The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  “Yes, you mentioned that,” he said. “Perhaps we’re wrong and it’s a temporary lapse.”

  “I’m sure that’s all…”

  “I have to level with you, Mrs. Packard. A year ago, he’d have been sent his papers by now. A blue discharge, as it’s known. Not honorable, not dishonorable. But the lack of specificity is its own black mark. As I’m sure you’re aware, all employers ask to see military service records.”

  “I’m not worried about Sam’s employment prospects.”

  “Hmmm.” The doctor simpered as he looked her up and down. “I suppose not. The point is, he’s in a fortunate position because if we determine it’s an aberration, your husband can stay in the navy. A year ago it would’ve been an immediate discharge and even a stint at the brig. But we don’t have the luxury of squandering any borderline men who might prove fixable.”

  “Borderline!”

  “There simply aren’t enough to go around.”

  “So I should pray he’s cured,” Ruby said, jaw tightening. “In hopes that you’ll be able to send him back out to fight? Another body to the war?”

  “That’s the short of it.”

  The doctor walloped his hands together and stood.

  “Well, my dear, are you ready to see your husband?” he asked. “The good news is that a pretty wife is often a very reliable salve. Here. Follow me.”

  * * *

  Mary was right, the wench.

  Sam looked as he always had. A little thinner, and tanner, but given the horrors one could see in a military hospital, Sam might as well have been starring in a cigarette ad. He was handsomer than ever.

  “My Sam,” Ruby said, her hands cupping his face as tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh Sam, what have they done to you?”

  “I’m sorry, Ruby, my love,” he said through his own tears.

  “No. No apologies allowed.”

  “Did they tell you?” Sam asked, wincing as he spoke.

  “Yes. But never mind all that. This war, it goofs up people’s heads. That’s what happened, isn’t it? The fighting? All those months at sea? It’s polluting your thoughts.”

  Sam bowed his head, hesitating, taking a beat. At once Ruby realized the crunch he was in. The doctor said it himself. If this was a slip in character, a brief crack-up to be patched, that meant Sam could return to battle. The nightmare would begin anew.

  But if it were a permanent affliction, he could go home.

  “Incidentally, I don’t give a fig about blue discharges or marred service records or any of that garbage,” Ruby said. “If this ‘condition’ can send you home for good, then by God I’ll accept it, a thousand times over and multiply that by two.”

  “No,” Sam said, eyes wide with alarm. “Don’t talk like that!”

  Ruby glanced around. Silly girl. They were in a military hospital, for the love of jam. It was no place to admit one’s secret desire to scotch the service.

  “Gotcha,” Ruby said with a wink and a nod—literal, that is. “I get it.”

  Another wink.

  Sam looked at her cross-eyed.

  “No, Ruby, it’s not like that.” He sighed. “I want to go back. This joint. It’s making me bonkers.”

  “Of course it is!”

  It was a psycho ward, after all. Naturally, Ruby wasn’t eager to remind him.

  “Who could blame you?” she said. “I’m jumpy and I’ve been here all of fifteen minutes.”

  “There’s so much that was terrifying,” Sam said, speaking more to himself than to his wife. “Beyond words.”

  Ruby nodded. Beyond words, except where it went into print. The papers covered the action, in excruciating detail, as much as they could give. For example, Ruby learned that last fall, U.S. naval forces had been creamed in the South Pacific. The Japs destroyed a dozen ships and took people hostage left and right. Sam’s own vessel was involved but they managed to keep it floating.

  This was the abbreviated tale, pasted together by Daddy, a summarized kid’s version, if you please, as Ruby couldn’t bear to read the reports herself. She’d stick with Hattie’s black-market investigations and box scores for now. Let Daddy give her the need-to-know.

  “Sweetheart,” Ruby said, and took both of Sam’s hands in hers. “It must’ve been horrific.”

  “It was, but even so, I miss it.” Sam shook his head and bit back his tears. “Damn it, I miss the ship and the routine and the…”

  He couldn’t finish, the tears now hot and angry in his eyes.

  “I want to go back,” he said.

  Ruby squinted at her husband. None of it seemed like a put-on, a ruse to keep the top brass happy. Ruby didn’t quite know what to make of the declaration, considering Sam’s state: in that bed and in that ward.

  “It might sound off,” Sam went on. “But the most alive I’ve ever felt was on that ship.”

  “I’ll try not to take that personally,” Ruby said, and attempted a terse chuckle. “And yes it does sound a little ‘off.’”

  “What I mean is,” Sam said. “You see, I’ve never been filled with such drive and purpose, with such a deep sense of ‘this is where I’m meant to be.’ Don’t you have at least some pride in me because of it?”

  Ruby dropped his hands and then picked them back up so as not to send the wrong message.

  “I’m very proud of you,” she said. “But I’d rather you be home.”

  “I don’t want to go home. Not yet. Please.” Sam stared at her, those rich brown peepers of his wet and imploring. “Tell me that you understand.”

  “I’m … I’m not sure. I don’t know how to answer.”

  “I want to go back.”

  “You’ve made that very explicit,” Ruby said. “But how am I supposed to accept it? You going back to battle, this hospital, the events that led you here … You’ve asked me to understand but that’s asking a lot.”

  “It is asking a lot. But Ruby, don’t think about here. Believe me. I won’t let that happen again. That … that was a onetime thing. A mistake. I promise, my love.”

  Ruby found she was bobbing her head as he spoke.

  “That’s my girl,” Sam said, snuffling. “I swear to you, I swear with everything that I have, everything I am, that I’ll never succumb to the vile urges that—”

  “Sam, don’t.”

  “Sometimes it’s easy to forget where you are,” he said, “when you’re on the other side of the world.”

  Forget where he was? Didn’t Sam say it was the very spot he was meant to be? Ruby couldn’t help but think that none of this would’ve happened if she’d stayed pregnant, if she’d held on to that baby for the full ride. She was at least a little to blame.

  “Well, Sam,” Ruby said, and cleared her throat.

  She kissed him gently on the forehead and felt herself fortifying. The U.S. Needs Us Strong.

  “If you truly want to stay in the navy,” she said, “then do what you need to. Just remember who’s waiting for you. Remember that together we still have a home.”

  * * *

  A heavy mist fell on Ruby as she booked it across Baxter Road. Once her feet hit the white-shelled drive, she turned and waved at Miss Mayhew. So nice of the girl to fetch her from the ferry landing. Miss Mayhew was a kind soul, not to mention sharp enough to understand that Ruby didn’t have options beyond the generosity of her former hired help.

  Weekender bag dangling from her left arm, Ruby struggled to unlock the front door. It always jammed in this weather, dammit. Meanwhile, Ruby’s hair began to flatten as the rouge slid straight off her face. Not that her ’do and makeup weren’t already in a state. She’d been traveling for eons.

  Once inside, Ruby tossed her bag onto the hall table and walked to the back of the home. She’d never fully closed it up last September. Good thing, too, as she spent four weeks of winter there, trying to survive her grief. Cliff House. It would save her every time.

  In the kitchen, Ruby glanced outside to where the patio furniture was strewn about, lookin
g sad and abandoned against the brightness of the flowers blooming in the yard. Mother had planted her garden with purpose: decking it out with bright pink clematis, plus rambler, portulaca, zinnias, and their island’s famous roses. In the old days, children cut flowers from their gardens and brought them to the flower stalls on Main Street to sell for ten cents a bunch. Ruby wondered if the tradition would ever resume, or if she and Topper would end up being the last children in that home.

  How long did she plan to stay, precisely? An hour? A day? Ruby had her luggage, sure, but had worn most of her duds down south. To answer “how long,” Ruby needed to figure out what she was doing there in the first place.

  Ruby canvassed the kitchen and its pantries. Everything was bare. She’d need food if she stayed on. As she pondered what she might pick up, Ruby’s eyes drifted toward the butler’s pantry. Something triggered inside of her.

  With a turn in her stomach and a kick to the side, Ruby beelined it toward the famous Cliff House spiral stairs and took them two at a time, straight up into Topper’s bedroom. She launched the door open, heart thrashing in her chest. The room was untouched since his death, because of course it was. His death! Topper was dead! The sorrow clobbered Ruby all over again.

  “Damn you, Topper,” she muttered, wiping her eyes. “You were supposed to be my brother forever.”

  Would it always stay like this? Topper’s room? With its flags and trophies of boys waiting to make that play? Mother had boxed up Walter’s room lickety-split after he died, but who was going to deal with Topper? Ruby would never be fit for the task.

  With a quick show of spit-shining a football trophy, not that there was a soul around to see, Ruby dropped to her knees and opened the bottom drawer of his desk.

  The photographs were, no surprise, exactly where she’d left them. Ruby removed the stack and flicked past the ones of Hattie, two of Mother unawares, and on down to the bottom of the pile. And there they were, same as before. All those pretty boys.

  This one, with eyelashes longer than the Nile, staring coyly at the lens.

  That one, who Ruby suddenly realized was Nick Cabot himself. He was naked, or so it appeared as the frame showed only his bare torso, down to his hips, where his muscles were taut and defined and angled to some unspeakable place below.

  There were others, too. One man’s behind. Two male bodies, entwined, their connection unmistakable, their faces obscured. All of them godlike creatures, perfect in body and in form. Maybe that’s all it was, an appreciation of art, courtesy of God.

  Or was it the alternative, something Ruby never would’ve considered if not for Sam? It seemed preposterous what with the ladies and the swagger and the dash. Why, Ruby had seen Topper taking it to Hattie right downstairs. There was no definitive evidence formulating one conclusion or another. But there was a body of work, which sketched a certain picture.

  The same picture, as it happened, the navy accused Sam of drawing. That of being queer. A sodomite.

  “You’re fortunate there are family members in high places,” the doctor had said on Ruby’s way out the door.

  “My father?” Ruby asked, confused.

  Daddy knew about the hospital stay, but not the nitty-gritty. Her stomach went wonky at the thought.

  “No. The other offender is the son of a vaunted southern senator. He wants the whole thing swept under the rug. Count yourself lucky.”

  Counting luck hadn’t been in Ruby’s cards these days, so she hadn’t been sure what to make of the so-called advice.

  Photos in hand, Ruby scrambled downstairs. She scrounged up a piece of stationery, plus one large envelope, and jotted out a note.

  Hattie-

  Sorry I couldn’t make a stop in New York. I stayed longer in Virginia than originally planned. Sam needed me. Anyhow, I found some beautiful photos of you—and a few others, too. Any idea what they mean? Give it to me straight.

  Write soon.

  Yours,

  Ruby

  She crammed them into the envelope, gave it a lick, and then, before she could think better of it, Ruby hustled outside and grabbed Topper’s old bike from the shed. She hopped atop and pedaled the one mile to the post office, able to dispatch the note seconds before the postman closed the gate.

  51

  Saturday Afternoon

  Bess is waist-and-elbow-deep in the linen closet, a misnomer of a room as it seems to include only boxes orphaned decades ago, scarcely a linen to be found aside from a yellowed tablecloth and a set of nautical tea towels.

  “Yuck,” Bess says with a cough as she lugs a box of themed salt- and-pepper shakers down from the top shelf.

  She inspects the collection. Two bunches of bananas. A yellow iron and a black iron. Kittens wearing sailor garb. A disturbing white maid, black mammy combination. Kitschy and cute, some of them, but Bess doesn’t anticipate ever needing salt-and-pepper shakers by the dozens. On the other hand, it seems wrong to sell Ruby’s stuff.

  Still undecided on the shakers, Bess drags a 12 × 12 × 12 box out into the hall. It is heavy, weighted down. As she goes to catch her breath, Bess reaches around for Evan’s note. It remains snug against her, in her back pocket.

  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?

  Bess doesn’t know about any shiny-eyed hope, but she remembers talking to him at the rehearsal dinner as she struggled not to weep. At the time, she’d chalked it up to good old mopey-dope nostalgia. They’d had fun, the two of them. A perfect high school dream. Getting herself expelled from Choate was the best move Bess ever made, aside from attending medical school, but you really can’t compare the two.

  At the wedding I’ll try not to watch. I won’t say a word to you.

  Yeah, well, Bess remembers talking to him at the wedding. He didn’t exactly leave her alone, as promised.

  God, Bess ignored so much, for so long. Before the marriage. The four years during the marriage. Bess was busy, a dedicated physician, aggressively head-down and toiling away just as Grandma Ruby always advised. Who needed alcoholism or drug addiction? Become a workaholic and enjoy the twin benefits of avoiding your problems and earning a paycheck.

  Bess understands, for the first time, that the shame she has about the divorce is not because she couldn’t make a marriage work. No, Bess’s real regret is that she married him at all. She knew better. She knew she was getting a set of veneers.

  With a sigh, Bess peels a strip of tape from the box, though it hardly has any stick left. After lifting the flaps, she wades through mounds of bunched-up newsprint and uncovers a carefully wrapped package. Inside are two dishes, cream-colored with silver scalloped edges, pink and yellow Virginia roses meandering about the perimeter. Grandma Ruby’s china? This is something she will save.

  Bess digs deeper into the box, through ever more wads of newsprint and wrapped-up dinner plates and salad plates and saucers. She even finds an empty packet of cigarettes—Gauloises, a French brand. Grandma Ruby smoked one cigarette a week. Every Sunday, five o’clock. Bess smiles at the memory.

  She’s enjoying the treasure hunt, cigarette trash and all, until her hand finds a strange clump of paper, distinctly urine in tone. There’s a scattering of brown pellets nearby.

  “Ew!” Bess screeches. “Yuck!”

  A nest. Mice or rats, most likely.

  “Disgusting!”

  Bess wipes both hands on her jeans and then picks up the box, holding it far from her body, nose scrunched. The box doesn’t smell necessarily, but it seems like it should. With previously untapped core strength, Bess clambers downstairs, through the French doors, and out onto the patio.

  “Bess!” Cissy says from her spot at the bar. She’s mixing a cocktail, of all things. “What on earth…?”

  Bess sets down the box, her arms suddenly loose and weak. She is wheezing, a little out of breath.

  “Bess?”

  “Rodents,” she heaves and gasps, po
inting. “Mice. Or rats.”

  A swift breeze kicks up then, goosing Bess from behind. Below her a wave crashes, and Bess’s heart gives a skip. She peers over the box and sees nothing but air. Rain begins falling lightly on her head.

  “Are you okay, sweetheart?” Cissy calls. “You look ghastly. Come dear, have a drink.”

  Cissy waves her over, smiling brightly, as Bess’s eyes narrow.

  “Elisabeth?”

  “So, darling mother,” she says, sauntering toward her. “What’s new?”

  “What’s new?” Cissy takes a sip of her drink, vodka-whatever. “Unfortunately, not much.”

  “What about Mr. Mayhew? Anything new with him?”

  “Chappy?” Cissy screws up her face. “Not that I know of. Other than the bastard’s probably thrilled that Mike won’t move the house. And neither will anyone else. I’ve tried everyone. Oh, Bessie. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do.”

  Cissy’s eyes begin to water, tugging on Bess’s heart for a second before Bess gets her emotions back in check. She scowls to break free.

  “And how would Chappy know the details?” Bess asks. “About the engineers?”

  Her mother shrugs.

  “It’s a small island,” she says. “And he lives across the road. Good grief, he’s being such an asshole. Chappy, not the engineer. Although Mike’s an asshole, too, seeing as how he won’t do what I ask, no matter how much money I offer.”

  “An asshole, huh? So was it angry sex then?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “What happened between you and Chappy. This morning. In the dawn’s early light.”

  Cissy jolts. She would’ve dropped her highball if she wasn’t holding on to it with such a fierce grip.

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re…”

  “Can it, Cis. You’ve been catting around with Chappy for the better part of two decades.”

  “Wherever you got that ridiculous notion…”

  “Evan confirmed it and he always tells the truth.”

  Bess thinks of the Book of Summer.

  “Okay, not always,” she adds. “Usually. Eventually. Anyway, he’d have no reason to lie about this.”