The Sixth Wedding (28 Summers #1.5)(9)
Leland’s fellow New Yorkers are all looking very self-consciously “Nantuckety” in their faded red pants and straw hats. Leland has made a concession to the season by wearing Eileen Fisher, the Queen of Black Linen. Unlike these weekend warriors, Leland feels she belongs here because while they all check their Ubers, she has someone waiting for her out front in a seen-better-days Jeep.
The girls who approached Leland at the gate in JFK are right behind her. She can hear them checking the address of their Airbnb and then one of them says, “Oh my God, look—I think that’s Frazier Dooley.”
Leland raises her eyes. Sure enough, Fray is walking out of the private jet terminal wearing his usual uniform of white T-shirt, jeans, Ray-Ban Wayfarers, and a messenger bag strapped across his chest. His blondish-gray hair is long and unkempt; the hair is his signature, it’s what makes him the most recognizable CEO in the country. When he raises his arm and calls out “Lee!” it’s all she can do to stop herself from running into his arms.
“I’m jealous AF right now,” one of the girls stage-whispers. “He knows Leland Gladstone.”
Leland is tempted to turn around and say, He was my boyfriend in high school. That would have given them something to talk about—but Leland is well beyond defining herself by any relationship she’s had with a man.
“Hey, Fray,” she says with a coy smile. They embrace and kiss, gestures of fondness that Leland missed during the pandemic years. Fray smells like some kind of heavenly, expensive aftershave. He’s so delicious that Leland would like to take a bite of him, a reaction that thoroughly surprises her.
Cooper honks the horn. “Let’s go, kids!” he says.
Fray gallantly takes Leland’s bag and tosses it into the back of the Jeep, then he opens the passenger door so Leland can hitch her skirt and climb in. She sees her fans gawking from the sidewalk and she can’t help herself: She gives a four-finger wave.
“Woo-hoo!” Coop shouts. He turns up the radio, which is playing the top 500 rock songs of all time in honor of the holiday weekend, and number 426 is Van Halen’s “I’ll Wait.” It has been a very long time since Leland has listened to Van Halen (she sticks with female artists—Alison Krauss, Norah Jones, Lizzo) and the song delivers her right back to Deepdene Road in 1984.
She and Mallory are freshmen in high school and Cooper and Fray are juniors. Even though Leland has been around both boys all her life, they attain a new mystique that year because they get their driver’s licenses. Cooper is the good boy—clean-cut, preppy—and Fray is the bad boy. Fray’s hair is long, he wears red parachute pants and walks around with a permanent scowl, flipping his bangs out of his eyes. Leland finds him mesmerizing (but she doesn’t tell Mallory, because Fray is like a brother to her, and…ew). Fray is the arbiter of everyone’s musical tastes. He listens to Van Halen, Twisted Sister, Honeymoon Suite. Fray lives with his grandparents around the corner on Edgevale but he’s always at the Blessing house with Coop and because of this, Leland and Mallory start spending all their time there as well.
Leland and Mallory ask Coop and Fray for rides, even though there’s nowhere to go. Downtown–Inner Harbor is a destination but the shopping is touristy and expensive, and Fells Point is one bar after another that they can’t get into. Still, they beg to be allowed to ride around in the back seat—anything to get them out of the house. They’re sick of watching movies in Leland’s basement rec room and listening to records. They both know there’s life out there somewhere and they’re ready for it.
“Sorry,” Coop says. “Riding around with my little sister and her best friend isn’t my idea of a good time. It’s babysitting.”
At the end of October, Coop starts dating a girl named Alana Bratton who goes to Bryn Mawr. Alana is beautiful, she’s a senior, and when she snaps her fingers, Coop does her bidding. The person who is left out is Fray; his buddy has ditched him for a girl.
At the beginning of November, Mallory gets the flu. Leland is under strict orders from her parents, Geri and Steve, as well as from the Blessings, to stay away from the Blessing house until the contagious period is over. Leland’s parents are leaving for the weekend on a leaf-peeping trip through the horse country of Virginia and Leland thinks how unfair it is that she will now have the house to herself but nobody to enjoy the freedom with.
It’s as she’s watching Coop pull out of the driveway from her bedroom window—he’s probably off to pick up Alana—that Leland gets the idea to call Fray.
“Mal is sick and my parents are away,” Leland says. “Want to come over and use the hot tub? My dad has a fridge full of beer in the garage.”
Fray says, “Won’t he notice if some is missing?”
“No,” Leland says. “I drink it all the time. We just have to be careful with the cans. I normally ditch them in the dumpster behind Eddie’s.” This is a complete lie. Leland has never drunk her father’s beer, she can’t stand the taste, and she has no idea if Steve Gladstone will notice cans missing, though there are at least two cases in the fridge, so she kind of doubts it.
“Cool,” Fray says. “I’ll be over in a little while.”
Leland races up to her room to pick an outfit and curl her hair. She puts the Police album Ghost in the Machine on her turntable and dances around. He’s coming! Fray is coming!