Beautiful Day (27 page)

He had delivered this news with his usual poker face, though Margot was certain he
was kidding.

Margot entered the kitchen expecting to find Jenna. But there, crushed into a corner
of the breakfast nook, were Nick and Finn. Nick had his arms around Finn, and his
face was in her hair.

“Jesus Christ!” Margot said, mostly out of shock, but partially out of disgust, too.

“Marge,” Nick said in a world-weary voice that made him sound exactly like Kevin.
“Please mind your own business.”

Margot stared at the two of them. The sight of them together was
profoundly
disturbing. It was incestuous! Finn had been a part of the Carmichael family for
twenty-five years; she had been
at the house all the time—at the table for Sunday dinner, around the tree on Christmas
morning. She had gone on vacation with them to Disney World; Margot and Kevin and
Nick had ridden Space Mountain a total of eleven times while Jenna and Finn had donned
blue Cinderella dresses so that Beth could take them to the castle for breakfast with
the princesses.

Now Nick and Finn were having a love thing. And Finn was
married.
They all realized this, right? Both Margot and Nick had attended the Sullivan-Walker
wedding last October. Nick had been Margot’s ersatz date, until he hooked up with
the chesty, frizzy-haired bartender. They all remembered that too, right?

“Where’s Jenna?” Margot asked, unable to say anything more.

“No idea,” Nick murmured. He was running his hand up and down Finn’s bare, sunburned
arm in a way that struck Margot as very tender, especially for Nick.

“I don’t know what the two of you think you’re doing,” Margot said, “but I assure
you, it’s a bad idea.”

“Shut up, Marge,” Nick said. “You know nothing about it.”

I don’t want to know anything about it!
she thought. What she wouldn’t give to be blind, deaf, and dumb, or so self-absorbed
with her own excellent love life that she couldn’t summon the energy to care about
anyone else’s.

She said, “Finn, is Jenna up in your room?”

“No,” Finn said. She wasn’t able to meet Margot’s eyes, the little minx.

“Is
Autumn
in your room?” Margot asked, knowing the answer even as she asked the question.

“No,” Finn said. “She went back to the groomsmen’s house with H.W.”

Margot nodded. So Nick and Finn had shared Jenna’s room, which was why Jenna had crawled
into bed with Margot and Ellie. Autumn had gone home with H.W. This was FINE because
both Autumn and H.W. were SINGLE. Everyone did understand the difference,
right?

“Good for Autumn,” Margot said. She left Nick and Finn in the kitchen and trudged
back up the stairs to Jenna’s room.

In the hallway, she bumped into her father, who had showered and dressed. He was wearing
cutoff jean shorts, circa 1975, and an orange-and-navy striped T-shirt that made him
look like Ernie from
Sesame Street
. Margot nearly commented on the awful outfit, but he already looked morose.

“Hi, sweetie,” Doug said. “How’s everything going?”

Margot took a measured breath. She was tempted to tell him that he was going to lose
over a hundred thousand dollars in wedding expenses because Stuart hadn’t been able
to come clean to Jenna about his past.

Margot gave her father a tight smile. He was, most likely, headed down to the kitchen.
What would he say when he saw Nick with Finn? Would he even
get
it?

“Everything’s fine,” Margot said.

Doug descended the stairs, and Margot turned the knob to Jenna’s room—no knocking,
sorry, this had grown too urgent to worry about manners—and stepped in. The room was
dim and empty. Jenna’s bed was mussed, but the trundle bed was neatly made. Margot
saw sunlight around the edges of the balcony doors, which she opened, thinking she
would find Jenna sitting on the deck, drinking her sweet, light coffee, overlooking
the stage set for her beautiful wedding.

Nope.

Margot stood on the balcony alone, taking in the pointed top of the tent with its
fluttering green and white ribbons, and Alfie’s
artificially raised limb. Margot recalled when her most pressing worry had been about
rain.

She recalled when her most pressing worries had been about herself: Edge, her drowned
phone, the reappearance of Griff in her life.

She stomped upstairs to the attic. The six kids were in the middle of a world-class
pillow fight; feathers fell like giant flakes of snow, and Brock, the youngest of
Kevin’s sons, was crying. Margot collared Drum Jr.

“Have you seen Auntie Jenna?”

“No,” he said. He frowned contritely. “I’m sorry about the mess.”

Feathers could be cleaned up. New pillows (foam) could be purchased. Brock would stop
crying in a minute or two; he, like Ellie, was a tough little kid.

Margot dashed back downstairs. She caught Beanie on her way to the bathroom. Beanie
was wearing a pair of men’s white cotton pajamas with her own monogram on the pocket.

“Have you seen Jenna?” Margot asked.

Beanie shook her head. She said, in a froggy voice, “Is there coffee?”

“Downstairs,” Margot said.

Beanie entered the bathroom. The only room Margot hadn’t checked was the guest room,
where Rhonda was staying. What were the chances that Jenna was in with
Rhonda?
Should Margot check? Of course, she had to check. But at that instant, the guest
room door opened and Rhonda stepped out, wearing running shorts and a jog bra, which
showed off her perfect, if slightly orange, six-pack abs.

Margot said, “You haven’t seen Jenna, have you?”

Rhonda said, “No, why? Is she missing? Is she, like, the runaway bride?”

“No,” Margot said. “No, no.”

“Do you want me to help you look for her?” Rhonda asked. She pulled her dark hair
into a ponytail. “I’m happy to help.”

Rhonda was nice, Margot decided. She was, Margot realized—perhaps for the first time
ever—her
stepsister.
But probably not for much longer.

“I’m good,” Margot said, flying down the stairs. “But thanks for offering! Enjoy your
run!”

To avoid the kitchen—Nick, Finn, her father—Margot cut through the formal dining room,
where the table was laden with hotel pans and serving pieces for the reception. The
grandfather and grandmother clocks announced the hour in symphony. Seven. Margot popped
out the little-used rear west door, wedged between the powder room and the laundry,
to the backyard.

Margot checked the proposal bench, where she had been sitting a short while ago—empty.
Then she entered the tent, which looked even more like a fairy-tale woodland now that
the sun was dappling in. Margot searched among the tables and chairs, looking for
her sister. Was she
hiding
in there somewhere? Margot peered up the center pole, where she had imagined her
mother’s spirit hovering.

No Jenna.

Out the back of the tent, past the as-yet-unmolested perennial bed, to the driveway.
All cars present and accounted for. Out to the front sidewalk, where Margot could
just barely discern the ghost of her and Griff kissing. It was so early that the street
was quiet; there wasn’t a soul around, which was one of the things Margot loved about
Nantucket. In Manhattan, there was no such thing as a quiet street.

No Jenna.

She was gone.

S
he woke up sprawled across the massive, soft, luxurious hotel bed alone. She lifted
her head. Hangover. And her eyes burned. She had fallen asleep crying.

“Jim?” she said. Her voice was as dry as crackers. Jim had pulled on khaki pants and
a polo shirt and had left when she asked, clicking the door shut behind him. Ann figured
he went down to have a drink at the bar, then slipped back upstairs after she was
asleep.

But he wasn’t in the room.

“Jim?” she said. She checked the bathroom—there was enough room in the Jacuzzi for
three people to sleep comfortably—but it was empty. She checked the walk-in closet
and opened the door to the balcony.

No Jim.

Her head started to throb, and her breathing became shallow. She had lost H.W. once,
when he was nine years old, at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh. Ann had had
all three boys in tow; they were headed to the ag tent to see the biggest pumpkin
and the prettiest tomatoes and to taste prize-winning hush puppies
and dilled green beans. But Ann had stopped to talk to one of her constituents, and
at some point during the conversation, H.W. had wandered off. He was missing for seventy-four
minutes before Ann and the state fair security officers found him in the Village of
Yesteryear, watching a woman in colonial garb weaving cloth on a loom. Ann had spent
those seventy-four minutes in a purple panic; it had felt like someone had flipped
her upside down and was shaking her.

She felt similarly now. Maybe Jim had come back up to the room to sleep, and maybe
he’d left again. Maybe he was down in the restaurant having coffee and reading the
paper. But no, Ann didn’t think he’d been back. There had been no imprint of his body
on the bed; she had definitely slept alone.

She brushed her teeth, washed her face, took some aspirin, put on the outfit she had
planned especially for today—a cherry red gingham A-line skirt and a scalloped-neck
white T-shirt and a pair of red Jack Rogers sandals that pinched between her toes,
but which she’d seen nearly half a dozen woman on Nantucket wearing. Her outfit was
too cheerful for the amount of anxiety she was experiencing.

Where was he? Where had he gone?

She checked her cell phone, now showing a dangerously low 12 percent battery. Nothing
from Jim, only a text from Olivia that said,
Party was wonderful. Madame X can go fuck herself.

Typical Olivia.

Where would Jim have gone? Ann racked her brain. She was a problem solver; she would
figure it out. The Lewises and the Cohens and the Shelbys were all staying at the
Brant Point Inn, which was a bed-and-breakfast. None of them would have had space
to accommodate Jim in their rooms.

Had he imposed on the Carmichaels and slept on their sofa?
God, Ann hoped not. How would that look, the father of the groom kicked out of his
hotel room? Ann couldn’t believe she had ordered him out. But she had been angry last
night, angrier than she could ever remember being in all these years. Jim had been
right: it was Ann’s fault that Helen was here.

Then a ghastly thought encroached: Had Jim gone to spend the night with Helen? Had
more transpired between them at the hospital than he’d admitted? They had looked pretty
chummy upon returning to the yacht club.

Ann raced into the bathroom. She was going to be sick. Her body was in rejection mode,
just as it had been twenty years earlier. For weeks after the hot air balloon ride,
she had been unable to keep her meals down.

She retched into the toilet. Of all the things for the mother of the groom to be doing
on the morning of her son’s wedding.

One day, of course, Chance would get married, and Ann would be subjected to the humiliating
sight of Helen and Jim as “Chance’s parents” again. She had successfully avoided attending
Chance’s graduation from the Baylor School because Ann had a senatorial session she
couldn’t miss. But Chance would graduate from Sewanee in a few years. There would
be the baptisms of Chance’s future children and then those children’s graduations
and weddings.

Ann would never be rid of Helen. They were tethered together forever.

Ann rinsed her mouth and made a cursory attempt at applying makeup, although she had
a salon appointment for hair and makeup that afternoon. As she was applying mascara,
staring bug eyed and purse lipped at herself in the mirror, she realized that Jim
must have gone and stayed with the boys.

She snapped up her purse and, filled with a cool wind of relief, dashed out the door.

Jim had taken their rental car—it was no longer parked in the lot across the street—and
so Ann was stuck taking a taxi. This was okay; she didn’t know her way around anyway,
and she might have popped a tire bouncing over the cobblestones. She had the address
of the house Stuart had rented for himself and his groomsmen. She had all the important
wedding information written down. Catholic schoolgirl Ann, organized Ann.

To the taxi driver, she said, “130 Surfside Road, please.”

The taxi negotiated the streets of town, including a bucking and bouncing trip up
Main Street, and Ann ogled the impressive homes built by whaling fortunes in the 1800s.
She would have loved to be out strolling this morning, peeking in the pocket gardens,
admiring transom windows, and reading the plaques that named the original owners of
the houses.
Barzillai R. Burdett, Boatbuilder, 1846.

Instead of tracking down Jim.

So far the wedding weekend had been distinguished by Ann doing things, regretting
them, then attempting to undo them. Looking at her behavior here, no one would believe
that she had effectively served the city and county of Durham, representing 1.2 million
of the state’s most educated and erudite citizens, for twenty-four years. As the taxi
headed out of town, the houses grew farther apart. They passed a cemetery; then the
land opened up, and there were pine trees, some low-lying scrub, the insistent smell
of the ocean. A bike path bordered the road on one side—families pedaled to the beach,
there were joggers and dog walkers and a group of kids sharing a skateboard. Then
the taxi signaled and pulled down a sandy driveway. Back among the pine trees was
a two-story cottage with front dormer windows and gray shingles. Two cars were parked
out front, but neither was their rental car.

“This is it?” Ann said. “You’re sure?” She checked the piece of paper from her purse.
“130 Surfside Road.”