You seemed to really love each other.
“Yes, it seemed that way,” Bess says now, in the dining room of Cliff House.
She rips a piece of tape from its roll.
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” Cissy asks. “Absolutely certain that you want to go through with it?”
“Yes. One hundred percent,” Bess says, and means it. “I know what you’re thinking. The first divorce in the family, the black sheep, et cetera. But there’s simply no other option. I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re disappointed. And believe me, I am, too.”
“Disappointed? Please. I couldn’t be prouder of my Bessie if you cured cancer.”
“Well, I hope you’d be a little prouder of me if I cured cancer.”
“Professional accomplishments,” Cissy says, and blubbers her lips. “Who gives a crap? And, by the by, if you think you’re the black sheep, you’re not paying attention.”
“Either way, there’s no going back.”
No going back. Bess’s side twitches. She tries to rub it away.
“Okay, my dear,” Cissy says. “I hear you. But I do think it’s better to talk things through with someone who loves you.”
“Thanks but I’ll pass.”
“I still don’t…” Cissy shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand why you’re getting divorced. Is there a specific reason?”
Bess hesitates. Yes, she has a reason or twelve. Most of them she can’t mention to her mom.
“At its simplest,” Bess says finally, “he’s not the person I thought I married.”
Then again, maybe he is and Bess should’ve seen it coming. There were signs. She couldn’t say there weren’t signs, emergency meal preparations notwithstanding.
“Not who you married?” Cissy answers with a small grunt. “They never are. Your grandmother could’ve told you that. But just because…”
“Mom.” Bess gently smacks the table. “I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll only get upset or angry and I’m so tired of feeling both of these things. One day I’ll tell you the full story.”
“Fine.” Cissy scoots around the table to give Bess a hug. “And since you called me ‘Mom,’ I suppose you mean business.”
“Oh yeah, I mean business. Big business.”
“All right, Big Business,” Cissy says, checking her watch. “I’m off for a jog. I’d ask you to join me but…”
She shrugs. Although Bess is a decent golfer and a crack tennis player, the family knows she never exercises in vain. Or, as Lala likes to tease, Bess doesn’t want to sweat if no one’s keeping score.
“Should we squeeze in nine holes later?” her mom says.
“Sure. I’d love to.”
“Okay, sweetums.” Cissy gives her a slap on the rear. “Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”
“Thanks, Cis,” Bess says as her eyes dart out to the patio. The fog is already thick, rolling in with greater force. “I’ll try to keep myself alive.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
Tuesday can’t come soon enough.
8
The Book of Summer
Ruby Genevieve Young
July 19, 1940
Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island
The last cigarette has been smoked.
The last car has puttered away.
Mother’s bedroom door is closed. Even Topper has worn out his shenanigans and is holed up in the boys’ bunk room.
And here I sit, at my desk, the windows thrown open and the sound of the waves crashing nearby. It’s my last night as a single gal, twelve hours until I’m a married hen.
Tomorrow at exactly eleven o’clock in the morning, I’ll stand beneath the pergola, white wisteria dangling overhead. Sam and I will exchange vows and voilà, I’ll transform from Miss Young, Philip Young’s only daughter, into Mrs. Samuel Packard.
“You’ll always be a Young,” Daddy says. “More than a Packard, to be sure.”
I suppose in some ways, yes. But not in the way of Topper and P.J. It’s different for girls. As much as I’ll be proud to carry Sam’s name, that’s Mrs. Packard to you, I’m still losing some part of me. It’s nothing but change from here on out, I suppose.
“Don’t worry, petal,” Daddy says whenever I anguish over any little thing. “It’ll all work out in the end.”
And you know what? He’s been right thus far.
So tomorrow, when I’m anointed Ruby Packard, after the luncheon, and the toasts, and the jitterbugging on the patio, Sam and I will hop into a car (a black Mercedes-Benz Roadster) and zoom off toward the airport where we will board the late plane to Acapulco.
Two weeks in the Mexican sun and then it’s back to Boston, where Sam will chair Daddy’s newly minted Golf Products division. He has no interest in dentistry and it seems this is the only family spot being offered to him. Alas, nothing to brood over, as there’s plenty of room for Sam at Young Processing Co. Who knew a bunch of old guys stomping about with sticks in their hands could generate such a gold mine? Sammy doesn’t seem notably buzzed by the prospect, but he’s not keen to play.
Whenever I start to spook about the changes I remind myself that a year from now we will be back at Cliff House. Mother and Daddy. My brothers. Sam and me, with (hopefully) Sam Junior already on his way. The summers, at least, will never change, other than a couple of new people along for the ride—God willing.
And with that, I am, for the final time,
Yours truly,
Miss Ruby Genevieve Young
9
The Book of Summer
Samuel Eugene Packard
July 20, 1940
Cliff House, Sconset, Nantucket Island
The Legend of the Golf Ball
-OR-
Rubber Man and the Dentist
Many years ago, a decade almost, two men met up at the club in Sconset as they were wont to do several times per week, June through August every year.
One was a skinny fellow, a scientist by training but a businessman by trade and sheer doggedness—now a honcho of some repute. He’d founded a rubber-processing operation, selling to industry. The top producer for a time.
The other man was bigger, brawnier, a former Harvard linebacker whose middle had somewhat gone to pot. He was a dentist, an entirely new profession amid his family. They had been stock speculators previously, which worked well until it rather didn’t. Now the family sneaks by on its old prestige.
So on this particular day, these two men, both fathers with a passel of kids between them, grabbed their sticks, and headed to the Sankaty Head Golf Club.
Things started out most inauspiciously, for the Rubber Man at least. He was the superior player and thus more prone to golfing discontent. As for the Dentist, any shot not destined for a bunker or the Scotch broom was dandy by him.
By the sixth hole, a straightforward job, the morning had taken a sour turn. The Rubber Man missed a very makeable putt, by his standards anyway. Enraged, he launched his putter into the brush, followed by a seven iron toward some other gent’s caddy. After completing his tantrum, Rubber Man picked up the offending ball from where it sat on the green.
He held it to his eyes.
“The core is off-center!” he shouted. “I hit that ball expertly!”
“Is it the lie of the green?” the Dentist suggested.