Beautiful Day

MARGOT

It felt so good to be back in the house of her childhood summers that Margot forgot about everything else for a minute.

The house was two and a half blocks off Main Street, on the side of Orange Street that overlooked the harbor. It had been bought by Margot’s great-great-great-grandfather in 1873, only twenty-seven years after the Great Fire destroyed most of downtown. The house had five bedrooms, plus an attic that Margot’s grandparents had filled with four sets of bunk beds and one lazy ceiling fan. It was shambling now, although in its heyday it had been quite grand. There were still certain antiques around-an apothecary chest with thirty-six tiny drawers, grandfather and grandmother clocks that announced the hour in unison, gilded mirrors, Eastlake twin beds and a matching dresser in the boys’ bedroom upstairs-and there were fine rugs, all of them now faded by the sun and each permanently embedded with twenty pounds of sand. There was a formal dining room with a table seating sixteen where no one ever ate, although Margot remembered doing decoupage projects with her grandmother at that table on rainy days. One year, Nick and Kevin found turtles at Miacomet Pond and decided the turtles should race the length of the table. Margot remembered one of the turtles veering off the side of the table and crashing to the ground, where it lay upside down, its feet pedaling desperately through the air.

In the kitchen hung a set of four original Roy Bailey paintings that might have been valuable, but they were coated in bacon grease and splattered oil from their father’s famous cornmeal onion rings. At one point, Margot’s mother had said, “Yes, this was a lovely house until we got a hold of it. Now it is merely a useful house, and a well-loved house.”

Margot was shocked at how well loved. She felt euphoric at the sight of the dusty brick of the kitchen floor, the old wooden countertops scarred by 140 years of knives coarsely chopping garden tomatoes, the sound of the screen door slamming as her children ran out back to the green lawn, the seventy-foot oak tree named Alfie-after Alfred Coates Hamilton, the original owner of the house-and the wooden swing that hung from Alfie’s lowest branch.

Margot had lived in the city all her adult life. She loved Manhattan-but not like this. Her adoration of Nantucket was matched only by her adoration of her children. She wanted to be buried here, in the shade of Alfie’s leaves, if possible. She would have to write that down somewhere.

No sooner had Margot entered the house and allowed herself those sixty seconds of appreciation than crisis struck. Jenna stood in front of Margot, holding open her Mielie bag, handmade by a woman in Cape Town, South Africa. Jenna was sobbing.

“What?” Margot said. She had certainly expected tears from Jenna this weekend. Jenna was an idealist, and the world was constantly falling short. But so soon? Ten minutes after their arrival? “What is it?”

“The Notebook!” Jenna said. “It’s gone!”

Margot peered into the depths of Jenna’s bag-there was her wallet made from hemp, the handkerchief Jenna used like a character from a Merchant Ivory film because, unlike Kleenex, handkerchiefs could be washed and reused, her Aveeno lip balm, the package of Dramamine, and her cell phone. There was no Notebook.

“Maybe you put it somewhere else,” Margot said.

“I keep it here,” Jenna said. “Right here in my bag. You know I keep it right here.”

Yes, Margot did know that; she had seen Jenna remove and return the Notebook from that bag a hundred times. Jenna was the kind of person who had a place for everything, and her place for the Notebook was in that bag.

Margot laid her hands on Jenna’s shoulders. “Calm down,” she said. “Let’s think. When was the last time you remember having it?”

Instead of this question focusing Jenna, it caused her to become more scattered. She cast around the kitchen, her eyes frantic. Jenna was the kindest, most nurturing soul Margot knew; the students and parents at the Little Minds school adored her. As the youngest by such a large span of years-there were eight plus years between Jenna and Nick-Jenna had been raised in the warm bath of their parents’ love. Her childhood and adolescence had involved little conflict. The downside to this was that Jenna wasn’t great with crises.

“Think,” Margot said. “Stop and think. Did you have it on the boat?”

“No,” Jenna said. “I haven’t seen it at all today. I had it last night at… Locanda Verde.” Her face dissolved.

“Whoa, whoa,” Margot said. “No big deal. We can call Locanda Verde.”

“Then Stuart and I got into a cab!” Jenna said. “What if I left it in a cab?”

Margot’s heart sank. What if Jenna had left it in a cab? Margot would go through the motions of calling the dispatcher’s office, but they wouldn’t have it. Once you left something in a New York City cab, it was gone forever. How many pairs of sunglasses lost each day? Margot wondered. How many cell phones? How many copies of Fifty Shades of Grey? A massive redistribution of personal belongings took place every day across the five boroughs because of what people left behind in cabs. The Notebook! Like Jenna, Margot had read the Notebook front to back and back to front, focusing most intently on the passages that mentioned her; she felt a piercing loss at the thought of never seeing it again.

Jenna was on her phone.

Margot said, “Who are you calling?”

“Stuart!” Jenna said.

Stuart, of course. Margot thought, with a glimmer of hope, that maybe Stuart had the Notebook. If he didn’t, he would fly out the door of his office and drive to godforsaken who-knows-where-Brooklyn-or-Queens to personally dig through the lost and found at the dispatcher’s office. Stuart would be able to offer Jenna comfort; he was the only one who mattered.

Margot didn’t have anyone like that. She could never call Edge about something like the Notebook. Instead she called her father. No answer. She called again and left a voice mail.

“Hey, Dad, it’s Margot. Jenna has misplaced the Notebook. She had it last night at dinner, she said? She thinks maybe she left it in the cab? Any thoughts? Call me back.”

Margot then sent her father a text: Jenna lost Notebook.

And another: Please call me.

Jenna, meanwhile, was still on the phone with Stuart. In the Notebook, their mother had referred to Jenna’s future husband, whoever he may be, as her Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be-and Stuart fit the bill. Jenna had already calmed down; she had stopped crying.

Margot marched upstairs. Jenna’s luggage was in the hallway, and Margot started to look through it, thinking, Please appear, please appear.

What appeared were a pair of shapely, tanned legs. Finn’s legs. Margot used to have legs like that, back in her surfing days, before she worked sixty-five hours a week trying to support three kids and an ex-husband.

Finn said, “Why are you going through Jenna’s things?”

Her voice was accusatory, but Margot didn’t even both looking up.

Finn said, “Oh, shit.”

“Exactly,” Margot said. A second later, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Involuntarily, she thought: Edge.

But it was her father.

“I have it,” he said.

Margot filled with giddy relief, and Jenna sobbed with tears of joy. One of the best feelings in the world was finding something you were sure you’d lost forever.

A little while later, a white van pulled into the driveway behind Margot’s LR3. She poked her head out the side door. The Sperry Tent Company. She hoped she didn’t have to sign anything or decide anything. She hoped the four guys who hopped out of the truck knew exactly what they were doing. She hoped that Roger, the wedding planner, had reminded the tent guys about her mother’s perennial bed.

Beth had been a fanatical gardener, and some of those perennials were over forty years old, which made them heirloom. Or maybe not. Margot knew nothing about gardening; every year, she killed one store-bought herb garden by placing it on her fire escape and forgetting to water it.

Out the back screen door, which faced the yard, Margot called to her children, “The gentlemen are here to set up the tent! Either make yourself useful or get out of the way!” Ellie was lying on her stomach on the swing, spinning in circles until the ropes were twisted to the top.

“Eleanor, come in, please!” Margot called.

“No!” Ellie said.

Margot sighed. Was it too early for wine?

Upstairs, Margot heard Jenna and her maidens milling around; she caught the occasional burst of laughter. The hysteria over the missing Notebook had subsided-THANK GOD-and shortly thereafter, Autumn Donahue had arrived in a cab from the airport. Autumn had been Jenna’s roommate at the College of William and Mary. She had beautiful copper-colored hair and freckles and brown eyes and was the visual antidote to Jenna’s and Finn’s uncompromising blondness. Autumn swore like a sailor, and she could turn any situation pornographic in seconds. At the bridal shower, which had been attended by Pauline, as well as Jenna’s future mother-in-law, Ann Graham, Autumn had seen fit to give Jenna a two-headed vibrator and a tube of lubricant.

“Just turn that thing on for Stuart,” Autumn had said. “He’ll love it.”

Autumn always dated three men at the same time; she called these men her “lov-ahs,” and she sometimes threw a random one-night stand into the mix. She had never been in love; she had no intention of ever falling in love.

Quite frankly, Margot admired this about Autumn.

Margot was waiting for a text from Edge. She had texted him the night before to tell him that Drum Sr. was getting married. What she’d written was: Drum Sr. is getting married to someone named Lily the Pilates instructor.

When, after thirty minutes, she hadn’t received a response, she had written: No, seriously, Drum Sr. is getting married.

Margot had fallen asleep with the phone in her hand, waiting for a response. But in the morning there was still nothing from Edge. Margot found this silence perplexing. He often let one or more of her texts go without a response, but a text about her ex-spouse remarrying? That was real news. It deserved something. Then Margot began to worry that Edge wasn’t responding because he thought Margot was fishing for a proposal herself. Ha! The mere idea of a proposal from Edge was ludicrous. He had allowed her to spend the night at his apartment only once-and then only because he’d had a favor to ask of her.

She wouldn’t let herself think about that night, Picholine for dinner first, then the unprecedented invitation to sleep over, then the ask, like a cold hand on her throat. Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King. She couldn’t think about it.

Maybe Edge was just busy. He had been preparing for court all week; he was taking over something called the “shitshow Cranbrook case” for Margot’s father. Margot had asked what that meant, but he hadn’t told her; he couldn’t tell her about any of his cases-not only because it was privileged information, but because Edge didn’t want Margot to accidentally slip up in front of her father.

The result of this was that Margot knew next to nothing about Edge’s work life or how he spent his days. She almost preferred the way things had been with Drum Sr. Drum Sr. had done nothing for work, but at least that nothing had been reported to Margot in excruciating detail. Going for run in park. Back from run. ATM, $80. Warren Miller film-off the hook! Thinking about enchiladas for dinner-ok with u? Store. Sale on canned tomatoes, buying 3. Picking up Ellie now. Walking. What is name of Peyton’s mom? And what is wrong with her face? Margot used to sit in her office at Miller-Sawtooth, which was the most prestigious executive search firm in the world, and receive these texts and think, Don’t you understand that I am too busy for this piddly-shit?

Now, with Edge, Margot would kill for some piddly-shit. She would kill to know what he had for breakfast. But he told her nothing. If he was feeling expressive, he would text, In court. Or, With Audrey, who was his six-year-old daughter.

Margot checked her phone: nothing. It was quarter to six. Maybe Edge was in a meeting with a new client; those could take a while. Maybe he was so busy preparing for court-with his favorite paralegal, Rosalie-that he simply hadn’t had time to check his phone. But Edge checked his phone compulsively. The red light blinked, and he salivated as though the next text or e-mail was going to offer him a million free dollars or a house on the beach in Tahiti. With clients, he prided himself on responding within sixty seconds. But Margot he let languish for days.

Most of Margot and Edge’s relationship had taken place via text, which had started out seeming modern and sexy. They would go back and forth for hours-and unlike in actual conversation, Margot could take her time to compose witty responses. She could text things she was too shy to express in person.

But the texting now was frustrating beyond all comprehension. It made Margot want to tear her hair out. It made her-late one night when she and Edge had been going back and forth and then she texted I miss u and heard nothing back-throw her phone across the room, where it, thankfully, landed in her laundry basket. She both hated the texting and was addicted to it. She despised her phone-the seventy-two times a day she checked to see if Edge had texted were torturous-and then if she did have a text from him, she went to absurd lengths to answer it, no matter what she was doing. She had answered texts from him under the table in big client meetings. She had stood up and left Ellie’s kindergarten play (Stone Soup) to text Edge from the school corridor. She had texted while driving, she had texted him drunkenly from the bathroom while she was out with her girlfriends, she had texted him from the treadmill at the gym. The texting with Edge was keeping her from being present in her real life. It was awful, she had to stop, she had to control it somehow, to keep it from destroying her.

Because now, on Thursday, July 18, instead of focusing on her sister’s bachelorette party, which she, Margot, had organized and which was due to begin shortly, Margot was thinking: I texted him nineteen hours ago and he hasn’t responded. Why not? Where is he and what is he doing? He isn’t thinking about me.

Margot remembered when she had stood in this very house waiting for the mail to arrive because she was expecting a letter from her high school boyfriend, Grady Maclean. That had been stressful in the same sort of way, except then all of Margot’s anxiety had been focused on one moment of the day, and once she got a letter-Grady Maclean had been pretty devoted for a fifteen-year-old boy-she didn’t have to sweat it out until the following week.

At that moment, a text came into her phone, and Margot thought, There he is, finally! But when she checked, she saw it was a text from her father. Okay, that was absolutely the worst: she had waited and waited for a text, and then a text came in, but from the wrong person.

The text read: Pauline isn’t coming to the wedding.

Margot stared at her phone. She thought, WTF? Her mind was whizzing now. This was family drama, exactly the type that was supposed to happen at weddings. Pauline wasn’t coming!

Why did this news make Margot feel so buoyant? Was it because deep down she didn’t like Pauline, or was it because Margot was grateful for something to think about other than Drum Sr. getting married to Lily the Pilates instructor or Edge’s nonresponse to Drum Sr. marrying Lily the Pilates instructor, or… Griffin Wheatley, who was still irritating a part of Margot’s mind. (He had looked great with the scruff on his face-like Tom Ford or James Denton. Margot had always seen him within an hour of his last shave.)

Margot decided she was simply grateful for the distraction. She had nothing against Pauline, Pauline was harmless, Pauline was devoted to their father. So then why wasn’t she coming to the wedding?

And what about Rhonda? Margot wondered. Would Rhonda still come to the wedding? Rhonda Tonelli, Pauline’s daughter, was serving as Jenna’s fourth bridesmaid. Jenna hadn’t wanted Rhonda, but their father had asked (okay, begged), and since he was paying well into the six figures to make this wedding happen, Jenna had acquiesced.

It would be much better if neither Pauline nor Rhonda came this weekend. Margot felt a space open up in her chest where, apparently, anxiety about Pauline and Rhonda had been residing like an undiagnosed tumor.

There would be an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Roger might fret about that, but who cared?

Maybe they could find someone to fill in for Rhonda. Jenna had a group of fellow teachers from Little Minds coming.

Margot’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the side door. Margot spun around, phone in hand. It was Roger.

“Roger!” Margot said. “I was just thinking about you.”

Roger blinked. Something was wrong. Had he already heard they might be down a bridesmaid?

“The tent guys have an issue with the tree,” he said.

“What tree?” Margot said. “You mean Alfie?”

Roger swallowed. He was uncomfortable, she knew, calling the tree by a person’s name.

“I thought we went over all of this,” Margot said. “I thought they could fit the tent under Alfie.”

“They thought so too, Margot,” Roger said. “But that one branch has dropped since we measured it in April. It’s dropped a lot.”

“Shoot,” Margot said. She didn’t have time to deal with another unforeseen snafu. It was already six o’clock, she needed to unpack her suitcase and hang up her bridesmaid dress, she needed to run to the store for groceries, feed her children, take a shower, change, and she had hoped to open a bottle of champagne here with Jenna and the girls before their dinner reservation at eight. “I’m sure you guys will figure out what to do.”

“I’ll tell you what we need to do,” Roger said. “If you want the big tent to go up, you are going to have to let them cut that branch.”

“Which branch?” Margot asked. She was relieved that the problem had a solution. Maybe. She and Roger walked to the back door together and peered out at Alfie. Margot’s chest, which had for a few short, sweet minutes been a wide-open breezeway, now felt like it was clogging with cement. “Which branch are you talking about? Not the…”

“The branch with the swing,” Roger said.

Ellie was still on that swing, twisting then spinning out-just as Margot used to do.

“No,” Margot said.

“It’s the only way.”

“It can’t be the only way.”

“Look how low that branch is,” Roger said. “Compare it to the rest of the branches. The tent guys have a chain saw; they can take it down in ten minutes. It’s really not that big, compared to the rest of the tree. The tree will survive.”

“No,” Margot said. “That branch is… the swing is… they’re important. They’re not going anywhere.”

Roger brought his hand to his mouth. He had been a smoker for thirty years, he’d told Margot back in October, when she and Jenna first met him, but he’d quit cold turkey after his brother-in-law died of lung cancer.

“Okay, then,” Roger said. “No tent.”

“No tent?” Margot said.

“Not the big one you and Jenna picked out,” he said. “It won’t fit. Now, I can ask Ande if he can put up a smaller tent closer to the edge of the bluff. That will cover the bar and dance floor, maybe the head table. But everyone else will be exposed.”

“What are we going to do if it rains?” Margot asked.

“I think you know the answer to that,” Roger said. “You’re going to get wet.”

Margot couldn’t look at Roger because she couldn’t stand to see the stark truth on his face. Roger had lived on Nantucket all his life. He had graduated from Nantucket High School in 1972-which made him, Margot had realized, the same age as Edge. Fifty-nine. He had worked for years as a carpenter and a caretaker, and then in 2000, a dot-com bazillionaire had thrown the wedding-to-end-all-weddings at Galley Beach. There wasn’t a dance floor big enough on the island, so the family had hired Roger to build one. In this way, he had stumbled into the wedding business through the back door.

He wasn’t like any wedding planner Margot had ever met or imagined. He wasn’t anal or super high-energy. He wasn’t stylish, young, or hip. He was no-nonsense, he was reliable, he knew everybody you needed to know on the island. He exuded authority, he showed up early, worked hard, got things done. He had been married for thirty-five years to a woman named Rita; they had five children, all grown. Roger and Rita lived in an unassuming house on Surfside Road. Roger used the apartment over the garage as his office. Roger wrote everything down on a clipboard; he kept a pencil behind his ear and a phone on his hip. He drove a pickup truck. When Jenna and Margot had first met him, they’d thought, This is the most sought-after wedding planner on Nantucket? Now that they’d seen him in action, they knew why. He could talk canapés and floral arrangements and price per head with the best of them. But his company-if that was what it was-didn’t even have a name. When he answered his phone, he said, “This is Roger.”

Roger was what they were paying for, and Roger was what they got. And now here was Roger telling Margot that they had to cut down the branch that supported the tree swing, or 150 guests would be without a tent.

They couldn’t go without a tent. So Margot would have to let them cut the branch.

She checked the weather for Saturday on her phone. This was the only thing she’d been more compulsive about than checking for texts from Edge. The forecast for Saturday was the same as it had been when she’d checked it from the ferry: partly cloudy skies, high of 77 degrees, chance of showers 40 percent.

Forty percent. It bugged Margot. Forty percent could not be ignored.

“Cut the branch,” she said.

Roger nodded succinctly and headed outside.

Margot had fifty million things to do, but unable to do any of them, she sat at the kitchen table. It was a rectangular table, made from soft pine. Along with everything else in the house, it had been abused by the Carmichaels. The surface held ding marks, streaks of pink Magic Marker, and a half-moon of black scorch that came from popcorn made in a pot on a night when Doug and Beth had been out to dinner at the Ships Inn and Margot had been left to babysit her siblings.

Margot remembered her mother being distraught about the scorch mark. “Oh, honey,” she’d said. “You should have used a trivet. Or put down a dish towel. That mark will never go away.”

At age fourteen, Margot had thought her mother was overreacting to make Margot feel bad. She had stomped up to her room.

But her mother had been right. Twenty-six years later, the scorch mark was still there. It made Margot wonder about permanence. She had just given the okay for the tent guys to amputate Alfie, a tree that had grown in that spot for over two hundred years. The tree had been there since colonial times; it had a majesty and a grace that made Margot want to bow down. The branch would never grow back; a tree wasn’t like a starfish, it didn’t regenerate new limbs. Margot wondered if twenty-five years from now she would walk her grandchildren out to that tree and show them the place where the branch had been sliced off and say, “We had to cut that branch down so we could put up a tent for my sister Jenna’s wedding.”

Generations of their descendants would go without a tree swing in the name of this decision.

Margot heard the whine of the chain saw. She covered her face with her hands.

Her mother hadn’t written anything about the tree swing in the notebook.

Cut Alfie’s branch? Margot asked her.

The sound of the chain saw raised goose bumps. It felt as if the guy was about to cut out Margot’s own heart.

She ran out the back door.

“Stop!” she cried.

The wedding was taking on a life of its own. It was the damnedest thing. A person could plan for months down to the tiniest detail, a person could hire someone like Roger and have a set of written blueprints such as their mother had left-and still things would go wrong. Still the unexpected would happen.

“I can’t let you do it,” Margot said to Roger. “I can’t let you cut it.”

“You understand this means no tent?” he said.

Margot nodded. No tent. Partly cloudy, 40 percent chance of showers. A hundred and fifty people, tens of thousands of dollars of tables, chairs, china, crystal, silver, floral arrangements, food, and wine-all with a 40 percent chance of getting drenched. Margot fretted as she thought about the antique, hand-embroidered table linens, most of which were the same linens Margot and Jenna’s grandmother had used for her wedding in this very same backyard in 1943. What if those linens got rained upon? (Their grandmother had hosted ninety-two guests at her wedding, under a striped canvas tent supported by wooden poles. Back in 1943, Alfie’s branches would have been younger, stronger, and higher.)

Margot knew she should confer with someone, get a second opinion: Jenna, or her father. But Margot felt that her primary duty as maid of honor was to shield Jenna from the treacherous obstacles that would pop up over the next seventy-two hours. On Sunday afternoon, as soon as the farewell brunch was over, Jenna would be on her own. She would have to face her life as Mrs. Stuart Graham. But until then, Margot was going to make the tough decisions. She might have called her father, but her father, obviously, had issues of his own.

Plus, Margot felt confident that no one in the Carmichael family-not Doug, not Jenna, not Nick or Kevin-would want to see that branch cut down.

“No tent,” Margot said.

“I’ll see about the smaller tent,” Roger said.

“Thank you,” Margot said. She paused. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Pray for sun,” Roger said.

Margot was staying in “her room,” sharing the double bed with Ellie, who was a flopper and a kicker. Drum Jr. and Carson would sleep in the attic bunk room with Kevin and Beanie’s three boys, and their uncle Nick-who, if he remained true to form, wouldn’t make it home to sleep at all. Jenna and Finn and Autumn were all cramming into Jenna’s room, which had one twin bed and one trundle bed; this was their choice, but it was also true that neither Finn nor Autumn had wanted to share with Rhonda, who had the proper guest room-with two double beds-all to herself. Kevin and Beanie would sleep in Kevin and Nick’s room (on the Eastlake twins), and Doug (but apparently not Pauline) would sleep in the master.

Margot hadn’t texted her father back yet because she didn’t know what to say, and she hoped that her silence would prompt more information.

She unpacked her suitcase and Ellie’s. Ellie had stuffed hers with trinkets, homemade bracelets, a ball of string, a stuffed inchworm that someone had brought to the hospital the day she was born, the tape measure from the junk drawer, an assortment of dried-out markers and broken crayons, and a tattered paperback copy of Caps for Sale. Ellie, Margot realized with weary concern, was becoming a hoarder. This was probably a result of the divorce, another thing for Margot to feel guilty about. She sat on the bed, letting the broken crayons sift through her fingers. Was it too early for wine?

In the way of clothes, Ellie had packed two mismatched socks, a white T-shirt with a grape juice stain down the front, a pair of turquoise denim overalls, her black-and-silver Christmas dress that she’d worn to The Nutcracker last year and had complained about the whole time, her favorite purple shorts with the green belt, and a seersucker sundress embroidered with lobsters that was two sizes too small. And hallelujah-a bathing suit. Margot should have checked Ellie’s packing job-really, who trusted a six-year-old to pack for herself?-but she’d been too busy. At least Margot had packed Ellie’s flower girl dress and her good white sandals in her own suitcase.

Margot hung up the white eyelet flower girl dress and then her own grasshopper green bridesmaid dress, thinking, God, I do not want to wear that.

But she would, of course, for Jenna. And for her mother.

Grocery store, liquor store. She was racing the clock, there was no time to think about Edge, or Drum Sr. getting married, or about Griff with his kaleidoscope eyes and the two days of growth on his face. But the three of them were in her brain. How to exorcise them?

She took an outdoor shower under the spray of pale pink climbing roses that her mother had cultivated and that still thrived. The roses alive, her mother dead. Was the fact that Margot didn’t like gardening a character flaw? Did it mean she wasn’t nurturing enough?

In the worst days of their divorce, Drum Sr. had accused Margot of being a coldhearted bitch. Was this true? If it was true, then why did Margot feel everything so keenly? Why did life constantly feel like being pierced by ten thousand tiny arrows?

She had been a coldhearted bitch to Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King. He didn’t realize it, but it was true.

Guilt.

But no, there wasn’t time.

Margot fed her children a frozen pizza and grapes, serving them in her bathrobe, her hair still dripping wet.

Carson said, “Are you going out tonight?”

“Yes,” Margot said.

The three of them started to squeak, squeal, and whine in chorus. They hated it when Margot went out, they hated Kitty, their afternoon babysitter, they hated their afternoon activities regardless of what they were-because they sensed that these activities were also babysitters, substitutes for Margot’s time and attention. Margot had hoped that as they got older, they would come to see her career as one of the wonderful things about her. She was a partner at Miller-Sawtooth, where she did valuable work, matching up top executives with the right companies. She had a certain amount of power, and she made a lot of money.

But power and money meant little to her twelve-year-old and even less to the ten and the six. They wanted her warm body snuggled in the bed between them, reading Caps for Sale.

“It’s your auntie’s wedding,” Margot said. “A sitter named Emma is coming tonight and tomorrow night. Saturday is the wedding, and it will be held here in the backyard, and Sunday we’re going home.”

“Tonight and tomorrow night!” Drum Jr. said. Of the three of them, he was the one who needed Margot the most. Why this was, she couldn’t quite explain.

“Who’s Emma? I don’t know Emma!” Ellie said.

“She’s nice,” Margot said. “Nicer than me.”

It was nearly seven, and the light outside was still strong. The smaller tent had been raised, and now the guys were laying the dance floor. The grass would be matted, but Roger had assured them it wouldn’t die. The smaller tent looked good, Margot thought. It was bigger than she’d expected, but it wasn’t big enough to shelter 150 people. Maybe between the tent and the house. Maybe.

Forty percent chance of showers.

Emma Wilton showed up right at seven. She was a girl whom Margot used to babysit, now twenty-five years old and between years of veterinary school. She and Margot hugged, then remarked on how their relationship had circled around, and Margot said, “And ten or fifteen years from now, Ellie can babysit your kids.” They laughed, and Margot excused herself for the blow-dryer.

She checked her phone. Nothing from Edge. What was wrong with him? Margot was tempted to text, Is everything okay? But that might come across as sounding nagging or needy-or worst of all, wifely. Another problem with texting: it was nearly impossible to express tone. Margot wanted to let him know that she was concerned without having him think she was asking, Why the hell aren’t you texting me back? Which was, of course, exactly what she was asking.

There was a text on her phone from Rhonda. Margot opened it eagerly, expecting more drama. It said: My plane arrives at 8:20. What time dinner?

Margot deflated a bit. It sounded like Rhonda was still coming. This was bad. This was, in so many ways, the worst-case scenario. To have Rhonda, but no Pauline? Unthinkable. Who would Rhonda talk to, who would Rhonda hang out with, if not Pauline? There were no other Tonellis coming to the wedding, and none of Pauline’s friends.

Margot typed back: Dinner is at 8.

Rhonda responded right away: Who picking me up? Rhonda always, in Margot’s experience, responded right away because-Margot suspected-Rhonda had nothing to do but text back right away. She had no proper job, no other friends.

Margot typed: Pls take a cab.

Rhonda replied: ?

Margot looked at the question mark, then burst out laughing. Of course Rhonda had texted a question mark. She was probably wondering why Mr. Roarke wasn’t picking her up in a white stretch limo.

Margot had sent a handful of detailed e-mails about tonight’s bachelorette party to all involved. She had listed the name and address of the restaurant and the time of their dinner reservation-8:00-in each message. That Rhonda had then booked a flight that landed at 8:20 wasn’t Margot’s problem.

Was it?

Guilt.

But no, there wasn’t time.

Although Jenna’s bedroom was the smallest-the “spinster aunt bedroom,” their mother had always called it, since for decades it had belonged to Doug’s spinster aunt, Lucretia-it was also the best appointed because it had a deck that overlooked the backyard and the harbor. It was on this deck that Margot and the other maidens opened the champagne.

Autumn took charge of popping the cork, since she waited tables at a beachfront seafood restaurant in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. The cork sailed into the yard, and Margot watched Jenna’s eyes follow it as it landed in the grass.

Then Jenna said, “I guess I thought the tent would be bigger.”

Autumn expertly filled four glasses, and Margot reached for one. She wanted to drink the whole thing down in one gulp, but she had to make a toast. She smiled at Jenna, and Jenna smiled back. Jenna wouldn’t care about the tent or about Margot making a unilateral decision about Alfie’s tree branch. All Jenna cared about was Stuart, who would be arriving tomorrow with his people.

“To an amazing, wonderful… and sunny weekend!” Margot said.

The four of them clinked glasses.

Jenna said, “There is another tent going up, right? The one the people are sitting under?”

“Yes,” Margot said. Drink drink drink. “Tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Jenna said. “I thought it was going up today.”

“Nope,” Margot said. Drink drink drink. “It’s tomorrow.”

Jenna frowned. Margot thought maybe the issue would explode right then and there. Instead Jenna said, “I miss Stuart.”

Finn was frowning also. She said, “At least he’s not in Vegas, getting a lap dance.”

Margot recalled Finn’s expression on the ferry when Scott’s name came up. So that was why: Vegas, lap dances, strip clubs, cocktail waitresses with large, enticing fake breasts. Margot remembered how things like that could seem threatening to a new marriage. But that kind of jealous anxiety faded away, just like everything else. At the end with Drum Sr., Margot had found herself thinking, Why don’t you go to Vegas and get a lap dance?

Autumn said, “Lap dances are harmless. I get them all the time.”

For the first time all day, something struck Margot as funny. “You get lap dances?”

“Yeah,” Autumn said. “Guys love it.”

“Oh,” Margot said. She wondered for an instant if Edge would love it if she, Margot, got a lap dance. She decided he most definitely would not.

Autumn filled her glass with more champagne, and Margot watched the golden liquid bubble to the top. The kids were playing Frisbee with Emma in the yard below. Margot remembered when it had been she and her siblings playing in the yard, while her parents drank gin and tonics on this deck and turned up Van Morrison on the radio. Her mother used to wear a blue paisley patio dress. Margot would hug Alfie’s trunk, her arms not even reaching a third of the way around. A tree wasn’t a person, but if a tree could be a person, then Alfie would be a wise, generous, all-seeing, godlike person. She couldn’t let the tent guys cut the branch. The cut would be a wound; it might get infected with some kind of mung. Alfie might die.

Margot stood up and leaned over the railing. She felt dizzy. She felt like she might drop.

“We should go,” she said.

Jenna was driving.

They bounced across the cobblestones at the top of Main Street. Town was teeming with people who had come to Nantucket to celebrate summer. Margot loved the art galleries and shops, she loved the couple carrying a bottle of wine to dinner at Black-Eyed Susan’s, she loved the dreadlocked guy in khaki cargo shorts walking a black lab. She noticed people noticing them-four pretty women all dressed up in Margot’s Land Rover. Jenna and Finn were wearing black dresses, and Autumn was wearing green. Margot was wearing a white silk sheath with a cascade of ruffles above the knee. She loved white in the summertime. The city was too dirty to wear white-one cab ride and this dress would be trashed.

Jenna took a right onto Broad Street, past Nantucket Bookworks and the Brotherhood and Le Languedoc, and then a left by the Nantucket Yacht Club. Margot tapped her finger on the window and said, “That’s where we’ll be tomorrow night!”

No one responded. Margot turned around to see Finn and Autumn pecking away at their phones. Then Margot looked at Jenna, who was skillfully navigating the streets, despite that fact that pedestrians were crossing in front of them without looking. Margot felt bad that Jenna was driving to her own bachelorette party, but Jenna had insisted. Margot should have hired a car and driver, and then all four of them would be sitting in the backseat together. And Margot should have made a rule about no cell phones. What was it about life now? The people who weren’t present always seemed to be more important than the people who were.

Margot picked her clutch purse off the floor of the car and, against her better judgment, checked her phone. She had one text, from Ellie. I miss you mommy.

Margot decided not to be disappointed that her only text was from her daughter, and she decided not to be horrified that her six-year-old knew how to text. Margot decided to be happy that someone, somewhere in the world, missed her.

When she looked up, Jenna was pulling into the restaurant parking lot. Margot knew this was the time to muster her enthusiasm and rally the troops. The group was low-energy; even Margot herself was flagging. A glass and a half of champagne might as well have been three Ambien and a shot of NyQuil. If Jenna turned the car around, Margot would happily sleep until morning.

But she was the maid of honor. She had to do this for Jenna.

And her mother.

The Galley was a bewitching restaurant. It was the only fine dining on Nantucket located on the beach. Most of the seating was under an awning with open sides bordered by planters filled with red and pink geraniums. There were divans and papasan chairs and tiki torches out in the sand. There was a zinc bar. The crowd was buzzing and beautiful. Over the years, Margot had seen an assortment of powerful and famous people at these tables: Martha Stewart, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman, Ted Kennedy, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, Robert DeNiro. The Galley was see and be seen. It was, always, on any given night, the place to be.

They were seated at a table for four in the main dining room, but in the part of the room that was closer to the parking lot. Autumn didn’t sit down right away; she was scanning the surroundings. Finally, she settled in her chair. She said, “I think we should ask for a better table.”

Margot felt something sinking and rising in her at the same time. Spirits sinking, ire rising. She said, “A better table, where? This place is packed!”

“Out in the sand, maybe,” Autumn said. “Where there’s more action.”

Margot couldn’t believe this. She’d had a hell of a time even getting this reservation for eight o’clock on a Thursday night in July. She had called on the Tuesday after Memorial Day and had been told, initially, that the restaurant was booked, but her name could be added to the wait list. And now Autumn-the so-called restaurant professional-was complaining? Insinuating that Margot hadn’t been important or insistent enough to score a better table? It was Autumn’s fault that the bachelorette party was being held tonight, at the very last minute, instead of weeks or months earlier, which was more traditional. There were five people’s schedules to accommodate, and so Margot had put forth options, all of them enticing. A ski weekend in Stowe, or a spring weekend out at the spa in Canyon Ranch. But Autumn hadn’t been able to make either one. Weekends are really hard for me, she’d written.

Well, it was nearly impossible to plan a bachelorette party during the week, but Margot gave it a shot and threw together something in Boca Raton the week of Jenna’s spring break from Little Minds, but again Autumn couldn’t attend, so Margot canceled.

Then Jenna told Margot she thought the real problem with Autumn was money. She was, after all, waiting tables.

Margot wondered why Autumn was waiting tables. She had a degree from the College of William and Mary, where she had majored in political science. She could have done anything with that-grad school, law school, think tanks. She could have taught like Jenna or gone into business, an Internet start-up, anything. Margot was impatient with people who didn’t live up to their potential. This, she supposed, was the result of having been married to Drum Sr. Drum Sr. was so unambitious, it was like he was moving backward.

Margot ignored Autumn’s dissatisfaction with their table. She asked the waiter (who was a woman, but one of the things Margot had learned over the years from Autumn was that the term “waitress,” like the term “actress,” was outdated) for a wine list. The wine list appeared, and Margot asked Jenna, “White or red?”

Jenna waved a hand. “I don’t care. Either.”

Margot didn’t ask Finn or Autumn for input, even though she could feel Autumn staring at her. Probably Autumn wanted the wine list. Well, too bad, Margot was going to exercise her sovereign right as maid of honor and pick the wine.

One white, one red. Margot preferred Sancerres and Malbecs. Sancerres reminded her of Drum Sr. (he had wooed her the first summer they dated by taking her to a restaurant called the Blue Bistro-which had since closed-and plying her with Sancerre), and Malbecs reminded her of Edge (that night at Picholine, which she could not allow herself to dwell on). Margot wished she could look at a wine list and not think of men at all. She wished she could look at a wine list and think about herself.

She handed the list to Autumn. “Would you mind picking the wine?”

Autumn looked so happy that Margot immediately felt petty for denying her this tiny pleasure in the first place. “I’d love to!”

Margot leaned back in her chair and tried to relax. Jenna and Finn were talking between themselves sotto voce, which Margot found rude, if completely predictable. Finn seemed to still be in foul humor. She had always been petulant and spoiled. When Finn was seventeen, she had landed a job on Nantucket, nannying for the Worthington family, who were friends of Beth and Doug Carmichael. Finn had lasted thirty-six hours before she quit. She missed Connecticut, she claimed, and she missed her parents. What Finn really wanted was to return to Darien in order to have sex with her boyfriend, Charlie Beaudette, while her parents-the ones she purportedly missed-were on vacation for two weeks in the south of France. Beth and Doug had tried to talk Finn into staying-she would outgrow her homesickness, she would have a wonderful summer-but Finn was determined to go, and the Carmichaels were powerless to make her stay. Margot had been on Nantucket that same week and had a front-row seat for the drama. Back then, Drum Jr. was less than a year old, and Margot was working as an associate principal at Miller-Sawtooth. As a new mother and a placement professional, Margot had determined that Finn lacked character, had no sense of responsibility, and no hustle. Margot could not abide people without hustle. Finn’s inner core, Margot suspected, was as soft as a rotten banana.

Thankfully, the wine arrived, and they ordered their meals. Jenna turned to include Autumn and Margot in the conversation, although Margot couldn’t keep track of what they were talking about from one minute to the next. Her mind was on other things. She had ordered the crab cake to start, Autumn had the chowder, Jenna and Finn had both gotten the foie gras. Margot thought, in no particular order: It was funny the way Jenna and Finn always ordered the same thing, and they had dressed alike. Had they ever had a fight? If so, Margot didn’t know about it. They had been friends for more than twenty-five years, and it had always been harmony. The summer of the nanny job, Jenna had supported Finn’s decision to go home. She was the one who had confided to Margot that the real reason Finn wanted to go home was to screw Charlie Beaudette. Jenna had found it romantic-instead of stupid, immature, and shortsighted.

Margot allowed that her bitterness regarding Finn might have been born of jealousy. Margot herself had never had a friend the way Jenna had Finn. She had had friends, of course, some casual, some closer, but Margot and her friends had bickered and switched alliances; this had been true in high school, and then again in college. As an adult, Margot and Drum Sr. had become friends with the people whose children went to school with their children, and did the same sports and activities as their children-which was, Margot realized, an insufficient litmus test for friendship. Few of those friendships had survived her divorce. None of the couples she and Drum used to hang out with called her for dinner parties anymore. Now, when Margot saw those people, they scheduled the children’s playdates like business transactions.

If Margot needed to talk to someone, she called Jenna, or her sister-in-law, Beanie, or her father. She sometimes talked to Edge. At the start of their relationship, he had been sweet and attentive, but lately the sweet attentiveness had dwindled. For the past four or five months, he had sounded like a man of fifty-nine who had been married and divorced three times, who had seen it all, survived it all, and could barely conceal his impatience that Margot was still in the life stage where she cared what other people thought.

Margot eyed Jenna and Finn with envy. Then she worried that the fact that she had never had a best friend was another indicator-like the fact that she didn’t garden-that there was something wrong with her. And her marriage had failed! Was that due to some inability to connect in a meaningful and permanent way with others? Was she a coldhearted bitch? Jenna would, no doubt, be just as devoted to Stuart as she was to Finn. Margot wondered if all family wedding weekends were doomed to be exercises in painful self-examination.

She turned her attention to Autumn.

Autumn had ordered the chowder, which was the least expensive thing on the menu, and Margot wondered if that was why she had ordered it. Maybe Autumn really was financially strapped. Of course, she wasn’t rich; she was waiting tables and living in a rented bungalow. At that moment, Margot decided that she would pay for dinner. She had a great job, she could afford it, she was the maid of honor: she would pay.

She took a bite of her crab cake. It was drizzled with a lemony sauce. More wine. She was starting to feel a little drunk, but this came as no surprise. Anytime she had thought about the wedding in the past twelve months, she had thought, When I don’t know what else to do, I’ll get drunk. I’ll just stay drunk all weekend, if need be. And here she was.

Finn got up to use the bathroom. She hadn’t even touched her foie gras, and Margot eyed it covetously. Margot loved foie gras, but she hadn’t ordered it because it was bad for you, and it was a travesty the way they force-fed the poor French geese. But it looked so yummy-plump and seared golden brown, topped with ruby red pomegranate seeds.

Margot noticed Jenna watching her with a concerned expression on her face. She realized that she had to tell Jenna about Alfie’s tree branch; she had to tell Jenna that the second tent wasn’t coming tomorrow. The second tent wasn’t coming at all.

Forty percent chance of showers.

Margot lifted the bottle of white wine out of the ice and found it empty. She flagged the waiter.

“Another?” she said.

Jenna bit her bottom lip, and Margot didn’t like the way that looked. She wanted to ask Jenna if she was having fun. She wanted to ask Jenna if this night was memorable. It was too early to tell, they had barely started, but Margot feared it wasn’t memorable enough. What could she do? Should she suggest a game? Some kind of bachelorette game? In general, Margot found bachelorette parties distasteful-the penis lollipops, the ludicrous sashes the bride-to-be was forced to wear, the hot pink T-shirts with lewd sayings. And at that moment, Margot realized she had forgotten to bring the hideous bow-and-paper-plate “hat” that Jenna was supposed to wear. Jenna would most definitely be thrilled that Margot had forgotten the hat, but Margot still felt like she was failing at her maid-of-honor duties. Finn would have remembered to bring the hat.

Forty percent chance of showers. Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King. He had taken the job at Blankstar; he was happy there. Margot could relax. No harm, no foul.

The restaurant was loud. The other tables were talking and laughing, and under all that, Bobby Darin sang “Beyond the Sea,” and champagne corks popped, and knives and forks scraped plates. Margot thought of her mother, wearing the blue paisley patio dress. She had seemed like the most beautiful woman in all the world, and Jenna looked just like her.

Margot said, “Is it me, or has Finn been gone a long time?”

Jenna said, “I’m sure she’s texting Scott.”

“Oh,” Margot said, collapsing back in her seat. She wondered if she should take her phone to the ladies’ room and check her texts. She knew the answer was no. She was determined to be present. She would eat her crab cake. She wouldn’t worry about Alfie’s tree branch or about what Edge was doing, or about whether or not Carson needed to repeat fourth grade or about whether it had been rude to pick such an expensive restaurant for this dinner. She wouldn’t feel the weight of her age, even though it had been difficult to see Emma Wilton all grown up. A blink of an eye ago, Emma had been six, and Margot had been twenty-one. Forty was too old to be a maid of honor, Margot thought. And yet that was what their mother had wanted.

There was a tap on Margot’s shoulder. She thought it was Finn returning from the ladies’ room, or the waiter with their wine, but when she pivoted in her seat, she saw Rhonda. Rhonda Tonelli.

Oh, shit, she thought.

Margot struggled to push her chair away from the table and stand. She thought, What do I do? What do I say? She’d had too much to drink to handle this graciously, but at least she was sober enough to realize it.

She said, “Hey, Rhonda!” She moved in to give Rhonda a hug and a peck on the cheek, and Rhonda bobbed away to avoid this gesture, so Margot ended up with her hand on the side of Rhonda’s neck, and her lips landed on Rhonda’s bare shoulder. It all happened quickly, but the embarrassing fact resonated through Margot’s mind like a gong. She had kissed Rhonda’s shoulder.

Oh, God, awkward.

Rhonda said, “I didn’t know the address of the house, so I called my mother, but she wasn’t answering her phone, so then I called you, like, fifty times, and you didn’t answer. So then the cabdriver had pity on me-I mean, here I am, just landed on this island and there’s no one to meet me and I don’t know where the hell I’m going. So we pulled out the phone book and looked up Carmichael, but there were two Carmichaels so I picked one and I was wrong-the other Carmichaels were at home, I interrupted their dinner-and then finally I found the right house. The babysitter was there with your kids, she had no idea which room was mine, so I put my stuff in the blue room with the twin beds…”

Kevin’s room, Margot thought.

“And thank God the babysitter knew where you guys were eating because I lost the e-mail you sent me with the name of the restaurant. It was like, ‘Welcome to Nantucket, Rhonda!’ ”

Margot laughed. She said, “Welcome to Nantucket, Rhonda!” She stood with her back to the table, hoping to disguise the fact that there was no chair for Rhonda. Margot had completely forgotten Rhonda was coming. Margot had made a reservation for five people, but when they’d arrived, the hostess had said, “Four?” and Margot had said, “Yes, please,” and they were seated at a table for four.

Now Autumn was up out of her chair, using her professional skills, informing the waiter that there would be one more joining them and they needed a chair. But then Finn returned to the table, her face streaked with tears, and Jenna hopped up to see what the matter was. In the process, she upended her wineglass, and Margot’s white silk sheath dress was splattered with burgundy, and Margot’s gut reaction, which she was not quick enough to suppress, was to shriek. The dress was ruined.

Jenna said, “Oh, Margot, I’m sorry!”

Rhonda said, “White wine will get that out. Use white wine.”

Autumn said, “That’s a myth.”

Rhonda said, “I’ve seen it done.”

Margot watched Finn and Jenna, who were now hugging. Jenna rubbed Finn between the shoulder blades. “What happened?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

The waiter came back with the fifth chair, and then there was the big production of squeezing it in and moving the plates, all of them still filled with very expensive uneaten food. Then the waiter noticed the spilled wine and Margot’s dress, and she ran to get fresh linens and a dish towel and seltzer for the stains. The wine looked like blood, and Finn was crying with gusto now. It probably seemed like there had been a murder at their table. Margot thought it would be best if they all sat down, and she said so.

Finn said, “I have to go home.”

Margot said, “What? Why? What happened?”

Finn shook her head and pressed a streamer of toilet paper to her nose.

Jenna said, “I’ll go with you.”

“No!” Margot said. “You can’t. This is your party!”

“Your sister’s right,” Finn said. “You stay. It’s your party.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Jenna said. “If you’re going home, I’m going with you.”

Finn cast her eyes to the ceiling in a look of mock surrender that Margot had seen a thousand times in the past twenty-five years. Margot thought, You can’t ask Jenna to leave her own party! Pathetic! Finn was upset because Scott was in Las Vegas having fun. Why wasn’t Finn willing to just have fun herself, here? But Margot knew there was nothing she would be able to say, no guilt trip she would be able to lay, that would make either of them change their minds.

Jenna wrapped herself in her pashmina. “I’m going to take the car,” she said to Margot. “You guys can get a cab, right?”

“Right,” Margot said. She smiled at Jenna, willing herself to pretend like this was all okay for the next sixty seconds, until they were out of the restaurant. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

Jenna returned Margot’s smile, and Margot saw her gratitude and relief. She kissed Margot on the cheek and said, “Thank you for understanding. I’m not feeling very fun, either. I just want Stuart to get here.”

“Okay,” Margot said. Jenna and Finn left, and a second later the waiter approached with the seltzer and a rag, and Margot blotted the stains on her dress until she looked like a watercolor canvas. It was not okay, of course, not okay that the evening she had planned for months had been sabotaged by Scott Walker, of all people. In fact, if Margot looked back on the last six hours, nothing had been okay. If Margot let herself think about it another second, she might break down in tears and go home.

But no, she wouldn’t capitulate. She was the maid of honor, and that word, honor, meant something. She wasn’t sure just what, but she knew it didn’t mean going home. She had an evening to salvage.

She turned to Autumn and Rhonda. “So,” she said.

They decided to move to the bar. This was Autumn’s idea, and it was brilliant. Instead of the three of them sitting forlornly at a table set for five, they had their wine and food moved to three stools at the zinc bar. It was a fresh start. Margot sat in the middle, with Rhonda to her right and Autumn to her left. Rhonda ordered dinner, and Autumn finished her chowder, and Margot managed to eat her crab cake, then she and Autumn split Finn’s untouched foie gras. Margot began to feel a little more like a human being. She was hosting a bachelorette party without a bachelorette, but that wasn’t true because both Autumn and Rhonda were bachelorettes, and for that matter, so was Margot.

Autumn and Rhonda had never met, which turned out to be a good thing because Rhonda, once she had gotten a glass of wine and taken a few deep breaths, did something Margot had never seen before: she turned on the charm.

She said, “I can’t believe Jenna asked me to be a bridesmaid. I am so thrilled.”

“Thrilled?” Autumn said. “Really? I agreed because I love that girl to pieces, but I wouldn’t call myself thrilled.”

“No,” Margot said. “Me either.”

“I’ve been a bridesmaid eleven times,” Autumn said.

“How many of those couples are still married?” Margot wondered aloud.

“Eight couples still married, two divorced, one separated,” Autumn said.

“More will fall,” Margot predicted.

“I’ve never been a bridesmaid before,” Rhonda said.

“You’re kidding!” Autumn said. “How’d you manage to escape?”

Rhonda shrugged. “No one ever asked me.”

Autumn sat with that a moment, and Margot thought, No one ever asked you because up until ten minutes ago you presented yourself to the world as a miserable bitch. Right? Rhonda was the same woman who had refused to eat anything other than celery sticks at Thanksgiving dinner because she was newly vegan-although she hadn’t bothered to inform her mother-and then she picked a fight with Margot’s sister-in-law, Beanie, about what being a vegan actually entailed, and the whole time she had pronounced the word “veg-an,” with a short “e,” so that it rhymed with “Megan.” Rhonda was the same woman who had gotten a flat tire in the Bronx and had called Doug in the middle of the night, begging him to come help her change it, then screamed at him for taking so long to get there, saying he was lucky she hadn’t been gang-raped. Rhonda was the same woman who announced unsolicited that her body fat was a mere 4 percent, then asked Margot to feel her biceps, then pulled up her shirt so that Margot could view her six-pack abs. Rhonda openly admitted that her favorite show was Jersey Shore and that she had a celebrity crush on Mike “The Situation.”

Margot said, “Well, I’m glad you’re thrilled. It’s going to be a lovely wedding.”

Rhonda said, “I love the dress.”

“Ha!” Autumn said. “You’re kidding!”

Rhonda said, “I’m not kidding. I love it.”

“Grasshopper green,” Autumn said. “I’m sorry, but those two words spoken together are fingernails down a chalkboard.”

Margot pressed her lips together. On the one hand, she agreed with Autumn. The color did not thrill Margot. Nor, really, did anything else about the dress. The dress was, undeniably, a bridesmaid dress-silk shantung in a reptilian green, off-the-shoulder, cinched-at-the-waist sheath skirt to the knee. To Margot, the dress felt dated. These days, everyone got bridesmaid dresses at J.Crew or Ann Taylor, or women were given a color and then they were free to find their own dresses, ones they might actually wear again. But on the other hand, Margot was grateful that Rhonda liked the dress. The suggestion of this green had come from the Notebook. It was their mother’s idea, because their mother’s vision was one of an elegant woodland, all green and white. The green should be “the color of new leaves,” the Notebook stated, but it had ended up as a shade the woman at the bridal salon called “grasshopper.” Reminiscent of classroom lizards and sour-apple Jolly Ranchers. Their mother had also suggested dyed-to-match pumps and opera-length pearls-and Jenna had fully subscribed to both of these things, even though Margot had advised rethinking both. Dyed-to-match pumps and pearls were fine a decade ago-maybe-but not any longer.

Margot had said, You don’t have to follow Mom’s advice to the letter, Jenna. If she were alive now, even she might second-guess the pearls.

But Jenna wouldn’t budge.

To Rhonda, Margot said, “I’m glad you like the dress.”

Autumn said, “But just so you know, bridesmaids are supposed to complain about the dress. It’s in the Bridesmaid Handbook.”

“Handbook?” Rhonda said.

“She’s kidding,” Margot said.

Their entrées came, Margot’s steak, Autumn’s chicken, Rhonda’s sole. Rhonda had obviously given up being a Megan-vegan, but Margot decided not to mention it. Why rock the boat? She sipped her wine and then drank some water. Her steak was seared on the outside and pink and juicy on the inside, and it came with some kind of creamy potato thing and lemony sautéed spinach, and as Margot ate, her mood improved. She realized she was sort of glad that Jenna and Finn had left because the pressure of making sure the evening was perfect and that Jenna was having fun had been lifted.

Rhonda said, “So… I have a new boyfriend.”

“Really?” Margot knew next to nothing about Rhonda’s personal life, but from certain things Pauline had said, Margot had gleaned that Rhonda’s career was abysmal and her dating situation even worse.

“Wanna see a picture?” Rhonda whipped out her phone and scrolled to a photo of a behemoth man wearing a tight black T-shirt that showed off his oiled, rock-hard muscles. He reminded Margot of Arnold Schwarzenegger from his bodybuilding days. He had a full head of hair and a nice smile.

“Wow,” Margot said.

“His name is Raymond,” Rhonda said. “He’s a trainer at my gym.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He has an eleven-inch penis.”

“Really?” Autumn said, perking up. “Eleven inches? You’re sure you’re not exaggerating? Eleven inches is BIG.”

“Eleven inches,” Rhonda confirmed.

Margot nodded appreciatively, guessing that Raymond and his prodigious member might be responsible for the transformation of Rhonda’s personality.

“What about you, Margot? Are you dating anyone?” Rhonda asked. “You must have men all over you. You’re so pretty and smart.”

Smart? Margot knew Rhonda meant book smart, but when it came to men, Margot was as big an idiot as anyone else. A bigger idiot, in fact.

Before she could stop herself, Margot said, “Actually, I’m dating my father’s law partner.”

She sat for a second, stunned that she had spoken those words out loud. She was scandalized with herself. She looked at her glass of red wine and thought, Damn you. Nobody, and she meant nobody, knew about her and Edge-except for her and Edge. But she found it felt cathartic to say it aloud. To finally tell someone.

“He’s fifty-nine years old,” she said.

“Whoa,” Autumn said.

“You can’t say a word,” Margot said. “It’s a secret.” She looked at Autumn first. Autumn might whip out her phone any second and text Jenna. Then Margot looked at Rhonda, who was a bigger security threat. Rhonda, Margot knew, told her mother everything, and if Rhonda told Pauline about this, Pauline would most certainly tell Doug. What had Margot done? She had blown it. She might as well have changed her status on Facebook to read, Dating my father’s law partner, so that all 486 of her “friends” knew the truth. She had just sabotaged her relationship. If Edge knew that Margot had spilled the beans, he would end it.

Margot said, “I’m dead serious. You can’t tell a soul. I’ll know if you’ve told anyone, and I will find you, and I will kill you.” She was using what Drum Jr. called her “scary mom voice.” This was the only weapon she had in her arsenal, and she wasn’t certain it would be effective. She didn’t trust either of these people.

“I won’t tell,” Autumn said.

“I won’t tell,” Rhonda said.

They sounded earnest, but Margot was forty years old, and she had learned that human beings were incapable of keeping secrets. When handed a privileged piece of information, the first thing a person wanted to do was share it.

“My father would die,” Margot said. Or at least this was Edge’s position. He believed that Doug would be appalled, their friendship would be strained, and their working relationship ruined. Margot believed her father would take the news in stride. He might even be happy. Doug had not been fond of Drum Sr. He thought Drum Sr. was a spoiled ne’er-do-well. Doug liked and respected Edge; they had been law partners for thirty years. True, Edge’s track record with women wasn’t great. He was paying alimony to three wives; he had four children, the oldest of whom was thirty-six, and the youngest of whom was six. Audrey.

That was how Margot and Edge had ended up together: Ellie and Audrey, both six years old, had taken ballet class at Mme Willette’s studio on Eighty-second and Riverside. Mme Willette’s ballet school was expensive, rigorous, and impossible to get into, but Margot had heard excellent things about it. Mme Willette held her girls to high standards-perfect posture, perfect French pronunciation, not a strand of hair escaping the bun. At the open house, Margot had been captivated by Mme Willette and became determined that Ellie should study with her. She had mastered the admissions game after getting three kids into Ethical Culture Fieldston, and she pursued the prestigious ballet class relentlessly.

Ellie had thrived under Mme Willette’s discipline. She quickly bonded with all the girls in her class, and her favorite ballet friend was a tiny girl with black hair and Asiatic eyes named Audrey. Margot had glimpsed the mother a few times-an elegant, lean woman of indeterminate ethnicity. Ellie begged for a playdate with Audrey, and she claimed that Audrey wanted a playdate with her, but the odd and awkward thing about socializing children in Manhattan was that none of the parents knew each other. And quite frankly, Margot was intimidated by Audrey’s mother. She looked like she lived downtown, although it just as easily could have been Sutton Place. Margot didn’t know if she was a Little Red Schoolhouse mom or a Bank Street mom or a Chapin mom. She might have asked, but she didn’t have the energy, the output, required to forge any new alliances.

And then, one week, Margot went to pick up Ellie from Mme Willette’s-and there, in the foyer, waiting for the class to be let out, was Edge Desvesnes.

“Hi!” Margot had said, her voice containing amazement and confusion. Edge was way out of context here; it was like seeing her dentist at the Union Square Greenmarket, or her childhood minister, Reverend Marlowe, at the hardware store.

Edge had turned to look at her, but she could tell he was having a hard time placing her, as well.

She said, “Margot Carmichael.”

“Oh, my!” he said, and they embraced.

Margot had known Edge Desvesnes since she was a teenager. He and his first wife, Mary Lee, used to come to barbecues at the Carmichael house in Darien. There had been a time when Margot was still in braces and glasses and bad-hair-and-worse-skin when she had a terrible crush on Edge Desvesnes. She remembered once passing hors d’oeuvres at a party that her parents were throwing. After she had served Edge, he had turned to Doug and said, “That’s a beautiful girl you’ve got there, partner. Those eyes.”

And Doug had said, “Don’t I know it.”

Margot had blushed hot and retreated to the kitchen. No one had ever called her “beautiful” before. The boys in Margot’s class were ruthless about her looks. That Mr. Desvesnes, who was cool and funny and cute, had called her “beautiful” was enough to turn Margot’s world upside down.

Beautiful. She had looked at herself in the mirror for months after that, wondering: Am I beautiful? And what had he meant about her eyes?

Margot had seen Edge Desvesnes periodically in the years that followed. He came to dinner to celebrate her parents’ twentieth anniversary, he pulled into the driveway to honk for Doug when they went golfing, he attended Kevin and Beanie’s wedding. Before she ran into him outside the dance class, the last time Margot had seen Edge Desvesnes was at her mother’s funeral. Edge had served as a pallbearer. In Margot’s memory, he had been with a woman, but Margot had been too racked with grief and swarmed by people to notice which woman. She had heard through her father that Edge had divorced, then married, then divorced, then married-but amid the drama of her own life, Margot hadn’t been able to keep up.

Seeing him again so unexpectedly, Margot felt as flushed as she had been at fourteen. She said, “You’re not here for…”

“Waiting for my daughter,” he said.

“Your daughter?” In Margot’s memory, Edge had sons. Two with the first wife, one with the second, or the other way around. Did she remember hearing about a daughter?

“My youngest,” he said. “Audrey.”

Margot said, “Audrey is your daughter? Ellie loves Audrey.” Margot swallowed. She thought of the Indochine beauty. “So your wife…”

“My ex.”

“Oh,” Margot said. “Well, I’ve been meaning to approach her about getting the girls together. I had no idea… I mean, I didn’t know she was your daughter.”

At that moment, the door to the studio opened, and the girls filed out in graceful silence. Ellie reached for the cold water bottle in Margot’s hand. Audrey wrapped her arms around Edge’s waist and squeezed.

“My daughter,” he said.

“Fifty-nine,” Autumn said now. “That’s old. That’s Viagra territory.”

Rhonda laughed at this.

Margot said, “Not quite.”

Things had turned romantic right away. At that very first encounter, they had exchanged cell phone numbers, and by that evening, Margot had a text from Edge that said, You are a knockout, Margot Carmichael.

And she had said, Moi?

Two Saturdays later, when Edge was back to pick up Audrey, they made plans to have coffee. A few days after the coffee date, they met for drinks, and drinks had turned into the two of them making out on a dark street corner in Hell’s Kitchen. Edge had said, “Your father would kill me if he saw us now.”

And Margot said, “My father will never find out.”

Those had been the words that they’d lived by; those had become the chains that strangled their relationship, made it clunky, and kept it from growing. Doug could never find out.

“Whatever,” Margot said now. “It’s kind of a mess.”

“Is he coming to the wedding?” Rhonda asked.

“Yes,” Margot said. “Tomorrow.”

“Well, then, we still have tonight,” Autumn said. “Let’s get out of here.”

That’s a beautiful girl you’ve got there, partner. Those eyes. Margot had asked Edge if he remembered saying that.

He had shaken his head, baffled. No, he said.

Margot flagged the bartender for the check. “This is my treat,” she said.

“Oh, Margot, come on,” Autumn said. “It’s too much.”

“I insist,” Margot said, and she could tell Autumn felt relieved.

“Thank you!” Rhonda said. “That’s really generous.”

Margot looked at Rhonda. Rhonda’s face was fresh, smiling, sincere. This was the same woman who had once told Margot she bought dresses at Bergdorf’s, wore them with the tags on, and returned them the next day?

“You’re welcome,” Margot said. She was done trying to predict what would happen next. This wedding had taken on a life of its own.