Cliff House Everlasting
That FDR is a real wet blanket, isn’t he?
“Yes, we are engaged on a grim and perilous task. Forces of insane violence have been let loose by Hitler upon this earth.”
Thanks, Frank. You’re a real sport. A sunshine sally, to the gills.
For Pete’s sake. As if we don’t know a war is coming. He didn’t have to tell us about it on Labor Day when we should be drinking and dancing and having a grand old time. Poor Ruby is already skulking about, pickled about this and that. Not that I blame her. She is the heart of this family, by and by. And soon all will go their separate ways. What next summer might bear, who the devil knows.
Well, dear Cliff House. This is Labor Day. A day we rest to celebrate all the non-resting from before. On the lawn, the last oysters are being shucked. A band plays near the bluff’s edge. By midnight, the grounds will be littered with toppled-over champagne glasses and discarded oyster forks. That’s how you’ll know the party is over.
Changes come tomorrow, just like FDR said. All I can hope is that they don’t come at us too fast. Is it too much to ask that we get to experience the sand of summer just a teensy bit more? Winter can be so damned long.
Until later (much, much later), I remain, yours truly,
Hattie R.
32
RUBY
September 1941
He swore he’d arrive in time for the Costume Ball, but by four o’clock it was clear that Daddy was a no-show and Mother would have to play Miner ’49er on her own.
Long after the party began, Ruby sat moping on the bench outside the Yacht Club, swathed as she was in iridescent green fabric, a makeshift torch on her lap. She, the Statue of Liberty, or the saddest monument there ever was, according to Sam. He was somewhere in the ballroom, done up as Ben Franklin, kite and all. He looked swell but Ruby didn’t give a fig about any of it.
She detested the rub of her own crummy attitude, it was like sand in a bathing costume but, dagnabbit, Ruby couldn’t shake it away. Everything was going to seed, with her family and in the world. How were they supposed to close up Cliff House now? Shuttering the home at summer’s end was like the bow atop a present to be opened later. Well, this present was a doggone mess and Ruby didn’t even understand why.
“Ya searchin’ for the woebegone dame?” she heard a voice say, one of the valets’. “She’s on that bench.”
Sure as sugar, he was talking about her. Ruby looked up to see her mother beating a hot path in her direction.
“Ruby Genevieve, enough with the sourpuss act. You get your fanny in there!”
Mother clomped up and whacked her mining pan against the very bench on which Ruby sat.
“You’ve got to show your face eventually,” Mother said. “They’re playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the entire orchestra is dressed in doughboy uniforms. Come on, love.” Her voice softened. “All the good stuff is happening inside.”
Ruby didn’t respond and clamped both arms tighter around her belly. The Liberty getup was already hitting the skids. If Ruby wasn’t careful, people would think she’d come dressed as the inside of a garbage can.
“Ruby?” her mom pressed. “What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s nothing, Mother. I just want to be alone.”
“Are you … hormonal?”
“No!” Ruby said, and narrowed her eyes. “I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then what…”
“I keep thinking he’s going to come,” she blurted. “He promised that he would.” Ruby let out a shaky sigh. “It’s the first time Daddy’s ever gone back on his word.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mother said with a deep, gut-filling exhale. She sat beside her girl. “You can’t be mad at your father. He’d give anything to be here.”
“I’m not mad. I’m … worried.”
“Aw, honey.” Mother looped an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “You can’t fret about your dad. He’d hate it. The man works hard to give you a life where worries are never had.”
“Is he sick?” Ruby turned to face her. “Is there something wrong with Daddy? Because Topper says…”
Mother looked down at her hands.
“So he was right.” Ruby let out a small gasp. “Topper says he hasn’t been out because he’s ill.”
“He’s been out some?”
“Three lousy days at Cliff House. Three! And he only spent one night.”
“Oh, petal.”
Ruby made a face. “Petal.” The nickname was Daddy’s, and his alone. Mother never used it and she wasn’t one for nicknames. Already she seemed to be trying to patch some kind of hole.
“He’s not been in top health,” Mother said. “You’ve heard that nasty cough of his. The dang thing won’t go away.”
“It won’t go away?” Ruby said, wide-eyed and gawping.
“That’s not what I meant! He’ll be fine! Your daddy is fine. He merely needed to be closer to his doctor these past weeks and didn’t want to hassle with all the to-and-fro. Daddy will be right as rain by autumn!”
But autumn was just around the corner. What, exactly, was going to happen to make him “right as rain” in such a short time?
“That husband of yours has the lungs of a millworker,” Ruby overheard Dr. Macy tell her mother over a hand of bridge one afternoon. “The old so-and-so hacks away like he works the factory lines himself.”
It was meant to be a joke, but working the lines was exactly what Daddy did. He got down there, elbow-to-elbow, with all manner of immigrants and indigents, laboring among the grit and grime and Lord-knows. Whenever Ruby found a ball on the course she stopped to contemplate whether Daddy had touched it with his own two hands. That is, when he still made golf balls.
“How can he improve by autumn?” Ruby asked. “Summer ends in two days.”
“Huh.” Mother looked pensive. “I suppose it does. I don’t know, Ruby. I can only tell you what I’ve heard. Your father is seeing his doctor, and working less, and forcing himself to rest, all things that go against his very nature. But he is determined and if Philip Young tells me that his cough will disappear, by Jove, I believe him.”
Ruby nodded, unable to speak. Blasted doctors. Why couldn’t they prescribe a good dose of sea air? It was said to cure anything from melancholia to tuberculosis. Surely it could remedy Daddy’s run-of-the-mill (har, har) cough.
“I don’t understand—” Ruby started, but was interrupted by a sudden flurry of spunk and costuming pouring out through the double doors.
“All right! Listen here, cookies!”
Hattie led the charge, with Topper, Sam, Mary, and P.J. trailing behind. Hattie was dressed as a cowgirl—a Fifth Avenue cowgirl, that is—with her mink bolero and calfskin heels. Topper was her Indian, eager to show off his “peace pipe” to anyone who cared.
“Well, lookee here,” Mother said with a titter. “A welcoming party right out of Americana! I hope you aren’t representing the Donner Party.”