RUBY
July 1940
“So you’ll really go through with it?” Topper said. “The hitching?”
He was supine on Ruby’s bed, lobbing a baseball from one hand to the other.
“Why wouldn’t I go through with it?” she asked.
Their mother would have a fit, seeing Topper in Ruby’s room while she was in nothing but a panty girdle and a bra. But Ruby didn’t have a sister, and her nearest brother, ten months younger on the nose, was the next best thing. Not that Topper was at all girlie, especially with his sports playing and skirt chasing, but he was doggone skilled at humoring his sister and pretending they were interested in the same things.
“I don’t get it,” Topper said. “Why, exactly, are you marrying him? Because I can’t really figure it out.”
“What’s there to figure out? It’s quite simple, really. I love Sam. He’s kind, and smart, and devastatingly handsome. All the usual reasons.”
“Are those the usual reasons, then? I’m glad to have you around to tell me.”
“I do what I can.”
Ruby stood and walked over to her dress, which hung from the pink wardrobe in the corner. After giving it a thorough glare, she took to patting it down. Forty yards of silk taffeta. Lord almighty, it looked like a hurricane. The blasted thing could’ve swept up Dorothy and taken her to Oz.
“We want the same things,” Ruby said. “Sam and I.”
Topper froze, holding the baseball to his chest.
“Huh,” he said with a faint chuckle. “I guess you do. You want to want them, in any case.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Ruby said, and rolled her eyes. “Babble all you want, but despite your best efforts, the hitching will commence at eleven.”
Topper snorted and took to throwing the ball against the ceiling. Clonk, clonk, clonk. Mother would appear at any moment, materializing like a chimera and sporting a sour-lemon frown. Ruby glanced out the window toward the orchestra practicing in the distance. They had a fair length to go until they were fine-tuned.
“I’m not sure about this thing,” Ruby said, turning her attention back to the dress. “There’s quite a lot of taffeta.”
“I thought that was the point? Anyhow, you’re stuck now. You should junk the hat though, Red. Not flattering a’tall.”
He called her this, Red, despite hair that was golden like the summer sand. She was strawberry blond as a young child, but mostly it was a play on her name. Red, as in Ruby Red, though she was never as colorful as that.
“What do you have against him?” she asked.
“Who? The hat?”
“Yes, the hat,” Ruby said, and rolled her eyes again. “I’ve named him Pete. He’s quite the fella. I meant Sam, you dope.”
Topper sniggled.
“What’s the rub?” she asked. “You two used to be grand pals.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Listen, I have nothing against your fella. Sam’s a fine man. Attractive. Unobjectionable. That, dear Red, is the very problem.”
“That he’s attractive and unobjectionable?” She arched a brow.
“You need someone with more … gusto.”
“Gusto.”
“A little fire!” Topper said. “Some verve.”
“Right-o. A person to match my wildcat nature.”
Fact of the matter: Ruby was a damned straight arrow. Sure, she possessed a spicy tongue and had committed a few petty crimes in her day—the nicking of cigarettes and hooch while at Smith—but mostly Ruby listened to her parents, used her manners, and never went too far with any boy. Everyone found her universally delightful, a gem of a gal.
“I really should be with someone who causes a scene,” she added. “It’d be the primo fit.”
“Precisely, dear sister,” Topper said with a wink. “You’ve been too good, too protected, too damned cloistered in your ivory tower. You need someone to pitch a curveball atcha.”
He demonstrated with the ball in his hand, which thwacked against a ladies’ tennis trophy sitting on a high shelf.
“Ivory tower?” Ruby barked. “Hardly! Look around. The toilets at Cliff House only work half the time.”
“Yes, yes, you’re quite roughing it in your summer home. I’ll ask Mummy to take up a collection at church.”
“You’re a real gagster. Golly, it’ll be a nice change to live with a well-mannered gentleman for once.”
Ruby’s thoughts drifted back outside, where glassware clinked and groups of men bustled about the grounds. Her eyes flicked down to the long, white table that divided the lawn in two. Three dozen small, round tables flanked it, their umbrellas spinning and dancing in the wind.
“Here’s the thing,” Topper said as Ruby glanced back toward her dress. “Sam’s a swell guy but it’s like he’s following a script. You need someone more … his own man.”
“Sam is very much his own man,” Ruby said, though did not strictly know.
“Ruby!” said a voice from the hallway, a caw followed by three sharp pecks on the door.
“Oh brother,” Ruby muttered.
It was P.J.’s new wife, Mary. A real cold fish that one, an utter snore.
“Ruby!” Mary warbled again. “Mama Young sent me to check on you.”
“I’m fine. Almost ready.”
“Lovely! Have you seen Robert?”
Topper pressed a finger to his lips, all the while chortling behind it.
“Yes, he’s in here,” Ruby said. “Helping me get dressed.”
“Ruby Genevieve!” Mary screeched. “That is sickeningly inappropriate. I just … I don’t even…”
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t!”
Mary huffed and stomped several more times before turning on her toes and marching back to “Mama Young.”
“That woman,” Ruby growled.
“Oh she’s not so bad.”
“Actually, she is the very worst.”
With a sigh, Ruby slipped her wedding frock off its hanger and tried to wade through the froth to find its center.
“I’m sure Mother wants to help you with that,” Topper said. “You being her only daughter and all.”
“Probably.”
Ruby wiggled it up toward her chest, then over her shoulders.
“We are a sorry lot.” Topper tossed the ball one final time. “This family. Poor manners. No decorum. Thank God money covers most ills.”