28 Summers: The gripping, emotional page turner of summer 2020 by 'the Queen of the Summer Novel' (People) (26 page)

They win first prize for their tailgate and an honorable mention for the Blazer.

Mallory and Scott’s picture is on the front page of the newspaper the following Thursday, and if Mallory hears it once, she hears it a thousand times:
You guys are so perfect together. You are the perfect couple.

To which Mallory responds, “The perfect couple? There’s no such thing.”

May arrives. When Fray takes Link for the weekend, Scott tells Mallory that he’s planned a getaway to Boston—a suite at the Four Seasons, luxury box at Fenway, dinner reservations at No. 9 Park. They’ve been talking about going to Boston all winter, but something always came up. Now that it’s happening, Scott sounds…nervous.

“The Japanese cherry blossoms are going to be at their peak in the Boston Public Garden,” he says. “We have to ride the Swan Boats; in fact, I may hire one so that we have it all to ourselves.”

Mallory knows she has waited too long. He’s going to propose. She imagines him pulling out a velvet box, opening it as the Swan Boat glides under the cotton-candy-pink blossoms of the Japanese cherry tree, presenting a ring in a way that he’s sure will fulfill her dreams. Mallory wants to shrink to the size of a mouse and scurry under the green tweed sofa. She wants to bury herself in the sand.

“Scott,” she says. “We need to talk.”

What are we talking about in 2004? The Boston Red Sox; quinoa; Pat Tillman; Fallujah; Condoleezza Rice; Indian Ocean tsunami; Ronald Reagan; “I’d like to phone a friend”; Julia Child; Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction; Michael Bluth, Gob, George, Lucille, Maeby, Lindsay, and George Michael; Ken Jennings;
Mean Girls;
Momofuku; “It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?”

I
t’s the last day of school, and Mallory and Apple head out to celebrate. They decide to go for broke and have a late lunch on the luscious green lawn of the White Elephant Hotel. It’s the epitome of waterfront elegance, which is exactly what they both need after a hundred and eighty days of lockers slamming, fluorescent lights buzzing, and Cheetos flying through the air of the cafeteria.

The hostess at the White Elephant, Donna, has three boys who all went through the school system,
naughty
boys—Apple knew them well—so Donna seats Mallory and Apple at the edge of the patio with the best views across the harbor. There’s a guitar player named Tony Maroney singing “Fire and Rain.” Mallory flashes back to Jake in college. She wonders if he ever picks up his guitar anymore.

“Your first round is on me,” Donna says. “And you get one song request.”

“I’ll have a cosmo,” Mallory says. This is another tradition, drinks right out of
Sex and the City
. “And would you please ask Tony to play ‘School’s Out,’ by Alice Cooper?”

“Just a seltzer for me,” Apple says.

When Donna walks away to put in their order, Apple turns to Mallory and whispers, “I’m pregnant.”

There is much rejoicing! Mallory is…
Eeeeeeeeeee! So happy!
“When did you find out?” Mallory asks.

“Last weekend,” Apple says. “I’m just eight weeks, so we haven’t told anyone but family yet.”

“And Hugo?” Mallory says. “He’s happy?” Mallory has started referring to Hugo as GGW, for “greatest guy in the world.” There’s no need to explain why; he just is.

“He wants to move the wedding up,” Apple says. “His mother, his aunties, his granny Beulah…they’re old-fashioned.”

Donna drops the drinks off and Mallory takes the first tart, refreshing, and well-deserved sip of her cosmo. Tony Maroney says into his microphone, “Here’s some Steely Dan for two beautiful teachers, ‘My Old School.’”

“That’s
not
what I asked for,” Mallory murmurs.

Apple says, “So, anyway, we’ve decided to get married Labor Day weekend over on the Vineyard.”

It’s a situation.

Apple is Mallory’s best friend on Nantucket. Apple is the reason Mallory has her job at the high school, her identity, her entire island life. Apple is her
person
—when Mallory needs someone to watch Link at the last minute, when she needs a ride down to the ferry or someone to pick her up after a root canal, it’s Apple. Mallory and Link spend the holidays with Apple and Hugo—the fondue on New Year’s Eve, Easter brunch, the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

There can be no missing Apple and Hugo’s wedding.

Mallory tells herself it will be fine. But how? How will it be fine? It’s not just a Saturday ceremony and reception where Mallory and Jake might fly over for the day and Jake would go to the Navigator for a few beers while Mallory attended the wedding. It’s a whole-weekend extravaganza. There’s a Friday-night clambake at Lambert’s Cove, then the wedding at the Old Whaling Church, then the reception in the garden at Preservation Hall, then a dance party at the Hot Tin Roof. And on Sunday, a brunch at the Art Cliff Diner. Hugo belongs to one of the most prominent African-American families on the Vineyard. His mother, Wanda, has five sisters, one of whom is a longtime selectwoman. There is no messing around when one of their children gets married. They’re renting out the Charlotte Inn for their guests.

Mallory has to figure out her options while at the same time remaining not only supportive and helpful but exuberant about Apple’s impending nuptials. Apple has two sisters and two sisters-in-law, so Mallory doesn’t have to worry about being a bridesmaid. Which means she will be just a regular guest.

Could
she skip it? She fabricates excuses and tries each of them on. A nasty stomach bug? Something with Link—he can’t go to Fray’s like he’s supposed to because Fray and Anna switched the schedule at the last minute? Apple would say,
Bring Link, he can be the ring bearer.
So it’d have to be the stomach bug.

Mallory feels like the most despicable human being ever born for even having this thought. She doesn’t deserve a friend like Apple.

There’s no one Mallory can ask for advice. She has to look inward, and her gut is telling her there’s only one answer: Go to the wedding, have fun, cancel Jake.

She thinks about what it would mean to cancel Jake, not to see him for yet another year. She thinks about the phrase
No matter what.
She thinks about Doris, in the movie, saying, “I knew… that no matter what the price, I was willing to pay it,” as she stands at the airport in 1956 when George threatens to fly home because his guilt is overwhelming.

They’ve made it through eleven summers. That in itself is remarkable. Having a conflict like this is a part of life; it happens to everyone. You want to be two places at once but it’s impossible.

Maybe they can reschedule for the weekend before or the weekend after. In years past, Jake has spent the last two weeks of August with Bess and Ursula in Michigan, so the weekend before might not work for him. The weekend after, Link will be back home from his time with Fray, so that’s no good.

Mallory considers simply informing Jake that they’re going to Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend. They won’t stay at the Charlotte Inn with everyone; they’ll get a hotel room somewhere else, maybe in Chilmark or Aquinnah. She’ll make a brief appearance at the clambake; she’ll skip the brunch. She’ll ask Jake to meet her at the Hot Tin Roof. It will be dimly lit and loud; people will be drunk. They’ll go back to Nantucket first thing on Sunday.

It’s not optimal, nope, not at all. Jake might even refuse to go. But every relationship requires compromise, especially this one.

Jake would never want her to miss Apple’s wedding.

Mallory wastes precious hours imagining how Apple and Hugo’s wedding weekend
should
go. Mallory should be able to take a date to the clambake who will sit with her in the sand as the sun sets, then spread a blanket out for her in front of the bonfire. She should be with someone who charms Hugo’s aunties and brings them whiskey sours from the bar during the garden reception so they don’t have to walk across the grass in their heels. She should be with someone she can introduce as her boyfriend, someone she can slow-dance with, someone she can hold hands with as Apple and Hugo say their vows.

Someone like…Scott Fulton.

Yes, let’s say it: Scott would be a good date for Apple and Hugo’s wedding. But that ship has sailed. Scott and Mallory broke up over six weeks ago, and Scott has vanished from Mallory’s life. He’s conducting himself in the breakup as nobly as he conducted himself in the relationship. Mallory has to sit on her hands to keep from calling him sometimes. One night, when Link asked for Scott, Mallory decided that she’d made a mistake and that she would drive to his office the next morning to tell him she wanted to get back together. She would have to deal with Lori Spaulding first—Scott might even be dating Lori now—but Mallory would give it a shot.

In the morning, she came to her senses. All it took was imagining organ music spilling out of the Sconset Chapel, Mallory waiting outside the double doors in a white dress, about to commit to Scott Fulton for the rest of her life.

Nope.

There is no one for Mallory but Jake. She thinks all the way back to her bubblegum-princess days with Leland, listening to the
Grease
album on the record player—he’s the one that she wants.

She prays to God for an intervention, a revelation, a solution. For something to happen. Something, anything, please.

The second Saturday in August every year brings the Boston Pops to the island. They perform a benefit concert on Jetties Beach for thousands of people, raising two million dollars for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. It’s one of Mallory’s favorite nights of the summer. She and Link go with Apple and Hugo; they always set up camp in the very back by the lapping waves of the sound so that they can enjoy an evening swim and then a gourmet picnic—Mallory plans what she’s making all year long and Apple brings the wine—and they listen to the orchestra and wait for the fireworks at the end of the
1812 Overture
.

Mallory checks in with Apple on Friday morning—
Picnic prep, see you tomorrow, 5:30?
—to which Apple responds,
Kk,
their faux-high-school-student response, but sends nothing else.

Mallory knows that Apple has been flattened by both exhaustion and nausea and she also knows that Apple will have an ultrasound at Beth Israel in Boston at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, which has Apple on edge. She has a feeling that “something is up” with the baby.

At one o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Mallory finishes with the picnic. She has made Sarah Chase’s Asian carrot dip, which she’s serving with rice crackers; rare roast beef, Boursin, and arugula pinwheel sandwiches; chicken-and-potato salad with celery and chives; a marinated cucumber salad from the trusty Baltimore Junior League cookbook; and lemon bars with a coconut shortbread crust. Does a more perfect picnic exist? Mallory thinks not.

She hasn’t heard from Apple yet, which is a little surprising. And by two o’clock, Mallory’s mind travels to that forbidden place where “something is up” with the baby becomes “something is wrong” with the baby.

At two thirty, Mallory sends an exploratory but non-prying text:
You good?

There’s no response, which is very unlike Apple. But they’re off-island so maybe her phone died or maybe, in the excitement of the day, she forgot her phone altogether. It’s possible.

By four o’clock there has still been no word from either Apple or Hugo, and when Mallory calls Apple, she’s banished straight to voicemail. Should Mallory and Link go to the Pops without them, set up camp as usual in the back, and just expect them to show?

Yes, she decides. She puts Link in a pair of star-spangled swim trunks and a white polo shirt and combs his blond hair and kisses each of his cheeks fifty times. She tickles him until he squeals, then sits him on her lap to secure the Velcro straps of his sandals. She is so lucky she has a healthy child.

Apple will have a healthy child too, she thinks. A girl, maybe, who will grow up to marry Link.

Mallory parks on North Beach Street and she and Link join the masses who are marching toward Bathing Beach Road. Mallory is holding the picnic hamper in one hand and Link’s hand in the other, so when her phone rings, she has to stop, put the hamper down, and tell Link, “Stay right there,” while everyone moving around them grumbles. Sorry, people, Mallory has to take this call. She knows it’s Apple.

Probably she’s calling to say they missed the boat and they’ll be late. “Apple?”

“Mal?”

“Everything okay?” Mallory asks. “Everything good?”

There’s a pause. Apple breathing. Apple crying? Mallory plugs her other ear. She locks her eyes on Link; this would be exactly the kind of situation where he would get lost. She feels a heavy dread. She’d prayed for something to happen but she had not wanted anything bad to happen to Apple or the baby.

Please God, no!
Mallory thinks.
I take it back!

“We had the ultrasound,” Apple says. “It’s twins. Twin boys.”

“Oh my God,” Mallory says. She’s relieved. Right? “That’s incredible. That’s what was up! Are they healthy?”

“Healthy,” Apple says, but something is strange about her voice. It’s loaded with something else. “Listen…don’t kill me.”

“You’re going to miss the Pops?” Mallory says. “Don’t worry about it. You received monumental news today. I’m sure you’re overwhelmed.”

“
Overwhelmed
is the word,” Apple says. “Hugo is…he’s…listen, don’t kill me.”

“I won’t kill you,” Mallory says. “What’s going on?”

“Hugo is overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed, we were at each other’s throats even before we got this news because of the wedding and his family and, okay, yes,
my
family too. But this changes things.”

“What things?” Mallory asks. She’s worried again. Are Apple and Hugo going to
split?
“What things does it change, honey?”

“We’re at Logan Airport right now,” Apple says. “We’re flying to Bermuda tonight. We’re eloping, Mal. The wedding is off. I’m so sorry.”

Mallory wedges the phone between her ear and shoulder and scoops Link up before he wanders away. She bumps into an older gentleman in Nantucket Reds who says, “Watch where you’re going, missy.”

Mallory dislikes being called missy, but she’s so happy, she could kiss the man. Apple is eloping! She’s eloping! The wedding is off!

“Don’t apologize to me,” Mallory says to Apple, her person, her best person. “I’m so happy for you, honey. Go marry the greatest guy in the world. Congratulations!”