The Book of Summer

I truly hope you didn’t hold a place at the table for me. But you better not have gotten yourself a new doubles partner! Those Coffin girls must’ve been tripping over themselves when they saw you were on the tennis market. My advice: Stay away from them both. The chubby one hits forehands like she’s tossing grenades that miss their mark. Listen Rubes, that is our trophy to win. Next year. Promise.

Now, on to off-island things. You might’ve noticed the postmark. I’m back in New York! I know you weren’t too jazzed about me nosing around the front lines. Not to worry. Turns out nailing down a foreign correspondent post is no cinch. Even worse that I’m of the female persuasion.

“If we’re gonna send a gal,” one editor told me, “it has to be a woman who looks a little rough.”

I haven’t given up, though! If I have to ugly it up, then by jove, I’ll do it. In the meantime, any of these diddies ring a bell?

“The Yanks shot to victory thanks to a 3-run homer by Joe DiMaggio. The Yankee Clipper walloped it far left in the top of the sixth. The swell fielding during the game helped shore up the win.”

“Ted Williams was fined $250 for loafing and generally acting screwy.”

“McCarthy’s boys may have lost, but so did the Sox. The Boston bozos are still lagging at four games back.”

Yessiree! That’s right! You’re pals with the latest sports reporter for the Daily Mirror! I happened to walk into the editor’s office approximately one hour after a reporter died of apoplexy while covering a game. Poor so-and-so. But good for me, as they sent me straight out on the beat! My first game was the New York Black Yankees versus the New York Cubans. Me, a real sports fiend. Can you stand it?

Enough about my professional pursuits. What’s happening at Cliff House? Do you hear from Sam or your brothers often? Are they allowed to write? I still can’t believe P.J. enlisted … and that they’d let him in! The boy is class 5-F all the way. Physically unfit to serve due to being spineless and scarce of pulse.

Ack! Look at me. Crude and crass. I’ve spent too much time with ballplayers already. I realize he’s your brother and Mary, you claim, is not so bad this summer. (!!!!) But them’s the cards, Rubes. And don’t pretend that comment didn’t earn me a bit of the tee-hee, some Ruby-style cheer. The best kind there is.

Alrighty joe, off I go to cover the Yankees versus the St. Louis Browns. I’ll tell you what, the world champions are on a roll and quite the gas to watch. I know your family favors the Sox, but perhaps you can come for ladies’ day at the ballpark later this month?

Write soon.

xoxo, Hattie R.

Ruby crumpled up the letter and went to take it to the outside trash.

She’d chortled at Hattie’s off-color gibe, but couldn’t risk Mary stumbling across the note, the teeter-totter of their relationship at that second precariously balanced in a straight line. With the boys gone and Mother and Daddy mostly absent, too, Ruby had to keep their careful kind of peace. And Mary was known to rifle through the trash, looking for scraps to refashion into something else.

Plus, it was a dang good excuse to leave the house for a breather, what with the radio on all day, bleating news from the front lines. Sam was still at the navy yard in New York, but suddenly the ocean seemed like the galaxy’s most treacherous place. Especially after seeing Sam last weekend, when he was granted an unexpected furlough.

While in Sconset, Sam said nothing about his fears, but he didn’t have to as they were crawling all over his face. He seemed nervous to get within two feet of Ruby, as if his jittering and jerking might knock right into their unborn child. There were moments Ruby wished Monday would hurry up and come, so Sam could get the fighting out of his system. She prayed that the navy would return her husband in the condition he’d been received.

Hattie’s letter still in hand, Ruby bypassed the outside bin in favor of a quick stroll up Baxter Road. No use getting back to the house with any pep. She’d had enough ear-to-the-speaker for one day. Sure, she could disappear to other rooms, but with all the isolationist business last summer, it felt like Mary was waiting, just waiting!, for Ruby to show a lack of patriotism.

Ruby’s feet rapped on the road. Between homes, she peered out at the shimmering Atlantic. Even with the war on, Nantucket twinkled like the prettiest girl at the dance. What was it Hattie said? Summer days in Sconset are why we’re in this war.

True enough, Ruby decided. On-island they were rationing like the dutiful Americans they were. No gas? No problem. Let it be sailboats that fill the bay and bikes that line the streets. Nantucket was getting too crowded with motorcars anyway. Of course, biking was never as breezy as a gal might fantasize. The haul to and from town was long and the pedaling murder on the slip seams. Not to mention the hassle of painted-on “victory stockings,” now that nylons were forbidden. “Mexitan” had a tendency to run.

Ruby walked a few more paces up the road toward Sankaty Head. It struck her just how on the edge of America they were. No wonder Boston chums assumed the situation was dicey in Nantucket, times two all the way over in Sconset. It was true they had the constant presence of the coast guard, who patrolled the island’s perimeter dawn to dusk. But the men looked sharp and were not without their charms.

At the top of Baxter Road, after taking some appreciative ganders at the sea, Ruby turned and sauntered her way back home.

As she approached Cliff House, Ruby noticed Miss Mayhew tending to her garden across the way. Ruby smiled, for of all the domestics that’d tramped in and out of their lives, Miss Mayhew was her favorite. Hired help was another thing deemed unpatriotic these days. All the cleaning and cooking now fell to Ruby and Mary.

“Hiya Miss May—” Ruby started, but had to stop herself.

Good gravy, she didn’t even know the woman’s name. That was some how-do-you-do for a person considered a favorite. So much for the fleeting wish that they might be friends.

“Hello there!” Ruby warbled, trying to grin away the gaffe.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Packard,” Miss Mayhew said as she rose from crouched to standing.

“Please call me Ruby. Golly, your garden looks swell. I should have you work on ours.”

Ruby blushed, realizing how it came across.

“I mean…”

Miss Mayhew winked, as if in on the gag.

“Perhaps,” she said.

Ruby smiled at her dumbly, trying to figure what to say next. The words Miss Mayhew, Miss Mayhew, Miss Mayhew wound over and over in her brain. Dagnabbit, it was way too late to ask for a first name. Ruby felt like an utter boob.

“Are you headed to the navy jukebox jiggeroo tonight?” Miss Mayhew asked, saving Ruby from herself.

Lucretia? Loretta? Charlotte? Ruby shook her head. No, it was a simpler name.

“Sure,” Ruby said. “I love a good jiggeroo.”

Ruby dickered with the buttons on her dress. Should she return the question or was the assumption that Miss Mayhew had the option alarmingly dense? Ruby grew damp beneath her arms. She looked down to see rivulets of sweat gumming up her Mexitan.

Michelle Gable's books