Beautiful Day

MARGOT

No Edge.

The Nantucket Yacht Club was one of the last places on earth with a pay phone, and Margot was tempted to use it. Call Edge���s cell phone, find out exactly what was going on.

She was distracted from thoughts of Edge, however, when Stuart’s brother Chance went into full-blown anaphylactic shock. Margot was pretty far from the center of the action, but she quickly ascertained that Chance had eaten a mussel and his throat had started to close. Someone on the yacht club staff produced an EpiPen, the paramedics showed up, Chance was taken to Cottage Hospital, and Stuart’s father and the woman in the yellow dress-who, it turned out, was Chance’s mother-followed in their car.

Chance’s mother was here. That was pretty interesting.

A hush followed, as tended to happen after unforeseen emergencies, but once it was determined that Chance would be all right, people returned to what they had been doing before. Ordering cocktails! Hitting the buffet line! Margot procured herself a glass of white wine and a plate of food. She knew she should mingle; she should catch up with her mother’s cousins, or with Jenna’s fellow teachers from Little Minds-but she just didn’t feel up to it tonight. She wanted to eat with someone easy and familiar.

There was a seat next to Ryan and the black boyfriend. That would be good conversation, but Margot would be sitting with Ryan the following night. There were empty seats on either side of Pauline and Rhonda-but no, never.

Then Margot saw Beanie flagging her down. Perfect-except for the fact that Kevin would soon appear. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Margot sat with Beanie.

Beanie said, “Didn’t Nick and Finn come with you?”

“No,” Margot said. “They showed up really late, and they needed to shower and change, so I left without them. They walked here, I guess.”

“I haven’t seen either of them,” Beanie said.

Margot scanned the room. “You’re kidding,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to eight,” Beanie said.

Margot attacked her lobster, ripping the body apart, pulling the meat from the tail, cracking the claws, and dumping the empty shells in the bowl in the middle of the table. The clambake at the yacht club had been her mother’s suggestion. Margot understood the reasoning behind it-it was a regional specialty, extravagant yet casual. But it was a mess! All these southerners were dressed up. They might not feel like fighting with their dinner.

Margot dipped a lobster claw in drawn butter. Mmmmm. Well, there was no arguing with that.

Nick and Finn, she thought. Still at large. There was only one thing to assume, but even Margot couldn’t go there. Nick wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t. He had a moral rip cord. He would pull it.

Margot managed to get all the way through her lobster and eat half an ear of corn before Kevin appeared, hovering over Beanie’s left shoulder.

He said, “Come on, we have to sit with Dad.”

“What?” Beanie said. “I’m sitting here.”

“I know, but you have to move. Dad wants us to sit with him.”

“I’m sitting with Margot,” Beanie said. “And I’m halfway through my meal, honey. Just sit here, with us.”

“Dad wants us over there,” Kevin said. He pointed to the table where Doug was sitting with Pauline and Rhonda.

Margot threw her crumpled, butter-soaked napkin onto her plate. “It’s okay,” she said to Beanie. “You can go. I’m done.”

Kevin said, “I’m sure you’re welcome, too. I think Dad really wants his family around. This is hard for him.”

Margot barked out a laugh. “Yes, Kev, I know it’s hard for him. It’s hard for all of us.”

“But especially hard for Dad,” Kevin said.

Margot gave her brother an incredulous look, which he pretended not to see. She loved how Kevin was now taking the whole family’s emotional temperature and triaging them. But especially hard for Dad. What about Jenna, who was getting married tomorrow without their mother present? What about Margot, who was trying to serve as daughter and sister and surrogate mother? What about poor Pauline-now there was a phrase Margot had never expected to utter-who had to witness all the Beth Carmichael worship and be a good sport about it? And meanwhile her husband was about to divorce her.

Margot pushed her chair away from the table. She said, “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Excuse me.”

Margot stood at the sinks, washing the lobster juices from her hands. It was probably better that Edge wasn’t here, she thought. There was enough drama transpiring as it was. Margot couldn’t imagine having to deal with seeing Edge but not being with him, with having to ignore him, with having to pretend in front of her father and everyone else that they were just casual family friends. Edge had been right: Margot couldn’t handle it.

The toilet flushed inside one of the stalls, and Jenna stepped out.

When Margot saw her sister in the mirror, she grinned. She felt like she hadn’t seen Jenna in weeks.

“Hey!” Margot said. “That dress is foxy.”

Jenna’s rehearsal dinner dress was one place where Jenna and Margot had blatantly disregarded their mother’s advice in the Notebook. Beth Carmichael had suggested something conservative-a linen sheath, or a flowered print.

“Linen sheaths and flowered prints are what I wear to work,” Jenna said. “I want something sexier!”

Margot and Jenna had shopped for a dress in SoHo, and Margot had to admit that it had been almost the best part of the wedding preparations, probably because the task was infused with a sense of lawlessness. They were defying the Notebook!

They found the peach dress at the Rebecca Taylor boutique. It was a backless halter dress with delicate petals embellishing the short skirt. Jenna had a perfect body, and the dress showed it off.

Jenna did not smile back at Margot. Instead she opened her straw clutch purse and took out lip gloss. “What is going on with Dad?” she said.

Margot grabbed fifteen paper towels in a nervous flurry. “Dad?” she said.

Jenna leaned toward the mirror and dabbed at her lips with the wand. “I know you know,” she said. “Please just tell me.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Margot said.

“Don’t bullshit me!” Jenna cried, waving the gloss in one hand and the wand in the other like an irate orchestra conductor. “I’m sick of it!”

“Sick of what?” Margot said.

“Of you and Kevin and Nick always keeping things from me. Trying to protect me. I’m twenty-nine years old; I can handle it, Margot. Just please tell me what the hell is going on with Dad.”

Now was the moment in the family wedding saga when Margot had to weigh her loyalties. But she still had one more chance to stall.

“I think he’s feeling melancholy about tomorrow,” Margot said. “Giving away his little girl, throwing this wedding without Mom. I suggested he finally read the last page of the Notebook. Do you know if he did that?”

“Margot,” Jenna said.

“What?”

“Tell me.”

Margot studied herself and her sister in the mirror, and Jenna did the same.

Sisters, Margot thought. Eleven years between them, but still, there was no bond closer than sisters.

“He asked me not to tell anyone,” Margot said.

“Tell me anyway.”

Margot sighed. The yacht club ladies’ room wasn’t a great place to tell a secret. And yet it had been in this very bathroom that Margot had told her mother she was pregnant. It was during the Commodore’s Ball, Labor Day weekend, 2000, at the end of Margot’s second summer of dating Drum. Drum’s father had set up an internship for him at Sony, but Drum had decided to turn it down. He wanted to go back out to Aspen to ski one more time, he said. Margot had just accepted an entry-level position with Miller-Sawtooth; she was headed to adult life in the city. It looked like a breakup was imminent.

But then Margot had started feeling funny: tired, dizzy, nauseous. She had abruptly left the table during the Commodore’s Ball after being served a tomato filled with crab salad. And her mother, sensing something wrong, had followed Margot into the ladies’ room and had crowded into the stall with her and held her hair while Margot hurled.

Margot, teary eyed, had stared into the pukey toilet water and said, “I think I’m pregnant.”

Beth had said, “Yes, I think you are.”

Whoa. Margot sensed her mother’s presence so strongly at that moment that she steadied herself with both hands on the cool porcelain edge of the sink.

Looking at Jenna in the mirror-so much easier than looking at her directly-Margot said, “Dad is going to ask Pauline for a divorce.”

Jenna closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Um, no,” Margot said. “Not kidding. He said he doesn’t love her. I think… I think he’s just still really in love with Mom.”

Jenna’s eyes filled with tears, and Margot became confused. Did Jenna have a strong alliance with Pauline that Margot didn’t know about? Did Jenna love Pauline? Pauline was fine, she was okay, on a good day she could be sort of fun-at Halloween, she dressed up as a witch to give the children of Silvermine candy bars-but Margot had no attachment to Pauline, and she assumed her siblings didn’t, either.

“Hey,” Margot said, patting Jenna’s back.

“It’s just…” Jenna said.

The door to the ladies’ room flew open, so that music floated in. The band was playing more Sinatra-“I’ve Got the World on a String” (her mother’s suggestion of “only standards” had been obeyed). By now, Margot guessed, the blueberry cobbler had been served. She glanced up to see who was coming in.

For the sake of poetry, Margot half expected to find Rhonda, or possibly even Pauline herself, entering, so she was taken aback to see… Finn.

Finn wore a silver Herve Leger bandage dress, which Margot knew to cost fifteen hundred dollars. Finn’s hair was a mess, and she appeared flushed. Her cheeks were bright red with sunburn, and her eyes were shining and manic.

Margot thought, Oh, God, no. He didn’t.

“Hi!” Finn said. She was glowing. She would have glowed with a paper bag over her head.

He did.

Jenna spun around so quickly that her skirt flared; it was like a Solid Gold dance move, and Margot would have laughed had it not been for Jenna’s tone of voice. In twenty-nine years of knowing her sister, Margot had never heard Jenna speak sharply to anyone, but now her voice was a glinting dagger.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Finn gnawed her lower lip, and Margot could tell she was trying not to burst out in an explosion of bubbles and rose petals.

Jenna looked at an imaginary watch. “It’s eight thirty. You were supposed to be at the church for the rehearsal at five. Three and a half hours ago. Where have you been?”

“Um…” Finn said.

“You’re my best friend!” Jenna cried. “I needed you with me. When you needed me last night, what did I do?”

Silence from Finn, who now looked appropriately contrite.

“I went home with you!” Jenna shouted. “I left my own bachelorette party, which Margot had been planning for months. I went home and let you cry on my shoulder about what an asshole Scott is. Oh-and he is an asshole!”

Margot watched her sister with near-anthropological interest. She was watching the first-ever fight between Jenna and Finn. Jenna could be a spitfire. Who knew?

Finn’s face dissolved. She was going to revert to type and cry. This Margot could have predicted, and she further predicted that, upon seeing Finn’s tears, Jenna would relent and apologize for her tone. But instead Jenna grew fiercer.

“Answer me,” Jenna said. “Where were you?”

“With Nick,” Finn said. “Paddleboarding at the beach, then trying to get home from the beach.” Here she flicked her eyes at Margot. “Then we took showers and got dressed at home, then came right here.”

No, Margot thought. It had not taken two hours for them to shower, dress, and walk the half mile over here.

“Did something happen?” Jenna asked. “Did something happen between you and Nick?”

Margot couldn’t bear to hear the answer. She didn’t want Finn to admit the truth, and she didn’t want to hear her lie. Margot put up a hand. “I’m leaving,” she said. “You two can finish this in peace.”

“Thank you,” Finn whispered.

As Margot pushed open the door to leave, she heard Jenna say, “Tell me the truth!”

Outside, in the corridor, Margot surveyed the happenings in the rest of the club. It was, from the look of things, a lovely party. The band was playing “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” Margot’s father was dancing with Beanie, Kevin was dancing with Rhonda, Ryan’s boyfriend was dancing with Pauline. Nick was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eating what appeared to be a club sandwich off a paper plate. Unlike Finn, Nick was not radiating ecstasy and moonbeams. He seemed his usual nonchalant, nonplussed self, maybe even a little subdued. Perhaps he was bummed because he’d missed the lobster buffet, or perhaps he was suffering guilty pangs about the sex acts he had just performed with the newly married childhood neighbor girl.

But who was Margot kidding? Nick didn’t suffer guilty pangs.

Margot had to get out of there.

You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family to a friendly acquaintance.

Goddamned Griff, Homecoming King, was right. She would love.

Margot told herself that the Boarding House was on her way home. She told herself that she would just poke her head in, and if Griff wasn’t instantly visible, she would leave.

She stepped into the welcoming energy of the Boarding House bar; the air smelled like roasting garlic and warm bread and expensive perfume. The lighting was low, the good-looking patrons were exuding a happy buzz, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was playing.

Ha! Margot thought. Got that right.

She stepped up to the bar, where there was one leather stool available. She didn’t see Griff, and she considered leaving. But the barstool looked comfortable; it would be nice, maybe, to just sit and have a drink by herself. She was lonely nearly all the time, but so seldom alone.

She ordered a martini. She tried not to appear self-conscious, although the word described her exactly. She was conscious of herself sitting alone, sipping a stronger drink than she should be having at this hour, waiting for…

A tap on the shoulder.

She turned around. Griff.

“You came,” he said. He sounded full of boyish wonder at that moment, as if discovering the presence of Santa Claus on Christmas morning.

Margot sipped her martini. She would not let him rattle her. She would be her genuine self. But she was struck by the ocean of colors contained in his eyes; she felt as if she might drown in them.

“It was on my way home,” Margot said.

He was wearing a white button-down shirt and jeans and a navy blazer. He now sported three-day scruff, which was even sexier than two-day scruff.

“You came to see me,” Griff said. “Admit it, you did.”

There was the smug confidence that Margot had expected. She juggled a dozen possible replies in her head, but then she settled on the truth. “You were right,” she said. “This morning.”

Griff’s eyes widened. “About what?”

“I would love an opportunity to vent my frustrations with my family to a kindly stranger. I would like to detail the many ways they are destroying my spirit.”

Griff held up open palms. “By all means,” he said. “Detail away.”

“Have you ever lost anyone?” she asked.

Griff said, “You mean, other than when my wife walked out?”

Margot said, “Yes. I mean, has anyone close to you died?”

Griff said, “My younger brother. Highway accident. I was twenty-five, and he was twenty-one.”

Margot stopped for a second. She thought, My siblings, they drive me insane, I despise two out of the three of them right now. But what if one of them died? Impossible to imagine; they were her brothers, her sister. She couldn’t go on without them. “Oh,” she said. “Wow. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

Griff nodded. “This isn’t supposed to be about me. This is supposed to be about you.”

Margot said, “You’re a good guy, right?”

Griff shrugged. “My daughter seems to think so, but she’s only twelve, so what does she know?”

Margot’s guilt kept her silent. She thought about how painfully ironic it was that the one person she had really and truly wronged this year was the very same person she was now about to confide in. Griff would hate her if he knew what she’d done. He would be right to hate her. She should go. She couldn’t sit and tell him things with this insidious secret gnawing at her, but she couldn’t confess, either.

He said, “Have you ever lost anyone?”

“My mother,” Margot said. “Seven years ago, to ovarian cancer.”

She could feel his eyes on her face, but she couldn’t look at him.

Margot said, “My mother left a notebook behind for my sister filled with instructions for this wedding. She wrote them down because she knew she wouldn’t be around to see it.”

Griff pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, man,” he said. “That’s tough.”

“Tough,” Margot agreed.

The song changed to “Watching the Detectives.” Griff tapped his thigh. “You like Costello?” he asked.

Margot nodded. “Love him.”

“She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake,” he quoted.

Her favorite line.

She said, “My father remarried a woman named Pauline. Nice woman. I have no complaints except that she’s not my mother. They’ve been married five years. This morning, as I was driving my dad to Sankaty, he told me he’s going to ask Pauline for a divorce.”

“Because…” Griff said.

Then, together, they said, “Because she’s not my/your mother.”

Margot thought, This guy gets it.

She said, “I also have two brothers. There’s Kevin, who is eleven months younger than me, but who acts like he’s older. He’s got this superiority thing, he’s always right, always in charge.” She stopped herself. Since Griff had lost his brother, it might be in poor taste to complain about her own brother. She said, “What was your brother like?”

“This isn’t about me, remember.”

“Just tell me,” Margot said.

Griff sighed. “Well, he was rebellious. He rode a motorcycle, he had a bunch of tattoos, he started smoking in middle school, and drinking in high school. But here’s the thing: he was brilliant, went to MIT for three semesters, then took a semester off and went to mechanics’ school to learn how to fix classic muscle cars, Plymouth Barracudas, Shelby Cobras, Corvette Stingrays.” Griff took a sip of his drink and a deep breath. “And he could play the piano by ear. At my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, he had everybody singing until long after midnight.”

The song changed to “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Margot said, “You like Zevon?”

“I went home with a waitress,” he quoted. “The way I always do.”

“How was I to know… she was with the Russians, too,” she said. Again, her favorite line.

She said, “Then there’s my brother Nick, the lothario. Loves women, and can’t seem to exercise any restraint.”

Griff nodded. “Familiar with the type.”

Margot wasn’t sure why Nick’s behavior surprised her. He had always been like this. He had taken two girls to the senior prom. He had run through entire sororities at Penn State. Margot had heard a rumor that he slept with one of his law school professors. But Finn? Why Finn? There were plenty of single women at the wedding-any of Jenna’s hippie-dippy teacher friends, or he could have had a reprise with Autumn.

“So tonight…” Margot said, but she trailed off. She didn’t feel like talking about what Nick had done that night.

“Tonight, what?” Griff said.

Margot said, “My ten-year-old, Carson, barely passed the fourth grade. And my daughter, Ellie, is a hoarder.”

Griff laughed. He had a very nice laugh, she remembered now.

She said, “Remind me of your kids’ names. I know you told me, but I haven’t been blessed with your memory.” Many times a candidate would include a line on his or her résumé that said something like Married fourteen years, devoted mother of four. And Margot would always tell them to scratch it. Everyone loved their kids, and half of everyone loved their spouse. It didn’t belong on a résumé, and it shouldn’t be discussed with a potential employer unless it directly affected the candidate’s work history-as it had in Griff’s case.

He said, “My daughter, Colby, twelve, thinks I hung the moon. Sons Ethan and Tanner, ages ten and eight, think Robinson Cano hung the moon. I don’t see them nearly enough. Every other weekend.”

Margot said, “Mine fly to California the last weekend of every month to see their father. Who informed me two days ago that he is getting married again to a Pilates instructor named Lily.”

Griff rattled the ice in his glass. He was drinking something and Coke, maybe bourbon like all the southerners at the rehearsal dinner, and Margot thought for a second about how good he might taste if she kissed him, sweet and caramelish. She chastised herself for thinking about kissing Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King, and then she admitted to herself that she had been thinking about kissing him ever since she saw him on the ferry.

Griff said, “My ex-wife, Cynthia, is due to give birth in a few weeks. To Jasper’s baby.”

Margot finished her drink and waited for her eyes to cross. Griff’s wife had fallen in love with his best friend, Jasper, who was also his direct boss, which explained Griff’s sudden departure from the Masterson Group and was the reason why Margot met him in the first place. Griff hadn’t wanted to tell Drew Carver or the rest of the top brass at Tricom about Jasper and his ex-wife. Margot understood: candidates never wanted to share the messy ways that their personal lives intersected with their professional lives. But it hadn’t mattered; Tricom had wanted him for the job… until.

She said, “That. Totally. Sucks.”

“Precisely,” Griff said. He flagged the bartender for the check. “You should really get home. It’s late.”

Margot straightened her spine with what she hoped was a graceful, yoga-like movement. The alcohol, rather than making the edges of things soft and hazy, had turned her field of vision clear and sharp. Was Griff trying to get rid of her? Had she bored him? Did her problems seem petty and obvious, standard fare for an educated, upper-middle-class white woman of a certain age? Her children were healthy, she had a job, money, friends. She was divorced. So what? She had lost her mother. So what? Everyone lost his or her mother eventually. There were people in this world with real problems. There were children in the cancer ward, there were men in Bangladesh being paid twelve or fifteen cents a day to dismantle old cruise liners for scrap metal, there were millions of people across America who had to work the third shift. Margot had no reason to complain.

“You’re right,” she said. “I should go.” She collected her wrap and her purse and plunked thirty dollars on the bar, which Griff pushed back at her.

“Please,” he said. “My treat.”

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“I insist,” he said.

She reclaimed her money and said, “Well, thank you for the drinks. And thank you for listening.” He had been attentive, he hadn’t tried to offer platitudes or advice. He had been a capital L Listener. Every family wedding, Margot realized, needed a Listener.

“My pleasure,” Griff said.

Margot slid off the leather barstool. She felt even more conflicted than when she had walked in here. On top of her other avalanche of emotions was regret about having to leave Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King.

Griff said, “Margot, are you dating anyone?”

She said, “Oh, sort of.” Then she laughed because those three words had to represent a situation so complex she couldn’t begin to explain it.

He said, “I figured I had some kind of competition, but I wasn’t sure what form it took.”

He walked her home, holding her arm as she crossed the cobblestones of Main Street. As they walked up Orange, Margot began to wonder about the rest of her family. Would they be home? Would they be awake? Margot had, essentially, vanished, and her phone didn’t work, so no one would have been able to reach her. She couldn’t believe how liberating it was to be untethered.

The next thing she knew, she and Griff were standing on the sidewalk a few doors down from her house. There was a fat gibbous moon above them, and the clock tower of the Unitarian Church was illuminated.

Margot said, “Really, I can’t thank you enough…”

Griff put his hands on either side of her neck and held her like that for a second, then he kissed her softly on the lips. Then again, then again, more urgently, then there was tongue, and a flood of desire. Margot was breathless. She thought, This is the best first kiss I’ve ever had, and this is the worst first kiss precisely because of how good it is, because once he finds out what I did, he will never kiss me again. Therefore she had to be greedy now. Margot kissed him and kissed him, tongue, lips, hands, hair, she pulled on him, she could not get enough. She thought, Edge who? Kissing Edge had never felt like this. Kissing Edge had been like kissing an old man, sometimes their teeth clicked, sometimes his breath was sour. And yet Edge had such a stranglehold on her, he held her captive, so much so that she had been willing, eager even, to wrong this man right here. It was the secret of Edge that was addictive, it was his beautifully cut suits and his expensive watch. It was the fact that he should rightfully treat Margot like treasure, but he treated her carelessly, and the more carelessly he treated her, the more obsessed she became.

Griff pulled away, and Margot thought, No! She worried that he wasn’t enjoying the kissing as much as she was. Was insane desire and electricity like this ever one-sided?

He said, “I have a confession to make.”

She believed he was about to admit to a girlfriend, or even a fiancée, although his pursuit of her had been zealous to say the very least. She thought, I don’t care if he is married or engaged or if he’s been dating someone a year or three months or a week.

“What?” she said.

He said, “I’ve had a crush on you since the first second I saw you.”

Her feet in her silver heels turned icy. They were suddenly so cold that they hurt; she couldn’t move her toes.

“From the minute you first shook my hand,” he said. “I thought you were so pretty then. But pretty was the least of it. You were smart and capable, and… so tough on me. You asked the most exacting questions. It was a turn-on. I couldn’t ask you for your number then, obviously. I thought about calling you at work after I’d been signed off, but I wasn’t sure if… well, I thought it might be awkward for you. I didn’t expect to ever see you again, especially not on the ferry to Nantucket.”

“Oh,” she said. She flooded with shame, with panic. Smart, capable, tough… exacting questions… a turn-on. Jesus!

“And please don’t worry about the outcome of all of that,” Griff said. “I’m sure the other guy was a better match.”

Margot said, “I… I can’t talk about it.”

“Of course not,” Griff said. “Obviously. I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry! Margot thought.

He said, “Can I see you tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? Margot thought. Tomorrow was the wedding. She would be busy all day and night, and Edge was coming. She had liked kissing Griff, she had liked it a lot, but she hated herself for what she’d done. Griff was such a good guy. Margot had always thought of herself as a good guy… until that phone call with Drew Carver, when she had become a not-good guy. Margot could never confess to it. But she also couldn’t see Griff again, or kiss him again, without confessing to it.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“No?” he said. “But…”

She waved good-bye and hurried down the street toward her family’s house, thinking again that some nights had good karma and some nights were cursed, and for a few moments, tonight had seemed like the former, but it had ended up the latter.

And as if Margot needed further proof of this, when she approached the house, she saw Jenna sitting on the top step by the front door, which no one but the mailman ever used. Jenna had her face in her hands. She was crying.