“So you believe that Willow is somehow responsible for this?”
“I could tell something is not quite right with her. Call it mother’s intuition,” she said. “Of course Willow is always nice when we have her over. Despite the big house she lives in, she is always complimenting us on what a nice home we live in.” She wanted to explain how Willow had eventually managed to win her over, despite the warning alarms going off in her head.
“We’re checking with their friends. Maybe they all piled into a car and took off on a road trip down to Portland and decided not to tell anyone.”
“Katie would have definitely called me if she did something impulsive like that.”
“Kids change as they get older. Peer pressure and all.”
“Katie isn’t like that.”
The sound of a truck rumbling up the driveway filled the kitchen. Isla moved to the window to see who had arrived. For a second she thought it might be Ray coming home to check on her, but on closer inspection, she saw that it was Drew, Katie’s boyfriend. She prayed Katie was with him, only to realize a few seconds later that the passenger seat was empty. Drew jumped out of his truck and bounded up the stairs to the kitchen door.
His aggressive knock on the door rattled her. Isla did not have the patience to deal with Drew right now, but she decided to deal with him, anyway. She opened the door and took him in with her eyes. With his sandy blond hair, square face, and blue eyes, he resembled someone who had just walked out of a nineteenth-century Iowan cornfield. He was a year ahead of Katie, and his main goal in life was to one day own and operate his own lobster boat, like his father. And his father before him. Isla didn’t necessarily look down upon this lifestyle, but she wanted more for Katie, the same way she had wanted more for herself those many years ago, when she had dreamed all those big dreams. And with the Gulf of Maine warming because of climate change, and with the lobster catch dropping year after year, she wondered what the future would hold for men like Drew. There weren’t many other good jobs in town for high school graduates.
“Where the hell is Katie?” Drew said, walking past her and into the kitchen.
“We don’t know. That’s why the police are here. We’re trying to find out what happened to her.”
His eyes drifted with suspicion to Karl. “Is it bad enough that you had to get the cops involved?”
“No sense taking any chances.”
“I told you this would happen. I warned Katie to stay away from that bitch. She’s nothing but bad news.”
“Watch your language, Drew,” Isla said.
“Those rich newcomers suck. Why’d they have to come here and ruin our town like that? Even my dad says we were much better off without them.”
“Go home, Drew.” She refused to let him in. “I said, go home.”
“I’m gonna call some friends and go look for her. Shouldn’t you be doing the same?”
“As you can see, I’m talking to the police right now.”
“Where’s Swisher?”
“Mr. Eaves to you.”
“He tells me to call him Swisher.”
“I can’t get ahold of him. I assume he’s out on business.”
Drew laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. “Right, that seaweed business of his.”
Karl walked over and stared at the kid.
“Where were you yesterday?” he said.
“I was at the game yesterday afternoon, and then I went straight home and didn’t leave the house again. I asked Katie to meet up with me that evening, but she said she was going to a party with some of her teammates. It pissed me off because I had a feeling she’d be hanging out with her.”
“What do you have against Willow Briggs?”
“Katie changed when she became friends with her. I warned Swisher that Katie was gonna get in trouble by hanging out with that girl, but he didn’t listen to me. Now look what’s happened. Katie’s gone, and the cops are involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if that missing rich kid also got tangled up with her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Isla said, secretly fearing the same thing.
“What did you do when you got home after the game?” Karl asked.
“Me, Jeff, and Jason hung out in my garage, drinking beer and working on Jason’s pickup. I was helping Jason put in a new transmission.”
“You guys are too young to be drinking.”
“Whatever.”
“You have their phone numbers?”
“Sure.” He gave them to Karl.
“You can expect a call from me, Drew. I might have some other questions I want to ask you.”
“Whatever. Just hurry up and find Katie,” Drew said before heading back out the front door.
Isla walked over and slammed the door shut, her nerves on edge.
She stared out the window over the kitchen sink and watched as his pickup sped down the hill, kicking up dirt and debris in the process. She grudgingly appreciated his concern for Katie, as belligerent as he could sometimes be. Drew was a simple boy who should have been born in an earlier era. His view of Katie seemed antiquated and she could understand why Katie had started to drift away from him—and this gritty town that had nurtured her.
And yet who was she to talk? She’d married Ray, the poster boy for Shepherd’s Bay masculinity. Then, after dropping out of college and returning home, she’d attended beauty school and learned to cut hair and taken over her grandfather’s barbershop in the downtown area.
She remembered her grandfather and how he had worked as a barber for over fifty years. He had cut the hair of generations of Shepherd’s Bay families and had known more about this town than just about anyone. When he had decided to retire and pass the barbershop on to her at no cost, she hadn’t been able to believe her good fortune. She’d agreed to assume the lease after she finished beauty school. Her grandfather’s only stipulation was that she work with him as an apprentice for a year and learn the art of barbering, which would give her additional skills as well as enable her to carry on the shop’s tradition. The more skills she had, the better to survive in this hardscrabble town. She happily agreed to this, and in that year she grew closer to him than ever.
He taught her how to cut men’s hair and do tight tapers and fades and military flattops, which were the most difficult cuts to master and were prevalent among old-timers and the few Coasties stationed here. He demonstrated how to shave around the ears and along the neck, and how to give full-on shaves using strop, stone, and a straight-edge razor. Beard trims were tricky, with so many styles that she often took notes afterward just to keep track. But what he didn’t overtly teach her, what he modeled instead, was how to deal with customers. She saw an easygoing and laid-back man, more a listener than a talker, and was shocked at what some of his customers discussed with him as he trimmed their hair: infidelity, sex, disease, death, politics, financial crises, among the many topics.
Cutting men’s hair proved much harder than she had initially thought, and she struggled with her technique those first few months. But her grandfather showed lots of patience with her, as did many of his customers, who generously allowed her to experiment on them. They laughed when she screwed up, and gave her a big tip regardless of how they looked afterward, happy just to have an attractive and friendly woman working on them. She learned to follow the Boston sports teams and to speak the language, so much so that she could discuss batting averages, nickel defenses, and power plays. She discovered that men were much easier to please than women, especially when cutting their bangs, and that knowing the score of a Red Sox or Bruins game was often far more important than making sure their sideburns—or sideboards, as many of the locals called them—were even. Little did she know, but all that time he was training her, her grandfather was quietly transitioning all his old customers over to her.