were. “How upset are our guests?”

  Francine picked up the doll that Bella had instructed to go shopping and smoothed its orange hair—Annie recognized the yarn as matching that in a sweater Claire had knit for Lucy last Christmas. “I wouldn’t say they’re upset. Curious, maybe. Mary Beth tried to set them straight, but I think they wanted to believe that you Simon are an . . . item.”

  It took Annie a second to remember that Mary Beth was, in fact, Meghan. Another one on her growing list of problems. “The picture made it into the New York Times. My editor says the timing is terrific, what with my next book about to come out.” She toyed with the shells, grateful that Meghan had been standing beside her at the Tabernacle and, if questioned, could confirm the details of what happened. But if Annie used her as an eyewitness, she’d risk baring Meghan’s secret if the police—namely John—interrogated her. And Annie would not do that. Ever.

  “How are you?” Francine asked.

  She blinked. “I thought I’d feel better if I got to the bottom of this. But so far I’m coming up blank. I’ve been told that Abigail didn’t do it. Bill didn’t do it. Simon didn’t, either. It’s tough enough to confront an enemy when you know who it is. But how can I defend myself when I don’t know the culprit? Who hates me enough to want to ruin my life?”