The Sixth Wedding by Elin Hilderbrand
Fray
He wakes up on Saturday to two missed calls and three text message alerts from DEAD TO ME, who is Anna, his ex-wife. Fray won’t take the bait. He sets his phone down on the nightstand, rolls over, and gathers Leland up in his arms.
She stirs as he kisses her shoulder. “Good morning,” she whispers. “I’m happy to see this wasn’t all just a dream.”
“Not a dream,” Fray says, and he moves his mouth from her shoulder to the curve of her neck. “I’m real.”
They make love again, quietly, because the cottage is small and despite the grand renovation, you can still hear people thinking in the next room. Fray hasn’t felt this kind of unbridled desire in four decades; it’s like he’s back in high school. In the summer of 1985, Fray and Leland used to sneak out in the middle of the night to skinny dip in the country club pool, then have sex on the tennis courts. The difference between now and then is that Fray knows what he’s doing, and so does Leland. She spent over ten years in a relationship with a woman, an idea that Fray finds sexy.
When Cooper told Fray that Leland would be coming on this reunion weekend, Fray never imagined they would end up in bed together. He’d been too wrapped up in the drama and pain surrounding his split from Anna. Getting involved with another woman, even his long-ago first love, was the furthest thing from his mind.
But chemistry is chemistry—and Fray and Leland have always had it.
Things had started to seem promising the night before, after Jake and Coop left for the Chicken Box. Fray didn’t have many rules when it came to his sobriety, but no bars was one, and Leland said she didn’t want to go either. Fray thought maybe she was just tired—they were older now; at home, Fray liked to be in bed by nine, something Anna found maddening— but as soon as they heard the Jeep rumble off down the no-name road, Leland grabbed a blanket from a basket by the sofa and said, “Come with me.”
She spread the blanket out on the beach. She lay down and patted the spot next to her.
The second Fray opened his eyes to the starry sky above and listened to the crash and roll of the waves, he decided to share a realization he’d had earlier but had seemed too private to talk about at dinner.
“It’s the thirtieth anniversary of my sobriety,” he said.
“Tonight?”
“The Friday of Labor Day weekend thirty years ago, yes,” he said. “Do you remember that night? You and I and Mal and Jake went to the Box, and Coop stayed home to talk to Krystel. I went to the bar to get you a chardonnay. You very specifically asked for one from the Russian River Valley, I’ll never forget that, and they didn’t have it, of course, they didn’t have any white wine, only wine coolers, so I got you a beer instead, but then I couldn’t find you. So I checked outside and you were with that preppy kid from the city. You left with him.”
“That was Kip Sudbury,” Leland said.
Kip Sudbury: The name rang a bell, one more recent than that night thirty years ago. Was he a Wall Street guy? A hedge fund guy?
“He was involved in that bond scandal back in…”
“Oh, right,” Fray said.
“He took me to 21 Federal to meet his friends and the next day we went sailing on his father’s yacht.”
“Well, I sat in the back of Mal’s Blazer and drank by myself until the bar closed,” Fray said. Memory was a slippery thing. Fray couldn’t remember what he’d been served for lunch on his plane earlier that day but he could vividly picture himself in his Nirvana T-shirt, smoldering like a red-hot coal in the back of Mal’s car. He remembered being tempted to go with Leland and her New York friends because he’d thought he read some apprehension in her expression—but then Fray realized that what Leland feared was him coming along. She didn’t want him to embarrass her, and expose her for the regular Baltimore girl she was. “And then when we got back to the cottage, we realized Coop had left the island and I snatched a bottle of Jim Beam and headed down the beach.”
Leland turned on her side toward him and laid her fingers across his biceps. He inhaled her scent. She had always smelled spicy—like sandalwood and ginger—rather than sweet or floral. That was one of the many things he loved about her.
“I stripped down to go for a swim,” Fray said. “At least, I think that was my intention because when the paramedics found me, I was buck naked, passed out in the sand.”
Leland moved her hand down to Fray’s thigh and leaned in so that her chin rested on his shoulder and her words breathed straight into his ear. “I’m glad nothing happened to you.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing happened. The next morning when I woke up, I realized I had a problem.” Fray often wondered why that had been his aha moment. It wasn’t the drunkest he’d ever been. He used to black out all the time at the University of Vermont. And there had been one fateful night during a summer home from college when he bumped into Leland and Mallory at Bohager’s downtown. Leland had spent the whole evening talking to Penn Porter, who had been a classmate of Fray’s at Calvert Hall, and Fray was jealous. He’d done at least six shots of Jägermeister at the bar—and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in Latrobe Park robbed blind with bruises all over his body and two teeth knocked loose. “I decided I would take a break from drinking.” That was all Fray had intended: a break. He certainly hadn’t meant to go the rest of his life without tasting the first sip of an ice-cold beer or the velvety warmth of a good red wine on his tongue. But once the alcohol had cleared from his system, he liked how he felt. Powerful. In control. The control was its own high, and—if you listened to Anna—he was addicted to it. “The break has lasted thirty years.”
Leland kissed his cheek. Her hand remained on his thigh, which could only be interpreted one way. Fray felt himself stiffen beneath his jeans. Anna had convinced him he was washed-up sexually, but that had been an excuse she invented so she could justify sleeping with Tyler.
“I’m sorry for my part in it,” Leland whispered.
Fray shook his head. “I blamed you initially because you were the easy target. My first love, the one I couldn’t get out of my system.”
“When I landed here this afternoon, I was thinking about our first date in the hot tub.”
Fray was so hard he had to adjust himself, subtly—the last thing he wanted was for Leland to move her hand. “You’d probably be uncomfortable to know how many times I’ve played back that scene in my head when I’m alone.”
“Fray! Seriously?” Leland Gladstone the feminist might have been offended to know that she was the subject of his sexual fantasies, but Leland Gladstone the woman lying next to him sounded…flattered.
“It was a horny teenager’s wet dream,” Fray said. “Coming back out to the hot tub to find you topless?”
Leland propped herself on her elbow and gazed down at him. He could see that she was older—there were lines at her eyes and around her mouth—but she was still the same smart, sassy, complicated person he fell in love with another lifetime ago.
Fray’s upbringing, seen through the lens of 2023, might be described as compromised, meager, possibly even traumatic. His mother, Sloane, was wild and rebellious. She got pregnant with Fray when she was twenty-one and couldn’t identify the father; there had simply been too many men, many of them sailors in port in Baltimore for a few days before shipping out. Fray’s grandparents, Walt and Ida, took on the job of raising Fray. They were kind, but their household was abstemious. Walt and Ida didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t swear. They didn’t allow Fray to eat potato chips or Cap’n Crunch, or drink Coke or chew bubble gum. His bedtime was nine o’clock sharp; he had never once been allowed to stay up to watch Taxi, Barney Miller, or Magnum P.I. If Ida could hear his music playing through his bedroom door, it was too loud. Sloane would live with them periodically when she was between boyfriends and had nowhere else to go, and she acted more like an older sister than a mom. It was Sloane who had offered Fray his first cigarette at fourteen, his first drink at fifteen, his first toke of marijuana at sixteen. She did these things only when Walt and Ida were away or out of the house. “Your grandparents,” Sloane would say—she always referred to Walt and Ida as “your grandparents,” as though they were of no relation to her—”think I’m a bad influence on you.”
She was, of course. His own mother was a bad influence.
In the face of that, Leland’s love had been a life raft. As soon as Fray and Leland started dating, Fray stopped spending so much time at the Blessing house. Senior and Kitty had always been welcoming and inclusive, though Fray suspected they pitied him. He’d once overheard Kitty refer to Sloane as a “perennial party girl,” a term he knew was unflattering but also not the worst thing she could have said. Fray found he felt more comfortable across the street with the Gladstones. Steve Gladstone took Fray under his wing, often taking Fray along on errands to the hardware or auto parts store, saying he was grateful to have “another man around.” Steve and Geri came to every single one of Fray’s lacrosse games junior and senior year, cheering for him as loudly as real parents might have.
When Fray left for college in Burlington, he and Leland broke up for the first time. She was still only a junior in high school and they both agreed the mature decision was to split up and see what happened. What happened was that they spent a small fortune on long-distance calls, and there were plenty of conversations that ended with one or the other of them slamming down the phone. But every time Fray returned to Baltimore, his first stop would be the Gladstones, even before his own house.
Frazier Dooley had loved Leland Gladstone. She was a key part of his personal history. Last night on the beach there had been nothing to stop them from making out on the blanket like the crazy kids they once were before standing up and going back inside to lock themselves in Mallory’s bedroom.
Fray’s phone rings again when he’s underneath the covers gently nibbling on Leland’s hipbone, a sex move he feels he invented because Leland says, “God, nobody has done that to me in decades. Please don’t stop.” He hears the vibrating of his phone on the nightstand and when Leland says, “Who’s ‘Dead to Me’?” Fray tells her to ignore it.
After making love, they decide to go out for breakfast. Leland scurries into the bathroom to freshen up and Fray checks his phone. Anna didn’t leave a message. It’s nine thirty in the morning on Nantucket, six thirty in Seattle. He clicks on her texts, in case there’s an emergency with Cassie, their ten-year-old daughter.
You’re unbelievable.
Talk about a HYPOCRITE.
Check Page Six.
Whaaaa?Fray thinks.
Leland comes out of the bathroom. She’s glowing—as luminous as he’s ever seen her. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Fray says. He plucks his underwear from the floor.
“Let’s not bother showering,” Leland says, tousling his hair. “We’re just going to swim when we get back, anyway, and I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Fray says. “I just need to stop and get a copy of the New York Post on our way.”
Leland laughs. “I thought I was the only person I knew who read the Post,” she says. “Fifi used to give me so much jazz about it.”
“Everyone reads the Post,” Fray says. “But only the brave admit it.”
Coop is passed out on the sofa and Jake is nowhere to be found, so Fray jots a note saying he and Leland are taking the Jeep to breakfast. He drives to the big mid-island grocery store and leaves Leland in the car as he runs in to get the newspaper. Page Six? Is he on Page Six? Talk about a HYPOCRITE. What does that mean?
Leland had asked about Anna the night before, but Fray dodged the question; his divorce was the last thing he wanted to talk about. He imagined that getting divorced as a regular person—an accountant in Cheyenne or a florist in Shreveport—would be painful and difficult enough, but as a very wealthy, semi-famous person, it was a whole other circle of hell. Fray and Anna’s story, although not unique, was a source of endless tabloid fascination. Anna had cheated on Fray with Tyler Toledo, the manager of her former band, Drank. They had been spotted out to dinner at L’Oursin by one of Fray’s vice presidents while Fray was down in South America on business and while Cassie was home with a sitter. When Fray asked Anna about it, she broke down in tears and said that yes, she and Tyler had been seeing each other for nine months and it was all Fray’s fault because he had robbed Anna of any identity except for that of “Frazier Dooley’s wife” and “Cassie Dooley’s mother.” She used to be interesting, she said. She used to be cool. Now, she was just another Botoxed Seattle socialite with a private Pilates instructor and a twelve-thousand-square-foot glass house on Puget Sound.
Fray had asked Anna if she was in love with Tyler and Anna had said she was, though it was clear from both her facial expression and her tone that she was lying. She didn’t love Tyler Toledo; sleeping with him was an act of rebellion, a cry for attention. Fray did a little investigative work and found out that Tyler’s best days had been when he was managing Drank. Since then, he had couch-surfed his way around Queen Anne and Capitol Hill; he’d even been homeless for a while. Certainly reuniting with Anna, Drank’s former bassist, had been a huge boost to him, especially since she was married to the eighth richest man in Seattle. Fray thought maybe he could pay Tyler off to make him go away but when this was intimated, Tyler doubled down and leaked the scandal of his affair with Anna to Google News, and in a nanosecond, it was everywhere. It was news of the scandal rather than the scandal itself that led to the divorce. Fray could have forgiven the infidelity. What he could not forgive was Anna on TMZ both disparaging him and shamelessly promoting old songs by Drank. (It worked: Their song “Back It Up” had a surge on iTunes.) The tabloids gobbled up the seedy aspects of the story, which was bad for everyone involved, but especially for Cassie. Ten was such a tricky age. Cassie was old enough to understand what was going on but not old enough to understand why, and Anna had broken every single rule in the Evolved Parenting Handbook. She thought nothing of badmouthing Fray in front of Cassie any chance she could get.
Fray agreed to a 280-million-dollar settlement only because he wanted the whole thing to be over.
He grabs the last copy of the Post at the Stop and Shop and somehow resists looking at the paper in line. When he gets back to the car, Leland has the radio cranked to the rock station playing the top 500 songs of all time and she’s singing along to “Heaven,” by Bryan Adams.
“‘You’re all that I want! You’re all that I need!’” She turns down the music and grins at him. “This song has always reminded me of the Calvert Hall junior prom. Remember my lavender dress?”
Fray shakes his head but he can’t stop his smile. “I need coffee,” he says.
Frazier Dooley loves nothing more than a good breakfast place and as soon as he sees Island Kitchen, he knows he’s found one. It’s mid-island, right across the street from the Stop and Shop, as it turns out, so it doesn’t have a water view but the place is loaded with character. The post-and-beam construction is charming, there are lush pink impatiens in the window boxes, it feels rustic and homey—like the island’s kitchen.
Fray and Leland are seated at a two-top inside where Fray immediately detects the scent of Frayed Edge Classic Black. This comes as no surprise because it was his New England sales manager who gave him the name of this place.
A server with a dark ponytail and freckles—her name tag says SARAH—comes over, holding the signature Frayed Edge silver pot, and says, “Coffee?”
“Please,” Fray says, nudging the chunky ceramic mug forward.
“I’ll have tea,” Leland says. “Herbal, if you have it.”
“Right away,” Sarah says. She pours Fray’s coffee and, despite the steam, Fray can’t get it to his mouth fast enough. He looks at Leland. “You’re on a date with me and you’re ordering tea?Herbal tea?”
Leland laughs. “I did it just for that reaction.”
“Excuse me!” Fray calls out. “My beautiful friend here will have coffee as well. This is Frayed Edge, right?”
“That’s all we serve,” Sarah says. She takes a second look at Fray and he watches recognition cross her face. “Oh my God, you’re…”
Leland hoots. “Do you get recognized everywhere you go?”
Sarah pours Leland’s coffee and lowers her voice. “Someone called us yesterday to say you might be coming in. They wanted to make sure we had the signature pots and all the signage.”
“It looks great,” Fray says.
Sarah turns her attention to Leland. “Oh!” she says. “You’re the woman from the New York Post!”
“I don’t work at the Post,” Leland says. “I’m Leland Gladstone of Leland’s Letter?”
Fray gets a sinking feeling. The Post is folded in half on the bench next to him. “We’ll be ready to order in just a minute,” he says.
Fray finishes his first cup of coffee and decides to distract Leland with another topic they’ve been avoiding—their parents. Twenty-five years earlier, Steve Gladstone and Fray’s mother, Sloane, had an affair. Steve ended up leaving Geri Gladstone and marrying Sloane. Fray speaks to his mother sporadically but he hasn’t seen her and Steve in a few years. He gathers that Leland keeps contact to a minimum as well; she aligned herself staunchly with Geri.
He reaches for Leland’s hand. “How funny would it be if we called Steve and Sloane on the way home and told them we’re back together?”
“I’m trying to forget the unfortunate fact that we’re actually step-siblings,” Leland says. At that instant, Leland’s phone pings and she checks the text. “It’s my mother. She…I kid you not, just look at this…she says, ‘Are you with Frazier Dooley?’” Leland holds up the screen of her phone. “Tell me that’s not spooky.”
Sarah shows up with the silver pot and refills both their cups. Fray is starting to sweat.
“We’re ready to order,” he says. “I’ll have the panko eggs Benedict.”
“And I’ll have the bananas Foster French toast,” Leland says.
Sarah leaves and Fray feels his phone buzz again. DEAD TO ME. He declines the call and sighs. “I got the Post for a reason. I think there might be something about me on Page Six.”
“Eeeeeeee!” Leland says. “Let’s look together, come on.” She slides around to his side of the table, picks up the Post, and slaps it down in front of him. “You do the honors.”
Fray stares at the paper. What is he going to find? He tries to remember if he heard any drones during the night.
“Or I can?” Leland says.
“No, I’ll do it.” He opens the paper to Page Six—and there is a photograph of Fray and Leland kissing outside the Nantucket airport. The headline reads: “Frazier Dooley’s Tony Island Getaway with Feminist Icon Leland Gladstone.”
To her credit, Leland doesn’t shriek or scream, but when she pulls her reading glasses out of her purse, he notices her hands are shaking.
“‘Coffee mogul Frazier Dooley greets paramour Leland Gladstone outside Nantucket Memorial Airport. The couple were then whisked away by a private vehicle.’”
Leland turns to Fray and all he can think is how sexy she looks in her glasses, like a naughty librarian. “That’s why our server said I was from the Post,” she whispers. “And that’s why my mother texted. They’ve already seen this.”
Everyone reads the Post, he thinks. But only the brave admit it. He can’t gage where Leland is going to land on this. He’s pretty sure her brand depends on her sexual identity, which is…well, whatever it is, it’s probably not compatible with a weekend rendezvous on the arm of a white male billionaire.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I attract all kinds of attention because of the business. And the whole thing with Anna has made things exponentially worse.”
“Has Anna seen this?” Leland asks. “Was that her calling this morning?”
Fray nods.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Leland says. “I know who took this picture. There were two women on my plane who asked for a selfie, and then when we were walking out of the terminal they were behind me and I overheard them recognizing you.”
“So they took our picture and sold it to the Post,” Fray says.
“I’m sure they think they won the internet jackpot,” Leland says. She picks up the paper. “Does ‘feminist icon’ make me sound old?”
“Icon is better than mogul,” Fray says. “Mogul is such an ugly, hobbity word.”
“I can’t believe this,” Leland whispers. “I mean, it wouldn’t be funny except it’s true. I am your weekend paramour.”
“Will you get…canceled?” Fray says. “Will you be hounded by trolls? Do your readers think you sleep with women?”
“My sexuality is considered fluid,” Leland says. “It’s 2023. Everyone’s sexuality is considered fluid, Fray.”
“Oh,” Fray says. His sexuality doesn’t feel fluid; it feel very Leland-specific. “So this isn’t necessarily bad for you, then?”
“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.