With a smile on her face, Ruby picked through the crowd with her eyes. Surely somewhere in the middle of the festivities were Hattie and Topper. She grinned wider just to think of it.
“Oh, Sammy.”
Ruby spun around to face him, tucking both arms beneath his.
“Isn’t this night the tops? The laughter, the lights, the air itself. I’ll never be able to breathe enough of it in.”
She looked up at her husband, expectantly, but Sam didn’t answer right away. And in that flicker Ruby noticed his eyes. They were glassy, on another plane. Just like Mother’s when she was thinking of Walter. Ruby’s stomach dropped.
“Sammy?”
“The night’s grand, baby. Simply grand.”
He pulled her snug and rested his chin atop her head.
“You’re a light in this life, Rubes,” he said, his voice vibrating against her cheek. “There’s not a soul like you in all of Massachusetts. All of the world, I’d venture.”
With a happy little shudder, Ruby tried to catch his eyes.
“Tonight,” she said. “I’m thinking … tonight seems so filled with magic. So perfect and ripe. Perhaps now it all comes together.”
“What comes together?” Sam asked, crinkling his forehead.
“Tonight’s the ideal night to make a baby.”
Ruby blinked and at once Sam’s eyes went from glassy to full-out wet. Though Ruby’s peepers were plenty damp themselves, she understood at once that his tears were a different type.
“What is it?” she said, trying not to snivel. “You seem … sad.… Something’s wrong. Please don’t rain on my parade.” Ruby pointed to the harbor and then to the sky. “Either one of them!”
“Parades.” Sam shook his head. “That’s the whole problem, Rubes. Here we are acting jolly and carefree and an ocean away … Your brother is right.”
“Last I remember, you two weren’t exactly meeting minds on the topic. Lord almighty, can we avoid the war business for one night? One measly night?”
He gave a watery little smirk.
“Avoid the war?” he said. “An ironic request given it’s Independence Day.”
“Har har, very funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Samuel Packard.” Ruby drew him close, pulling his body flush with hers. “You can go back to fussing about Nazism tomorrow. For tonight, let’s focus on children, and the nifty time we can have making them.”
Ruby wanted a baby, a miraculous creation that was hers and Sam’s alone. But there was more to her wish. A little nugget would render Sam 3-A: a man with a dependent and therefore draft-deferred. Ruby had been studying that damned chart since it came into effect days before. She was downright bedeviled with noodling out where each person she loved might fall.
“Whaddya say?” Ruby gave him a nudge. “Do we have a deal, sport?”
Sam chuckled dryly. A searchlight passed over his dark and handsome face, and Ruby felt a kick to her heart. Just like her Smith pals used to say, he was movie-star gorgeous, one hundred percent.
“Sam?” Ruby said, tentatively.
“I’d love to have babies,” he said, returning his gaze to hers. “I’d love ten of them!”
“Well, now that sounds excessive. We’re not Catholic.”
“But we can’t start a family yet. It’s a scary world and I don’t want to bring an innocent babe into it. Things must settle down first.”
“Settle down?! That could take years!”
“That it could,” he agreed.
“I want to start our lives now. Why must we wait for the outcome of some skirmish in Europe?”
“Ruby, I want a family. I do. But…”
Sam’s words petered out and his entire body slumped. He looked like he was carrying a heavy load that only he could see.
“You’re not going to enlist, are you?” Ruby said, breath clambering around her chest. “Sam, you can’t. I know you want to help, and your heart is the biggest thing going, but only a crazy person would enlist. Someone who is well and truly bonkers.”
“Nearly twenty million men registered for the draft last year,” he said. “So it’s not that crazy. Now we all have to register, Ruby. Every last one of us.”
“Then register! But wait to be called. You don’t go over there until they ask you to. Oh, God!” Ruby threw her head back. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You want to leave me for a fight.”
“Ruby.” Sam clamped his hands around hers. “I don’t want to leave, but it feels as though I should. Like a calling.”
“Then go over already,” Ruby said with a sniff.
“It’s not that simple. There’s you, of course.”
“Of course.” Ruby sniffed again and rolled her eyes.
“And to be honest … to be absolutely frank … I’m not sure I have it in me to fight. I’m afraid I’m not man enough.”
Ruby remained silent because, really, what could she say?
She didn’t agree—Sam was the best man she’d ever known—but Ruby was hardly compelled to convince him that he was combat-ready.
So without a word, Ruby embraced her husband and then turned back around just as the first plane appeared. A second joined it. Soon birds and animals and fish began fluttering down onto the boats, restaurants, and the merry people twirling in the streets. It was literally raining good cheer but all Ruby could think was, Damn, that’ll be a wreck to clean up.
*
“Don’t let the cat out of the bag just yet,” Mary said, an unaccustomed punch to her step as the three women walked down the road toward Sconset Casino.
It was late morning. The fog still hung round the shore; the briny air was damp and dense.
“What cat is this?” Ruby asked, cinching her coat.
“I’ve secured Gracie Fields for the August fund-raiser!”
“Gracie Fields, the actress?” Hattie said. “She’s fab. I saw her once in Paris and twice in London. The poor woman has cervical cancer and she’s hauling herself all the way out to Sconset? Good gravy, Mary. That’s quite the coup. The Red Cross should be payin’ ya by the hour.”
“Yes, well, thank you,” Mary said, as buoyed as she’d ever been. “I have truly put my full heart into the Grey Ladies but I’m not doing it for money or even recognition.”
“Obviously you’re not doing it for the money,” Hattie said with a snort. “A Bostonian never does. You know what they say, wholesale charity and retail penury. It’s not a Back Bay soirée unless you’re raising money for something whilst not spending a pretty penny on yourself.”
“And what do you know of it?” Mary carped.
“Oh, I know plenty. My stepmom is just your type. Swear to beetles, she’s chomping at the bit for rations to go into effect. Government-ordered austerity. She’s way ahead of the game with her decades of practice.”
They walked a few more yards in silence. Ruby wondered if she should step in the middle of the back-and-forth but decided to keep her feet clean.
“I’m curious,” Mary said with a cut to her voice. “What is it you’re doing here, in Nantucket? Your family is from Boston, but you’re from, where exactly?”