Beautiful Day(28)

“You’ve got to get here. The band is off the chain! Come right now…”

Margot pulled her phone out of her bag. How she hated the damn thing. But she was feeling okay, she had survived the evening, or mostly. She would just check her texts, and then, regardless of whether or not there was a text from Edge, she would go out and dance.

She steeled herself. It didn’t really matter if there was a text from Edge; she would see him tomorrow night. They were going to spend the weekend in the same place, although not together. It would be stressful keeping their relationship hidden from Doug and everyone else. In their last conversation, which had taken place on Monday night at 11 p.m., Edge had said, “I’m worried you won’t be able to handle it.”

This had infuriated Margot. Would she not be able to handle it because she felt more for Edge than he did for her? Or because she wasn’t as emotionally mature as he was at fifty-nine, after three marriages and three divorces?

She said, “I’ll be fine.”

And he had said, cryptically, “Well, let’s hope so.”

She checked her phone.

And there, glowing like a single golden nugget among smooth gray river rocks, was his name.

Edge. Text message (2)

Not one message, but two! Margot’s heart suddenly had wings. She felt a surge of molten energy like a silver river that could not be mistaken for anything else: it was love. She had done the unthinkable and fallen in love with John Edgar Desvesnes III.

She wasn’t sure how she dropped the phone. One minute it was in her hands, and the next minute it was gone. The strap of her purse slipped, and she had her beer wedged between her elbow and her rib cage, and to keep her beer from falling, she had loosened her grip on her phone and it dropped. She reached out to catch it, but she was too late. It landed in the toilet with a splash.

Margot reached into the toilet to snatch it out. The phone had been submerged for less than one second. Less than one second! She tried to dry the face of the phone on the front of her stained silk dress, then she swabbed at it with a wad of bunched-up toilet paper. She pushed the button repeatedly, like a person performing CPR. But she knew it was no use. The phone was dead, cold, inert. The two text messages from Edge were lost.

What had he said? Oh, what had he said?

Margot shoved the lifeless phone in her purse. She exited the stall, washed her hands, and examined herself in the mirror. She should have sensed a disaster like this; everything about this night had gone wrong, starting when Jenna had realized the Notebook was missing.

Now Margot understood Jenna’s hysterical reaction: a person’s words, a personal message to you, lost forever. What could be more devastating?

Margot stepped out of the bathroom. She was going to find Rhonda and Autumn and tell them she was going home. Her spirit had been sapped; she was all done. Some nights had good karma, and some nights were cursed. Tonight was a fine example of the latter.

Margot fought her way through the crowd by the pool tables until she found her way blocked by a man in a striped polo shirt.

“Excuse me,” she said.

But the man didn’t move.

Margot looked up.

The man said, “Hey, Margot.”

Margot swallowed. It was Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King.

He laughed. “You should see your face,” he said. “Am I really that bad? It’s my eyes, right? They still freak you out.”

“I never said they freaked me out,” Margot said. “Those were not my words.”

“You said they unsettled you.”

Unsettled. He was right; that was what she’d said. Maybe because everyone had always commented on the startling ice blue of Margot’s eyes, she was more deeply attuned to other people’s eyes. Griff’s eyes had been hard to stop looking at once she noticed them. The intense blue on the outside and green on the inside drew her in and made her feel like the earth was spinning the wrong direction.

“I have to go,” Margot said. She sounded rude, even to herself. “I’m sorry. I dropped my phone in the toilet, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

“In the toilet?” Griff said. “Really?”

Margot nodded. She made a mental note not to tell anyone else she had dropped her phone in the toilet. It was disgusting.

“Let me see it,” he said.

“No, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Please,” he said, holding out his hands. “Let me see it.”

Margot dug the phone out of her purse. It was nice that he’d offered to help. That was one of the things her life was missing: someone to help. In her marriage to Drum Sr., she had been the one who had taken care of everything. And Edge was too busy putting out fires with his three ex-wives and four children; he didn’t have any spare time or energy to problem-solve for Margot, and for this very reason, Margot didn’t ask him.