Beautiful Day

ANN

The sight of Doug Carmichael openly weeping as he walked Jenna down the aisle was the only thing all day that had managed to get Ann out of her own head. Ann thought, The poor man, he lost his wife; now he is giving away his daughter, whom he clearly adores. A man was different with daughters than with sons. Ann wondered for a second how Jim would have fared with a daughter. Ann hoped he would have been just like Doug Carmichael. Of course, they would never know.

The rehearsal was unremarkable except for that show of emotion. Ann’s part was small and completed early-she would be walked in after the other guests were seated, escorted by Ryan.

Fine.

“Dearly beloved,” followed by the readings. Jenna’s brother Kevin read the lyrics to “Here, There and Everywhere,” by the Beatles. And Jenna’s sister-in-law, Beanie, read the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “Love Is Not All”:

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

Ann closed her eyes. Jenna and Stuart said their vows, then Jenna’s childhood minister would give a short homily, although tonight, thankfully, they were spared. He was Episcopalian. It would have been nice if Jenna had been Catholic, but Ann couldn’t complain. Episcopalians were close, and most of the girls whom Stuart had dated before had been Southern Baptists, including She Who Shall Not Be Named. Then there was a moment of silence to remember Jenna’s mother, Beth Carmichael, during which Ann bowed her head and reminded herself to be grateful that she was whole, present, and healthy to see her son get married. Then the kiss. Then “I now pronounce you man and wife.” Then the wedding planner hit the button on his funny old tape recorder, the strains of Mendelssohn played, and everyone filed out of the church in the reverse order, only this time Ann was escorted out by Jim.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

At the bar at the yacht club, Ann ordered a double vodka martini.

Jim looked at her sideways. “You?” he said. “Vodka?”

“Let me know the second you see her,” Ann said. “And please, don’t leave my side.”

Jim cupped Ann’s face with his big, strong hands and kissed her on the lips, a real kiss, the kind of kiss that, all these years later, could still make her weak with desire, especially since he tasted like his first sip of bourbon. During the four years of their separation and divorce, Ann had dated seven men and slept with two, but none of those men had made her dizzy with lust the way Jim did. Even now, in public, under such stressful circumstances, she felt a hot pulse. It wasn’t fair.

“Nice party,” Jim said.

Ann could do nothing but agree. The Nantucket Yacht Club was the kind of place that thrived on understatement and quiet privilege. The sloops on buoys, the grass tennis courts, the spectacular location on the harbor, the shabby genteel furnishings, the trophy cases displaying the same dozen Mayflower names.

Cocktails were being served on the patio. The college-age servers (all attending colleges like Mount Holyoke and Williams, all with names like Lindsley and Talbot) passed trays of bacon-wrapped scallops and phyllo filled with melted Brie and apricot preserves. They had ripped the recipes for this occasion right out of the official WASP cookbook.

It was exactly as Ann had imagined it.

In the ballroom, round tables were set with navy and white linens and napkins folded to look like sailing ships. Dinner was to be a traditional clambake-lobsters and potatoes and corn-served buffet style. Guests could sit wherever they pleased. Ann would have preferred assigned seating, with Helen Oppenheimer placed on the opposite side of the ballroom, preferably in the corridor outside the ladies’ room. As it was, Ann had made her first priority-after acquiring her vodka martini and downing three healthy sips-rounding up Olivia and her husband Robert and the Cohens and the Shelbys and making sure that they were all planning to sit at the table with Ann and Jim.

“Absolutely,” Olivia said. “I would never abandon you. Is the bitch here yet?”

“Not that I can see,” Ann said. Olivia was the only person who knew about Helen; the Cohens and Shelbys had become close friends of Ann and Jim’s the second time around. Jim’s sister Maisy was here with her husband, Sam. Ann and Maisy had never hit it off-quite frankly, Ann couldn’t stand the woman. She lived in Boone, North Carolina, and wore prairie dresses and had homeschooled her five children. When Jim left to move in with Helen, Maisy had condoned it. She and Helen became friends. Maisy had helped Helen with Chance when he was a baby. Ann pointedly did not ask Maisy and Sam to sit at her and Jim’s table. Maisy could sit with Helen in social Siberia.

Ann finished her cocktail and got herself another. A young man named Ford who attended Colgate (it said so right on his name tag; it must have been yacht club tradition to let people know how well educated the staff was) offered Ann a deviled egg, but Ann declined. She couldn’t possibly eat anything.

She wanted to find Jim and walk down the docks and admire the sailboats, but Jim was off mingling somewhere; he had not heeded her plea to stay within arm’s reach. Ann knew she should introduce herself to some of the other guests instead of spending the whole evening within the cozy ring of her Durham friends. As it was, those six were circled together, talking and laughing, having a fine time. They felt no compunction to meet Jenna’s mother’s cousins or Stuart’s boss, here with his wife and new baby.

But Ann was a politician, and it was in her nature to connect with as many new people as humanly possible. She was good at introducing herself; she should just do it. Helen would get there when she got there; Ann couldn’t fritter the whole evening away worrying about when.

She decided she would start with Doug Carmichael and tell him how touching she had found the rehearsal. But Doug was all the way out by the cannon and the flagpole, talking to a young woman with dreadlocks, whom Ann guessed was one of Jenna’s fellow teachers at the sustainable preschool. Then Ann spied Doug’s wife, sitting alone at one of the patio tables, drinking a very large glass of chardonnay and attacking a bowl of cashews. Ann approached. The woman’s name was Pauline, though Ann always had the urge to call her Paula.

“Hi, Pauline,” Ann said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please,” Pauline said. She had the demeanor of someone sitting at home alone, rather than smack in the middle of a party, but she snapped to attention with Ann’s words and pulled her hand out of the cashew bowl.

“Lovely party,” Ann said. “This is such a beautiful club.”

“Is it?” Pauline said. “I hate it here.”

Ann tried not to appear startled. “Oh,” she said.

“Nantucket in general, I guess,” Pauline said. “So precious, so… I don’t know, self-satisfied.”

Ann had been thinking the same thing only that morning; she had about as much love for the North as General Lee. But Nantucket had grown on her over the course of the day. There had been the leisurely morning at the hotel, then Ann and Jim had strolled into town. They had shopped at galleries and antique stores. Ann had bought a painting of the ocean, all swirling blues and greens; it wouldn’t exactly blend in with their sprawling Victorian-which had once been owned by a nephew of the tobacco baron W. T. Blackwell, and Ann had painstakingly decorated with help from Southern Living-but it would be a nice reminder of Stuart’s wedding. Ann had also bought a straw hat with a black grosgrain ribbon, exorbitantly priced, but when she tried it on, Jim declared she had to have it. They had eaten a lunch of clam chowder and Caesar salad on the wharf, and Ann had tanned her legs in the sun.

“People seem to love it,” Ann said neutrally. She wished she hadn’t committed to sitting down. She cast about the party, looking for someone else she knew, somewhere else she could go. She saw Ryan with his boyfriend, Jethro; they were standing so close to each other that their foreheads were nearly touching. Ann was a Republican in a southern state, but parenting Ryan had given her an advanced degree in tolerance and acceptance. Jethro had become one of Ann’s favorite people in all the world. He had been raised in the Cabrini-Green housing projects on the south side of Chicago, a fact that had shocked Ann at first. Jethro’s manners were as elegant as if he’d been raised at Buckingham Palace. He was smart and funny, he spoke fluent Italian and French, he was the editor in chief at Chicago Style magazine. But right this instant, Ann wished that Ryan and Jethro would not announce themselves as so openly gay. They were at the Nantucket Yacht Club. The place was as straitlaced as a Junior League event at the Washington Duke back home. But Jethro had never been one to hide. Black and proud-the only person of color at this entire party, except for a Korean gal whom Jenna had gone to college with. And gay and proud.

Ann turned back to Pauline and smiled. Pauline’s nose was deep in her wineglass. Ann scrambled for something else to say, something that would lead her organically to an exit.

Pauline set her wineglass down with a sharp ching!

“Do you ever feel like maybe your marriage isn’t exactly what you thought it was?” Pauline asked.

Ann’s mouth fell open. She was wearing a sleeveless shell-pink sheath, but at that moment, she felt completely naked. Exposed. She turned her head away-she couldn’t meet Pauline’s intense, questioning gaze-and at that very second she saw Helen Oppenheimer enter the party. The crowd seemed to hush; something about Helen’s presence demanded it. She was a six-foot blonde, still as statuesque as ever, wearing a flowing, one-shouldered dress that was the brightest yellow Ann had ever seen. It was canary yellow, the yellow of a bushel of lemons, a juicy sunburst yellow. She was blinding and beautiful. Ann realized then what a terrible, terrible mistake she had made.

She shifted her gaze back to Pauline. “Yes,” she said. “I do sometimes feel that way.”

Ann stood up. Where was Jim? Just as she was about to curse him, she felt a pressure on her elbow. He was right next to her.

He said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

“Get what over with?” Ann said.

“We have to say hello,” Jim said.

Of course they had to say hello, but Ann didn’t want to. She wanted Helen to stand alone, ostracized, gawked at-because soon people would figure out who she was. Furthermore, Ann hadn’t rehearsed a greeting in her head. She might say, “Hello, Helen. So glad you could come.” Or “Oh, Helen, hello. Lovely to see you.” Both lies-Ann wasn’t glad Helen had come, she had been certain Helen would decline, and it was not lovely to see her, in fact it felt like having an ingrown toenail. Ann hadn’t allowed for the possibility that Helen would look so… amazing. It was devastating to admit, but Helen Oppenheimer looked better than ever. The dress was magnificent, and she was wearing a very high pair of nude patent leather heels that made her legs look a mile long. It was so unjust. Helen was the home wrecker. How dare she choose to flaunt her height and her beauty here, at Ann’s son’s wedding! Ann squeezed Jim’s hand until she was sure it hurt. It was also unjust that the person she needed to support her was the person who had caused this catastrophe in the first place.

Across the patio, Ann caught Olivia’s eye. Olivia mouthed the words Oh, shit.

“All right,” Ann said. This was her own fault. She had been intent on gloating. Now she understood why pride was a deadly sin. “Let’s do it.”

“Short and sweet,” Jim said.

Together, they approached yellow Helen. Ann’s molars were set. Chance appeared out of nowhere to kiss his mother and take her arm. Helen beamed at him and touched his face. With his height and his transparent complexion, Chance was all Helen; there was almost nothing of Jim in him.

Helen was so enraptured by the sight of her son that she didn’t seem to notice Ann and Jim until they were at her feet. She towered over Ann like a queen over a royal subject, and Ann rued her decision to wear flats.

“Hello, Helen,” Ann said. There was something else she’d meant to add, but further words escaped her. She found herself scrutinizing Helen now that she was closer to her. Helen’s skin was smooth and tanned. Had she had work done? She had almost no makeup on-just a little mascara and something to make her lips shine.

“Oh, hey therrrrrrre,” Helen drawled. She acted as if Ann and Jim’s presence at this function had caught her by surprise.

Then there was the quandary of how to physically greet her. Ann held out her hand, and Helen leaned forward and executed a double-cheek kiss. Ann thought, God, how pretentious. This was Nantucket, not the Cap d’Antibes.

Jim said, “Helen.” That was all, just her name, the barest acknowledgment of her presence. They did not kiss or shake hands.

Helen said, “I’d just luvvvvvvv a drank.” Ann had lived in Durham since her freshman year at Duke; she had heard many a variation on the southern accent, and had even developed a slight one herself. But Helen’s syrupy Scarlett O’Hara irked the hell out of her. Helen was originally from Roanoke, Virginia. She had been painting her nails and wearing hot rollers since she was six years old.

Ann said, “We’re so glad you could come.”

Helen smiled. Ann waited for a response. She waited for Helen to say, You were so kind to invite me. Thank you. But instead Helen said, “How about y’all point me to the bar?”

Ann was rendered speechless.

Helen said, “Never mind, Chance will help me find it. Won’t you, Chancey?”

“Sure, Mama,” Chance said.

Helen took Chance’s arm, and the two of them strolled off.

“There,” Jim said. “We don’t have to speak to her again for the rest of the weekend.”

“I guess not,” Ann said. She knew she should be relieved that the interaction was over, but instead she felt cheated. Where was the thank-you? Where was Helen’s acknowledgment of Ann’s largesse?