Page 71 of 28 Summers
Mallory parks on North Beach Street and she and Link join the masses who are marching toward Bathing Beach Road. Mallory is holding the picnic hamper in one hand and Link’s hand in the other, so when her phone rings, she has to stop, put the hamper down, and tell Link, “Stay right there,” while everyone moving around them grumbles. Sorry, people, Mallory has to take this call. She knows it’s Apple.
Probably she’s calling to say they missed the boat and they’ll be late. “Apple?”
“Mal?”
“Everything okay?” Mallory asks. “Everything good?”
There’s a pause. Apple breathing. Apple crying? Mallory plugs her other ear. She locks her eyes on Link; this would be exactly the kind of situation where he would get lost. She feels a heavy dread. She’d prayed for something to happen but she had not wanted anything bad to happen to Apple or the baby.
Please God, no!Mallory thinks.I take it back!
“We had the ultrasound,” Apple says. “It’s twins. Twin boys.”
“Oh my God,” Mallory says. She’s relieved. Right? “That’s incredible. That’s what was up! Are they healthy?”
“Healthy,” Apple says, but something is strange about her voice. It’s loaded with something else. “Listen…don’t kill me.”
“You’re going to miss the Pops?” Mallory says. “Don’t worry about it. You received monumental news today. I’m sure you’re overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmedis the word,” Apple says. “Hugo is…he’s…listen, don’t kill me.”
“I won’t kill you,” Mallory says. “What’s going on?”
“Hugo is overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed, we were at each other’s throats even before we got this news because of the wedding and his family and, okay, yes,myfamily too. But this changes things.”
“What things?” Mallory asks. She’s worried again. Are Apple and Hugo going tosplit?“What things does it change, honey?”
“We’re at Logan Airport right now,” Apple says. “We’re flying to Bermuda tonight. We’re eloping, Mal. The wedding is off. I’m so sorry.”
Mallory wedges the phone between her ear and shoulder and scoops Link up before he wanders away. She bumps into an older gentleman in Nantucket Reds who says, “Watch where you’re going, missy.”
Mallory dislikes being called missy, but she’s so happy, she could kiss the man. Apple is eloping! She’s eloping! The wedding is off!
“Don’t apologize to me,” Mallory says to Apple, her person, her best person. “I’m so happy for you, honey. Go marry the greatest guy in the world. Congratulations!”
Summer #13: 2005
What are we talking about in 2005? Hurricane Katrina; Brad and Jen; YouTube; Terri Schiavo; John Roberts; the White Sox; Scooter Libby and Valerie Plame; Alinea; Xbox 360; Carrie Underwood; Marilynne Robinson; Russell Crowe; Jude Law; the New Orleans Saints; Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, McNulty, and Bunk; “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
Leland Gladstone and Fiella Roget have been together for ten years. They’re a fixture in the New York literary scene and get invited to twenty events per week: gallery openings, readings, author luncheons, secret high-stakes poker games, and midnight raves at the hottest clubs on Twelfth Avenue. They are their generation’s Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, only biracial and far, far better dressed.
Fifi is a professor in the MFA program at Columbia, a job that requires her to teach one workshop per semester in exchange for a generous salary. This leaves her long stretches to work on her new novel, which she’s having a hard time birthing. Her first two novels dealt with her childhood and adolescence in Haiti, and now Fifi is writing a novel set in the United States, but it feels wobbly and predictable. She tries not to let the novel shackle her. The inspiration comes when it comes, and her editor understands this; Fifi just wishes people would stop asking her when they can expect it. Leland knows enough not to mention the novel at all, though Fifi recently overheard Leland telling the cleaning ladies not to bother with Fifi’s office.She hasn’t been in there in weeks.
Fifi is invited to do paid speaking events across the country, and in the spring of 2005, she accepts an offer from the department of women’s studies at Harvard. Fifi decides to make a trip of it—maybe two nights, maybe three. She likes Boston. It’s charming and old-fashioned with its proper Puritan aesthetic. Boston doesn’t have a dirty mind the way New York does.
“I can maybe do two nights,” Leland says when Fifi shares her plans. “But I definitely cannot swing three.”
“I think I’d like to go alone,” Fifi says. “We each could probably use some space.”
Fifi can see Leland wavering between a bitter response and an offended one. Fifi finds both tiresome. She believes every relationship needs a little air, but Leland sees things differently. Over the past few years, she has developed the tendency to smother. She likes to traveleverywherewith Fifi and make connections forBard and Scribe,where she is now editor in chief and which is now failing because everyone is on the internet. Fifi used to be fine with Leland’s constant companionship, but now the phraseriding her coattailscomes to mind.
If Fifi was second-guessing her decision to go alone, she stops doing so the instant she checks into Fifteen Beacon, orders up some room service, and draws herself a bath. Because she grew up with so little, five-star hotel rooms still strike her as an unfathomable luxury—the delicious linens, the fine, heavy pens and creamy stationery, the waffled robes hanging in the closet. Here at Fifteen Beacon, Fifi’s room has a gas fireplace and two deep leather chairs. Someone has sent up a fruit and cheese plate—the front-desk clerk, Pamela, it turns out! She’s a big fan ofShimmy Shimmy.
The greatest luxury of the room is the solitude. Fifi pulls out her manuscript and starts revising. She works until five minutes before she has to leave, at which point she slips her dress over her head and goes down to the lobby. A car is waiting to take her to the Brattle Theatre.
Long relationships have peaks and valleys, and Fifi has every right to some time to herself. What happens next, however, is more difficult to explain.
The day after she speaks at the Brattle is a beautiful spring day. Fifi can shop on Newbury Street, stroll through the Public Garden, even sit on the rooftop at Fifteen Beacon and continue her revisions. But instead, she calls the car service and asks to be delivered to the ferry dock in Hyannis. She’s going to Nantucket.
