Page 39 of 28 Summers
“You’re welcome to borrow any books but the four on that shelf,” Mallory says.
“Why?” Leland says. “Are those sacred?”
Fifi replacesThe Riders. “I feel the same way about certain books,” she says. “Song of Solomon. The Bone People.All of my Jamaica Kincaid.” She plucks a book from the shelf below. “The new Mona Simpson! Okay if I borrow this?”
“Yes!” Mallory says. “I loved it.”
“Wine, please,” Leland murmurs.
Mallory mentions that she has tuna steaks marinating and a fresh baguette and fixings for salad. “Or we can go out,” she says. “I’m friends with the bartender at the Blue Bistro and he has a table for us at eight o’clock if we want it. But I didn’t want to assume…” Mallory looks at Leland. “Did you two make other plans?”
“Otherplans?” Fifi says. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mallorita, we came to Nantucket to spend time withyou. So that I can get to know you. Of course we’ll stay in; we’ll eat the beautiful meal you prepared and we’ll talk all night and share our deepest secrets.” Fifi takes Mallory’s hand in both of hers and Mallory looks down to see their fingers, dark and lighter, wound together. Mallory is mesmerized, but when she looks over Fifi’s shoulder, she sees Leland rolling her eyes.
They pour wine, snack on the salt-and-pepper cashews that Mallory made earlier in the week.
“When did you learn to cook?” Leland asks. “If memory serves, you couldn’t even operate your Easy-Bake Oven.”
“Stop it, darling,” Fifi says. “You sound like a petulant witch.”
“I taught myself,” Mallory says. “It’s quiet here in the winter.”
They toss a salad, heat the bread, grill the tuna, shake up a vinaigrette. Mallory lights the sole votive candle. They raise their glasses.
“Thank you both for coming,” Mallory says. “I’m so happy you’re here.” As they touch glasses, Mallory realizes this is true. She has barely thought of Jake and Ursula’s rehearsal dinner—which is being held at a pizza parlor called Barnaby’s—at all.
During dinner, Mallory tries to keep the conversation focused on Leland.
“So,” she says. “How are your parents?” What she really wants to know is: How do the Gladstones feel about Leland and Fifi together?
“They’re getting a divorce,” Leland says.
Mallory sets down her fork. “What?”
“My father is sleeping with Sloane Dooley,” Leland says.
It takes Mallory a minute. SloaneDooley?Fray’smother,the disco dancer and maybe cocaine addict? “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Not kidding,” Leland says. “My mother seems to think it’s been on again, off again for a long time. Like maybe even since Fray and I were together.”
“I can’t believe this,” Mallory says. Shecannot,in fact, believe this. Steve Gladstone and Sloane Dooleysleepingtogether? Maybe even way back when Mallory and Fray and Leland and Cooper were all inhigh school?“When did you find this out?” What Mallory means is why didn’t Lelandcallher when she found out? And why didn’t Kitty call her? But then Mallory remembers that Kittyhascalled, three times in the past few weeks, and left messages begging Mallory to call her back, messages that Mallory ignored.
“End of May,” Leland says. “Geri went to the Preakness with the Ladies Auxiliary and she came home to find my dad and Sloane in the hot tub together.”
“Geri is a wreck,” Fifi says. “We almost brought her up here with us.”
“That was Fifi’s idea,” Leland says. “I didn’t entertain it for a second.”
“So you and Geri…” Mallory says. “You’re close?”
“Best friends,” Fifi says. She holds up two crossed fingers. “But then, I love Steve too. I think his involvement with Sloane is such a betrayal.”
Mallory is stopped by that. Fiella Roget considers Steve’s affair with Sloane Dooley a betrayal? This statement sounds grandiose and self-important. Fifi doesn’t evenknowthem! She didn’t grow up on the same street with them!
“Steve is crap,” Leland says morosely. “Sloane is worse crap. They’re moving into a place in Fells Point.”
“Whoa,” Mallory says. She tries to summon the memories she has of Sloane. Their school bus stop was in front of Fray’s grandparents’ house and Mallory vividly recalls that one frigid morning, a taxi pulled up and Sloane emerged, wearing only a purple lace bra and jeans under a loosely belted leather coat. She remembers Sloane going away to St. Michael’s for the weekend with a man who worked for Alex Brown, Senior wondering aloud if she was being paid for her time. Sloane smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and liked KC and the Sunshine Band.That’s the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like it!Sloane Dooley hovered around the edges of their lives, acting scandalously, then disappearing.
The Gladstones, meanwhile, had been like second parents to Mallory. She remembers the day Steve came home with the convertible Saab and asked Leland and Mallory if they wanted to go for a ride. He’d bought the car on a whim, without telling either Geri or Leland, and Mallory had been startled by that. (Senior and Kitty didn’t even bring a pizza home on the spur of the moment.) Geri had called it Steve’s midlife crisis, and now Mallory wonders if maybe Steve bought the car to impress Sloane Dooley.
