The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  “Sorry, old gal,” he said. “I’ll slip back into my Topper duds by the end of the day. Just for you.”

  Ruby bobbed her head. They were quiet for several minutes, the wind whisking around them. As she stretched a shawl tighter around her shoulders, Ruby turned back toward her brother.

  “Do you think you’ll keep up with Hattie?” she asked. “After we all leave?”

  “Aw, Red, not this old song. I know you envision yourself a merry matchmaker but things don’t always line up as you’d please.”

  “I understand, okay? That’s not what I’m asking.”

  Ruby paused.

  What, exactly, was she asking? What was it Ruby wanted to know? That there was something between Hattie and Topper? That what she witnessed was more than two animals clawing at each other in sweaty, needful desperation? You didn’t do that sort of thing for the heck of it. Or maybe you did. What did Ruby know about it, really? Perhaps European cupboards were positively packed with people doing exactly that. If so, Hitler was in for it should his aspirations pan out. An entire continent of people blind from the clap.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Ruby said at last. “Will you keep in touch?”

  “‘Keep in touch’?”

  “Surely you’re going to maintain some sort of … correspondence.”

  “Golly, dunno. Haven’t really noodled on it,” he said with his telltale Topper squint. “It’s hard to say. Hattie’s a swell gal, no matter what, and I’m grateful to have gotten to know her.”

  “I’ll bet,” Ruby mumbled.

  “Of course you’re the main thing we have in common.” Topper gave his sister a nudge. “So without you around, who knows?”

  “Without me around, who knows indeed.”

  “You know, we were sniggering the other day,” he said. “About how much you want us to be married to each other, when we don’t want that at all.”

  “I don’t find that notably hilarious. You two make a fine couple and it’s not like you haven’t had plenty of time together … alone … without me. Don’t tell me it hasn’t been fun because I’m not buying it.”

  “Hattie’s a blast, you know that,” he said.

  “I don’t get it, then. She’s the perfect woman!”

  “Aw, hell, Red. Hattie’s fab, but…”

  “Is it…” Ruby stuttered. She gave him a hard stare. “Is it because she’s … fast?”

  Topper gave an uneasy laugh.

  “I don’t know if ‘fast’ is the word,” he said.

  “Did she give it up too easily? Is that the problem?”

  “Good Lord, who said anything about ‘giving it up’?” Topper’s bluebell gaze suddenly went dark. “Not that it’d be any of your business if she had. Listen, Red. Fast or not, Hattie is a helluva gal but she’s a different breed from you. Not bad, not good, just different. And different is all right to be. Don’t let anyone claim otherwise.”

  Topper stood.

  “I’m not sure what she told you,” he said. “About us or me or anyone else. But the same prescription doesn’t apply to everyone. Don’t go judging her or anyone else too hastily.”

  “I’m not judging,” Ruby said, though promptly realized that’s exactly what she’d done. “Topper, are you mad? I didn’t mean to…”

  “Mad? At you? Never! Now then, I’m about three and a quarter whiskies past my limit so I’d better get myself to bed to avoid passing out in some scurrilous place. Mother will never get over having to extract me from the privet hedge the summer before last.”

  He bent down and kissed Ruby on the noggin.

  “Go to sleep, kid. It’s going to be an early morning.”

  Topper turned back toward the house.

  As he went to open the door, Hattie materialized on the other side of the glass. She waved at the both of them.

  “Speak of the devil,” Topper said over his shoulder.

  After a sly wink, Topper opened the door with a flourish. He took an exaggerated bow, just as he had the night of the Independence Ball, when the girls were exhausted, sun-chapped, and reveling in their tennis tournament win.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said. “We were just gabbing about you.”

  “Rats! I missed the dirt.” Hattie pecked Topper on the cheek. “What’s wrong, leaving so soon?”

  “I’m leaving one way or another,” he said. “Better to be deliberate about it. Night-o, dolls. Have the sweetest dreams.”

  As the door clicked behind him, Hattie plunked down beside Ruby, in the exact spot Topper had been.

  “Hiya Rubes,” she said. “What a shindig. Hard to believe the summer’s over.”

  “Yup,” Ruby said.

  “It’s been such a gas, Ruby. I’m so glad to have met ya. Who knew charity work could pay off like that? I was awfully skeptical about the whole Grey Ladies biz but it ended up being the best danged thing I could’ve done.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Ruby mumbled, careful not to meet her friend’s eyes.

  “Look, pumpkin.” Hattie placed a hand on Ruby’s knee. “I know you want more between your brother and me—the rings and the gown and the luncheon for hundreds. And, Lord, Topper’s a handsome guy who’s a kick and a half. I can see why you love him like you do. But it’s just not going to happen between or betwixt us.” Hattie shook her head. “Breaks my heart to think the poor sap’s gonna ship off soon. He’s too sweet a guy to fight, I’ll tell you what.”

  “Then make him stay,” Ruby said, her voice coming out in a drawn-out whine. “He has nothing tethering him to the States. You be that person.”

  “I can’t do much about the draft…”

  “But he does defense work! He could drum up a reason to defer.”

  “Babydoll.” Hattie squeezed Ruby’s leg. “I know you don’t want him to leave, and I understand entirely. But you can’t keep him here, and neither can I. I’m not what he wants.”

  Not what he wants? He surely wanted her in the butler’s pantry, Ruby had to fight herself from saying.

  “Golly, Rubes! Don’t look so glum. No hearts are broken, if that’s what you’re thinking. Topper and me, we’re working from the same page. We’ve had a grand time but here’s where it ends. Do you feel me?”

  “I guess,” Ruby said with a grumble, though she didn’t “feel” her at all. “I thought I saw something more. Something different.”

  “Yeah.” Hattie glowered. “I suppose you did.”

  “So where will you go?” Ruby asked. “From here?”

  “Now, that is a story. Tomorrow I’m bound for New York City. That’s right, your closest gal Hattie Rutter is going to be a true Manhattanite. Can you stand it?”

  “You’re going to New York? How come you didn’t say anything?”

  Hattie shrugged.

  “Wasn’t sure I’d go,” she said. “But I was offered a position at a magazine in the city. Mademoiselle. You might have come across it.”

  “Mademoiselle?!” Ruby said, exploding into a smile, letting genuine joy lift her onto her feet. “That’s amazing! The absolute tops!”

  She smothered Hattie in a hug.

  “Now, now, you don’t want to strangle me dead before I even start,” her friend said, laughing.

  “Oh, Hattie, I’m so thrilled. And you’d better show me the city when I visit … once a month at least!”

  “I’ll always have a spot for you.”

  Just like that, any doubts Ruby had, any question as to Topper’s “we had a helluva summer” proclamation, these things rolled away like they’d never been there at all. What did she care about European liberties? Ruby wasn’t one to bother with others’ private matters. Live and let live, she believed. Ruby had a lifelong chum in Hattie, a sister of the mind. A good thing, what with all the brothers.

  In the end, those waning summer of ’41 moments would be the last time Ruby and Hattie would speak face-to-face. By the next summer, Mr. Rutter would sell his island home and Hattie would morph into a New Yorker, exactly as promised.


  Ruby followed her friend over the years as Hattie climbed the ranks, both professional and social. She’d see her, in a sense, years later and then not again for another twenty-five, when Ruby was in New York with her grown daughter. On that afternoon, she’d spot Hattie smack in the middle of the Rainbow Room. After catching her breath, Ruby would grab Cissy’s hand and haul her onto the street.

  “Geez, Mom,” Cissy would gripe. “I’m getting awfully tired of being literally dragged all over this city. I don’t even like shopping. I’m hardly going to need miniskirts at business school.”

  Ruby never explained herself. She never admitted that she’d seen an old friend, her best friend, from the last truly blissful summer at Cliff House. Cissy wouldn’t have understood Ruby’s reluctance to approach. Of course it wasn’t the person Ruby feared, but the conversation the two women might have about the decades that had passed.

  They used to say that on Nantucket every house had its tragedy, most borne of the sea. It was a ghost story, a fable, a warning to Summer People that sunshine and parties and croquet on the lawn were not the natural ways of the land.

  When Ruby was young, a local boy told her about the curse of the sea. Mother scoffed at the legend as she cuddled a sobbing, shaky daughter in her pink-walled room. Those stories were for the whalers, Sarah said, and the fishermen. Her daddy dealt in rubbers and plastics. There’d be no curse with them.

  The sea carried with it many misfortunes, that much was true. But man himself caused a few tragedies as well. Yes, Topper, it was a helluva summer. The parties. The sunshine. The golf. All that, and the last days of peace.

  33

  Thursday Morning

  It’s hazy, blustery. Bess again has sand in her teeth and on her skin, a sign she’s at Cliff House all right. In ranking cold and windswept places, San Francisco has nothing on Sconset.

  And as far as being at Cliff House goes, this morning Bess is all alone. Cissy is off rabble-rousing and pot-stirring in anticipation of the town meeting tonight. Where she is and when she might be home Bess doesn’t bother to speculate. When she staggered out of bed at seven, Cissy had long since flown the coop.

  After two hours boxing and bagging and tossing, Bess needed a break. Which is why she is now tromping down Baxter Road in the gloom as her face stings, her teeth chatter, and drizzle collects in a damp sheen on her windbreaker.

  It’s about a mile to the post office, a brisk walk, a bit of exercise, a chance to clear her mind as well as the dust from her lungs. Bess will grab a muffin at the market, or some coffee, or a breakfast sandwich from Claudette’s. The weird thing about pregnancy, and residing on a cliff, is that constant sense of being simultaneously nauseated and outright famished. Half the time Bess can’t decide if she’s hungry or about to puke.

  Despite the weather, Bess isn’t the only one walking Baxter Road—she never is—and between the admiring of homes and exchanging hellos with other pedestrians, her mind stays if not fixed on Evan, at least flirting with him greatly. Never has a person been so wound up by a kiss that didn’t happen on the lips.

  She’s thinking so much about the guy, that when Bess sees him get out of a car in front of the market, it’s as though she’s conjured him from the mist.

  “Ev—!” she starts to yell.

  A woman exits the driver’s side. Bess lets out an involuntary gasp and then trips over a curb. Three quick strides later, she finds herself squatting behind a rack crammed with bikes. Bess Codman, the world’s least stealthy spy. Within seconds even little kids are clucking about her behavior.

  No matter. Evan and his companion haven’t noticed, and so Bess retains her stakeout.

  This woman, she’s in a pair of skinny jeans, a red baseball cap, and a navy and gray Nantucket High School sweatshirt. A Whalers hoodie isn’t exactly early-in-a-relationship attire, Bess notes with irritation. She looks to be about Bess’s age, or older, and is attractive though not alarmingly so.

  At first the woman’s reasonable appearance is a relief. This is not the sexy Costa Rican. On the other hand—what the hell? Bess can compete with that—absent the pregnancy and Evan’s stance on “repeating mistakes,” of course. Why can’t he be with some twenty-two-year-old scientist-model hybrid? Out of Bess’s league would be much easier to take. There is exactly no justice in this world, she decides.

  Not that Bess has any romantic interest in Evan Mayhew. It’s all just “in theory.” Another chapter for her fake Nantucket novel, her extremely fictional fiction.

  Outside the market (“Fancy Groceries, Deli Meats,” the sign promises), Evan puts a hand at the woman’s back and leads her inside the store. This is quaint, way too quaint. Bess drops an f-bomb, much to her own surprise.

  Bess waits. Her heart is thrumming. She moves when people need to retrieve their bikes.

  “Just stretching my lower back,” she mumbles to someone, who doesn’t believe her at all.

  Finally, Evan and the Ball Cap exit the store, carrying multiple bags. Bess crab-walks closer but can only make out a tube of salami, two baguettes, and what she hopes is sparkling water. The makings of a picnic, if Bess were to guess. How delightful for a Thursday morning. Don’t these people need to work?

  He takes the woman’s bag. They’ve come in her car, a wagon of sorts. No wonder Bess didn’t recognize it. As Evan relieves her of her load, she gives him this look, like he’s just plucked a rainbow from the sky and looped it around her neck. Bess can’t blame Ball Cap one goddamned bit. It’s the exact way she looked at him last night.

  And just like that, both doors slam shut and they drive away. A burp rises in Bess’s throat. She spits on the ground.

  Bess’s knees crack and sting as she rises to standing. Some dude in yellow spandex scowls in her direction. She’s been holding on to his bike and he makes a big show of unlocking it. Words cannot express how little Bess wants his toy. With a muttered and quarter-hearted apology, Bess turns and heads back up Baxter Road.

  She’s forgotten about the possible coffee and food, the things that seemed so appealing only half an hour before. Bess kicks the road as she shuffles along. She’s mad at Evan, or mad at her situation, who knows. In Sconset, it’s hard to remember that sometimes people get on with their lives. Tears prick at Bess’s eyes, or maybe it’s only the sand. Either way, it’s back to Cliff House for Bess. Back to wrapping up and plowing forward. Here’s to new beginnings. Here’s to new mistakes.

  34

  Thursday Afternoon

  “Forty-six,” Bess counts. “Forty-seven.”

  Forty-seven pieces of workaday dinnerware are spread out before her. Bess suspects they hold no inherent market value, but they’re her grandmother’s, so what then? Everything in the whole house was Ruby’s first, adding a layer of meaning to dishes and tchotchkes and everyday junk. She’s starting to think there are only two answers to the Cliff House problem. Keep everything, or throw it all away.

  Be reasonable, Grandma Ruby would say.

  Maybe Cissy’s right. Bess has lost her solid New England sense. But she’s knocked up, almost divorced, and living in San Francisco, so good luck getting it back.

  As she remains befuddled by the sheer amount of stuff, Bess’s stomach roars. With the morning’s aborted failed coffee-and-muffin mission, Bess’s entire sustenance that day has consisted of two handfuls of almonds found in the kitchen. And they were stale, softer than nuts should be. She refuses to eat Cissy’s peaches and Brie.

  The doorbell rings. The sound is so unexpected, Bess wonders if it’s merely the internal clang of her own exhaustion. Lord knows Cissy doesn’t have visitors these days. Gone are the bridge games and tennis matches and drinks on the veranda. After all, it’s hard to play tennis without a court, difficult to lounge on a smattering of bricks.

  The bell rings again. Bess goes to answer it.

  “Oh!” she exclaims, both tickled and peeved when she wrenches open the sand-and-salt-stripped door. “Evan! Hi!”

  He smiles in
return, a tray of coffee balanced in his left hand, a white bag clutched in his right. Suddenly she remembers that Evan Mayhew is a lefty. It’s why he made a choice first baseman back in the day, according to Cis anyway. Bess just thought he looked hot in those pants.

  “What are you doing here?” Bess asks.

  Shouldn’t he be working? Or trying to feel up some broad beneath her hoodie at a picnic lunch? Granted, the weather has worsened today. Perhaps they canceled their meal.

  “You said you needed help.” Evan steps through the doorway. “I’m the help. Also, I brought you coffee and lunch. Sandwiches. Chips. Sea salt and vinegar, to be exact. Your favorite, right?”

  Bess ogles the bag.

  “Let me guess,” she says. “Leftover salami?”

  “Why? Did you want salami?”

  “Not particularly, no.”

  Evan’s face tenses, like he’s smelled something rotten.

  “Well, okay,” he says. “Then it’s good I brought turkey and roast beef. You can have either. Or both. I’ve already eaten.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “Is everything okay, Bess?”

  “Yes.” She jiggles her shoulders. “Sorry. I’m a little … not myself. Really. It’s sweet of you to come. I am hungry. Starving, as a matter of fact. But shouldn’t you be somewhere?”

  “You mean work? Nah. We had to cut out early because of the rain. It’s not a problem though as we’re way ahead of schedule. Please reserve your shock. Anyway, you need more help here than my guys do over there.”

  “That is clearly true.”

  Bess glances down. She does need assistance, in myriad ways, including the fact that she’s back at it with the Boston College sweatpants and free-hanging boobs. She makes Ball Cap Lady look like Nantucket’s foremost leader in fashion.

  “But really,” she says. “I can’t subject you to this mayhem. It wouldn’t be polite.”

  “You’re turning down free labor?” Evan says, and cocks a brow. “That’s not smart. Especially considering.” He looks around. “This house is not even minimally packed.”