Page 76 of 28 Summers
“My birth control pills,” she said. “Thank you.” And, as Tish said later, Cooper looked so mortified that she had burst out laughing.
They’d been inseparable ever since.
The ceremony is held at St. David’s in Wayne, Pennsylvania, with a reception following at the General Warren Inne in Malvern. It’s Cooper’s third big wedding. He wanted something more intimate, but this is Tish’s first go-round and her parents are paying, so they have groomsmen and bridesmaids, a twelve-piece orchestra, Jordan almonds. There are one hundred and thirty people in attendance but only two dozen or so from Cooper’s side—his parents and sister, obviously, and Fray and his longtime girlfriend, Anna, and Jake and Ursula (who is running for senator, so Cooper figured Jake would come alone, but no, Ursula is here), plus a selection of people from Brookings including Brian Novak, who is now divorced and has asked Coop no fewer than three times if Mallory is still single.
Yes, Cooper said. He’s not sure Brian is good enough for Mallory. She deserves a prince, someone like Tish’s family friend Fred, though Fred lives in San Francisco and is therefore geographically undesirable.
Cooper’s favorite part of his previous two weddings was the cocktail hour that falls after pictures (which he suffers through) and before the whole rigmarole of dinner. His third is no exception. He has a cold gin and tonic and the guests are in the garden behind the inn, which is lush with flowers and shaded from the early August sun by stately two-hundred-year-old oaks. A server comes by with flaky triangles of spanakopita and lemony crab salad on cucumber coins, and Cooper wishes he could just stay in this moment forever instead of dealing with the tricky business of beingmarried.
Cooper and Tish are talking to Ursula de Gournsey, and Cooper can tell Tish is a bit starstruck; Tish can’t believe CoopknowsUDG and that the superstar congresswoman isattending their wedding!Tish is telling Ursula about their honeymoon to the Italian Riviera—Capri, Sorrento, Positano—which, like the wedding, is being paid for by Tish’s parents. She and Cooper are leaving in a few weeks.
“At the end of August?” Ursula turns to Coop. “So does that mean you’re canceling on Jake this year?”
“Canceling…what?” Tish says. She smiles at Coop, waiting for an explanation.
Coop has no idea what Ursula is talking about. He and Jake do meet for the occasional beer at the Tombs, but only when Jake is in Washington. They have also subbed on each other’s company softball teams, though that was long ago.
“Coop and Jake go to Nantucket every Labor Day weekend,” Ursula says. “It’s guys only, which is something you’ll come to appreciate after a while. Jake is always the nicest right after he gets back from the island. And you two have been doing it for…what? Thirteen, fourteen years?”
Cooper has enough experience with relationships to just smile and nod.
“Huh!” Tish says. “I didn’t know anything about this!”
Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for thirteen or fourteenyears?Exit—he needs an exit!
Cooper chuckles. “We’ll talk about it later,” he tells his new wife. “Let’s get one more cocktail before we’re seated.”
Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for thirteen or fourteen years? Meaning since…1993? Yes, that was the first time they went to Nantucket, for his bachelor-party weekend, right after Mallory inherited the house. That was the year he married Krystel. Krystel, ugh—Cooper can’t think about it, and he shouldn’t think about it. Krystel was two wives and five serious girlfriends ago.
That first year, he’d left the same day he arrived, and then they’d returned the following year—was that on Labor Day weekend?—but other than that, Cooper had been to Nantucket only for his nephew’s first birthday. He feels guilty about not visiting more often but he’s been busy.
Why would Ursula think that Cooper and Jake have been going to Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for the past however many years? Obviously, that’s what Jake has told her. Is Jake up to something? Has he fabricated a long-running lie to his wife, the person whom some people hail as “the smartest woman in America”?
There must be another explanation, but Cooper won’t worry about it right now. It’s time to sit down to the Caesar salad. The General Warren Inne is famous for it, Tish says.
Cooper has all but forgotten the conversation with Ursula but the newly minted Letitia Morgan Blessing has not. She brings it up over the tenderloin with Bordelaise and sweet-corn risotto.
“You’re going to Nantucket over Labor Day weekend with Jake McCloud?” she says. “This is a thing you do? You might have thought to mention it. You do realize that’s only a couple days after we get back from Italy.” (Tish doesn’t want to quarrel during her wedding but Cooper has insisted on both of them being completely transparent in this relationship because he was so badly burned by his previous two wives—the first wife was a crack addict; the second was escaping an arranged marriage down in Uruguay. Tish can’t believe she is only now hearing about some bromance trip that Cooper takes every year. It’s weird, though, because Tish knows that Coop didn’t go to Nantucket last Labor Day weekend; they had spent that weekend in Bay Head, New Jersey, with her family. So what’s going on?)
“I don’t go to Nantucket with Jake every year,” Coop says. “I mean, Ihave,but not in over a decade. I think Ursula is just mixed up.”
(Really?Tish thinks. Ursula de Gournsey doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who gets mixed up.)
Coop starts watching Jake. He’s sitting at table 4 with Ursula and Tish’s family friend Fred-from-San-Francisco and some friends of Tish’s from Vassar. Ursula is on her phone, texting, it looks like, which is vaguely insulting—but then again, she is running for the U.S. Senate, so she probably has urgent business, even on a Saturday evening in August. Jake rises from the table and heads to the bar where…Mallory is ordering a drink. The two of them talk; it looks like an intense conversation. Is it intense, or is Cooper just projecting? Jake and Mallory know each other; they’ve known each other since that first summer and knewofeach other while Coop and Jake were in college. They’re friendly—so what?
Mallory gets her wine. She heads back to table 2, where Brian Novak is waiting with his arm draped over the back of her chair.
Cooper watches Jake’s eyes follow Mallory back to the table. Even once she’s sitting down, his gaze lingers. Cooper thinks:Mallory and Jake?Coop has a vision of the two of them slow-dancing at PJ’s however many years ago. That had been…a little strange, even unsettling, but the dance had ended and they’d returned to the table.
Every Labor Day weekend on Nantucket for the past thirteen years.
The next time Jake gets up—he’s heading toward the men’s room—Cooper follows him.
“Be quick,” Tish says. “It’s almost time for the toasts.”
Tish is very excited for the toasts—because who doesn’t like hearing other people say nice things about them?—though Cooper dreads the inevitable “Third time’s the charm” joke.
“Nature calls,” he says. As he follows Jake to the men’s room, Cooper realizes that Jake and Mallory would have been left on Nantucketalonethat first year because Fray had some crazy accident and Leland bailed, as Leland does. At the time he thought nothing of it. Then the second year, Cooper met Alison the flight attendant and ended up spending the entire weekend in her room at the Nantucket Inn, again leaving Jake and Mallory alone. He didn’t wonder about that then because…well, because he was in his twenties and woefully self-absorbed.
