“Parades.” Sam shook his head. “That’s the whole problem, Rubes. Here we are acting jolly and carefree and an ocean away … Your brother is right.”
“Last I remember, you two weren’t exactly meeting minds on the topic. Lord almighty, can we avoid the war business for one night? One measly night?”
He gave a watery little smirk.
“Avoid the war?” he said. “An ironic request given it’s Independence Day.”
“Har har, very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Samuel Packard.” Ruby drew him close, pulling his body flush with hers. “You can go back to fussing about Nazism tomorrow. For tonight, let’s focus on children, and the nifty time we can have making them.”
Ruby wanted a baby, a miraculous creation that was hers and Sam’s alone. But there was more to her wish. A little nugget would render Sam 3-A: a man with a dependent and therefore draft-deferred. Ruby had been studying that damned chart since it came into effect days before. She was downright bedeviled with noodling out where each person she loved might fall.
“Whaddya say?” Ruby gave him a nudge. “Do we have a deal, sport?”
Sam chuckled dryly. A searchlight passed over his dark and handsome face, and Ruby felt a kick to her heart. Just like her Smith pals used to say, he was movie-star gorgeous, one hundred percent.
“Sam?” Ruby said, tentatively.
“I’d love to have babies,” he said, returning his gaze to hers. “I’d love ten of them!”
“Well, now that sounds excessive. We’re not Catholic.”
“But we can’t start a family yet. It’s a scary world and I don’t want to bring an innocent babe into it. Things must settle down first.”
“Settle down?! That could take years!”
“That it could,” he agreed.
“I want to start our lives now. Why must we wait for the outcome of some skirmish in Europe?”
“Ruby, I want a family. I do. But…”
Sam’s words petered out and his entire body slumped. He looked like he was carrying a heavy load that only he could see.
“You’re not going to enlist, are you?” Ruby said, breath clambering around her chest. “Sam, you can’t. I know you want to help, and your heart is the biggest thing going, but only a crazy person would enlist. Someone who is well and truly bonkers.”
“Nearly twenty million men registered for the draft last year,” he said. “So it’s not that crazy. Now we all have to register, Ruby. Every last one of us.”
“Then register! But wait to be called. You don’t go over there until they ask you to. Oh, God!” Ruby threw her head back. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You want to leave me for a fight.”
“Ruby.” Sam clamped his hands around hers. “I don’t want to leave, but it feels as though I should. Like a calling.”
“Then go over already,” Ruby said with a sniff.
“It’s not that simple. There’s you, of course.”
“Of course.” Ruby sniffed again and rolled her eyes.
“And to be honest … to be absolutely frank … I’m not sure I have it in me to fight. I’m afraid I’m not man enough.”
Ruby remained silent because, really, what could she say?
She didn’t agree—Sam was the best man she’d ever known—but Ruby was hardly compelled to convince him that he was combat-ready.
So without a word, Ruby embraced her husband and then turned back around just as the first plane appeared. A second joined it. Soon birds and animals and fish began fluttering down onto the boats, restaurants, and the merry people twirling in the streets. It was literally raining good cheer but all Ruby could think was, Damn, that’ll be a wreck to clean up.
* * *
“Don’t let the cat out of the bag just yet,” Mary said, an unaccustomed punch to her step as the three women walked down the road toward Sconset Casino.
It was late morning. The fog still hung round the shore; the briny air was damp and dense.
“What cat is this?” Ruby asked, cinching her coat.
“I’ve secured Gracie Fields for the August fund-raiser!”
“Gracie Fields, the actress?” Hattie said. “She’s fab. I saw her once in Paris and twice in London. The poor woman has cervical cancer and she’s hauling herself all the way out to Sconset? Good gravy, Mary. That’s quite the coup. The Red Cross should be payin’ ya by the hour.”
“Yes, well, thank you,” Mary said, as buoyed as she’d ever been. “I have truly put my full heart into the Grey Ladies but I’m not doing it for money or even recognition.”
“Obviously you’re not doing it for the money,” Hattie said with a snort. “A Bostonian never does. You know what they say, wholesale charity and retail penury. It’s not a Back Bay soirée unless you’re raising money for something whilst not spending a pretty penny on yourself.”
“And what do you know of it?” Mary carped.
“Oh, I know plenty. My stepmom is just your type. Swear to beetles, she’s chomping at the bit for rations to go into effect. Government-ordered austerity. She’s way ahead of the game with her decades of practice.”
They walked a few more yards in silence. Ruby wondered if she should step in the middle of the back-and-forth but decided to keep her feet clean.
“I’m curious,” Mary said with a cut to her voice. “What is it you’re doing here, in Nantucket? Your family is from Boston, but you’re from, where exactly?”
“Beats me,” Hattie said with a shrug. “For a while, I would’ve told you Europe, but that’s the stuff of yesteryear, courtesy of that pesky Hitler turd. Now I’m stuck at Pop’s house. I guess I’m not from anywhere at the moment. Just hangin’ round, seeing what’s what. Getting conned into setups with handsome young Harvard men.”
“Five dates!” Ruby chirped. “But who’s counting?”
“I think someone is, but it’s not me or Topper.”
As Hattie playfully elbowed Ruby’s side, Mary stopped dead in her tracks, the gravel rolling beneath her Robeez sandals.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, eyes burrowing into Hattie’s face. “You’re just … idling?”
“That’s the long and short of it, I suppose. Listen, sometimes a gal’s gotta idle.”
“Hear, hear,” Ruby said.
“But surely you have somewhere to be when the summer ends,” Mary pressed. “No one stays on the island save the fishermen and Quakers. You don’t have a job, I presume.”
“I did, at a magazine in Paris. But they canceled my contract.”
Hattie chucked her cigarette into the road and reached for another, only to find she was all tapped out. She whipped out a packet of Wrigley’s.
“Want one?”
She passed a stick Ruby’s way.
“I don’t understand,” Mary said.
“Geez, back off,” Ruby said. “Before this Bundles for Britain deal you weren’t exactly lighting the world on fire with your industry.”
“Aw, sweet Rubes,” Hattie said with a cluck. “Always coming to my defense. I don’t mind the question. Honestly, Mary, I haven’t a clue what I’ll do next. Ain’t it grand? So many options to consider. Now.” She clomped one foot on the ground. “Shall we proceed? The badminton fund-raiser’s not gonna run itself.”
She linked arms with Ruby, and even with old Mare, and together the girls continued down the road.
25
Wednesday Afternoon
After the vote, Cissy takes her disappointment and vanishes into the fog, that famous grey lady.
Bess would’ve worried that her mom never made it back from the meeting but, thank the Lord, there’s solid evidence of Cissy’s comings and goings. A swapped-out ball cap. The Young Family windbreaker discarded on a chair. Fresh bike tracks in the mud.
It’s small comfort because, truth be told, Bess is pissed off. She can’t even track down the woman, as Cissy is about as reliable with her phone as Palmer Bradlee. Bess calls h
er mother repeatedly, but the kitchen counter never picks up.
“Yes. Absolutely,” Cissy said when Bess asked if she’d leave Cliff House after the vote.
Sure. After the vote. Pinky swear.
Alas, they’re no closer to moving than when Bess arrived on the scene. Ninety-nine years of stuff, with only about six months of it packed. What is kept or what goes into the green Dumpster her dad ordered should be Cissy’s call, not Bess’s. To speak nothing of the sheer manpower needed. It’d taken Bess two full days to haul her crap out of the San Francisco place and she’d lived there five years, with one other person, and most of it she left behind.
Cliff House, on the other hand, is a veritable museum of all things Young-Packard-Codman. This “house of women” is stocked to the gills with artwork and jewelry and old clothes. There are papers and books and crystal bottles of amber-colored perfume. One drawer reveals an old camera and scrapbooks filled with articles written by a Harriet Rutter. The name is familiar. It’s sprinkled throughout the book, though not in any meaningful way.
“Oh, Cis,” Bess grumbles, stacking dozens of musty magazines. “You’re a pill even when you’re not around.”
As if on cue, the front door clicks open. Bess peers around the corner to see her mother hard-charging through the foyer.
“Caroline Codman!” Bess snaps. “You stop right there. Where have you been? I was worried out of my mind.”
Not exactly true, but it sounds better than “I want to strangle you with one of the twelve jump ropes I found in your closet.”
“Goodness, Bess!” Cissy almost leaps out of her Keds. “You scared me. What are you doing creeping around?”
“I’m the one creeping around? Mother, where have you been all day? We’re supposed to be packing and it’s pretty crappy to make me do all the work.”
“Here we go again. What a fussbudget.”
Cissy tugs on her ponytail and then breezes right past Bess and on into the kitchen.
“Uh, hello?” Bess says, pattering after her.
She enters the room just as Cissy plunks a brown burlap sack onto the counter.
“What have you been doing today?” Cissy asks as she pulls groceries from the bag.
Eggs. Milk. Yogurt and cheese. Bess’s stomach nosedives.
“Cissy!” she barks. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Unloading groceries. And you really shouldn’t talk to your mother that way.”
Cissy opens the fridge and places five large peaches inside.
Peaches!
“Please explain,” Bess says, “why you’ve bought a sackful of perishables when we’re supposed to move?”
Speaking of perishables, Bess thinks and glances out the window. Down on the shore, the waves break with intensity.
“We should be clearing out,” Bess says. “Not adding on. The movers are coming first thing tomorrow. There are rooms for us at Tea Time.”
“Oh gosh, Polly is so sweet,” Cissy says, and sniffs a half-used carton of OJ. With a satisfied nod, she slides it back into the fridge. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
“We can’t stay,” Bess says, trying not to get all shrieky and indignant.
It’s maddening and aggravating, and now Bess wants to strangle Cissy for real. But none of this should come as a shock. Cissy is many things, but never hard to read. A smart person would’ve seen this coming a mile away, even in the Nantucket fog.
“You promised!” Bess says. “You said after the vote you’d move. I love you, Cis. And I love your fire. But, good God, we have to leave.”
“Look, dear, I do hate breaking promises.”
“Do you, though?”
“But there’s no time for moving or packing right now. I’ve called for an emergency town meeting later this week and I need to prepare. After that we can talk about my temporary relocation.”
“Jesus,” Bess groans. “Another meeting?”
“Yes. I just had a little confab with the SBPF and one very smart attorney. You see, if this coming winter is anywhere near as bad as the last, our whole stretch of Baxter Road will fall into the Atlantic.”
“I know! That’s why I’m trying to get you to move!”
“Our lawyer pointed out that if this happens, the water, sewage, and electrical services that Nantucket is legally required to provide will get cut off.”
“Didn’t we go over that last night?”
“Yes, but here’s something I didn’t quite appreciate,” Cissy says with a clap. “The selectmen were against my armoring project because of the cost.”
“I didn’t get the impression that it was about money.”
“But if they don’t do something to bolster the bluff,” Cissy continues, ignoring Bess for the sake of her own argument, “and the utilities become inaccessible, then Nantucket will have to acquire new land to rebuild the infrastructure. The cost would far exceed anything spent on erosion remedies. And my staying here only strengthens this case. What do you mean you’re going to deprive the old granny at Baxter Road number one-oh-one of heating and water?”
“Jesus,” Bess says again, hot with frustration. “No one’s going to buy the old-lady routine. And I don’t see them changing their views on the seawall.”
Bess contemplates some sort of tantrum, but knows it won’t do a lick of good. Too bad Lala isn’t with them. Julia Codman can move mountains—aka their mother—with one appropriately timed fit. Ah, little sisters.
“And it was voted down for multiple reasons,” Bess says. “Cost aside. So what do you propose the town do in lieu of buying the land and rebuilding everything, because…”
“Geotubes!” Cissy trills, then spins back out of the room.
“What?” Bess calls, her voice echoing down the hall. She can almost see the smoke coming off of Cissy’s heels as she hightails it into the powder room. “What the hell are geotubes? It sounds like a way to feed a pet on life support.”
Cissy pokes her head back into the hallway.
“Geotubes, my dear girl, are the very things that will solve all our problems,” she says. “They’re what will save our beloved Cliff House.”
26
Wednesday Afternoon
“I realize this is aggressively ill-conceived,” Bess says, pedaling over rocks and debris. “But I didn’t know where else to go.”
As she loses her balance, Bess launches herself off the bike, pretending her plummet to the ground is by design. Evan stares at her and she blushes. Bess is an insecure cyclist, a sad state for even a part-time Nantucketer.
“Geez, when did Sconset get so busy?” she says, babbling, as Evan tries to puzzle out why she’s there and how come she can’t ride a bike. “It’s almost as bad as in town. Is there a single road on this island that isn’t packed with cars?”
Evan continues to say nothing.
“So, tell me, is this the biggest intrusion possible?” Bess drops her bike into the dirt. Good riddance. “Am I going to get you fired? Or are you basically in charge?”
Bess stops the runaway train that is her mouth and studies Evan’s face. He stands still before her: oh so tall, oh so handsome, and oh so smirky as he tries to find a plausible excuse for her presence.
“So that’s a yes?” Bess says. “Noted. And yet I remain undeterred.”
He’s probably thinking about Brandon and the hookers, isn’t he? Damn it, why’d she tell him? There was no good reason, only bad potential outcomes.
“Anyhow, I’ll see you—”
“It’s not an intrusion,” Evan answers at last. “I’m the boss and, as you can see, the guys are gone so we’re done for the day. Thus, despite your best efforts, you’re not a pain in the ass.”
“Thanks a heap. And, by the by, you could’ve told me that five minutes ago, and saved me all the jabbering.”
“I’ve learned to let the women in your family get everything out first. Helps a fella find his bearings, know what he’s dealing with.”
“The women in my family?”
Bess rolls her eyes. “Don’t throw me in with Cissy, please. Grandma Ruby I’ll take. So, do you have a minute?”
“For you I have lots of minutes.” Evan nods toward his truck. “Wanna help me load up? I can compensate you with cold beer.”
“Sure, why not? I’ve spent my entire day moving crap. I’m already in the groove.”
Bess leans down for the industrial fan on the ground beside Evan. After hoisting it up onto her right hip, she follows him toward the oversize silver truck parked at the bottom of the drive.
“So what’s Cissy up to this time?” Evan asks, unlatching his tool belt.
“Refusing to budge,” Bess responds as she grits her teeth.
This fan is a heavier load than she should’ve taken on.
“Not budging,” Evan repeats. “Hasn’t that been her deal all along?”
“Sadly, yes.” Bess moves the fan from her right hip to her left. “But it’s different this time because she promised to leave after the vote and then the vote happened and—surprise!—no move.”
“Is it really a surprise, though?” Evan asks, catching Bess’s eyes over his shoulder.
“You don’t understand. She’s gone beyond general, Cissy Codman, run-of-the-mill hardheadedness.”
“I presume the two of you have discussed the hazards of staying,” Evan says, and tosses his tools into the flatbed of his truck.
“Yes, we’ve reviewed the likelihood of death and/or dismemberment. But Cis claims that come Memorial Day every house on her stretch of road will have cars in front of it. Two doors down there’s only a dining room left and apparently the entire family camps out there, like soldiers, all summer long.”
“A convincing argument,” Evan jokes.
“No kidding. She won’t listen to me at all.” She drops the fan. “I don’t even know what’s happening in her head anymore. This morning she mumbled something about geotubes and then went for a jog. I mean, God!”
Bess pounds at the side of his truck.
The Book of Summer Page 13