28 Summers Read online

  Mallory hears him say, “You were the one who insisted we come.”

  Mallory walks away. She tries to imagine Sloane and Steve in the early passion of their secret affair—the all-consuming obsession, the stolen moments of rendezvous made more heady because it was so forbidden. Had they viewed their love as a rare jewel, something no one else could possibly understand? And if so, how did it feel now that they had devolved into being just like the masses, squabbling because they felt uncomfortable at Sloane’s grandson’s first-birthday party?

  Food for thought. If Mallory and Jake were ever together-together, would they wake up one day to find the magic gone? Probably yes.

  Fray and Anna have brought Link a pile of gifts, which he’s tearing open, and Kitty comes to the kitchen for more wine. “Don’t you think everyone should gather if the baby is going to open his gifts?” she asks.

  “No,” Mallory says. “He’s one.” She wants to avoid a big to-do about the presents because it will turn into a showdown between grandmothers. Honestly, Mallory would like the party to be over. She’s weaning Link slowly but her breasts are still producing milk and right now her breasts are hot and full. She should go into the bedroom and pump but she’s afraid if she does, the party will detonate like a bomb, and innocent people—Apple, Hugo, Isolde, Oliver, Anna—will get hurt. She looks at Link sitting in the center of the floor, banging on a new drum that Anna got him—gee, thanks, Anna—and her eyes well up with tears because she loves him so much and yet she worries about bringing him into such a nontraditional family situation. Someday he will grow up and learn that his father was his uncle’s best friend as well as his mother’s best friend’s boyfriend and he’ll learn that his grandmother broke up the marriage of his mother’s best friend’s (and father’s ex-girlfriend’s) parents—and what will he think of that?

  Never mind Kitty.

  There’s a knock at the door and whoever walks in is temporarily blocked from view, though Mallory does see a taxi pulling away down the no-name road, and she thinks, Huh?

  A second later she sees her brother.

  Cooper is here. He came. The tears Mallory was holding back start to fall because some people just make everything better, and Cooper is one of them.

  “Surprise!” he says. “My sister and my best friend have a baby and you think I’m going to miss the first birthday? You think I’m going to send a giant giraffe in my place?”

  Mallory has bought a cake from the Nantucket Bake Shop. They light the single candle and sing. Link couldn’t care less, but it’s all good because this is the final hurdle before everyone can go home. Apple and Hugo, Isolde and Oliver, are the first to leave; the exodus has begun.

  Senior and Kitty have bought Link a fat plastic baseball bat and a squishy baseball, among other things, and Senior is eager to take Link out onto the beach so they can play. It’s chilly but bright, Mallory says okay, fine. She and Kitty and Cooper and Steve Gladstone go outside to watch while Sloane, seeming a little calmer, offers to clean up. Senior stands a few feet away from Link and tosses him the ball. Without any instruction, Link swings at the ball and makes contact on the first try and everyone cheers.

  “Natural talent here, Mal!” Senior calls out.

  After a few more pitches—two hits out of five—they all go inside. Cooper volunteers to run Sloane and Steve Gladstone back into town. Once they’re gone, Fray says that he and Anna should probably leave as well; they have a dinner reservation at American Seasons that evening. Fray will be back in the morning to pick Link up for the day.

  They leave and Mallory tells Kitty she needs to nurse Link and put him down for a nap. Kitty blinks and Mallory waits for her mother to comment on the fact that she’s still breastfeeding one year in, but instead, she shocks the hell out of Mallory by saying, “I’m proud of you, darling.”

  “What?” Mallory says. “You are?” She doesn’t mean to sound woe-is-me or dramatic but Mallory is pretty sure she has never heard these words come out of her mother’s mouth. Kitty was proud of Cooper growing up; they were all proud of Cooper. Mallory was certainly loved but not often celebrated.

  “The party was lovely,” Kitty says. “And the food delicious. I chatted with your friend Apple, and she told me what a good teacher you are and how much your students love you. She says you’re getting them all to read, which is just marvelous, darling.”

  “Oh,” Mallory says. She’s so unused to hearing this kind of praise from Kitty that she feels nearly uncomfortable. “Thanks.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy to have Sloane Dooley and me in the same room. You and Frazier are acting like mature adults, and it’s remarkable how warm and generous you are with his girlfriend. And you are a wonderful mother. Link is such a sweet, good-natured baby, even-tempered and bright, and that’s because of you.” Kitty stops. There’s something else coming, Mallory thinks. With Kitty, there’s always something else coming. “I just wish you would find someone special. I want you to be happy.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Mallory says. “I am happy.”

  Kitty smiles, but it’s clear she isn’t convinced.

  An hour later, Link is napping and Mallory and Cooper are sitting out on the front porch with drinks, braving the chilly wind blowing off the water.

  “Mom doesn’t think I can be happy without a man,” Mallory says.

  “It is curious that you haven’t met anyone,” Cooper says. “You’re quite a catch.”

  Mallory doesn’t respond right away. Wine and confessions are the best of friends, so she has to be careful. She wants to tell Cooper about Jake, but she just can’t. The reason their relationship works is because absolutely. Nobody. Knows.

  There was that night at Christmas a few years ago when she and Jake broke protocol and danced at PJ’s. Surely Coop picked up on something then? He must be thinking the exact same thing because the next words out of his mouth are “So did I tell you that Jake McCloud moved back to South Bend? And that his wife, Ursula, is running for Congress?”

  Mallory nearly drops her wineglass. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Cooper says. “And it looks like she might win.”

  On August 30, Jake arrives by ferry, though in his postcard, he said she shouldn’t pick him up, that he would take a taxi to the house. Mallory knows this is so no one sees them together.

  When he walks in, she hands him a beer. Cat Stevens is on the stereo. The cheese and crackers are ready, burger patties in the fridge, the last hydrangea blossom is in the mason jar next to a single votive candle, and Mallory has placed two novels on Jake’s bedside table: The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, and The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt.

  Everything is the same—except for the basket of toys in the corner and the stray Cheerios underfoot. Mallory finally got Link weaned; he’s spending the long weekend in Vermont with Fray and Anna.

  The first kiss is Mallory’s favorite part of the weekend. It’s like taking a long cold drink of water after wandering in the desert for 362 days. Every year she worries that the chemistry will be gone—for Jake or for her—and every year the kiss is hotter and more urgent than the year before.

  This year, Jake grabs her ass, squeezes, pulls her closer and tighter, and murmurs into her mouth, “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

  Mallory wants to make love, but she stops herself and pulls away ever so slightly.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she says. “South Bend? Running for Congress?”

  It was 9/11, he says. Ursula lost coworkers—many acquaintances and one close friend. “Maybe he was more than a friend,” Jake says. “I always suspected that Ursula and Anders had something going on.”

  “Oh yeah?” Mallory says. This is the first time Jake has ever hinted that Ursula might have been unfaithful. Mallory hasn’t breathed a word about the nature of her conversation with Ursula at Cooper’s wedding, or even that they had a conversation.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Jake says. “Except that it spurred this decision in Ursula.
She wants to make a difference. Change the world.”

  Jake and Ursula have bought a home on LaSalle Street in South Bend, a single-family, flat-roofed stucco house on a half-acre lot. Jake has kept his job with the CFRF; he flies around the country raising awareness about cystic fibrosis and lots and lots of money for research. Ursula is nominally employed by a law firm in downtown South Bend, though most of her time is consumed with learning the issues of Indiana’s Second Congressional District and campaigning. The seat has been held for over thirty years by a gentleman named Corson Osbourne, who is now retiring. He was Ursula’s professor at Notre Dame and has given her an enthusiastic endorsement. Osbourne is a Republican, but Ursula is running as an independent.

  “An independent?” Mallory says. “Isn’t that a lonely position to take?”

  “With both sides fawning all over her?” Jake says. “Hardly.”

  Mallory won’t lie: she’s stung that Jake’s life has undergone such a major change and she had no idea. She spends the whole weekend grappling with why it bothers her so much, but it’s only on Sunday evening, after they finish watching Same Time, Next Year, that she can put it into words.

  “Do you not think it strange that George and Doris both have entire lives at home that just sort of disappear when they get to the inn?”

  “Isn’t that the point?” Jake says. “What matters to them is what matters to us: they get to live in a happy bubble one weekend per year.”

  “It’s a movie, Jake. The viewer is willing to suspend disbelief. But this is real life.”

  “What are you trying to say, Mal? You want to know how I feel about the terms of my mortgage? You want to know who I sit with in church?”

  “You go to church?”

  “We do now. Ursula is running for office.”

  “Ursula is running for office,” Mallory says. “The United States Congress. You’re going to be thrust into the public eye. And we both have children now…”

  “We both had children last year,” Jake says. “Last year was great and this year has been even better.”

  “Maybe we should stop,” Mallory says. As soon as the words are out, she wants to snatch them back. Neither of them has ever said this before. “I noticed you didn’t want me to pick you up on the dock.”

  “Simple precaution.”

  “I think it would be better for you if we stopped,” Mallory says. She stares at the two fortune cookies on the coffee table, still wrapped in plastic. It would be helpful if they really could predict the future. “It’s a miracle we haven’t been found out yet.”

  “I think it would be better if we didn’t stop,” Jake says. “This weekend is important to me. It has become a part of who I am. Do you understand that?”

  Mallory climbs into Jake’s arms and rests her head on his chest. She loves their Sunday-night routine and she hates it. She would give anything for it to be Friday again. She feels this way every year. “Tell me the truth,” she says. “Is there a tiny part of you that hopes she loses?”

  “I will tell you the truth,” Jake says. “And only you. There’s a tiny part of me that hopes she wins.”

  The midterm elections in November are quiet. Few Americans are paying attention, but Mallory Blessing is. She watches Tim Russert all evening long until he announces winners in the minor congressional races, including Indiana’s Second Congressional District, where a young attorney named Ursula de Gournsey—born and raised in Indiana, valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame’s class of 1988—has come home and won in a landslide, running as an independent.

  Summer #11: 2003

  What are we talking about in 2003? Homeland Security; space shuttle Columbia; Mr. Rogers; the Atkins Diet; Saddam Hussein and the Iraq war; pumpkin-spice latte; Lost in Translation; P90X; Martha Stewart insider trading; “Shake it like a Polaroid picture”; New York City power outage; Arnold Schwarzenegger; weapons of mass destruction; Everybody Loves Raymond.

  Mallory has lived on Nantucket for ten years and she’s learned that the best month here is…September. The days are filled with golden sunshine and mild breezes. All of the shops, galleries, and restaurants are still open but the crowds are gone. It’s heaven!

  The Saturday after Labor Day, Mallory’s heart is still recovering from Jake’s departure. The best thing for her is to get outside, and, thankfully, the weather is glorious—it’s seventy-four degrees with a cloudless, cerulean-blue sky. God doesn’t make days any finer than this one, so Mallory packs a picnic, her beach blanket, a basket of toys. She slathers Link with sunscreen and straps him into his car seat in the back of the Blazer.

  They’re off to the beach!

  This is funny, right, because they live at the beach? However, Link is still so little and the south shore’s waves so unpredictable that Mallory prefers to take him to the north shore on Nantucket Sound, where the water is flat and calm.

  She can drive the Blazer right onto the sand at Fortieth Pole. Mallory lets some air out of her tires and they sail up over the whoop-de-dos in the dunes to the beach.

  They have the golden crescent of sand almost entirely to themselves; it’s just them and one guy with a silver pickup who’s surf-casting a couple hundred yards away while a chocolate Lab sniffs the seaweed at the waterline.

  “This is the life,” Mallory says to Link as she frees him from his car seat. “September is still summer, buddy.”

  “Summer!” Link calls out as he kicks his feet. He can’t wait to get into the water.

  What does the best beach day ever look like? Well, to Mallory, it looks like hours of warm sunshine, dips into cool clear water, reading on a blanket while Link digs a hole and then throws one rock after another into the ocean because he likes the sound of the splash. They share lunch—a chicken salad sandwich, celery and carrots with hummus, cold slices of watermelon, lime-sugar cookies. Then Mallory sets up a spot for Link under the umbrella and he lies down for his nap. Mallory curls up next to him and closes her eyes.

  She jolts awake when she feels something cold and alive touching her foot. It’s the chocolate Lab, sniffing her. She tries to gently shoo it off the blanket as the owner comes jogging down the beach. Mallory puts her finger to her lips. It’s okay that the dog woke her up but if the dog or its owner wakes Link up, she will not be amused.

  Mallory stands as the guy grabs the dog by the collar. “Come on, Rox,” he whispers. “Sorry about that.”

  Mallory follows them a few steps toward the water so their conversation doesn’t wake up Link. “No problem,” she says. The guy is cute—tall, with a crew cut and friendly eyes. “Did you catch anything?”

  “Nah,” he said. “I’ve had crappy luck.”

  “Well,” she says, “there’s always East Coast Seafood.”

  “I wanted to come over here anyway,” the guy says, “because I sold you that car.”

  It takes a minute for Mallory to figure out what he’s talking about. “The Blazer?”

  “It was mine,” he says. “I sold it to you. I got your name from Oliver, the bartender at the Summer House—”

  “Yes!” Mallory says. She takes another look at the guy. He does seem sort of familiar now that he’s told her this, though she never would have recognized him in a million years. “You’re…”

  “Scott,” he says. “Scott Fulton.”

  “Scotty Fulton, yes, I remember you!” Mallory says. “I have to thank you. I’ve had her ten years and she’s been a total rock star.”

  “I can see you’ve taken good care of her,” Scott says. “It broke my heart to sell her but I remember how happy you looked behind the wheel and that made it easier. Good home and all that.”

  “Didn’t you leave island?” Mallory says. “Weren’t you going to…”

  “Business school,” he says. “Yep, I moved to Philadelphia, bought a Jetta, got married, got my MBA, went into commercial real estate, got divorced, poured all my time and energy into work, had a health scare at thirty-three, and decided I needed a lifestyle change
. So I moved back here this summer, bought the storage center out on Old South Road as well as the six commercial lots right next door, and now I’m building affordable housing units.”

  “Wow,” Mallory says. “Well, I’m Mallory Blessing, I teach English at the high school, I’m a single mom of one, Lincoln—Link—who’s two and a half.”

  “You’re single?” Scott says. “Forget what I said about crappy luck.”

  It’s a meet-cute, and for that reason, Mallory is wary. It feels like a setup—the beautiful day, the empty beach, the dog making the introduction, the beyond-bizarre fact that Scotty Fulton sold her the Blazer and therefore can hardly be considered a random stranger. He’s single, he owns a business on the island, and he’s committed to living on Nantucket year-round. He’s renting a house in town, on Winter Street, across from the inn that’s owned by the Quinn family (Ava Quinn is one of Mallory’s best students). He sounds too good to be true. Is he too good to be true?

  Mallory is going to find out.

  She can’t go on a date during the week—it’s too much with school and Link—but she agrees to go to dinner with Scott at the Company of the Cauldron the following weekend.

  There is no restaurant on the island more romantic than the Cauldron. It’s tiny, rustic, candlelit, tucked away on cobblestoned India Street. The dining room is decorated with copper pots and dried flowers, and there’s a harp player. A harp player! This is, to be honest, Mallory’s first time eating at the Cauldron, because going there requires a date and who would Mallory have gone with? It was out of JD’s comfort zone, and she and Bayer never went anywhere. (Mallory doesn’t want to bring JD and Bayer with her on this date, though what were her past relationships for if not to teach her a lesson?)