“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Leland says. “I’ve been happier the past twenty-four hours than I’ve been…maybe ever.”
This statement nearly brings Fray to tears. He hasn’t been this happy maybe ever, either. He thinks back to his much younger self, glaring at the pay phone in his freshman dorm after just having hung up on Leland, who was back in her bedroom on Deepdene Road in Baltimore. What had they been arguing about? Who knows—maybe Fray told her he was pledging a fraternity, maybe she told him she and Mallory were going to a party with boys from Gilman. He then pictures himself in the back of Mallory’s Blazer, calling Leland every swear word he knew under his breath after she strolled off to 21 Federal with Kip Sudbury.
He had no idea then that all he needed for things to finally be perfect between him and Leland was patience. A lot of patience.
Bess
Everything about her Friday evening improves all at once. Not only has she traded up in the date department—she bumped into Link Dooley, a boy she has thought about ever since she met him on Nantucket three years earlier—but she is also leaving behind the Drake-and-buffalo-wings scene at Roofers Union for Lapis, her favorite restaurant in the District.
Lapis is quiet and elegant; it gives off strong bistro vibes, only with sitar music. The owner, Shamin, gives Bess a smile when she sees her enter with Link. Shamin leads them to one of the tables in the window. Bess thanks her profusely even though, because of the conversation she’s about to have, she would prefer a table tucked behind one of the latticed wooden screens.
“Wow,” Link says. “You get star treatment.”
“I come here a lot,” Bess says. She doesn’t mention that this was the one place in DC where Ursula would eat in public while she was campaigning. Shamin made every accommodation to ensure that Ursula, Jake, and Bess were comfortable.
“I love bolani,” Link says. “And qabuli palau.”
“The palau here is off the chain,” Bess says. “It’s made with cinnamon rice.”
“We have to get the halwa for dessert,” Link says.
Bess beams. Link really does like Afghan food. All she can imagine is the lobbyist looking at the menu and ordering a chicken kebab and French fries.
“Let’s get the pakoras to start,” she says. She wants to pinch herself. How did she get so lucky?
Once they’re settled with a glass of Albariño for Bess and a beer for Link, Bess realizes this happiness comes with a price: She has promised to tell Link what was going on between her father and his mother.
Link tears a piece off his flat oval of bolani and dips it in yogurt sauce, then raises his eyes to Bess. He’s better-looking than any lobbyist, she decides. She loves his shaggy blond hair and his bluish-green eyes that remind her of the ocean the day she first met him.
“So your dad told you what was going on?” Link says.
“He told me on the way back to St. Louis after we saw you,” Bess says. She busies herself with her own bolani. Her father made her solemnly swear never to tell a soul, and she had promised. She understood the gravity of the situation at the time: Her mother was running for president and there could be no scandalous family secrets floating to the surface. If Bess told her best friend, Pageant, or Kasie, the campaign manager, in a moment of weakness, it would be all over. Her father was entrusting her with a secret he’d kept longer than she’d been alive. She realized that he was telling her because she was the one who had made the trip to Nantucket with him, because she’d asked him what the whole thing meant, because he loved her, because he was sodden with emotions when he left Mallory’s bedside holding the rented guitar, because Mallory was a day or two from death and by telling Bess what had happened between them, he was keeping Mallory alive.
Their circumstances were different now, of course. Ursula had lost the election and she was no longer in public life. No one cared about Ursula de Gournsey and Jake McCloud anymore; their divorce hadn’t even been noted by the press. It wouldn’t matter who Bess told about this secret now, but she still felt guilty because it was her father’s story to tell and not hers. What would he think about Bess sharing it with Lincoln Dooley?
Well, he would either be appalled or he would think that Link deserved the truth, just as Bess did.
She’ll go with the second choice since she can’t very well back out now. Link is looking at her expectantly.
“They had an affair,” Bess says. “One weekend a year. Labor Day weekend, actually.”
Link’s brow creases. “Does that have anything to do with why everyone is up on Nantucket this weekend?”
“They’re reliving the summer of 1993—that’s when your mom and my dad met. Your uncle and your dad were there too.”
“Ahhhh,” Link says. “Thirty years ago.”
“Yup.”
“So did they see each other only on Labor Day weekend?”
“Yes. Always on Nantucket. From 1993 until, well, 2020.”
“Where was I when this was happening?” Link asks. He looks at Bess as though she might have the answer. “You know what? I always, always spent Labor Day weekend out in Seattle with my dad. All through growing up, I did that. Except for one year I went to DC to see my uncle. And another year, I went with an old girlfriend to New York City.”
Bess feels herself bristling at the mention of an old girlfriend. “My dad said they met every single Labor Day weekend no matter what. Always at your cottage. They never missed a year.”
“And nobody found out?” Link says. “Your mom never found out?”
A server sets their order of pakoras on the table; they’re golden brown, fragrant, and still too hot to touch, never mind eat. Bess thanks him and points to her wineglass. She’s definitely going to need another.
“My mom found out, or suspected, anyway. She went to Nantucket in 2019 to confront Mallory.”
Link’s eyes widen. “She…”
“She was running for president. She didn’t think she could have it coming to light.”
“Why did she go to Nantucket? Why didn’t she just talk to your dad?”
“She was afraid my dad would leave her,” Bess says. “She believed the only person who could put an end to the affair was your mom.”
Link leans back in his chair and takes a sip of his beer. Bess nudges the plate of pakoras toward him. He takes one and blows on it.
“I’ll ask the obvious question. Why didn’t your dad just leave your mom earlier? Why didn’t he leave her in year five or ten or fifteen? My mother—” Link sets the fritter down without tasting it and stares out the window. “She never got married. She had boyfriends when she was young and she hooked up with my dad, obviously, and there was a guy she was serious about when I was little, but that didn’t work out. She was alone. I could never understand it, my friends didn’t get it—so many of them thought she was super hot. My grandma used to get on her case all the time about meeting someone.” He sets his elbows on the table and drops his head in his hands. “Now, all I can think is that she wasted her life, year after year, waiting for Labor Day weekend to roll around. How do you live like that? Only seeing the person you love three or four days a year?”