“Brock has to be walked back, too,” Margot said.
“We’re taking the Grahams and the groomsmen to the club,” Kevin announced. “The pleasures of minivan ownership: seating for eight.” He patted Margot’s shoulder in the most condescending way possible and said, “We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
It would be more than a few minutes, everyone knew that, because once Nick and Finn did return, they would have to shower and change. Margot wanted to go to the yacht club to see Edge. She had been patient, she hadn’t been a sourpuss about the mortal damage to her phone, she hadn’t gotten drunk with Griff at ten thirty in the morning—but now she wanted her reward. She wanted to see Edge.
Back at the house, Emma Wilton was waiting. Margot gave her money to take all six kids down to the Strip for pizza, then to the Juice Bar for ice cream, then to the playground at Children’s Beach.
“Please,” Margot said, “try to get Ellie out of her bathing suit. She might listen to you, since you’re not her mother.”
At eight o’clock, Emma was to bring the kids home to watch a DVD. With the wedding tents set up, there could be absolutely no roughhousing in the backyard.
Once Emma and the kids took off down Orange Street, Margot was left to sit and stew alone. She realized it might be a good thing if she wasn’t at the yacht club exactly on time. If Edge got there first, he would wonder where she was; he would be the one waiting while she made an entrance. This thought calmed Margot for a few minutes until she grew antsy again. She allowed herself to grow infuriated first with Kevin, then with Nick. Nick was thirty-seven years old, he was an adult, he had an advanced degree, he negotiated player contracts worth millions of dollars, he was quoted all the time in the Washington Post and even occasionally on ESPN. How could he allow himself to completely miss the rehearsal—and not only him but Finn, as well. How irresponsible!
It had crossed everyone’s mind that something had gone awry. Nick and Finn had been at least a hundred yards offshore on their paddleboards. When Margot had corralled the kids to leave, she’d shouted to Nick, and he had waved and pointed to his wrist—indicating, she thought, that he would be along in a few minutes. Maybe either he or Finn had fallen off the paddleboard; maybe they’d gotten swept out to sea, maybe they’d drowned. Jenna had tried calling and texting Finn, and Kevin had tried Nick, with no response. But of course their phones would be on the beach. Margot knew in her heart that they weren’t in any danger. Nick was too much of a competent asshole to meet with tragedy.
You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family to a friendly acquaintance.
The grandfather and grandmother clocks announced the quarter hour in brassy unison. Margot closed her eyes and tried to achieve a Zen moment. She had always loved the mellow, honeyed chiming of those clocks; it was a sound particular to the Nantucket house. It was the sound of summertime; it was the sound of her childhood.
Six fifteen. Margot was the least Zen person on earth. She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of wine.
She thought about Griff. He had come into the offices at Miller-Sawtooth in the second week of March. Griff’s first interview with Margot—for the head of product development with a pre-IPO tech firm called Tricom—had gone so well that she knew he would end up on the final slate. Griff’s third interview with the powers that be at Tricom, including Drew Carver, the CEO, had taken place on the morning after Margot had spent the night at Edge’s apartment for the one and only time. Margot had been a flustered, sex-exhausted, lovesick mess. She had spent time in the ladies’ room, trying to pull herself together—makeup for under her eyes, perfume to mask the smell of pheromones, her inner voice reflecting on what Edge had asked of her. It would really mean a lot to me, he’d said, tracing his finger along her jawbone. When Margot emerged from the ladies’ room, Harry Fry, her managing partner, had asked if she was okay. Harry had served as Margot’s champion within the company; he believed she had been blessed with “perfect instincts.” Harry must have known to look at Margot then that she was not okay, but she had stared him dead in the eye and said, “Yes, I’m fine,” because to be a woman in this business was already a disadvantage, but to be a louche, trashy woman who would be willing, perhaps, to compromise her principles for her lover was unacceptable. Harry Fry’s number one mandate—indeed, Miller-Sawtooth’s number one mandate—was that personal lives did not come into the boardroom. No individual prejudices. Ever.