“He’s happily married,” Ursula says. “To a woman named Dee Dee, whose father was the political mastermind behind Buddy…” Jake tunes her out. He doesn’t care how rich and connected these people are. “Anyway,” she finishes, “I won’t go alone.”

But you will, Jake thinks.

And she does.

Summer #15: 2007

What are we talking about in 2007? The iPhone; Nancy Pelosi; Halo 3; Oprah’s school for girls in South Africa; Barry Bonds; Juno; Paris Hilton; the Burj Dubai, Lindsay Lohan; Whoopi on The View; Gordon Brown; Virginia Tech; McLovin; acai bowls; Anna Nicole Smith; Don Imus; Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf; “If you ain’t got no money, take yo’ broke ass home.”

Cooper is getting married again and this time, he’s doing it right. Tish—Letitia Morgan—comes from an old Philadelphia family. She grew up in Radnor on the Main Line, went to Agnes Irwin and then Vassar, where she majored in art history, and now serves as the director of the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle. Cooper noticed Tish at the Metro stop—once, then twice. He decided that if their paths crossed again he would ask her out. He had to wait a long time, so long that he feared she’d taken a different job or maybe left DC altogether. But then, one Friday morning, there she was. She was carrying an armful of cut flowers wrapped in brown paper in addition to her leather bucket purse and a tray of something that appeared to be artichoke bruschetta. As she ascended the escalator at the Dupont Circle stop with Cooper in hot pursuit, something shifted in her balance, and when she stepped off the escalator, her purse overturned and everything in it dumped to the ground.

This was bad news for Tish (the station floor was filthy) but good news for Cooper, who was able to come to her rescue and help pick up everything—her wallet, her cell phone, pens, loose change, a packet of tissues, a trial-size bottle of skin lotion, a cherry ChapStick, her checkbook, a few loose shopping lists and receipts, and a flat disk that Cooper held in his hands probably a second or two longer than he should have because he was trying to figure out what it was.

“My birth control pills,” she said. “Thank you.” And, as Tish said later, Cooper looked so mortified that she had burst out laughing.

They’d been inseparable ever since.

The ceremony is held at St. David’s in Wayne, Pennsylvania, with a reception following at the General Warren Inne in Malvern. It’s Cooper’s third big wedding. He wanted something more intimate, but this is Tish’s first go-round and her parents are paying, so they have groomsmen and bridesmaids, a twelve-piece orchestra, Jordan almonds. There are one hundred and thirty people in attendance but only two dozen or so from Cooper’s side—his parents and sister, obviously, and Fray and his longtime girlfriend, Anna, and Jake and Ursula (who is running for senator, so Cooper figured Jake would come alone, but no, Ursula is here), plus a selection of people from Brookings including Brian Novak, who is now divorced and has asked Coop no fewer than three times if Mallory is still single.

Yes, Cooper said. He’s not sure Brian is good enough for Mallory. She deserves a prince, someone like Tish’s family friend Fred, though Fred lives in San Francisco and is therefore geographically undesirable.

Cooper’s favorite part of his previous two weddings was the cocktail hour that falls after pictures (which he suffers through) and before the whole rigmarole of dinner. His third is no exception. He has a cold gin and tonic and the guests are in the garden behind the inn, which is lush with flowers and shaded from the early August sun by stately two-hundred-year-old oaks. A server comes by with flaky triangles of spanakopita and lemony crab salad on cucumber coins, and Cooper wishes he could just stay in this moment forever instead of dealing with the tricky business of being married.

Cooper and Tish are talking to Ursula de Gournsey, and Cooper can tell Tish is a bit starstruck; Tish can’t believe Coop knows UDG and that the superstar congresswoman is attending their wedding! Tish is telling Ursula about their honeymoon to the Italian Riviera—Capri, Sorrento, Positano—which, like the wedding, is being paid for by Tish’s parents. She and Cooper are leaving in a few weeks.

“At the end of August?” Ursula turns to Coop. “So does that mean you’re canceling on Jake this year?”

“Canceling…what?” Tish says. She smiles at Coop, waiting for an explanation.

Coop has no idea what Ursula is talking about. He and Jake do meet for the occasional beer at the Tombs, but only when Jake is in Washington. They have also subbed on each other’s company softball teams, though that was long ago.

“Coop and Jake go to Nantucket every Labor Day weekend,” Ursula says. “It’s guys only, which is something you’ll come to appreciate after a while. Jake is always the nicest right after he gets back from the island. And you two have been doing it for…what? Thirteen, fourteen years?”

Cooper has enough experience with relationships to just smile and nod.

“Huh!” Tish says. “I didn’t know anything about this!”

Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for thirteen or fourteen years? Exit—he needs an exit!

Cooper chuckles. “We’ll talk about it later,” he tells his new wife. “Let’s get one more cocktail before we’re seated.”

Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for thirteen or fourteen years? Meaning since…1993? Yes, that was the first time they went to Nantucket, for his bachelor-party weekend, right after Mallory inherited the house. That was the year he married Krystel. Krystel, ugh—Cooper can’t think about it, and he shouldn’t think about it. Krystel was two wives and five serious girlfriends ago.

That first year, he’d left the same day he arrived, and then they’d returned the following year—was that on Labor Day weekend?—but other than that, Cooper had been to Nantucket only for his nephew’s first birthday. He feels guilty about not visiting more often but he’s been busy.

Why would Ursula think that Cooper and Jake have been going to Nantucket every Labor Day weekend for the past however many years? Obviously, that’s what Jake has told her. Is Jake up to something? Has he fabricated a long-running lie to his wife, the person whom some people hail as “the smartest woman in America”?

There must be another explanation, but Cooper won’t worry about it right now. It’s time to sit down to the Caesar salad. The General Warren Inne is famous for it, Tish says.

Cooper has all but forgotten the conversation with Ursula but the newly minted Letitia Morgan Blessing has not. She brings it up over the tenderloin with Bordelaise and sweet-corn risotto.

“You’re going to Nantucket over Labor Day weekend with Jake McCloud?” she says. “This is a thing you do? You might have thought to mention it. You do realize that’s only a couple days after we get back from Italy.” (Tish doesn’t want to quarrel during her wedding but Cooper has insisted on both of them being completely transparent in this relationship because he was so badly burned by his previous two wives—the first wife was a crack addict; the second was escaping an arranged marriage down in Uruguay. Tish can’t believe she is only now hearing about some bromance trip that Cooper takes every year. It’s weird, though, because Tish knows that Coop didn’t go to Nantucket last Labor Day weekend; they had spent that weekend in Bay Head, New Jersey, with her family. So what’s going on?)