Page 90 of 28 Summers
Mallory shakes her head. “His wife…I can’t even get into everything about his wife.” She drops her voice. “She came to the funeral. By herself.”
“She…what?” Leland says. And suddenly, she pulls away from Mallory, just a few inches, nothing dramatic, but she needs space. The wife came to the funeral alone. Every yearfor a long time now. How long? Since the beginning, when Mallory inherited the cottage? Leland hadn’t planned on asking the guy’s name because she wanted to respect Mallory’s privacy and also because she’d assumed it was someone she didn’t know.
The end of summer.
Leland racks her brain to remember her visit that first summer. They had surprised Fray, that she remembers, and she and Fray had nearly hooked up. Cooper was there, and his friend from Hopkins, Jake McCloud. What does Leland remember about Jake? Aaaaarrrgh! Very little. If he hadn’t ended up marrying Ursula de Gournsey, he would have been erased from Leland’s memory forever.
But hehadended up marrying Ursula de Gournsey.
Who came to the funeral by herself. Why? Why had she been at the funeral without Jake when Jake was the one who was friends with Coop? “Is it Jake McCloud?” Leland whispers.
Mallory releases a breath.
“Oh my God, Mal.”
“I know.”
“Mal.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“In the spirit of full disclosure…” Leland says.
Mallory looks up.
“I sat with Ursula at the service. I was shocked to see her, obviously. And this might sound horrible—no, it definitelywillsound horrible—but I got her e-mail and her cell phone number. I asked her if she would do an interview forLeland’s Letterand she said yes.”
“Oh, Lee.”
“I’m sorry, I had no idea. But yes, I am that friend who took full advantage of your parents’ funeral to further her own career. It’s just…I didn’t know.”
“But you know now,” Mallory says. “So, please…”
Pleasewhat?Leland wonders. Mallory doesn’t say anything else. Her head falls back against the sofa and her eyes close. Leland considers trying to get Mallory upstairs to her childhood bedroom but it feels like an impossible task. She covers Mallory with the deep red chenille blanket that has lived in this room for as long as Leland can remember and then she succumbs to the allure of the other half of the sofa.
So, please…what?Leland thinks as she falls asleep.
Leland wants to do an extended interview with Ursula de Gournsey, but because of the situation with Mallory, she decides it’s best not to dive too deeply into Ursula’s life. Instead, she features Ursula in her Dirty Dozen—twelve questions, some rapid-fire and fun, some provocative. Turns out, this suits Ursula better, anyway. She doesn’t have time for Leland to do a detailed profile.
Twelve questions is a lot, Ursula says. She hopes they can blow through them in thirty minutes, forty-five tops.
“Or I could e-mail them to you?” Leland says. “So you have time to mull them over?”
“It’ll go straight into the black hole,” Ursula says. “This isn’t constituent business or legislation, which makes it personal, and my personal business gets triaged last. Let’s do this now. Go ahead.”
Leland’s Letter
Dirty Dozen with Senator Ursula de Gournsey
1. Gadget you can’t live without?
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone.
“Do people ever say their vibrators?” Ursula asks.
“All the time,” Leland says.
“That’s not my answer,” Ursula says. She sounds nearly offended, as though Leland were the one who suggested it. “I was just wondering.”
