Beautiful Day (19 page)

T
he sight of Doug Carmichael openly weeping as he walked Jenna down the aisle was the
only thing all day that had managed to get Ann out of her own head. Ann thought, The
poor man, he lost his wife; now he is giving away his daughter, whom he clearly adores.
A man was different with daughters than with sons. Ann wondered for a second how Jim
would have fared with a daughter. Ann hoped he would have been just like Doug Carmichael.
Of course, they would never know.

The rehearsal was unremarkable except for that show of emotion. Ann’s part was small
and completed early—she would be walked in after the other guests were seated, escorted
by Ryan.

Fine.

“Dearly beloved,” followed by the readings. Jenna’s brother Kevin read the lyrics
to “Here, There and Everywhere,” by the Beatles. And Jenna’s sister-in-law, Beanie,
read the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “Love Is Not All”:

Ann closed her eyes. Jenna and Stuart said their vows, then Jenna’s childhood minister
would give a short homily, although tonight, thankfully, they were spared. He was
Episcopalian. It would have been nice if Jenna had been Catholic, but Ann couldn’t
complain. Episcopalians were close, and most of the girls whom Stuart had dated before
had been Southern Baptists, including She Who Shall Not Be Named. Then there was a
moment of silence to remember Jenna’s mother, Beth
Carmichael, during which Ann bowed her head and reminded herself to be grateful that
she was whole, present, and healthy to see her son get married. Then the kiss. Then
“I now pronounce you man and wife.” Then the wedding planner hit the button on his
funny old tape recorder, the strains of Mendelssohn played, and everyone filed out
of the church in the reverse order, only this time Ann was escorted out by Jim.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

At the bar at the yacht club, Ann ordered a double vodka martini.

Jim looked at her sideways. “You?” he said. “Vodka?”

“Let me know the second you see her,” Ann said. “And please, don’t leave my side.”

Jim cupped Ann’s face with his big, strong hands and kissed her on the lips, a real
kiss, the kind of kiss that, all these years later, could still make her weak with
desire, especially since he tasted like his first sip of bourbon. During the four
years of their separation and divorce, Ann had dated seven men and slept with two,
but none of those men had made her dizzy with lust the way Jim did. Even now, in public,
under such stressful circumstances, she felt a hot pulse. It wasn’t fair.

“Nice party,” Jim said.

Ann could do nothing but agree. The Nantucket Yacht Club was the kind of place that
thrived on understatement and quiet privilege. The sloops on buoys, the grass tennis
courts, the spectacular location on the harbor, the shabby genteel furnishings, the
trophy cases displaying the same dozen Mayflower names.

Cocktails were being served on the patio. The college-age servers (all attending colleges
like Mount Holyoke and Williams, all with names like Lindsley and Talbot) passed trays
of bacon-wrapped scallops and phyllo filled with melted Brie and
apricot preserves. They had ripped the recipes for this occasion right out of the
official WASP cookbook.

It was exactly as Ann had imagined it.

In the ballroom, round tables were set with navy and white linens and napkins folded
to look like sailing ships. Dinner was to be a traditional clambake—lobsters and potatoes
and corn—served buffet style. Guests could sit wherever they pleased. Ann would have
preferred assigned seating, with Helen Oppenheimer placed on the opposite side of
the ballroom, preferably in the corridor outside the ladies’ room. As it was, Ann
had made her first priority—after acquiring her vodka martini and downing three healthy
sips—rounding up Olivia and her husband Robert and the Cohens and the Shelbys and
making sure that they were all planning to sit at the table with Ann and Jim.

“Absolutely,” Olivia said. “I would never abandon you. Is the bitch here yet?”

“Not that I can see,” Ann said. Olivia was the only person who knew about Helen; the
Cohens and Shelbys had become close friends of Ann and Jim’s the second time around.
Jim’s sister Maisy was here with her husband, Sam. Ann and Maisy had never hit it
off—quite frankly, Ann couldn’t stand the woman. She lived in Boone, North Carolina,
and wore prairie dresses and had homeschooled her five children. When Jim left to
move in with Helen, Maisy had condoned it. She and Helen became friends. Maisy had
helped Helen with Chance when he was a baby. Ann pointedly did not ask Maisy and Sam
to sit at her and Jim’s table. Maisy could sit with Helen in social Siberia.

Ann finished her cocktail and got herself another. A young man named Ford who attended
Colgate (it said so right on his name tag; it must have been yacht club tradition
to let people
know how well educated the staff was) offered Ann a deviled egg, but Ann declined.
She couldn’t possibly eat anything.

She wanted to find Jim and walk down the docks and admire the sailboats, but Jim was
off mingling somewhere; he had not heeded her plea to stay within arm’s reach. Ann
knew she should introduce herself to some of the other guests instead of spending
the whole evening within the cozy ring of her Durham friends. As it was, those six
were circled together, talking and laughing, having a fine time. They felt no compunction
to meet Jenna’s mother’s cousins or Stuart’s boss, here with his wife and new baby.

But Ann was a politician, and it was in her nature to connect with as many new people
as humanly possible. She was good at introducing herself; she should just do it. Helen
would get there when she got there; Ann couldn’t fritter the whole evening away worrying
about when.

She decided she would start with Doug Carmichael and tell him how touching she had
found the rehearsal. But Doug was all the way out by the cannon and the flagpole,
talking to a young woman with dreadlocks, whom Ann guessed was one of Jenna’s fellow
teachers at the sustainable preschool. Then Ann spied Doug’s wife, sitting alone at
one of the patio tables, drinking a very large glass of chardonnay and attacking a
bowl of cashews. Ann approached. The woman’s name was Pauline, though Ann always had
the urge to call her Paula.

“Hi, Pauline,” Ann said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please,” Pauline said. She had the demeanor of someone sitting at home alone, rather
than smack in the middle of a party, but she snapped to attention with Ann’s words
and pulled her hand out of the cashew bowl.

“Lovely party,” Ann said. “This is such a beautiful club.”

“Is it?” Pauline said. “I hate it here.”

Ann tried not to appear startled. “Oh,” she said.

“Nantucket in general, I guess,” Pauline said. “So precious, so… I don’t know, self-satisfied.”

Ann had been thinking the same thing only that morning; she had about as much love
for the North as General Lee. But Nantucket had grown on her over the course of the
day. There had been the leisurely morning at the hotel, then Ann and Jim had strolled
into town. They had shopped at galleries and antique stores. Ann had bought a painting
of the ocean, all swirling blues and greens; it wouldn’t exactly blend in with their
sprawling Victorian—which had once been owned by a nephew of the tobacco baron W.
T. Blackwell, and Ann had painstakingly decorated with help from
Southern Living
—but it would be a nice reminder of Stuart’s wedding. Ann had also bought a straw
hat with a black grosgrain ribbon, exorbitantly priced, but when she tried it on,
Jim declared she had to have it. They had eaten a lunch of clam chowder and Caesar
salad on the wharf, and Ann had tanned her legs in the sun.

“People seem to love it,” Ann said neutrally. She wished she hadn’t committed to sitting
down. She cast about the party, looking for someone else she knew, somewhere else
she could go. She saw Ryan with his boyfriend, Jethro; they were standing so close
to each other that their foreheads were nearly touching. Ann was a Republican in a
southern state, but parenting Ryan had given her an advanced degree in tolerance and
acceptance. Jethro had become one of Ann’s favorite people in all the world. He had
been raised in the Cabrini-Green housing projects on the south side of Chicago, a
fact that had shocked Ann at first. Jethro’s manners were as elegant as if he’d been
raised at Buckingham Palace. He was smart and funny, he spoke fluent Italian and French,
he was the editor in chief at
Chicago Style
magazine. But
right this instant, Ann wished that Ryan and Jethro would not announce themselves
as so openly gay. They were at the Nantucket Yacht Club. The place was as straitlaced
as a Junior League event at the Washington Duke back home. But Jethro had never been
one to hide. Black and proud—the only person of color at this entire party, except
for a Korean gal whom Jenna had gone to college with. And gay and proud.

Ann turned back to Pauline and smiled. Pauline’s nose was deep in her wineglass. Ann
scrambled for something else to say, something that would lead her organically to
an exit.

Pauline set her wineglass down with a sharp
ching!

“Do you ever feel like maybe your marriage isn’t exactly what you thought it was?”
Pauline asked.

Ann’s mouth fell open. She was wearing a sleeveless shell-pink sheath, but at that
moment, she felt completely naked. Exposed. She turned her head away—she couldn’t
meet Pauline’s intense, questioning gaze—and at that very second she saw Helen Oppenheimer
enter the party. The crowd seemed to hush; something about Helen’s presence demanded
it. She was a six-foot blonde, still as statuesque as ever, wearing a flowing, one-shouldered
dress that was the brightest yellow Ann had ever seen. It was canary yellow, the yellow
of a bushel of lemons, a juicy sunburst yellow. She was blinding and beautiful. Ann
realized then what a terrible, terrible mistake she had made.

She shifted her gaze back to Pauline. “Yes,” she said. “I do sometimes feel that way.”

Ann stood up. Where was Jim? Just as she was about to curse him, she felt a pressure
on her elbow. He was right next to her.

He said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

“Get
what
over with?” Ann said.

“We have to say hello,” Jim said.

Of course they had to say hello, but Ann didn’t want to. She wanted Helen to stand
alone, ostracized, gawked at—because soon people would figure out who she was. Furthermore,
Ann hadn’t rehearsed a greeting in her head. She might say, “Hello, Helen.
So
glad you could come.” Or “Oh, Helen, hello. Lovely to see you.” Both lies—Ann wasn’t
glad Helen had come, she had been certain Helen would decline, and it was
not
lovely to see her, in fact it felt like having an ingrown toenail. Ann hadn’t allowed
for the possibility that Helen would look so… amazing. It was devastating to admit,
but Helen Oppenheimer looked better than ever. The dress was magnificent, and she
was wearing a very high pair of nude patent leather heels that made her legs look
a mile long. It was so unjust. Helen was the home wrecker. How
dare
she choose to flaunt her height and her beauty
here,
at Ann’s son’s wedding! Ann squeezed Jim’s hand until she was sure it hurt. It was
also unjust that the person she needed to support her was the person who had caused
this catastrophe in the first place.

Across the patio, Ann caught Olivia’s eye. Olivia mouthed the words
Oh, shit.

“All right,” Ann said. This was her own fault. She had been intent on gloating. Now
she understood why pride was a deadly sin. “Let’s do it.”

“Short and sweet,” Jim said.

Together, they approached yellow Helen. Ann’s molars were set. Chance appeared out
of nowhere to kiss his mother and take her arm. Helen beamed at him and touched his
face. With his height and his transparent complexion, Chance was all Helen; there
was almost nothing of Jim in him.

Helen was so enraptured by the sight of her son that she didn’t seem to notice Ann
and Jim until they were at her feet. She
towered over Ann like a queen over a royal subject, and Ann rued her decision to wear
flats.

“Hello, Helen,” Ann said. There was something else she’d meant to add, but further
words escaped her. She found herself scrutinizing Helen now that she was closer to
her. Helen’s skin was smooth and tanned. Had she had work done? She had almost no
makeup on—just a little mascara and something to make her lips shine.

“Oh, hey therrrrrrre,” Helen drawled. She acted as if Ann and Jim’s presence at this
function had caught her by surprise.

Then there was the quandary of how to physically greet her. Ann held out her hand,
and Helen leaned forward and executed a double-cheek kiss. Ann thought, God, how pretentious.
This was Nantucket, not the Cap d’Antibes.

Jim said, “Helen.” That was all, just her name, the barest acknowledgment of her presence.
They did not kiss or shake hands.

Helen said, “I’d just luvvvvvvv a drank.” Ann had lived in Durham since her freshman
year at Duke; she had heard many a variation on the southern accent, and had even
developed a slight one herself. But Helen’s syrupy Scarlett O’Hara irked the hell
out of her. Helen was originally from Roanoke, Virginia. She had been painting her
nails and wearing hot rollers since she was six years old.

Ann said, “We’re so glad you could come.”

Helen smiled. Ann waited for a response. She waited for Helen to say,
You were so kind to invite me. Thank you.
But instead Helen said, “How about y’all point me to the bar?”

Ann was rendered speechless.

Helen said, “Never mind, Chance will help me find it. Won’t you, Chancey?”