Beautiful Day

DOUG

The photographer was due at three, and Doug knew that meant he had to be dressed in his tuxedo at two forty-five. And he had to see Jenna.

She was getting dressed with the girls. Outside Doug’s bedroom door, he could hear the chatter, the talk of foundation garments and false eyelashes. Music was playing, Bob Seger’s “Katmandu,” which had been another of Beth’s favorite songs, and he wondered if the getting-ready music had been prescribed in the Notebook, or if this was a song Jenna normally listened to.

He stood on the quiet side of the door, hesitant to open it.

Pauline was also getting ready, again sitting at his grandmother’s dressing table where she didn’t belong, spritzing herself with a perfume that, for the past five years, had been making Doug sneeze. It was called Illuminum White Gardenia; Pauline always wore it on special occasions. It was expensive, she bought it at Bendel’s, and Doug was allergic to it. Pauline had never noticed this last fact, however.

The perfume was one more thing he would be happy to bid good-bye.

“What color am I wearing?” Pauline said.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t turn your head,” Pauline said. Doug obeyed; he stared at his hand on the glass doorknob. It was the hand of an old man, he feared. “Tell me what color I’m wearing.”

Blue, he thought. But no, that had been the night before. What color was the dress she had picked for the wedding? Certainly she had told him sixteen times, and possibly even modeled the dress for him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Because you don’t look at me,” Pauline said. “Or when you look at me, you see right through me.”

“Pauline,” he said.

“Cinnamon,” she said. “I’m wearing cinnamon.”

He turned to her. The dress was long and lacy-and yes, the color of cinnamon. He might have called it brown. It seemed a bit autumnal for a hot day in July, although the color looked nice with her dark hair.

“You look lovely, Pauline,” he said.

She laughed unhappily, and Doug twisted the glass knob and opened the door.

The hallway was a frenzy of green. Rhonda, Autumn, Finn, Margot. Margot kissed him just as the song changed to Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach Your Children.” You, who were on the road, must have a code, that you can live by.

Definitely Beth’s song list, he thought.

Margot said, “You look great, Daddy.”

“Thanks,” he said. “So do you. I’m looking for your sister.”

Beanie appeared in the hallway in a pink polo shirt and denim skirt with a stricken look on her face. “Margot?” she said. “Can I talk to you a second?”

“Sure,” Margot said. She turned to her father. “Jenna is in the attic, getting dressed.”

“In the attic?” he said. “Where are the kids?”

“We shooed them out,” Margot said. “She wanted her own space.”

“Okay,” he said, and up to the attic he headed.

“I’m coming up the stairs!” he called. There was no door to the attic. “I hope you’re decent!”

“I’m dressed,” Jenna said. “I don’t know about decent.”

Doug laughed.

He ascended the final three steps and entered the sweltering, cavernous attic with its nine unmade bunk beds. The room most closely resembled a cabin at sleepaway camp. For some reason, there were feathers all over the floor, as though a goose had gotten caught in the ceiling fan.

Standing in the middle of the room like a pearly column of light was Jenna.

“Oh, God, honey,” Doug said.

“Do I look okay?” she asked.

It hurt to swallow, such was the lump in his throat. His baby girl, wearing Beth’s dress. The attic was so hot that sweat dripped into Doug’s eyes, and yet his daughter stood before him, cool and composed, beaming.

The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

The second most beautiful.

He had been standing at the altar at St. James’ in New York City; his brother David, who died three years later of a heart attack, was next to him serving as best man. Doug had seen Beth on the arm of her father at the end of the very long aisle, and as she grew closer, he thought, I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

And the thing was, their wedding day hadn’t been the happiest day of their lives together. Not even close. There had been the births of the four children, there had been the day Doug made partner at Garrett, Parker, and Spence, there had been birthdays: thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth. But none of those were the happiest day, either. When had the happiest day been? He sighed. There had been so many. There had been long summer days spent here in this house when the kids were younger-hours spent at the beach with Doug and Beth side by side in their canvas chairs as the kids played in the waves. Doug and Beth used to share a sandwich, Doug would read Ken Follett or Ludlum, Beth would needlepoint. They always took one walk together, holding hands. There were days when their biggest concern was whether to head left or right on the beach, whether to grill swordfish or a rack of ribs. They used to climb into bed at nine o’clock and lock their bedroom door and make sweet, silent love while the kids played manhunt with flashlights in the backyard.

There had been strings of shimmering silver days like that, and golden days of autumn when they bundled in sweaters and Beth made a pot of chili or a bunch of sub sandwiches and they tailgated at the Yale-Columbia game. There had been Christmases and ski weekends and trips to Paris, London, the Caribbean. There had been regular days of school and work, court for him, the hospital for Beth, where she was constantly trying to stretch the budget, there had been family dinners most every night, sometimes movies or TV or school functions or neighborhood cocktail parties where the neighbors, he was sure, would gossip after they left, asking one another if the Carmichaels could really be as happy as they looked.

Yes.

All of it, he had loved all of it.

And it had officially begun on the day he saw Beth in this dress.

“You’re a vision,” he said to Jenna. “Stuart is such a lucky bastard, I hate him a little right now.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Jenna said, and she hugged him. He rested his chin on top of her sweet-smelling head.

“My hair,” she said, pulling away.

“Ah, yes,” he said, admiring it. It was in some kind of complicated updo, though she had yet to set her veil. She was wearing the sapphire earrings that his own mother, Martha, had worn on the day that she married his father here at this house. They were Jenna’s “something blue.” What did Doug and Beth used to say when Jenna was a baby? Wake up and show us the jewels. Her sapphire eyes.

“If your mother could see you,” he said.

“Daddy,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Please don’t. My makeup. And it’s hot up here. We should go downstairs.”

“I know,” he whispered. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

“But wait, first…” Jenna opened a plastic box that was resting on the dresser and produced Doug’s boutonniere. “I want to pin this for you.”

Doug stared over Jenna’s head into the dusty rafters as she attached the flower to his lapel. He couldn’t speak. Your father will be a cause for concern.

“And here,” she said. “Let me fix your tie.” She tugged on his bow tie, her eyes appraising him, and he basked in it. He had left his tie crooked on purpose, just so she could straighten it.