Beautiful Day (32 page)

In front of her, someone pulled out.

Hallelujah, praise the Lord, Margot thought. She was, after all, going to church.

The Congregational Church, otherwise known as the north church or the white spire
church (as opposed to the south church, or the clock tower church, which was Unitarian)
was the
final place that Beth’s ashes had been scattered. Beth wasn’t a member of this church;
she was Episcopalian and had attended St. Paul’s with the rest of the family. Beth
had asked for her ashes to be scattered from the Congregational Church tower because
it looked out over the whole island. Doug, fearing that tossing his wife’s remains
from the tower window might be frowned upon by the church staff, or possibly even
deemed illegal, had suggested they smuggle Beth’s ashes up the stairs. They had gone
at the very end of the day, after all the other tourists had vacated, and the surreptitious
nature of their mission had made it feel mischievous, even fun—and the somberness
of the occasion had been alleviated a bit. Margot had stuffed the box of ashes in
her Fendi hobo bag, and Kevin had pried open a window at the top. Beth’s remains had
fallen softly, like snowflakes. Most of her ashes had landed on the church’s green
lawn, but Margot imagined that bits had been carried farther afield by the breeze.
She lay in the treetops, on the gambrel roofs; she dusted the streets and fertilized
the pocket gardens.

Margot entered the church and checked the sanctuary for Jenna. It was deserted.

The Congregationalists normally asked a volunteer to man the station by the stairway
that led to the tower. But today the station was unoccupied. There was a table with
a small basket and a card asking for donations of any amount. Margot had no money
on her. She silently apologized as she headed up the stairs.

Up, up, up. The stairway was unventilated, and Margot grew dizzy. Those martinis,
all that wine, four bites of lobster, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, Griff’s brother
killed in a highway accident. Chance’s mother at the groomsmen’s house at the same
time as Ann Graham. Was that awkward? What was it like for Ann to see the woman whom
her husband had had an affair with
so many years ago? Margot would someday meet Lily the Pilates instructor; Margot would
probably be invited to the wedding, since she and Drum Sr. were still friends. Margot
used to love to watch Drum surf; she had been unable to resist him. All her children
had his magic, if that was what it was, despite Carson’s near flunking and Ellie’s
hoarding; they were all illuminated from within, which was a characteristic inherited
from Drum, not from her. Kevin was an ass, Margot didn’t know how Beanie could stand
him, and yet she’d been standing him just fine since she was fourteen years old.
So there,
Margot thought. Love did last. She wondered if her father had read the last page
of the Notebook. She must remind him.

Margot was huffing by the time she reached the final flight of stairs. She couldn’t
think about anything but the pain in her lungs. And water—she was dying of thirst.

At the top of the tower was the room with the windows. Standing at the window facing
east—toward their house on Orange Street—was Jenna.

Margot gasped. She realized she hadn’t actually expected to find anyone up here, perhaps
least of all the person she was looking for.

“Hey,” Jenna said. She sounded unsurprised and unimpressed. She was wearing the backless
peach dress, which was now so bedraggled that she resembled a character from one of
the stories they’d read as children—a street urchin from Dickens, Sara Crewe from
A Little Princess,
the Little Match Girl. She wore no shoes. If anyone but Margot had discovered Jenna
up here, they would have called the police.

“Hey,” Margot said. She tried to keep her voice tender. She wasn’t positive that Jenna
hadn’t completely lost her mind.

“I saw you walking up the street,” Jenna said. “I knew you were coming.”

“I had a hard time finding a parking spot,” Margot said. “Have you been here long?”

Jenna shrugged. “A little while.”

Margot moved closer to Jenna. Her eyes were puffy, and her face was streaked with
tears, although she wasn’t crying now. She was just staring out the window, over the
streets of town and the blue scoop of harbor. Margot followed her gaze. Something
about this vantage point transported Margot back 150 years, to the days of Alfred
Coates Hamilton and the whaling industry, when Nantucket had been responsible for
most of the country’s oil production. Women had stood on rooftops, scanning the horizon
for the ships that their husbands or fathers or brothers were sailing on.

“I have a question,” Margot said.

“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Did you go to Brant Point?”

“Yes,” Jenna said.

“And did you go to Madaket?”

“Of course,” Jenna said.

“I didn’t see you,” Margot said. “If you had biked to Madaket, I would have seen you.”

“I didn’t bike,” Jenna said. “I hitched a ride.”

“You hitched?” Margot said. “I’m surprised anyone stopped to pick you up. You look
like an Alphabet City junkie.”

“Four Bulgarian guys in a red pickup,” Jenna said. “It was pretty funny. They’re baggers
at the Stop & Shop.”

“That’s not funny,” Margot said. “They could have taken advantage of you. Who brought
you back to town?”

“The guy driving the Santos Rubbish truck.”

“Really?” Margot said.

“Really,” Jenna said.

“But you knew I would come looking for you, right?” Margot said. “You knew I would
find you.”

“I figured probably,” Jenna said.

Margot gulped fresh air from the one partially open window. She was sweating, she
was very, very thirsty, and Roger—who represented 150 people and over a hundred thousand
dollars—was waiting for an answer one way or the other.

“Listen…” Margot said.

“No,” Jenna said. “You listen.”

Margot clamped her mouth shut and nodded once sharply. She hadn’t known what to say
next anyway.

“I thought Stuart was different,” Jenna said. “I thought he was a good egg.”

“Jenna,” Margot said. “He
is
a good egg.”

“He’s just like everyone else,” Jenna said. She cleared her throat, then said, “Finn
slept with Nick! She told me she thinks she’s fallen in
love
with him! After one afternoon on a paddleboard, she thought nothing of letting him
join her in the outdoor shower, the second you walked out the door!”

Margot put up a traffic cop hand. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t tell me any details.”

“And do you know what Finn’s excuse is? Scott was unfaithful first! Scott hooked up
with some waitress from Hooters on a golf trip to Tampa in April. He and Finn had
only been married six months, she was thinking about trying to get pregnant, then
he goes away on this golf trip with the guys, no big deal, because Scott is always
going on golf trips with the guys, only this time he comes home and gives Finn the
clap—and then he has to confess about the skanky waitress. Now he’s in Vegas, and
instead of being on his best behavior, he told Finn that all the guys were getting
lap dances, and going to a private party with performing lesbians.”

Margot sighed. “She was obviously bent out of shape about that on Thursday night.”

“So then Nick shows up and starts paying all kinds of sweet attention to her.” Jenna
sniffled and wiped her nose on the neckline of her dress. Margot winced. “And Finn
starts imagining they have all this
history,
she’s been in love with him since she was thirteen years old and he came home from
Penn State, then yesterday they had this magical day at Fat Ladies Beach, and…”

“And I left for the yacht club,” Margot said. Because she was so anxious to see Edge.
She should have waited for Nick and Finn. She should have stayed home and chaperoned.

“And it’s Nick,” Jenna said. “And apparently he just can’t help himself. Doesn’t matter
that Finn is
married,
doesn’t matter that I was her maid of honor, or that she’s my bridesmaid and best
friend.”

“You can’t let Nick’s behavior or Finn’s poor judgment influence you,” Margot said.

“Then we have Dad and Pauline. He’s sixty-four, and she’s… what? Sixty-one? This was
supposed to be their great second chance at love; they were supposed to grow old together.
But no. Love has died there as well, and now Dad will start dating younger and younger
women—your age first, then my age, then Emma Wilton’s age…”

“Jenna…”

“And then we have Stuart’s parents. I used to think their story was so
lovely
—at least the part where they got married for a second time. But last night, when
I met Helen, I felt sick, and that was even before she opened her mouth about Stuart
and Crissy Pine. She’s this freaking Swedish supermodel-type woman, and she wore that
look-at-me, center-of-attention dress when she was
lucky to be invited to the wedding at all. Ann only included her because Ann is a
saint.”

“Okay,” Margot said, thinking,
Stupid Ann.

“And when Chance got sick and Jim and Helen left for the hospital, it became, duh,
obvious to me that Jim had
cheated
on Ann, cheated badly. He had a child with another woman!”

Margot wanted to say,
Oh, come on, that just occurred to you tonight?
What kind of Pollyanna world had Jenna been living in? But instead Margot said, “You
can’t let other people’s failings—”

“But worst of all,” Jenna said, “worst of all is you.”

“Me?”
Margot said. Her thoughts twirled and tumbled. How could
she
be the worst of all? Worse than
Nick?
Worse than Helen in the yellow dress? What did Jenna know about her personal life,
anyway? Had Autumn told her about Edge? Had she seen Margot kissing Griff? And why
would either of those things matter to Jenna?

“Of all the marriages I’ve ever seen, yours was my absolute favorite,” Jenna said.
“And you just walked away from it.”

“
My
marriage?” Margot said. “You mean to Drum?”

“Maybe it was because of our age difference,” Jenna said. “I was still in high school
when you got married, and as we know, I’m a hopeless romantic.”

“There was nothing romantic about when I got married,” Margot said. “Hello? It was
a shotgun wedding.”

“You two were the coolest people I knew,” Jenna said. “When you two surfed together,
you were so… beautiful. Then you got pregnant and Drum took you to dinner at the Blue
Bistro and he gave you the oyster that had the diamond ring in it.”

“And I puked,” Margot said. “I saw the ring embedded in oyster mucous and I ran to
the ladies’ room and threw up.”

“You got that amazing apartment in the city,” Jenna said.

“Drum’s parents bought us the apartment,” Margot said. “They picked it out, they paid
for it. That’s not romantic or cool, Jenna. That’s mollycoddling.”

“You had your job,” Jenna said. “Drum watched the baby, he cooked those gourmet dinners
and always had a glass of wine waiting for you when you got home. You took those great
vacations to Costa Rica and Hawaii and Telluride.”

“Because Drum wanted to surf,” Margot said. “And he wanted to ski. I always got stuck
at the hotel watching the kids.”

“I wanted your life,” Jenna said. She sniffled a little more. “I wanted the beautiful
babies and the doorman building and the trips to exotic places. I wanted someone to
love me as much as Drum loved you. He worshipped you, Margot. You were a goddess to
him.”

Margot snorted. It was astonishing how warped Jenna’s view of her marriage was. “Please.”

“I got a text from Drum yesterday, you know,” Jenna said. “He said he’s getting married
in the fall.”

Margot felt a pang of guilt. “I meant to tell you.”

Jenna brushed off her dress, an exercise in futility. The dress would end up in the
trash, along with Margot’s stained white dress from Thursday night.

Margot thought,
We are a couple of girls without a mother.

“So, anyway, my dream of you and Drum getting back together is over.”

“Excuse me,” Margot said. She decided to pull out some Taylor Swift lyrics, maybe
make Jenna smile. “We were never, ever getting back together. Like ever.”

The joke was lost on her. She made a face. “But you two were perfect together!”

“Honestly,” Margot said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s the
thing about marriage. It can look
perfect to people from the outside but be utterly imperfect on the inside. The reverse
is true as well. No one knows what goes on in a marriage except for the two people
living in it.”

“I lied when I said you were the worst,” Jenna said. “You weren’t the worst.”

Margot felt stupidly relieved. She pursed her lips; they were so dry, she feared they
were going to crack.

“The worst of all…” Jenna trailed off and stared out the window. Her eyes filled.
“The worst of all was Mom and Dad. At the end. I was there, watching them.”

“I know,” Margot said.

“You
don’t
know!” Jenna said. “You don’t know because you weren’t around. You were living in
the city with Drum and the boys. You were
working.
Kevin was in San Francisco that spring, and Nick was in D.C. I was at home with them
by myself.”

Yes, Margot remembered. Seven years ago, Drum Jr. had been five, and Carson only three.
Margot had been desperately trying to make partner at Miller-Sawtooth, which meant
not only acting like a person without two small children at home but also acting like
a person whose mother was not dying an hour north in Connecticut. Margot would use
the fifteen minutes she took for lunch in those days to call Beth. They talked about
normal things—Drum Jr.’s kindergarten teacher, Carson’s biting problem, the placements
Margot was working on. Only at the end of the conversation would they address the
elephant in the room. Margot would ask Beth how she was feeling; Beth would lie and
say she was feeling okay, the pain was manageable, she was glad, anyway, to be finished
with chemo. Anything was better than chemo. Margot would promise to come to Connecticut
over the weekend and bring the kids, but more than once she had failed to do so. Drum
Jr. had kinder-soccer, or Carson took a longer
nap than Margot expected, or Margot sneaked back into the office for a few hours—and
plans for the trip to Connecticut were dashed.