27

The Book of Summer

Nick Cabot

July 29, 1941

Cliff House

Tops told me to write in this book and doggone it, I shall do so.

’Allo folks, the name is Nicholas Cabot. You might know me as just plain Nick, Topper’s Harvard chum. The smarter and more attractive of the duo, to be sure. Alas Harvard boys we are no more. We both dropped out. There are things to do, you see. Battles to be won. People to impress with our dash and valiance.

As for me, I’m registered straight-up class 1-A (no kids or war work to hold me back!) and will soon head out to basic training for the good ol’ army. Meanwhile, Topper’s farting around the island, deciding what to do. I told him don’t wait to be drafted. All sails and no wind, that boy. Looks swell in the harbor but not exactly going anywhere.

I’ve come to Cliff House for our last hoorah. I’m not unaccustomed to Nantucket, been here a time or five. It’s funny how Tops’s island is not the one from my mind though. When I think of the place, my mind conjures the mansions on Main Street. Those grand homes with their heavy knockers and silver nameplates and monstrous screaming eagles above their front doors. But, lo and behold, there’s a charmer of a spot called Sconset, seven miles away but might as well be a thousand. Topper’s family’s spread is about a mile up from its heart.

Cliff House is a stately affair, as are a few others down the lane, though most are modest in size. Little weathered boxes, many drowning in flowers. Why, it almost makes you want to chuck it all and take up a fisherman’s life.

Even in Sconset, there is tennis and sailing and golfing and bowling. There are card games and dances and Friday night parties on the Cliff House lawn. Every person, every last one of us, is tanned and gay. We might be the closest point physically to Europe, three thousand miles dead ahead to Spain, but you’d never know it. Out here, you can almost pretend it doesn’t exist.

Oh yes, I could stay in Sconset the rest of my days and be quite content but that’s not in the cards. On Tuesday I’ll thank Mrs. Young and give Tops one last pat on the back. I’ll leave this place calmer, and more wistful, but with new matchbooks and memories and a clip of honeysuckle to remember it all by.

Always,

Nick C.