“Oh my. Is that…?”
Bess peers around Cissy’s wide, wide hair to see Evan clutching the mike. His shirt is partially unbuttoned, the periwinkle tie is gone. Sweat shimmers on his face as if he’s been singing all night.
“Holy shit,” Bess says.
“Are you being … serenaded?” Cissy asks, then twists up her mouth.
“Holy shit,” Bess says again as she realizes that yes, she’s being serenaded.
And he’s lifted the entire room to its feet.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it …
The other guests flood the dance floor. Soon, the entire room is singing, shaking from the power of their voices. Evan Mayhew has brought the house down.
Chappy takes Cissy’s hand and pulls her onto the floor. Meanwhile, Bess’s heart flops all over the place. She is wildly charmed by the gesture, but it sure would be nice to have someone to dance with. Bess prays this won’t all end in the “Macarena.”
As if he can read her thoughts, and hell maybe he can, Evan turns the mike over to the real vocalist and jumps off the stage. He saunters up while Bess stands dumbed and speechless.
“So,” he says. “Better than Coolio?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“I do love you, Bess,” he tells her. “It’s not just the night or the moment or the really good booze.”
“I love you, too,” she answers. Then pauses. “Although I am on Vicodin. So who knows?”
Evan throws back his head and laughs.
“Oh, Lizzy C. A piece of my heart indeed.”
You know you got it if it makes you feel good.
64
The Book of Summer
Ruby Young Packard
June 1, 1948
Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island The house is open, the flags are raised, and the ferries from New Bedford and Woods Hole are running regularly once more. All that and I have three new bathing costumes, my favorite featuring blue-and-white stripes and close-fitting shorts. It’s just as Mother said, the summer will always come.
They’re expecting 40,000 visitors on Nantucket this season, a record by far. Folks are ready for vacation and now we’re only a ninety-minute flight from New York. There’s now no place on earth unreachable if you have but ten days to spare. Sconset doesn’t seem so isolated anymore.
Not that the trains are suffering, not by a mile. Grand Central reported last weekend was its busiest in history. I’m sure more than a few bodies were bound our way, judging from all the gruff city voices I heard on Main Street. Admittedly I am often vexed by the tourists, even though I’m technically an off-islander myself. Not that I feel like one. Baxter Road is more my home than Commonwealth Avenue, no matter how many days I spend in each.
The roads in town are jammed with cars, from new and sporty to old-fashioned and high-slung. That the gasoline stockpiles are being released is quite evident and already biking has fallen out of fashion. Cycling is back to being a “roughing it” kind of pastime. Or as the New York Times proclaimed, “a holiday sport suited only to those hard of muscle and with dogged determination.”
In addition to prepping the house for the season, we’ve spent the past few days golfing and sunning and sailing, too. I never understood my little brother’s obsession with the sport until I tried my hand for real. And wouldn’t you know? There is a certain splendor to sailing, to gliding upon God’s great sea using nothing but rags and a chunk of wood. The simple beauty of the sport is not unlike Sconset itself, with its gray shingled homes huddled together in quiet, restrained dignity, sturdy against the winter winds.
But it’s winter no more. Outside glassware clinks and the waiters scurry about. We’re holding a fête tonight, the first of the summer. Our guest list tops one hundred and every single person RSVP’d “yes.” Old friends and new. Nantucket and Boston and New York, even Washington town. Three cheers for summer. May it be made only of long days.
With love and hope,
Yours truly,
Ruby
65
RUBY
Summer 1948
They stood by the swimming pool, or the three-quarters pool that it was.
“It won’t be done by the party,” Ruby noted.
She was in her bathing costume, with a mallard-green scarf wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet were sandy. They’d just come up from the beach.
“This is not good at all,” she said.
They were supposed to have 150 guests and their yard was torn to bits. Not the brightest notion to start a large construction project during the busiest season in a decade. Had Mother been alive she could’ve told Ruby that.
“You were the one who insisted,” Sam pointed out. “The builders warned us that the timeline was too slim, that even a few hours of inclement weather could derail the whole thing.”
Ruby glared at her husband over the top of her sunglasses.
“Not helpful,” she said.
Suddenly an orb of yellow frenzy flashed in Ruby’s periphery.
“Cissy!” Ruby barked, scuttling across the bricks and wood. “Put that down.”
The three-year-old was right then dropping rocks into the gaping hole in their yard.
“Oh good grief,” Ruby said, and hoisted Cissy up against her waist. “You want to help, don’t you? Finish this pool yourself. I know what you’re thinking, you darling scamp.”
That was so like Cissy. She’d shown them exactly who she was, and straightaway. So independent, utterly take charge. Why, just that morning and out of the clear blue, Cissy took it upon herself to fold the laundry. It mostly involved slinging everything into a heap in her bureau, but the thought was there.
“You’re a cute bug, aren’t you?” Ruby said, and kissed her soft head. “Though a buzzy one.”
Cissy squirmed to break free, right on time.
Lord, Ruby loved her little spitfire, but the get-up-and-go really wore a woman out. Sometimes there was a mighty fine line between vivacity and being a real pill.
She released Cissy to the ground and looked back at her husband. It was hard to believe that something so on the move could bind two people together in one place. When Sam showed up the year before, quite sheepish and from the oblivion, he took one gander at Cissy’s round cheeks and that sassy sapphire gaze and knew at once he could never leave.
“Hey, whatcha got there, baby girl?” Ruby heard her husband ask.
“Box!” Cissy said, and crinkled something in cellophane. “Secrets!”
Ruby took three rapid strides forward and swiped the box from Cissy’s hand. She chuckled. “Secrets.” Or, rather, cigarettes. An ancient, emptied-out package unearthed by the workers. Ruby turned it over. Gauloises, Hattie’s favorite brand. Ruby gave a watery smile of remembrance, of regret. They’d really fouled it up, hadn’t they?
Though she still viewed Hattie’s article as inexcusable, ultimately it was not unforgivable. And so Ruby had extended the olive branch, sending Hattie a birth announcement when Cissy arrived.
Mrs. Ruby Young Packard announces the birth of her daughter, Caroline Sarah Young Packard, on November 20, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.