Page 84 of 28 Summers
No, thanks.
Jake friends Cooper Blessing and, while he’s at it, Tammy Pfeiffer Blessing, Coop’s new wife. (Is it worth it? Jake wonders. Or will Tammy go the way of Coop’s three previous wives?) He figures out how to get into Coop’s list of “friends,” and he cherry-picks a few more Fiji brothers that way, as well as Stacey Patterson from Goucher—why not?—as well as Frazier Dooley, who has both a personal page and a page for Frayed Edge Coffee. Coffee has its own Facebook page? Jake decides not to follow this page even though he goes to the Frayed Edge Café in Dupont Circle all the time. He sends a friend request to Katherine “Kitty” Duvall Blessing. Coop is friends with his own mother, so maybe this is a thing. (To say something is a thing is now a thing, eleven-year-old Bess has informed Jake.)
IsBesson Facebook?
No, thank goodness, and if Jake has anything to say about it, she won’t be allowed to get on Facebook until she’s thirty years old. It’s such a waste of time!
A waste of time, yes, especially since it’s taken Jake this long to get to the real reason he created an account.
Mallory, obviously.
She’s a friend of Coop, Kitty, and Fray. He clicks on her name, and, like magic, her face fills his screen. He…he…well, he nearly slams his computer shut because it’s so surreal. Her profile picture is a photo taken from the side on the front porch of her cottage. The setting sun makes her glow rose gold. Her hair is in a messy bun and he can see her freckles as well as some lines in her face. In Jake’s mind, she’s always twenty-four years old, but in this photo, she almost looks her age. She’s wearing a navy hooded sweatshirt that looks vaguely masculine and he wonders if she’s dating someone. Then of course there’s the question of who took this picture in which she’s looking so dreamy and pensive. How can he find out?
A notification appears on his screen:Carla Frick has sent you a friend request.
Carla Frick, the chairperson from the event in Phoenix, has found himalready?He’s been on Facebook for only sixty seconds.
Jake feels exposed but he accepts the friend request, and at nearly the same moment, Frazier Dooley and Jake’s mother accepthisfriend requests.
Jake laughs. Frazier is running a coffee empire and Jake’s mother is an ob-gyn. So what’s happening here? In between hysterectomies and C-sections, Liz McCloud is on Facebook? While overseeing a workforce of thousands, Fray is accepting friend requests?
Apparently so.
Stacey Patterson accepts Jake’s friend request.
It’s eerie. Will Mallory be able to tell that Jake checked out her page like a common stalker? He should click out of it but he can’t help himself. He studies her cover photo. It’s the view of Miacomet Pond. Because Jake knows what he’s looking for, he spies a glimpse of Mallory’s kayak overturned on the small beach.
In eleven weeks and three days, he will be paddling in that kayak.
Should he look at the pictures Mallory has posted? He’s afraid—because what if there’s one of her with the new boyfriend? Jake’s day will be ruined—his week, his life. But curiosity gets the best of him and he scrolls down.
There are only two pictures. One is of Link in a catcher’s uniform, leaning on a bat. The caption reads:He made the ten-year-old all-star team!The other picture is of Mallory and Link and an African-American couple with two little boys standing in front of the Old Mill. Jake knows this is Hugo and Apple, Mallory’s closest friends, and their twins, Caleb and Lucas.
Jake lets out a relieved breath. Maybe Mallory is new to Facebook as well? He sees that she has ninety-seven friends and he scrolls through them. There are a bunch of names he doesn’t recognize, but some he does: Leland Gladstone, Fiella Roget, Dr. Major. Jake sees the name Scott Fulton. That was the guy Mallory dated, the one who almost proposed to her. Jake is about to click on Scott Fulton when his good sense kicks in and he thinks,Come on, man, enough is enough.
Katherine “Kitty” Duvall Blessing accepts his friend request. Jake is now Facebook friends with Kitty. What will Mallory think of that?
He wonders if Coop will accept or decline his friend request. If Coop accepts his friend request, does this mean things are okay? If he declines, does that mean things are irreparably damaged?
Jake moves his mouse over to the blue button on Mallory’s page that saysAdd friend. Should he add her as a friend? Social media is a parallel universe, as Sara said, and in the parallel universe, it would be perfectly reasonable for Jake and Mallory to be friends.
She would kill him, he thinks. She would most definitely decline the request.
He closes Facebook and tucks his laptop into his briefcase.
Later, when he’s leaving the office, he stops by Sara’s desk.
“Hey, thanks for your help today. With Facebook.”
“Use responsibly,” she says. “It’s a drug.”
On August 31, 2012, Jake takes the direct American Airlines flight from DCA to Nantucket. This is risky, of course—he could easily run into someone he knows on the plane—but it’s convenient. The trip is ninety minutes from wheels up to wheels down. Jake rents a Jeep and drives out to the no-name road. It feels like coming home.
Friday night: burgers, corn, tomatoes, Cat Stevens, candles that they extinguish with wetted fingertips and then double-check, triple-check, before they go to the bedroom.
The harvest table, Jake thinks, looks as good as new.
They spend Saturday morning out on the kayak, and the pond is just as Jake has been picturing it; they even see a pair of swans. They paddle all the way inland, then turn around. On their way back, they pass a woman with a little boy standing in the muck, casting lines. Mallory waves and calls out, “Good morning!” Jake gives them the slightest glance and he notices the woman staring at him.
