28 Summers

by Elin Hilderbrand

  No sooner does Jake leave PharmX than he gets sick. Really sick—a high fever with aches and chills. He sweats, he’s freezing. He sleeps during the day and is awake in a dazed stupor all night. Ursula is sympathetic at first. Poor baby, she says. She rubs his back and places a bowl of ice cubes on his nightstand. She sleeps on the daybed in the living room because she “can’t afford to catch it.” She works even longer hours than she did for the SEC but Jake gets it, she’s in M and A, it’s a twenty-four-hour thing, plus she wants to make partner so that they can eventually have some kind of life. She asks Mrs. Rowley down the hall to do a pharmacy run—Advil, Tylenol—and she finds a deli that delivers soup.

  The phone rings and messages pile up—it’s Cooper, it’s Jake’s mother, it’s Ursula’s mother, it’s Jake’s father, it’s Warren from PharmX, it’s his buddy Cody saying he has a lead for a lobbying job at a “big-time” organization. Jake is too sick to answer. The messages from his parents and Lynette are urging him to go to the doctor. (“Otherwise we’ll fly out there,” his father says, only half kidding. They lost a child, so no illness is taken lightly. But Jake also knows his parents are too busy to fly to Washington, just like Ursula is too busy to take half a day off to accompany him to the emergency room.)

  On day seven, when there has been no improvement and Jake is lying in bed, weak and shaking, with a fever of 103, barely able to get to the bathroom, Ursula appears in her light gray suit and her sharp stiletto heels and says, “Enough is enough. We’re going to the hospital.”

  Turns out he has a staph infection in his bloodstream, probably from the root canal. Did he take all of his antibiotics? He can’t remember. Well, it hardly matters now; he’s earned himself a two-night stay at Georgetown Hospital on intravenous antibiotics. Jake knows the names of these specific drugs only too well, and he also knows these drugs are a hospital’s last line of defense. He is profoundly sick, almost-dying sick. He shudders to think of how close he came to letting the infection rage on. Ursula taking action saved his life.

  “You saved my life,” he says.

  “You’re going to be fine,” she says, kissing his forehead. “And besides, it wasn’t me. Your mother called.” Liz McCloud is the one woman in the world who intimidates Ursula; this has been true since they were in middle school, back when Jessica was still alive. Apparently, Liz called Ursula’s work and with surgical precision sliced away the layers of paralegals meant to protect her time until she had Ursula herself on the phone, and then Liz McCloud was even more formidable than her usual formidable self. Get my son to the hospital, Ursula. Now. I don’t mean three billable hours from now. I mean now.

  Twenty-four hours later, Jake feels much better. By the middle of the second day, he’s sitting up in bed eating a tuna fish sandwich and rice pudding, watching The Montel Williams Show with a nurse named Gloria.

  Ursula comes to collect Jake at the end of his stay, but she seems quiet—not distracted, not snippy, just quiet. Jake wonders if maybe his unexpected illness has made her introspective. When he asks her what’s wrong, she shakes her head and fiddles with the new cell phone that the firm insists she carry so they can get hold of her any hour of the day. She flips it up, then snaps it down. Is she angry? He can’t tell.

  At home, she gets him settled into bed—the sheets, he notices, have been changed—and she brings him a glass of ice water with his pills. He still has two weeks of two different antibiotics, neither of which can be taken on an empty stomach, so she’s also brought in the takeout menus from Vapiano’s and I-Thai.

  “Unfortunately, I have to go back to the office,” she says.

  “Okay,” he says. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Warren called and said the person who took over your office found something you left behind. Warren stopped by this morning to drop it off.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t need it,” Jake says, and then suddenly, his gut, which feels like glass anyway, goes into free fall. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  “He dropped off an envelope,” Ursula says. “Looks like pictures. I didn’t open it because…well, because it’s not mine. Warren says the guy found them hidden inside the code-of-conduct pamphlet and thought you’d probably want them back.”

  “Pictures?” Jake says. “Hidden? Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest.” He’s just going to deny they’re his, the pictures of Mallory. Mallory driving, Mallory sleeping, Mallory laughing at the TV as Alan Alda bangs on the piano and sings “If I Knew You Were Coming, I’d’ve Baked a Cake.” “I don’t know what those would be, and as I’m sure you’re aware, I never even picked up the code of conduct. Maybe the pictures were left by the guy before me.”

  Ursula nods once. “Maybe,” she says.

  Jake waits for Ursula to leave the apartment and then he waits half an hour longer, just in case. He climbs out of bed, his legs weak, his gut watery, as he approaches the mail table. Lying on top of a ceramic platter that someone gave them as a wedding gift—mistaking them for people who entertained—is the packet of photos. The envelope says QUIK PIC in clownish red letters and just below that is Jake’s name and his office phone number in his own handwriting. Ursula obviously knows the pictures don’t belong to anyone else.

  But did she look at them?

  Did she look at them?

  Did she?

  Jake holds the pictures in one shaking hand. She must have peeked at one or two, right? Just to see what they were? And if she did, she would have seen Mallory. Jake hadn’t taken a picture of anything else—not the beach, not the pond, not the ocean—which means Ursula might not have realized the pictures were taken on Nantucket, and she might not have recognized Mallory.

  No, she definitely would’ve recognized Mallory if she’d looked. She had noticed Jake dancing with Mallory at Cooper’s wedding and she’d commented on it, which meant it bothered her. She was jealous, and a jealous woman did not forget. But Mallory had been in full hair and makeup at the wedding, so maybe…

  Ursula didn’t look at the photos, he decides. She would have stormed in and demanded an explanation. And what would Jake possibly have said?

  The truth. He would have told her the truth. That’s Mallory Blessing, Cooper’s sister. She is my Same Time Next Year.

  It’s possible that Ursula didn’t look because she sensed that whatever was inside would be a relationship-ender. After all, Jake doesn’t even own a camera.

  He doesn’t look at the pictures himself because it will only make what he has to do more difficult. He opens the apartment door and walks to the far end of the hall, where the incinerator is. He opens the door; he and Ursula call it the mouth of hell because it sounds like there’s a fire-breathing dragon down there. He holds the pictures for a moment and tries to talk himself off the ledge. They’re just photographs, images on paper. It’s not like he’s throwing Mallory herself into the fire. Still, he imagines her beauty curling into itself as it melts, distorting her features, blackening, then turning to smoke and ash. He can’t do it—but a trip to the street to throw them away is beyond him.

  He lets the envelope go.

  When he gets back to the apartment, he’s sweating and shaking. He should toss the other envelope as well, the one with the sand dollars and the fortunes.

  But no, sorry, he can’t do it. He has to hold on to something.

  When Jake regains his health, he finds himself at a loss. What has been going on with his job search? Nothing, that’s what, because he’s been so sick, and there’s no denying that quitting his job has left him in no-man’s-land. They have plenty of money, so Jake buys himself a new Gateway computer, sets up his own personal e-mail account, and polishes his résumé. He establishes a routine—he goes for a morning run in East Potomac Park, then buys the Washington Post on his way home and peruses the classifieds. He toys with going back to school, even medical school, but in his heart, he doesn’t want to be a doctor. He thinks again of becoming a teacher, like Mallory. He envisions himself overseeing labs and g
iving quizzes on the periodic table.

  He likes people, he likes talking to people, he likes advocating for the things he believes in. He should go into development, fund-raising. He has no qualms about calling people up and asking for money. He contacts the alumni office at Johns Hopkins. They invite him down for an interview and offer him a job on the spot. They’re no dummies; Jake was a popular, well-liked, and successful student at Hopkins, president of the Interfraternity Council and a member of Blue Key, giving tours to prospective students. Who better to represent Johns Hopkins than Jake McCloud?

  But the job is in Baltimore; it would be a commute, and presently he and Ursula have no car. He could take the train up each day, he supposes, but something about the job doesn’t feel quite right. It doesn’t feel like he’s stretching himself enough. He wants to grow.

  Ursula is patient and encouraging but the bubble over her head says: Just figure it out, already! It also says: I am too busy to get into the foxhole with you. (The bubble over her head always says this, no matter which foxhole it is.) Jake can sense her interest in him waning. She is so immersed in work—big companies gobbling up little companies like a corporate game of Pac-Man—that he can tell she has to remind herself to ask about his day. She’s careful not to offer too many hard opinions. You want to work at Hopkins, then work at Hopkins—although when he turned the job down, he could see she was relieved. Or maybe she was disappointed? Maybe she wanted to be able to tell people that her husband “works at Johns Hopkins” (she wouldn’t have to say “in the development office” and she wouldn’t have to mention it was his alma mater). Maybe she wanted him to have a long commute so they would never see each other.

  In June, Ursula gets assigned to a merger in Las Vegas.

  She flies out there for a week. The firm puts her and her team up at the Bellagio; Ursula has a suite. She flies home for the weekend, then flies back, then does the same the following week. But then one Friday she calls to say her meetings ran late, she missed her flight, and she’s just going to stay in Vegas for the weekend. “In fact, it doesn’t make sense for me to keep going back and forth,” she says. “I should just stay out here until the deal is finished.”

  “Okay?” Jake says. “Is that what Anders is doing?”

  “Anders?” Ursula says. “I mean, yeah, that’s what the whole team has been doing. I’m the only one going back and forth. Well, except for Silver, but he has kids.”

  “The team” is only four people—Ursula, Anders Jorgensen, a colleague named Mark something, and Hank Silver, Ursula’s boss. Anders is single, Mark is single and gay, Hank is married with five kids, all of whom play squash and have tournaments literally every weekend. Hank goes home because his wife insists on it; it’s just not possible to have five kids playing squash and only one parent present. Anders was once a linebacker at USC, which gives him a non-work-related rapport with Ursula because of the famous USC–Notre Dame rivalry. Ursula can talk college football like no other woman Jake or Anders has ever met.

  Is Jake jealous of Anders? Well… “Oh, okay,” Jake says. He is jealous, but he won’t succumb to this base emotion, he’s hardly innocent himself—and besides, to act jealous of Anders will only make Anders appear bigger and Jake smaller. “Enjoy. Get some sleep.”

  “Why don’t you come here next weekend?” Ursula says. “I think you’d actually like it.”

  When Jake lands in Vegas, it’s 111 degrees. He flew coach because he didn’t feel right using Ursula’s miles to upgrade to first class when he was contributing exactly zero to their household income. He arrives tired and foul-tempered and therefore finds nothing to appreciate in either the desert landscape or the skyline, which looks, from a distance, like some kid forgot to pick up his toys. Jake’s taxi cruises past the iconic WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS sign and within moments they are on the Strip. Jake’s taxi driver, Merlin, takes it upon himself to act as Jake’s personal tour guide. (Merlin can tell that this particular fellow will be difficult to impress. Merlin concedes that Vegas isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t stop him from flexing his powers of persuasion. He points out the Stratosphere with the roller coaster at the top; Circus Circus; the Mirage, where the white tigers live; Treasure Island, with a pirate show out front every hour on the hour; the Venetian, which has canals winding through it and singing gondoliers; Caesars Palace; Paris; New York–New York, with a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop inside; Excalibur; Luxor; and Mandalay Bay, which has a Four Seasons Hotel in one of its towers. Merlin pulls up to the Bellagio. “This is the jewel in the crown,” Merlin says, and he believes it. Sometimes he smokes a joint and watches the dancing fountain show out front three, four times in a row.

  He hands the fellow a card. “Fifty percent off Cirque du Soleil,” Merlin says. “Call me.”

  “Thanks,” the fellow says. His voice is flat but that doesn’t mean he won’t call, Merlin thinks. It can take time for Vegas to grow on you.)

  At check-in, it’s discovered that Ursula has forgotten to put Jake’s name on the room, so the front-desk clerk, Kwasi, can’t give him a key.

  “But I’m her husband,” Jake says.

  “I understand your position,” Kwasi says. “And I hope you understand mine.” (Kwasi’s position is that maybe this guy is Ursula de Gournsey’s husband, maybe he’s not—but even if he is her husband, she might not want him in her room.) Kwasi slides a ten-dollar poker chip across the desk, which Jake accepts before he even realizes what it is.

  He says, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  (Kwasi thinks, If you have to ask …) He smiles. “I recommend the roulette wheel.”

  Jake finds a pay phone and calls Ursula’s cell. He gets her voicemail and hangs up. The point of her cell phone, he thought, was so that people could reach her night and day. But likely she’s cloistered with her team in meetings—except that it’s six o’clock and Ursula told him that morning, which now feels like three days ago, that she would wrap up at four because Silver needed to catch a flight back to his family.

  Jake decides to sit on the banquette by the main elevators and wait. He has a book with him—Plainsong, by Kent Haruf, which is spare, haunting, and precisely the opposite of what he should be reading when he’s already feeling abandoned. To pull it out and read amid the exuberant go-for-broke atmosphere of the lobby, with its lights and sound of raining coins, its smoky haze and smell of rye whiskey, would make him seem hopelessly square. He has a ten-dollar chip. He should use it.

  He doesn’t know the first thing about gambling and he’s worried about making an ass of himself if he sits down to blackjack or tries to throw craps. The slots don’t interest him in the slightest. What did Kwasi say? The roulette wheel.

  It’s as easy as placing the chip on a number, right? He watches the ball drop and wheel spin three times—twenty-three, four, thirty-five. What number should he pick? He thinks about Mallory’s birthday, March 11, but he’s never been with her on her birthday or, per their arrangement, even called her on it.

  He chooses nine for their month, September; he sets his chip down on the red nine and thinks, All or nothing. It was free money, anyway.

  And guess what.

  Nine wins.

  It wins.

  Jake lets out a whoop as his one chip turns into a pile of chips. That was incredible, right? Ha! His very first try, he won!

  “I won!” he says to the woman next to him. She’s older, smoking a cigarillo. Her lipstick has bled into the lines around her mouth. “And that was the first time I ever gambled!”

  (The woman’s name is Glynnis. She wants to tell this kid that beginner’s luck isn’t just a Santa Claus myth. It’s more predictable than death.) “Do yourself a favor,” she says. “Cash out.”

  But Jake doesn’t cash out. Instead, he takes half his chips and places them on five, for May, which is the month of Ursula’s birth, and twenty, which is the day.

  The number that wins is, again, nine.

  Jake blinks. Nine again? His money is swept
away.

  Glynnis exhales a stream of cigarillo smoke and says, “This town runs on fools like you.”

  It has taken Jake less than five minutes to experience the highs and lows that Vegas has to offer. He returns to the pay phone, tries Ursula’s cell again—voicemail. He supposes the natural next step is to go to the bar and wait. The Bellagio is actually quite lovely. There’s a Dale Chihuly glass ceiling, Fiori di Como, that he could be very happy staring at as he sips a bourbon.

  But his present state of mind is one of exasperation. He came all the way here to see his wife and not only is she not answering her phone but she neglected to add his name to the room. Her consideration for him is nonexistent. It has always been nonexistent. Why has he tolerated it for so long?

  Well, no matter now. He’s leaving. He’ll catch the redeye home.

  But he can’t find the exit. He can’t even find the front desk to ask where the exit is. He must have made a wrong turn and now he has been engulfed by the casino proper—rows and rows of slot machines, acres of blackjack and Texas Hold’em and craps and the now-dreaded roulette wheels. There are cocktail waitresses wearing black satin bustiers gliding around like they’re on skates. Three of them ask what he’s drinking. He says he’s looking for the nearest exit and they turn and glide away.

  I give up, Jake thinks. How about a bar, then, just a good old-fashioned bar? But in this part of the hotel, those seem to have disappeared as well.

  Miraculously, he finds his way back to the main elevator bank and that’s it, he’s staying put. He pulls out his book, wondering exactly what Ursula thought he would like about this place.

  “Jake?”

  It’s his wife, standing before him, wearing a pale pink suit and nude patent-leather pumps. Her hair is down; it’s longer than he remembers, or maybe that’s because she blew it out today, and it’s parted on the side. She is so stunning that there can’t possibly be a man on this earth worthy of her, himself included.