Free 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand Page B

ice-skating rink) and where they’d lost their virginity to each other (in Ursula’s bedroom their junior year in high school while Mr. and Mrs. de Gournsey were away on a research trip in Kuala Lumpur). After Ursula graduated from Notre Dame, it was as though she had graduated from South Bend, from the state of Indiana, from the Midwest. Jake couldn’t believe she’d come back of her own volition, without him prompting/urging/forcing her to.
    It seemed notable.
    Before he spoke, he noted how thin Ursula was—way thinner than she’d been when they parted at the end of August. Her cheekbones jutted out, her wrists were as skinny as sticks, and her chest, beneath her sweater and parka, seemed concave. She was holding a pizza but Jake knew how Ursula ate pizza—she pulled off the cheese and the toppings until it was just sauce and bread and then she took one bite.
    If he mentioned her weight, she’d get defensive.
    “Do you want to get a drink later?” he asked. “At the Linebacker?”
    “Sure,” she said.
    One hour and four Leinenkugel’s between them was all it took before they were making out in the front seat of Jake’s old Datsun like the teenagers they had once been.
    They ended up flying back east together and sharing a taxi from Dulles to Dupont Circle. Ursula debated staying with Jake that night but opted to return to her own apartment. It was as she got out of the cab in front of the Sedgewick that she said it. “If we break up again, we break up for good.”
    Jake lived every day as though it might be his last day with Ursula. It felt a little bit like he was cheating death; he knew the end was coming, but when? It would have been a terrible way to live, except that Ursula was trying. She picked up the invitation to Cooper’s wedding from Jake’s desk and said, “Have you already RSVP’d to this?”
    “Uh,” Jake said, “no, but I mean, yeah. I’m standing up. I’m a groomsman.”
    Ursula tilted her head. In the two weeks since they’d been back together, she’d started looking better. Not any heavier, but she did have slightly more color. Ursula’s paternal grandmother was from a town in the French Pyrenees close to the Spanish border, and Ursula had inherited her looks—hair like sable and a touch of olive to her skin. When she was outside in the sun, she turned bronze in a matter of minutes, but since she lived almost exclusively indoors, her skin tended to look jaundiced. Now, however, there was pink in her cheeks.
    “I want to go to this,” she said. “I like Cooper.”
    “Ah,” Jake said. “Well…”
    “You don’t want to bring me?” Ursula said. She studied the invitation. “Cooper hates me now? He thinks I’ve been jerking you around? He thinks we’re toxic together?”
    “It’s not that,” Jake said. “I don’t talk about…I’ve never said anything bad about you.” This was mostly true, but Jake must have drunkenly slandered Ursula at some point in front of Coop. Every single one of Jake’s friends knew that Ursula was his kryptonite.
    “Who is Krystel Bethune?” Ursula said. “I haven’t met a Krystel. I would have remembered.”
    Right. Ursula was particular about names. Her litmus test had always been, Is your name suitable for a Supreme Court justice? Safe to say, in Ursula’s opinion, there would never be a Supreme Court justice named Krystel. This was a perfect example of why people disliked Ursula.
    “He met her back in the spring,” Jake said. “At the Old Ebbitt Grill.” Jake didn’t bother mentioning that Krystel had been Cooper’s waitress; Ursula would have had a field day with that.
    “This country club is nice, I’ve heard,” Ursula said. “Old railroad money. Tell them I’ll be your plus-one, will you?”
    “Um…” Jake said. He didn’t want to take Ursula to Cooper’s wedding. He hadn’t thought it would be an issue. Ursula was always working and she didn’t like to leave the District for any reason. It was like she was