Page 99 of 28 Summers
“Ursula?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for checking in,” Cooper says. “See you on the Hill.”
Ursula hangs up. She walks back to her Adirondack chair. Her iPad is lying in the grass,Leland’s Letterstill glowing on the screen. Everything about the morning has lost its appeal. She did not assess the situation slowly or methodically. She acted on impulse and now she feels like a fool.
The sand dollars and fortune cookies, though. It bothers her.
Mallory drops Link off at Nobadeer Beach to meet his friends. Nobadeer is on the same coastline as the beach they live on and Mallory can’t quite understand why Link doesn’t just invite his friends to the house like he did when he was younger. Mallory even offered to make everyone fajitas with her homemade guacamole. But Link said that Nobadeer was “more fun.”
Plus,he said,nobody wants to go to the beach when there are parents watching.
Watching what?Mallory asked, but she received no answer.
“There had better not be any beer in that backpack,” she says. “If the police call me, I’m not answering. You’ll molder in jail.”
“No beer,” Link says.
“Prove it,” Mallory says.
Link hesitates, then unzips the backpack: two bottles of water and a Gatorade.
“Lucky you,” Mallory says.
“Where’s the trust?” Link says. His tone is good-natured but when he gets out, he slams the door of the Jeep a little harder than he needs to.
“Hey,” she calls through the open window. “I love you.”
He raises a hand.
“I love you, Lincoln,” she says a bit louder.
He turns around scowling, but he can’t hold on to it. He grins. “Love you, Mama.”
Mallory’s phone rings. It’s Cooper. Cooper? He just got married six days earlier on the eastern shore of Maryland. Mallory flew down for the wedding. It had been a simple affair—just her, Amy and Coop, and Amy’s sister and mother. While Mallory was away she’s pretty sure Link had people over, even though he was supposed to be staying at his friend Bodie’s house. When she got home, the floor in the kitchen was sticky, she was out of Windex, paper towels, hot dogs, and ketchup, and she’d found an empty Coke can on the windowsill in the bathroom. She was relieved it was Coke, but Link is fourteen and she has taught high school way too long to be naive; beer is probably not far behind.
Mallory pulls over to the side of the sandy road. She has a million-dollar view of the dunes and the ocean beyond. The waves are good today; there are dozens of people out surfing.
“Coop?” she says. She wonders if the marriage has broken up already. On the honeymoon; that would be a new record (though not by much). “Everything okay?”
“Guess who called me this morning?” Coop says. “Well, you’re not going to guess so I’ll tell you. Ursula de Gournsey, that’s who.”
Mallory puts up the Jeep’s windows, turns on the air conditioning and aims the vents at her heart. She’s sweating. “Really?”
“Really.”
“What did she want?” Mallory asks.
“She wanted my assurance that I’m the one Jake goes to Nantucket with every summer,” Coop says. “She told me she didn’t needproof;she said she would take me at my word.”
Mallory feels like she’s the one riding a wave, but in a nauseated way, not a fun, beachy way. She pinches the skin of her bare thigh. She always thought that if and when she and Jake were discovered, she would have time to come up with a defense. But now she’s just…blindsided, a solid, stinging smack to the cheek. “What did you tell her?”
“I said yes. I said it was me that Jake goes to Nantucket with every summer. I lied, Mal. To a United States senator.”
“Thank you,” Mallory says. “Thank…Coop. Thank you.”
“I feel sick,” Cooper says. “I’m on my goddamned honeymoon, Mallory, trying to start a life with Amy. Trying to startfresh. And yet there I am, lying to protect my sister who has been conducting an affair with my best friend for…how long? How many summers?”
