Page 22 of 28 Summers
“It would be such a romantic place to get engaged,” she says.
It is, in fact, romantic. They go at the beginning of August, when the Parisians are on vacation, so they have the city to themselves. Ursula splurges on a room at Le Meurice, which is the nicest hotel either of them has ever stayed in. Jake blanches at the prices on the room-service menu, then rationalizes that Ursula works so hard, they deserve a little luxury. They order breakfast in the room each morning. The coffee is rich and fragrant; Jake enjoys hearing his spoon chime against the sides of the bone-china cup. It sounds like privilege. He feels the same way about the French butter, which he paints across the flaky insides of the croissants. As doctors, Jake’s parents make plenty of money, but they’re too busy to spend it. Ursula is exactly like them, so Jake figures he should enjoy the luxuries while they’re on offer.
They stroll in Le Marais, holding hands, admiring the shops on the charming narrow streets. Ursula is drawn to the florists and wanders in to inhale the scent of the freesias and chat with the owners in her impeccable French. The women compliment Ursula’s scarf, her dress, her bag; they think she’s a Parisienne. Jake watches, amazed, feeling very much like a big dumb American; he stops wearing his Hopkins Lacrosse hat on the second day.
Ursula has picked the best brasseries in the city, where they sit in plush banquettes and feast onmoules et frites, frisée aux lardons, entrecôte avec béarnaise. Ursula’s abstemious eating habits seem to be on vacation as well. One evening she polishes off her Dover sole, though she scrapes off the butter sauce; the next night she treats herself to six of Jake’sfrites. She counts them out.
She has intentionally saved Montmartre and Sacré-Coeur for their final evening. She wants to see the church all lit up and the view over the city. They buy an outrageously expensive bottle of Montrachet to drink from plastic goblets in the grassy park at the base of the church.
Ursula sighs. “I want to get married.”
“Right now?” Jake asks.
“No, but, you know…I want you to propose. Soon.”
Jake feels his throat constrict. He knows that Ursula has been expecting a proposal, or hoping for one, on this trip. There were a couple times in the past few weeks when Jake thought,I should just go buy a ring. But something stopped him. He wasn’tinspired.If he bought an engagement ring now, it would be because Ursula wanted him to. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to let her railroad him into a decision that he’s not ready to make. “Will you just let me handle it? Please, Ursula?”
“Willyou handle it?”
“That’s not letting me handle it.”
“What are wedoing,Jake?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Jake says. “But I’m putting in the time. I’m trying to grow up. I’m trying to build a relationship that’s going to last for the long haul. And we’re just not there yet, Ursula. I’m sorry, but we’re not.”
When she stands up, her wine spills.
“You’re holding back to be cruel,” she says. “Or to show me how powerful you are.” She looms over him, blocking out the moon, and he feels all the Parisian magic drain away as though someone has pulled a plug. Of course this is how their week away will end.
“Don’t ruin this,” Jake says. “Let’s go to dinner.”
“You’re the one who’s ruining it,” she says, and she storms off.
When Jake gets back to Washington, he has a pile of work on his desk, and mixed up in his in-box are not one, not two, not three, butfourphone messages from Cooper Blessing.
He calls Cooper at Brookings and is told that Cooper is out on personal leave.
What?
He calls Cooper at home. Cooper answers in a broken, hoarse voice and says, “Krystel left me.”
Jake has to work late that night in order to catch up, but the moment he’s finished, he goes to Georgetown to meet Cooper at the Tombs.
Krystel, it turns out, is a drug addict and has been all along. Cooper knew she occasionally did cocaine with the other servers at work but he chalked it up to the restaurant business, the late nights, the double shifts. Then he found out that Krystel had been venturing over to Fourteenth and U to buy crack.
“She was smokingcrack!” Cooper says. “Like a…like a…”
“Oh, man,” Jake says.
“I tried to get her in rehab,” Cooper says. “But she won’t go. She doesn’twantto quit. She moved back to her mother’s house in Rising Sun, shesays—but honestly, I think she’s living in a flophouse somewhere.”
“Is she crazy?” Jake says. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to her.”
“She loves the drugs more,” Cooper says.
Jake nearly says he understands. Substitute the wordworkfor the wordcrackand that’s Ursula. But it’s not the same, Jake knows it’s not the same. Krystel is addicted to crack; Krystel has walked out on a marriage after less than nine months. It’s a problem so big that Jake is at a loss.
“What can I do, man?” Jake asks. “How can I help?”
