There was a tap on Margot’s shoulder. She thought it was Finn returning from the ladies’ room, or the waiter with their wine, but when she pivoted in her seat, she saw Rhonda. Rhonda Tonelli.
Oh, shit, she thought.
Margot struggled to push her chair away from the table and stand. She thought, What do I do? What do I say? She’d had too much to drink to handle this graciously, but at least she was sober enough to realize it.
She said, “Hey, Rhonda!” She moved in to give Rhonda a hug and a peck on the cheek, and Rhonda bobbed away to avoid this gesture, so Margot ended up with her hand on the side of Rhonda’s neck, and her lips landed on Rhonda’s bare shoulder. It all happened quickly, but the embarrassing fact resonated through Margot’s mind like a gong. She had kissed Rhonda’s shoulder.
Oh, God, awkward.
Rhonda said, “I didn’t know the address of the house, so I called my mother, but she wasn’t answering her phone, so then I called you, like, fifty times, and you didn’t answer. So then the cabdriver had pity on me—I mean, here I am, just landed on this island and there’s no one to meet me and I don’t know where the hell I’m going. So we pulled out the phone book and looked up Carmichael, but there were two Carmichaels so I picked one and I was wrong—the other Carmichaels were at home, I interrupted their dinner—and then finally I found the right house. The babysitter was there with your kids, she had no idea which room was mine, so I put my stuff in the blue room with the twin beds…”
Kevin’s room, Margot thought.
“And thank God the babysitter knew where you guys were eating because I lost the e-mail you sent me with the name of the restaurant. It was like, ‘Welcome to Nantucket, Rhonda!’ ”
Margot laughed. She said, “Welcome to Nantucket, Rhonda!” She stood with her back to the table, hoping to disguise the fact that there was no chair for Rhonda. Margot had completely forgotten Rhonda was coming. Margot had made a reservation for five people, but when they’d arrived, the hostess had said, “Four?” and Margot had said, “Yes, please,” and they were seated at a table for four.
Now Autumn was up out of her chair, using her professional skills, informing the waiter that there would be one more joining them and they needed a chair. But then Finn returned to the table, her face streaked with tears, and Jenna hopped up to see what the matter was. In the process, she upended her wineglass, and Margot’s white silk sheath dress was splattered with burgundy, and Margot’s gut reaction, which she was not quick enough to suppress, was to shriek. The dress was ruined.
Jenna said, “Oh, Margot, I’m sorry!”
Rhonda said, “White wine will get that out. Use white wine.”
Autumn said, “That’s a myth.”
Rhonda said, “I’ve seen it done.”
Margot watched Finn and Jenna, who were now hugging. Jenna rubbed Finn between the shoulder blades. “What happened?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
The waiter came back with the fifth chair, and then there was the big production of squeezing it in and moving the plates, all of them still filled with very expensive uneaten food. Then the waiter noticed the spilled wine and Margot’s dress, and she ran to get fresh linens and a dish towel and seltzer for the stains. The wine looked like blood, and Finn was crying with gusto now. It probably seemed like there had been a murder at their table. Margot thought it would be best if they all sat down, and she said so.
Finn said, “I have to go home.”
Margot said, “What? Why? What happened?”
Finn shook her head and pressed a streamer of toilet paper to her nose.
Jenna said, “I’ll go with you.”
“No!” Margot said. “You can’t. This is your party!”
“Your sister’s right,” Finn said. “You stay. It’s your party.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Jenna said. “If you’re going home, I’m going with you.”
Finn cast her eyes to the ceiling in a look of mock surrender that Margot had seen a thousand times in the past twenty-five years. Margot thought, You can’t ask Jenna to leave her own party! Pathetic! Finn was upset because Scott was in Las Vegas having fun. Why wasn’t Finn willing to just have fun herself, here? But Margot knew there was nothing she would be able to say, no guilt trip she would be able to lay, that would make either of them change their minds.
Jenna wrapped herself in her pashmina. “I’m going to take the car,” she said to Margot. “You guys can get a cab, right?”
“Right,” Margot said. She smiled at Jenna, willing herself to pretend like this was all okay for the next sixty seconds, until they were out of the restaurant. “We’ll see you in the morning.”