28 Summers: The gripping, emotional page turner of summer 2020 by 'the Queen of the Summer Novel' (People) (23 page)

Bess is on the scale; she weighs nearly fifteen pounds, the nurse, Kim, says. Kim sticks a thermometer in Bess’s ear. Temp is 99.3, so not even a fever. Has Ursula given her any Tylenol drops this morning?

Ursula is distracted by the buzzing of her cell phone in her purse. It must be work. The case in Washington is complicated, with lots of red tape and political ramifications—imagine that. “No,” Ursula says.

Kim eyes Ursula’s bag distastefully. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

Shortly
could be four minutes or forty, Ursula knows. Kim hands Bess back. Ursula holds Bess in one arm and rummages through her purse for her phone with the other.

It’s Jake, probably calling to find out how the appointment went. Well, if he was so keen to know, he could have brought Bess in himself. Ursula ignores it.

Ten minutes later, there is still no doctor and Ursula is getting antsy. It’s 9:15. She hears voices in the hallway, picks up on a sense of urgency—maybe they have a very sick or injured child? Ursula checks her cell phone; Jake has left a voicemail. Ursula doesn’t have time to listen to it. She calls her assistant, Marjorie, at work. Marjorie doesn’t answer, which is highly unusual, as Marjorie is the most reliable and efficient legal assistant in the District.

Another ten minutes pass. This is ludicrous, right? Ursula would stick her head out into the hallway but she suspects that as soon as she complains about how long this is taking, she’ll be bumped back even further.

Ursula’s phone rings again. Marjorie.

“You’ve heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York,” Marjorie says. Her voice sounds funny, like maybe she’s about to cry. Marjorie, cry? She’s the daughter of a World War II colonel.

Then Ursula gets it.
The World Trade Center.

“They’re saying between floors ninety-three and ninety-nine of the North Tower,” Marjorie says. “I’m not sure about the South Tower. We’re trying to find out.”

“Oh dear God,” Ursula says. The New York offices of Andrews, Hewitt, and Douglas are on the eighty-fourth floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

Anders.

Ursula lays Bess on the table and tries to snap her back into her onesie with trembling fingers. She goes out into the hallway. Where
is
everyone? Ursula moves down the corridor, deeper into the office. She finds Deena, Kim, and Dr. Jennifer Wells staring at a boxy little TV. On the screen, a plane flies directly into the top of a skyscraper, leaving fiery destruction in its wake. It looks like a movie.

Ursula gasps. Dr. Wells turns around. “I’ll be right in,” she says.

“No,” she says. “I have to go.”

She doesn’t bother with a cab. Her apartment is only ten blocks away, and Ursula wants to walk. Fresh air, sunshine. People on the street are either oblivious or on their mobile phones in obvious distress. There’s a crowd gathered outside of an electronics store that has a flat-screen TV in the window. Ursula peers over a gentleman’s shoulder and sees more footage of a plane hitting a building. Or maybe that was the other building, the South Tower?

The gentleman turns around and fixes his eyes on Ursula. He’s about sixty, bulbous nose, visible pores, kind eyes brimming with tears. “People are jumping,” he says.

Ursula hurries down the street pushing Bess in her Maclaren stroller; it’s the Ferrari of strollers, the ride is smooth, Bess is quiet, Ursula just has to get home. The eighty-fourth floor of the South Tower. Was that hit? Was it below the crash? Above it? Below it would be better, right? But maybe not. Maybe not.

People are jumping.

Ursula pushes Bess into the lobby of their building. The doorman, Ernie, sees Ursula. He’s spooked, she can tell.

“A plane just hit the Pentagon,” he says.

“What?” she cries. She pulls Bess out of her stroller and hugs her to her chest. She needs Jake. Where is Jake?

“Mr. McCloud is upstairs?” she says. “He hasn’t come down?”

“No, ma’am,” Ernie says.

Ursula hurries to the elevator. Is it safe to go up? They live on the eleventh floor. Surely a plane won’t hit a residential building in the middle of town. Will it?

The next two hours are a blur. The Pentagon, a mere three miles away, has been hit. Three miles; if she walked Bess to the river, they would see the smoke. A plane has crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania; rumor has it this plane was headed for the White House or the Capitol Building. The White House is less than a mile away. They’re under attack. Despite this, Ursula wants to go into work. She needs to know how the New York office is faring. Jake tells her she’s not going anywhere. Ursula calls Marjorie, gets no answer.

Hank calls and says it’s likely the law firm lost everyone in New York, or everyone who was in the office by nine that morning. He’s trying to get a list of names. Ursula is shaking. “Anders?” she says.

“I’ll let you know.” But Hank’s voice says he already knows. Anders, like Ursula, always got to the office early. He liked to get a jump on the day.

Jake shouts from the other room. The North Tower has collapsed. It just…sunk in on itself. And then the South Tower collapses.

Finally, Ursula cries.

That night, as Ursula sits in front of the television, potted like a plant, nursing Bess, she makes a decision. It’s radical. Maybe even crazy.

But what qualifies as crazy now? Hank confirmed late that afternoon that Andrews, Hewitt, and Douglas lost seventy-one people in the New York office—attorneys, paralegals, secretaries.

Anders is presumed dead.

The managing partner, a Goliath named Cap Randle, is presumed dead, and his wife, eight months pregnant, immediately went into labor when she heard and delivered their first child, a son.

It’s too awful to think about.

Amelia James Renninger, AJ, is alive. She had an appointment to get her eyebrows done in Chinatown at eight thirty that morning, and as she was walking to work, she told Hank, she watched the second plane hit.

Why couldn’t it have been Anders with some kind of appointment? Ursula wonders. A haircut for his golden locks, or the dentist? Then she feels monstrous.

Jake stands between Ursula and the TV screen. “I think we should turn it off for tonight,” he says.

“But what if something else happens?”

“Nothing else is going to happen.”

Ursula turns off the TV and unlatches Bess, who has fallen asleep at the breast. Sweet, innocent baby girl. She deserves a world better than this—and Ursula is going to give it to her. “Sit with me,” Ursula says to Jake.

“Do you want me to put the baby in her crib?”

“I want you to sit down,” Ursula says. She’s suddenly all nerve endings.

Jake perches on the edge of the sofa. “What is it.”

“I want to leave Washington,” she says. “I want to move back to Indiana.”

“What?” Jake says. He laughs. “What are you talking about? I know you’re upset, Ursula. I’m upset too. The entire country is upset. But we can’t just uproot our lives and move back to the Bend because you think it’s safer.”

“Sure we can,” Ursula says. “My mother is there, and your parents are there. We have family there.”

“Right, I know. But your career is here, Ursula. What on earth do you think you’re going to do in South Bend?”

Ursula gently kisses Bess’s forehead, then smiles down at her. “I’m going to run for office.”

What are we talking about in 2002? The Queen Mother; No Child Left Behind; Daniel Pearl; Homeland Security; the Beltway sniper attacks; Elizabeth Smart; farm-to-table; Chandra Levy; Jed Bartlet, Leo McGarry, Toby Ziegler, Sam Seaborn, Josh Lyman; “My friend the Communist holds meetings in his RV”;
The Nanny Diaries;
Andrea Yates;
American Idol; 8 Mile;
Match.com.

O
n Saturday, April 6, Lincoln Cooper Dooley celebrates his first birthday and Mallory throws a party at the cottage.

Who comes?

Well, Kitty and Senior fly up from Baltimore; they’re staying at the Pineapple Inn because the White Elephant and Wauwinet have yet to open for the season. Cooper, now divorced from Valentina, says he can’t make it, and Mallory doesn’t push for a reason though she suspects it’s because he’s in a new relationship. In lieu of his presence, he sends presents, including a four-foot-high stuffed giraffe from FAO Schwarz that is such overkill, Mallory rolls her eyes, even though the giraffe is cute and does sort of resemble Cooper.

Fray drives down from Vermont with his girlfriend, Anna, pronounced “Ah-nah.” She’s the bassist in an all-female post-grunge band called Drank.

Also coming for Link’s birthday are Sloane Dooley and Steve Gladstone. They’re staying at a different inn from Kitty and Senior because Kitty has been staunchly aligned with Geri Gladstone since the Gladstones split. Mallory doesn’t particularly relish the idea of Sloane and Steve in her cottage, even for a matter of hours, but Sloane is Link’s grandmother, so what can Mallory do?

The second Mallory became a mother, she felt like she had finally entered a room where she belonged. Link was delivered by cesarean section at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, and the nurse whisked him off to get cleaned up while the surgeon stitched Mallory up. The operating-room nurse said, “They’ll bring your boy back in a few minutes.”

“He’s mine,” Mallory said. “He’s mine for the rest of my life.”

This was the happy ending to a situation that started out as…
complicated,
to say the very least. Mallory and Fray were not in love, and any lust they felt for each other evaporated the instant they walked off the dance floor at Cooper’s second wedding reception.

Six weeks later when Mallory called Fray and told him she was pregnant and that the baby was his, he asked if she was sure. She said yes, she had taken three pregnancy tests, all of them positive, and she hadn’t been with anyone else since the previous September.
Okay
, he said,
so what do you want to do?
She said
, I want to have the baby and you can be as involved or uninvolved as you want to be, no pressure, I don’t expect you to marry me or move to Nantucket or even kiss me again, but if you could throw me some money for expenses, I would be grateful.

And guess what—Fray was as amazing as could be. Yes, he was excited too. They were going to have a baby! It seemed funny and surreal, as though they’d taken a biology class together and during lab, this was what they’d produced: a baby. Fray had always wanted to be a father, especially since he had never had one. He would be present but not omnipresent. He would travel to the island the first year or two and then, once the baby was weaned, Fray would bring him or her to Vermont for stays. They would figure it out; they wouldn’t argue or quarrel. This was a miracle they would both cherish.

Sharing the news was thorny. Mallory and Fray decided on the unvarnished truth: They’d hooked up at Cooper’s wedding and Mallory had gotten pregnant. They were no longer involved but they were going to co-parent.

Mallory decided the best way to tell her parents was in a letter. She explained what happened, and at the end, she wrote:
Call me when you’re ready to discuss.
This was a genius move on her part because Kitty was able to process her emotions offstage and then call Mallory once she’d sorted her thoughts. She said that although this was “quite unexpected,” both she and Senior had always loved Frazier like their own child and they were, of course, “simply thrilled” to become grandparents.

Next up for Mallory was Cooper. She called him in the evening after work. She said, “Listen, I have some crazy news. I hooked up with Fray during your wedding reception and now I’m pregnant.”

Cooper had laughed. Of course he’d laughed.

“I’m serious,” Mallory said.

She should have sent a letter to Coop as well because that phone conversation lasted forty-five minutes, with Cooper starting out incredulous, then moving on to angry (Cooper had apparently made Fray promise, way back in high school, that he would never “go after” Mallory), before ending up at loving acceptance. It was going to be great, he said, the two people he loved most in the world were having a baby together.

Two people he loved most? Mallory had thought at the time. What about Valentina?

The final hurdle was Leland. How could Mallory tell Leland that she was pregnant with Fray’s baby and expect the friendship to survive? There was no way. Leland was still with Fiella Roget, they were in love, a couple—but no matter, Leland would see this as a betrayal. Fray was
hers
.

Mallory would have gone the letter route but she was afraid Fray would tell Sloane, then Sloane would tell Steve, and then Steve would tell Leland. Mallory couldn’t let the news reach her that way.

She called the apartment in New York and left a message for Leland to call her back, she had urgent news. The phone in the cottage rang at quarter past two in the morning, waking Mallory up. She knew who it was and she was glad for the late hour, the velvety dark, and even Leland’s inebriation because it made the whole thing slightly easier.

Sit down.

Who’s dead?

No one. I’m pregnant.

What?

Lee, let me finish. I hooked up with Fray at Coop’s wedding and now I’m pregnant.

Silence. Which Mallory had anticipated. She resisted the urge to fill the space with words. She waited, said nothing.

Finally:
You’re telling me you’re having Fray’s baby?

That is what I’m telling you.

Oh my God,
Leland said.
Fifi won’t believe this. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up, right?

Right?
Mallory thought. Leland didn’t sound angry, only baffled and maybe amused. Was everything going to be okay, then?

Just know this baby will have two godmothers who will make her every wish come true. We’re here for you, Mal.
She paused.
Good God, Fray’s baby. You aren’t a…couple, are you?

No,
Mallory said.
It was a one-time thing. Well, I mean, except for this.

Leland said,
Fifi, get over here and congratulate Mallory. She’s going to have Frazier’s baby.

Yes,
Mallory thought.
Everything will be okay.

Now Link is a year old, fat, happy, smiling, babbling, three-toothed, putting everything in his mouth, drooling, crawling, cruising as he holds on to the furniture, cheered on by people who love him. Apple is at the party with her fiancé, Hugo, and Isolde and Oliver come as well. Isolde starts passing appetizers and Oliver is bartending and Mallory tries to stop them from working but it’s what they do. After everyone has a drink (this is a party for adults; there isn’t a single other kid here. Link has “friends” at his day care, but Mallory wasn’t about to throw unsuspecting parents into her bizarre family dynamics), the atmosphere becomes more relaxed. Cooper Senior and Steve Gladstone step out onto the front porch together, though Kitty and Sloane are holding down opposite ends of the living room like they’re tent stakes. Kitty is very much the alpha grandmother. Sloane looks like an older and slightly more distinguished version of the person Mallory remembers, though she has shown up wearing black leather leggings and a diaphanous yellow blouse, showing off a black lacy bra beneath. Her hair is still long and tangled, as though she just rolled out of bed. She seems aware that her presence here is controversial, but Sloane never cared much what others thought of her, and why should that change now just because she’s a grandmother? She sits with Fray and Anna. Anna is wearing ripped jeans and a Veruca Salt T-shirt and heavy black eyeliner; her left ear is pierced eight times. She is a very sweet person; Mallory likes her a lot, and she’s good with Link, and Fray seems happy. He comes to Nantucket once a month and rents a very cool apartment in town across the street from Black-Eyed Susan’s and he takes Link all weekend, stopping by only to pick up breast milk and extra clothes if he needs them.

And so—the party! Mallory keeps the music mellow—Simon and Garfunkel and Jim Croce—and she cranks out the hot appetizers: sausage in brioche, cheddar tartlets, Sarah Chase’s famous Nantucket bay scallop puffs. In between pulling things out of the oven and loading up platters, she checks on Link, on her mother, on Sloane.

Where is Sloane? Mallory does a quick scan of the cottage—no Sloane; no Steve either, for that matter—and Mallory wonders if they left. Did Kitty say something impolite? Mallory hands her mother the scallop puffs to pass as she does a quick lap. Bathroom? Empty. Mallory’s bedroom? Empty. (Thank goodness.) Link’s nursery? Empty. She thinks they might have gone out to the front porch to look at the ocean and get some air, but then Mallory sees the door to the guest room is cracked open and she spies Sloane and Steve inside, clearly having a whisper-fight. Sloane’s face is twisted into a furious snarl and Steve is holding his palms up.

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.”