28 Summers

by Elin Hilderbrand

  Mallory walks past the library and sees Jeremiah sitting at a table alone, his journal open in front of him. Her heart lurches. She can’t let him just sit there.

  “Want to go get some lunch?” she asks him. “My treat?”

  “In the cafeteria?” he asks. Mallory notices his steel lunchbox with the domed lid, the kind construction workers used to carry. She knows that Mrs. Freehold packs Jeremiah a lunch each and every day; he doesn’t even buy milk.

  “No, let’s go on an adventure,” Mallory says impulsively. Jeremiah is a senior and therefore has off-property lunch privileges, though she doubts he’s exercised them even once this year. Which is all the more reason for him to go today. The rest of his class is watching street theater outside Faneuil Hall or farting in the elevators on their way to the Top of the Hub in the Prudential Center, so what harm will it do if Jeremiah goes to the beach? Or…“Maybe you can show me someplace I’ve never been?” Mallory has lived on Nantucket just shy of two years and there are still whole swaths of the island she hasn’t explored.

  Jeremiah cocks his head. She can tell he’s wondering if she’s serious.

  “Come on,” she says. “My car is out front.”

  Jeremiah says he wants to show her Gibbs Pond, which is in the middle of the island, because that’s where his father first taught him to fish. Mallory’s interest is piqued because she knows from reading the kids’ journals that Gibbs Pond is where most of the high-school parties are held.

  “We have fifty minutes,” Mallory says. “Can we get there and back in fifty minutes?”

  “Yes,” Jeremiah says. He grabs his journal, his books, and his lunch with purpose, and for a moment, Mallory feels like that teacher—the one who thinks outside the box, the one who goes the extra mile, the one who saves a kid’s life, at least figuratively.

  They head out the Milestone Road in the Blazer. The top is on but it’s warm enough for them to open the windows and let the sweet spring air rush in. Mallory turns up the radio. It’s “Crazy” by Aerosmith, and Jeremiah throws his head back and campily sings along.

  “So you have a radio at home, then?” Mallory asks.

  “Yes,” Jeremiah says. “And a TV. Cable TV.” He grins.

  Jeremiah directs Mallory to turn left down a dirt road, and they wind through thick, scrubby woods. It was a pretty tough winter, lots of snow, rain, and wind, and the road is in bad shape with dramatic whoop-de-dos and rogue branches sticking out that etch Nantucket pinstripes along the sides of the Blazer. Mallory begins to wonder about the wisdom of this adventure. The road is one-lane—three-quarters of a lane, really—so there’s no possibility of turning around until they get to a clearing. “You’re sure this is the right road?” she says.

  “Yes,” Jeremiah says. He’s got one elbow hanging out his open window and he’s so tall, his head nearly grazes the roof. “Just keep going and we’ll drive right into it.”

  Mallory tries to relax. The adventure is in the journey. And she’d rather be here than in the cafeteria eating chicken potpie, right?

  The woods start to thin out and there’s light ahead as though they’re coming out of a tunnel. A moment later, the landscape opens up and a large silvery-blue pond lies before them. There’s a formation of ducks paddling their way across the surface.

  “It’s…it’s…” Mallory lives on a pond, Miacomet Pond, but Gibbs is different. It’s surrounded by open space and yet it’s hidden from the main roads; it’s like it’s been dropped in here, a secret. Mallory can’t believe she has been living on Nantucket this whole time without knowing this spot existed.

  “My dad has a canoe,” Jeremiah says. “The first time he brought me out here, I was six or seven and we caught a bunch of yellow perch that we took home for dinner. The pond is named for John Gibbs. He was this Native American preacher who got into trouble with his tribe and came here to hide from them. The white settlers liked Gibbs’s preaching so much that they paid the penalty he owed—eleven pounds. It’s weird, right? This happened hundreds of years ago…but the pond is still here.” Jeremiah swallows. “My parents believe that this is our island, we’re its stewards, and this is our time to care for it, so why would we go anywhere else?”

  Mallory drives closer to the pond’s edge, wishing she’d brought her camera. She turns off the engine and opens her door. She wants to see the pond up close; they’ve come all the way out here, they might as well. No one will notice if they’re five or ten minutes late getting back. Mallory doesn’t have another class until eighth period and Jeremiah is in independent study all day.

  When Mallory puts one foot out of the car, she steps in mud. She not only steps in mud, she sinks in mud, all the way to the top of her shoe. Then she sees her front tire is mired in mud as well. “Uh-oh,” she says. Jeremiah is already out of the car, standing a few feet away; his boots are caked with mud. “Jeremiah, get back in, please. I want to make sure we aren’t stuck.”

  She pulls her foot back in, starts the Blazer, and gently shifts it into reverse. When she hits the gas, the front wheels spin. Mud sprays everywhere.

  “No,” Mallory says. She is such an idiot! She puts the car into four-wheel drive. That will do it, she thinks. This is, after all, a Blazer, the toughest of all off-road vehicles, or so she likes to believe.

  Again, the wheels spin. Mud sprays everywhere; flecks hit Mallory’s face through her open window.

  Jeremiah says, “You’d better stop. You’re digging in deeper. I’ll get out and push.”

  Mallory tries not to panic. Everything is going to be fine. They will get the car unstuck. They will drive back down the horrible dirt road over the whoop-de-dos, and then they will be back on familiar turf, Milestone Road. They’ll get to school by the start of seventh period, at the latest. Mallory will wash the car by hand this weekend. She’ll buff out the pinstripes. She has never felt protective about this car anyway. It’s a road warrior. It’s supposed to take a beating.

  Jeremiah crouches in front of the car and pushes. The water is at his ankles; his boots must be flooded. Mallory can see the tendons in his neck strain; his cheeks turn red, the veins in his forehead pop. Mallory steps on the gas, praying, praying, Come on, baby, easy does it, here we go…

  The wheels spin. They take a deeper bite of the muddy earth.

  Mallory takes her foot off the gas.

  Jeremiah says, “Do you have any boards we could put under the tires?”

  She blinks. “Do I have any boards?”

  It’s a Wednesday morning. There is no one else at Gibbs Pond—no cars, no people, nothing but birds and the cloudless sky above. They’ll have to go for help. What choice do they have? Mallory tries to decide if she should send Jeremiah out to find help or leave him here with the car. Well, it’s her car and he has longer legs. She sends him out to Milestone Road.

  “Just flag down the first person you see and explain what happened,” she says. “We need someone to tow us out.”

  Jeremiah heads out on his own while Mallory gets out of the car and assesses the situation. She’s stuck. Stuck! She sits on the hood with her face in her hands and tries not to cry. She only wanted to help—but what does Kitty always say? No good deed goes unpunished. Mallory hopes that Dr. Major will understand. He already knows that Mallory feels awful about Jeremiah being left behind, so naturally she would offer to do something nice for him. A little fresh air. It’s such a gorgeous day, and everyone gets spring fever. Even Mallory.

  What our girl doesn’t predict (though the canny among us might) is that the person who drives Jeremiah back to the pond is none other than JD. He’s in the Nantucket Fire Department’s Suburban.

  Mallory can’t believe this. This is…so awkward. Mallory wonders if maybe it’s no coincidence that JD was the first person Jeremiah was able to flag down. Mallory has noticed JD driving the Suburban on the roads between the school and her house pretty frequently since they broke up. She hadn’t considered that JD was following her or checking up on her…until now
.

  JD pulls up behind the Blazer and hops out. He’s in his black uniform. Mallory used to joke about how sexy he looked in that uniform, but now she finds him intimidating.

  He inspects the front of the Blazer and lets out a low whistle. “You’re stuck, all right.”

  Mallory yearns to keep things professional. “Do you have a tow rope?”

  “I do,” JD says. “Mind telling me what you and young Mr. Freehold were doing out here at Gibbs by yourselves in the middle of the school day?”

  Mallory stares at JD, her cheeks aflame. She will not let him poison this situation with his pathological jealousy.

  But then again, how will she stop him?

  “I told you, Miss Blessing and I were having an adventure,” Jeremiah says.

  Mallory closes her eyes. She feels JD’s imagination moving as swiftly as a duck’s webbed feet beneath the calm surface of the pond.

  “An adventure,” JD says. “How about that.”

  When the seniors arrive back at school the next morning, Mallory learns that Christy Belk and, yes, Maggie Sohn sneaked out of their hotel room, crossed a highway to get to a liquor store, bought a bottle of Wild Turkey with Christy’s fake ID, smuggled it into the hotel, and shared it with their roommates, both of whom spent the early-morning hours puking their guts up.

  This, however, is not the talk of the school. The talk of the school is Jeremiah Freehold and Miss Blessing caught alone out at Gibbs Pond.

  Apple stops by to see Mallory between classes. “Please tell me it’s not true,” she says. “Please tell me you listened to my advice and left that boy alone.”

  “How did you find out?” Mallory asks.

  “How did I find out?” Apple says. “There’s been a lot of whispering, baby. A lot.”

  Oh, for God’s sake! Mallory thinks. People can’t possibly believe that anything funny was going on, can they? Mallory is stung, and worried, and crestfallen—not only because she and Jeremiah have become an object of curiosity (best-case scenario) or potential lascivious rumors (worst-case) but because in every class, she notices that her students avoid eye contact with her while simultaneously watching her every move. One of the boys slaps Jeremiah on the back.

  At the end of the school day, Mallory is called down to Dr. Major’s office. She’d expected this, even welcomed it, because she wanted a chance to explain herself. But now, after talking to Apple, she figures she’s about to get fired. She wonders if Mr. and Mrs. Freehold will be there to complain about Mallory Blessing corrupting their son.

  As soon as Dr. Major closes the door to his office, Mallory says, “I exercised horrible judgment, sir. I thought it would be okay to go for a ride during lunch. I felt so sorry for him. But I know how it looks and I understand why you have to let me go.” Only in the last few hours has it occurred to her how bad the situation might appear to others. She and Jeremiah went to Gibbs Pond alone. A female teacher and a male student. He is eighteen—but still. What were Leland’s words back in New York? It’s unseemly. How about some self-respect? Has Mallory learned nothing in the past two years? Has she not grown up at all? That’s what it feels like. She’s back at square one.

  “Let you go?” Dr. Major says. “I’m not giving up on my most promising teacher. Are you kidding me?”

  Mallory keeps her job, but the incident with Jeremiah Freehold casts a pall over her summer. It feels like everywhere Mallory goes, people are avoiding her, whispering about her. She lives in mortal fear of bumping into Jeremiah or his parents; she wishes she knew what they drove so she could scan the parking lot at the Stop and Shop before venturing inside.

  She decided earlier in the spring that she would not return to work at the Summer House pool; she wanted to enjoy a real teacher’s summer off. But a week into vacation, this feels like an unwise choice. Apple is away—she took a job as head counselor at a camp for disadvantaged girls in North Carolina—and without her friend, Mallory finds herself feeling lonely.

  She wants to call Jake but she can’t. When they parted the last time, they agreed they would call for only four reasons: engagement, marriage, pregnancy, or death.

  How will I know if you’re coming back next year? Mallory asked.

  I’m coming back every year, Jake said. No matter what.

  Mallory accepted that answer, but a year is a long time and a lot can happen. Last summer, Jake had the convenient excuse of Cooper to bring him back up to Nantucket. But what about this year? What is he going to tell Ursula?

  Maybe he and Ursula broke up, she thinks. It’s not impossible.

  Mallory is desperate for company. She calls Cooper and invites him to come for the weekend.

  “The rest of my summer is booked,” Cooper says. “Alison and I are in Vegas this weekend, then we have tickets to see Mary Chapin Carpenter at Wolf Trap the next weekend with Jake and Ursula, then we’re going to Denver, then to Nashville.”

  “Ah,” Mallory says. It feels like she’s been hit in the forehead with a poison dart. Jake and Ursula have not broken up. They’re a couple, doing couple things with other couples. “So, you and Alison…I guess it’s more than just a rebound?”

  “Definitely more than a rebound, Mal,” Coop says in his overly patient old-soul voice. “Why would you even suggest that?”

  Oh, I don’t know, Mallory thinks. Maybe because you started up with Alison less than a month after your wife left? “I’m happy for you,” Mallory says. “Have fun.”

  She plays “Everybody Hurts” umpteen times in a row one night and drinks a bottle of wine by herself. This is a low point. The lowest, she hopes. The next day, she calls Leland, but the phone at Leland’s apartment has been disconnected. What? Has Leland moved? Tracking Leland down requires a phone call home to Kitty, who can get Leland’s new number from Geri Gladstone. A call with Kitty is never a simple thing; Mallory limits her communications with her parents to once every two weeks. It’s always the same; her mother talks about tennis, what’s happening at the country club, and her perennials bed, which is (apparently) the envy of Deepdene Road. Then she’ll ask about Mallory’s love life. Kitty didn’t approve of JD (no surprise there) and so she was relieved to hear about the breakup, but her pestering has grown tiresome. (“There are wealthy men on Nantucket, Mallory, out on those big yachts. You might meet one if you ever got out of your cutoffs and put on a dress.”) Kitty will then ask when Mallory plans to leave Nantucket and “rejoin civilization.”

  On this call, as on every call, Mallory says, “I’m here for the foreseeable future, Mom.”

  To which Kitty replies, “Oh, darling.” Heavy sigh. “Your father wants to say hello.”

  “Leland’s number, Mom!” Mallory calls out as a reminder.

  But it’s Senior who responds. “She’s already on her way over to Geri’s. She’ll be gone an hour, so thank you. The Orioles are playing.”

  Turns out, Leland has moved from Eighty-Second Street to Greenwich Village.

  “Apparently her block is quite gentrified,” Kitty says.

  Mallory rolls her eyes. Kitty’s idea of New York City is frozen in 1978; she thinks everyone who lives in the Village looks like Sid and Nancy. “It’s all gentrified now, Mom.”

  “Well,” Kitty says. “I’m surprised you didn’t know Leland moved.”

  “I haven’t talked to Leland since the holidays,” Mallory confesses. The day after Christmas, Mallory and Leland had lunch in Baltimore at Louie’s Bookstore Café; Leland was leaving the next day to go back to New York. Their conversation was stilted because their lives were so different. Leland had been promoted to the features editor of Bard and Scribe. She boasted about her upcoming interview with Fiella Roget, the twenty-four-year-old Haitian woman whose novel Shimmy Shimmy was “all anyone in the city is talking about.” In turn, Mallory had bored Leland to tears by describing her life at the high school and how she hung out with JD while he played darts at the Muse.

  Mallory feels guilty that she hasn’t called Leland before now, but the l
onger she waited, the more onerous catching up seemed. This will be good, though—calling for a concrete reason, to invite Leland for the weekend.

  An unfamiliar female voice answers at Leland’s new number. “Allô?”

  “Hello?” Mallory says. “I’m looking for Leland Gladstone?”

  “One moment, plisss,” the voice says.

  There’s whispering. Or maybe Mallory is imagining that? She’s lying on her porch in the sun because that’s where she feels the safest, gazing at the ocean in her front yard.

  I am lucky, Mallory thinks. I am blessed.

  I am so, so lonely, she thinks. She’s not sure what she’ll do if Leland turns her down.

  “Hello?”

  “Lee?” Mallory says.

  “Mal?” Leland says. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, hi, how are you? Kitty got your number from Geri, I didn’t realize you’d moved, and I was busy with the end of the school year, and anyway, I’d love for you to come visit this weekend, or next weekend…” Mallory is talking too fast. She’s nervous. She can’t imagine why—for years, she and Leland were as close as Siamese twins. But that’s the issue, she supposes. They were once so close that now it feels awkward to be not as close, though Mallory knows this is what happens when you grow up: paths diverge, people lose touch. Mallory didn’t know that Leland had moved. She doesn’t know who just answered the phone. Leland’s new roommate, presumably.

  There’s a sigh from Leland—annoyed? regretful?