Beautiful Day

MARGOT

To talk to Edge alone, Margot had to wait for Rosalie to excuse herself for the ladies’ room. This turned out to be a test of endurance. Rosalie was downing glass after glass of champagne, but she hung stalwartly at Edge’s side. Her bladder must have been the size of a volleyball, but as Margot watched her, she seemed untroubled. She was more attractive than she had seemed in the church, which irked Margot.

Rosalie was quick and lively; she was a woman who oozed confidence and was comfortable in her own body. Her face was freckled, but her breasts, which were pushed up and out to lovely advantage by the bodice of her dress, were all roses and cream. Margot could barely keep her eyes off Rosalie’s sweet and luscious bosom, so Edge must have been mesmerized. Of course, Rosalie hadn’t breast-fed three children. Rosalie had one of those sexy-gravelly voices, which was perhaps the thing Margot envied the most. She had always yearned for a sexy-gravelly voice but instead had been given a voice that sounded camp-counselor chipper on a good day, and shrill and strident on a bad day. Margot couldn’t stand to hear herself recorded; she only liked her voice when she had a scratchy sore throat or had spent all night screaming at a rock concert, and her rock concert days now were few and far between. As a placement person, Margot knew how important voice was. After all, you not only had to look at someone eight to ten hours a day in the office but also had to listen to them. Rosalie had been blessed with a voice that was a cross between Anne Bancroft and Demi Moore.

Advantage Rosalie. Margot couldn’t deny it.

As the maid of honor, Margot was meant to chat and socialize; she was meant to make sure that Jenna had a full glass of champagne at all times and that Jenna ate a canapé from one out of every three trays presented to her. But Margot’s constant surveillance of Edge and Rosalie distracted her from these duties. He did see her, right? He knew she was here, he realized he couldn’t spend the whole night ignoring her, he would have to explain himself.

Margot stood in line at the bar with Ryan’s boyfriend, Jethro, who looked marginally less uncomfortable and out of place than he had the night before. Margot wondered if it was difficult to be openly gay, citified, and black at a WASP wedding on an island thirty miles out to sea.

She said, “What did you think of the ceremony?”

He said, “Well, it wasn’t without intrigue.”

Margot wondered for a second if he was talking about Edge and Rosalie-but how would Ryan’s boyfriend from Chicago know about that? Then Margot realized Jethro was referring to Pauline’s wild exodus from the church. She chastised herself for being so self-absorbed.

Margot said, “The Carmichaels are always good for some drama.” She hadn’t asked her father why Pauline left the church-partly because she felt she knew too much already, but mostly because she had been focused on only one thing, and that was Edge and Rosalie.

“It just as easily could have been the Graham family,” Jethro said. “Trust.”

Their turn at the bar came. Margot ordered three glasses of Sancerre-one for Jenna, two for herself-and then she was faced with the question of how to carry three glasses without spilling one down the front of her grasshopper green dress. Jethro offered to help, but he had three drinks himself-Ketel One and tonics for himself and Ryan, and a Heineken for Stuart.

Margot said, “Oh, I’ll manage,” and she held the three glasses in a balanced triangle with both hands and tottered through the grass in her dyed-to-match pumps toward Jenna, who was talking to her gaggle of young teacher friends. Margot handed off the wine and said, “You eating?”

One of the young teachers-Francie or Hilly-said, “I just made sure she had a chicken skewer.”

Jenna beamed at Margot. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. “Isn’t it perfect?”

Margot took a breath and willed herself not to glance over at the proposal bench, where Edge and Rosalie were standing, talking to Kevin. Was it beautiful? Yes. The sky was brilliant blue, the sun had achieved a mellow slant, the tent was a masterpiece of natural elegance. There was a jazz combo playing now-four members of the sixteen-piece band that would start up after dinner-and the music floated on the air along with chatter and perfume. Waiters passed trays of champagne, along with chicken satay and lobster fritters and blue-cheese-stuffed figs wrapped in bacon and mini-beef Wellingtons. The local Nantucket legend, Spanky, had set up his raw bar in an old wooden dory. This was where Margot parked herself to spy on Edge. She would double-fist her wine and suck down oysters and flirt with Spanky-all the while, her surveillance camera would be trained on Edge and Rosalie. They were still talking to Kevin and might remain there all evening. Kevin never shut up.

Margot ate three oysters. She was joined, temporarily, by Stuart’s father, Jim, who attacked the pile of jumbo shrimp rather indecorously.

Jim said, “Hell of a party.”

Margot faked a smile and slurped another oyster. “Mmmhmmm.” No other response seemed to be required of her, thank God. She needed Jim Graham to stay right where he was, shielding Margot and keeping her safe from any conversation that might cause her to miss her chance with Edge.

Rosalie’s glass was empty, Margot could see, as was Edge’s. But then the girl with the champagne came by, and Rosalie accepted a glass with a smile, and Margot read Edge’s lips as he ordered a Scotch.

Margot’s heart cracked open a little bit more. Margot kept a bottle of Glenmorangie in her liquor cabinet at home for the evenings when Edge stopped by.

Rosalie had a steel-reinforced bladder. She outlasted Margot; Margot had to go. She bypassed the elegant portable bathrooms set up in a discreet corner of the yard beyond Alfie, and instead went into the house and headed up the stairs to her own bathroom.

On the second floor, Margot heard voices, then a rhythmic banging. Margot stopped. The noise was coming from Jenna’s room. Finn and Nick. Margot nearly shouted at the top of her lungs. GROSS! But she refrained, slamming the door to the bathroom to make her point instead.

She hiked up the skirt of her grasshopper green dress and peed, holding her forehead in her hands. The banging continued against the wall behind her, and she heard Finn cry out in ecstasy, and Margot thought, All right, I’ve had enough. She washed her hands and stared at her reflection in the dingy medicine cabinet mirror.

I’ve had enough!

But she wasn’t sure what that meant, and she didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly she heard her mother’s voice. She knew it was her mother’s voice and not her mimicking her mother’s voice because Margot did not like what the voice said.

It said, Get back out there, honey. Pronto.

A glass bell sounded: dinner was served. Everyone sat except for the wedding party; they lined up so that they could be introduced by the bandleader and then take their places at the head table. Everyone in the wedding party had been asked to divulge one “interesting thing” about themselves to be read aloud by the bandleader. Margot was introduced as follows:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our maid of honor, who has taken surfing vacations on four continents-Margot… Carmichael!

Polite applause. Margot wasn’t crazy about the surfing vacation answer because all those vacations had been taken with Drum Sr., and at least half the people in this tent knew it. But the word interesting had presented a challenge because the things that filled Margot’s days-work placing executives in major corporations, raising three kids as a single parent, conducting a clandestine relationship with her father’s law partner-weren’t interesting. Margot would have liked to have said that she played classical guitar or spoke five languages, but neither was true. The fact was, she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t have any skills-except for surfing. And although her surfing had always been eclipsed by Drum Sr.’s surfing, she had ridden waves in Bali and Uruguay and La Jolla and the north shore of Oahu and the frigid waters of South Africa. There was a picture hanging in her father’s office of Margot in her wet suit with her dark hair slicked back and her face tanned-somehow the Asian sun had not brought out her freckles-crouched on her board in the tube of a left-hand break off the tiny Balinese island of Nusa Lembongan. Edge had once admitted to being captivated by that picture of Margot, even before the two of them started seeing each other.

You look powerful, dangerous almost, like a jaguar ready to pounce, Edge had said. It’s incredibly sexy.

That had been one reason why Margot chose to mention the surfing. She had wanted Edge to recall that picture of her.

Margot sauntered across the dance floor like a game show contestant toward her seat, thinking, Smile brightly! Don’t trip! Shoulders back, head high!

She couldn’t help herself. She sneaked a look at Edge, who was sitting next to Rosalie at her father’s table.

He winked.

Margot made it to the life preserver of her seat as the bandleader introduced “Our best man-who scored a perfect sixteen hundred on his SATs and still didn’t get into Princeton-Ryan Connelly Graham!”

Margot thought, He winked! She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or indignant. Indignant, she thought. How dare he wink! But thrilled won out. He had noticed her!

Then a thought broke through Margot’s despair. Maybe Edge had brought Rosalie to this wedding as a front to throw Doug off their trail. Margot felt sweet relief, followed by a glimmer of actual happiness. Of course that was why Edge had winked at her like a conspirator. He must have assumed she knew that was why he’d brought Rosalie. Rosalie was a straw candidate. Margot wondered where they were staying. Had they gotten two rooms? Oh, please, Margot thought. Please let that be the case. Please let this be a huge misunderstanding on her part.

She drank red wine with dinner. Did she eat? She and Jenna had set up no fewer than six tastings to come up with the menu of field greens with dried cherries, goat cheese, and candied pecans, the choice of seared rib eye or grilled swordfish, the baked potato with choice of decadent toppings, the pan-roasted asparagus with lemon and mint-and yet Margot could only recall eating a single perfectly toasted salty-sweet pecan and one bite of rosy, juicy meat dragged through béarnaise sauce. Ryan was seated next to her on one side, and Jethro on the other. Ryan was a conversational dynamo, he could uphold his own side and Margot’s side with minimum output from Margot, and whereas Margot flogged herself for not doing a better job-Ryan had once confided that he thought Margot had ten times the personality of Jenna-she was determined to constantly monitor the situation between Edge and Rosalie.

They seemed so happy, Margot thought, that they had to be acting. Definitely acting. This was all a game.

And then, just as the dinner plates were cleared and Ryan pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket on which he had written his best man’s toast, Rosalie pushed back from the table and stood. Edge stood also, and for a second Margot feared they were leaving. But Edge was only standing to be polite, and the crack in Margot’s heart widened. When Edge had taken Margot to dinner at Picholine, which had been the most sublime and grown-up dinner date of her life, he had stood when Margot excused herself for the ladies’ room, and then stood again upon her return. It was one of the fine, old-fashioned, charming things about him-elegant manners, respect for the gender.

Of course, now Margot realized that the dinner at Picholine and the subsequent night at Edge’s apartment had all been a lubricant to ease the way for him to ask Margot to betray her professional principles.

Rosalie left the tent. Edge sat back down and said something to Doug that made him laugh.

Rosalie going to the bathroom wasn’t the answer, because Edge was still trapped at the table with Doug. Margot couldn’t very well plop down and engage Edge in the conversation she needed to have with him with her father present.

Still, Margot rose and, at what she thought was a discreet distance, followed Rosalie out of the tent.

“Wait, Margot!” Ryan called after her.

Margot whipped around, feeling caught. “What?”

“You’re going to miss my speech!” he said.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised.

She saw Rosalie leaning against Alfie’s tree trunk, smoking a cigarette.

Rosalie smoked. That explained her voice. Edge had once told Margot that everyone smoked in law school as a way of handling the pressure. Edge himself had smoked in law school and had continued until his second wife, Nathalie, demanded that he quit.

Rosalie didn’t yet see Margot, and this bought Margot some time to think. What should she do? She wanted to introduce herself and see if Rosalie had any reaction. Would Rosalie know that Edge and Margot were lovers? Would he have told her? Certainly not-that might cause a security breach with Doug. But maybe Edge had felt the same pressure Margot had felt earlier this weekend to just tell someone, and during one of their late-night prep sessions for court, he had told Rosalie.

If Rosalie didn’t know, should Margot tell her? Or should Margot just engage Rosalie in casual conversation that would allow her to figure out if Edge and Rosalie were really dating or if they were only coworkers?

At that moment, Margot heard the distinct chime of spoon on glass, and the tent grew quiet. Ryan’s speech. Margot didn’t want to miss it. Any conversation with Rosalie was bound to leave her livid or in tears. Margot spun on her dyed-to-match heels and headed back toward the tent. She nearly smacked right into Edge, who was hurrying from the tent himself.

His presence shocked her. Before she could dream up a single appropriate word to say, Edge grabbed her arm.

“Margot,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Um…” she said. “I went to the bathroom?”

He stared at her.

“I was headed there, I mean. But I wanted to get back to hear the toasts.”

“You followed Rosalie out,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Margot said. As much as she craved his touch, she didn’t like the way he was holding her arm, and she didn’t like the way he had used his lawyering skills to make it seem like she was the one who had done something wrong. And as badly as she had wanted to talk to him, she wasn’t sure how to start.

She said, as casually as possible, “So what’s up with Rosalie, anyway?”

Edge lightened his grip on Margot’s arm, and his face changed. It became… well, the word that popped into Margot’s mind was kind. In all the months of their dating, Margot had never known Edge to look kind or nice or tender or gentle. He was an attorney who specialized in land mines, trapdoors, and setting his opponents up to fail. That was why his nickname was “Edge,” or so he claimed. He always conveyed mental toughness; he prized courage over compassion.

This unfamiliar facial expression, she knew, was bad news.

“I texted you on Thursday,” Edge said. “I asked you to call me so I could explain.”

“Explain what?” Margot said, hoping what he needed to explain was that he was bringing Rosalie as his “date,” to mask his passionate and burgeoning love for Margot.

“This isn’t something I want to talk about here and now,” he said. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I sank my phone,” Margot said. “I killed it.”

Edge’s hand instinctively flew to the breast pocket of his suit jacket, which was where he kept his BlackBerry. The mere idea of sinking his phone would be worse to him than losing his heart.

“Listen, Margot…”

“So you’re an actual couple, then?” Margot said. “You and Rosalie?”

Edge peered over Margot’s shoulder, presumably watching for Rosalie.

Margot said, “She’s having a cigarette. By my estimation, we have three minutes left. Tell me the truth, Edge. Are you and Rosalie together?”

“I told you you wouldn’t be able to handle it,” he said.

“How can I handle or not handle something when I don’t even know about it!” Margot said. “When you refuse to tell me the truth! Are you and Rosalie a couple?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

He sighed. “Since January.”

“Since January?” Margot said. Her mind flipped back through imaginary calendar pages. It was March when Edge took her to Picholine and then home to his apartment. And even then he had been screwing Rosalie? It was too hideous to contemplate.

“It started at the firm’s New Year’s Eve party,” he said.

Oh, God. Famously, the firm of Garrett, Parker, and Spence eschewed Christmas for New Year’s at the holidays. Margot had desperately wanted to attend the party. Every year it was held at Cipriani. There were oysters and caviar and good champagne.

“The New Year’s Eve party!” Margot said.

“And then it’s gained momentum since we started working on the Cranbrook case,” Edge said.

“I don’t understand,” Margot said.

“I don’t expect you to,” Edge said.

“Why didn’t you tell me in January?” Margot said. If Edge had told her in January, she would be six months past the news by now. But he had continued to see Margot, and to sleep with her. He had continued to torture her by texting her and not texting her.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Margot,” Edge said.

That’s a beautiful girl you’ve got there, partner. Edge had been thirty-two years old when he’d made that comment, far younger than Margot was now. He claimed not to recall saying it, and yet here he was pulling out nearly the same phrase to placate her.

“Don’t patronize me,” Margot said.

“It was never going anywhere,” Edge said. “You knew it and I knew it.”

“You may have known it,” Margot said. “But I thought maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Edge said. “That you’d become the fourth Mrs. John Edgar Desvesnes? You’re too good for that, Margot.”

“What about Rosalie?” Margot asked. “Is she too good for it?”

“Rosalie is a better match for me,” Edge said.

“She’s half your age,” Margot said. “Maybe not even.” Rosalie would want children, and maybe Edge would oblige her, maybe he would be a new father at sixty or sixty-two-then eighty years old by the time that child graduated from high school. Rosalie would have left him for the town’s fire chief or the children’s orthodontist by then.

“She’s mature for her age,” Edge said. “And very bright.”

Margot breathed out her nose like a charging bull. She wasn’t going to stand here while Edge enumerated Rosalie’s attributes.

“You asked me for that favor in March,” Margot said. “I colored outside the lines for you, Edge.”

“And I appreciated it,” Edge said. “Even though it didn’t end up working out.”

It didn’t end up working out because it had been ill conceived from the get-go. “You never would have done the same for me,” Margot said. She had compromised her standards for Edge because she had so desperately craved his approval, his good graces, his love. Margot had given these things to Edge too readily, she saw now. She’d left him nothing to work for, nothing to figure out. There was no mystery with Margot. From the start, she had felt like the same awkward adolescent yearning to be thought beautiful.

“You’re a jerk,” she said.

“That I am,” Edge said.

She couldn’t stand the way he was agreeing with her. It was a courtroom trick.

“Well, thank you for ruining my sister’s wedding for me,” she said. “I hope you’re happy.”

Edge said, “It was never going to work, Margot. The fact is that you’re Doug Carmichael’s daughter, and you know how I love and respect your father.”

“Yeah,” Margot said. “Just think how disappointed he’s going to be when he finds out.”

“He’s not going to find out,” Edge said. “We agreed.”

“Ha!” Margot said. “What did we agree?”

“We agreed not to tell him we were together.”

“So now we’re no longer together,” Margot said. “So now I can tell him whatever I damn well please.”

Another unfamiliar expression crossed Edge’s face: fear. His eyes flickered beyond Margot at the same moment that the smoky, sexy voice floated over her shoulder.

“Edge?”

And then the tent burst out in thunderous applause.