28 Summers Read online

  Mallory and Mr. America talk for what seems like an awfully long time—yes, Jake is jealous—then Mr. America hands Mallory a paper shopping bag and she gives him a kiss on the cheek and waves goodbye. Mr. America revs his engines, expertly sweeps the boat around, and heads back in the direction of Nantucket.

  “Who was that?” Jake asks.

  “Barrett Lee,” Mallory says. “He caretakes all the homes out here, and in the summertime, he brings provisions.”

  “Did we need provisions?” Jake asks.

  Mallory opens the bag. Jake sees familiar white cartons and catches a whiff of fried dumplings.

  “He brought our Chinese food,” she says. “Now let’s go home. We have a movie to watch.”

  Summer #8: 2000

  What are we talking about in 2000? Hanging chads; Broward County; Katherine Harris; the Human Genome Project; Yemen; the Subway Series; Walter Matthau; the International Space Station; getting voted off the island; Charles M. Schulz; Sydney Olympics; Slobodan Milošević; Pilates; Tony, Carmela, Christopher, Big Pussy, Paulie Walnuts; USS Cole; Microsoft antitrust; Almost Famous; EVOO; “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

  The new millennium is upon us and guess what: Cooper Blessing is getting married again!

  His fiancée’s name is Valentina Suarez. She’s an administrative assistant at the Brookings Institution. Valentina is from Uruguay, a beach town called Punta Este, which is a renowned resort area with a well-heeled international clientele. Valentina’s family owns a beachfront restaurant, and for this reason, they can’t get away, even for Valentina’s wedding. This sounds fishy, and when Mallory presses her brother, he admits that Valentina’s family have no idea she’s getting married because Valentina didn’t tell them. The reason she didn’t tell them is that they wouldn’t approve. They would like Valentina to marry a Latino, preferably a fellow Uruguayan, preferably the son of the owners of the casino next door to their restaurant, Pablo, who was Valentina’s childhood sweetheart.

  Mallory would have guessed that a second wedding—and one where the bride would have no family in attendance—would be a small, modest affair. Maybe even a courthouse ceremony followed by lunch.

  But no. Valentina has always dreamed of a big wedding, and Cooper plans to make this dream come true—which pleases no one as much as it does Kitty.

  “We get to do the whole thing over,” Kitty says. “And in June, which is much better.”

  Mallory is to serve as Valentina’s maid of honor. Fray will be the best man—again. Is Cooper having any other ushers?

  “Jake. Jake McCloud,” Cooper says, as though Mallory might not remember him. “And Valentina will have her downstairs neighbor, Carlotta, as a bridesmaid.”

  For Cooper’s second wedding, we once again return to Roland Park Presbyterian, which Kitty Blessing decks out in a palette of pinks. The flower of choice is the peony. Everyone loves peonies—but is there such a thing as too many peonies? If so, that’s the case at Cooper’s second wedding.

  Mallory’s dress is a standard floor-length sheath in ballet-slipper satin. She gets her hair styled the same way she did for the first wedding, only with tiny pink roses tucked into the chignon rather than baby’s breath.

  Mallory sees Jake at the rehearsal an hour before the ceremony and her hopes feel like lemmings rushing to the edge of a cliff. Will they be dashed? Has Jake brought Ursula? Jake and Mallory both have cell phones now and they’ve exchanged numbers, but the rules they established years earlier still apply. Mallory isn’t to contact him for any reason other than engagement, marriage, pregnancy, or death. So she didn’t call him to ask if he was bringing Ursula to Cooper’s wedding. She’ll know soon enough.

  He’s wearing a dove-gray morning jacket with tails. Again: tails. Kitty likes things as formal as possible.

  When Jake sees Mallory, he raises his eyebrows. In appreciation—yeah? She looks good? He comes over and kisses her. Chastely. It’s torturous.

  In her ear, he says, “She’s here. I’m sorry.”

  Mallory will not let this unfortunate piece of information ruin the evening ahead.

  “Great,” she says. “I look forward to catching up with her.”

  During the ceremony, which is performed by Reverend Dewbury with as much hopeful optimism as he displayed at Cooper’s first wedding, Mallory turns her head to survey the guests. On the groom’s side, fourth row back, seated on the aisle, is Ursula de Gournsey in a stunning seafoam-green appliqued sundress with a sweetheart neckline. Her hair is long and shiny, parted to the side; she’s wearing bright red lipstick. Mallory can’t stop staring at her until, in one awful moment, Ursula notices her and they lock eyes. Mallory snaps her attention back to her brother, that tall, smiling golden boy, the most quality person Mallory has ever known. Mallory wants to believe that Cooper’s love for Valentina will last until the grave, but secretly, she feels that this wedding has doomed written all over it.

  The reception is, once again, at the country club, only this time the cocktail hour and pictures are held outside with the emerald links of the golf course in the background. Because it’s June 24, the daylight is never-ending, and even at seven thirty, there’s a foursome—the Deckers and the Whipps—still finishing up at the eighteenth hole. Wedding guests can hear the thwock of Paulson Whipp’s shot off the tee, but instead of admiring her husband’s drive, Carol Whipp squints toward the clubhouse and says, “That’s Cooper Blessing’s wedding. Oh, and look—isn’t that Mallory? I wonder why she hasn’t met anyone yet.”

  This will be a frequently asked question of our girl this evening: When will it be your turn?

  Mallory greets the question with irritation and embarrassment, but the people who ask are friends of Senior and Kitty; Mallory has known them all forever, and she understands that they only want to see her happy (which apparently means “paired off”). She can’t bear to give them false hope, however, so she says, “This might be a case of always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

  Fray overhears her. “Amen,” he says. “I, for one, am never getting married.”

  “Cooper is getting married enough for all of us,” Mallory says. “Wanna come with me to the bar?”

  “I haven’t had a drink in six years, nine months, and two weeks,” Fray says. “Since my trip to Nantucket.”

  Six years, nine months, two weeks. This, then, is how long she and Jake have been together. “Just come with me and get a seltzer, then,” Mallory says. “I need a bodyguard to protect me.”

  “From whom?” Fray says.

  “Everyone,” she says.

  There’s a seated dinner, salmon or lamb, new potatoes, tiny sweet peas. Mallory sneaks glances at the next table. Ursula isn’t eating; she never eats, Jake has confided—though tonight, Mallory isn’t eating either. She’s too anxious. Jake is talking to Geri Gladstone, who is seated to his right. Does Jake know that Geri is Leland’s mother? Leland and Fiella were invited to the wedding, but Fifi is on tour in Europe and Leland went with her. Geri Gladstone has gained weight, most of it in bags under her eyes and a pooch under her chin; Mallory doesn’t like to be ungenerous but she wishes things had gone the opposite way when Steve left her for Sloane Dooley—she wishes that Geri had become incredibly slender and started dating Cal Ripken Jr.

  Mallory is drinking champagne but she’s careful not to dive headfirst into glass after glass. She doesn’t want to be the drunk girl at the wedding—at least, not yet. She thinks back to the sweet longing she felt for Jake at Cooper’s first wedding; it seems so mild and innocent compared to the wild jealous storm brewing within her tonight. She loves Jake now. Their last weekend on Tuckernuck was sublime, and Mallory doubts they’ll ever be able to top it. And yet, she says this every year, and isn’t every year just a bit better than the last? Their relationship grows like a tree—the roots go deeper and they add a ring around the trunk.

  The band starts to play for the first dances. Cooper heads out to the floor with Kitty, Valentina with Senior. Valentina looks beautiful and
happy—but is she happy without her family? Or is she just pretending, like Mallory?

  (She’s pretending. Valentina can’t believe lightning didn’t strike the altar, so blasphemous is this thing she’s doing, marrying without her parents’ blessing, without her parents’ knowledge. Her parents are skiing in Las Leñas this weekend, for the elder Suarezes are very well off, very sophisticated, very active, and yet they are of one mind when it comes to the future of their daughter Valentina. They expect her to return to Uruguay for good and marry Pablo Flores. In fact, Señor and Señora Suarez will see Pablo in the lodge, and the three of them will discuss Valentina’s return as though it’s a given, none of them expecting that she’s dancing at her own wedding with her brand-new father-in-law.)

  Someone taps Mallory on the shoulder. It’s Fray. “Wanna sneak a cigarette?” he asks.

  “Maybe in a minute,” Mallory says. Commiserating with Fray has its appeal but right at this moment, Mallory wants to be alone. She heads for the ladies’ room.

  The ladies’ room at the club hasn’t been renovated since 1973, which makes it look hopelessly old-fashioned but also comforting. One enters a lounge with rose-colored wall-to-wall carpeting and a rose-colored Naugahyde divan and three stools with needlepointed covers that are positioned under a long counter. Above the counter is a mirror where, for generations, ladies have applied lipstick, powdered their noses, and stared into their own eyes pondering…what? Well, all kinds of things: What am I doing with Roger? Do I have a drinking problem? Why didn’t I pursue a doctorate? How much should I pay the babysitter? Do I look fat? Do I look old? Why can’t Roger stop bashing [Ford/Carter/Reagan] so loudly in public? Why is Helen giving me the silent treatment? How long until I can go home to bed?

  There’s a cut-glass bowl of butter mints, individually wrapped in cream-colored cellophane. Out of habit, Mallory takes a handful and drops them into her clutch. Just as Mallory is feeling a small burst of joy at bumping into her old friend the butter mint, she hears a noise coming from the ladies’ room proper. Someone retching.

  Mallory quickly enters a stall; the retching continues. Someone has had too much to drink—but who? This wedding reception is decidedly tamer than Cooper’s first. Where is Cooper’s friend Brian from Brookings? He was oodles of fun, and, if Mallory isn’t mistaken, he succeeded in making Jake jealous.

  (Brian Novak is married with three children, and because he unwisely invested in a crepe restaurant in the town of Cheverly, Maryland, where he lives, he’s three months behind on his mortgage, his wife has had to take a weekend job as a receptionist at a walk-in emergency clinic, and he can’t come to Cooper’s wedding because he is stuck at home caring for the kids and worrying about foreclosure. At this very moment, Brian is fervently wishing he were in Baltimore, spinning Mallory around on the dance floor. She was cute, with her freckles, ocean-colored eyes, that tiny gap between her lower teeth, and she had a sense of mischievous fun, which is more than Brian can presently say for his wife.)

  When Mallory comes out of the stall, she sees Ursula de Gournsey leaning over the sink, rinsing out her mouth. Mallory freezes.

  “Are you okay?” Mallory asks. Was it Ursula she heard retching? Apparently—they’re the only two people in the ladies’ room.

  Ursula’s eyes meet Mallory’s in the mirror. Her skin is paste gray.

  “I think I’m pregnant,” she says.

  Pregnant.

  It feels like several days pass while Mallory is sucked down into a spiral of agonizing self-pity, jealousy, anger, and spite. In fact, it’s amazing that Mallory is still upright. Let’s return to the tree analogy: It feels like Ursula has taken a freshly sharpened ax and felled the relationship between Mallory and Jake at its very base. Despite this, Mallory takes a step forward, turns on the water in the sink next to Ursula’s, pumps out a dime-size squirt of pearlescent gardenia-scented hand soap (another aspect of this ladies’ room that transports Mallory back to her childhood), smiles into the mirror, and says, “Wow! Congratulations!”

  “No,” Ursula says, tears standing in her eyes. “This is awful. This is a disaster.”

  Mallory dries her hands on one of the paper hand towels embossed with the country club’s logo and then hurls it into the trash. There’s a flare of pure fury: Having Jake’s baby is awful? It’s a disaster?

  Mallory supposes that Ursula is upset about the pregnancy because it will interfere with her trying to make partner at the firm. Jake has made how Ursula feels about work crystal clear.

  Just as Mallory is about to shrug and walk away—because Ursula has no right to feel anything other than blessed that she’s carrying Jake’s baby, in Mallory’s opinion—Ursula breaks down into full-blown sobs, and Mallory softens. Maybe Leland was right—Mallory is suggestible, easily swayed. Or maybe our girl is just kind and sympathetic.

  “Come here,” Mallory says. She leads Ursula to the lounge and sits next to her on the divan. She places a tentative hand on Ursula’s back; Ursula is so thin, Mallory can feel the distinct knobs of her spine. She isn’t sure what to say, so she nods at the bowl on the counter. “Would you like a butter mint?”

  Ursula shakes her head, though the sobbing subsides a bit.

  “I’m Mallory Blessing. Cooper’s sister.”

  “I know,” Ursula says. “I saw you at the first wedding.”

  “I’m sorry you’re upset about this. Is it the timing or…”

  Ursula drops her face into her hands and shakes her head. “No. Well, I mean, yes, but that’s not the worst part.”

  Mallory produces a tissue from her clutch and presses it on Ursula. This is crazy, right, that she’s here in the bathroom, comforting Ursula?

  Yes, it is crazy. But then, a second later, crazy is redefined.

  “The problem is,” Ursula says, “it’s not…it’s not…jayblibberkiz.”

  “Wait,” Mallory says, because she didn’t catch the second part of Ursula’s sentence. “What? It’s not what?”

  The door swings open and the lounge is overtaken by white organza and the sound of Spanish wailing. It’s Valentina. Carlotta dutifully follows behind, holding up Valentina’s prodigious train.

  Valentina is hysterical. She looks around the lounge. She clearly needs a place to collapse, but the best spots are occupied by Ursula and Mallory.

  Ursula stands up, and she and Valentina execute a do-si-do. Should Mallory ask Valentina what’s wrong? She probably doesn’t want to talk to Mallory, and anyway, she has Carlotta, who can speak her native tongue and who is not her new husband’s sister.

  Mallory and Ursula aren’t finished. Or are they? They have no choice but to step out into the hallway, where they can all too clearly hear the band playing “Two Tickets to Paradise.” The moment of confidence between them has been broken, but Mallory gives it one last shot.

  “I think I missed part of what you were trying to tell me in there,” she says. “You said, ‘It’s not,’ but I didn’t hear the rest. It’s not…what?” Mallory’s nerves are jangling like the zills of a tambourine. Did Ursula say, “It’s not fair”? Pregnancy and childbirth aren’t particularly fair. Women get the short end of the stick. They have to carry the baby, they endure the pain of delivery, and the time-consuming job of nursing…and that’s only the beginning.

  Ursula shakes her head. She looks at Mallory warily now, as though Mallory is trying to wrest away something that Ursula isn’t willing to relinquish.

  It’s not…what?

  Well, Mallory can guess the unspeakable truth.

  It’s not Jake’s baby.

  But Ursula will neither confirm nor deny.

  “I should get back,” Ursula says. “Thank you for the Kleenex.” As if the damp, disintegrating tissue she’s holding in her hand is the sum total of what Mallory offered.

  Before Mallory can respond, Ursula disappears into the ballroom.

  Mallory pulls Fray off the dance floor. He’s doing the twist with Geri Gladstone, and how odd is that, considering that
Geri’s ex-husband is now shacking up with Fray’s mother, Sloane, in nearby Fells Point? Geri looks to be genuinely enjoying herself and Mallory feels bad about stealing Fray away but…desperate times.

  “I need you,” she says. “And that cigarette. Outside.”

  Mallory also needs tequila. Two fingers of Patrón Silver, which she procures from the bar and takes with her as she weaves through the tables toward the back door. Jake and Ursula are seated; Ursula has flipped open her phone, of all things, and Jake cocks an eyebrow at the sight of Mallory and Fray leaving together.

  It isn’t Jake’s baby. Is this possible? It’s like something out of All My Children, but this isn’t a soap opera, this is real life. Did Ursula cheat on Jake? Mallory feels affronted by the idea—and how hypocritical is that? Mallory is Jake’s Same Time Next Year! She has no room to judge anyone.

  If Ursula is pregnant by someone else and Mallory knows it, should she tell Jake? The answer is obviously no. So Mallory should keep the secret and let Jake believe it’s his baby when it’s really not?

  Mallory can’t think about it. She follows Fray outside.

  They sit on the stone retaining wall on the far edge of the patio, the dark end, so people won’t see them smoking. The people Mallory is worried about are her parents; in so many ways, she still feels like a teenager.

  “Did you always smoke?” Mallory asks. “I can’t remember.”

  “I started when I stopped drinking,” Fray says. “I needed a new vice, one that would kill me more slowly.”

  Mallory is already feeling the tequila three sips in, and the first inhale off the cigarette makes her so heady that she nearly topples off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. She grabs for Fray’s hand and ends up clutching his thigh. Which is a little awkward, right? She steadies herself and taps ashes into the manicured grass. “So how are you?” she asks. “You’re good, right? A millionaire?”