Page 79 of 28 Summers
“Rifles meaning AR-15s.”
“Rifles meaning for hunting, Jake,” Ursula says. “Turkey, quail, rabbit, deer…”
“Return it. Return the money.”
“I can’t,” Ursula says. “They gave it to me, I spent it, I won. I can’t just return it like a sweater I’ve decided I don’t like.”
Jake swallows. He has been with Ursula for nearly thirty years and he would have said he knew everything about her. But it turns out he doesn’t know her at all.
“That Mulligan shooting,” Jake says. “The kid, aseventeen-year-old,Ursula, bought the gun at Walmart and no one asked him for ID. Gun laws need to be tightened, not kept the same, and certainly not loosened.”
“Can we just go to bed?” she says.
“Return the money,” he says. “Or I’m leaving.”
Ursula laughs indulgently, like he’s a little kid holding his breath. “Okay.”
Jake sleeps in his study. He thinks about the media circus that will take place if he leaves Senator Ursula de Gournsey over a policy decision. They made a pact back when Ursula first ran for Congress that they would not bring politics into their home. They weren’t going to agree on everything; that was a given. Politics covers such a vast spectrum of issues that it’s unlikely any two Americans hold the exact same views; each person’s political DNA is unique, like biological DNA. Jake thinks gun control is a big deal that will keep getting bigger until some laws are passed. It’s feasible that, ten years from now, there will be mass shootings like the one in Mulligan happening every week.
Ursula disagrees—maybe. Maybe she is siding with her constituents who hunt. Or maybe she is so blindly ambitious that she takes any cash she can get.
Will Jake leave her?
No.
But he wants to.
Summer #18: 2010
What are we talking about in 2010? Haiti earthquake; the Tea Party; SeaWorld;The Hurt Locker;BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; Elena Kagan; El Bulli; Rahm Emanuel; Don’t ask, don’t tell; Chilean miner rescue; Alexander McQueen;127 Hours;WikiLeaks; Leslie Knope, Ron Swanson, Chris Traeger, Tom Haverford, April, Andy, and Ann Perkins; “I see you drivin’ round town with the girl I love.”
Her favorite moments of the year are the moments right before she sees him. He’s on the ferry. He has boarded the plane. He’s on his way. His rental Jeep is going to be speeding down the no-name road toward her cottage, bringing a cloud of dust and dirt and sand. The anticipation is ecstasy. It’s a perfectly ripe strawberry dipped in melted milk chocolate; it’s a roaring fire on a snowy night; it’s a double rainbow; the green-glass barrel of a wave; the first sip of ice-cold champagne.
And then…he arrives, he’s there. They lock eyes; he rushes out of the car—forget the luggage, worry about that later—wraps his arms around her, picks her up off the ground, sets her down, holds her face in his hands, and they kiss.
Stop time,she thinks.Please, God.
It’s the inverse when he leaves. The most excruciating pain she has ever known is watching him drive away, knowing it will be 362 days until she sees him again (and a day longer in leap years).
What will change in that year?
Will anything happen that will keep him from coming back?
Mallory’s fortune:An acquaintance of the past will affect you in the near future.
Jake’s fortune:Feeding a cow roses does not get extra appreciation.
Part Three
Forties
Summer #19: 2011
What are we talking about in 2011? SEAL Team Six; Osama bin Laden; the Affordable Care Act; Nicki Minaj; the Penn State football scandal; the debt ceiling; Gabrielle Giffords; Cam Newton; Occupy Wall Street; Don and Betty Draper, Peggy, Roger, and Joan; cake pops; Rory McIlroy; Eleven Madison Park; Anthony Weiner; Andy Rooney; “Rolling in the Deep”; Steve Jobs;Moneyball.
At the end of the school year, Dr. Major announces that the high school has received a large monetary gift from an anonymous donor that is earmarked to reward excellence in teaching. One teacher will be chosen each September to receive a seventy-five-thousand-dollar cash prize—which, in Mallory’s case, is the amount of her current salary. A committee of parents and community members will convene over the summer to evaluate candidates, and the winner will be announced the first week of school.
“You’re going to win the first one,” Apple says. “I can feel it.”
