The Sixth Wedding by Elin Hilderbrand
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?”
“My dad said it was…well, excruciating was his exact word.”
Link gives a short, bitter laugh. “Excruciating for him? No offense, Bess, but he was married. He went right home to your mother.” Link pushes away the pakora on his share plate and Bess thinks, Oh no, no, no! She only wanted to tell Link what she knew. She didn’t mean to hurt him or make him angry. “You can see how this little arrangement…”
“Same time next year,” Bess says. “It was a movie they used to watch.”
“Yeah, well, the same time next year was profoundly unfair to my mother.”
“That’s what I told my dad,” Bess says. “The arrangement was lopsided. And sexist.” Bess remembers how Jake had patiently endured her tirade about white male privilege. “He assured me that the arrangement was Mallory’s choice. I guess there were a couple of junctures when my dad said he wanted to be with her on a permanent basis and she turned him down. She didn’t want to leave Nantucket.”
“She never would have left the island.”
“He said she was happy. He told me she had a full life.” Bess’s second glass of wine is dropped off by none other than Shamin herself.
“Is everything okay here?” Shamin asks, eyeing the untouched pakoras. “We are busy preparing your entrées.”
“Delicious!” Bess says, too eagerly, and she takes a perfunctory bite of pakora.
“Very good,” Shamin says, smiling, and thankfully, she leaves them.
Bess turns back to Link. “I’m not pretending to know what your mother’s life was like. You would know that far better than me. But my dad claims she had her job, her cottage, friends, a community…and you.”
Link looks at her incredulously and she can’t help but agree with him. She’s ridiculous! She’s trying to justify what happened between their parents when it was, quite clearly, unfair to Mallory. But then, Link does an amazing thing. He reaches across the table for her hand. Bess tries to act natural but she instantly flushes from the neck up. She likes Link so much—okay, she realizes she doesn’t really know him, but she’s been drawn to him since she first set eyes on him, stepping out of the cottage on Nantucket. He’d looked so forlorn, a boy on the verge of losing his mother. He’d been trying to escape the adults inside and, like Bess, he was probably wondering what the hell Jake McCloud was doing there. But he was kind and funny with Bess, and she thought she’d seen a spark in his eyes, like maybe he thought Bess was pretty, and then he offered to show her the beach. She’d wanted him to ask for her number before she left but her dad had been standing there and it wasn’t clear if she and Link would ever see each other again, so what would be the point?
“Don’t you think everyone deserves to find love?” Link asks. “Isn’t that what we’re all programmed to search for? Someone we can connect with—a lover, a friend—someone to build a life with?”
Bess nods but is afraid to speak. She isn’t sure if Link is trying to tell her she might be that person for him (could she be so lucky?) or if he’s blaming Jake for keeping Mallory from finding such a person.
They found love, she wants to say. Maybe it didn’t look like other people’s love—a split-level house with a two-car garage, family road trips in the summer, date night on Saturday—but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t romantic or real. That doesn’t mean they weren’t devoted.
Something about the way her father described his time with Mallory made it sound very real and very romantic. And if twenty-eight consecutive summers “no matter what” wasn’t devotion, then what was?
But before Bess can articulate any of this, two things happen. The first is that a server arrives with their entrées and the second is that Link’s phone plays Toto’s “Africa”—Bess loves that song too—and the screen lights up with the name Stacey.
Link stands up as his plate of palau lands. “I have to take this.”
Bess blinks. “Okay?”
“Outside,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
Who is Stacey? she wonders. An old girlfriend? A current girlfriend? She tries not to worry. It might be his boss or a coworker or a friend. She feels relieved that they are finished with the Jake and Mallory story. Maybe when Link gets back they can eat and talk about their own lives like two normal people on a date.
Bess watches Link on the sidewalk on his phone, his head bent, his ear plugged. She considers the food. It would be rude for her to start without him, but she’s hungry, so she helps herself to one of the pakoras, which have finally cooled enough to eat. She devours one and is reaching for another when a guy takes Link’s seat.
“Uh…?” Bess says, her mouth full. She swallows. “Wrong table?”
“You’re Bess, right? Bess McCloud?” The guy looks like a Hollister model, or like the lead actor in a sexy HBO series about the Ivy League’s secret societies. And then, of course, it dawns on Bess: It’s the lobbyist.
“Aidan?” she says.
“You ditched me,” he says. “I finally made it to Roofers Union and you were gone.”
Bess stares at Aidan Hydeck’s perfectly coiffed dark hair, his sleepy brown eyes, and his square shoulders and realizes that, in the excitement of leaving Roofers Union with Link, she forgot to cancel this date. And not only that, she continued to share her location with Aidan.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
He tilts his head and gives her a slow smile. “It’s okay, I was the one who was late.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t your fault. You got stuck on the Metro.”
“That I did.” He looks at the food on the table. “I don’t mean to be a poor sport but I don’t like Indian food.”
“It’s Afghan.”
“Even worse,” he says. “I was really looking forward to wings at the Roof.” Only then does he seem to notice Link’s empty beer glass and the share plate with the now-cold pakora. “Oh snap, are you here with somebody?”
Bess is at an utter loss. She checks out the window. Link is still on the phone, standing just off the curb in the street between two parked cars.
Aidan follows her eyes and taps the glass. “That guy?”
“He’s…an old friend. He showed up at Roofers Union and…oh God, Aidan, I’m so sorry. I meant to let you know I was leaving. I’m not like this, I swear.”
Aidan gets to his feet. “It’s fine,” he says. “I would suggest that we reschedule when you’re not quite so busy but now that I’ve seen you in person, I don’t think I want to bother.”
Bess recoils. Did he just say that? She knows he’s angry but that was dirty.
He leans down by her ear and says, “The only reason I asked for this date is because I know who your mother is.”
Link approaches the table. “Hey?”
Aidan turns around and smirks at him. “She’s all yours, bruh.”
Bess is so angry she wants to dump her palau all over Aidan’s gorgeous lobbyist head. Instead, she stares at the table and waits for Aidan to leave the restaurant; she can’t make a scene, not here. She wants to ask Shamin to wrap everything to go so that Bess can eat it alone in her apartment. Link was on the phone with Stacey for so long that all Bess can imagine is he’s about to offer an excuse to cut dinner short so he can meet her.
How can she live in a city filled with men and still not be able to meet anyone suitable?
When she raises her head, Link has retaken his seat. He’s leaning forward, staring at her. “Friend of yours?”
“That was Aidan,” Bess says. “The lobbyist.” Aidan was the last man on earth she should have chosen off Bumble. Now that I’ve seen you in person, I don’t think I want to bother. The only reason I asked for this date is because I know who your mother is.
“He seemed like a real peach and I’m sorry you missed out on spending the evening with him, but I’ll try to make it up to you.” Link reaches for Bess’s hand again.
Link doesn’t seem like he’s in a particular hurry to rush out, but Bess is wary. “Everything okay with your phone call?”
Link shakes his head. “It was my uncle’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend? Almost fiancée? The woman who turned down his marriage proposal, which was what made him want to organize the Nantucket weekend? Yeah, that was her. She’s had time to process, she’s decided she wants to marry him after all, so she showed up at the house but he wasn’t there so she called him and it went straight to voicemail and she’s convinced he blocked her, which he probably did, because what else would you do to the woman who turned down your proposal? And she wanted to know if I knew where he was.”
Bess is overcome with relief. Stacey isn’t Link’s girlfriend. Stacey is his uncle’s girlfriend! “Did you tell her?”
Link shrugs. “I said I wasn’t sure but I thought he’d made plans out of town with a friend.”
“Aaaaahhhh!” Bess says. “Did she think you meant a female friend?”
Link squeezes Bess’s hand, then lets go so he can dig into the palau. “I don’t want to worry about Coop’s romantic life,” he says. “I’d like to focus on my own.”
After dinner, Link asks if he can walk Bess home and she says yes, and they stroll the streets of Washington, holding hands. When they reach the Sedgewick, Link escorts her to the door and Bess says, “Thank you for saving me from the lobbyist.”
Link lays a gentle hand on the side of her face and then he leans in and kisses her. It’s the best kiss Bess has ever received—sweet, warm, just enough to leave her aching for more.
“Oh,” she whispers.
Link kisses her again. He pulls her to him and soon they are making out while moths beat around the light over their heads.
Bess pulls away. “Would you like to come up?”
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.