Beautiful Day (21 page)

She surveyed the room again, checking every single face. Edge was only about five
foot ten, with a head of close-cropped silver-gray hair. He had that Roman nose, lovely
hazel eyes, and an elegance—hand-tailored suits, polished Gucci loafers, a Girard-Perregaux
watch. His deportment oozed importance and self-confidence. It was incredibly sexy.
If he were in the room, Margot would have homed in on him in a matter of seconds.

She checked the time: it was five of seven.

He wasn’t here.

Maybe the texts he’d sent last night were texts saying he wasn’t coming. Edge was
a habitual canceler. More than half the time they had plans, something came up: Audrey
had the flu, or one of his sons had gotten his car impounded, or a client had been
threatened by her soon-to-be-ex-husband, or his most famous client—a legendary rock
star—had ended up back in rehab and needed Edge to deal with the custody arrangement
for his children. But it had never occurred to Margot that Edge might cancel on Jenna’s
wedding.

There was only one person she could ask.

But no, she couldn’t. It would send up a red flag.

But she had to.

Margot threaded her way through the crowd and reached her father just as he was excusing
himself from Everett and Kay Bailey. Margot would have liked to talk to Ev and Kay—all
her mother’s cousins were fun, good-natured people—but Margot didn’t want to do it
right now. She would talk to them tomorrow at the wedding. She waited until Doug and
the Baileys parted, then she snatched her father’s arm.

“Oh, good,” he said. “You’re here. Where are Nick and Finn?”

“At the house,” Margot said. “Getting ready.”

“I thought you were going to wait for them and drive them down.”

“They wanted to walk,” Margot lied.

“Well, they’d better hurry up, or they’re going to miss dinner,” Doug said. “They’re
serving in five minutes.”

“Right,” Margot said. She took a breath. Launch? Or abort mission?

She had to know.

“So,” she said. “Representation from Garrett, Parker, and Spence seems a little light.
Isn’t Edge coming?”

“He thought he’d be here tonight,” Doug said. “But I got a call from him about an
hour ago. Today in court was a disaster, I guess, and he and Rosalie were still finishing
the paperwork, and he didn’t want to fight Friday night traffic on I-95. Can’t blame
him for that.”

He and Rosalie finishing paperwork, Margot thought. Or he and Rosalie screwing on
top of his partners desk. Or he and Rosalie taking advantage of an empty city to snare
seats at the bar at Café Boulud.

“So he’s coming tomorrow?” Margot asked. She sounded panicked, even to her own ears.

Doug gave her a quizzical look. “That’s what he told me, honey,” he said.

S
he was standing behind Chance in the buffet line when it happened. She had positioned
herself there on purpose, like a sniper, waiting for Helen. Contrary to her earlier
expectations, Ann wanted another shot at conversation; she wanted that thank-you,
goddamn it.

Ann tapped Chance on the shoulder. “Hey, sweetie.”

Chance said, “Hey, Senator.”

Ann smiled. He always called her “Senator,” which was a good, neutral moniker—better
than “Mrs. Graham” or “Ann.” Ann’s relationship with Chance had always been a tender
question mark. What
was
their relationship, exactly? Technically, she was his stepmother, and she was the
mother of his three half brothers. He was her husband’s son from another union. She
had grown to know and love him, but there was a certain barrier.

The buffet included clam chowder, mussels, grilled linguiça, corn on the cob, and
a pile of steaming scarlet lobsters served whole. Ann had doubts about her lobster-cracking
ability; she worried about lobster guts messing the front of her dress. There were
plastic bibs on the tables, but the last thing Ann wanted was to be seen wearing one.

Ahead of her, Chance loaded his plate with mussels. He turned to Ann. “I’ve never
had mussels before.”

“They’re yummy, you’ll love them,” she said, which was a glib thing to say, as, living
three hours from the coast, she ate mussels about once every decade.

Chance pulled one from its shell and popped it into his mouth. He nodded his head.
“Interesting texture,” he said.

Ann searched the party for the yellow of Helen’s dress. She spied Helen out on the
patio, talking to Stuart.

Ann had been forced to swallow a whole bunch of unpleasant facts in the past twenty
years, but the worst thing was that, for a time, Helen had been a stepmother to her
children. Helen had coparented them every third weekend with Jim. Ann used to question
the boys when they got home from weekends with their father and Helen. What had they
done? What had they eaten? Had they gone out or stayed in? Did Helen cook? Did Helen
read to them at night? Did Helen let them stay up late to watch R-rated movies? Did
Helen kiss them good-bye before they piled into Jim’s car at seven o’clock on Sunday
evening?

What Ann had gleaned was that, in those years, Jim took on most of the duties pertaining
to the three older boys, while Helen cared for Chance. Chance had been a colicky baby,
Helen carried him everywhere in a sling, Chance didn’t sleep in a crib, he slept in
the bed with Helen and Jim. Chance had walked early, and Helen was forever chasing
him around. Helen had made chicken with biscuits once, but the biscuits were burned.
(In Roanoke, Ann knew, Helen had grown up with a black housekeeper who had done all
the cooking.) Jim often took the boys to McDonald’s for lunch, which was a treat for
them, since Ann was sponsoring an initiative for healthier eating habits for Carolina
schoolchildren and hence did not allow the kids fast food. Helen bought the boys Entenmann’s
coffee cake for breakfast and let them eat it straight from the box in front of the
TV on Saturday mornings. Helen sometimes yelled at the boys—or even at Jim—to help
out more. Jim took the boys to the Flying Burrito for Mexican food on Sunday nights
before bringing them back to Ann, and Helen and Chance always stayed home.

Ann tucked every piece of information away. To her credit, she had never demonized
Helen to the boys. But she had lived in mortal fear that the boys would one day arrive
home, announcing that they liked Helen better.

Just the way that Jim had once announced he liked Helen better.

It took a moment for Ann to realize that Chance was in distress. He dropped his plate
on the floor, where it broke in half, and the mussel shells scattered everywhere.
Ann jumped out of the way. Then she saw Chance clutching at his throat; he was puffing
up, turning the color of raw meat.

“Help!” Ann shouted. She spun around, hoping to find Jim,
but behind her was a stout, bald man with square glasses and a bullfrog neck. “Help
him!”

A commotion ensued. Chance sank to his knees. The man behind Ann rushed to his side.

“We need an EpiPen!” he shouted. “He’s having an allergic reaction!”

Ann snatched her phone out of her purse and dialed 911. She said, “Nantucket Yacht
Club, nineteen-year-old male, severe allergic reaction. Please send an ambulance!
His throat is closing!”

Chance was clawing at his neck, gasping for air in a way that made it look like he
was drowning right in front of them. He sought out Ann’s face; his eyes were bulging.
Ann was hot with panic. She was shaking, she thought,
My God, what if he dies?
But then her mothering instincts kicked in. She knelt beside him.

“I’ve called an ambulance, Chance,” she said. “Help is coming.”

One of the club’s managers shot through the kitchen’s double doors holding a first
aid kit, from which he pulled an EpiPen. He stabbed Chance in the thigh.

Suddenly Jim was there. “Jesus Christ!” he said. “What the hell?”

“He ate a mussel,” Ann said. “He must be allergic. He swelled right up.” It had reminded
Ann of the scene from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
where Violet turns into a blueberry and the Oompa-Loompas roll her away.

And then Ann saw a flash of yellow.

“Chancey!” Helen screamed.

The epinephrine seemed to help. Chance’s color didn’t improve, but neither did it
deepen, and he was still forcing wheezing breaths in and out. A crowd gathered, and
urgent queries of
What happened?
and
Who is it?
circulated. Ann heard someone say, “It’s Stuart’s stepbrother,” then someone else
say, “It’s the other woman’s son.” Ann turned around and to no one in particular said,
“His name is Chance Graham, and he’s the groom’s half brother.”

Jim and the yacht club manager kept imploring people to back up so that Chance could
have some air. Helen was kneeling by Chance’s head, smoothing his hair, patting his
mottled cheeks. She seemed elegant and glamorous, even on her knees. She looked up
at Ann. “What did he eat?” she demanded.

The question was nearly accusatory, as though
Ann
were somehow to blame. She felt like the wicked stepmother who had given him a poison
apple.

“He ate a mussel,” Ann said.

Helen returned her attention to Chance, and Ann felt a creeping sense of shame. Chance
had said he’d never eaten a mussel before, and Ann had said,
They’re yummy, you’ll love them.
She hadn’t
told
him to eat it; he had tried it of his own volition. But she also hadn’t given him
a warning about allergies. She hadn’t even
considered
allergies. Hadn’t Chance been allergic to milk as a child? Ann thought she recalled
hearing that, but she wasn’t positive. He wasn’t
her
child. But lots of people were allergic to shellfish. Should she have warned him
instead of encouraging him?

The paramedics stormed in, all black uniforms and squawking police scanners. The lead
paramedic was a woman in her twenties with wide hips and a brown ponytail. “What’d
he eat?”

“A mussel,” Helen said.

There was talk and fussing, another shot of something, an oxygen mask. They lifted
Chance onto a gurney.

Helen said, “May I ride in the ambulance?”

“You’re his mother?” the paramedic asked.

“And I’m his father,” Jim said. Jim and Helen were now standing side by side, unified
in their roles as Chance’s parents.

“No family in the ambulance. You can follow us to the hospital.”

“Oh, please,” Helen said. “He’s only a teenager. Please let me come in the ambulance.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the paramedic said. They whisked Chance down the hall and out the
front doors.

Helen gazed at Jim—in her heels, she was nearly as tall as he was—and burst into tears.
Ann watched Jim fight what must have been a dozen conflicting emotions. Did he want
to comfort her? Ann wondered.

He patted her shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” Jim said.

“We have to go to the hospital,” Helen said. “Can I get a ride with y’all?”

“Okay,” Jim said. He took Ann by the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Ann hesitated. An old, dark emotion bubbled up in her, as thick and viscous as tar.
She didn’t want to go anywhere with Jim and Helen. She would be an outsider;
she
wasn’t Chance’s mother. She loved Chance and was sick with worry, but she didn’t
belong at the hospital with Jim and Helen. However, she didn’t want Jim and Helen
to go without her, either. She couldn’t decide what to do. It was an impossible situation.

Suddenly Stuart and Ryan and H.W. were upon her. “Mom?” Ryan said. He circled his
arm around her shoulders.

Stuart said, “Is he going to be
okay?
”

Jim said, “Your mother and I are going to the hospital with Helen.”

“Actually, I’m going to stay here,” Ann said. To Jim she said, “You go. Please keep
me posted.”

“What?”
Jim said.

Helen shifted from foot to foot. “Can we please leave?”

“Go,” Ann said. She gave Jim’s arm a push.

“Would you stop acting like a child?” he whispered.

“I need to stay here,” Ann said. “It’s the rehearsal dinner. It’s Stuart’s wedding.”
These words sounded reasonable to her ears, but
was
she acting like a child? She didn’t want to be a third wheel with Jim and Helen.
She didn’t want to have to watch them together in their roles as Mom and Dad. She
hated them both at that moment; she hated what they’d done to her. She couldn’t believe
that she had somehow thought having Helen at the wedding would be a healing experience.
It was turning out to be the opposite of healing.

“Ann,” Jim said. “Please come. I need you.”

Ann smiled her senatorial smile. “I’m going to represent here. You go, and let me
know how he’s doing.” She took Ryan’s arm and headed back into the party.