Link takes a breath, and Bess wonders: Does he not want to come up? Was something wrong with her kissing?
Link says, “I feel like I should let you know something.”
“Okay?” Bess says.
“Seeing you once a year isn’t going to be enough for me,” he says. “So if we’re following in our parents’ footsteps or fulfilling their thwarted destiny or whatever, that part has to change.”
Bess pulls out her key. She can’t hide her smile. “Deal,” she says.
Cooper
On Saturday, Cooper wakes up at noon. Noon! When is the last time he’s done that? College? High school? He’s an up-at-the-crack-of-dawn, seize-the-day kind of guy. A morning person. But when he finally unsticks his eyelids, he can’t deny he lacks any motivation to get up off the wide, comfortable sofa.
Except that he’s the host here.
Ever so gently he lifts his head from the cushion and gazes around the room. Nobody is in the cottage, though he hears voices on the beach. Coop swings his feet to the floor and stands up. He overdid it—drank too much, stayed out too late. Deep inside him, like a coin dropped in a well, rests a small sense of accomplishment: He closed the Chicken Box!
The person he would like to tell this to is Stacey.
He pours himself a giant glass of ice water and heads out to the beach where Jake, Leland, and Fray are enjoying the sun. Jake is in his trunks sitting in a chair with a book open on his chest; his hair is wet. Fray and Leland are lying side by side on a blanket. Leland is in a black tank suit and a straw hat and Fray is beside her. Something is funny about that. Cooper squints, it’s bright outside, and he goes inside for his sunglasses. When he comes back out, he sees that Fray and Leland’s legs are intertwined in a way that looks more than friendly.
“Hello, all,” Coop says, collapsing in an empty chair.
“How you feeling, old man?” Fray asks. Coop can see that Fray is also stroking Leland’s shoulder. Ohhhhkay.
Jake says, “Want me to make you an omelet? You must be starving.”
Coop feels queasy. “I think I’ll go for a swim first, then see if I can handle food.”
“So listen,” Fray says. “I booked a sunset sail on the Endeavor for Leland and me tonight and then I got the two of us a highly sought-after reservation at the Boarding House. I’ve heard their lobster spaghetti absolutely slaps. So I hope that’s cool with you…”
Sunset sail? Lobster spaghetti? What does that mean, it “slaps”？ The “for Leland and me” part he understands; Fray and Leland want to go to dinner alone. Coop made a nine thirty reservation for the four of them at Nautilus, but who is he kidding? He’s not up for sitting down to dinner at nine thirty; he’ll fall asleep in his bao buns. He’ll cancel Nautilus. He and Jake can get a pizza and watch college football. He feels a bit bummed that they aren’t doing something all together, but he can’t ignore his relief. He has been set free of expectations.
Coop spends the afternoon waiting for the fog in his head to clear. The swim helps a little and the pillowy omelet that Jake serves him with two pieces of toasted Something Natural herb bread soaks up the beer and the shot of tequila he did the night before. （The tequila had been handed to him by a member of a bachelor party who called him “Pops.”）
He sits on the beach for a while but the sun makes his headache worse. Jake suggests hair of the dog—he’s drinking a Dark and Stormy—but Coop can’t think about alcohol.
Fray and Leland disappear inside and Coop says to Jake, “Did something happen between them?”
“They have a thing,” Jake deadpans. “A thing that refuses to die.”
“Since the mid-eighties,” Coop says. He lowers his voice. “I thought Leland liked women?”
Jake shrugs.
Jake dozes off in his chair and Coop heads inside to grab a Coke, thinking some caffeine might help. He sees Fray and Leland pop out of Mallory’s bedroom all dressed up. “Dressed up” for Fray is jeans and a white button-down shirt that looks like it could have been pulled off the rack at Sears but probably is by an Italian designer and costs eleven hundred dollars. Leland is wearing a fitted black dress; after only one afternoon in the sun, she’s tan.
“Have fun, kids,” Coop says. He is looking at Frazier Dooley and Leland Gladstone in 2023, but he’s also having a flashback to Fray and Leland standing up against the cinderblock wall outside the Calvert Hall boys’ locker room after one of Fray’s lacrosse games. Rumor around the school was that Leland gave him special “favors” if he scored a goal.