Beautiful Day (35 page)

Ellie didn’t have any cards. She was sitting on the edge of the blanket, stacking
dimes in one pile, nickels in another.

“Eleanor?” Margot said. “Would you come here, please?”

Ellie looked up. Did she seem guilty? She appeared wary, but that wasn’t quite the
same thing. “I’m not getting dirty,” she said.

This was true, Margot thought. The dress was still pristinely white. Until ten minutes
ago, Margot’s biggest concern was that Ellie would trash the dress before photographs
and the walk down the aisle. All the Carmichael women were trashing their dresses
this weekend.

Margot smiled tightly. “Can you come here, please, sweetie?”

Reluctantly, Ellie stood up and shuffled over to her mother.

“What?” she said.

Margot said, “I’m looking for Auntie Jenna’s wedding band. It’s silver and has diamonds.
Do you know where it is?”

Ellie stared at the ground and shook her head.

Margot took a second to congratulate herself on her perfect instincts. “Honey, we
need that ring or Auntie Jenna can’t get married.”

Ellie locked her hands in front of her. She shook her head so hard that her whole
body trembled, like she was having a seizure.

“Ellie, where is it?”

Ellie raised her head. Her eyes were pure blazing defiance. “I don’t know,” she said.

Margot was left temporarily breathless. If her daughter could stare her right in the
face and lie to her at age six, what would happen when she was sixteen?

“Eleanor,” Margot said. “I need you to tell me where you put that ring
right now.
”

“No,” Ellie said.

No: It was progress. She wasn’t denying knowing where the ring was; she was just refusing
to tell.

Margot said, “Honey, we need it. Auntie Jenna needs it to get married. You must help
me find the ring.”

“No,” Ellie said.

Margot grabbed Ellie’s arm and squeezed. She didn’t have
time
for this! She leaned over and treated Ellie to her scary Mom whisper. “Tell me where
the ring is right this instant.”

“No,” Ellie said.

Margot straightened. She stared up past the top of the wedding tent into Alfie’s upper
branches and willed herself not to cry and not to curse out her child.

Roger stuck his head out the back screen door. “Margot?” he said. “Phone for you.”

What now?
She stormed into the house and took the receiver from him. He said, “And as soon
as you’re off, I need you to gather the bridesmaids. Abigail is out front, shooting
your father and Jenna right now.”

“Okay,” Margot said.

“We were ahead of the game,” Roger said. “Now we’re running behind.”

“Okay,” Margot said, less patiently. Roger was a slave driver. She reminded herself
that this was why she loved him. Into the phone, she said, “Yes? Hello?”

“Margot? Are you okay?”

Margot plopped into a kitchen chair. Around her, the caterers buzzed like bees. It
was Drum Sr. He was supposed to call every Saturday at noon his time, three o’clock
eastern time, but he was often tardy. It was quarter after three now, which was pretty
prompt for him, although quite frankly Margot had forgotten about his weekly call,
and furthermore, she wondered why he hadn’t decided to skip the call, since he knew
Jenna was getting married today.

“Oh,” Margot said. “Sort of.”

“I tried calling your cell phone, like, forty times,” he said. “Do you have it shut
off?”

“I sunk it,” Margot said. “I dropped it in the toilet at the Chicken Box.”

“You’re kidding!” Drum said. He laughed gleefully. “Wow, you must be having more fun
than you even expected! Is everybody there? Kevin, Beanie, Nick, Finn, Scott…?”

“Yes, yes, yes, not Scott, he’s in Vegas,” Margot said. She felt a pang of longing
then, longing for Drum. He had been her husband for ten years and her boyfriend for
two summers before that. He had been a part of this family, especially close to her
siblings, especially fond of Beanie, his fellow in-law, and Jenna. How did it feel
to not be included in this wedding? Margot should have invited him. He should be able
to see the boys in their blazers, Ellie in her white eyelet dress with the matching
white sandals.

“Hey, listen,” Margot said. “I could really use your help.”

“Of course,” Drum said. “Anything. What can I do?” His voice was so open and friendly
that Margot couldn’t help but think,
He is a good guy and a doting father.
There had been times in the two years since their divorce when the sound of his voice
had irked her. After moving to California, he had acquired a surfer dude twang that
made him sound like even more of a
slacker and a bum than she already believed him to be. But right now he sounded capable
and attentive; he sounded like himself. He sounded like exactly the person Margot
needed.

After Ellie got off the phone with her father, she stomped into the house, and Margot
trailed her at a discreet distance. From the middle drawer in the bottom row of the
thirty-six tiny drawers of the apothecary chest, Ellie pulled out a plastic change
purse, this one indistinguishable from the many plastic change purses that she carried
in her many pocketbooks and handbags, all of them crammed with shit.

Hoarder, Margot thought. My fault. Because I divorced her father and she’s afraid
of giving up anything else.

From the change purse, Ellie pulled out Jenna’s wedding band.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

Margot clenched the ring in her palm and sighed. A fifteen-thousand-dollar ring stuffed
into one of the drawers of the apothecary chest, where they might not have found it
for twenty years, when it would have magically appeared like a prize in a game show.
Margot wanted to believe that Ellie would have handed it over of her own volition.
But maybe not. Maybe it was a secret she wanted to keep safe. The poor child. “No,”
Margot said. “In fact, I have an idea. Follow me.”

“Margot!” a voice called out. “We’re waiting for you!” Margot glanced out the back
screen door. Somehow Abigail Pease had lassoed Autumn, Finn, and a freshly made-up
Rhonda, who were all standing in a line in the backyard, holding their bouquets. Off
to the side stood Jenna and their father, with Kevin and Nick.

“One second,” Margot said.

“No, not one second, Margot,” Roger said. “We need you now.”

“Sorry,” Margot said. She led Ellie by the hand out the side door. She had spent all
weekend being a daughter and a sister—and now, finally, she was going to take time
to be a mother. She opened the tailgate of her Land Rover and brought out the white
cardboard box from E.A.T. bakery. She lifted the hideous bow-and-paper-plate hat out
of the box.

“Would you like to wear this when you walk down the aisle?” Margot asked.

“Oh, yes, Mommy!” Ellie said. She jumped up and down and her sandals crunched in the
gravel and she clapped her hands. She looked less like a world-weary teenager-before-her-time
and more like a six-year-old girl. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Margot placed the hat on Ellie’s head and tied the ribbon under her chin.

“Very fetching,” she said, and she kissed her daughter’s nose.

T
he wedding was on! Ann didn’t have many details about how Stuart’s gaffe had been
fixed. All she knew was that Margot had found Jenna, Jenna had called Stuart, and
they had made amends over the She Who Shall Not Be Named crisis. Or at least temporary
amends, amends enough to proceed with the wedding. Ann knew from experience that Stuart
and Jenna would revisit the topic of Crissy Pine again, and probably again.

Ann had butterflies as she ascended the steps of St. Paul’s Church. It was beginning!

As luck would have it, the first person Ann saw in the sanctuary was Helen. Helen
was wearing fuchsia, which was just another word for the hottest pink the eye could
handle—and a fascinator with pink feathers.

Really?
Ann thought.
A fascinator?
This wasn’t a royal wedding, it wasn’t Westminster Abbey, Helen wasn’t British; she
was from Roanoke, Virginia. The fascinator wasn’t fascinating; it was absurd. Ann
felt embarrassed on Helen’s behalf. The pink of the dress was an assault on the senses.
Ann had a hard time looking at the spectacle that was Helen, but she had a hard time
not
looking at the spectacle that was Helen.

Ann waited in the vestibule for all the guests to be seated, including the Lewises
and the Cohens and the Shelbys in the middle pews of the groom’s side. Then the music
stopped momentarily and started up again, a new song. Ryan appeared at Ann’s elbow.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered.

Ann beamed. She would never say she had a favorite son, but she was very glad that
she had a son who could be counted on to constantly lift her spirits, like Ryan.

“Thank you,” she said. “So do you.”

Pauline was escorted down the aisle by Jenna’s brother, Nick. Ann waited for Pauline
to be seated in the front pew on the left, and then she and Ryan stepped forward.
All the assembled wedding guests turned to watch them, and this felt good to Ann.
She was an important person here, the mother of the groom, and her dress was sensational
if she did say so herself. It was a long sheath with cap sleeves in a beautiful shade
of turquoise silk that gently ombréd into jade green around her knees. The only jewelry
she
wore was her dazzling new strand of pearls. She carried a small silver clutch purse
that contained her lipstick and a package of tissues. She smiled at the wedding guests
who turned to admire her, whether she knew them or not. She couldn’t help but remember
when she had been the bride and had walked down the aisle at Duke Chapel to a lineup
that included Jim, his fraternity brothers, and Ann’s roommates from Craven Quad.
Jim had been grinning, and sweating out the shots of bourbon that he and said fraternity
brothers had done only moments before the wedding. They had been so young, so innocent,
and unaware that any roadblocks might lie ahead.

The second time they got married, it was just the two of them and the three boys,
no trip down the aisle, but that hadn’t mattered. They were older and wiser, and they
were resolved. Nothing would take them down again.

Ann knew she should be basking in the moment, but she was distracted by the fuchsia.
Helen’s dress was another one-shouldered number that was inappropriate on a woman
her age. But the problem wasn’t the dress. The problem was that the scrutiny wasn’t
mutual. As Ann passed Helen’s pew, Helen was looking at her cell phone. She was… texting.
Texting in church, during a wedding! What Ann wanted, what she required, was Helen’s
attention on
her.

Look at me,
Ann thought.
My son is getting married. I am the last to be seated. Look at me, goddamn it.

But no, nothing. Helen was determined to act as though Ann wasn’t even present on
Nantucket this weekend. To Helen, Ann might have been a complete stranger.

Ann kissed Ryan—beautiful, elegant Ryan, whose attention she never needed to seek—and
sat next to Jim, who reached
instantly for her hand. By the time Ann had left the groomsmen’s house and made it
back to the hotel, Jim was in the room. He had spent the night sleeping in the rental
car, he said, and he had the backache to prove it. He had just emerged from the shower
when Ann walked in, and his lower half was wrapped in a white towel. Ann had never
been able to resist him in a towel or otherwise, and so she had jumped into his arms
and he held her as though they’d been separated for twelve years instead of twelve
hours. They said nothing, there was no reason to speak when they could read each other’s
minds: he was sorry, she was sorry, they had been drinking, it was an emotionally
charged situation and they had to deal with it as best they could. He kissed her and
slid his hands up her very cute red gingham skirt and she kicked off the painful Jack
Rogers sandals and they made love on the grand expanse of their hotel bed, despite
his aching back.

It was as Ann was getting dressed that Jim handed her the long, slim box from Hamilton
Hill jewelers.

“What is this?” she said.

“Open it,” he said. “It’s your son’s wedding day. You did such a good job with him,
Annie, even when I wasn’t around…”

“Hush,” Ann said. “
We
did a good job with him.”

“Open it,” Jim said.

Ann opened the box, her heart knocking. If the box was from Hamilton Hill, Jim had
bought this at home, planning all the while to give it to her today. And she had kicked
him out!