The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  “Gimme a break!” Bess chirps. “If anything, I was the one mixed up.”

  “The girl I knew also had a hard time figuring out when to shut the hell up and listen.”

  Evan gives one of his earth-cracking smiles.

  “And she always understood exactly what she wanted, even when she couldn’t say it.”

  Evan reaches out and places both hands, gently, on her shoulders. He pulls Bess in and gives her a whisper of a kiss on the forehead, another on her nose. Bess tilts imperceptibly forward, waiting and hungry for a third.

  “Good night, Lizzy C.,” he says, stopping at just the two. “It’s great to have you back.”

  Bess watches as Evan returns to his car and drives away. She half expects him to pull into Chappy’s drive, his old home.

  Insides churning with some unsavory mix of giddiness and flat-out insecurity, Bess shuffles through the front door of Cliff House, which she’d left unlocked, secretly counting on a robbery. It’d be one way to move all that junk.

  “Evan Mayhew, huh?” Cissy says, emerging in the hallway with a cocktail in one hand, a rolled-up yoga mat in the other. “That explains where you’ve been all night.”

  “Where I’ve been?”

  Bess wishes her heart would stop pounding to this great degree.

  “Well, Evan’s not too bad,” Cissy says. “At least compared to that father of his. He’s crazy handsome and a real ladies’ man, from the sounds of it. I’m referring to Evan. Because Chappy…”

  Cissy makes a face.

  “I’m not really interested—”

  “Kinda assumed you’d gotten him out of your system in high school.” Cissy sighs. “Don’t get any ideas, missy. You’re not permitted to marry anyone with the last name Mayhew.”

  “Who said anything about marriage? And anyway, nothing’s going on.”

  “He has a fairly serious girlfriend, far as I know.”

  “Good for him,” Bess says as her insides collapse at the thought.

  A “fairly serious” girlfriend? Of course he does. But then, why should she care?

  “Can it, Cissy,” she says. “I’m not even divorced yet.”

  Also, she’s pregnant by someone else. Bess can’t imagine Evan Mayhew, or any other sensible male, itching to hook up with a divorced, knocked-up chick who’s already eclipsed her prime.

  “It’s not like that with Evan,” Bess prattles on. “I went to him for advice. You see, there’s this very stubborn elephant I’m trying to move out of a house.”

  Bess tries to sweep past her mom and on down the hallway, but Cissy springs in front of her, not dribbling a drop of booze in the process.

  “Bessie, never mind those Mayhew creeps. I have terrific news. I got it!”

  “Got what?”

  “I got the emergency town meeting to approve the geotube installation. It’s happening tomorrow night.”

  Bess doesn’t know whether to give Cissy a high-five or dissolve into a sobbing mess. Another meeting. More straws for Cissy to grasp at. More flyers for Bess to pass out.

  “You did?” Bess asks.

  “Yep! The information about having to buy more land and rebuild the infrastructure, well, it really made those fogies take notice. They’ve realized it’s better to keep what we have. Not only does it preserve Sconset’s historical and aesthetic integrity, it’s far cheaper. Finally, they’ve seen the light!”

  “Or else they decided it’s the quickest way to get you to zip it.”

  Cissy gives Bess a pinched look.

  “They’re lucky someone cares as much as I do!” she says. “In twenty years—in thirty—after I’m long gone, they’ll be grateful for what I did. No one will remember my face or my name, but one day some soul will say, ‘Hey, did you know they almost let all this fall into the ocean?’”

  “Congratulations. Truly. I guess the fighting will finally pay off.”

  Bess makes her way toward the stairs.

  “We need to discuss the big move tomorrow,” she calls over her shoulder. “And why you bought a flagpole. Right now I’m too beat. I could sleep forever.”

  “It’s not even nine o’clock!”

  “What can I say? I’m getting old.”

  “Bessie?”

  “Yes, Mom?”

  She turns back around.

  “You look good,” Cissy says. “Pretty. Beautiful.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You should lose the glasses, though. What happened to the contacts you wore in high school?”

  “Twenty years ago? I can’t really say.” Bess shakes her head. “You really are something else.”

  “Island life agrees with you.”

  Bess remains unmoved. It’s one of Cissy’s favorite mantras.

  “Thanks Mom,” she says.

  “You’ve … I don’t know. Filled out.”

  Cissy tries to make a shapely-woman sign with her hands, but both arms are still occupied with yoga props and vodka.

  “Filled out,” Bess says with a snort. “That’s one way to put it.”

  Her mom smiles then, wide and hardy, all telltale Cissy toothy.

  “There’s nothing left for you back in the Bay,” she says.

  “Except for my job, a new apartment, a cat…”

  “You should make this a permanent change,” Cissy says, not hearing her at all.

  Bess thinks of her fake novel, the one with the island practice and Nantucketer ailments and charming high school boyfriend brought back to life. She can stay here with Cissy, and eventually marry Evan. On weekends they’ll play a few rounds at Sankaty Head; attend Yacht Club balls at night. It’ll be sunshine and bicycles the rest of their days.

  Except, of course, for all that fog perpetually hanging around.

  “Oh, Cissy,” Bess says with a sigh, and wraps her mother in a hug. “Stay at Cliff House? If only that I could.”

  31

  The Book of Summer

  Harriet E. Rutter

  September 1, 1941

  Cliff House Everlasting

  That FDR is a real wet blanket, isn’t he?

  “Yes, we are engaged on a grim and perilous task. Forces of insane violence have been let loose by Hitler upon this earth.”

  Thanks, Frank. You’re a real sport. A sunshine sally, to the gills.

  For Pete’s sake. As if we don’t know a war is coming. He didn’t have to tell us about it on Labor Day when we should be drinking and dancing and having a grand old time. Poor Ruby is already skulking about, pickled about this and that. Not that I blame her. She is the heart of this family, by and by. And soon all will go their separate ways. What next summer might bear, who the devil knows.

  Well, dear Cliff House. This is Labor Day. A day we rest to celebrate all the non-resting from before. On the lawn, the last oysters are being shucked. A band plays near the bluff’s edge. By midnight, the grounds will be littered with toppled-over champagne glasses and discarded oyster forks. That’s how you’ll know the party is over.

  Changes come tomorrow, just like FDR said. All I can hope is that they don’t come at us too fast. Is it too much to ask that we get to experience the sand of summer just a teensy bit more? Winter can be so damned long.

  Until later (much, much later), I remain, yours truly,

  Hattie R.

  32

  RUBY

  September 1941

  He swore he’d arrive in time for the Costume Ball, but by four o’clock it was clear that Daddy was a no-show and Mother would have to play Miner ’49er on her own.

  Long after the party began, Ruby sat moping on the bench outside the Yacht Club, swathed as she was in iridescent green fabric, a makeshift torch on her lap. She, the Statue of Liberty, or the saddest monument there ever was, according to Sam. He was somewhere in the ballroom, done up as Ben Franklin, kite and all. He looked swell but Ruby didn’t give a fig about any of it.

  She detested the rub of her own crummy attitude, it was like sand in a bathing costume but, dagnabbit,
Ruby couldn’t shake it away. Everything was going to seed, with her family and in the world. How were they supposed to close up Cliff House now? Shuttering the home at summer’s end was like the bow atop a present to be opened later. Well, this present was a doggone mess and Ruby didn’t even understand why.

  “Ya searchin’ for the woebegone dame?” she heard a voice say, one of the valets’. “She’s on that bench.”

  Sure as sugar, he was talking about her. Ruby looked up to see her mother beating a hot path in her direction.

  “Ruby Genevieve, enough with the sourpuss act. You get your fanny in there!”

  Mother clomped up and whacked her mining pan against the very bench on which Ruby sat.

  “You’ve got to show your face eventually,” Mother said. “They’re playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the entire orchestra is dressed in doughboy uniforms. Come on, love.” Her voice softened. “All the good stuff is happening inside.”

  Ruby didn’t respond and clamped both arms tighter around her belly. The Liberty getup was already hitting the skids. If Ruby wasn’t careful, people would think she’d come dressed as the inside of a garbage can.

  “Ruby?” her mom pressed. “What is it? Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing, Mother. I just want to be alone.”

  “Are you … hormonal?”

  “No!” Ruby said, and narrowed her eyes. “I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then what…”

  “I keep thinking he’s going to come,” she blurted. “He promised that he would.” Ruby let out a shaky sigh. “It’s the first time Daddy’s ever gone back on his word.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Mother said with a deep, gut-filling exhale. She sat beside her girl. “You can’t be mad at your father. He’d give anything to be here.”

  “I’m not mad. I’m … worried.”

  “Aw, honey.” Mother looped an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “You can’t fret about your dad. He’d hate it. The man works hard to give you a life where worries are never had.”

  “Is he sick?” Ruby turned to face her. “Is there something wrong with Daddy? Because Topper says…”

  Mother looked down at her hands.

  “So he was right.” Ruby let out a small gasp. “Topper says he hasn’t been out because he’s ill.”

  “He’s been out some?”

  “Three lousy days at Cliff House. Three! And he only spent one night.”

  “Oh, petal.”

  Ruby made a face. “Petal.” The nickname was Daddy’s, and his alone. Mother never used it and she wasn’t one for nicknames. Already she seemed to be trying to patch some kind of hole.

  “He’s not been in top health,” Mother said. “You’ve heard that nasty cough of his. The dang thing won’t go away.”

  “It won’t go away?” Ruby said, wide-eyed and gawping.

  “That’s not what I meant! He’ll be fine! Your daddy is fine. He merely needed to be closer to his doctor these past weeks and didn’t want to hassle with all the to-and-fro. Daddy will be right as rain by autumn!”

  But autumn was just around the corner. What, exactly, was going to happen to make him “right as rain” in such a short time?

  “That husband of yours has the lungs of a millworker,” Ruby overheard Dr. Macy tell her mother over a hand of bridge one afternoon. “The old so-and-so hacks away like he works the factory lines himself.”

  It was meant to be a joke, but working the lines was exactly what Daddy did. He got down there, elbow-to-elbow, with all manner of immigrants and indigents, laboring among the grit and grime and Lord-knows. Whenever Ruby found a ball on the course she stopped to contemplate whether Daddy had touched it with his own two hands. That is, when he still made golf balls.

  “How can he improve by autumn?” Ruby asked. “Summer ends in two days.”

  “Huh.” Mother looked pensive. “I suppose it does. I don’t know, Ruby. I can only tell you what I’ve heard. Your father is seeing his doctor, and working less, and forcing himself to rest, all things that go against his very nature. But he is determined and if Philip Young tells me that his cough will disappear, by Jove, I believe him.”

  Ruby nodded, unable to speak. Blasted doctors. Why couldn’t they prescribe a good dose of sea air? It was said to cure anything from melancholia to tuberculosis. Surely it could remedy Daddy’s run-of-the-mill (har, har) cough.

  “I don’t understand—” Ruby started, but was interrupted by a sudden flurry of spunk and costuming pouring out through the double doors.

  “All right! Listen here, cookies!”

  Hattie led the charge, with Topper, Sam, Mary, and P.J. trailing behind. Hattie was dressed as a cowgirl—a Fifth Avenue cowgirl, that is—with her mink bolero and calfskin heels. Topper was her Indian, eager to show off his “peace pipe” to anyone who cared.

  “Well, lookee here,” Mother said with a titter. “A welcoming party right out of Americana! I hope you aren’t representing the Donner Party.”

  “No ma’am!” Hattie trilled. “Just a cowgirl and her band of assorted misfits, all of us intent on dragging ol’ Lady Liberty onto the dance floor. You don’t want Ben Franklin wandering off with some other dame, do ya?”

  “I’d never!” Sam said. “Everyone knows Ben is a most loyal guy.”

  Ruby smiled weakly at her husband and then looked at Hattie.

  “I’m not in the mood for dancing,” she said.

  “What kind of dingy excuse is that?” Hattie asked in a manufactured huff. “Listen here. You’d best get in the mood. You’re not going to pout all night and be crowned the dullest girl at the ball. I simply won’t allow it! It’s the last party of the season.”

  “Actually there’s the oyster party tomorrow night,” Mary said. “At Cliff House. So not the last party, factually speaking.”

  “Okay, Mary Todd.”

  P.J. and Mary were dressed as the Lincolns, the joke being that they should’ve swapped roles. Mary was a dead ringer for Abe himself.

  “I stand corrected.” Hattie rolled her eyes. “It’s the last dance of the season. Come on, you fuddy-duddy.”

  She reached a hand toward Ruby.

  “Up!” she said. “Up and at ’em! You can’t be this gorgeous and hide outside all night. Hip hop! To your feet! Get that hiney on the dance floor!”

  Hattie snapped three times in rapid succession as Ruby continued to eye her outstretched hand. Things had been stiff between them, at least on Ruby’s side, after what occurred in the pantry. Ruby recognized her own prudishness. She might have been a virgin on her wedding night, but there’d been stories aplenty at Smith. Nonetheless, the wad of revulsion lodged in her belly was difficult to pass. Yet as Ruby looked at her pal’s hand, her reserve began to crackle like ice in the sun. Damn that Hattie, she could charm the gloom out of a ghoul.

  “Let’s go, my friend,” Hattie said. “Chop-chop.”

  “Come on, baby,” Sam said. “Where’s that happy girl of mine?”

  “I’ll let you try my peace pipe,” Topper offered.

  At last Ruby smiled.

  “A peace pipe?” she said, and stood. “An interesting accessory for someone so jazzed about the war.”

  The uncertainty and agitation began to lift from Ruby’s body, like the fog off the ocean at midday. And just in the nick of time.

  The summer was over and, according to Topper and Sam and the president of the USA, a war was imminent. Daddy was probably sicker than Mother let on and Topper and Hattie were … they were something. But Ruby couldn’t let the summer end like this. Sconset had her heart and she needed to leave a piece of it there, a bookmark to hold her place until they returned.

  “All right, people,” she said. “Let’s head inside. And I’ll show you how the jitterbug is really done.”

  * * *

  Just like that it was over.

  The last drink was poured, the final cigarette ground out and left smoldering on the flagstone. The oysters had been scrape
d out, the shells hauled off. All that remained was a fishy scent in the air and Ruby on a chaise, blue polka-dotted frock fanned out around her.

  As the caterer’s van rumbled away, Ruby drained the last of her champagne and sighed. Soon she’d be back in her bedroom, in the tall brownstone near the river on Commonwealth Ave. A hundred miles away—no greater distance than the world. Ruby always felt at odds those first weeks back, even though Boston was her home and a few doors down Mother would be keeping house at number twenty-five, same as forever.

  Yet the early days fit awkwardly, like a dress in the wrong size. Ruby would catch glimpses of herself in a mirror and marvel at her hair, shades blonder, and her legs, longer and leaner and tan. Even her eyes seemed to have an extra kick to their green. But by September’s end, she’d fade back to her dishwater self. Everything would fit again.

  Sam would do what he had all summer—it didn’t change much for the men. He’d rise for work every Monday at six o’clock sharp, then toil away for the week, the chief difference between the seasons being where he dined and drank on weekends. Meanwhile, without Mother and Hattie and tennis and Cliff House itself, Ruby would need to drum up a scheme or two to fill her days. More war work, she thought with a frown. God bless it, she still wasn’t sure about FDR and his big plans.

  “Hey there, Ruby Red,” Topper said as he tromped out onto the veranda. His shirt was untucked, his hair a sprawl.

  “What’s shaking?” he asked, and took a seat beside her.

  “Nothing much. Just enjoying the last moments of this.”

  Ruby gestured toward the lawn, to where Miss Mayhew was trying to unstring lights from the trees. The woman cursed as she made it into a worse jumble.

  “The ending is always bittersweet,” Topper said. “But we had a helluva summer.”

  Did they? It was hard to tell, and so Ruby nodded as she gazed out toward the ocean. By October the grounds at Cliff House would turn gray and cold. Mother’s flowers would shrivel as bayberries overtook the dunes below.

  “We’re lucky,” Topper said, his eyes following hers. “To have this place to come back to.”

  “I don’t want to hear nostalgia from you, Robert Appleton Young. It’s going to set me in a foul mood. You’re supposed to be merrier than that.”