Beautiful Day (8 page)

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.