28 Summers Read online

  “Hey,” he says. He stands to kiss her and tastes tequila on her lips. “Have you been…drinking?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Mark, Anders, and I went to Lily Bar after we finished today. It’s our Friday tradition.”

  “So just now…you were at a bar?” Jake says. “Having a drink with Mark and Anders when you knew my flight landed an hour ago? I’ve been sitting here waiting for you, Ursula, because you forgot to put my name on the room. I tried calling.”

  “Yes,” she says. “I saw that.”

  “If you saw that, why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was finishing up my workweek,” Ursula says. “And I figured I’d see you in the room. I made us reservations at the Eiffel Tower for tonight.”

  “I couldn’t get into the room,” Jake says. “Because you forgot to add my name.”

  “I heard you, Jake,” she says. “I’m sorry but I’ve been busy. It’s not a big deal, is it? You survived, right?”

  Her tone is chiding. She knows she was negligent but she wants him to shake it off, just as he’s shaken off all her self-absorption the past nineteen years.

  “Not a big deal at all,” he says. “But, Ursula?”

  “What?”

  “I’m leaving,” he says. He hoists his bag over his shoulder and heads in what he now knows is the opposite direction of the infernal casino. In a few seconds, he sees the unmistakable beacon of natural light beckoning him like the entrance to the afterlife. He steps out the front door into the baking sun.

  Back at the Las Vegas airport, Jake hears his name being called. It’s a man’s voice, not Ursula’s. Ursula has undoubtedly gone up to the room, poured herself a glass of wine, and drawn herself a bath, where she will wait for Jake to return.

  But this time, Jake isn’t running back. Ursula can stay in Vegas the rest of her life if she wants. He’s going home.

  “Jake! Jake McCloud!”

  There’s a man slicing through the crowds of people who are trying to make their redeyes. It’s Cody Mattis, an acquaintance from DC, and Jake feels uneasy because he listened to Cody’s voice message weeks ago when he was sick but never got back to him.

  Jake gives Cody his best effort under the circumstances. Hey, Cody, how you doing, what brings you to Sin City? The answer is a bachelor party, the Spearmint Rhino, never seen women like that before in my life, blah-blah-blah. Jake blocks this last part out. He doesn’t want to think about women.

  “Sorry I never returned your call, man,” Jake says. “I’ve been busy…”

  “Oh yeah? Did you find a job?”

  “No, not yet, still looking.”

  Cody hands Jake a business card. “You know I’m working as a lobbyist for the NRA, right? When I mentioned to my boss that you left PharmX, he basically issued me a mandate to bring you in for a meeting.”

  “He did?” Jake says, taking the card. NRA—the National Rifle Association. “This is Charlton Heston’s gig, right?”

  “Protecting the good old Second Amendment,” Cody says. “We’d love to have you on board.”

  Jake must be angry, because for the entire six-hour flight back to Washington—out of spite, he upgraded himself to first class—he turns over the possibility of lobbying for the NRA in his mind.

  “Protecting the good old Second Amendment”: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The amendment was ratified in 1791, back when a person might have had any number of reasons to own a gun. Now, however, with the new millennium on the horizon, Jake believes there are too many guns, and a lot of them are in the wrong hands.

  But then Jake plays devil’s advocate. He spent enough time in Michigan growing up to know that a lot of good people, his friends’ fathers, for example, hunt, and they shouldn’t have a hard time getting rifles or ammunition, should they? And what about keeping a gun around for self-defense? If Jake were the one traveling for work all the time and Ursula were home in the apartment by herself, wouldn’t he want her to have a gun, just in case? Maybe, he thinks, although if she had a gun, she might be tempted to use it in a situation that didn’t warrant it, and if she used it, someone would get hurt or maybe even die.

  He’s not going to work for the NRA.

  Still, it’s nice to be wanted and he does need a job and the pay is probably excellent, which would be good for his self-esteem. Something’s got to give.

  On Monday, Jake calls Cody’s boss, a man named Dwayne Peters, and sets up a meeting for the next day. Even over the phone, Dwayne Peters is a good salesman—“The NRA gets a bad rap here in the East, we need a public relations overhaul, Jake, and that’s where you come in. We need these mommies and daddies and the intelligentsia who wouldn’t know a forty-five from a thirty-aught-six to understand that we are the ones keeping America safe. Don’t you want to help keep America safe, Jake?”

  Jake nearly responds, Yes, sir, I do—that’s how persuasive Dwayne Peters is. The Second Amendment is as ironclad as the right to free speech or freedom of religion. The nation’s forefathers weren’t wrong. But they were wrong, Ursula would point out. Because back then, only white men had the right to vote.

  So instead, Jake says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, sir. I look forward to learning more about the NRA.”

  That night, Jake is sitting at the coffee table eating a bologna sandwich—even with the AC running, it’s too hot to cook anything—when Ursula walks in. She’s in her travel clothes—linen pants and crisp white shirt.

  “Hey,” she says. She drops her suitcase and her briefcase and drapes her garment bag over the railing. She looks sad. Or maybe just defeated. The bubble over her head is…empty.

  Jake doesn’t care. He returns to his sandwich, cracks open the beer that’s sweating in front of him. He’s sitting around in his boxers just like she predicted he would be. He resents Ursula showing up without warning; if he’d known she was coming home, he would have put on pants.

  “I’m not going to apologize for leaving,” he says. “And I’m not going to apologize for making you leave Vegas, because that was your choice.”

  “You didn’t make me leave,” she says. “The deal is done. We closed.”

  “Oh,” Jake says. He knows he should feel happy about this but he wants to believe that Ursula left Las Vegas because she’s putting their marriage first. “Well, you’ll be pleased to know I have a job interview tomorrow. With the NRA.”

  “The NRA?” Ursula says, and she makes a noise that sounds like a cough or a laugh. Her expression is incredulous. “You might want to cancel that. Haven’t you seen the news?”

  That very afternoon, in the town of Mulligan, Ohio, a seventeen-year-old boy whose name was being withheld walked into his summer-school class with an AK-47 and killed twelve students, his teacher, and himself. It’s all over the news. The boy purchased the gun at a Walmart. No one asked him for ID. He paid in cash, walked out of the store with the gun and thirty rounds of ammo, and drove to his high school to show everyone just how much he hated summer school.

  “Don’t worry,” Ursula says. “Something else will turn up.”

  Jake’s only worry is that he even considered working for the NRA. He remembers the long-ago phone conversation he had with Mallory while they were both still in college. I’m one of the good guys, Mallory. He’s going to make sure that’s true.

  Ursula gets no downtime. The week following the shooting, she’s assigned as the lead attorney—a tremendous honor—on a case in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock is closer than Las Vegas, but it takes longer to get there because there aren’t any direct flights. Commuting home on the weekends won’t be feasible, though staying in Lubbock is no treat; they’ll have her at a Hyatt Place near the Texas Tech campus. Ursula can’t see any reason for Jake to visit. There is nothing to do but work.

  “I hope Anders is on your team?” Jake says when she tells him about the assignment, though he doesn’t.

  “Oh, he is,” Ur
sula says. “We do well together. He gets me. They assigned Mark to a different case, so it’s me, Anders, a first-year associate named AJ, and two paralegals.” She pauses. “AJ looks like a supermodel. I bet she and Anders will be engaged by the time we finish.”

  Jake knows Ursula far too well for him to relax at this statement. She never, ever comments on other women’s looks; to Ursula, the value of a woman is how smart she is, how competent, how interesting, so she is saying this simply to put Jake’s mind at ease. But why?

  “I feel bad leaving you alone for the rest of the summer,” she says. “We didn’t get a chance to go away.”

  “It’s fine,” Jake says. “Your career comes first.”

  Ursula wraps her arms around him. “Will you go to Nantucket?” she asks. “On Labor Day weekend?”

  “Yes,” Jake says.

  He arrives on Nantucket on Friday and Mallory is there to pick him up at the airport in the Blazer. However, instead of driving down the no-name road toward the cottage, she heads into town.

  “Uh-oh,” he says. “Are we changing up the program?”

  “’Fraid so,” she says. She pulls into one of the reserved spots in front of the A and P and Jake feels a heightened sense of concern. Town means people and people means a greater chance of bumping into someone he knows. The past couple of summers they have frequently seen Mallory’s students or former students or parents of students while they were out and about. Mallory always introduces him as “our family friend Jake,” which makes their relationship sound platonic and innocent while also being true. But even so, Jake is uncomfortable. He feels like he’s wearing a T-shirt that says I’M CHEATING ON MY WIFE.

  He lost all his chips in one fell swoop in Vegas, but the real gamble he takes is coming to Nantucket every year like this. He wonders what the odds are that they’ll never be discovered. A thousand to one?

  “Where are we going?” Even across the parking lot, he can hear the end-of-summer revelry over at the Gazebo. He imagines that crowd peppered with people from Hopkins, Notre Dame, Georgetown, all waiting for him like land mines.

  “I bought a boat,” she says. “We’re going to Tuckernuck!”

  The back of the Blazer is packed with grocery bags and Mallory’s monogrammed duffel. They carry all the supplies down the dock to a slip where a sleek sailboat awaits. It’s called Greta, and it has one 250-horsepower Yamaha motor hanging off the back. The hull is painted teal blue and there’s a small cabin below. Jake can’t believe it.

  “This is yours?”

  “Meet my Contessa Twenty-Six,” Mallory says. She goes on to say that she got the sailboat the same way she got her bike and the Blazer—someone wanted to get rid of it. “When I broke up with the Newport guy, I realized that the thing I missed most about him was spending time on the water. So I took sailing lessons. I just finished the advanced course last week.”

  Yes, Jake remembers her mentioning the sailing lessons the year before. He also recalls being jealous of her instructor, Christopher, until she let it slip that Christopher was nearly eighty years old. “Is this Christopher’s boat?” Jake asks. “Did Christopher die?”

  “He’s still alive,” Mallory says. “But he can’t sail anymore, his wife made him stop. So he basically gave me his boat. All I had to do was hire his friend Sergei to do the overhaul.” She climbs aboard in bare feet and Jake sheds his shoes and follows. “And I bought a new motor. Not cheap, but completely worth it.”

  “Good job, Mal,” Jake says. “I’m so proud of you.” He pops downstairs to the cabin, which is simple but cozy; there’s a galley kitchen, a navigation table, a V-shaped berth, and a head. “So where did you say we were going again?”

  They’re going to Tuckernuck, which is a completely separate island within spitting distance of the west coast of Nantucket but a world apart. Tuckernuck is private; only the people who own property there and their guests are allowed. There are twenty-two homes serviced by generators and wells. There are no public buildings on Tuckernuck, not even a general store. There is no internet, no cable TV, and limited cell service.

  This describes Ursula’s idea of hell, Jake thinks. And his own idea of heaven.

  Mallory anchors Greta off Whale Island and they wade ashore with their luggage and provisions. Mallory sets off alone on foot to the house, which is three-quarters of a mile away. Jake stays behind with the things. He feels like a pioneer. What do you need to create a life, after all? Food, clothing, shelter, a person to love. Jake marvels at the sheer beauty around him. Whale Island isn’t an island at all but rather a ribbon of white sand that is the only place boats can anchor. Beyond lie green acres crisscrossed with sandy paths and, here and there, a glimpse of gray-shingled rooftops. Across a narrow channel lies Smith Point and the island of Nantucket, which seems like a metropolis in comparison.

  Jake hears someone calling his name and sees Mallory sitting behind the wheel of a battered red Jeep with no top and no doors.

  They’re off!

  The house belongs to the family of Dr. Major’s wife and was built in 1922. It’s a simple saltbox upside-down house with a great room upstairs that has enormous plate-glass windows all the way around for 360-degree views of the island and the water beyond. Mrs. Major’s niece recently redecorated, so the place feels like a graciously appointed Robinson Crusoe hideaway. There’s a rattan sofa and papasan chairs with ivory cushions; there are funky rope hammocks in the corners, and the plywood floor is painted with wide lemon-yellow and white stripes. Jake is surprised to see a small TV with a shelf of videos, across which lies a hand-painted sign: Rainy Day Only.

  Jake whistles. He feels like they’ve stepped into another world. No one will find them here.

  It’s their seventh weekend together, lucky seven, maybe, because it’s the best yet. On Friday night, Mallory grills burgers, as usual, and although there’s a small cookstove, she grills the corn as well. On Saturday, they pull two bikes out of the shed and explore the island. They visit both ponds—North Pond, which they swim in, and smaller and murkier East Pond, which they don’t. They lie on three different sections of golden-sand beach. They see other people from afar and simply wave; there’s no reason to exchange any words. It would feel like talking in church.

  On Sunday, they hike through the middle of the island. Mallory shows Jake the old firehouse and the old school. Most of the other houses are shuttered now that the summer is drawing to a close. Jake is captivated by a small cottage that has clearly seen better days. Its windows are clouded and cracked, the paint on the trim is peeling, and the gutter on the front appears to be hanging on by one rusted screw. It has a deep porch that is oddly reminiscent of Out of Africa, Jake thinks, and though he isn’t prone to adopting strays, he can’t help but imagine what it would be like to buy the place and fix it up. He says as much to Mallory, who scrunches up her eyes behind her sunglasses. “You have crummy taste.”

  “It’s off the grid,” he says.

  “Put mildly,” she says.

  “We could grow old together here,” he says. It’s always on their Sundays that he starts to feel this way—like he won’t survive if he leaves her.

  “How’s Ursula?” Mallory hasn’t asked until now, and he knows her timing is no accident. When he talks about growing old together, Mallory gently reminds him that he’s already vowed to grow old with someone else.

  “Things are tough,” he says.

  “Good,” Mallory says. She squeezes his hand. “I’m kidding. What’s going on? Can you tell me?”

  “I know the person I married,” he says. “But I’m still shocked by the way she is sometimes.” He then regales Mallory with the story of his trip to Vegas.

  “Ouch,” Mallory says. “Have you considered that maybe what draws you to Ursula is that she makes herself unavailable? And I’m too available.”

  “You’re not available at all,” Jake says.

  “Too emotionally available,” Mallory says. “You know how I feel about you.”

&n
bsp; “Do I?” Jake says. He turns away from the house to face her. A red-tailed hawk circles overhead, but there’s no one else in sight. It feels like they’re the last two people on the planet. He realizes that every single year he has been waiting for Mallory to cry uncle and say, That’s it, I give up, please leave Ursula and move to Nantucket, or I’ll come to you, or we’ll make it work long distance. But she never says this, and so what can Jake think but that Mallory likes the arrangement the way it is? She prefers it to a bigger commitment. She has him…and she has her freedom, which, in years past, has meant other men. “I’m going to be honest here, Mal. I’m not sure how you feel about me.”

  “Jake,” she says. “I love you.”

  She said it.

  I love you.

  Jake has said the words to her thousands of times in his mind, whether Mallory was lying in bed next to him or six hundred miles away.

  He doesn’t want to mess up this moment. He wants it to be unforgettable. He’s going to make this a moment Mallory thinks about not only for the next 362 days, but for the rest of her life.

  “I love you too, Mallory Blessing,” he says. “I. Love. You. Too.”

  It works; tears are standing in her eyes. She hears him—and, more important, she believes him.

  When he kisses her, however, she pushes him away. “We have to go,” she says. “We have to be at Whale Island by six. I have a surprise.”

  The surprise is a strapping, incredibly handsome man who pulls up to Whale Island in a thirty-six-foot Contender. Jake squares his shoulders and tries to sit up straighter in the wonky seat of the old Jeep while Mallory runs over to greet their visitor. Jake isn’t sure how he feels about this particular surprise.