Page 20 of After Life
“The hurricane’s gonna make landfall in the next day or so,” Ray-Don said, startling us. He came around the end of the aisle, strolling to where we’d been picking out the wine for our little outing. “Just announced officially a few hours ago, Nelson’s been bumped up to a cat two.” He stopped a few feet away and rocked back on his heels, hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets as he regarded us. “Didn’t you hear me tellin’ Delia that yesterday?”
“Ah, must’ve missed it,” Julian murmured. “I should try to get hold of Sandra, see if we need to get supplies or if she has some at the house already.”
“You stayin’ at Honey Walk?” Ray-Don nodded to himself, not waiting for our reply. “You’re good. She was in here this mornin’, stocking up on water and what-not. You sound like you’re from down here,” he nodded at Julian. “You know how to ride out a hurricane?”
“I’m from Southeast Texas, and yes,” he assured Ray-Don. “I rode out Rita when I was just a kid, and Harvey a few years ago now. I know the drill.”
“Most of it’s gonna get the mainland but, well, we’re a small island here, not far off the coast.” He shrugged. “We’ve weathered worse over the years.”
“Have you lived here long, then?” I asked. The way he was staring at us made me uneasy, like he was waiting for us to do something wrong so he could pounce. I edged closer to Julian.
“My family’s been here since the beginning. The Noonans,” he added proudly. “Well, my mom’s people, anyway. My dad’s, they were latecomers. Didn’t get here till the late 1800s. But the island’s been good to us, even after everything that happened back in the day, when Jeremiah Tibbins lost his fool mind and sold off so much of the land.”
“Ah.” Julian moved closer to me now, linking our fingers. Ray-Don’s eyes tracked the movement of our hands and he frowned, sucking on his teeth in apparent displeasure. “Well. It must be really something to be part of a place’s history like that. My family doesn’t have such deep roots where we live now.”
“Mine does,” I offered, “but we’re mostly dead so it’s just me and I’m rather a tumbleweed at the moment.”
“Invasive and a threat to the locals?” Ray-Don asked ingenuously.
“Ah...”
Julian cleared his throat. “Well. I think we’re set, Oscar. Time to check out!”
Ray-Don grunted and edged past us, heading for the single register at the front of the store. We exchanged nervous glances and followed him. He took the basket from Julian without asking and started scanning the items, shooting us keen looks every few seconds. “So, where y’all heading? Looks like a picnic here.”
“We were definitely considering it,” I said.
“West Beach is nice. There’s a cove there. In the spring it’s absolutely covered in these,” he made a vague gesture with a pack of cold cuts, “viny plant things. When it dried out in the summer, they used to use ‘em for the fires. Supposed to make it smell real nice, I guess. The folks here used to have these big gatherings there. Bonfires and all. Used to go every year when I was kid but...” He shrugged. “Kind of fell off over the last decade or so.”
Julian’s expression shifted and I could tell he was remembering something. “The cove... Is it by any chance below the Noonan House?”
“Well, yes it is,” Ray-Don said slowly. “How’d you know that already?”
“We were at the museum earlier,” Julian said. “They had all these old pictures up in a gallery in what I think was a study at one time. A few of the older ones had bonfires and looked like a festival or something. One of them was labeled Noonan’s Cove, 1922.”
Ray-Don’s eyes narrowed, and he set the food down with extreme gentleness. “Now, Doctor Weems, it ain’t nice to go digging through other people’s secrets.”
“It was a picture in a public museum,” I said. “He didn’t go rummaging around in someone’s locked room for it.”
Ray-Don sniffed. “Maybe so, but those sorts of things, they’re not meant for outsiders. They’re private. Special.” He picked up the food and started scanning again, quiet now and not looking at us as he rang up the total.
Julian pulled some bills from his wallet and handed them to Ray-Don, his expression troubled and more than a little annoyed. “Well, enjoy your day, Ray-Don.”
Ray-Don nodded. “Y’all be careful. Don’t go getting into something you can’t get out of.”
We hurried from the store and headed toward the beach path across the road. By unspoken agreement, we avoided Virginia’s Path and opted for the less scenic walk down to West Beach. The cove wasn’t hard to get to, a ridge of flat-topped rocks serving as a sort of low wall and a natural set of steps to reach the protected bit of beach. Despite the stiff breeze and gathering clouds on the horizon, the little cove was calm, protected on three sides by the tall rock cliffs in a rough V-shape. The beach itself was surprisingly hard-packed, not at all soft and sandy as the rest of the shore seemed to be. Julian made a face, turning in a slow circle as he took it all in. “You’re making your thinky face,” I murmured, taking the grocery bag from his free hand and heading for a nice, flat spot near the apex of the V. “Come on. You told me this was a romantic getaway. Romance me, Doctor Weems.”
He snorted, following me at a slower pace. The sand might be hard-packed but it was still difficult to navigate for him, so I changed direction and headed for part of the low stone ridge, where it started to slope upward into the rock face. Julian shot me a sideways look but didn’t comment, the both of us sinking to sit on the knee-high flat stones and spreading the picnic between us. “It feels like we’re the only people on earth right now,” he murmured. “I think I like it.”
“If we were the last people on earth, what would you do?”
“I mean, honestly?” He shrugged. “Scream, cry, freak out. Then I’d end up like that episode of Twilight Zone where the guy decides to read all the books he never got to read and his glasses break.”
“You wear contacts.”
Julian sighed dramatically. “And one day I’d run out of my prescription and since we’re the last ones on earth and neither of us knows how to make contacts, I’d be out of luck.”
“I’d read to you,” I promised, pressing against his side as he chuckled. “So long as you talked to me. I like hearing your voice when you wax rhapsodic about something you’re passionate about.”
