Beautiful Day (9 page)

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.