“I suppose I can do something,” Ruby said. “With the Bundles for Britain program. The Grey Ladies are in the thick of it. According to Mother, they’ve requested more hands.”
Yes, Ruby decided. She could take to knitting socks and hats to be sent overseas. Though she wasn’t in favor of the United States joining the fight, that didn’t mean she couldn’t support Britain and her allies. There was more than one way to think about this war.
“Bundles for Britain?” Topper said with an arched brow. “You’re really going to join up?”
“Why not? You’ve said it yourself. I have an idealistic view of the world. My tinseled cocoon and whatnot. Time to get serious. I’m having too much fun.”
“Aw, hell,” Topper said with a forlorn sort of head tilt. “Ruby, you’re a doll. Bundles for Britain sounds swell but don’t listen to your baby brother. I’m full of bunk ninety percent of the time.”
“That is definitely true.”
“Forget serious, Red. You keep your sunshine. You stay in that cocoon. Everybody loves the la-la girls. In New England you’re the rarest kind of bird.”
17
Island ACKtion
CLIFF HOUSE UPDATE: CISSY C CALLS REINFORCEMENTS
May 20, 2013
As I informed my ACK squad a scant five days ago (click here for the full article), though the building still stands, for all intents and purposes, the legendary Cliff House is finit.
The Baxter Road behemoth has been the site of some of the island’s most festive and famous shindigs. According to hospital records dug up by my intrepid intern, a total of seven Kennedy-related injuries have been reported on the property over the years. Many more have not been reported. And one can only imagine the sexual misdeeds committed on-site. There’s no telling whose DNA would be found if the dressing rooms that once surrounded the pool remained.
But the pool is gone, along with the dressing rooms, the lawn, the tennis courts (one clay, one hard), and most of the back veranda. The only thing left, really, is the home itself, one-quarter of a privet hedge, and a cantankerous owner still inside.
Don’t misunderstand. Cissy Codman and her seldom-seen husband Dudley are not entirely out of options. Tuesday will mark an important day in the fight to save their home. That night, the Board of Selectmen will vote on whether to move ahead with Cissy & Co.’s controversial hard armor schemes. She’s worked wicked hard on her quest and has even kicked millions of her own. Calls to Dudley Codman have gone unreturned, as per usual.
“It’s not happening,” says lifelong Sconseter and commercial fisherman Chappy Mayhew. “Her gimmick would cause havoc on a very fragile ecosystem. True locals won’t stand for it.”
To aid her cause, Cissy’s shipped in one of her kids. It’s the middle of her three children, Elisabeth Codman. Bess is an ER doctor in San Francisco and a graduate of Nantucket High School. She is the only one of Cissy’s kids to have attended school on-island.
“I’m only trying to get her out of the house,” Bess tells the ACKtion. “Seriously, Corkie, it’s nothing more.”
Way to play it cool, Bess. Way to lay low.
Stay tuned for news coming out of the Selectmen’s Office on Tuesday. Island ACKtion will be live-tweeting the event.
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ABOUT ME:
Corkie Tarbox, lifelong Nantucketer, steadfast flibbertigibbet. Married with one ankle-biter. Views expressed on the Island ACKtion blog (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, et al.) are hers alone. Usually.
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18
Tuesday Morning
“Well, well, well, the Bradlee girls are back on A-C-K,” Bess sings, joke-style, as she glides through the side door of Tea Time, her cousins’ house in town. “Alert the authorities.”
Some might call Tea Time a compound—the Bradlees certainly wouldn’t—but it has a front house and three guesthouses (aptly named “For Felicia,” “For Palmer,” and “For Everyone Else”), plus a pool, so it qualifies to Bess. Also, a former presidential candidate slash secretary of state has a place down the road and his is irrefutably smaller.
However.
“You can’t have a compound in town!” Aunt Polly insists.
You can’t have one in Sconset either, apparently. Or you can, but it won’t last forever.
“Frick and Frack.” Bess smiles, sauntering into the kitchen of the main house. “Together again.”
Frick and Frack, or Flick and Palmer. Two sisters, two vastly different women, though close all the same.
Flick is tall, broad-shouldered, husky-voiced, and assured. She makes piles of money on Wall Street and has her own weekend home in Amagansett, in addition to “For Felicia” in Nantucket Town. Palmer is the little sister and Bess’s closest friend. Delicate and blond, she is a former “mid-tier ballerina” who danced for some time with the Little Rock Ballet Company before chucking it all to get married to a guy with great hair and a country club membership.
“I never had to get a real job,” she’d tell you in a delighted hush, never pretending she wanted it any other way.
Now Palmer teaches ballet to little girls in an Atlanta suburb, tots like her own cherub Amory, who is always either napping or sitting with her ankles crossed, mouthing the words to a picture book with her perfect pink lips.
Palmer has a sprightly, carefree, all-the-world’s-a-dance vibe that would be utterly hateable if she weren’t so self-aware, not to mention insanely nice. Everyone loves Palmer Bradlee, including and especially her husband, who calls her this, Palmer Bradlee in full, as if it’s her first name or he’s introducing a celebrity.
“Bessie!” Palmer says, giving her a fairy’s hug: delicate, light, and smelling of flowers. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“We thought you weren’t coming until the wedding,” Flick says, and marches to Bess’s side. She wraps her in an athletic, wrestler’s embrace. “What gives?”
Palmer shoots Flick a glare. Or, as close to a glare as she can get.
“What gives is a very good question,” Bess says. “Long story short: Cissy’s back at it.”
Flick walks over to the coffeemaker and pours them each a cup.
“Cissy’s still at it,” Palmer corrects.
“Yes.” Bess nods. “Still at it. And I’ve come to save the day. Poor Cis, right?”
“Jesus.” Flick rolls her startling green eyes. “I love your mom, but come on. It’s time to give up already.”
“Everyone agrees. Except Cissy, of course. That’s the problem. She believes that nothing or no one can match her will and determination. In fairness, very few can. Lala was born four weeks early but Cissy claims it would’ve been earlier if she hadn’t ‘held her in’ for ten days.”
“Goodness, I just love Aunt Cissy,” Palmer chortles. “She is the best.”
“This is not normal,” Flick says gruffly.
“I agree but…”
“What kind of meds is she on?”
“Meds?”
“I think her dosage might be off,” Flick says. “When was the last time your mother saw her shrink?”