“I don’t find that notably hilarious. You two make a fine couple and it’s not like you haven’t had plenty of time together … alone … without me. Don’t tell me it hasn’t been fun because I’m not buying it.”
“Hattie’s a blast, you know that,” he said.
“I don’t get it, then. She’s the perfect woman!”
“Aw, hell, Red. Hattie’s fab, but…”
“Is it…” Ruby stuttered. She gave him a hard stare. “Is it because she’s … fast?”
Topper gave an uneasy laugh.
“I don’t know if ‘fast’ is the word,” he said.
“Did she give it up too easily? Is that the problem?”
“Good Lord, who said anything about ‘giving it up’?” Topper’s bluebell gaze suddenly went dark. “Not that it’d be any of your business if she had. Listen, Red. Fast or not, Hattie is a helluva gal but she’s a different breed from you. Not bad, not good, just different. And different is all right to be. Don’t let anyone claim otherwise.”
Topper stood.
“I’m not sure what she told you,” he said. “About us or me or anyone else. But the same prescription doesn’t apply to everyone. Don’t go judging her or anyone else too hastily.”
“I’m not judging,” Ruby said, though promptly realized that’s exactly what she’d done. “Topper, are you mad? I didn’t mean to…”
“Mad? At you? Never! Now then, I’m about three and a quarter whiskies past my limit so I’d better get myself to bed to avoid passing out in some scurrilous place. Mother will never get over having to extract me from the privet hedge the summer before last.”
He bent down and kissed Ruby on the noggin.
“Go to sleep, kid. It’s going to be an early morning.”
Topper turned back toward the house.
As he went to open the door, Hattie materialized on the other side of the glass. She waved at the both of them.
“Speak of the devil,” Topper said over his shoulder.
After a sly wink, Topper opened the door with a flourish. He took an exaggerated bow, just as he had the night of the Independence Ball, when the girls were exhausted, sun-chapped, and reveling in their tennis tournament win.
“Mademoiselle,” he said. “We were just gabbing about you.”
“Rats! I missed the dirt.” Hattie pecked Topper on the cheek. “What’s wrong, leaving so soon?”
“I’m leaving one way or another,” he said. “Better to be deliberate about it. Night-o, dolls. Have the sweetest dreams.”
As the door clicked behind him, Hattie plunked down beside Ruby, in the exact spot Topper had been.
“Hiya Rubes,” she said. “What a shindig. Hard to believe the summer’s over.”
“Yup,” Ruby said.
“It’s been such a gas, Ruby. I’m so glad to have met ya. Who knew charity work could pay off like that? I was awfully skeptical about the whole Grey Ladies biz but it ended up being the best danged thing I could’ve done.”
“Oh, thanks,” Ruby mumbled, careful not to meet her friend’s eyes.
“Look, pumpkin.” Hattie placed a hand on Ruby’s knee. “I know you want more between your brother and me—the rings and the gown and the luncheon for hundreds. And, Lord, Topper’s a handsome guy who’s a kick and a half. I can see why you love him like you do. But it’s just not going to happen between or betwixt us.” Hattie shook her head. “Breaks my heart to think the poor sap’s gonna ship off soon. He’s too sweet a guy to fight, I’ll tell you what.”
“Then make him stay,” Ruby said, her voice coming out in a drawn-out whine. “He has nothing tethering him to the States. You be that person.”
“I can’t do much about the draft…”
“But he does defense work! He could drum up a reason to defer.”
“Babydoll.” Hattie squeezed Ruby’s leg. “I know you don’t want him to leave, and I understand entirely. But you can’t keep him here, and neither can I. I’m not what he wants.”
Not what he wants? He surely wanted her in the butler’s pantry, Ruby had to fight herself from saying.
“Golly, Rubes! Don’t look so glum. No hearts are broken, if that’s what you’re thinking. Topper and me, we’re working from the same page. We’ve had a grand time but here’s where it ends. Do you feel me?”
“I guess,” Ruby said with a grumble, though she didn’t “feel” her at all. “I thought I saw something more. Something different.”
“Yeah.” Hattie glowered. “I suppose you did.”
“So where will you go?” Ruby asked. “From here?”
“Now, that is a story. Tomorrow I’m bound for New York City. That’s right, your closest gal Hattie Rutter is going to be a true Manhattanite. Can you stand it?”
“You’re going to New York? How come you didn’t say anything?”
Hattie shrugged.
“Wasn’t sure I’d go,” she said. “But I was offered a position at a magazine in the city. Mademoiselle. You might have come across it.”
“Mademoiselle?!” Ruby said, exploding into a smile, letting genuine joy lift her onto her feet. “That’s amazing! The absolute tops!”
She smothered Hattie in a hug.
“Now, now, you don’t want to strangle me dead before I even start,” her friend said, laughing.
“Oh, Hattie, I’m so thrilled. And you’d better show me the city when I visit … once a month at least!”
“I’ll always have a spot for you.”
Just like that, any doubts Ruby had, any question as to Topper’s “we had a helluva summer” proclamation, these things rolled away like they’d never been there at all. What did she care about European liberties? Ruby wasn’t one to bother with others’ private matters. Live and let live, she believed. Ruby had a lifelong chum in Hattie, a sister of the mind. A good thing, what with all the brothers.
In the end, those waning summer of ’41 moments would be the last time Ruby and Hattie would speak face-to-face. By the next summer, Mr. Rutter would sell his island home and Hattie would morph into a New Yorker, exactly as promised.
Ruby followed her friend over the years as Hattie climbed the ranks, both professional and social. She’d see her, in a sense, years later and then not again for another twenty-five, when Ruby was in New York with her grown daughter. On that afternoon, she’d spot Hattie smack in the middle of the Rainbow Room. After catching her breath, Ruby would grab Cissy’s hand and haul her onto the street.
“Geez, Mom,” Cissy would gripe. “I’m getting awfully tired of being literally dragged all over this city. I don’t even like shopping. I’m hardly going to need miniskirts at business school.”
Ruby never explained herself. She never admitted that she’d seen an old friend, her best friend, from the last truly blissful summer at Cliff House. Cissy wouldn’t have understood Ruby’s reluctance to approach. Of course it wasn’t the person Ruby feared, but the conversation the two women might have about the decades that had passed.
They used to say that on Nantucket every house had its tragedy, most borne of the sea. It was a ghost story, a fable, a warning to Summer People that sunshine and parties and croquet on the lawn were not the natural ways of the land.