Beautiful Day(105)

Margot ate three oysters. She was joined, temporarily, by Stuart’s father, Jim, who attacked the pile of jumbo shrimp rather indecorously.

Jim said, “Hell of a party.”

Margot faked a smile and slurped another oyster. “Mmmhmmm.” No other response seemed to be required of her, thank God. She needed Jim Graham to stay right where he was, shielding Margot and keeping her safe from any conversation that might cause her to miss her chance with Edge.

Rosalie’s glass was empty, Margot could see, as was Edge’s. But then the girl with the champagne came by, and Rosalie accepted a glass with a smile, and Margot read Edge’s lips as he ordered a Scotch.

Margot’s heart cracked open a little bit more. Margot kept a bottle of Glenmorangie in her liquor cabinet at home for the evenings when Edge stopped by.

Rosalie had a steel-reinforced bladder. She outlasted Margot; Margot had to go. She bypassed the elegant portable bathrooms set up in a discreet corner of the yard beyond Alfie, and instead went into the house and headed up the stairs to her own bathroom.

On the second floor, Margot heard voices, then a rhythmic banging. Margot stopped. The noise was coming from Jenna’s room. Finn and Nick. Margot nearly shouted at the top of her lungs. GROSS! But she refrained, slamming the door to the bathroom to make her point instead.

She hiked up the skirt of her grasshopper green dress and peed, holding her forehead in her hands. The banging continued against the wall behind her, and she heard Finn cry out in ecstasy, and Margot thought, All right, I’ve had enough. She washed her hands and stared at her reflection in the dingy medicine cabinet mirror.

I’ve had enough!

But she wasn’t sure what that meant, and she didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly she heard her mother’s voice. She knew it was her mother’s voice and not her mimicking her mother’s voice because Margot did not like what the voice said.

It said, Get back out there, honey. Pronto.

A glass bell sounded: dinner was served. Everyone sat except for the wedding party; they lined up so that they could be introduced by the bandleader and then take their places at the head table. Everyone in the wedding party had been asked to divulge one “interesting thing” about themselves to be read aloud by the bandleader. Margot was introduced as follows:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our maid of honor, who has taken surfing vacations on four continents—Margot… Carmichael!

Polite applause. Margot wasn’t crazy about the surfing vacation answer because all those vacations had been taken with Drum Sr., and at least half the people in this tent knew it. But the word interesting had presented a challenge because the things that filled Margot’s days—work placing executives in major corporations, raising three kids as a single parent, conducting a clandestine relationship with her father’s law partner—weren’t interesting. Margot would have liked to have said that she played classical guitar or spoke five languages, but neither was true. The fact was, she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t have any skills—except for surfing. And although her surfing had always been eclipsed by Drum Sr.’s surfing, she had ridden waves in Bali and Uruguay and La Jolla and the north shore of Oahu and the frigid waters of South Africa. There was a picture hanging in her father’s office of Margot in her wet suit with her dark hair slicked back and her face tanned—somehow the Asian sun had not brought out her freckles—crouched on her board in the tube of a left-hand break off the tiny Balinese island of Nusa Lembongan. Edge had once admitted to being captivated by that picture of Margot, even before the two of them started seeing each other.

You look powerful, dangerous almost, like a jaguar ready to pounce, Edge had said. It’s incredibly sexy.

That had been one reason why Margot chose to mention the surfing. She had wanted Edge to recall that picture of her.

Margot sauntered across the dance floor like a game show contestant toward her seat, thinking, Smile brightly! Don’t trip! Shoulders back, head high!

She couldn’t help herself. She sneaked a look at Edge, who was sitting next to Rosalie at her father’s table.

He winked.

Margot made it to the life preserver of her seat as the bandleader introduced “Our best man—who scored a perfect sixteen hundred on his SATs and still didn’t get into Princeton—Ryan Connelly Graham!”

Margot thought, He winked! She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or indignant. Indignant, she thought. How dare he wink! But thrilled won out. He had noticed her!

Then a thought broke through Margot’s despair. Maybe Edge had brought Rosalie to this wedding as a front to throw Doug off their trail. Margot felt sweet relief, followed by a glimmer of actual happiness. Of course that was why Edge had winked at her like a conspirator. He must have assumed she knew that was why he’d brought Rosalie. Rosalie was a straw candidate. Margot wondered where they were staying. Had they gotten two rooms? Oh, please, Margot thought. Please let that be the case. Please let this be a huge misunderstanding on her part.