Like a lot of truly beautiful people, my mother wasn’t much of a shopper, because she didn’t need to be. She had no use for embellishment. She had glossy hair and sparkling eyes—a cloak and two jewels. That’s how she was raised, to let herself shine through. Still, she loved color and art and appreciated good design, and she approved of fresh air and exercise, so she enjoyed window-shopping tremendously. There were just enough art galleries and antique stores to pique her interest in town, and she lingered over the most tasteful displays, appreciated the lush arrangements of flower boxes, combinations that seemed to get more inventive every year. It was good to see her out, away from the houses, away from the specter of Bear Brownstein.
The girls were enchanted by all the people, particularly the teenagers a few years older, dressed in a style I can only describe as slutty mermaid. Flowing spaghetti straps, garlands of red stars in their hair. Like they were headed to Coachella and not trying to hitch a ride to Nobadeer Beach to drink some beer with older boys. According to John, that’s what all the high school girls did on July 4—try to crash the college students’ parties.
William, one of our neighbors who had survived raising three teenage daughters, had warned us about this. Never let them go to Nobadeer Beach on Fourth of July. Never bring them to the island during Figawi Weekend in May. And never let them walk into town past nine o’clock in the summer. There was a special brand of trouble available in paradise, as evidenced by those attacks on the beach. Summer girls, island boys? I knew something about that. But far worse than people who were different were people who were just like us. I knew all this, and yet, it all still seemed far away. When other parents told us kids danced like porn stars at middle school dances, when other parents told us all the code words kids invented that mean blow job, we’d look at each other and think, No, no, no, that wasn’t Sydney.
And then Courtney arrived, with her eye makeup and shorter shorts. I followed Sydney’s gaze as she watched how Courtney reacted, how things dazzled her on the street. The clothing, the jewelry, the hair; it sparkled in front of the girls, made their shorts and tank tops and Converse look like artifacts from another civilization, and they knew it. Mesmerized not by an older boy but by something that could be far more dangerous. An older girl.
We divided just before we hit Main Street. We warned the girls to stay together, within my eye line, and that if anyone got lost, we should meet under the map of the world painted on the wall at Ralph Lauren.
Was it my imagination, or were there more police patrolling the street than usual? We saw several on bikes, a few on foot. Nantucket police tended to be young, fit, tan themselves. Like lifeguards with guns.
We squeezed past the long line outside the Fog Island Café, and then Tom and Dad turned left down the short, cobblestoned street between Lilly Pulitzer and the Club Car. They were heading toward Straight Wharf, entering the back way through Nantucket’s version of an alley: a gravel drive with million-dollar boathouses that looked like a private driveway, until you crunched your way down to a wooden gate with a dot of a sign that read Public way. The most private kind of public.
We stood for a while with the girls, listening to the street guitarists play a cover of a song I didn’t know. Courtney and Sydney knew every measure. They tapped their Converse, mouthed the words. The boys were an indeterminate age; they could have been sixteen or twenty-five, with their long, clean hair and soft, tanned skin. They sang in harmony, sang pretty well, truth be told. They finished the song, bowed slightly, and the whole block clapped. Sydney took out a one-dollar bill from her pocket and put it in one of their guitar cases.
“Thank you, darlin’,” the guitarist said to her.
She blushed, Courtney giggled, and I took a deep breath. Damn it. My daughter was going to grow up. She was going to grow up and be beautiful, and there was no getting around it.
As we walked, I saw her drawn to a window outside Vis-A-Vis, a store that seemed far too old for her. Filmy red sundresses, ripped jeans, white camisoles with straps so thin, you could bite them in two. Clothes like a dam that couldn’t hold. She seemed to be pondering whether she liked them or not, if they would look good on her.
“Ew,” Courtney said, looking at the dress with distaste. “It’s so…long.”
“Yeah, totally,” Sydney said, and my heart ached.
Don’t be that girl! I wanted to say. But too late. Courtney led; Sydney followed. That’s what came of having a hoverboard.
John walked along gamely, one of the few men looking into store windows. The benches up and down the street were filled with men checking their phones and drinking coffee while their wives shopped and their kids had their faces painted.
“Not as crowded this year,” my mother remarked. “Dear God,” she said after we passed a girl wearing a white slip dress and sunglasses. “If she’s wearing that in July, what on earth will she wear in August?”
We usually made our way to the top of Main, went up toward the monuments, and sat down on the benches near Fair Street. Sydney had always called it Fairy Street, after a story I used to tell her about a prince and his princess who lived on Nantucket and used to ride their golden bikes down the street and look at all the house names—Fair Thee Well, Fair Weather Friend—and wonder what they’d name their house, and she said Fairy Dust and he said Fair Enough. At night, they’d go swim in the navy-blue darkness, with the fish glowing bioluminescent in circles around them. They’d climb into other people’s boats in the harbor, dreaming about where they’d sail to. And the moment they stepped out of the water, the stars lit their path home.
Of course, I didn’t tell her it was about me and Matt. I didn’t tell her about him singing “Sweet Caroline” to me under the stars, or how we’d wade into the surf and fish for stripers in the moonlight, then cook them in a bonfire on the beach and still be home by eleven. But one time, John listened at the door as I told her the story, and something in his face told me that he knew. It didn’t matter, but he knew.
When we passed Mitchell’s bookstore, my mother turned to me.
“Oh, they have the new Nathaniel Philbrick. I have to get it for your father.”
“Mom,” I said, then paused. Her eyes stopped me like a cold, hard metal gate.
“He can still read, Caroline.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course he can.”
“We’re going into the bookstore,” I called to the girls. “Stay with Daddy.”
John, about to sit on the bench, nodded, and so did Sydney, standing near him. Courtney was looking back toward the guitar players. Mother knew the woman working behind the counter and they chitchatted. I was reading the jacket copy of a book about Madeleine Albright when something made me turn and look out the store window. A dog’s yelp, a child’s squeal.
John was not seated at the bench anymore. I went outside and looked up and down the street. I saw a mother with triplets in identical blue dresses. I saw two of my mother’s friends, Beryl and Joan, crossing the street. No John, no Sydney. Still, I wasn’t concerned; they must be together, right?
I went outside, texted John, and the panic was just beginning to bubble in my throat.
“Where are the girls?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know. I guess they’re with John. We’d better head to the meeting spot.”
People streamed out of the Ralph Lauren store, clutching bags, buying things they could buy anywhere but chose to buy here. We stood beneath the painted map of the world, in the way of everyone taking selfies, as if announcing ourselves, staking a claim.
And then my husband ran up—not from Main Street but from the other direction, the surf shop, where kids always gathered. His face was red and damp.
“What’s happened?” I asked, grabbing his arm.
“They were standing right near the bookstore, petting a dog, and I got a text from Tom, and the next thing I knew, they were gone.”
“A dog?”
“Well, a puppy. A yellow lab puppy with a red ban—”
“I don’t need a description of the dog, John!”
“Well, if we find the dog, we might—”
“What about the dog’s owner?”
“He was a guy. Maybe twenty-five—”
“Jesus Christ!” I started to pace. I looked up and down the street, turned in every direction. Of course they were safe. They weren’t at the beach. They weren’t in the moors. They were surrounded by families, by moms, by people who could help. By police. I repeated those things to myself quickly, but it didn’t help. My heartbeat quickened. I felt something ancient and volcanic rise up in my body.
“I’m sure they’re close, and they’ll meet us here any minute,” John said calmly.
“Yeah, unless the pedophile rapist asks if they want to see the other puppies in his van with the tinted fucking windows!”
“Caroline, don’t—”
“If you tell me to calm down, I will scream bloody murder, John! You left my daughter with a man who had a puppy! How many red flags were flying over her head?”
“Now, Caro, come on. There are no pedophiles on Nantucket!” my mother proclaimed.
“You saw the posters! They’re looking for someone!”
She breathed deeply. “He wasn’t a pedophile.”
“I suppose there are no thieves or arsonists or people capable of hate crimes either, right, Mother? Jesus, every subcontractor on this island drives a van!”
“Wait, did you say you got a text from Tom?” my mother asked.
“Yes,” John said, but he said it too quietly, looked down at his shoes.
“Was something wrong with Tom?” my mother continued.
“Oh yes, let’s not forget precious Tom! What missive was so fucking important from Tom that you took your eyes off your daughter? Buck a shuck? A new IPA on tap?”
He swallowed hard. “Actually,” he said, “I didn’t want to worry you yet, but—the girls aren’t the only ones lost in the crowd today.”