Page 57 of 28 Summers
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,crazyis 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 isthat,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 thispossible?It’s like something out ofAll My Children,but this isn’t a soap opera, this is real life. Did Ursulacheaton Jake? Mallory feels affronted by the idea—and how hypocritical isthat?Mallory is Jake’s Same Time Next Year! She has no room to judgeanyone.
If Ursulaispregnant 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?”
“Six coffee shops in western Vermont and one opening in Plattsburgh at the end of the summer, all operating at a profit,” he says. “Next week I fly to Seattle to see about launching my own brand of coffee. Starbucks did it. Peet’s did it. No reason I can’t do it.”
“You should call it Frayed Edge,” Mallory says. She cackles. “Never mind, that’s a terrible name for a coffee brand.”
(Fray kind of likes the name Frayed Edge. The future of coffee lies with young people, and young people like irreverence. He can see Frayed Edge coffee shops at every major university in the country, girls showing up in their frayed jeans—they buy them intentionally ripped and whiskered now—kids pulling all-nighters during midterms and finals. And, as Fray has learned, what twenty-year-olds want drives business to other demographics, because everyone wants to be twenty.)
