Meredith Quint was an Islander.
She'd given up the insanity of sharking to spend her days on the island. She'd tried everything to leave behind the storms and the riptides for steadier waters.
When a rogue great white terrorizes her sleepy island o...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The next day, Chief Brody had Meredith meet him down at the courthouse. After handling the situation down at the beach the previous day, the mayor and Martin had called a town hall meeting for those on the town council, many of whom had been on the beach.
Meredith felt very out of place as she exited her truck in jeans and a sweater. She had put in the effort and powdered some makeup on her face and some liner around her eyes. She hadn't slept well the night before and it showed.
Yesterday, Martin had asked Ellen to drive her home because she was so spaced out from the events on the beach. Ellen had made sure Meredith was inside and had brewed both of them some tea, needing the company as much as Meredith. Ellen sat with her a while, drinking tea on the porch of the rental cottage. Sean and Michael had kept themselves busy looking through some of Meredith's books on fish and coral reefs.
Ellen and Meredith didn't talk about what happened that day at the beach. Ellen kept the topic on other better things, talking more about her and Martin's life when they lived in the city. It kept Meredith's mind busy and she was curious about city life, being an Islander herself, and never really living anywhere else. Ellen had even asked more about Meredith's time at University.
When Ellen and the boys left around sunset, Meredith felt her mind go quiet again. She kept replaying that day over in her head. For the most part, she beat herself up for not doing anything to help the Kinter boy. Then she spent hours thinking of what she could have done, only to come up empty and feel guilt all over again.
Long after dark, Meredith had even got in her truck and drove down to the harbor, hoping to speak to her dad. When she arrived at his shack on the dock at 1 am, Quint's boat was gone. Meredith found herself peeping in the windows of his home. The old warehouse was cold and empty, just like it had always felt. Meredith used her spare key to his place and let herself in. She made her way from memory behind the ladder leading up to the loft and took a jar of his home-brew to go. Meredith figured that would have been Quint's remedy for her insomnia anyway: Get her drunk so she'd spill her guts.
Meredith made herself go home after that. She took a shot of the liquor and had another hot shower to chase away the cold that clung to her. Her rental home hugged a quiet street in the center of town so she didn't have a view of the water or the beach. She usually missed living right on the water, finding the rhythm of the crashing waves comforting.
But that night Meredith was thankful she couldn't see it. Instead, she drank in the sight of the moon from between the tree branches, sipping her father's moonshine. Then, her eyes opened back up and she found it to be morning. The jar was over half-empty and her head regretted it.
She wasn't happy to be brought into this city council meeting. It wasn't her place and she personally had better things to do – namely, locate her father. But Martin Brody was a friend. And he was the Chief. Whenever Chief Brody asked Meredith Quint to do anything to help him out, with his large brown eyes and heart of gold, she couldn't help but say yes.
