Page 20 of The Sixth Wedding
On Saturday, Cooper wakes up at noon. Noon! When is the last time he’s donethat?College? High school? He’s an up-at-the-crack-of-dawn, seize-the-day kind of guy. A morning person. But when he finally unsticks his eyelids, he can’t deny he lacks any motivation to get up off the wide, comfortable sofa.
Except that he’s the host here.
Ever so gently he lifts his head from the cushion and gazes around the room. Nobody is in the cottage, though he hears voices on the beach. Coop swings his feet to the floor and stands up. He overdid it—drank too much, stayed out too late. Deep inside him, like a coin dropped in a well, rests a small sense of accomplishment: He closed the Chicken Box!
The person he would like to tell this to is Stacey.
He pours himself a giant glass of ice water and heads out to the beach where Jake, Leland, and Fray are enjoying the sun. Jake is in his trunks sitting in a chair with a book open on his chest; his hair is wet. Fray and Leland are lying side by side on a blanket. Leland is in a black tank suit and a straw hat and Fray is beside her. Something is funny about that. Cooper squints, it’s bright outside, and he goes inside for his sunglasses. When he comes back out, he sees that Fray and Leland’s legs are intertwined in a way that looks more than friendly.
“Hello, all,” Coop says, collapsing in an empty chair.
“How you feeling, old man?” Fray asks. Coop can see that Fray is also stroking Leland’s shoulder.Ohhhhkay.
Jake says, “Want me to make you an omelet? You must be starving.”
Coop feels queasy. “I think I’ll go for a swim first, then see if I can handle food.”
“So listen,” Fray says. “I booked a sunset sail on the Endeavor for Leland and me tonight and then I got the two of us a highly sought-after reservation at the Boarding House. I’ve heard their lobster spaghetti absolutelyslaps. So I hope that’s cool with you…”
Sunset sail? Lobster spaghetti? What does that mean, it “slaps”? The “for Leland and me” part he understands; Fray and Leland want to go to dinner alone. Coop made a nine thirty reservation for the four of them at Nautilus, but who is he kidding? He’s not up for sitting down to dinner at nine thirty; he’ll fall asleep in his bao buns. He’ll cancel Nautilus. He and Jake can get a pizza and watch college football. He feels a bit bummed that they aren’t doing something all together, but he can’t ignore his relief. He has been set free of expectations.
Coop spends the afternoon waiting for the fog in his head to clear. The swim helps a little and the pillowy omelet that Jake serves him with two pieces of toasted Something Natural herb bread soaks up the beer and the shot of tequila he did the night before. (The tequila had been handed to him by a member of a bachelor party who called him “Pops.”)
He sits on the beach for a while but the sun makes his headache worse. Jake suggests hair of the dog—he’s drinking a Dark and Stormy—but Coop can’t think about alcohol.
Fray and Leland disappear inside and Coop says to Jake, “Did something happen between them?”
“They have a thing,” Jake deadpans. “A thing that refuses to die.”
“Since the mid-eighties,” Coop says. He lowers his voice. “I thought Leland liked women?”
Jake shrugs.
Jake dozes off in his chair and Coop heads inside to grab a Coke, thinking some caffeine might help. He sees Fray and Leland pop out of Mallory’s bedroom all dressed up. “Dressed up” for Fray is jeans and a white button-down shirt that looks like it could have been pulled off the rack at Sears but probably is by an Italian designer and costs eleven hundred dollars. Leland is wearing a fitted black dress; after only one afternoon in the sun, she’s tan.
“Have fun, kids,” Coop says. He is looking at Frazier Dooley and Leland Gladstone in 2023, but he’s also having a flashback to Fray and Leland standing up against the cinderblock wall outside the Calvert Hall boys’ locker room after one of Fray’s lacrosse games. Rumor around the school was that Leland gave him special “favors” if he scored a goal.
“Hey, you can sleep in Link’s room tonight,” Fray says. “I’ve been upgraded.”
Leland kisses Fray’s cheek. “Damn straight.”
Coop laughs and shakes his head. He loves them both. If they’re happy, he’s happy.
After they leave, Coop thinks maybe hewillgo into Link’s room and lie down—but he stops in front of the bookshelves, which hold not only Mallory’s impressive library but also a bunch of framed photographs. Many of them are of Link growing up and of Mallory and Link together, though there are also some wonderful photos of Mallory and Cooper as children, which Mallory must have taken when they cleared out the house on Deepdene Road after Senior and Kitty were killed.
There’s a shot of Cooper, Mallory, Senior, and Kitty taken during brunch in the Green Room at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. The Blessings would always go the Saturday after Thanksgiving, because that was the first day the hotel was decorated for Christmas. Kitty used to go to the Green Room with her own parents, so the brunch tradition wasveryimportant to her. Coop recalls suffering through it his junior and senior years in high school following the epic Friday-after-Thanksgiving parties he used to attend. That’s definitely the case in this picture—Cooper’s eyes are bloodshot, his hair is uncombed and his tie crooked—but what makes him laugh out loud is Mallory in her kelly-green monogrammed sweater and kilt (a kilt!) and knee socks. She must be fourteen and she’s wearing knee socks.
Tears burn his eyes as he laughs. She wassucha nerd! Before she had braces, she used to have buck teeth and Cooper would tease her relentlessly. He also teased her about her adoration of Rick Springfield, her addiction toGeneral Hospital,and the stubborn cowlick in her hair that she would spend the moments before leaving for school fruitlessly trying to tame.
Coop knows that Mallory resented him growing up. Things came easily to him—good grades, sports, charming all the adults in his life so that he got pretty much whatever he wanted. Mallory was shyer, a bit socially awkward; she preferred to stay in her room, lounging on her fuzzy purple beanbag chair, reading. Oh, and she ate saltines with butter. Coop closes his eyes. He hasn’t thought of her saltine and butter addiction in decades.
He picks up another picture where Coop is maybe ten and Mallory eight. It’s Easter. Coop is in a navy blazer, Mallory in a pink dress and headband (buck teeth protruding from her smile). They’re standing in front of the fireplace at their grandparents’ house, holding baskets filled with candy. Coop can practically smell his grandfather’s pipe smoke. The next picture he picks up moves him even further back in time. Coop is maybe seven, Mallory five, and they’re wearing the lederhosen that their grandparents brought back from a trip to Munich. This picture is…seriousblackmail material. They lookridiculous!Coop laughs until he cries and then he’s bawling like a baby because Mallory was his kid sister and he misses her. He sets the lederhosen picture next to a picture of his Aunt Greta and Uncle Bo, who were the original owners of this cottage. Cooper remembers when Mallory was “sent to Nantucket” for the summer as a kid; he thought she was being punished. Little did he know.
There are no pictures of Mallory with Jake, obviously, since their relationship was like a state secret, and no pictures of Mallory with any other men. Coop wonders then, as he often has, if there was somethingwrongwith him and his sister. Mallory had a child but never married; Coop has been married five times but none of the unions lasted and he never had children. Was it random luck that things ended up that way or had they been defective somehow? Kitty and Senior, although they each had their faults, set a wonderful example. They were devoted and attentive and respectful of each other. Cooper Senior could be impenetrable emotionally but he had a soft spot for his wife. There had always been romance in the house—long-stemmed roses “just because” and evenings spent on the couch in front of the fire, Kitty lying with her head in Senior’s lap. Maybe they set an example that was too hard to live up to.
Cooper thinks of Dr. Robb’s point that he has suffered a lot of loss. It was all weighing on his shoulders now. He missed his family. He would give everything he owned to be back in the Green Room at the Hotel DuPont.
He’s overtired and growing very emotional. He needs a nap. Coop slinks into Link’s room and crashes facedown on the bed.
