“My mental health is just fine.”
“This?” Bess points to her drink and Gone with the Wind. “This is not grit, Cissy. This is giving up. You’re giving up, throwing in the towel. The mother I know is incapable of defeat. And don’t you still have a bluff to save? They’re going to put in the geotubes and it is about the entire shoreline, right? Not just your house. Don’t prove Chappy right on this one. Don’t give that jerk the satisfaction.”
Bess catches eyes with Evan.
“Sorry,” she says with a wince.
He holds up both hands.
“Understood.”
“And Grandma Ruby?” Bess says, growing screechier by the second. “She’d be hot as a fired pistol. Stop your complaining, she’d tell you. For God’s sake, pull yourself together and get on with your life.”
“You don’t know the first thing about it,” Cissy says.
Bess thinks of the articles, and what Evan told her. It’s possible Ruby soldiered on with an alcoholic husband who was also a semicloseted homosexual. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t soldiering on. Maybe it was stubbornness and she chained herself to that marriage, sure as Cissy has with Cliff House.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Cissy says, scooting a hand beneath her rear. She produces a phone. “Your father is looking for you. He caught an earlier flight so you’ll have to pick him up. Soon, I think. Though I can’t remember the details.”
“Fucking hell!” Bess wails, then kicks in a few other swear words.
She’s never been much of a curser but Nantucket with its wind and sea lore has brought the sailor right out in her.
“I’m so tired and I can’t even…”
Evan walks over and puts a sturdy arm around Bess. On the chaise, Cissy wiggles to make herself comfortable. She picks up her book and begins to read.
“Oh my God! Mother!”
“Listen,” Evan says, rubbing her shoulder. “You need to take a nap. Shake this off.”
“But my mom!” Bess stomps a foot and Cissy releases a little snigger. “And my dad! Who, apparently, needs a ride from the airport.”
“I’ll take care of them both.”
“But…”
“It’s fine.”
“But…”
“It’s fine,” he says again.
Bess thinks that he might actually mean it.
“Be forewarned, Evan,” Cissy says, peering over the top of her book. “Dudley’s never been a big fan of yours. So, you know, don’t take offense to anything he might do.”
Evan yanks Bess toward the door before she completely loses every last bit of shit she has.
“Ignore her.…”
“By the way!” Cissy calls, always with a final directive. “Felicia’s present is on the dresser in my bedroom. Please bring it with you to the wedding since I can’t be there tomorrow.”
Bess makes a hard about-face, ready to charge the woman. Luckily, Evan is swift to stop her.
“Keep walking,” he tells her.
“Oh my God,” Bess says again, tears bubbling as he leads her inside and to the downstairs guest room.
It’s the spot farthest from the ocean and all done up in white, like a cloud.
“This started as a complete catastrophe and it’s gotten worse,” she says.
“I know.”
Evan guides her to the bed and Bess lets herself collapse onto it.
“Cissy’s just fired up,” he says. “It’s her pattern. The Big Show before regaining her faculties. I’ve seen it a million times.”
Either Evan doesn’t have a clue or he knows exactly what he’s talking about. It occurs to Bess that over the past few years he’s spent more time with Cissy than she has.
“It’ll be fine,” he promises.
Evan kisses the top of Bess’s head. She promptly comes down with a raging case of goose bumps. He notices and pulls a blanket over her.
“You’re exhausted,” he says. “So take a nap.”
“But the cliff…” she says with a small moan.
“Short nap. Thirty minutes, tops. I’ll get my guys over here. We’ll move your stuff, including your mom. Tonight you can stay at my place.”
“Your place? That’d never work,” Bess says without thinking, as she is already drifting away.
Sometimes you don’t know how tired you are until you actually stop to rest.
“Fine,” Evan says, getting grumbly. “Stay at Tea Time. A hotel. Whatever. You’re not staying here.”
In the end, Evan’s words will be more a prediction than an order. It’s true. Bess will not go on to stay at Cliff House that night, or ever again. Neither will she stay with her cousins at Tea Time, or with Evan himself, or even with her dad at the Wauwinet. On that night Bess will sleep in a place with markedly less charm than any of these.
Bess wakes from her dark and delicious nap feeling if not better, at least not so riddled with curse words and ire. She might be able to handle Cissy without the threat of impending violence.
After a few stretches, Bess pads to the downstairs bathroom, where she runs a brush through her long, straight hair. A few of Cissy’s blond, kinky ones end up on her shirt. Bess checks herself in the mirror. She looks a tad pale but otherwise not so bad. Of course, she’s not wearing her glasses, so that helps.
Bess tugs down her pants, realizing just how badly she needs to pee. She closes her eyes in relief. After what feels like minutes, Bess opens her eyes and reaches for the toilet roll. Then her gaze drifts downward and Bess lets out a scream. Her formerly white jeans, bunched around her ankles, are now completely caked in blood.
56
The Book of Summer
Ruby Young Packard
June 6, 1944
Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island “Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces, supported by strong air forces, began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”
That’s the news from the front lines today. The allies have initiated a large-scale attack, the end game the liberation of a continent. I’ve had the radio blasting all morning, waiting for news, listening to FDR ask the nation to join him in prayer.
I’ve put off food shopping for the past three days and paid the price by having to venture to the market today. At every turn people were deadly silent. What to make of this attack? We are liberating people but we’ll lose so many along the way. As we passed each other, we exchanged glances of compassion, acknowledgment that on this day we all share the same mind.
How many men will perish? I’ve already lost one brother in this war, one brother by accident, and two babies, both male, by chance. A woman should never talk about dead babies in polite company but it is so very hard to forget them. Together these losses tell me one thing. This world is no longer safe for men.
As I write, I think of the sign in town. France: 3,000 miles. France. The beaches of Normandy. A hopeless journey. A lifetime away.
With a heavy heart,
Most sincerely,
Ruby Packard
57
RUBY
June 1944