Page 96 of 28 Summers
But now.
“Coop,” she says.
“I don’t want to be a party to your deception,” he says. “It’s the adultery I object to, yes. But also, Mal, he’susingyou.”
“No,” she says.
“He has Ursula,” Coop says. “You have…nobody. It kills me thinking about you spending most of the year by yourself, waiting for him to return. You’re like one of the sea captain’s wives, standing on your widow’s walk. It’s heartbreaking.”
“It’s not like that,” Mallory says. Mallory had relationships with JD, with Bayer, with Scott Fulton—and she had relations with Fray. She has hardly been alone all these years, but she never found anyone she loved or even liked as much as Jake and she didn’t see the point in settling.
She has always felt she has agency in her relationship with Jake. She was the one who decided, that first summer, not to turn it into something bigger. If she had, she’s sure the relationship would have ended, maybe even ended badly, and Jake would be nothing but a name from her past. As unconventional as their romance has been, Mallory believes she made the right choice.
She isn’t famous like Ursula; she isn’t a scene-stealer. She’s just a person—a good person, she has always believed. To Coop, it must seem like she has zero integrity, but where her relationship with Jake is concerned, Mallory would argue she has nothing but integrity. She has never taken more than her share. Their weekends together have a certain purity; they aren’t dirty or mean-spirited. She’s not trying to fool herself; she knows it’s wrong. But it’s also right.
If Mallory tells Coop this, will he understand? He may; he may not. She isn’t sure what kind of warped rulebook he uses when it comes to love. Or maybe she’s the one with the warped rulebook. Or maybe there is no rulebook.
Mallory has a ripcord. Will she pull it?
“I’ve lost a lot already this year,” she says. “I can’t give him up too.”
Yes, she is using the bald, gaping, awful fact of their parents’ death.
She might also say:If you hadn’t left your own bachelor party, this would never have happened.
“Okay,” Cooper says. “Send him down.”
Mallory breathes out a “Thank you.”
“Oh, and by the way, I’m dating someone new,” Cooper says. “Her name is Amy. She’s a psychologist. I can have her talk to Link, see if he’s okay.”
“He’s okay,” Mallory says. “Maybe you should have Amy see ifyou’reokay.” She cringes, wondering if it’s wise to crack a joke at Coop’s expense.
He laughs. “Amen,” he says.
Summer #23: 2015
What are we talking about in 2015? “Hotline Bling”; Stuart Scott; the Affordable Care Act; Paul Ryan;American Sniper;James Corden; the California drought;Hamilton;FIFA; Subway Jared;American Pharoah; Fitbit; Syria; Bill Cosby; San Bernardino; Ashley Madison; dabbing; Brian Williams; Selina, Amy, Gary, Dan, Jonah, and Mike; “Love Wins.”
Ursula still reads four newspapers every morning, though she has added theSkimm—and, on Fridays,Leland’s Letter. The Dirty Dozen feature on her has been viewed over two million times, but it’s not the number of people who have seen it that matters. It’s thekindof people.
On the negative side, it turns out that A. J. Renninger readsLeland’s Letter. She publicly criticized Ursula for her comment about women supporting each other and becoming vested in one another’s success.
“The senator, whom I counted as a dear friend, didn’t offer any help while I was running for mayor,” she said in a statement toPolitico. “And I believe that’s because she didn’t want to view me as the most powerful woman in this city.”
Ursula had nearly called AJ then and there to set the record straight: She hadn’t supported or endorsed AJ because she didn’t believe AJ would be the best mayor. That AJ had won anyway came as no surprise; her fund-raising efforts were so impressive that Ursula was sure that she promised kickbacks and favors to special interests. Ursula didn’t attend the inaugural party because she had “other plans”—she’d worked late, gotten on the treadmill, and had cereal for dinner.
On the positive side, it turns out that the features editor ofVoguereadsLeland’s Letter,and she offers Ursula a profile, which is published in the 2015 spring fashion issue. Ursula models power suits by Carolina Herrera, Stella McCartney, and Tracy Reese. The photographs are probably more enticing than the article, though it’s a substantive piece, and at the end the writer, Rachel Weisberg, asks Ursula if she’s planning on running for president.
Ursula says, “I’m not ready yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out for the future.”
This statement sets off a string of firecrackers. In a moment of extreme hubris, Ursula showed the article to her daughter, Bess. Bess is fourteen, a freshman at Sidwell Friends, and she has very much come into her own. She plays volleyball and the flute; she reads incessantly about social injustice. The novels she likes best feature marginalized adolescents from third-world countries. Are you walking across Africa with only one red pencil? Then Bess McCloud wants to read your story. Ursula secretly loves how passionate and devoted Bess is to inclusivity and diversity, even though Bess has started going to the mat against some of Ursula’s own policies. Bess, like so many young people, is a bleeding-heart liberal.
Ursula thought Bess might like to see theVoguearticle because Ursula makes her position on certain sensitive issues clear. Ursula wants to pass legislation requiring universal background checks for gun purchases; this simple measure will do wonders, she believes, in keeping assault rifles and bump stocks out of the hands of maniacs, especially underage maniacs. She thinks health care should remain privatized, and she’s determined to tackle prescription-drug costs. She has a healthy LGBTQA agenda that protects rights for civilians and military personnel. Ursula is an “independent,” a “centrist,” a “political Switzerland,” but she wants Bess to see what that means, detailed in glossy-paged black-and-white.
However, the next morning when Bess comes into the kitchen, where Jake is making her omelet as usual and Ursula is on her laptop, skimming theSouth Bend Tribune—stormwater drainage issues are on the front page,again—she says, “So. You’re running for president?”
Jake spins around, spatula in hand. “What?”
