The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

Before returning to Europe, Mary would make a final meddling move, an act that’d leave an indelible mark on the people who remained. Whether for good or for ill could be left to some debate. Mary believed that Sam Packard deserved to know there was a family, and so she asked Hattie Rutter to track him down one more time.

  61

  The Book of Summer

  Evan Mayhew

  May 27, 2013

  The Last Day of Cliff House

  Dear Bess,

  I’ve come to Cliff House to supervise the movers and pack up the last of your things. Cissy is here, too. She seems to be preparing for departure, but since she loves to keep people guessing, I’ll believe it when she’s physically out of the house.

  I write this from my car, parked on the white-shelled drive of the great, grand Cliff House. This will be the last entry in the Book of Summer. I won’t rip it out, even though it’s no less embarrassing than the first.

  Do my words look strange? Stilted? Wobbly? Your mom commented that my hands were shaky. She’s right, though I had to play it off. It seems a little callous to admit excitement on such a sad day. I can hardly take the hours between right now and tonight, when I get to escort you to Felicia’s wedding.

  A little birdie called last night. She claims you need a chaperone. You’re supposed to “take it easy” and there’s a better shot at following doctor’s orders if someone else is keeping guard. But this babysitting bunk is not the favor she is trying to do us both.

  Tonight is tonight but at this very moment my guys are guiding a piano through your front door. Behind them stand empty rooms, the ocean in the distance. It’s damn near choking me up. I guess it’s a good thing you haven’t been in Sconset much this century. These past few days will be tough enough to shake. Deep down, I hope you stay on-island, just like we talked about in our fake Nantucket novel. But I understand why you can’t, and therefore why you won’t. I can only ask that one day you come home.

  Well, Lizzy C., until next time, because there will be one.

  Always,

  Evan Mayhew

  62

  Monday Evening, Memorial Day

  Bess is draped across a tan couch in “For Everyone Else,” the cottage at the edge of the Bradlee property.

  She has on wedding wear, but is struggling to gin up the appropriate wedding face. Either her bleakness sullies Flick’s beautiful event, or Bess doesn’t show up at all. There’s no way to win tonight.

  There is a knock at the door.

  “Whaaaaat?” Bess grumble-moans.

  Some envoy, she assumes, sent to usher Bess back among the living. No one in that family will let her get away with skulking all night, recent hospitalizations notwithstanding.

  The person knocks again. Bess lets out a whimper and gives a sturdy pout. Answering seems like too much effort but you don’t throw a tantrum on your cousin’s wedding day. Not even Cissy would do that.

  “Coming,” Bess gripes, hoping the person has already decamped.

  Bess shuffles across the hardwood, grains of sand sticking to her feet. With an inhale, she opens the door. On the fish-and-coral mat stands Evan. He’s in a suit, carrying a reusable grocery bag.

  It’s a full minute before Bess can admit that it’s him.

  “Oh my God!” she says, heart clunking around inside of her. “What in the world…”

  As surprised as she is, Evan is visibly gaping, too. Is it the dress? Or the presumed state of her eyeliner and hair?

  “You look fantastic,” he says.

  “What you are doing here?”

  “I’m your date. Mind if I come in?”

  Evan scoots past Bess, as if she’s just said yes.

  “But I … who said I needed a date?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he says, then grins over his shoulder. “It was Palmer.”

  Evan turns all the way around and Bess takes him in. His suit is light gray; he wears a white shirt and periwinkle tie underneath. A tie. The man is wearing a tie.

  “Bess. You are beautiful. That dress. The necklace.” He gestures. “Everything. Flick will be pissed at you for stealing the show.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Bess says.

  She put on the only dress she could tonight—a loose-cut, wool- and-silk-blend navy shift with deep Vs in the front and in the back. Thank God she’d left it at Cliff House. It was, she remembers, her backup rehearsal-dinner dress. This one would’ve been better than what she chose.

  As for the necklace, it was Grandma Ruby’s. Boston jewels to be sure, as emeralds and diamonds are far too citified for Cliff House. But somehow they seem ideal to celebrate Felicia.

  “Well,” Evan says. “Are you ready? Of course you’re ready. Look at you.”

  “Evan. I don’t…”

  Bess’s insides are all mixed up, stirred and shaken. He’s given her the butterflies by simply walking through that door. On the other hand, is this a pity date? Shouldn’t he be with Grace and Jack?

  “What about…?” Bess starts.

  What the hell. Why ruin a good moment? She’ll worry about mysterious girlfriends later.

  “Hold on, let me get my shoes,” she mumbles, then fishes her heels out from beneath the couch.

  “You shouldn’t bend over like that,” he says. “Although it’s a nice view.”

  Bess bolts to straight.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she says.

  “Sorry,” he answers with a wince. “I was trying to be funny. And flirt. And it’s all gone horribly wrong.” Evan shakes his head. “I consider myself pretty decent at charming the ladies, but apparently I’m wrong. You’re just … you’re so damned gorgeous.”

  “Knock it off,” Bess growls, and turns away from him so he cannot see the flush of her cheeks.

  “This isn’t flattery, Bess. I’m acting like a moron because I’m not used to being so far out of my league.” He contemplates this. “Which is weird because I played up an age division in baseball. But I was never in the majors, which is what’s going on here.”

  “Majors?” Bess says, slipping into her shoes. “Now you’re rambling.”

  “I know. But it’s like you’ve handed a sixteen-year-old a Ferrari. It’s awesome as hell but he doesn’t have the slightest clue how to work it.”

  “You seemed to have no trouble ‘working it’ in high school. Or now.”

  Bess sighs and rakes her fingers through her hair. She thinks to check a mirror, but decides she’d have to walk too far. A brief glimpse at her cell phone screen indicates that her mascara won’t look too smudged in the dark or at a certain blood-alcohol level.

  “Are you ready?” she asks, and tucks a clutch beneath her arm.

  The purse is Palmer’s and inside are two credit cards, some twenties, and one sanitary napkin. As the purse crinkles, Bess flinches. She hasn’t worn a pad in twenty years. The miscarriage already happened, but the bleeding continues because evidently the universe really likes to drive a point home.

  “What do you have there?” Bess asks, swiping pink gloss across her lips.

  “What now?”

  “The bag.” She touches the black carrier still dangling from his hand. “Do you need to buzz by the Stop and Shop on our way? Pick up some milk and toilet paper?”

  “Oh!” Evan says, face brightening, perking out of its confusion. “I almost forgot. Here.” He extends an arm. “The Book of Summer, delivered with the official white-glove treatment. You didn’t think the suit was for the wedding, did you?”

  Bess tilts her head and frowns. She takes the bag.

  “Thank you.” She removes the book and fans through its pages. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. In all the … commotion … I didn’t check where it was.”

  Bess flips toward the back, though does not make it all the way to the end. The final entry she’ll find at some later date, too late, she might think. After closing it again, Bess inhales deeply and then sets it on the coffee table.

  “Well, let’s get
to it,” she says, and breaks out a sad smile. “By the way, despite appearances, I really do appreciate you coming to get me. I never would’ve made it otherwise.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Evan wraps Bess in a bear-cub sort of hug before they head out to his truck. Though they can easily walk from here, Bess is supposed to be lying low and Evan’s vowed to make sure that she does. It’s not a hard task, as she mostly feels like death.

  At the Yacht Club, they leave the car with a valet and follow arrows leading them along. “Bradlee Wedding,” the signs say, as if Flick’s marrying herself.

  On the back lawn, greeters show them to a cluster of white chairs facing the harbor. Evan takes Bess’s hand and together they make their way toward the front. The ground is soggy but the rain has stopped. They find two seats on the aisle, four rows back. Soon Bess’s father joins them, sitting to Bess’s left. Dudley doesn’t notice the hand-holding. Or if he does, he doesn’t bother with his patented disapproving look.

  Bess admires the setup, which is simple for two people with such vast sums of cash. The only decorations are the white chairs, the green lawn, and the harbor before them. There’s not even any sort of trellis or altar. Just a minister with a piece of paper, Felicia and her almost-husband Steven, plus Palmer and some dude for witnesses. The sole flower arrangement is Flick’s bouquet of Cliff House roses, which Palmer now holds.

  Aunt Polly and Uncle Vince sit a few rows up, crying and beaming both. Who wouldn’t be proud of Felicia Bradlee? Bess is proud and she had nothing to do with her.

  Soon Felicia and Steven are exchanging humorous, loving vows. They didn’t write their own—who has time for that—but they’re not afraid to bastardize the usual ones. There’s a lot of laughter at this wedding, and Bess suspects there will be a lot of laughter in the marriage, too. In between all the cursing about convertible debt offerings and pricing on secondaries.

  Throughout the ceremony Palmer stands behind her sister, a foot shorter but with shoulders and spine so erect she looks strong enough to carry the world. Most of the guys in the audience are watching her, not Felicia. Most of the women are, too. When Bess steals a peek at Evan, she’s surprised to see him focused firmly on the couple, the corners of his eyes crinkling as if he’s looking into the sun.

  Bess smiles to herself. In the week at Cliff House: the happiest and saddest she’s been in years. Forget what’s going on now or any single moms named Grace. Sleeping with that creep of a French teacher was a damned shrewd move. De Leudeville was okay, sexually speaking, not that Bess knew much about it. But it got her expelled, which was the goal after her prior attempt at a Bartles & Jaymes smuggling operation earned nothing but a warning.

  “Why do you keep doing such stupid things?” Palmer had cried, after Bess’s mistakes began to pile up: the Bartles & Jaymes incident, the French teacher dalliance, the noticeable decline in grades. “It’s not like you!”

  No, it wasn’t. But Bess was “thinking outside the box.”

  “Are you taking drugs? I don’t get it at all!”

  Palmer had been too naïve and pure-minded to puzzle over the timing of Bess’s “acting up,” too sweet to think it might involve her, even though it very much did.

  At Choate, Bess had dated Gordon Granholm for a year (a year!) and was madly in love and emoting in a way Bess Codman never did. Finally, Bess fit in at that school. All because of a guy named Gordon.

  There’s no explanation for teenaged tastes but love him Bess did, up until what she thought of as the Great Humiliation. First Gordon tried to feel up Palmer at a dance (boobs, twice), news that gushed through their hall like a tsunami. Then he went on to declare his love for her following a rousing 23–21 overtime football win against Deerfield.

  After this second transgression, Palmer (ever honest, ever true) gave Gordon a proper upbraiding and promptly told Bess that her boyfriend was a scoundrel of the lowest order. Bess dumped him, and told people why, and in the end her stock went down, same as his. Only Palmer Bradlee came out of it ever more glowing and sublime. She did the right thing, but Bess was sixteen and brokenhearted and it was very hard not to hate her.

  “You’re going to regret it!” Palmer had warned repeatedly. “A black mark that will haunt you for life!”

  Bess wasn’t much interested in Palmer’s advice and, as it turned out, didn’t regret it at all. Among about a million other positives, she met Evan and quickly realized that dopey Gordon wasn’t the main thing going. In fact, he was appealing only when thrown into a lineup of other Gordon-like fools. Evan was hardly perfect, and in many ways was the exact kind of big fish, small pond asshole you’d expect, but Bess was able to end her high school years happy. And she was able to forgive Palmer for the absolutely nothing that she did.

  “Hey,” Evan whispers as Palmer recites some sort of Native American blessing, the only treacle allowed at this wedding. “Have you seen them?”

  Bess doesn’t need to ask. He’s referring to Cissy and Chappy. Bess shakes her head and glances over her shoulder. All she sees is a well-heeled mob of bankers, lawyers, and Choaties behind them.

  “They’re not here,” Bess whispers back. “Do we need to worry…?”

  She leans closer in. Dudley looks at them sideways. You’d think Bess might be glad the lovebirds aren’t around, with her dad seated to the left. But a public fight about infidelity is a better option than Cissy falling off a cliff. In a gingham tankini.

  “I’m counting on Chappy,” Bess says, “to get Cis out of there.”

  “Oh, brother. Not the man you should put your money behind.”

  Evan shakes his head and squeezes her hand. Bess shivers, head to toe.

  When all vows and rings are exchanged, the crowd stands and cheers. Felicia and Steven tromp down the squishy grass aisle. Amid the seats, people trade greetings and hugs and handshakes. Through it all, Evan sticks closely to Bess’s side.

  As the sun sets over the water, Flick and Steve fire the golden cannon, a signal that all colors and flags in the Nantucket harbors must be lowered. The sparks from the cannon burn out, the smoke clears, and the guests stream inside. A certain weight pushes heavily on Bess’s chest.

  For the first time in twenty-four hours she thinks not about how hard it’s been to lose that baby, or how much pain she feels in her body and in her heart. No, Bess is getting weepy, all twisted up with emotion, as she contemplates how very much it will hurt to leave.

  63

  Monday Night, Memorial Day

  Is Bess “taking it easy” at the wedding? Not especially. But, as they say, doctors make the worst patients.

  She shouldn’t be dancing, at least not to every song. Granted, Bess isn’t exactly smoking up the floor with her deft moves, and she’s feeling better by the hour. Distance helps. Evan helps. Vicodin and one and a half glasses of Dom help, too.

  The band is fantastic, playing a bit of this, a touch of that. They take requests though reserve the right to refuse Evan’s suggestion of “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Who wouldn’t want that at their wedding? It makes no sense.

  “You could sing it yourself,” Bess says. “Just like at prom.”

  “It’s crossed my mind. Why do you think I’ve been chatting them up? I’m trying to get on their good side.”

  “Great. Warn me if you succeed,” she says. “I’ll get a front-row seat. Or leave.”

  “There will be no warning.”

  Over the course of the night, Bess detects some wonky-eyed glances in her direction, which she figures are due to how closely she’s dancing with Evan.

  Wait, isn’t that the local boy she hooked up with in high school?

  Or maybe: Doesn’t he have a girlfriend? The one with the kid?

  Whatever they’re saying, Bess doesn’t care. She will leave and Cliff House will come down. It’s time to squeeze the last few morsels from this Sconset life while she can.

  “I hate to bring this up,” Evan says.

  It’s almost midnight.
Closing time. He’s holding Bess tight, they’re dancing to a song that is not quite fast but not slow either. Sort of like “Gangsta’s Paradise,” but without the heaviness or implication of shooting.

  “Have you noticed who didn’t show?” Evan asks.

  Bess nods. Because the only thing as conspicuous as Cissy walking into a room is when she’s not there in the first place. Bess has spent the evening actively evading worry because she’s had enough of that.

  “I’ve noticed,” Bess says. “But the party’s not over. She could still make it.”

  “It’s almost over though,” Evan says, looking around. “And the fifty-plus set has all but dissolved.”

  It’s true. Of the gray hairs, only her dad, Aunt Polly, and Uncle Vince linger. Bess hopes that Polly has consumed enough champagne to overlook the Cissy no-show. Whatever bizarre marital estrangements are happening between Polly’s brother and sister-in-law, Cissy should’ve shown up to her niece’s wedding.

  “You’re right,” Bess says. “The elders are gone. This is going to be the toughest of Cissy’s shenanigans to explain.”

  “Everyone’s having too much fun to notice,” Evan says.

  “That’s the dream.” She smiles. “It’s been a great wedding.”

  “The best I’ve been to.”

  “Me, too,” Bess says. “And I’ve even had my own.”

  With a laugh, Evan spins Bess once and then a second time. He dips her low, though it’s not at all a dipping sort of song. When he pulls her up, Bess is dizzy. She sees stars.

  “You okay?” Evan asks, noticing the mixed-up eyes and clammy skin, both of which have little to do with the dipping.

  “Yes. Yes. Fine,” she says. “I’m getting a little melancholy though, thinking about how it’s almost over. But I suppose everything ends eventually.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Um, hello? Have you seen the ninety-nine-year-old house across the street from your dad? If that can’t last, what will?”

  “Plenty of things,” Evan says. “For example, I’ve felt the same about you for approximately forever.”