The Book of Summer

by Michelle Gable

  Monday Morning

  “Prostitutes?” Evan says as Bess burns with regret. “Prostitutes?”

  He is the second person Bess has told about the specifics of the divorce, the first being her cousin Palmer, who remains in a state of disgusted disbelief. Bess isn’t even sure Palmer buys the story, or knows exactly what it means. After all, Bess had to explain that the term “working girl” didn’t refer to a lawyer or a banker. It’s as if Bess enjoys torturing herself. Palmer was bad enough. But Evan might never look at her the same way again.

  Deep down, Bess knows it’s not her fault that Brandon was such a snake. But, let’s be honest. When a famous guy is outed for hookers, everyone wants to know about the wife. If the missus isn’t beastly, or frigid, she is at a minimum very, very dumb.

  Well, that sucks, Bess imagines Evan saying. But you did marry the guy.

  “You mean actual hookers?” Evan says instead. “Or are you just being pejorative?”

  “That SAT prep class helped after all. No, I am referring to real and bona fide workaday, wage-earning whores.”

  Bess exhales, and is surprised by the quick rush of relief. It feels good to tell Evan her secrets. It always has.

  “Yep, Brandon likes himself the fancy ladies,” Bess says. “Working girls. Hookers. Escorts, if you want to get ‘classy’ about it. He claims they were high-end call girls, as if that makes it any better. That’s why I’m getting divorced. More clear-cut than most splits, I’d venture. But don’t mention it to Cissy. She has no idea.”

  “Of course I won’t tell Cissy. Jesus, Bess. That’s so jacked up. How’d you find out?”

  “He was embroiled in a lawsuit with his former partner,” Bess explains. “Intellectual property rights. Who owns what code. The partner believed he was getting fucked and fucked Brandon in return. I’m not sure how it became a threesome, as I am certainly part of the screwing. In the end, though, I’m glad it happened, even though it’s beyond painful. A fondness for hookers is something you should know about your spouse.”

  “Jesus,” Evan says again. “Was he at all apologetic?”

  “He made a good show of it. At least until I said there was no getting past what happened. Then he really let me have it.”

  Bess braces herself for the words she can still hear, words that stung far worse than finding out about the prostitutes in the first place. That’s when Bess told her lawyer: Hurry up and settle, mediate, divorce. ASAP. It was like escaping a house fire. Grab what’s important. Get out in one piece. She did not want to see his face again.

  “What a shit-for-brains,” Evan says. “He obviously has some sort of mental condition or personality disorder. God. Those poor prostitutes.”

  “The prostitutes?” Bess can’t help but laugh. “I’m glad you’re focusing on the correct victims in this story.”

  “Whatever.” Evan flicks his hand, as if batting away the thought. “I’m not worried about you. You have loads going for you. Those hookers were already damaged. Now they’re scarred for life.”

  “Well, his penis is very small.” Bess smirks. “And he’s a pretty wretched kisser. Too dry-mouthed. If I had to screw someone to make a buck, Brandon would not be my top choice.”

  “Huh,” Evan says, eyes still blinky and surprised.

  “So. Yep. There ya go. Hookers, the ultimate deal-breaker. A tip to take with you into future relationships.”

  “Bess.” Evan makes a face. “I would never.”

  “I know. I’m just trying to be funny. As you’ve gathered, I’m quite good at it.”

  “Can I ask you something?” he says, brows crunched. “Why haven’t you told your mom? You guys are so close.”

  Bess considers this.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Cissy and I are close but it’s just … she’s a tough broad, that mom of mine. You never know when you’re going to step on a land mine with her. That’s why it’s usually best to stay up here.”

  Bess raises both hands to eye level.

  “Uh. Yeah. Tough broad. That is the very definition of Cissy Codman. But, you’re Bess. She loves you more than she loves anything. Even that house.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Bess says with a snort. “The thing is, her judgment is already emanating at me and she doesn’t know the half of it. She keeps asking if I’m sure about the divorce.”

  “What could she be judgmental about?”

  “I’m giving this family its first broken branch on the whole damned tree. I am the middle child, though. So I’m the right person to play family pariah.”

  “Wait a minute.” Evan shakes his head. “Aren’t your parents … I thought they were divorced?”

  “What?” Bess laughs. “Divorced? No. Not at all. I mean, my dad never comes to Cliff House and Cissy’s rarely in Boston.” She laughs again. “I’m not suggesting they have some grand love affair for the ages or anything. They basically tolerate each other.”

  “Sounds very romantic.”

  “Cissy isn’t the romantic type.”

  Bess tries to stand. Her left foot has fallen asleep and so she stumbles on the way up. Evan gives her a steady arm.

  “Thanks,” Bess says, as the blush creeps across her cheeks once more. She is suddenly woozy. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  Evan keeps his hand at her elbow, guiding her down the dirt path.

  “Yeah, I should do some work today,” he says. “This might surprise you, but people get very hostile when they think their contractor isn’t keyed in to every nail and two-by-four. I’ll drop you back at Cliff House.”

  “Drop me back at Cliff House,” Bess repeats, as the rocks and pebbles roll beneath her flip-flopped feet. “That might be the last time someone says those words to me.”

  “Wow, betting against Cissy Codman? That’s a bad sign.”

  “You’ve seen the bluff, right?”

  “I have,” Evan says. “And despite my father’s very loud opinions on the matter, I wish it could be different, I really do.”

  “Me, too. And thanks.”

  Bess pauses. Squinting, she stares out across the Atlantic.

  “I haven’t been to Sconset in forever,” she says. “But there was always a comfort in knowing Cliff House was waiting for me. Like a backup plan. When my marriage went to shit, my first instinct was to quit my job and hide out here. I’m way too practical for that, but it sounded good at the time.”

  A few tears slide onto her cheeks.

  “Aw, man,” Evan says. “Don’t cry. Please. I’ve never been able to handle it.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She smiles through the wetness. “I can’t believe it. No more Cliff House. No more summer.”

  “Oh, Bess. Summer will come. Cliff House or not.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  “Hey! Monday is Memorial Day. And whaddya know, Cliff House is still around. Your old shack has her chance. The season hasn’t even started. There’s an entire summer left to go.”

  15

  The Book of Summer

  Mrs. Philip E. Young, Jr.

  May 16, 1941

  Cliff House

  Mother Young tells me I must write in this book, as summer’s first visitor, even though I don’t understand how Philip Young, Jr.’s wife can be classified as guest. Alas, I am nothing if not compliant so here goes.

  We arrived on-island this morning: Mother Young, Ruby, me, and Mrs. Grimsbury. Mother Young and Ruby took immediately to opening Cliff House for the season. This involves removing drop cloths, dressing the beds, turning on the plumbing, restocking the kitchen, and, as I’ve learned, a litany of complaints from Ruby. Tugging plywood off the windows is apparently the universe’s most laborious task.

  As a newly pregnant Madonna-to-be, I’m unable to assist with the preparations. We’ve not yet had the pregnancy medically confirmed but I am certain there’s a baby growing inside. I look forward to the importance, the meaning this small person will bring to our lives. As the wife of the family
’s eldest son, I can’t take any chances, lest I cause harm to the heir of the Young fortune.

  “The heir?” Ruby quacked when I refused to drag patio furniture to and fro. “Lady, you’ve got the wrong family.”

  Then she tee-heed for ninety seconds straight. I don’t understand her at all.

  And that’s Cliff House as I know it so far this summer. What else do folks write in here? Let’s see. Today the weather was fair, around sixty-two degrees, with a pleasant breeze. Tonight there’s a dance at the Yacht Club. I’ve switched from Parliaments to Chesterfields. The weather tomorrow is supposed to start out a bit foggy, clearing by lunch.

  Best regards,

  Mrs. Philip E. Young, Jr. (Mary)

  16

  RUBY

  May 1941

  What was Daddy thinking? Ruby could kill the man! Just kill him!

  Not literally, of course. But, still. Of all the crummy notions, he picked this one.

  “Gas masks!” Ruby said to no one in particular as she yanked a drop cloth off a settee. “Horrific!”

  From golf balls to gas masks, in a snap.

  As if Sam (and Topper) weren’t keyed up enough about the blessed skirmish, that warmonger FDR announced mandatory conscription approximately three minutes after Sam and Ruby returned from Acapulco. A peacetime draft. Didn’t that just beat it all? Sam’s number had not yet been called, much to his never-ending dismay.

  “Perhaps I’ll sign up,” he said—nay, threatened—thrice weekly. “They need good men.”

  “Darling,” Ruby responded, her face flat while her heart thwacked. “This will be a long battle yet. If you’re meant to go, you’ll go.”

  Then she’d excuse herself and spend the next hour kneeling in the closet, begging God to spare her sweet husband. It’s as though he wanted to be some sort of hero. Baloney. A good man, that was the hero Ruby admired.

  To make matters worse, a few weeks before they were to open Cliff House, Daddy announced a change to his business. Young Golf Products would cease the manufacture of golf balls and focus its facilities on gas masks. With one fell swoop, Daddy ruined the summer before it began. Swear to peaches, if a single gas mask found its way to Sconset, Ruby would hurl it right off the bluff.

  Cliff House was peace. It was calm, a retreat from the real world. In Sconset, life glittered like the Atlantic beneath the sun. But now the men would toil away in the city during the week and bring to Sconset if not the masks themselves, visions of defense equipment coming off the line.

  Ruby tried everything: reason, threats, and good old-fashioned crying. But Daddy remained unswayed.

  “It’s only temporary, petal,” he said, just last night during their family’s final meal in Boston before decamping for the summer. “We must do our part.”

  “Must we?!”

  “Hear, hear,” P.J. cheered.

  “That’s the way, Pops,” Topper said. “You shred it, wheat.”

  Ruby gave him a swift kick to the shin.

  “It’s a man’s duty to support his family,” Mary reminded them all. “And a woman’s duty to support her husband’s occupation, whatever that might be.”

  As everyone nodded in agreement, Ruby rolled her eyes and then promptly received a sharp glare from her father. Her impertinence amused and charmed him—to a degree.

  “If you ask me,” Ruby’s mother said about the change, “this is a jolly good arrangement. Better a contract with Uncle Sam than with a sporting-goods store that could be broke by next Tuesday.”

  They’d gone through plenty of that a decade ago, if you please. Mother was right. The economic decline was certainly no costume ball. So Ruby shut her trap for the rest of the meal, even as she simmered inside.

  Now they were at Cliff House, the women anyway, opening the home for the summer. Ruby experienced none of her usual thrill, the giddy anticipation for the next one hundred days. The cloud was thick, the doom too real. She tried not to imagine next summer, or the summer after that.

  “We must do our part,” Ruby groused as she polished a floor radio. “I’ve got it! Let’s get ourselves killed for someone else’s problems!”

  “Oh Ruby!” Sarah Young said from somewhere upstairs. “Are you still down there? How’s it all coming?”

  “Yes, Mother! I’m down here. It’s going splendidly. Working myself to the bone!”

  Ruby looked toward a box on the floor and the twenty or so porcelain figurines left to unwrap.

  “Have you started on the dining room?” Sarah asked.

  “Not quite yet.”

  Ruby sighed. Nothing was ever fast enough.

  “Soon, though!” she added, already beat.

  “Thank you, dear! Couldn’t do this without you!”

  With a smirk, Ruby pulled back the floral drapes, whipping up torrents of dust along the way. Mother couldn’t do it without her indeed. As she had so many times before, Ruby wondered why the boys (or, rather, the men) weren’t there to assist, why the opening of Cliff House fell to the women.

  In fact, everything at Cliff House fell to the women. Not just the unpacking but every day, all day, all summer long. Through it all, the men came and went like important guests of a finely run, excessively accommodating hotel. But, really, Cliff House was their home, Ruby thought. The women’s, more than the men’s. It was their work. Their fingerprints. Their soul.

  “Aw, Ruby Red,” she could almost hear Topper tsk. “Sorry you have to labor a single smidge in your otherwise gilded lifestyle. Must be a real grind! You poor lass!”

  Then again, Topper considered golfing in light drizzle a monumental achievement, so he was in no position to pass judgment on residents of Easy Street. He was the doggone mayor of Snazzy Town.

  “How’s the view for ya, gents?” Ruby asked aloud, rubbing the salt and grime from the windowpanes. “And the veranda? Has it been properly swept? Yes, please do! Continue to drop your cigarette ashes about! No need to hassle with a receptacle. There’s always someone to sweep it up!”

  “Ruby?” said a voice, a pinch to the side.

  “God bless it!” Ruby jumped, and then turned to the doorway. “Applesauce! Mary Young, you scared the dickens out of me.”

  Her sister-in-law looked wan and mildly depressed, as was customary. Ruby was a touch wan and depressed herself.

  “How does Sam stand such rough language?” Mary said.

  “He taught me all the best curse words, dontcha know?” Ruby joked.

  “Life’s such an endless gas for you, isn’t it? When will you ever get serious?”

  “I’m as serious as they come. So, what are you up to, Mare?”

  Not opening Cliff House, Ruby hastened to add. The previous year Mary had been of moderate assistance, but now that she was pregnant—a new “scion,” she claimed—it was all convalescing and complaining so far. And Ruby had her doubts about the alleged baby. Mary displayed none of the usual pregnancy signs and anyway the woman seemed about as fecund as a coal mine.

  “Can you imagine sticking your pecker into that broad?” Topper once asked a pal, accidentally within earshot of Ruby. Her brother had been three deep in his favored whiskey-and-whiskey cocktails. “The damn thing would snap like a twig.”

  Ruby made like a respectable society bird and promptly jumped to her feet and slapped her brother on the cheek. But, facts were facts. It was the most vivid description she’d heard of another human. And despite her knowing very little about peckers, it seemed accurate to boot.

  “Just wanted to check on you,” Mary said as she leaned into the doorjamb, winded with indignation. “Before I catch up on some correspondence. The work never ends! By the by, Mrs. Grimsbury has put tea out on the veranda if you care to partake.”

  “Swell,” Ruby replied, eyeing Mary’s midsection and noting it was wooden and flat as ever. “Alas, I don’t have time for sipping tea. There’s a house to be opened. But I do hope you enjoy reclining on the very lawn furniture I dragged from the shed last night!”

  “
No need to be testy.”

  “I’m only ragging you. The tea sounds lovely but I’m short on time. Give Mrs. G. my regrets.”

  “All right,” Mary said with a shrug. It was the most physically demonstrative she’d ever been. “No tea. Suit yourself.”

  As she pit-a-patted out of the room, Ruby shook her head. Good Lord, her brothers had horrible taste in women. They were lucky she brought Sam into the fold. Their gene pool was going to require some degree of help.

  * * *

  The first night at the club: always with a ten-piece band, the same man and woman at the mike. Both of them were Negroes. A couple, or maybe not. Either way, as the party reached its peak, they were marching the saints right on in.

  “What a night! What a night!” Sam said, puffing on a cigarette and drinking like a horse.

  He was grinning like a loon, too, his face glossed with sweat. His hair, hours ago slicked back, now dipped in chunks across his forehead, the ends kissing his thick black lashes.

  “You said it.” Ruby moved onto his lap. “An utter kick.”

  She grabbed the cigarette from between his fingers and took a puff as he kissed her neck. Ruby pictured people gasping. Mary would be notably horrified—that is, if she weren’t out on the floor. How Ruby’s sister-in-law could justify a day of convalescing followed by a night spent jitterbugging was a mystery for the ages. For all her manufactured propriety, Mary sure liked to play by her own rules.

  “Sitting on my lap?” Sam teased. “In front of all these people?! You’re bad business, Mrs. Packard!”

  Ruby giggled and nuzzled a spot where her husband had neglected to shave.

  Remember this, she wanted to say. Remember how happy we are. If you go to Europe, it could be a year before we see each other. More. It’s possible we might not meet again until we’re on some other plane.

  “My wife, scandalizing the club like she’s on a mission,” Sam said, and shifted awkwardly.

  “Please! We’re married!”

  Ruby locked her knees together and batted her eyes.

  “I’m just an innocent island girl,” she said. “A near-Quaker, like the ones who founded this place.”