The Space Between Sisters

by Mary McNear

  “Good night Sam,” she said now, with unmistakable affection. “And get some sleep, okay?”

  “Yeah, well, that goes for you, too,” he said. And after he’d hung up the phone he did think about going to sleep. It was ten thirty by then, and he’d been up since six thirty that morning. But instead he opened his laptop again, reached out a wary finger, and clicked “play” on the video. Then he leaned closer, staring at the two young women on the screen, one of whom was sitting down, facing the camera, and one of whom was standing beside her, holding a tortoiseshell comb.

  “The first step in French braiding hair,” the woman with the comb said, “is to part the hair down the middle all the way to the back of the head.” Sam watched as she did this to the model’s hair. “Now,” she continued, “put one side of the hair in a pigtail in order to keep it out of the way so you can work on French braiding the other side. After that, take a small section of hair in the front of the head and divide it into three sections as though you were going to do an ordinary braid. But in this case, you will be braiding over the middle section, not under the middle section, as you generally do in an ordinary braid.”

  Sam groped around on the table for a pen and paper. He came up with the pad of paper that Hunter had left, the one with his fireworks wish list on it, and a stubby pencil that had gotten loose from one of the kids’ board games. He flipped to a blank page in the pad, and started scribbling, furiously, trying to keep up with the woman’s instructions. He’d watched this video at least a half dozen times, and this next part always tripped him up.

  “After that,” the woman on-screen was saying, “take the front section that you’ve divided into three strands and take the front part over the middle and then the back part over the middle. Once you’ve done one strand, you will now take another strand of hair from beneath the part you’ve already braided once and you will weave that strand over the middle section . . .”

  “What the hell?” he muttered, already hopelessly confused. But he kept taking notes. He would learn how to do this if it killed him, he vowed. And, when he looked down later at the incomprehensible scribblings he’d left on the pad, he figured it just might kill him.

  CHAPTER 5

  Although Sam Boyd watched, and then re-watched, the YouTube video on how to French braid hair several times that week, he was still no closer to knowing how to do it himself. But he wasn’t thinking about that as he pulled up outside of his store, Birch Tree Bait, Provisions and Rentals, at 8:05 that Thursday morning. He was thinking about all of the things that needed to get done that day, and he was wishing that the sight of his employees, waiting for him on the front porch of the log cabin style building, inspired more confidence in him.

  “’Morning,” he said to them, as he started up the steps. “Sorry I’m late. Cassie decided she couldn’t go to day camp this morning until we found her missing flip-flop. Want to know where it was?”

  No answer. Lincoln Post, Linc for short, was lying on one of the porch benches, looking not so much asleep as unconscious, and Justine Demers was leaning on the porch railing, dragging on a cigarette. He frowned at Justine, and she shrugged, apologetically, and dropped the cigarette, grounding it out under the heel of a combat boot.

  “Any sign of life from him?” he asked Justine, gesturing at Linc.

  She shook her head. Sam walked over to Linc, leaned down, positioned his mouth next his right ear, and quietly asked, “Does your mom know how much you’re drinking every night?”

  Linc jerked awake, as if Sam had delivered an electric shock to him, then fell back down on the bench with a groan. “Christ, Sam, if my mom knew that, I’d be a dead man.”

  “Well, look alive then,” Sam said, hefting up the bundle of newspapers sitting on the porch, and taking his keys out of his pocket. “We’ve got a busy day today. And Justine?” he asked, turning to her.

  She raised an eyebrow in response.

  “In the future, smoke out back.”

  She raised the other eyebrow in acknowledgment.

  But as Sam jiggled the key in the lock, his annoyance at Linc and Justine fell away, and by the time he’d pushed open the front door, and scanned the two large rooms that comprised his business, it had been replaced by another feeling. Pride. There was no other word for it. And it never failed. Every time he opened this door and saw this place, he felt it. And as he moved through the rooms now, turning on lights, opening blinds, restocking newspapers, inspecting bait, and checking the delivery schedule, he remembered what this place looked like when he’d bought it three years earlier. Then, it had been a mom and pop style bait shop whose best days were so far behind it that even Sam, who’d grown up on the lake, couldn’t remember them. What it had going for it was location—it was right off Butternut Lake Drive and situated on one of the prettiest bays on the lake. Still, it didn’t have much else to recommend it. The first time he had inspected it, for instance, he’d stuck his hand up at one point and it had gone straight through the ceiling. But he’d bought it anyway, gutted it, and doubled its existing square footage. And then he’d turned it into a kind of north woods convenience and outdoor store. He sold basic groceries, and beer and wine, but also guidebooks, maps, fishing tackle, hunting gear, outboards, bait, coffee, and gas. He also rented canoes, kayaks, and pontoon boats, and offered guides for hire for fishing and kayaking on the nearby Kawishiwi River.

  Before he’d opened it, Sam had bet on the fact that Butternut Lake needed a business like Birch Tree Bait, a business that would anchor the north end of the lake, which was twelve miles from the south end of the lake and from the town of Butternut. Although this part of the lake wasn’t as well populated as the other end in the off-season, in the summertime it attracted day-trippers from both Duluth and Superior, as well as fishermen and their families from the Twin Cities. And all of these people, it turned out, wanted the same thing: a chance to experience the pristine lakes, rivers, and forests of Northern Minnesota without ever having to be inconvenienced while they were experiencing them. And that was where Sam came in. A 5:30 A.M. fishing call on a chilly, mist shrouded lake was a fine thing; but, later in the day, long after the morning’s catch had been scaled, cleaned, and fried for breakfast, being a five minute drive from a place that sold gas, cold beer, and more live bait was also a fine thing. So Sam’s calculated gamble had paid off. The north side of Butternut Lake did need a business like his, needed it enough that the money he earned during the peak season allowed him to coast, reasonably well, through the off-season.

  As Sam was putting money in the cash register, Linc breezed by, swigging from a liter bottle of Coke and carrying a large bag of Barbeque Lay’s. Sam shook his head, wordlessly.

  “What?” Linc said. “You don’t want me to skip breakfast, do you?”

  “Definitely not.” Sam chuckled. “But when you’re done with it, maybe you could invest in a comb. We sell them here, you know.”

  Linc didn’t answer, but as he passed a display of Birch Tree Bait baseball caps near the front counter, he grabbed one and shoved it on over his unruly blond hair.

  “Those cost money,” Sam called after him.

  “Put it on my tab,” Linc answered, ripping into the Lay’s bag as he headed over to the rental side of the business.

  “You’re such a brat,” Sam muttered, but he muttered it affectionately. It was hard for him to get angry at Linc, harder still for him to stay angry at Linc. He’d tried to do both, a couple of times, but never with any real success. Besides, he knew he’d never fire him. Never mind that Linc went out carousing every night, barely dragged himself to work every morning, and ate his weight in free junk food every day. If Sam fired him, his sons, Hunter and Tim, would never forgive him. They worshipped Linc. He was good at every single sport they cared about and, more importantly, he tolerated their presence. When the boys were at the store—which they frequently were—they followed Linc around like two puppies, tripping over their own feet and jostling each other for his attention. And
he gave it to them, for the most part, unless there was a young woman in the store who needed to be flirted with. Otherwise, he gave the boys little jobs to do and a little money for doing them, or he told them, and retold them, their favorite stories about his adventures in the great outdoors. And Linc had had many such adventures.

  He’d spent his childhood summers on Butternut Lake. His family was from back East—they owned a financial services company that Sam had seen commercials for on television—but Butternut Lake was their preferred vacation destination. Even so, they’d been shocked one year when Linc, who’d graduated from college that Spring, had decided to stay on after the summer ended, and the rest of his family had returned to the East Coast. That had been three years ago. The whole thing had created a huge rift between him and his parents. He was supposed to be back home, being groomed to run the family company, but instead he was in Butternut, being what his father referred to as a “north woods slacker.” By night, he drank beer and played pool or darts at any number of little dive bars in the area. By day, depending on the season, he mountain biked, or snowmobiled or kayaked. Two years ago, his parents had cut him off financially, hoping he would come to his senses. He hadn’t. Instead, he’d moved out of their palatial lake house and into an old fishing lodge where the rooms were cheap, and he’d gotten a job working for Sam at Birch Tree Bait.

  For the most part, Linc managed the boat rental business, but he was also available for hire as a guide, and it was this part of his job, Sam knew, that Linc really lived for. Sam had heard a local remark once that Linc couldn’t know this area as well as someone who’d lived here their whole life. He was wrong. He knew it better than anyone Sam had ever met and, what was more, he had a respect for it that bordered on reverence. Sam figured he was lucky to have him, but he didn’t know how long he’d last. His parents had been out over Memorial Day weekend, and they’d put the screws on him. Told him it was time to get back to his “real life.” And eventually, Sam thought, he would. His parents would wear him down. They were rich, after all, and rich people, in Sam’s experience, didn’t like the word no. Maybe because they didn’t hear it often enough to get comfortable with it.

  Sam finished filling the register, slid the drawer shut, and looked up in time to see Justine standing at the coffee counter, finishing her twice daily ritual of pouring herself a cup of coffee from one of the industrial sized urns and then stirring five packets of sugar into it. He sighed, and wondered if he should require his employees to attend a nutrition seminar. Certainty Justine looked as if she could use one. She was thin—so thin Sam could see the outline of her shoulder blades through her T-shirt—and her skin was so white it looked nearly translucent. Her thinness and paleness were both set off by her wardrobe, which today consisted of a tiny, white, belly skimming T-shirt that had a black rose on it, and a pair of black denim shorts whose pocket liners peaked out beneath their hems. Completing this look was her peroxided blond hair, which had a half an inch of black roots showing (it had taken Sam forever to figure out that the roots were supposed to show), her heavy black eye makeup, and her chipped black nail polish.

  For all this, though, there was a delicacy about her that her combat boots couldn’t hide, and a prettiness that no amount of black eyeliner could disguise. Sam felt oddly protective over her, but he was careful not to let it show. Partly this was because he didn’t want to be anything less than professional in his relationship with her, and partly it was because he figured she could take care of herself. Despite her thinness, she was incredibly strong—she was just as apt to do the heavy lifting around here as he and Linc. And she was also more than competent at her job. Alone, she could stock faster than two people together and, when she worked the register, more often than not she balanced it perfectly.

  Now she finished stirring the sugar into her coffee and looked over at him. “Sam, do you think it would be okay if I left early today? I have to take my mom to the doctor.”

  “Oh, sure. Of course,” Sam said, surprised. Justine had never mentioned her mother before. “I hope . . . is she . . . is your mom okay?”

  She shrugged. “The doctors just need to run some tests. Just to, you know, rule out this disease she might have. But otherwise, she’s fine.”

  “Oh,” Sam said, “that’s . . . that’s good.” Actually, he was not at all sure that it was good, but since this was the closest thing to a personal conversation he and Justine had ever had, he didn’t know what else to say. He knew almost nothing about her or her life outside the store, other than the fact that she lived in a trailer park north of Butternut. Like Linc, she was in her mid-twenties. Unlike Linc, she obviously avoided the outdoors at any cost.

  “What time do you need to leave?” Sam asked, trading places with her as she came around behind the counter.

  “Four o’clock.”

  “That’s fine,” Sam said. “I can cover the register. Or I’ll ask Byron to do it for me,” he added, since Byron Boughton was even now making his way over to them.

  “What am I going to do for you?” Byron asked, arriving at the coffee counter, setting down his briefcase, and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “You’re going to cover the register for me,” Sam said, noting that Byron was his usual dapper self that morning. A man of seventy, he dressed neatly in crisp button-down shirts and creased khaki trousers, as though he were dressing for a day at the office. And, in a sense, he was. He reported here every day at 9:00 A.M. and stayed until 5:00 P.M. no matter the season or the weather. But he didn’t work at Birch Tree Bait; he was just part and parcel of it.

  “Sam, I’ll always help you out in a pinch, you know that,” Byron said now, adjusting the seersucker hat he wore at all times in the summer. (In the winter he replaced it with a tweed cap.) “And that goes for this lovely young lady as well,” he added, gesturing at Justine, who was sipping her coffee behind the register. Justine, in response, graced Byron with one of her rare smiles. She was fond of him, as was Linc, who referred to him, affectionately, as “old man.”

  Byron went to select a Minneapolis Star Tribune from the newspaper rack, and left money for that and his coffee on the counter. Unlike Linc and Justine, Byron actually paid for the things he took from the store. And that was a good thing, too, because occasionally, he came close to outwearing his welcome. The first time Sam had met him, it had been at the old Birch Tree Bait, when Sam was still in discussions with the owner over buying it. Byron, already retired and newly widowed, was a fixture there, too, and Sam had wondered what he would do with himself once his friend sold the business. He’d actually felt bad about displacing him. He shouldn’t have. Once Sam reopened, Byron was back again, acting as if he’d never left in the first place. And most of the time, Sam didn’t mind. Not really. It was only when Byron dabbled in a little side business of his own that Sam minded. Like now, for instance. After Byron settled himself on a stool at the coffee counter and shook out his Star Tribune, Mac Hansen came over to him, and the two of them had a quick conversation during which some money changed hands.

  “What was that?” Sam asked, coming over to him.

  “What was what?” Byron asked, innocently, going back to his newspaper.

  “What was that transaction?”

  “That was nothing,” he said, not looking up from the paper.

  “Byron, I thought we agreed you would conduct your business elsewhere.”

  “That wasn’t business,” Byron said, thumbing through the paper to the sports section. “That was just a little . . . housekeeping.”

  “Well, whatever it was, it was illegal,” Sam said, exasperated.

  “Sam,” Byron said, finally putting his newspaper down and giving him his full attention. “I wish you would stop seeing me as someone who breaks the law, and start seeing me instead as someone who provides a valuable community service.”

  “Ah, so that’s what you’re doing,” Sam said.

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Byron agreed, and the two of them would
no doubt have continued in this vein if it hadn’t been time for Sam to meet with Linc about the day’s rentals. Still, Sam thought, as he headed over to the other side of the store, while he would never have admitted it to Byron, he was sometimes inclined to agree with him about his providing a “community service”; he just wished he wouldn’t provide it here, at Birch Tree Bait.

  The fact was that Byron was a bookie. He took bets on the big four professional sports and, occasionally, started betting pools about local events in Butternut. But he did have his own set of standards and, for someone who’d developed a very lucrative sideline breaking the law, he was still nonetheless deeply principled about the way in which he did it. He never took bets from anyone under twenty-one, or from anyone who already owed him money, or was having financial problems in his life. And he’d told Sam that, on more than one occasion, when someone had gotten in too deep, he’d simply written off their debt.

  Sam was thinking about this as he and Linc inspected the canoes and kayaks for the day’s rentals, and as he went over the reservation schedule with Jordy, the retired vet who drove the van that took passengers and towed kayaks and canoes to the Kawishiwi River, ten miles away.

  “Oh, and don’t forget,” Linc said, as they finished up and Sam flipped the book shut on the day’s reservations. “I’ll be out all afternoon tomorrow. Remember those college girls who were in here the other day, the ones who rented a cabin up here for a week?”

  Sam nodded. There’d been six of them, each one prettier than the last.

  “Well, they want a kayaking guide.”

  “But not just any kayaking guide,” Sam said, amused. He was the first to admit that Linc’s good looks were good for business.

  “No, of course not, Sam. They wanted the best,” Linc said, washing down the last of the barbeque potato chips with the final inch of his Coke. And Sam had to admit, his breakfast seemed to have done wonders for him. Whereas forty-five minutes ago he’d been crippled by a hangover, he was now positively exuding good health.