He was nice enough, if you didn’t listen too closely, and you couldn’t really fault a soldier going off to war. But, goodness, the man sucked up every crumb of Topper’s time. With Nick around, it was as though the rest of them hardly existed, background players all.
On top of that, Nick didn’t seem to like Hattie. Anyone not entirely charmed by the girl had to be several cards short of a full deck. How could he object? Unless he had a beef with beautiful, witty, continental babes who were a gas to boot. If so, then good luck.
“Selfish egoist of a girl,” Ruby overheard him say one night at the casino.
She didn’t so much “overhear” as he said it right to Topper’s and Ruby’s faces after Hattie sashayed off to find Mary. That alone told you the girl was generous to the gills. She sought out Mary, of all people.
“Excuse me?” Ruby said with a hard glare. “You have a problem with Hattie?”
“Okay, I was a little harsh,” Nick conceded. “But there’s simply nothing to her.”
“‘Nothing to her’?” Ruby steamed, glaring fiercely at her brother, who snapped his head away. “She’s beautiful and brilliant and a kick and a half!”
“Beautiful, I suppose. But the rest of it? Sweets, you’re reading her all wrong. Less breeding and couth and she’d be a hedonist. Only in it for the fun and gluttony.”
“Gluttony. She eats like a bird. Topper! Are you going to let your friend talk about Hattie like that?”
Not meeting eyes with either one, Topper patted Ruby on the shoulder and said to his friend, “You get used to her.”
“‘Used to her’? What? Like a heat wave or an itchy skin condition?”
Ruby hadn’t imagined there could be a person alive who didn’t find Hattie Rutter incomparably charming. There must’ve been something darkly wrong with this Nick Cabot character. He probably kicked old ladies.
“So Nick’s off to Europe,” Ruby said on a glorious blue and gold afternoon as she and Topper approached the tenth hole of Sankaty Head.
Nick had been gone twelve hours and it was as obvious a statement as one could make but Ruby wanted to make it nonetheless. Since the man’s departure, Topper was all gloom and blue moods. Nick Cabot’s view of things still clung to her brother like a sticky, light film.
“Yes, he is,” Topper said. “Off to fight the evil Axis.”
With a bite of the lip, Topper teed up using one of Daddy’s balls. When they ran out of this batch, that’d be it. Until the war was over, he’d make no more.
“I’m sure you’ll miss him,” Ruby said as Topper set up. “We all will! Such a card to have around. But my guess is Hattie will be pleased as punch to have her beau back. She’s positively thrilled you’re staying the full week and not going back to Boston.”
Ruby was workin’ it like a pro, but “thrilled” was not exactly the shape of it.
Hattie’s response had been “That’s swell” when Ruby told her. Just two words: “That’s swell.” Of course, Hattie was not the excitable type and was hardly “thrilled” by much. A hedonist. Honestly. Hattie’s unflappable demeanor was the very issue Nick took with her, no doubt. The man had all the class of an untrained Labrador. Case in point: He tromped around the upstairs in his shorts as if he were in a boys’ dormitory. Even easygoing, pal-to-all Sam carped at the guy to please keep his twigs and berries in their sack.
“‘Thrilled,’” Topper said with a cough, on to his sister right away. “Really. That sounds like a Ruby word, not a Hattie one.”
With an inhale, he swung and knocked the ball a clear two hundred yards off the tee.
“Well, thrilled in her own special way,” Ruby clarified. “So I hear you two are going deer-spotting later?”
“As far as I know.”
“That should be fun.”
Ruby placed her ball on the ladies’ tee and gave it a whack. It went far, though didn’t come close to Topper’s.
“It’s a shame Daddy hasn’t had the chance to get to know her,” Ruby said, and flung her bag over her shoulder. They began walking down the fairway. “He’d like her, don’t you think? I can’t believe he came all this way for the parade but didn’t stay for the ball.”
“It is indeed too bad he wasn’t fit to stay.”
“And he’s been back exactly once. In all those weeks!”
When they approached Topper’s ball, he crouched down to inspect the lie of the grass.
“Poor man has been working so hard,” Ruby gabbed on. “Who knew you could be a businessman and factory worker both?” She paused, hand on hip. In the distance birds tittered. “Are you going to take the shot? Or will you keep making that ball false promises with your inscrutable gaze?”
Ruby waited for Topper to react. But he didn’t laugh, not a chuckle for miles. He always humored his sister, no matter how crummy the joke. But not this time. Instead he rose to standing and looked out over the fairway.
“Is everything okay…?”
“You know he’s not well,” Topper said.
“Who? Daddy? He wasn’t all roses on the Fourth, that’s true. But it’s only because he’s been working like the devil with this gas mask venture. It’s really great what he’s done, when you think about it. I was skeptical at first but…”
Ruby let her voice trail off as she thought about the masks. There was a classification for this type of work. 2-B. Men necessary to national defense, therefore nondraftable. Daddy was too old for war, but her husband and P.J. worked at Young Manufacturing. Topper would work there, too. Ruby let loose a relieved smile.
“This isn’t about any gas masks.…” Topper gently touched her arm. “Pops is ill, Red. You have to see that. He looks terrible.”
Ruby whipped out of his reach.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a real Sally Sunshine? He seems a tad beleaguered, like I said, but Mother would tell us if he were sick.”
“Would she?”
Topper turned and took his shot, missing the green by a hair.
“Well, goddammit,” he said. “Close is never good enough.”
“That shot is decent and you know it. A slight breeze could nudge it into the right spot. And, by the way, Daddy is not sick.”
“Use your eyes,” Topper said. “And that precious brain of yours. Time to poke your cute head from beneath the rock. Dad is not himself. Your shot, Ruby. I recommend a seven iron.”
“If I wanted advice, I’d have used a caddy.”
Ruby pulled out a seven iron anyway and knocked the ball a yard from the hole.
“Not too shabby,” Topper said.
He reached for his putter and, with one swift stroke, the ball plunked into the hole. A birdie. His third of the day.
“Nice one,” Ruby griped.
Her second shot had been much better than Topper’s, but now the best Ruby could do was to match him on this hole. All that and she’d still be twelve strokes back. Ruby was always playing from behind.
“Go to it, sis,” he said.
Ruby clomped up to her ball and examined it from every angle, like Topper would, though she sorely lacked his golfing precision.
“Well, if Daddy is sick,” she said, still kneeling, “then you should do something about Hattie.”
Ruby stood and plinked the ball. It missed the hole by one inch wide to the right.
“What do you mean ‘do something’?” Topper asked. “Come on, Red, you can putt better than that.”