The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  But how do you say that to someone who looks so beautiful, eyes shining with hope? How do you tell her that she’s not seeing things clearly?

  Hell, maybe I’m the one who has it wrong. Maybe the douche wasn’t really leering at the cocktail waitress. It’s conceivable he didn’t yell at her later, calling her a “fucking idiot” for some minor infraction. And Lala could’ve been overreacting when she pulled me aside and said he “totally creeped her out.” You’ve always insisted she doesn’t understand how real people work.

  Well, it’s safe to say this entry isn’t staying in the book. I’ll help Cissy with what she needs then become invisible. At the wedding I’ll try not to watch. I won’t say a word to you.

  I’m wishing you a lifetime of happy, Bess. And the ability to recognize if you’re not. Remember, you came to Cliff House before, when you needed to start over. It’s not just for summers. It stands in the bad weather, too.

  Always,

  Evan Mayhew

  48

  WASHINGTON, DC

  SEP 13 4:43PM

  MR. PHILIP E. YOUNG

  25 COMMONWEALTH AVE. BOSTON

  THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON STAFF SERGEANT ROBERT APPLETON YOUNG WAS KILLED IN A TRAINING MISSION ELEVEN SEPTEMBER IN ARIZONA. CONFIRMING LETTER FOLLOWS.

  J A ULIO THE ADJUTANT GENERAL

  49

  The Book of Summer

  Ruby Young Packard

  December 26, 1942

  Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island

  It’s the day after Christmas.

  The island is ugly and bitter and cold. A fine match for my mood. It’s taken all my grit and drive to get through these past few months. The world is different knowing Mother, Topper, and my not-quite-a-baby are no longer in it. The days as a “la-la girl” are done and over and I must press on somehow.

  The U.S. Needs Us Strong.

  Lately everything, every last bit of thing, from advertisements to newspapers to fliers around town, it’s all “For Victory.” Save for victory. Plant for victory. Smoke cigarettes for victory. As for me, the motto will be, Keep a stiff upper lip for victory. Wake up tomorrow, for victory.

  Yesterday we celebrated Christmas, at least as much as two and a half broken spirits can. Daddy, Mary, and I ate our feast; a goose we weren’t supposed to have but Daddy got a hold of nonetheless. A sad party: the three leftovers, and then the two. Mary darted off to Washington as soon as she set down her fork. I left soon after.

  I hated to abandon Daddy, if even for a few days, but I couldn’t bear Boston a moment longer. The city has grown too loud, the voices jumbled, as if everyone’s speaking a different language. No ferries were running so I paid a fisherman a hundred clams and rode with him out to Nantucket. He white-knuckled it all the way, sure he was going to end up with my death on his conscience. I partway hoped it might be the case.

  Oddly I find beauty in the island’s drabness. Everything is the same color, even the waves crashing at the shore. The wind whispering through the walls is a dulcet song and there’s comfort in the harsh cold. At least I have things left to feel.

  As 1942 comes to a close, I can’t help but think “damn you, you stupid year!” or a million other things besides. It’s been a rotten time, filled mostly with heartbreak and hell. Mother, the baby, Topper. Back to back to back. Even all this time later, I can’t pick out one pain from the other. What hurts the most? The loss of those I’ve loved a lifetime? Or the love I’ll never have?

  I’m sure Mother never dreamed something like this might go into her Book of Summer. I guess that’s why I wrote it in the winter. But rest easy, dear mom, that you had this house built for comfort. And so far it’s the only place where I’ve found the slightest hint of calm, probably because in this home the ghosts of you and Topper and my almost-child remain.

  Until sunnier days,

  Ruby

  50

  RUBY

  May 1943

  Ruby sat across from Mary in a heavily paneled, dank restaurant near Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Oh but they were a heartbreakingly long way from Sconset. It was enough to make a girl weep.

  “What do you mean you won’t go with me?” Ruby said as she shifted anxiously in her seat.

  Never mind the throb of sorrow that forever pulsed through Ruby, her entire body ached after traveling a wicked mile (or five hundred) from Boston to DC in a train stuffed with servicemen. All of them rattling toward other cities and states, new futures heretofore unknown.

  Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourselves into? Ruby had wanted to scream at them. Your good looks and bravado will turn to junk once Uncle Sam gets ahold of you!

  Just as she’d predicted, just as she’d feared when Topper and Sam announced their support of the war.

  Oh, God, Topper. It’d been eight months since he died and the mere thought of him stung like a fresh cut. To think, the last time Ruby saw him was at Mother’s funeral, when she was still pregnant, when faith didn’t seem like something from a children’s book. Almost a year out and the devastation of the losses still hung on Ruby like a heavy cloak. Now, this matter with Sam.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said now, in the paneled DC haunt. “I wish I could help, but it’s not a possibility.”

  “Mary. Please. I’m begging. I’ve never asked anything of you before.”

  Ruby hated the desperation in her voice, but desperate she was.

  “I’m rather busy,” her sister-in-law said simply, though it was not simple, this bad business they now found themselves in. “I can’t take a whole day off from work to visit another hospital.”

  “You told me you go to Portsmouth all the time!”

  “Yes. To provide medical aid and for training. Not on ill-advised jaunts that could land me in a bundle of trouble.”

  “Sam is in the hospital,” Ruby said, enunciating each syllable. “A naval hospital. My husband is injured and you, the closest person in my life aside from Daddy and Sam himself, you can’t come with me to see him?”

  Ruby’s cheeks burned. She thought surely—surely!—as Mary was a nurse, she would take this trip. Ruby should’ve gone with her first instinct, which was to ask Hattie. But in that regard she didn’t want to receive four letters saying Hattie would come, followed by a telegram saying that she couldn’t. Just as she had last summer. Just as she had for Topper’s funeral. Ruby’d had a beast of a time forgiving her for that.

  “There are others who need me more,” Mary said.

  “And what about me?” Ruby asked, loud enough to cause some bluster.

  The people nearby cast them curious looks.

  “Don’t I need you?”

  “Ruby, I can’t. Not in my current position. I haven’t even received my full qualification yet. Think of how it’d come across.”

  “We’re family,” Ruby said. “You and I, we’re both Youngs, don’t you see? We’re supposed to help each other, especially now with Mother and Topper gone.”

  “I’m sorry.…” she said for the fourth time, or the fifth.

  And Mary was sorry, truly. Though this was exactly zero consolation to Ruby.

  “What you’re doing”—Ruby snuffled—“or not doing. It’s just … it’s simply indefensible. If P.J. were here, he’d insist you help.”

  “P.J.?” Mary said, blinking like she was trying to remember the beat of some tune not heard in years.

  “Yes. Your husband. Do you remember him? Because honestly sometimes it seems like you don’t.”

  Mary shook her head. She looked at Ruby with downcast, sorrowful eyes.

  “P.J. would agree with my decision,” Mary said resolutely, as if she’d consulted him directly. “Once again, I’m sorry. I truly am. And it was nice to see you. The dinner is my treat.”

  She reached for her handbag.

  “Some treat,” Ruby steamed, her sadness morphed to fury.

  Such quick changes were frequent phenomena these days, her emotions
a real mystery prize of sentiment. Ruby never knew what might come up next.

  “Ruby, don’t be cross,” Mary implored.

  “Don’t be cross? Sorry, sister, I don’t see how I could feel any other way.”

  Seventy-five minutes. A full hour-plus of niceties and how-do-you-dos, not to mention a wretched meal of what they called steak but was canned meat. They couldn’t even have coffee at the end. When Ruby asked for a cup, the waitress glared at her like she’d requested a sack of nylons. Had Ruby anticipated this outcome, she would’ve skipped Washington altogether and rode straight on through to Portsmouth, directly to Sam’s bedside.

  “I can’t put myself in that situation,” Mary said as she handed some bills to the waiter. “It just cannot be done.”

  “A nurse can’t attend to a war-injured man? A naval lieutenant who’s battled it out in the South Pacific for nearly a year? I don’t know how they’re training you in Washington, but it sounds like you might need a repeat course.”

  “I refuse to take offense,” Mary said, “as your emotions are running high.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “But as far as ‘war-injured,’ that is a matter of interpretation.”

  “You think so, do you? Well, all I know is that my Sam was sent off one way, and is currently in another state altogether. He had a physical and was deemed fit to serve. So if his health is compromised it can only be due to this war.”

  Mary gave a partial shrug and crammed the change into her coin purse.

  “I despise that you’re in this predicament,” she said. “But I have no choice. Shall we go?”

  “Fine,” Ruby said, and stood. “I suppose good manners dictate that I thank you for my meal but I’m quite lacking in gratitude.”

  “I understand and was pleased to share a meal with you nonetheless.”

  Ruby was agog. The nerve! Mary snubbing her and acting gracious at the same time. Pick a doggone personality and get on with it already.

  “Good night, Mary,” Ruby said, trying to sound secure, assured, outright unbreakable despite all the cracks.

  No, Ruby would not collapse. She would get through this. They would get through this. Her love for Sam would bolster her, toughen her once more.

  The U.S. Needs Us Strong.

  “I’ll see you again one day,” Ruby said, flip as a coin. “Presumably.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Are you sure you really want to go?” Mary called out when Ruby was halfway across the room.

  Ruby spun back around, even as her good sense told her to forge ahead.

  “Beg pardon?” she said.

  “What you might see and hear…” Mary shook her head as Ruby stepped closer. “I’ve visited that hospital. That ward. The very floor Sam is on.”

  “Well, bully for you.”

  Of course, Ruby already knew this. It was the first thing Mary said when Ruby called with the news, when she described Sam’s condition, hoping for a sympathetic ear and some explanation as to his prognosis. Mary provided neither the ear nor the would-be nurse’s impression of Sam.

  “I’m only trying to tell you,” Mary said, “that seeing him could change the way you view things.”

  “How I view things?” Ruby said with a snort. “My dear, how I ‘view things’ changes by the week. One year ago I had a mom, and a little brother, and a baby on the way. Nothing could change the way I view the world more than losing all of that.”

  Mary frowned.

  “I know,” she said in a whisper. “It’s just…” Mary exhaled. “Sam is ill. Remember that, even if he looks the same to you.”

  May 10, 1943

  Dear Hattie,

  I saw your article in the Herald Tribune. It was fab! A real gumshoe piece. I didn’t know the black market for food in New York City had grown so large. You must’ve spent scads of time chasing down the details. I suppose it’s good the Yanks don’t play baseball year-round!

  Well, my friend, I write to you from the Hay-Adams hotel in good old Washington town. The city’s a swampy pit just as promised, and the hotel (and the restaurants and people) a tad stuffy for my tastes. But there’s a sense here, knowledge that, nearby, decisions are being made that will change the world.

  Speaking of changing worlds, tomorrow I will venture down to the naval hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, where Sam is recuperating, another victim of war, though compared to others he is in decent shape. That’s what I tell myself. As I mentioned the other day, his injuries aren’t life-threatening. Whether they are naval career–threatening I cannot begin to speculate. Mary was no help there, surprise, surprise. It’s up to me to find out for myself.

  Golly I’d love to see you on the ride back to Boston. Might you have a free night to step out and do the town? It’s been a long time since I’ve had a bit of fun. Send a telegram to my attention at the Hay-Adams and let me know what you think.

  Well, my friend, time to hit the percales and get some shut-eye. I trust you are well. I think of you often, always with great fondness, particularly in these dark times.

  Your friend,

  Ruby Packard

  * * *

  Ruby woke up the next morning a stitch before dawn.

  It took several minutes to make out where she was. The Hay-Adams, a reservation made by Daddy so that Ruby could bypass some dreadful women’s hotel like the Grace Dodge or, God forbid, the YWCA. She ran darn Cliff House without a man involved. Ruby could certainly manage an average-size bedsit.

  Ruby surveyed the clothes she brought, a couple of one-piecers, and some two-piecers, before settling on a lilac rayon and wool jersey dress with sash. After securing her hair into an omelet fold, Ruby applied a light dusting of makeup and then put on a small, trim hat. She swooped up her fingertip coat and hoofed it out onto Sixteenth Street, but not before posting a letter to Hattie to be mailed out that day.

  The journey used up the entire morning and a good chunk of afternoon, too. Ruby brought a book to keep her occupied—Mrs. Parkington—plus some magazines recommended by Hattie. In the end she only read a sentence or two in favor of staring out at Virginia’s green countryside.

  They rumbled up to the Norfolk station at 2:05 p.m. Ruby hailed a taxi and rode the short distance to the hospital. She read they’d doubled, or even tripled, the facility in the past eighteen months, but did not expect the sprawling, white hospital before her. Everything suddenly felt more serious.

  A convoluted pathway of interlocking buildings and corridors led Ruby to Sam’s ward. The place was crowded, busy, teeming with staff knocking this way and that. She didn’t encounter many patients, thank God, when winding her way to the guy in charge, of Sam’s health at least.

  “Hello there,” Ruby said brightly to a young nurse manning a desk.

  She was a doll, this one, and so were the others. Mary was going to fit into this nursing gig about as well as a rotten tooth in a gleaming set of chompers.

  “My name is Ruby Packard,” she said as the girl smiled prettily. “I’m here to visit my husband, who’s recuperating on this ward. His name is Sam Packard. Lieutenant Packard, that is.”

  Ruby didn’t know if wives showed up at that hospital, as a rule. Daddy had pulled a few strings, turned a few levers, promised a few golf balls, to get Ruby so quickly on the books. Was she a common sight? Or would they be a-twitter about her presence the second she turned her back? Ruby found she didn’t expressly care.

  “Right-o!” the girl said, and stood with a burst. “The doctor is expecting you. Let me see if he’s ready.”

  The nurse rapped on the door behind her, then poked her head inside, looking quite like the back end of an ostrich. Ruby tried to avoid staring directly into her tail, but the room was dang small.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the nurse said, her whole person returned to the room. “He can see you now.” She cocked her head to the left. “Good luck, honey. Just so ya know, a lot of them recover. And you might be the perfect cure.”

 
; * * *

  Ruby sat blinking at the man, trying not to seem befuddled by his words. She went to Smith for cripe’s sake, even took a biology class or two. A far cry from medical school but she was no dope even though she felt like one then.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” the man asked again, this doctor with the round spectacles and thinning hair.

  “The psychoneurosis…” Ruby started, concentrating as she tried to decipher the word, the first she’d heard it. “The war caused it?”

  “It’s possible,” the doctor replied. “However, often we find it’s been there all along.”

  “All along?” Ruby said with the hint of a scoff. “Doctor, I’m sure you’re a very smart man, and the folks at this facility quite well trained, but I’ve known Sam my entire life. We’re married. I’d know if that sort of thing was … lurking around.”

  “You’d be surprised. In general, the psychoneurosis is a by-product of the underlying condition. In the unique environment of the armed forces, men with such predilections will sometimes develop psychosomatic disorders and work themselves into states of acute anxiety. This causes the psychoneurosis, and the resultant behaviors.”

  “So then how do these people—”

  These people. Other people. But not Sam. That was not her husband. It was, as the good doctor said, a “by-product.” Something to be fixed.

  “How do these people get accepted?” Ruby asked. “Into the service? The exam sounded quite thorough.”

  “It is. The problem is that many deny their abnormalities to induction examiners because they imagine the rigors of the environment can turn them around. Others plain haven’t acknowledged the truth.”

  “Oh,” Ruby said lamely.

  “In this case, based on extensive questioning and analysis, we believe your husband stretched the truth when entering the service.”

  “You think he lied?” Ruby said, unsure whether she wanted to cry or scream or both.

  Strong, she reminded herself. Your love for Sam will keep you strong.

  “He’s never exhibited the slightest indication,” Ruby told the doctor. “And I’ve known him since we were children.”