Authors: Elin Hilderbrand
28 Summers (33 page)
“You don’t call him?” Leland says. “You don’t
text
him?”
Mallory shakes her head.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s even harder to do than to believe,” Mallory says.
“And you see him
every
year? What about Link?”
“He’s always with Fray when this person comes,” Mallory says. “It’s at the end of the summer.”
Leland is starting to picture it: A sun-soaked weekend, just Mallory and her mystery dream man in that romantic cottage on the beach. They make love and feed each other fresh figs and sing along to the Carpenters and then he leaves; Mallory stands in the doorway, blowing him kisses. They flip the hourglass over again.
It sounds like a heavenly arrangement, actually.
“Still, it’s amazing, right, that you’ve never missed a year? Does his wife
know?
”
Mallory shakes her head. “His wife…I can’t even get into everything about his wife.” She drops her voice. “She came to the funeral. By herself.”
“She…
what?
” Leland says. And suddenly, she pulls away from Mallory, just a few inches, nothing dramatic, but she needs space. The wife came to the funeral alone. Every year
for a long time now
. How long? Since the beginning, when Mallory inherited the cottage? Leland hadn’t planned on asking the guy’s name because she wanted to respect Mallory’s privacy and also because she’d assumed it was someone she didn’t know.
The end of summer.
Leland racks her brain to remember her visit that first summer. They had surprised Fray, that she remembers, and she and Fray had nearly hooked up. Cooper was there, and his friend from Hopkins, Jake McCloud. What does Leland remember about Jake? Aaaaarrrgh! Very little. If he hadn’t ended up marrying Ursula de Gournsey, he would have been erased from Leland’s memory forever.
But he
had
ended up marrying Ursula de Gournsey.
Who came to the funeral by herself. Why? Why had she been at the funeral without Jake when Jake was the one who was friends with Coop? “Is it Jake McCloud?” Leland whispers.
Mallory releases a breath.
“Oh my God, Mal.”
“I know.”
“Mal.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“In the spirit of full disclosure…” Leland says.
Mallory looks up.
“I sat with Ursula at the service. I was shocked to see her, obviously. And this might sound horrible—no, it definitely
will
sound horrible—but I got her e-mail and her cell phone number. I asked her if she would do an interview for
Leland’s Letter
and she said yes.”
“Oh, Lee.”
“I’m sorry, I had no idea. But yes, I am that friend who took full advantage of your parents’ funeral to further her own career. It’s just…I didn’t know.”
“But you know now,” Mallory says. “So, please…”
Please
what?
Leland wonders. Mallory doesn’t say anything else. Her head falls back against the sofa and her eyes close. Leland considers trying to get Mallory upstairs to her childhood bedroom but it feels like an impossible task. She covers Mallory with the deep red chenille blanket that has lived in this room for as long as Leland can remember and then she succumbs to the allure of the other half of the sofa.
So, please…what?
Leland thinks as she falls asleep.
Leland wants to do an extended interview with Ursula de Gournsey, but because of the situation with Mallory, she decides it’s best not to dive too deeply into Ursula’s life. Instead, she features Ursula in her Dirty Dozen—twelve questions, some rapid-fire and fun, some provocative. Turns out, this suits Ursula better, anyway. She doesn’t have time for Leland to do a detailed profile.
Twelve questions is a lot, Ursula says. She hopes they can blow through them in thirty minutes, forty-five tops.
“Or I could e-mail them to you?” Leland says. “So you have time to mull them over?”
“It’ll go straight into the black hole,” Ursula says. “This isn’t constituent business or legislation, which makes it personal, and my personal business gets triaged last. Let’s do this now. Go ahead.”
Dirty Dozen with Senator Ursula de Gournsey
1. Gadget you can’t live without?
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone.
“Do people ever say their vibrators?” Ursula asks.
“All the time,” Leland says.
“That’s not my answer,” Ursula says. She sounds nearly offended, as though Leland were the one who suggested it. “I was just wondering.”
My BlackBerry.
2. Song you want to hear on your deathbed?
“Let It Be.”
3. Five minutes of perfect happiness?
“Cool-down after a good, hard run on the treadmill,” Ursula says.
“Do you want to think about that answer a little longer?” Leland says. “Maybe mention your husband or your daughter?”
“Oh,” Ursula says.
Sixty-degree day, blue sky, fifty-yard-line seats, cashmere sweater and jeans, sitting between my husband and daughter, Notre Dame versus Boston College.
4. Moment you’d like to do over?
Accepting money from the NRA.
Brave answer,
Leland thinks.
This interview is looking up.
5. Bad habit?
Correcting people’s grammar.
6. Last supper?
“I don’t understand the question,” Ursula says.
“What would you like your final meal to be?” Leland says.
“You mean before I die?”
“Yes.”
“People are interested in this?”
“Very. It’s a little more in depth than just asking your favorite food. You get to pick a meal.”
“Oh,” Ursula says. “Cereal, I guess.”
“Cereal?”
Rice Krispies with sliced banana and skim milk.
7. Most controversial opinion?
“Men are not the enemy,” Ursula says. “I realize that’s going to be
very
controversial for your readership. But what I’ve found in Congress and in my professional life in general is that men want women to succeed. It’s the women who are cloak-and-dagger.”
“Hmmmm,” Leland says. She’s not overjoyed with this answer. The whole basis of
Leland’s Letter
is that women can learn and grow from the experiences of other women.
“I hope that changes by the time my daughter, Bess, is grown,” Ursula says. “When my mother was young, she was focused on helping my father succeed. That was her job. And then in my generation, our generation, women became focused on their own success. The logical next step is that women will become not only supportive of one another but
vested
in one another’s success.” She pauses. “But we aren’t there yet.”
Women have to support each other, be vested in one another’s success. Men are not the enemy.
8. In a box of crayons, what color are you?
“Black,” Ursula says.
“Black?”
“My father used to say I was as serious as a heart attack,” Ursula says. “Plus, you outline everything in black. It’s a hardworking color.”
“Right, but—”
“I’m not going to say yellow or pink or purple. My answer is black.”
Black.
9. Proudest achievement?
“Being elected to the United States Senate is probably too obvious,” Ursula says. “I would bring up the welfare-reform bill, but that would put everyone to sleep.” Ursula pauses. “I guess I’ll say my marriage.”
Leland jumps like she’s been poked in the ribs. “Your marriage?”
“Yes. I’ve been married for sixteen years, but Jake and I have been together for over thirty years. Honestly, I don’t know why he stays with me.”
Leland waits a beat.
Move on to the next question!
she tells herself. But does she? No. “You’re an intelligent, accomplished woman.”
“I’m a witch at home. I’m demanding and ungrateful and I have to schedule in family time, though that’s the first thing I cancel when things get busy. I’m aware that if I don’t start having some fun with my daughter, she’ll grow up either hating me or being just like me or both. And yet I have this idea that if I stop working, even for an hour, the country will fall apart. People throw around the word
workaholic
like it’s no big deal, like it’s maybe even a good thing. But I suffer from the disease. I’m a workaholic. I’m addicted to work. So, yeah, I’m not sure why Jake stays, but I’m grateful.”
My sixteen-year marriage to Jake McCloud.
10. Celebrity crush?
Ted Koppel.
11. Favorite spot in America?
“I should probably pick someplace in the state of Indiana,” Ursula says. “But I already mentioned Notre Dame stadium, and where else is there? Fishers? Carmel?”
“Are those places that inspire you?” Leland asks.
“I wish I could pick someplace magical, like Nantucket,” Ursula says, and Leland flinches again. “Jake loves Nantucket, but I’ve never been. He goes every year for a guys’ trip. I keep telling him I’m going to crash one of these years.”
Oh God, oh God,
Leland thinks.
Please stop talking about Nantucket.
“I love Newport, Rhode Island,” Ursula says. “But as bizarre as this sounds, I think I’m going to say Las Vegas is my favorite spot. I worked on a case there when I first went into private practice…” Ursula breaks off and Leland assumes she’s just gotten a text or another call but then she realizes, from her wavering tone, that Ursula is overcome. “Those were happy days. Vegas is…crazytown, right? But it’s unapologetically
itself,
and I appreciated that. I loved it there, for whatever reason.”
Las Vegas.
12. Title of your autobiography?
“Straight up the Fairway,”
Ursula says. “That’s in regard to my politics. I’m centrist. People might not agree with all of my stances, but they won’t disagree with all of them either. I believe in common sense and hard work and American capitalism and the Constitution and the equality under the law of every single American.”
“Okay.” Leland is very liberal, just shy of socialist. She doesn’t want to get into a political debate here; however, she thinks that “straight up the fairway” is a compromise and a cop-out. She had wanted Ursula de Gournsey to come across as some kind of Superwoman. But maybe the takeaway for the readers of
Leland’s Letter
will be this: A woman with real power in Washington is just as self-critical and beleaguered as the rest of us.
Leland also finds herself hobbled by her secret knowledge. Does Ursula de Gournsey have it all? Anyone who reads the Dirty Dozen will see the answer is
no
. But only Leland knows that Ursula de Gournsey has even less than she realizes.
Straight Up the Fairway.
The Dirty Dozen with Ursula de Gournsey goes live on January 20 in advance of the State of the Union, and Leland waits for Mallory to call in a rage. Mallory didn’t explicitly ask Leland
not
to do an interview with Ursula, but her “So, please…” had seemed to indicate that she wanted Leland to exercise some kind of restraint. Which she had, because this
isn’t
an in-depth profile.
No angry call comes. Instead, Leland receives texts and e-mails and Facebook messages and hits on Twitter and Instagram that say:
Loved the piece with UDG! LL is taking it up a notch!!
It takes a few days but eventually, the Dirty Dozen with Ursula de Gournsey goes viral. The answer everyone is talking about is “Men are not the enemy.” That line is the subject of an op-ed in the
New York Times
written by the male governor of Nevada, who agrees that men are not the enemy and that men should not be receiving so much blame for social injustice. (The governor is also thrilled with Ursula’s answer of “Las Vegas” as her favorite spot in the country.)
The Dirty Dozen with UDG and the attendant chatter about it result in a near doubling of Leland’s audience—she’s up to 125,000 readers (one of whom is Ursula de Gournsey herself!) and lures in seventeen new advertisers.
Leland’s Letter
is now making enough money for Leland to quit teaching and focus solely on the blog.
Still, Leland worries that she has cashed in on her longest friendship for this success. A week later, Leland looks down at her phone and sees she’s received two successive texts from Mallory. She thinks,
Here it comes.
Mallory will say Leland is opportunistic (she is), selfish (ditto), and ruthless (well, yes).
Leland starts reading the texts with trepidation. The first says,
Happy birthday, Lee! I love you!
The second text says,
Oops, sorry, I thought today was the 29th not the 27th. I’ll text you on Wednesday!
Okay,
Leland thinks. So Mallory isn’t upset about the Dirty Dozen? This is great news because now that Leland has some momentum, she can take
Leland’s Letter
to the next level. She can lay claim to some cultural influence. She just needs to keep her foot on the gas and not get slowed down by sticky issues like best friends with hurt feelings.
It’s only as Leland is falling asleep that night that she realizes Mallory might not have
seen
the article. It went viral, but that doesn’t mean it reached every person in America. Mallory is a single working mother on an island thirty miles off the coast. She’s immersed in her school day, her students, Link, the painful and painstaking work of dismantling her parents’ financial and business affairs. She might not spend hours online Googling Ursula de Gournsey the way that Leland Googles Fiella Roget and tracks her every move.
Leland opens her laptop (she sleeps with it; she is that pathetic).
Mallory Blessing isn’t a subscriber to
Leland’s Letter
. Leland’s first instinct is to be offended. Her own best friend!
She snaps her laptop shut. Actually, it’s a major relief.
What are we talking about in 2014? Polar vortex; Jimmy Fallon; Flint, Michigan;
The Twelfth Man;
Vladimir Putin; Malaysia Airlines Flight 17; Ebola; Janet Yellen; mindfulness; Robin Williams; Ferguson, Missouri; CVS; the Oregon Ducks; Cuba; Tim Lincecum; One World Trade Center; Clooney and Amal; ISIS; Minecraft; Hannah, Jessa, Marnie, and Shosh; conscious uncoupling; Tinder; Greg Popovich; “I’m all about that bass (no treble).”
T
he summer after Mallory’s parents are killed…
Okay, wait. She needs a minute just to process this phrase. Her parents killed. Senior and Kitty dead. All through the first half of 2014, Mallory struggles. She wakes up feeling just fine…until she remembers. Then it’s like falling into a black, bottomless hole, wind rushing in her ears, vertigo, nausea, a weightlessness, a loss, not only of Senior and Kitty but of herself. There’s an assault of emotions, all of them unpleasant, some of them ugly, and the most hideous is guilt. Was Mallory a good daughter? Or even a decent daughter? She fears not.
She resented all the
rules
. Step one, napkin on lap. No yelling to someone in another room; no stomping up the stairs. Bread and rolls were to be broken in half first, then into pieces that were buttered individually. Salt and pepper were always to be passed
together
. Nail polish could be applied only in the bathroom. Thank-you notes were to be written and mailed within three days. There was a list of forbidden TV shows, among them
Prisoner: Cell Block H, Falcon Crest, Hill Street Blues.
No
Rocky Horror. Good morning. Please may I be excused. Hello, Blessing residence.
And above all: Never refer to a person using a pronoun while the person was present. Kitty was a stickler for that one.
Mallory loathed their expectations of her: good grades, good posture, sparkling conversation, spotless driving record, irreproachable work ethic. She had rebelled mentally even as she complied, and she was certain Senior and Kitty could tell. There was nothing her parents had taught her or asked of her that had not served her well. She should have been grateful instead of surly. She should have taken her mother up on her offers of makeup lessons and ballroom dancing. She should have gone shopping with her at the Mazza Gallery; she shouldn’t have called the David Yurman earrings Kitty gave her for her fortieth birthday “matronly.” Mallory had rejected all of her mother’s efforts to refine her. She had joyfully spent her four years at Gettysburg wearing sweatpants, her hair in a scrunchie. She had gotten a
tattoo
her first winter on Nantucket, a vine that wrapped around her ankle. If anyone had asked her why, she would have said it was just for decoration, for fun, but the real answer was that she reveled in becoming the anti-Kitty.
Mallory avoided the emotional work of dealing with the loss of her parents by focusing on the practical work. What had to happen? Well, immediately, there was the service, burial, and reception to plan. Somehow, Mallory did this on autopilot; Cooper was less than no help. Then there was the house to put on the market, the furnishings to give away or auction off, and Senior’s business to sell. Again, Cooper took a pass, so Mallory worked with the family attorney, Jeffrey Todd, and her own attorney, Eileen Beers. During February break from school, Mallory and Link drove down to Baltimore to sort through each room of the Blessing house. Over April break, Link flew to Seattle to see Fray and Anna, who was pregnant with a baby girl, and Mallory and Cooper met in Baltimore to finalize the sale of the house and the business. Even split between them, the money was considerable. To Mallory, it was a fortune. But money, once her largest concern, now meant nothing.
What does Mallory say to herself to fend off the demons?
They were together.
There was no suffering.
They had lived full, happy lives.
She had given them a grandson, whom they both adored.
It wasn’t her fault.
The accident had nothing to do with Mallory. She had spoken to both of her parents on Christmas and thanked them for her gifts: a new Wüsthof chef’s knife, Malouf linens for her bed, a hardback copy of
The Goldfinch
. They had thanked her for the black-and-white picture of Link and the gift certificate to Woodberry Kitchen. She had told them she loved them. Link had told them he loved them.
Mallory hadn’t known about the Yo-Yo Ma tickets, and frankly, she was surprised Kitty had been successful in convincing Senior to go, though he did love Washington in general and the Kennedy Center in particular. Cooper hadn’t known about their plans either, but he hadn’t been offended. They were two healthy, happy adults, completely self-sufficient. The car they drove was an Audi A4, which Senior had bought the previous spring. There was no reason for the tire to blow other than raw bad luck.
Cooper is of the opinion that when your number comes up, it comes up. Nothing to be done about it.
Mallory tries to adopt this perspective as well, though she has a difficult time. She keeps thinking something went wrong, that there was a mistake; it wasn’t supposed to be this way. She wants to fix it. She wakes up in the middle of the night crying. She wants them back. Please—for just a day or an hour or even a minute so that she can tell them she loves them. So she can thank them.
The summer after Mallory’s parents are killed, an unlikely savior arrives, and that savior is baseball. Lincoln Dooley is chosen as the starting catcher for the Nantucket U14 travel team. Mallory spends the month of July in the bleachers and behind the backstop at the Delta fields on Nobadeer Farm Road as well as at a dozen fields across Cape Cod and the south shore. As time-consuming and expensive as it is to attend every single game, it’s just the preoccupation Mallory needs. The Nantucket U14s are the best team Nantucket has fielded in the history of their baseball program; they have a winning record, which is impressive given that the island has such a small pool of kids. One reason for their success is that ten of the twelve teammates have played together since T-ball. The other reason is the coach, Charlie Suwyn.
Charlie is in his sixties; his own children are grown, he owns a prosperous caretaking business on the island, and he recently lost his wife, Sue, who was the biggest champion of youth sports that Nantucket had ever seen. Charlie’s love of the game is infectious, but more than the game, he loves the kids, who are, frankly, at a challenging age. Charlie has schooled his players in strategic baserunning, which is how they often win; the Nantucket team steals home more than any other team it plays. Off the field, Charlie is warm and nurturing. His motto is three words long:
Kids playing baseball
. The players are developing skills, learning sportsmanship, creating a team atmosphere, and having fun. There are many things that are wrong with the world, but this thing is right.
As catcher, Link is the key to the team; he’s not as glorified as the pitchers, but he’s involved in every pitch of the game. He has a deadly accurate arm, and at least once in every game, he’ll throw out someone trying to steal second. He has been inconsistent at the plate and Mallory is never so tense as when he’s up to bat. He strikes out a lot, that’s fine, but he strikes out
looking,
which is not fine. He bats seventh in the lineup.
Fray hasn’t traveled east to see Link play even once. Mallory knows this bums Link out, though he doesn’t talk about it. Mallory sends endless videos with captions that say,
Look at our son!
And
Number 6 is en fuego!
Fray occasionally calls after a game (at Mallory’s prompting—
Call now, before the pizza comes!
), and although Mallory hears only Link’s side of the conversation, she can tell it’s stilted.
The travel season culminates with a week of tournaments in Cooperstown, New York, at the end of July. Mallory splurges on a room at the Otesaga Hotel. The place is filled with history and old-fashioned charm; this is where all the Hall-of-Famers stay when they’re in town. In addition to watching a lot of baseball, Mallory squeezes in some pool time and breakfast every morning on the veranda overlooking Otsego Lake.
The living is good; the baseball not so much. Nantucket plays seven games and loses the first six. Link is brilliant behind the plate but abysmal
at
the plate; he strikes out sixteen times. In the final game, however, his luck changes. He hits the ball at his first at bat and it goes sailing over the fence: home run! Mallory is so excited—and so
shocked
—that she starts to cry. Throughout the season, Mallory has pictured her parents up in the sky, sitting in some heavenly version of lawn chairs (like earthly lawn chairs, but comfortable), cheering Link on.
Did Kitty and Senior see that? Home run! Here in Cooperstown!
At Link’s second at bat, he hits another home run.
What?
Mallory blinks, confused, but yes, the ball cleared the fence and there goes Link, trotting around the bases, then jumping into the crowd of his assembled teammates at home plate.
His third time at bat, Nantucket is behind by two runs and the bases are loaded. Dewey, the father sitting next to Mallory, says, “What are the chances he does it again?”
“Zero,” Mallory says, though she hopes for something better than a strikeout. A single would, maybe, tie the game. The count gets to two and two, and Mallory imagines Senior up out of his heavenly lawn chair shouting, the way he used to at the Orioles games on TV. Then she hears the crack of the bat and the ball goes all the way over the deepest part of the fence and everyone on base scores and while the other parents are jumping up and down, creating cacophony on the metal bleachers, Mallory has her face in her hands. She’s sobbing because she isn’t sure what happens when people die but she is sure that her parents are here in Cooperstown somewhere—either that or she and Link are carrying Senior and Kitty around inside of them, because they made this happen. She knows they made this happen.
The next day, they drive home. Despite the triumph of the last game, the trip is melancholy. This baseball season was a sweet spot in their lives; Coach Charlie and the other parents have become a family. The games, although not all exciting, were addictive in their own way. Mallory can now tell a ball from a strike from any spot in the park as well as a curve ball from a slider. She has subsisted on hot dogs and peanuts in the shell; she has lived in cutoffs and a visor. Now that the season’s over, Mallory won’t deny it—she’s sad. Link might play next year or he might get a job instead. But even if Link does play, there’s no telling which other kids will return, and in any case, it won’t be the same. This season is something that can’t be repeated; it will just have to live on in everyone’s memories. The Nantucket U14s in ’14.
It’s on this five-hour drive from Cooperstown to Hyannis that Link tells Mallory that he doesn’t want to go to Seattle the following week—or at all.
“But…” Mallory says. “Don’t you want to see the baby?”
Link pulls out his left earbud. His buddy Cam, the center fielder, is riding home with them, but he’s asleep in the back seat. “No,” Link says, softly but firmly. “I don’t.”
“Honey, she’s your
sister
and you’ve never even met her.”
“She’s too little to know any better,” Link says. “I don’t want to go.”
“But what about your dad and Anna?”
“Anna, ha,” Link says. “She doesn’t like me.”
“What are you talking about? Anna
loves
you.” Only a few summers earlier Mallory had been certain she’d lost Link to Anna’s influence.
Link shrugs. “I liked summers when we were in Vermont. In Seattle, Dad is always at work, and the house is cold. Anna is either on her phone or on her laptop, and I spend way too much time playing video games. The only day we do stuff together is Sunday, and now there’s a baby, so, yeah…I’m not going.”
“You don’t have the power to decide that, bud, sorry.”
“Mom,” Link says. “Please don’t make me go. I haven’t had my summer yet. We haven’t sailed, we haven’t kayaked. I’ve barely been in the
ocean
.”
“We all make choices,” Mallory says. “Your choice was to play baseball.”
“What if Dad says it’s okay if I don’t go?” Link asks. “Then can I stay home?”
Mallory isn’t sure how to answer. She has sensed the relationship between Link and Fray deteriorating for a while. Fray used to come to Nantucket all the time, every month. But since he moved to Seattle, he hasn’t come once. Not once! Mallory hasn’t called him on it because she knows he’s busy. He’s a wonderful provider for Link, and Mallory figured Fray and Link would reconnect over the month of August like they always did.
She can’t stop herself from thinking that if Link doesn’t go to Seattle, he will be on Nantucket over Labor Day weekend. Which is not okay. Mallory is sorry, but that is
not okay
.
Is she going to condemn her only child to a month of misery in a house with a newborn just so she can continue her love affair?
Link needs to meet his baby sister, Cassiopeia. Baby Cassie. He needs to spend time with Fray. Link is thirteen years old; it’s a crucial time to have a male role model, a
father
.
Surely Fray will agree with this. Fray will never allow Link to skip a summer. Fray will sweeten the deal with Mariners tickets or a father-son camping trip in the San Juan Islands. Anna and the baby will stay home with the cadre of baby nurses. Mallory paints an irresistible picture in her mind: Fray will take his fifty-foot Grady-White over to Friday Harbor to use the luxe cabin of one of the Microsoft execs for a few days. They’ll fish for steel-headed trout; they’ll see killer whales. They’ll build campfires and talk about girls.
“If Dad says it’s okay for you to stay on Nantucket, I’m not going to argue,” Mallory says, and this placates Link. He puts his earbud back in.
But Fray will never okay it, Mallory thinks. She has nothing to worry about. Her time with Jake is safe.
Fray okays it.
“What?” Mallory says. She and Link are home now, home sweet home; it’s August on Nantucket, the weather is glorious, the water is cool but not cold, and Mallory swims enough to make up for her lost month. She goes to Bartlett’s Farm for corn, tomatoes, blueberry pie, broccoli slaw, a bouquet of peach lilies. Baseball has already become a distant memory.