Beautiful Day (16 page)

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Kevin said. “We know you’re capable of making
sandwiches, but it will be easier for us to call them in.” He handed her a notepad.
“Here, take everyone’s order.”

“Why don’t
you
take everyone’s order?” Margot said. She was inexplicably furious. She didn’t care
if they made lunch or ordered it from Henry Jr.’s, but she didn’t like Kevin’s insinuation
that Margot was incapable of making sandwiches and his further insinuation that in
offering to do so, she was trying to prove something. Prove what? Prove that she didn’t
subsist on pizza from Lombardi’s and Thai takeout? Prove that she was like their mother—she
could have a career
and
make sandwiches?

At that moment, her father stuck his head in the back door. “Margot?” he said.

Margot thought their father was going to weigh in on the sandwich decision. Everyone
had an opinion. Even Beanie had
said,
You have a job. It’s okay.
What had
that
meant? Beanie could normally be counted on to side with Margot, but apparently not
today.

“What?” Margot snapped.

“Can I chat with you a second?” Doug asked.

Margot stormed out the back door. Roger was directing the cherry picker into the side
yard. Miraculously, the big machine steered clear of the perennial bed. The five boys
stood a few yards away, their mouths agape as the cherry picker rose up and Hector
clambered with the ropes into Alfie’s upper branches.

By the time they all got back from the beach, Alfie’s lowest branch would be lifted,
and the tent would be up. All these emergency services would cost her father an arm
and a leg, but although the Carmichael family had loads of problems, money wasn’t
one of them.

“There’s an issue with the cars,” Doug said.

“The cars?” Margot said.

“You and Kevin will need your cars to get everyone to the beach,” Doug said. “Pauline
will need my car to take the girls to the salon.”

“Oh,” Margot said. The logistics had eluded her. “What is Pauline going to do?”

“She’s going to the salon as well,” Doug said. “She wants to be with Rhonda.”

“Okay,” Margot said. “She can take my appointment.”

Doug nodded. “Thank you, that’s very nice. But what I really need is for you to drive
me out to the golf course.”

“Okay,” Margot said. Was this okay? Hadn’t she just committed to making eleven sandwiches,
or had she been overruled? She was so addled that she couldn’t remember how the disagreement
had ended. “When?”

Doug looked at his watch, the Submariner that Beth had bought him for his fiftieth
birthday. “Right now.”

“Right
now?
”

“My tee time is at ten thirty. I’m playing at Sankaty.”

Margot nearly said,
Can’t Kevin take you? Or Nick?
But that was ridiculous. Her brothers were never summoned to onerous tasks such as
shuttling their father out to his golf game. Kevin probably felt he had to be here
to supervise the branch tying or the sandwich ordering. Nick was either flexing his
muscles for Finn or waxing his paddleboard. Margot’s mood grew darker. But then it
occurred to her that this was exactly what she wanted—some time alone with her father.
He must have wanted it, too, and that was why he’d asked her.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Margot negotiated Doug’s Jaguar through town, around the rotary, and out the Milestone
Road. Every year as children they had ridden their bikes to Sconset to get ice cream
at the market and traipse across the footbridge.

“You and Mom were such good parents,” Margot said. “You gave us a lot of great memories.”

Doug didn’t respond to this. When Margot looked over, she saw him gazing out the window.

“Kevin is probably right,” Margot said. “The only memories I’m giving my kids are
ones of me arriving home late from work and calling up samosas from Mumbai Palace.”

Margot could hear her father breathing. He said, “Your mother always worried that
you were too hard on yourself. The curse of the firstborn.”

“Sometimes I’m glad she can’t see the ways that I’ve failed.”

“Oh, Margot, you haven’t failed.”

“I’m divorced.”

“So what,” Doug said. “Didn’t work out, nobody’s fault.”

“Carson is in danger of repeating the fourth grade,” Margot
said. “Drum Jr. is twelve years old and afraid of the dark. Ellie is a hoarder.”

Doug laughed, and even Margot cracked a smile. But she hadn’t wanted her father alone
so she could bemoan the missteps of her own life.

“So what’s going on with you?” she asked. “That text you sent me was pretty startling.”

Doug leaned his head back against the seat and let out a sigh. “Long story,” he said.

“We’ve got a few minutes,” Margot said. It was easy to break the law in the XJ, so
she made a point to slow down. “I figured out that Pauline took the Notebook.”

“She didn’t
take
it,” Doug said. “At least she says she didn’t. Jenna left it on the table at Locanda
Verde and Pauline picked it up, then she just forgot to return it.”

“Oh,” Margot said. Was she a horrible person for feeling skeptical about that story?

“I’ve decided to believe her,” Doug said. “It’s easier.”

“Right,” Margot said. “Did you ask if she read any of it?”

“She read it,” Doug said. “She claimed it was making her crazy, not knowing what was
in it.”

“Wait,” Margot said. “Did she read the last page?”

“I don’t know,” Doug said. “I would assume so?”

Margot said, “Have
you
read the last page?”

“No,” Doug said.

“Well, you should,” Margot said. “Make a point of it. Today, when you get home from
golf, ask Jenna.”

“I don’t know about that, honey,” Doug said.

Margot said, “I can’t believe
Pauline
read it. I’m sure you were pissed.”

“I was pissed,” Doug said. “If Jenna had wanted her to read it, she would have offered.”

“So you were pissed enough to tell Pauline not to come?”

“I didn’t want her to come,” Doug said.

“Oh.”

“But as you may have noticed, she came anyway.”

“Yes, I did notice that.”

“She thought I was just angry. She thought I would change my mind back.”

“Weren’t you just angry?” Margot said. “Didn’t you change your mind back?”

“No,” Doug said. “I didn’t want her to come—for a whole host of reasons, really—but
she insisted, and I wasn’t brave enough to press the issue.”

“Oh,” Margot said.

“It’s Jenna’s weekend,” Doug said.

“Right, I know. But what…? What are the host of reasons? What are you not saying?”

“I don’t love Pauline,” Doug said. “When we get back to Connecticut, I’m going to
ask her for a divorce.”

Margot gasped. “You’re not!”

“I am.”

Margot clenched the leather band that swaddled the steering wheel. Her father was
sixty-four years old. She had thought him too old for this kind of upheaval. When
she thought about Doug’s life, she imagined him retiring from the firm and doing a
little pro bono work on the side. She imagined him golfing, she imagined him and Pauline
eating at the country club and the two of them taking a vacation to Maui each February.
But he might live another thirty years. Thirty years was a long time to be saddled
with a woman he didn’t love.

“Wow,” Margot said.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything.”

“Of course not,” Margot said. “What will you do? Where will you live?”

“Oh, maybe in the city,” Doug said. “I’ve been toying with getting a suite at the
Waldorf like Arthur Tonelli. Or maybe I’ll live on the Upper West Side near Edge.
I could walk to work, subscribe to the philharmonic, spend more time with you and
the kids.”

The thought of her father as a sixty-four-year-old single man alarmed Margot. The
thought of her father and Edge living in the same neighborhood and going out to bars,
or even to the philharmonic, together made her tongue swell to twice its normal size.
She couldn’t speak. And, thankfully, she didn’t have to—because here they were at
the Sankaty Head Golf Club.

Margot pulled up in front of the clubhouse. Her father’s family had belonged to Sankaty
since its founding in 1923, but nowadays her father was the only one who played. Nick
hated golf, and Kevin didn’t have time. Stuart played golf—the membership might pass
on to Stuart and Jenna, and the children they would someday have.

“Just think,” Doug said. “Once I’m single, I can come to Nantucket for the whole summer.
I can play golf every day.”

“Just think!” Margot said. She tried to smile as he unloaded his clubs from the trunk.

Once he was single.

Doug waved to Margot, and she thought, Yes, now she was supposed to drive away, burdened
by an impossible secret. She put down the passenger side window. “Am I coming back
to get you?” she asked.

“Pauline will come,” he said.

“Oh,” Margot said. “Okay. Does she know how to get here?”

“No,” he said. “But she’ll use the GPS.”

Margot nodded and watched her father head up the stairs into the clubhouse. She sat
for a long moment after he was gone, thinking,
Okay, wow, who knew. Wow.

She had an overwhelming desire to text Edge. It was a good thing her phone was dead.

There was a tap on the driver’s side window, and Margot jumped, inadvertently hitting
the horn. Standing next to the Jaguar in a pair of stone white pants and a navy golf
shirt and that damn white visor was Griff.

Margot thought,
This just isn’t happening.

She had half a mind to drive away without a word, but she didn’t have it in her to
be rude. Unprofessional and unprincipled—yes. But not rude.

He said, “I
thought
it was you, but then I asked myself, ‘What are the chances?’ Three times in twenty-four
hours?”

“Hi,” Margot said.

“I think we both know what this means,” Griff said.

Margot thought,
It means I’m destined to be haunted by my worst mistake.

Griff said, “It means you’re stalking me.”

Margot smiled. The guy was charming, there was no denying that.

She said, “I was dropping my father off.”

Griff said, “I just finished my first round. We teed off at six this morning, and
I think I was still drunk.”

“Nice,” Margot said.

“I stayed at the Box until close,” Griff said. “Drowning my sorrows after you rejected
me.”

“I didn’t
reject
you,” Margot said. Then she realized she needed to be careful about her wording.
“I was just tired, and the thing with my phone bummed me out. I needed to get out
of there.”

“You can make it up to me now,” Griff said. “Come on.”

“Come on
where?
” Margot asked.

“Have a drink with me at the bar,” he said.

“It’s ten thirty,” Margot said. “In the morning.”

“So?” he said. “You’re on vacation, right? This is your sister’s wedding weekend,
right? You can’t tell me there isn’t a part of you that’s dying for a drink. You can’t
tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family
to a friendly acquaintance.”

“I don’t feel any frustration with my family,” Margot said.

“Now you’re lying to me.”

Margot smiled at this. “So what if I am? I can’t just drink my morning away. My kids
want to go to the beach. They’re at home, waiting.”

“Drum… Carter… and Ellie?”

Margot was flabbergasted.

“Carson,” she said. “But wow, good memory.” She recalled having asked Griff about
his children at his first interview; his children were similar in ages to her own,
but she would never have been able to come up with their names. And Griff, in turn,
had asked about Margot’s kids, which wasn’t really standard protocol—she was interviewing
him, not the other way around—but she had told him their names and ages. That he remembered
was astonishing. If pressed, Edge probably wouldn’t be able to produce any name but
Ellie’s, because she was the one in Audrey’s ballet class. Margot mentioned the boys
all the time, but Edge never seemed to be listening.

“Well, I’m not a man who would deny three kids the company of their mother,” Griff
said. “You should go, although I wish you’d stay.”

“I can’t stay,” Margot said.

“But I’m getting to you, right?” Griff said. “Just admit it, you’re starting to like
me.”

“I like you just fine, Griff.”

“I mean,
like me
like me. Come on, I’m nice,” he said.

Margot allowed herself a glance at him. He was nice. If things were different, if
she didn’t have a horrifying history with him, she would be willing, possibly even
eager, to go for a drink with him. He was attractive and smart and personable, and
he’d remembered her children’s names. But she had wronged him. And how.

“I have to go,” she said.

“What are you up to tonight?” he asked.

“Rehearsal at the church at five o’clock. Rehearsal dinner, six o’clock at the yacht
club.”

“I’ll be at the Boarding House tonight,” he said.

“You’ll like it there,” Margot said. “The food is terrific.”

“Come meet me,” Griff said.

“I’ll be too busy getting frustrated with my family,” Margot said. “But thanks for
the invite.”

“Tell me something,” Griff said. “Do you have a date for this wedding?”

Margot blinked. It was none of his goddamned business if she had a date or not. Then
she considered the question.
Did
she have a date for the wedding? Edge would be in attendance—tonight and tomorrow
and Sunday—but Margot wouldn’t be able to kiss him or hold his hand or claim him as
anything more than a friend of her father’s. Margot had asked Edge if they might be
able to dance together to just one song, and Edge had said he didn’t think that was
a good idea.

“Not really,” Margot said.

“Not really?” Griff said.

“No,” Margot said.

Griff looked off into the green distance, then crouched down by Margot’s window so
that his face was right by her face and her
stomach did a funny, inside-out flippy thing. His blue-and-green eyes were spellbinding.
What was going
on
here? This was very bad.