Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

The boys love the car! Cooper whistles and calls shotgun; Fray and Jake climb in the back, and Mallory cranks up the radio.

Fray says, “Should we swing by the package store? I have money.”

“For once,” Coop says.

“I have two cases of beer at the house,” Mallory says. “And a fresh fifth of Jim Beam. I know my audience.”

“I love you, Mal,” Fray says.

“Hey,” Jake says, smacking Frazier’s shoulder. “She’s mine.”

“She’s mine”? Mallory thinks. Is it going to be this easy?

She wants to believe that. Everything this summer has been charmed except for the fact that she hasn’t fallen in love. Could that be next? Could that be now?

When they get to the house, Mallory shows them their rooms—Cooper says he’ll stay in a room with Jake so that Fray can have a room to himself. (He gives Mallory a wink, meaning Leland .) The boys change into their board shorts and run down the slope of the beach into the ocean. Mallory watches them from the porch for a minute. Jake has strong, sculpted shoulders; he’s a powerful swimmer. He dives under a breaking wave, then surfaces and whips his wet hair out of his face. He notices Mallory checking him out, and he grins.

Complete goner, she thinks, and she heads inside to fix some snacks.

Seven hours later, Mallory and Jake will be standing alone together in the cold sand and Mallory will scream until her throat is on fire and Jake will tell her to call 911 and Mallory will flash back to the moment she stood on the porch grinning as she admired Jake’s shoulders and she will wonder how everything went so horribly wrong. She will suspect it’s her fault.

Mallory puts out Brie, water crackers, and a little dish of chutney. She’s channeling her mother, who believes that life begins with hors d’oeuvres. Mallory has been chilling the beer all day in a galvanized tub that her aunt and uncle used as a footbath. She sets up the Jim Beam, a trio of cold Cokes, a bucket of clean ice. The boys come up from the beach. When Cooper sees the cutting board loaded with cheese and crackers, he gives Mallory a look.

“Against all odds, you’ve turned into Kitty.”

Mallory shrugs as Jake and Fray dig in. No one has ever been unhappy about seeing hors d’oeuvres.

Mallory is tempted to put on some Cat Stevens but she doesn’t want to be obvious—and what if Jake doesn’t remember? She puts on R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”

Fray pours himself a Beam and Coke. “And I feel fine,” he says.

During the golden hour, the sun’s rays hit the front porch in a way that feels sacred. Mallory is two beers in; she’s being careful because she has to drive to the airport to get Leland. Mallory has set the harvest table for four people but she leaves room for a fifth. She has prepared burger patties; she has shucked corn, sliced tomatoes. She cuts the last bloom off her sole hydrangea bush by the pond-side door and sticks it in a mason jar for a centerpiece. The boys take showers. Make them quick, Mallory has warned them. This fall, she’s going to hire someone to build an outdoor shower off the side of the house. Every time she gets home from work or comes up off the beach, all she wants is to shower outside—sun or stars and moon above, pond stage right, ocean stage left.

Jake walks into the great room in just a towel. “This place is a slice of heaven.”

Cooper is sprawled across the green tweed sofa. “I should have been nicer to Aunt Greta.”

Yes, you should have, Mallory thinks, but she doesn’t want to quarrel.

Jake looks at Mallory’s CDs. He says, “I’ll DJ.” Next thing Mallory knows, Cat Stevens is playing—“Hard Headed Woman.”

“Hey!” she says.

“This is our song,” Jake says. “Remember?”

Fray steps out of the bedroom, also wearing only a towel. “What is this crap?” he asks, waving his drink at the stereo. “It’s terrible.” Then he snaps his fingers. “I forgot, Mal, I brought you something.” He disappears into the bedroom and emerges holding a large wrapped gift that he hands to Mallory. “Housewarming present. Thank you for having me.”

Mallory nearly has to pick herself up off the floor. Has Frazier Dooley grown up? “Thank you,” she says. “That’s so thoughtful. But you didn’t have to. You’re family, you know that.”

He shrugs. “Open it.”

It’s a French press and a pound of coffee from Vermont. “Wow,” Mallory says. “It’s almost like you knew I’ve been living with that dinosaur.” She points to the Mr. Coffee machine on the counter; it was here back in 1978 when Mallory first visited the cottage.

“Stop making the rest of us look bad,” Jake says to Fray.

“Sorry,” he says. “It comes naturally.”

Mallory tears her attention off Jake for a second so that she can take fresh stock of Frazier. He has been Cooper’s best friend since forever; when Mallory said he was family, she meant it. Frazier lived with his grandparents around the corner from the Blessings, on Edgevale Road. Like the Blessings and the Gladstones, Frazier’s grandparents belonged to the country club. His mother, Sloane, would sporadically appear—she was a professional disco dancer (she was also a cocaine addict—Mallory had learned this from eavesdropping on her parents). Frazier’s father was never even referred to, and now that Mallory is older, she suspects that Sloane didn’t know who the father was. Walt and Inga, Fray’s grandparents, were lovely people; Walt served as president of the board of trustees at the country club, and Inga did the flowers each week for Roland Park Presbyterian. Despite this, Fray had always been troubled. He was smart but didn’t apply himself. He was a good athlete but a poor sport—he yelled at the refs in basketball, started fistfights on the lacrosse field. He got into UVM on a partial scholarship and intended to walk on to the lacrosse team, but he tore his ACL during tryouts, and that was that. His freshman-year grades were so bad that Walt and Inga made him earn the money he would have gotten from his scholarship, so he got a job as a barista at a coffee shop in downtown Burlington. After he graduated, he stayed on to manage the place. Mallory knows that he’d suggested improvements—an expanded menu, proper coffeehouse evenings with local musicians. Mallory feels proud of him for getting out of Baltimore and for becoming the kind of person who thought to bring a hostess gift without his grandparents’ prodding.

Mallory pulls Coop aside. “When the coals turn gray and ashy, throw the burgers on,” she says. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

Leland is standing in front of the airport terminal wearing a red gingham sundress that clashes with her bangs, which she has dyed neon pink. She squeals when she sees the Blazer; it’s a proper jalopy, she proclaims. She leans her head back against the seat and looks up at the night sky. “The air here is delicious. I needed to get out of the city.”

“I hope you’re hungry,” Mallory says. “The boys are grilling burgers. They should be ready when we get back.”

“Fray’s there?” Leland asks.

“Fray’s there.”

“He doesn’t know I’m coming?”

“Nope,” Mallory says. Is this cruel or funny? Mallory isn’t sure. She has a sickening vision of Fray losing his temper when he sees Leland and feeling so tricked, so betrayed, that he smashes the French press against the wall.

When Mallory and Leland walk into the cottage, Cooper has just pulled the burgers off the grill. Jake is manning the stereo, and Fray has his head in the fridge.

“Look who I found!” Mallory says, ushering Leland forward.