And Doug thought, Unexpected twist there. But okay, why not?
He found Margot a few minutes later, licking thick white buttercream off her forefinger.
“That was so great,” she said. “Ryan.”
Doug said, “I had a talk with Edge. I asked him to leave.”
Margot pressed her pretty lips together, and her ice-blue eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“I know you’re forty years old,” he said. “But as long as I’m alive, I’m here to take care of you.”
Margot set down her cake plate and gave him a hug. When they separated, she wiped her eyes and said, “And now there’s someone I need to apologize to.”
“Yes,” Doug said, as he scanned the tent for Pauline. “Me, too.”
THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 40
Thank-You Notes
When you order the invitations, you should order the same number of corresponding cards (white or ivory, with the same seashell or sand dollar on top, blank) to use as thank-you notes for your gifts. Try, try, try to send them promptly, the same day the gift arrives if possible, and add at least one personal line to each card. Your Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be should share this responsibility, but honestly, honey, I have yet to meet a man who can write a decent thank-you note.
For example, from Kevin we got one of the precious cards Beanie had ordered, and across it, in nearly illegible penmanship, he wrote THANKS FOR THE CASH! Love, Kev.
I thought then that marriage must have lightened our Kevin up. But his frivolity was short-lived.
I kept the card, however, as proof. I have it still.
MARGOT
Back up in her bedroom, Margot riffled through the cocktail purse she had taken to the Galley on Thursday night. Ellie was passed out cold on the bed, still in her dress and the silly paper plate hat, although she had shed her sandals, so that Margot could see the black bottoms of her daughter’s feet. As badly as Margot needed to find what she was looking for, she could not resist any of her children when they were sleeping. She hovered over Ellie, marveling at the perfect features of her face and the flawlessness of her skin. When she bent down to kiss Ellie’s lips, she smelled frosting. Probably, Ellie had had nothing to eat tonight but frosting. Margot carefully removed the hat so that the paper plate would not be crushed by Ellie’s nighttime thrashings. She pulled the bedsheets up to Ellie’s chin.
She thought, Go to hell, Edge Desvesnes. This is the real thing right here.
Griff’s card was exactly where she thought it would be, tucked in her cocktail purse next to her dead phone. Unable to help herself, Margot pressed the phone’s buttons, hoping it would spring back to life, the way certain human beings had been known to do, even after being declared dead.
But no. The phone was torched, fried, useless. Somewhere in its now-silent plastic-and-metal depths lurked the two unread messages from Edge. Which would have said something like Please call me. I need to speak to you about this weekend.
Margot was caught in a wave of sadness that nearly pulled her under. Fifteen months of her life, wasted, all that energy squandered on someone who was never in the game to begin with. A part of her yearned to lie down next to Ellie and cry herself to sleep. Rosalie is a better match for me. The New Year’s Eve party. While Edge and Rosalie were kissing at that party, Margot was picking popcorn kernels out of her teeth, watching the ball drop on TV. All those nights when Margot had waited for Edge to respond to her texts, moving from room to room in her apartment, thinking that maybe it was her phone’s cell reception that was the problem, Rosalie and Edge were at the office “working together” on the shitshow Cranbrook case. Twenty-eight years old. Sexy gravelly voice.
Margot pinched Griff’s business card between two fingers. She had to do this.
There were two phones in the house. One was hanging on the wall in the kitchen. One was on the nightstand in the master bedroom. This was a holdover from Margot’s teen years. When Margot and Kevin and Nick were teenagers, they were forced to make all plans on the phone in the kitchen, right smack in the middle of the action, where everyone could hear. Margot had preferred talking to her friends or boyfriends in the privacy of her parents’ bedroom, though this was frowned upon. The phone in her parents’ bedroom was basically only there to serve as a late-night hotline. The police called to say that they had broken up a party at Dionis and had a Carmichael child in custody (Nick). A daughter called to say she’d be late for curfew (Margot). A son’s girlfriend called to see if he was home because it was late and she hadn’t heard from him (Beanie).
Now that the master bedroom was occupied by Doug and Pauline, that phone was really off-limits, so Margot had no choice but to call Griff from the phone in the kitchen. It was as mortifying as it had been as a teenager. The kitchen was filled with catering staff, who were all trying to clean up while simultaneously preparing the late-night offerings for the after-party: potato chips and dip, pretzels with honey mustard, pigs in a blanket, White Castle burgers, and the fixings for s’mores, which would be cooked over the bonfire in the backyard, which Roger and his crew were now setting up beyond the proposal bench, at the edge of the bluff. Under the tent, the band played “Two Tickets to Paradise” and “Buttercup.” Margot was sure most guests were still lighting up the dance floor—but for her, this wedding was over.