Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

“You’re beautiful,” he said, then he nearly apologized because Ursula had found those very same words demeaning. Women are more than just objects to be looked at, she’d said. We’re people. You want to give me a compliment? Tell me I’m smart. Tell me I’m strong.

“And also,” he said, “you’re smart and you seem very strong.”

Mallory tilted her head and grinned. “You feeling okay?” she said.

After breakfast, they climbed into the Blazer and Mallory drove down a long and winding road—the Polpis Road, she called it—to a gatehouse, where she hopped out of the car and let some air out of the tires using the point of her car key. Then they bounced over a slender crooked arm of sand where the landscape emptied—houses disappeared, trees disappeared, the road disappeared—until it was just beach, water, grassy dunes, and, in the distance, a white lighthouse with a black top hat. Mallory pulled into a private little “room” created by the natural curve of the dunes that she had discovered on another trip. Had she been with someone else there? He couldn’t help but wonder as they fell asleep in the sun.

When Jake opened his eyes, Mallory was holding a metal mixing bowl. “Come on,” she said. “Treasure hunt.”

They walked along the shore, eyes trained a few feet in front of them. Mallory showed him slipper shells, quahogs, and mermaid purses. She picked up a sand dollar.

“Perfectly intact,” she said. She held it up to the sun so that Jake could see the faint star pattern. “You should take this back to Washington to remember me by.”

“Do I need something to remember you by?” Jake asked. “I mean, I’m going to see you again, right?” He was half thinking that he might never leave Nantucket at all.

“Sure,” she said, but her tone was too casual for his liking.

They strolled all the way down to Great Point Light, collecting pieces of frosted beach glass, scallop shells, and driftwood until the bowl was filled, then they turned around.

“Why can’t this work?” Jake asked. “We like each other.”

“A lot,” Mallory said, and she squeezed his hand. “I haven’t been this happy with a guy in a long time. Maybe ever.”

“Okay, so…”

“So…you’re going back to Washington and I’m staying here.”

“Couldn’t we figure something out?” he said. “You visit me, I visit you, we meet someplace in the middle—Connecticut, maybe, or New York City? We rack up massive long-distance bills.”

Mallory shook her head. “I did the long-distance thing with my last boyfriend and it was agonizing,” she said. “Of course, he was in Borneo.”

Jake laughed. “DC is closer than Borneo.”

“The basic problem is the same,” Mallory said. “You have a job and a life in Washington and my life is here. I lived in New York for nearly two years and every single day I wished I were someplace else. I’m not doing that again.” She paused. “And in the spirit of full disclosure, the officer who was up at the house the other night asked me out.”

Jealousy, strong and swift, caused Jake to stutter-step. “What did you tell him?”

“I was vague,” Mallory said. “I said he should maybe call me next week.”

Jake didn’t like this answer, nope, not one bit. “Can’t we just pretend that we’re the only two people in the world and that this weekend is going to last forever?”

Mallory stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. The lighthouse floated over her right shoulder. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “We’re the only two people in the world and this weekend is going to last forever.”

“Are you humoring me?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and she grinned.

Back at the cottage, Mallory took the first shower. Jake was studying the books on the shelves of the great room when the phone rang. Jake’s first instinct was to answer it. He liked answering other people’s phones. He used to answer Coop’s phone all the time—which was how he’d gotten to know Mallory in the first place. But of course he shouldn’t answer Mallory’s phone—what was he thinking? It might be Cooper apologizing for his exit, and how would Coop feel about Jake staying to shack up with his sister? Then again, what if this was that officer calling to ask Mallory on a date? Maybe Jake should scare the guy off.

Mallory raced out of the bathroom, naked and dripping wet, to snatch up the phone before the machine picked up. Jake wondered if she, too, thought it might be the officer from the other night. Jake’s neck and shoulders tensed. His emotions were spiraling out of control. He was gobsmacked by this girl.

“Hello?” Mallory said. “Yes, this is she. Oh, yes. Yes!” There was a pause, and Jake imagined the officer asking if she was free the following night. Would he see her tan lines; would he have a chance to appreciate the shallow dip in her lower back? Would he cook eggs for her? Would he wipe the crumbs from Mallory’s lips?

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Mallory said. “Yes, yes, of course I’d be willing. Oh my, thank you so much. Seven thirty. Okay, I’ll see you Tuesday.” She hung up and said, “The English teacher at the high school is at Mass General in Boston getting some tests done and he won’t be in for the first week of school, so they’ve asked me to cover for him.”

The relief Jake felt made him light-headed. “That’s great!” he said. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

“I wanted someone to retire, ” Mallory said. “I didn’t want anyone to get sick.”

Jake gathered Mallory up and kissed the top of her head. He was happy for her, but he didn’t want to think about Tuesday.

“It’s Sunday night,” she said. “When my aunt was alive, that meant Chinese food and an old movie on TV.”

They ordered from a place called Chin’s—egg rolls, wonton soup, spare ribs, moo shu pork, fried rice, Singapore noodles, beef with broccoli.

“And dumplings!” Mallory cried into the phone. “Two orders! One steamed and one fried.”

It was too much food, but that was part of the fun. Whenever Jake and Ursula ordered Chinese, Ursula ate only plain white rice and she refused to eat fortune cookies; she wouldn’t even read the fortunes. The fortune cookie, she claimed, was a cheap gimmick that diminished the complexity of Chinese culture.

Jake watched Mallory dip one of her golden-brown dumplings into soy sauce, then deliver it deftly to her mouth with her chopsticks. She loaded a pancake with moo shu pork until it was dripping and messy and took a lusty bite. Jake was so stunned by the vision of a woman enjoying her food rather than battling it that he wondered if he might be falling in love with her.

Mallory handed Jake a fortune cookie. He was about to inform her that the purpose of the fortune cookie was to dupe a gullible public and distort the wise sayings of Confucius, but before he could share Ursula’s skepticism, Mallory said, “Whatever it says, you have to add the words ‘between the sheets’ to the end.”

Jake laughed. “Are you serious?”

“My house, my rules,” Mallory said.

Jake played along. “‘A fresh start will put you on your way’”—he paused—“between the sheets.”

Mallory gazed at him. Her eyes were green tonight. “Damn. Was I right or what?”

“Read yours,” he said, handing her a cookie.

“‘Be careful or you could fall for some tricks today,’” she said, “between the sheets!”

He gathered up both fortunes. He would take them home, he decided. Along with his sand dollar. Things to remember her by.

They turned on the TV and found a movie that was just starting: Same Time, Next Year with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. It was about a couple who meet at a seaside hotel in 1951 and decide to return together on the same weekend every year, even though they’re both married to other people.