Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

Fray! she thinks.

There’s shouting. The ATV is barreling down the beach toward them. They found Fray. Mallory hears the officer on the beach calling in the divers.

Alive? she thinks. Or dead?

Alive. The officer on the ATV found Fray all the way down at Fat Ladies Beach, passed out in the sand. He was unresponsive at first, the officer said, but just as they were moving him onto the backboard, he came to and puked in the sand.

The rescue mission takes some time to reel in and pack up. Once the paramedic checks Fray’s vitals, asks him a few questions, and determines he doesn’t need a trip to the hospital, Jake helps Fray into the cottage. Mallory thanks JD and the beach officer and the ATV officer and the two divers a hundred times apiece. She pulls twenty dollars out of her shorts pocket and tries to press it into JD’s hands.

He laughs. “Keep it. This was your tax dollars at work.”

“Well, then, I’ll bake you some cookies and drop them at the station.”

“Cookies work,” JD says. He smiles at Mallory and she shuffles back through her mind to last week at the Summer House. Yes! This guy had come in with a white-haired gentleman, his father, who had engaged in some harmless flirting with Mallory and then left her a huge tip.

“I remember you,” Mallory says. “Your dad was terrific.”

“He told me I should ask you out,” JD says. “Are you here year-round or just the season?”

“Year-round,” Mallory says. “I’m hoping to be working at the high school this fall.”

“Cool,” Officer JD says. “Would you want to…or is that guy, or the other guy…I mean, do you have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t,” she says. “But…” She shakes her head. “I think I’ll need a few days before I can think straight. You have the number here. Maybe give me a call next week?”

“Yeah, I will, I’ll do that. Hey, I’m glad things turned out okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Mallory says. “Thank you, sorry, thank you.”

JD waves as he climbs into the cruiser. “That’s why we’re here.”

Mallory and Jake fall asleep in her bed on top of the covers and with their clothes on, but when Mallory wakes up, Jake’s arm is draped over her waist and his breath is warm on her neck. She opens her eyes, and before everything comes flooding back, she savors the weight of his arm, the steadiness of his breathing.

Is he her boyfriend?

No. But lying beside him feels incredible. She doesn’t want to move. She could die right here, she thinks, with no regrets.

When Fray rises, he drinks a quart of orange juice, then sets the empty carton on the table and says, “I’m going home.”

While Frazier is in the shower, Jake cracks eggs and drops slices of Portuguese bread in the toaster. Mallory looks out the window and sees a cloud of dust heading for the cottage. A boxy white Jeep Cherokee with a rainbow stripe of Great Point beach stickers across the bumper pulls up out front. Leland hops out and runs inside.

Mallory closes her eyes. She hopes Fray disobeys her “quick-shower” mandate; she doesn’t have the energy for a scene. She says to Jake, “Tell Leland to come into my room, please.”

A few moments later, Leland knocks on Mallory’s bedroom door. “Hey.”

Out the window, she sees the Cherokee is idling.

“They’re waiting for you?” Mallory says. Her voice is hoarse from all the screaming on the beach. “You’re not staying?”

“They’ve invited me sailing,” Leland says. “Kip’s friend’s dad has a huge yacht, I guess.”

“Who’s Kip?” Mallory asks. “You know what, never mind, I don’t care who Kip is. Just pack your stuff and leave before Fray gets out of the shower, okay?”

“I could come back tonight,” Leland says. “Or, I mean, these guys have a reservation at Straight Wharf at eight, so maybe you could join us?”

Mallory wonders if maybe the run-in with these New York friends wasn’t random. Maybe Leland had planned this. But either way, Mallory can’t compete with yachts and an impossible-to-get reservation at Straight Wharf. “I’m all set,” she says. “But please go now. Frazier is pissed off.”

“Fray needs to grow up,” Leland says. “He needs to move on.”

Mallory decides not to say anything to her about the events of the previous night. Leland quickly changes into a bikini and a cover-up, runs a brush through her chic haircut, fluffs her pink bangs. She turns to Mallory. “Are you angry?”

Yes, I’m angry! Mallory thinks. Leland wanted to surprise Fray, and she thought nothing of making out with him in the back of the Blazer; that was all fine. But walking off with her new fancy friends was rude—and, Mallory has to admit, utterly typical of Leland. She plays with people’s feelings. Mallory wouldn’t put it past Leland to have dreamed up this whole scheme—lure Fray back in, then abandon him so that she could be the one who was finally walking away from their relationship, in complete control.

Mallory sighs. She dislikes arguing with anyone, especially Leland. “Disappointed,” Mallory says, and she lets half a smile slip. It’s their old joke from high school. Their parents.

Leland kisses Mallory on the cheek. “I’ll see you when you come back to the city.”

Mallory isn’t going back to the city, ever.

“Okay,” she says.

No sooner does the white Cherokee pull away than there’s another knock on Mallory’s bedroom door. It’s Frazier. His blond hair is wet and combed and he smells okay, but he’s pale and his eyes are puffy. His duffel is slung over one slumped shoulder.

“I’m catching the ten o’clock ferry,” he says.

“Okay.” Mallory checks her bedside clock. “I’ll drive you. We should leave in twenty minutes.”

“I’m going to walk,” Frazier says.

“You can’t walk,” Mallory says. “It’s too far.”

“I need to clear my head, Mal,” he says. “I’ll see you later, and thanks for having me and all that. You have a nice setup here. I’m happy for you.”

“Fray.”

“Mal, please.”

Fine. If that’s the way he wants it, fine! Through her bedroom window, Mallory watches him head down the no-name road, which is still dusty from Leland’s departure. Mallory knew there was a chance the weekend would blow up this way, but even so, she feels stung: her brother and her best friend both failed her.

When she steps into the great room, she smells browned butter and coffee. Jake has used her new French press. “I made omelets with the leftover tomatoes and the Brie,” Jake says. “Come eat.”

Tears fill Mallory’s eyes as she sits at the table. “Are you leaving too?” she asks.

“No,” Jake says. “If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll stay.”

Summer #2: 1994

What are we talking about in 1994? O. J. Simpson, Al Cowlings, LAPD chasing a white Bronco down the 405, the bloody glove, Mark Fuhrman, Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, Kato Kaelin, Judge Ito; Tonya Harding; Kurt Cobain; Lillehammer; Jackie Onassis; the World Series canceled; Newt Gingrich; the internet; Rwanda; the IRA; Pulp Fiction; Nelson Mandela; the Channel Tunnel; Ace of Base; Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Ross, Joey, and Phoebe; Richard Nixon; The Shawshank Redemption.

Whether or not our boy Jake (and he is our boy, we’re with him here through the good, the bad, and the incredibly stressful) wants to admit it, his life has been changed by spending Labor Day weekend with Mallory.

He would like the record to show that he went to Nantucket as a free and single man. A week before Jake headed to the island, he and Ursula had a category 5 breakup that destroyed everything in its path—Jake’s self-esteem, Ursula’s promises, both of their hearts.