Page 64 of The Book of Summer

“Selfish egoist of a girl,” Ruby overheard him say one night at the casino.

She didn’t so much “overhear” as he said it right to Topper’s and Ruby’s faces after Hattie sashayed off to find Mary. That alone told you the girl was generous to the gills. Shesought outMary, of all people.

“Excuse me?” Ruby said with a hard glare. “You have a problem with Hattie?”

“Okay, I was a little harsh,” Nick conceded. “But there’s simply nothing to her.”

“‘Nothing to her’?” Ruby steamed, glaring fiercely at her brother, who snapped his head away. “She’s beautiful and brilliant and a kick and a half!”

“Beautiful, I suppose. But the rest of it? Sweets, you’re reading her all wrong. Less breeding and couth and she’d be a hedonist. Only in it for the fun and gluttony.”

“Gluttony. She eats like a bird. Topper! Are you going to let your friend talk about Hattie like that?”

Not meeting eyes with either one, Topper patted Ruby on the shoulder and said to his friend, “You get used to her.”

“‘Used to her’? What? Like a heat wave or an itchy skin condition?”

Ruby hadn’t imagined there could be a person alive who didn’t find Hattie Rutter incomparably charming. There must’ve been something darkly wrong with this Nick Cabot character. He probably kicked old ladies.

“So Nick’s off to Europe,” Ruby said on a glorious blue and gold afternoon as she and Topper approached the tenth hole of Sankaty Head.

Nick had been gone twelve hours and it was as obvious a statement as one could make but Ruby wanted to make it nonetheless. Since the man’s departure, Topper was all gloom and blue moods. Nick Cabot’s view of things still clung to her brother like a sticky, light film.

“Yes, he is,” Topper said. “Off to fight the evil Axis.”

With a bite of the lip, Topper teed up using one of Daddy’s balls. When they ran out of this batch, that’d be it. Until the war was over, he’d make no more.

“I’m sure you’ll miss him,” Ruby said as Topper set up. “We all will! Such a card to have around. But my guess is Hattie will be pleased as punch to have her beau back. She’s positively thrilled you’re staying the full week and not going back to Boston.”

Ruby was workin’ it like a pro, but “thrilled” was not exactly the shape of it.

Hattie’s response had been “That’s swell” when Ruby told her. Just two words: “That’s swell.” Of course, Hattie was not the excitable type and was hardly “thrilled” by much. A hedonist. Honestly. Hattie’s unflappable demeanor was the very issue Nick took with her, no doubt. The man had all the class of an untrained Labrador. Case in point: He tromped around the upstairs in his shorts as if he were in a boys’ dormitory. Even easygoing, pal-to-all Sam carped at the guy to please keep his twigs and berries in their sack.

“‘Thrilled,’” Topper said with a cough, on to his sister right away. “Really. That sounds like a Ruby word, not a Hattie one.”

With an inhale, he swung and knocked the ball a clear two hundred yards off the tee.

“Well, thrilled in her own special way,” Ruby clarified. “So I hear you two are going deer-spotting later?”

“As far as I know.”

“That should be fun.”

Ruby placed her ball on the ladies’ tee and gave it a whack. It went far, though didn’t come close to Topper’s.

“It’s a shame Daddy hasn’t had the chance to get to know her,” Ruby said, and flung her bag over her shoulder. They began walking down the fairway. “He’d like her, don’t you think? I can’t believe he came all this way for the parade but didn’t stay for the ball.”

“It is indeed too bad he wasn’t fit to stay.”

“And he’s been back exactly once. In all those weeks!”

When they approached Topper’s ball, he crouched down to inspect the lie of the grass.

“Poor man has been working so hard,” Ruby gabbed on. “Who knew you could be a businessman and factory worker both?” She paused, hand on hip. In the distance birds tittered. “Are you going to take the shot? Or will you keep making that ball false promises with your inscrutable gaze?”

Ruby waited for Topper to react. But he didn’t laugh, not a chuckle for miles. He always humored his sister, no matter how crummy the joke. But not this time. Instead he rose to standing and looked out over the fairway.

“Is everything okay…?”