Page 38 of 28 Summers
What are we talking about in 1997? Princess Diana; Harry Potter; Madeleine Albright; the Hale-Bopp comet; Lima, Peru; Tony Blair; Google; Gianni Versace; “I’m the king of the world!”; Garuda airlines; Brett Favre; Hong Kong; Notorious B.I.G.; “Candle in the Wind”; the Heaven’s Gate cult; Louise Woodward; John Denver; Promise Keepers; Mulder and Scully; Chris Farley; Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.
On the third weekend of June 1997, Jake McCloud and Ursula de Gournsey are to be married in South Bend. The ceremony will be held at the Log Chapel on the campus of Notre Dame, and a small wedding dinner will follow at Tippecanoe Place. Mallory has learned these particulars because Cooper is serving as Jake’s best man. Mallory asked Coop for details in a casual way.Are there groomsmen?Only one, apparently, Ursula’s brother, Clint.And who is Ursula’s maid of honor?
Cooper has no idea. “Her mother, maybe?”
Hermother? How bizarre, how bizarre,Mallory thinks. (This was her students’ favorite song this past year and the lyrics are an unwelcome earworm.) Or maybe what’s bizarre is that Mallory would never in a million years ask Kitty to be her matron of honor.
“Is Jake excited?” Mallory asks. Her voice is tense, but Cooper won’t notice.
“Excited?” Cooper says. “I don’t know. Do you get excited about marrying someone you’ve been dating for sixteen years?”
Mallory can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that Jake’s wedding weekend is the only weekend of the summer—of the past four summers—that Leland is able to come to Nantucket for a visit. She and Fiella arrive at six o’clock on Friday. Mallory drives down to Steamboat Wharf to pick them up from the ferry.
“That took forever,” Leland says. “Five hours on the highway and two on the boat.”
“Why didn’t you just fly?” Mallory asks. She checks behind Leland for Fiella. She’s nervous to meet her, not just because Fiella is her best friend’s lover and she wants to make a good impression but also because she’s famous, a real famous writer. Fiella’s first novel,Shimmy Shimmy,is being made into a movie starring Angela Bassett and John Malkovich, and her second novel,Cold Ashes of the Heart,was picked for Oprah’s Book Club and has been sitting at the top of theNew York Timesbestseller list for twenty-seven weeks.
Mallory spots Fiella halfway up the gangplank, surrounded by college-age girls who are asking for her autograph. It’s not surprising that she’s been recognized because her looks are so distinctive. She has deep copper-colored skin and corkscrew curls that start dark brown at her part before turning golden at the ends. She’s wearing a bright orange halter dress that puts her breasts on perfect display. Honestly, Fiella Roget is even more breathtaking in person than she is in photographs or on TV (Mallory has seen her on both Oprah’s and Jay Leno’s shows).
“Fifi didn’t want to fly,” Leland says irritably. “She wanted to ‘experience the journey over water.’”
“I can see that, I guess,” Mallory says. No sooner does Fiella sign an autograph for one person than another girl appears in her place and Mallory wonders if Leland has to deal with this everywhere they go and also if they’re ever going to make it off the dock and back to the Blazer.
Eventually Leland has to wedge herself into the crowd and yank Fiella free, causing a bit of a scuffle.
“Personal space!” Leland shouts at a perky blond girl in a Tarheels T-shirt who’s holding a paperback copy ofShimmy Shimmy. “We’re on vacation!”
Still the girl thrusts the book at Fiella, and still Fiella seems happy to sign it. Then she eases out of the crowd like she’s slipping off a silk robe and offers her hand and a radiant smile to Mallory. “Sorry about that,” she says. “I’m Fifi and you’re Mallory. I know because I’ve seen all the photographs of you and Lee from growing up. I couldn’t be happier to meet you.” Her voice makes Mallory shiver. Fiella—Fifi—has the slightest French Creole accent. The woman is majestic; she is royalty. Mallory can see why Leland fell in love with her.
“Honestly, I’msickof it,” Leland says on their way through the parking lot. “They sat on the boat ogling you for two hours but they only screwed up the courage to approach you as we weredisembarking?”
“They’re harmless,” Fifi says, waving away Leland’s complaints. “Plus they pay the bills. Anyway, look at this charming place! Aren’t we just the luckiest creatures on earth. Thank you, Mallory, for inviting us.” They come upon the Blazer, freshly washed and waxed and vacuumed for their arrival. “Oh, is this our chariot?”
“Please,” Leland says. “Talk like a normal person.”
It’s fun entertaining houseguests when one of them is as enthusiastic as Fiella Roget. Fifi sits in the front of the Blazer while Leland rides in back with the luggage; when Mallory peers in the rearview mirror, she sees Lee glowering, a look Mallory knows only too well. Still, she assumes it must be humbling, and maybe even demoralizing, to have a famous girlfriend—especially for someone like Leland, who is used to being the center of attention. But surely Leland has grown accustomed to her role. She and Fiella have been together for over two years.
Fifi pulls a clothbound journal out of her leather satchel and starts scribbling things down even as the Blazer bounces over the ruts in the no-name road.
“Stop!” Fifi cries. Mallory hits the brakes, thinking Fifi is uncomfortable or she’s forgotten something back on the wharf, but Fifi jumps out of the car, runs to the banks of the pond, picks a fuchsia blossom off a rugosa bush, and inhales the scent.
“Look at this, Lee!” Fifi cries out, holding her hands over her head. She seems to be hugging the entirety of the landscape—the flat blue mirror of the pond, the electric green of the surrounding reeds, the pink and white explosion of the rugosa rose.
“It’s called nature,” Leland says. She does not look amused.
At the cottage, Fifi spends a long moment taking in the vista of the beach and ocean, then she turns her attention to every detail inside. Mallory has done a proper spring cleaning. She bought a new duvet and sheets for the bigger guest room. There’s a crystal pitcher and glasses on one nightstand and a bouquet of wild irises on the other. Over the winter, Mallory had her sole bathroom renovated; now there’s clean white subway tile, a new vanity instead of the pedestal sink with the rust stain that was impossible to get out, and a new toilet with a slow-closing lid—such a luxury! Mallory kept the porcelain claw-foot tub because her contractor Bob (who has such a thick New England accent that Mallory thinks of him as “Bawb”) said that it was in good shape and would be hell to replace. Mallory got some new throw pillows to soften up the unyielding green tweed sofa and she placed a jar of shells and beach glass on the coffee table next to Cary Hazlegrove’s book of Nantucket photographs. She bought Russian River chardonnay for Leland and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire for Fiella, who drinks only gin over ice. Mallory made a layered fruit salad and baked Sarah Chase’s orange-rosemary muffins, which she’ll serve for breakfast with homemade honey butter.
Fifi exclaims over the cottage, the shells, the narrow harvest table, the bowl of peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots—and then the wall of books.
“My God,” she says. “I’m never leaving.”
Leland emerges from the bathroom. Mallory gives her friend a hug and whispers, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m happy to see you.”
Leland pulls away, and her expression says it all: Leland is suffering. Fiella takes up all the oxygen in every room.
“Tim Winton,The Riders?” Fifi says, pulling the book off the shelf. “I’ve beendesperateto read this!”
Mallory nearly snatches the book from Fifi’s hand. It was Jake’s Christmas present to her this past year.This is by a man too. But it’s good anyway. XO, Jake.
