The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  “What he sent were movers,” Cissy says. “Which I refused. But they graciously left behind their supplies.”

  “Well, this is a mess,” Bess says as she kicks a path through the room. Most of the boxes are gallingly weightless.

  She leans in to give her mother a kiss.

  “Should I ask them to come back?” Bess asks. “The movers? This is a pretty big job for a couple of unskilled gals.”

  Bess thinks of the rest of the home. Five thousand square feet filled with nearly a century’s accumulation of knickknacks and personal effects. It’d been decades since Cliff House opened and closed with the seasons. This is a year-round place now.

  “Who are you calling unskilled?” Cissy balks. “I was on the committee to move the lighthouse, you know.”

  “Yes. I know. We all do.”

  “And movers? Please. I’m not letting a bunch of strangers manhandle my belongings. Since when are you afraid of a little elbow grease? You’re losing your good New England hardiness and it’s breaking my heart.”

  Cissy flings a box into the corner.

  “So,” she says. “How did you sleep?”

  “Great!” Bess chirps, on reflex, though it’s a lie.

  The bluff might’ve diminished but not the power of Cliff House, it seems. Something about the musty-salt scent of the rooms causes the magic to stick to Bess as surely as grains of sand are perpetually glued to her feet and toes. The place can make you forget what’s really going on. Why didn’t Bess return before now? Before it was almost too late?

  “See?” her mom says. “Cliff House is as safe and peaceful as it’s always been.”

  “But Cissy…”

  “Not to fret, though! I’ve already begun packing, like the dutiful girl that I am.”

  “Major red flag. You haven’t been dutiful a day in your life.”

  “You kids never give your old mom any credit.”

  Bess shakes her head.

  “So where should I start?” she asks, hands on hips. Bess scans the room and within seconds spots a familiar object just out of reach. “Hey! Is that…”

  As she leans, a sharp pain rockets up Bess’s side. She pushes through it in order to get her mitts on a scrapbook perched at the far end of the table. Cramps surge through Bess’s midsection as she lifts the book. It must weigh twenty pounds at least.

  “The Book of Summer!” she says with a grin.

  Bess rubs the crocodile-embossed cover. Dust sticks to her fingers.

  “Hello, you wonderful relic.”

  The Book of Summer is as old as Cliff House itself. From the first day of the first season, Sarah Young asked visitors and family members to record an entry, tell a brief tale of their Cliff House stay. It’s a tradition as important as the view, or the once-great lawn, or the bunk rooms upstairs. As a girl, Bess loved combing through the paragraphs and photographs and the mementos tucked inside. Most people only signed their names, but even now, whenever Bess misses Grandma Ruby, she knows she can find her in the pages of summer.

  “Ah, yes,” Cissy says, wrapping a set of blue-and-white ginger jars. “The book, the book. The famous book.”

  Bess peels back the brown and crackled cover to find the inaugural entry, dated July 11, 1914, penned by Sarah Young herself. Bess’s eyes scour the page, though she does not need to read the words. She memorized them long ago.

  Even my wildest dreams didn’t dare look like this.

  Never could I have pictured the shingled, rambling novel of a home or me, reclined on its veranda, belly big as a stove. As massive as I’ve grown I am but a speck on the wide expanse of patio, to speak nothing of the yawning lawn behind it, or the boundless ocean beyond. The great Atlantic reaches farther than my imagination ever could. At the horizon the heavens bow to meet it, as if to say “you take it from here.” This must be what forever feels like.

  Philip says Cliff House is for me but I see it otherwise. The home is not mine but a gift, to me and all who follow. We will hand it down to the next generation, and they the generation after. Our memories, our marks, our moments, they will linger for a while and eventually fade away, to make room for the new, just as it should be.

  We will greet each summer with expectant delight, Cliff House the reward for the winter and the toiling away. The deed bears Philip’s name but it belongs to us all. We’ll invite friends, we’ll invite family, and the friends of family. We will throw open the doors and shout, “All of you! Come stay a night or three! Leave your shoes in the basket, your worries outside the door. Together now, let’s pour ourselves a drink.”

  In lieu of rent we will ask our guests to make payment via words in this, the Book of Summer. We’ll do this so the memories will stick and so those who follow appreciate what came before.

  Bess looks up from the book and toward her mother, who is aggressively boxing silver, slamming the forks and knives as if they’ve committed some great offense.

  “‘And so I say,’” Bess reads out loud, “‘warm greetings, you beautiful Cliff House. So nice to finally meet you. Together we’ll have a grand old time.’”

  With a sniffle, Bess sets the book back down.

  “What are you going to do with it?” she asks. “Take it back to Boston?”

  Bess must convince Cissy that she should be the rightful owner of the Book of Summer. She’ll need to get through Lala and Clay first, but they won’t mind. What do they need with it? Lala doesn’t even have a permanent address.

  “Boston?” Cissy says. “Who mentioned Boston? Truth be told, I’m thinking of doing something with it for the Cliff House Centennial Celebration.”

  Bess sees the capitalization and bold print as her mother speaks.

  “The Cliff House Centennial Celebration,” Bess repeats. “That sounds like a proper title. Will there be T-shirts?”

  “Elisabeth.” Cissy peers over her glasses. “There are always T-shirts.”

  Cissy is right then wearing a Young Family Reunion 1984 windbreaker.

  “So what, exactly, do you plan to do with it for the capital-‘c’ Celebration?” Bess asks.

  “I’m not sure. The Book of Summer belongs to the people who’ve made memories here. I’d love to package up sections for those who’ve stayed, or their relatives.”

  “You mean tear out pages?” Bess says, heart galloping. “You can’t deface the Book of Summer!”

  “Oh, Elisabeth,” Cissy chuckles. “What do you propose, then?”

  “Let me take it home.”

  Cissy pivots her gaze in Bess’s direction.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I want to keep it. I’ll check with Lala and Clay, of course, but I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  “Let me get this straight. You want the Book of Summer to live in Cal-i-for-nia?” Cissy drags out the syllables, top lip curled as if she were talking about a venereal disease, or a Republican. “You honestly think that’s a good idea?”

  “Well, it’s certainly preferable to have it stay within the family versus getting ripped up and distributed to a bunch of randoms. Grandma Ruby would roll over in her grave!”

  “Most definitely,” Cissy says. “But my mother has been in a constant state of rolling over for years.”

  “She wasn’t that prim, or judgmental.”

  “Please. You know Ruby Packard’s favorite adage. ‘A woman’s name should only be in print when she’s born, when she marries, and when she dies.’ The past few years I’ve been in the local rag more than Bill Belichick.”

  “I should have it,” Bess insists again, flicking through the pages. “You can cut me out of the will entirely, but leave the book to me.”

  “Who says you’re even in my will?”

  She stops on a page, her eyes watering with one glance at Grandma Ruby’s telltale boxy scrawl. How Bess loves that woman, strongly and still, despite the twenty years that have slipped by since she died. Bess attended one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the nation—for a time, anyway—and her most sal
ient memory of Choate was when Cissy called to say Ruby Packard was no more.

  It wasn’t until that moment, or perhaps even later, that Bess realized she admired her grandmother. Ruby was so different from Cissy, a much-needed balance to her hell-and-fire mom. Bess loves Cissy greatly, but she’s exhausting. Ruby was an antidote, a counterpoint. Of course, this was the least of her.

  “Let me tell you something about your mother,” Grandma Ruby said oh so many times. “Whenever the young people gathered for a football game, Cissy was picked first, before any of those Kennedy schlubs. She is infinitely more Kennedy-like, too, smarter and sportier than all of them combined. They’re more teeth than brains anyhow.”

  The party line was that Cissy should’ve been a Kennedy. Never mind her penchant for rabble-rousing; she actually looked like one, with the hair and the smile and, yes, all those teeth. The “Cissy Kennedy” quip was never quite a commendation, though, coming from Grandma. Ruby appreciated their grit, but was largely “not a fan.” Their patriarchal nature needled her. The men in that family called the shots.

  “This is a house of women,” she used to say. “Cliff House is ours.”

  Ruby Packard, an early feminist in her quiet, iron-walled way.

  “Here’s one of my favorites,” Bess says, turning to an entry from the summer of 1939.

  She clears her throat, trying to dislodge Grandma Ruby’s Boston Brahmin, Thurston Howell the Third, delightfully snooty Katharine Hepburn inflection.

  “‘Lahst night,’” Bess reads, giving it a try, “‘when Sam and I were on the beach.’”

  “What is that voice?” Cissy narrows her eyes. “Are you mocking your grandmother?”

  “No, it’s just…”

  Bess shakes her head. She’s never had a flair for accents. At Choate they gave her a dialect coach for the one line she had in the spring production of Pride and Prejudice. She truly was that wretched. So instead of trying to re-create Ruby’s cadence, Bess reads on in her ordinary, unremarkable, untrainable voice.

  6

  The Book of Summer

  Ruby Genevieve Young

  August 10, 1939

  Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island

  Last night, when Sam and I were on the beach, I was sure he was going to ask for my hand. Absolutely positive! A million butterflies strummed against my chest as we strolled along.

  I did recognize the possibility that he might bungle the situation, or have a hard time getting round to it. Sam can be timid, downright shy at times, which is but one reason I love him so—that faint blush and stammer are wildly endearing! When a gal has brothers forever knocking her upside the head, she comes to appreciate those with a more delicate disposition.

  So back to last night. We were partway down Sconset Beach. The sun had set but our path was well lit thanks to the golden misty moon and Mom’s soirée on the bluff above. She’d strung five hundred lights between the trees. A veritable star-shine heaven over the back lawn. The noise and mirth from the guests shone even brighter.

  “What a night,” I said to Sam, trying to sound encouraging. “It’s like anything could happen, as though there’s no limit to what’s possible.”

  I squeezed his hand extra hard.

  “Ruby,” he responded at last.

  I beamed with gusto, stretching my face to near-collapse. Then I braced myself, waiting for the knee and the ring. It promised to be a good hunk of ice, too. The Packards have quite a lot of money and wouldn’t mind me saying so.

  “Sam…?” I said, blinking.

  Get on with it already!

  “This world is changing,” he said.

  “Yes! Yes, it is, my love!”

  “I have no doubt,” he went on. “The problems in Europe will become ours.”

  Europe? What the dickens did Europe have to do with us?

  “The entire world will soon be embroiled in this fight,” he continued.

  I started to speak, intent on pointing out that talk of war was just about the least appropriate topic to broach on a romantic walk, when, all of a sudden, a man came sprinting down the beach, screaming like an Apache.

  While Sam was startled, I remained unplucked. It was my brother. He had on Daddy’s clothes and a fake beard.

  “My wife!” he shouted, ranting, chucking golf balls at us both. “Get away from my wife!”

  Playacting, a gag, a Topper special to the hilt. There isn’t a night so perfect my baby brother can’t ruin it with one of his tireless pranks.

  “Get lost, creep!” I said as Topper ranted about his alleged wife—me—who was stepping out behind his back.

  “It’s only my brother,” I then told Sam, who looked stricken and scared.

  “But…” he sputtered, eyes jockeying back and forth between us.

  “He’s easy to recognize, what with that gangly height, not to mention the blasted camera forever bobbing from his neck.”

  “Gangly?” Topper said. “I prefer to think of myself as stately. Possessing an immaculate and powerful presence.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said with a snort.

  “You two,” Sam grumbled. “I can’t fathom the depravity…”

  Depravity? Forget the romance, now my beau was red-faced and cheesed.

  “Oh, Sammy, everything’s fine,” I said. “You know Topper. He likes to play the fool. And he’s quite accomplished to that end.”

  Topper lifted his camera. Click. Right in Sam’s face.

  Well, you would’ve thought he walloped him upside the head. Sam unleashed a squall of curse words, then turned and stormed off down the beach.

  “Swear to the dickens!” Sam called as he tromped away. “You two must’ve been raised in a zoo! A monkey exhibit! Someplace where a suitable evening can’t be had until someone throws his feces at a guest!”

  My mouth fell open. Topper and I locked eyes. Then my brother collapsed into a fit of laughter on the damp sand.

  Instead of following Sam, which would’ve been the shrewder course, I chewed out Topper something fierce. By the end of it, though, we were both in stitches. He does a spot-on impersonation of not only fake double-crossed husbands but also stupefied real-life boyfriends and feces-hurling primates. (Oh, Sam! If you ever read this, please forgive me! It’s only because you’re such a doll that I can excuse his boorish behavior in the first place.)

  Alas I fear we might be done for, kaput, Sam and me. There is only so much Topper someone with manners can take. Though they were friends once, something happened about the time Sam left for Princeton. A lack of some understanding, as each of them tells it. Two different people, is what they mean. If either boy reads this, please clue a gal in. And set aside your differences for a person who loves you both.

  In any case, I’ll insist my brother fix this situation. If he can’t, well, he’ll need to find me a new man since he’s the one who constantly chases them away. If I ever hope to get married, I should probably keep that particular monkey in his cage.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ruby Young

  7

  Sunday Morning

  Bess sets the Book of Summer back onto the table.

  “I can’t imagine Grandma Ruby making a joke about feces,” she says with a chuckle. “I just can’t. She’s too civilized for that.”

  “Really the joke was more my father’s,” Cissy says. “And Topper’s. But your grandmother was not short of moxie.”

  “Self-controlled moxie,” Bess says. “It’s funny. Ruby always called Topper by his real name. So there is Robert, or Topper, and Grandpa Sam. Her other brother P.J.”

  “Walter, too,” Cissy says. “He was the middle brother who died as a teen.”

  “For a ‘house of women’ there sure were a lot of dudes.”

  Cissy gives a halfhearted smirk.

  “Well, the dudes they come,” she says, eyes cast toward the floor. “And they go.”

  Bess could nearly hear her grandmother’s voice. They come and they go … and a house of women
it remains.

  True enough, Bess thinks. It is only women sitting in that dining room, the two people left clinging to the house, as the house itself clings to the side of a bluff.

  “The guys usually can’t hack the tough stuff,” Bess says. “That much is true. But at least Sam wasn’t scared off despite Robert’s—Topper’s—best efforts. And thank God for that or you and I wouldn’t exist.”

  Bess doesn’t remember Grandpa Sam, or even much about him. He died of a head injury when Bess was young. A head injury, she’d later learn, incurred after falling through a window while drunk.

  His death was enough of something, an embarrassment, or shame, or heartache, that he was all but vanquished from the family lexicon. Whenever he did come up, the name was new and strange and tricky to place. Sam? Who was Sam again? There are random nonrelatives from the forties whom Bess can more swiftly recall. Mrs. Grimsbury, for example. Some so-called cousin or aunt who lived in France.

  “You know, you never talk about your dad,” Bess says as she thumbs through the book. “I was young when he died, but you were an adult, a mom even.”

  “That I was,” Cissy answers with a nod. “There’s not much to say. He was a sad and troubled person.”

  “Which usually means there’s a lot to say.”

  “Well…” Cissy exhales. “You’re probably right. He was a very sweet man, just as Mom said. I wish we could’ve…”

  She lets her voice wander before picking it back up.

  “When someone offers help,” she says, “it can seem like criticism. In other words, you’re doing this wrong. My father hated…” Cissy shakes her head. “Sam Packard was terribly critical of himself. We were trying to be delicate, Mom and I. Too delicate, as it turned out. We weren’t … we didn’t have … things were different then. Plus, he was never an angry drunk, only a very sad one. I guess we thought we could love him back to health.”

  Bess bobs her head in response, unsure what to say. Her own father is not the overly emotive type. He never coached any of their teams or told amusing stories at the dinner table. Her brother calls him Clockwork Codman. He punches in, he punches out, he does what’s asked.