Beautiful Day (34 page)

Standing in the middle of the room like a pearly column of light was Jenna.

“Oh, God, honey,” Doug said.

“Do I look okay?” she asked.

It hurt to swallow, such was the lump in his throat. His baby girl, wearing Beth’s
dress. The attic was so hot that sweat dripped into Doug’s eyes, and yet his daughter
stood before him, cool and composed, beaming.

The most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

The second most beautiful.

He had been standing at the altar at St. James’ in New York City; his brother David,
who died three years later of a heart attack, was next to him serving as best man.
Doug had seen Beth on the arm of her father at the end of the very long aisle, and
as she grew closer, he thought,
I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.

And the thing was, their wedding day hadn’t been the happiest day of their lives together.
Not even close. There had been the births of the four children, there had been the
day Doug made
partner at Garrett, Parker, and Spence, there had been birthdays: thirtieth, fortieth,
fiftieth. But none of those were the happiest day, either. When had the happiest day
been? He sighed. There had been so many. There had been long summer days spent here
in this house when the kids were younger—hours spent at the beach with Doug and Beth
side by side in their canvas chairs as the kids played in the waves. Doug and Beth
used to share a sandwich, Doug would read Ken Follett or Ludlum, Beth would needlepoint.
They always took one walk together, holding hands. There were days when their biggest
concern was whether to head left or right on the beach, whether to grill swordfish
or a rack of ribs. They used to climb into bed at nine o’clock and lock their bedroom
door and make sweet, silent love while the kids played manhunt with flashlights in
the backyard.

There had been strings of shimmering silver days like that, and golden days of autumn
when they bundled in sweaters and Beth made a pot of chili or a bunch of sub sandwiches
and they tailgated at the Yale-Columbia game. There had been Christmases and ski weekends
and trips to Paris, London, the Caribbean. There had been regular days of school and
work, court for him, the hospital for Beth, where she was constantly trying to stretch
the budget, there had been family dinners most every night, sometimes movies or TV
or school functions or neighborhood cocktail parties where the neighbors, he was sure,
would gossip after they left, asking one another if the Carmichaels could really be
as happy as they looked.

Yes.

All of it, he had loved all of it.

And it had officially begun on the day he saw Beth in this dress.

“You’re a vision,” he said to Jenna. “Stuart is such a lucky bastard, I hate him a
little right now.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Jenna said, and she hugged him. He rested his chin on top of her sweet-smelling
head.

“My hair,” she said, pulling away.

“Ah, yes,” he said, admiring it. It was in some kind of complicated updo, though she
had yet to set her veil. She was wearing the sapphire earrings that his own mother,
Martha, had worn on the day that she married his father here at this house. They were
Jenna’s “something blue.” What did Doug and Beth used to say when Jenna was a baby?
Wake up and show us the jewels.
Her sapphire eyes.

“If your mother could see you,” he said.

“Daddy,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Please don’t. My makeup. And it’s hot up here.
We should go downstairs.”

“I know,” he whispered. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s go.”

“But wait, first…” Jenna opened a plastic box that was resting on the dresser and
produced Doug’s boutonniere. “I want to pin this for you.”

Doug stared over Jenna’s head into the dusty rafters as she attached the flower to
his lapel. He couldn’t speak.
Your father will be a cause for concern.

“And here,” she said. “Let me fix your tie.” She tugged on his bow tie, her eyes appraising
him, and he basked in it. He had left his tie crooked on purpose, just so she could
straighten it.

A
bigail Pease, the photographer, showed up fifteen minutes early with Roger at her
side. Roger looked calm; he showed no anger or frustration at having the wedding nearly
canceled then resuscitated. Probably it happened all the time. Margot wanted to ask,
but she was caught off guard by the appearance of the photographer. Pictures at the
groomsmen’s house had gone more quickly than anyone had anticipated.

“Why was that?” Margot asked.

“They were all ready to go,” Abigail said. She was about fifty years old, she had
long, curly blond hair, she spoke with a touch of a southern accent, and she wore
Eileen Fisher to great effect.
“Most times the men take more time to get ready than the women. But these guys were
in their tuxes, drinking beer and throwing the football around.”

“Well, we’re almost ready,” Margot said. This wasn’t really true. She was ready and
Autumn was ready; like a good groomsman, Autumn was drinking a beer in the backyard.

But when Margot went upstairs to check on the other two girls, she discovered that
Rhonda wasn’t happy with the work of the makeup artist at RJ Miller, and so she was
redoing her makeup herself. This process entailed cleaning, moisturizing, and reapplying
with surgical precision, which was tying up the bathroom. Finn was standing morosely
in front of the full-length mirror, applying aloe to her already-peeling sunburn.
Makeup was lost on Finn because she had been doing nothing but crying since they returned
from the salon, though everyone was pretending not to notice. The crying was Finn’s
way of getting Jenna to pay attention to her, but Jenna wasn’t taking the bait, and
Margot was proud of her.

Then Nick ascended the stairs in his tux, having just finished with pictures, and
Jenna excused herself to the third floor to finish getting ready “in peace,” which
really meant that she wanted to get away from Finn and Nick. Finn and Nick vanished
down the stairs, holding hands, and Margot hadn’t seen them since.

Margot thought, There was no way Abigail Pease was going to get all four bridesmaids
in the same picture frame any time this century.

Margot considered going downstairs and telling Abigail Pease this. There had been
discussion of Abigail snapping candids of the bridesmaids getting ready, but what
would those pictures look like? Autumn swilling a Heineken, Rhonda with foaming cleanser
all over her face, Finn sobbing in Nick’s arms. Abigail
might take a photo of Margot fretting about any or all of the above—or she might capture
the envy on Margot’s face when she saw Jenna in their mother’s gown. Jenna looked
stunning, and whereas Margot felt a bloom of love and pride—and relief—that this was
so, she was also jealous. She wished that she had had a real wedding where she might
have had an opportunity to wear Beth’s dress, instead of some salmon-colored chiffon
number from A Pea in the Pod. She wished she had gotten married here at the Nantucket
house instead of on a cliff in Antigua, where she had never been before and would
never go again. She wished she had married someone different, someone better matched
to grow with her.

Someone like Edge? But Margot couldn’t imagine being married to Edge. To be married
to Edge, history had proved, meant to one day be divorced from Edge.

Someone like Griff? Margot wondered.

Margot never made it downstairs to talk to Abigail Pease, because at that moment her
father emerged from his bedroom in his tux, and Margot was distracted. And two seconds
later, Beanie popped her head out of her bedroom and told Margot she needed to talk
to her.

“The ring is gone,” Beanie said. She held out the brown velvet box. It was empty.

“Wait,” Margot said. “What do you mean?”

“The boxes were here,” Beanie said. She pointed to the Eastlake bureau, which matched
the ornately carved twin beds that had, long ago, been the summer beds of Kevin and
Nick. The beds and the dresser with the matching attached mirror were antiques that
predated even Margot’s grandparents. How the boys had ended up with them was another
mysterious family
injustice. On the dresser was the second brown velvet box, which held Stuart’s wedding
band. Stuart’s band was there, but not Jenna’s. Jenna’s was embedded with fourteen
ethically mined diamonds, totaling nearly two carats, and was worth twenty or thirty
times what Stuart’s was worth.

Had someone come into the Carmichael house and stolen the ring? The house was filled
with people. Downstairs was crawling with catering staff and tent guys and, now, the
production people for the band and the band members themselves.

“The boxes have been here the whole time?” Margot asked.

“The whole time. Entrusted to Kevin yesterday by Stuart.”

“Your bedroom door was unlocked?”

“Oh, come on,” Beanie said. “Of course. I never thought the rings were unsafe here.
Would you have thought that?”

“No,” Margot said. “I can’t believe this. I really can’t believe this.” On top of
everything else, she was dealing with jewelry theft? “Did you look around? It didn’t
fall, did it?”

“Fall?” Beanie said. The idea was preposterous. If the box had fallen, would the ring
have tumbled out? No way, never—and yet a second later both Beanie, and Margot in
her green bridesmaid dress, were on their hands and knees, sweeping the dusty wooden
floorboards and the ridges of the braided rug with splayed fingers, looking for the
ring.

They found an earring back. No ring.

Margot stood up and straightened her dress. She said, “Was anyone else in your room?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Did you see any of the staff up here?” She really felt like Nancy Drew now, but it
didn’t bring the high she had been hoping for. She did
not
want to go downstairs to Roger and tell him that he had to start questioning the
people slaving over this wedding reception because a diamond wedding band had gone
missing. And yet a diamond wedding band had gone missing, it was worth a lot of money,
five figures for sure, and they needed to find it. The only people who had been on
the second floor were the family and members of the wedding party.

Family. And members of the wedding party.

Margot sat on Beanie’s unmade bed. Kevin’s bed, naturally, had been made with military
precision.

Margot thought,
Finn? Because she was angry and hurting?

She thought,
Autumn? Because she needed the cash?

She thought,
Pauline? Pauline had taken the Notebook and not returned it.

Margot tried to imagine herself approaching any one of those people about the missing
ring. She could never do it. And to be honest, none of those answers felt right. Margot
closed her eyes. Abigail Pease was waiting.

Family. Members of the wedding party.

And then she knew.

She hopped off the bed. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

In her room, she rummaged through Ellie’s suitcase—nothing. She looked in the dresser
drawers and the single drawer of the nightstand—nothing. She hunted in the tight,
dark corners of the closet—nothing. Then she marched downstairs. Abigail Pease was
perched on the arm of the sofa with her camera in her lap. She perked up when she
saw Margot. “You ready?” she said, checking her watch as if to remind Margot, as if
Margot didn’t already
know,
that they were working with a tight schedule here.

“In one minute!” Margot sang out with false cheer.

Ellie and the boys had changed into their wedding clothes and had been placed outside
on a blanket with a deck of cards, a tray of poker chips, and a bucket of spare change.
Margot half expected the boys to be flinging poker chips at one another like
tiddlywinks, but as she approached, she could see all five boys studying their cards.

Drum Jr. was dealing. He said, “Brian, are you gonna see him for a quarter or fold?”

Her son’s knowledge of the game was frightening. Both he and Carson had spent way
too many hours watching the World Series of Poker on ESPN. Oh, the guilt.