Beautiful Day

MARGOT

Abigail Pease, the photographer, showed up fifteen minutes early with Roger at her side. Roger looked calm; he showed no anger or frustration at having the wedding nearly canceled then resuscitated. Probably it happened all the time. Margot wanted to ask, but she was caught off guard by the appearance of the photographer. Pictures at the groomsmen’s house had gone more quickly than anyone had anticipated.

“Why was that?” Margot asked.

“They were all ready to go,” Abigail said. She was about fifty years old, she had long, curly blond hair, she spoke with a touch of a southern accent, and she wore Eileen Fisher to great effect. “Most times the men take more time to get ready than the women. But these guys were in their tuxes, drinking beer and throwing the football around.”

“Well, we’re almost ready,” Margot said. This wasn’t really true. She was ready and Autumn was ready; like a good groomsman, Autumn was drinking a beer in the backyard.

But when Margot went upstairs to check on the other two girls, she discovered that Rhonda wasn’t happy with the work of the makeup artist at RJ Miller, and so she was redoing her makeup herself. This process entailed cleaning, moisturizing, and reapplying with surgical precision, which was tying up the bathroom. Finn was standing morosely in front of the full-length mirror, applying aloe to her already-peeling sunburn. Makeup was lost on Finn because she had been doing nothing but crying since they returned from the salon, though everyone was pretending not to notice. The crying was Finn’s way of getting Jenna to pay attention to her, but Jenna wasn’t taking the bait, and Margot was proud of her.

Then Nick ascended the stairs in his tux, having just finished with pictures, and Jenna excused herself to the third floor to finish getting ready “in peace,” which really meant that she wanted to get away from Finn and Nick. Finn and Nick vanished down the stairs, holding hands, and Margot hadn’t seen them since.

Margot thought, There was no way Abigail Pease was going to get all four bridesmaids in the same picture frame any time this century.

Margot considered going downstairs and telling Abigail Pease this. There had been discussion of Abigail snapping candids of the bridesmaids getting ready, but what would those pictures look like? Autumn swilling a Heineken, Rhonda with foaming cleanser all over her face, Finn sobbing in Nick’s arms. Abigail might take a photo of Margot fretting about any or all of the above-or she might capture the envy on Margot’s face when she saw Jenna in their mother’s gown. Jenna looked stunning, and whereas Margot felt a bloom of love and pride-and relief-that this was so, she was also jealous. She wished that she had had a real wedding where she might have had an opportunity to wear Beth’s dress, instead of some salmon-colored chiffon number from A Pea in the Pod. She wished she had gotten married here at the Nantucket house instead of on a cliff in Antigua, where she had never been before and would never go again. She wished she had married someone different, someone better matched to grow with her.

Someone like Edge? But Margot couldn’t imagine being married to Edge. To be married to Edge, history had proved, meant to one day be divorced from Edge.

Someone like Griff? Margot wondered.

Margot never made it downstairs to talk to Abigail Pease, because at that moment her father emerged from his bedroom in his tux, and Margot was distracted. And two seconds later, Beanie popped her head out of her bedroom and told Margot she needed to talk to her.

“The ring is gone,” Beanie said. She held out the brown velvet box. It was empty.

“Wait,” Margot said. “What do you mean?”

“The boxes were here,” Beanie said. She pointed to the Eastlake bureau, which matched the ornately carved twin beds that had, long ago, been the summer beds of Kevin and Nick. The beds and the dresser with the matching attached mirror were antiques that predated even Margot’s grandparents. How the boys had ended up with them was another mysterious family injustice. On the dresser was the second brown velvet box, which held Stuart’s wedding band. Stuart’s band was there, but not Jenna’s. Jenna’s was embedded with fourteen ethically mined diamonds, totaling nearly two carats, and was worth twenty or thirty times what Stuart’s was worth.

Had someone come into the Carmichael house and stolen the ring? The house was filled with people. Downstairs was crawling with catering staff and tent guys and, now, the production people for the band and the band members themselves.

“The boxes have been here the whole time?” Margot asked.

“The whole time. Entrusted to Kevin yesterday by Stuart.”

“Your bedroom door was unlocked?”

“Oh, come on,” Beanie said. “Of course. I never thought the rings were unsafe here. Would you have thought that?”

“No,” Margot said. “I can’t believe this. I really can’t believe this.” On top of everything else, she was dealing with jewelry theft? “Did you look around? It didn’t fall, did it?”

“Fall?” Beanie said. The idea was preposterous. If the box had fallen, would the ring have tumbled out? No way, never-and yet a second later both Beanie, and Margot in her green bridesmaid dress, were on their hands and knees, sweeping the dusty wooden floorboards and the ridges of the braided rug with splayed fingers, looking for the ring.

They found an earring back. No ring.

Margot stood up and straightened her dress. She said, “Was anyone else in your room?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Did you see any of the staff up here?” She really felt like Nancy Drew now, but it didn’t bring the high she had been hoping for. She did not want to go downstairs to Roger and tell him that he had to start questioning the people slaving over this wedding reception because a diamond wedding band had gone missing. And yet a diamond wedding band had gone missing, it was worth a lot of money, five figures for sure, and they needed to find it. The only people who had been on the second floor were the family and members of the wedding party.

Family. And members of the wedding party.

Margot sat on Beanie’s unmade bed. Kevin’s bed, naturally, had been made with military precision.

Margot thought, Finn? Because she was angry and hurting?

She thought, Autumn? Because she needed the cash?

She thought, Pauline? Pauline had taken the Notebook and not returned it.

Margot tried to imagine herself approaching any one of those people about the missing ring. She could never do it. And to be honest, none of those answers felt right. Margot closed her eyes. Abigail Pease was waiting.

Family. Members of the wedding party.

And then she knew.

She hopped off the bed. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

In her room, she rummaged through Ellie’s suitcase-nothing. She looked in the dresser drawers and the single drawer of the nightstand-nothing. She hunted in the tight, dark corners of the closet-nothing. Then she marched downstairs. Abigail Pease was perched on the arm of the sofa with her camera in her lap. She perked up when she saw Margot. “You ready?” she said, checking her watch as if to remind Margot, as if Margot didn’t already know, that they were working with a tight schedule here.

“In one minute!” Margot sang out with false cheer.

Ellie and the boys had changed into their wedding clothes and had been placed outside on a blanket with a deck of cards, a tray of poker chips, and a bucket of spare change. Margot half expected the boys to be flinging poker chips at one another like tiddlywinks, but as she approached, she could see all five boys studying their cards.

Drum Jr. was dealing. He said, “Brian, are you gonna see him for a quarter or fold?”

Her son’s knowledge of the game was frightening. Both he and Carson had spent way too many hours watching the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Oh, the guilt.

Ellie didn’t have any cards. She was sitting on the edge of the blanket, stacking dimes in one pile, nickels in another.

“Eleanor?” Margot said. “Would you come here, please?”

Ellie looked up. Did she seem guilty? She appeared wary, but that wasn’t quite the same thing. “I’m not getting dirty,” she said.

This was true, Margot thought. The dress was still pristinely white. Until ten minutes ago, Margot’s biggest concern was that Ellie would trash the dress before photographs and the walk down the aisle. All the Carmichael women were trashing their dresses this weekend.

Margot smiled tightly. “Can you come here, please, sweetie?”

Reluctantly, Ellie stood up and shuffled over to her mother.

“What?” she said.

Margot said, “I’m looking for Auntie Jenna’s wedding band. It’s silver and has diamonds. Do you know where it is?”

Ellie stared at the ground and shook her head.

Margot took a second to congratulate herself on her perfect instincts. “Honey, we need that ring or Auntie Jenna can’t get married.”

Ellie locked her hands in front of her. She shook her head so hard that her whole body trembled, like she was having a seizure.

“Ellie, where is it?”

Ellie raised her head. Her eyes were pure blazing defiance. “I don’t know,” she said.

Margot was left temporarily breathless. If her daughter could stare her right in the face and lie to her at age six, what would happen when she was sixteen?

“Eleanor,” Margot said. “I need you to tell me where you put that ring right now.”

“No,” Ellie said.

No: It was progress. She wasn’t denying knowing where the ring was; she was just refusing to tell.

Margot said, “Honey, we need it. Auntie Jenna needs it to get married. You must help me find the ring.”

“No,” Ellie said.

Margot grabbed Ellie’s arm and squeezed. She didn’t have time for this! She leaned over and treated Ellie to her scary Mom whisper. “Tell me where the ring is right this instant.”

“No,” Ellie said.

Margot straightened. She stared up past the top of the wedding tent into Alfie’s upper branches and willed herself not to cry and not to curse out her child.

Roger stuck his head out the back screen door. “Margot?” he said. “Phone for you.”

What now? She stormed into the house and took the receiver from him. He said, “And as soon as you’re off, I need you to gather the bridesmaids. Abigail is out front, shooting your father and Jenna right now.”

“Okay,” Margot said.

“We were ahead of the game,” Roger said. “Now we’re running behind.”

“Okay,” Margot said, less patiently. Roger was a slave driver. She reminded herself that this was why she loved him. Into the phone, she said, “Yes? Hello?”

“Margot? Are you okay?”

Margot plopped into a kitchen chair. Around her, the caterers buzzed like bees. It was Drum Sr. He was supposed to call every Saturday at noon his time, three o’clock eastern time, but he was often tardy. It was quarter after three now, which was pretty prompt for him, although quite frankly Margot had forgotten about his weekly call, and furthermore, she wondered why he hadn’t decided to skip the call, since he knew Jenna was getting married today.

“Oh,” Margot said. “Sort of.”

“I tried calling your cell phone, like, forty times,” he said. “Do you have it shut off?”

“I sunk it,” Margot said. “I dropped it in the toilet at the Chicken Box.”

“You’re kidding!” Drum said. He laughed gleefully. “Wow, you must be having more fun than you even expected! Is everybody there? Kevin, Beanie, Nick, Finn, Scott…?”

“Yes, yes, yes, not Scott, he’s in Vegas,” Margot said. She felt a pang of longing then, longing for Drum. He had been her husband for ten years and her boyfriend for two summers before that. He had been a part of this family, especially close to her siblings, especially fond of Beanie, his fellow in-law, and Jenna. How did it feel to not be included in this wedding? Margot should have invited him. He should be able to see the boys in their blazers, Ellie in her white eyelet dress with the matching white sandals.

“Hey, listen,” Margot said. “I could really use your help.”

“Of course,” Drum said. “Anything. What can I do?” His voice was so open and friendly that Margot couldn’t help but think, He is a good guy and a doting father. There had been times in the two years since their divorce when the sound of his voice had irked her. After moving to California, he had acquired a surfer dude twang that made him sound like even more of a slacker and a bum than she already believed him to be. But right now he sounded capable and attentive; he sounded like himself. He sounded like exactly the person Margot needed.

After Ellie got off the phone with her father, she stomped into the house, and Margot trailed her at a discreet distance. From the middle drawer in the bottom row of the thirty-six tiny drawers of the apothecary chest, Ellie pulled out a plastic change purse, this one indistinguishable from the many plastic change purses that she carried in her many pocketbooks and handbags, all of them crammed with shit.

Hoarder, Margot thought. My fault. Because I divorced her father and she’s afraid of giving up anything else.

From the change purse, Ellie pulled out Jenna’s wedding band.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

Margot clenched the ring in her palm and sighed. A fifteen-thousand-dollar ring stuffed into one of the drawers of the apothecary chest, where they might not have found it for twenty years, when it would have magically appeared like a prize in a game show. Margot wanted to believe that Ellie would have handed it over of her own volition. But maybe not. Maybe it was a secret she wanted to keep safe. The poor child. “No,” Margot said. “In fact, I have an idea. Follow me.”

“Margot!” a voice called out. “We’re waiting for you!” Margot glanced out the back screen door. Somehow Abigail Pease had lassoed Autumn, Finn, and a freshly made-up Rhonda, who were all standing in a line in the backyard, holding their bouquets. Off to the side stood Jenna and their father, with Kevin and Nick.

“One second,” Margot said.

“No, not one second, Margot,” Roger said. “We need you now.”

“Sorry,” Margot said. She led Ellie by the hand out the side door. She had spent all weekend being a daughter and a sister-and now, finally, she was going to take time to be a mother. She opened the tailgate of her Land Rover and brought out the white cardboard box from E.A.T. bakery. She lifted the hideous bow-and-paper-plate hat out of the box.

“Would you like to wear this when you walk down the aisle?” Margot asked.

“Oh, yes, Mommy!” Ellie said. She jumped up and down and her sandals crunched in the gravel and she clapped her hands. She looked less like a world-weary teenager-before-her-time and more like a six-year-old girl. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Margot placed the hat on Ellie’s head and tied the ribbon under her chin.

“Very fetching,” she said, and she kissed her daughter’s nose.