Beautiful Day(57)

Offer up the Yacht Club. We both know there isn’t a more picturesque location on the island. Start with passed hors d’oeuvres on the patio, then segue into a classic clambake buffet (make sure the corn is sourced locally from Moors End Farm). Hire a band. I’m going to suggest ONLY STANDARDS here because this will please the older guests. You can have your “Honky Tonk Woman” and “Electric Slide” at the reception. Serve blueberry cobbler for dessert. End at 10 p.m. Resist the urge to go to the Chicken Box afterwards (now I really do sound like a mother)! You want to be well rested for your big day.





MARGOT


No Edge.

The Nantucket Yacht Club was one of the last places on earth with a pay phone, and Margot was tempted to use it. Call Edge���s cell phone, find out exactly what was going on.

She was distracted from thoughts of Edge, however, when Stuart’s brother Chance went into full-blown anaphylactic shock. Margot was pretty far from the center of the action, but she quickly ascertained that Chance had eaten a mussel and his throat had started to close. Someone on the yacht club staff produced an EpiPen, the paramedics showed up, Chance was taken to Cottage Hospital, and Stuart’s father and the woman in the yellow dress—who, it turned out, was Chance’s mother—followed in their car.

Chance’s mother was here. That was pretty interesting.

A hush followed, as tended to happen after unforeseen emergencies, but once it was determined that Chance would be all right, people returned to what they had been doing before. Ordering cocktails! Hitting the buffet line! Margot procured herself a glass of white wine and a plate of food. She knew she should mingle; she should catch up with her mother’s cousins, or with Jenna’s fellow teachers from Little Minds—but she just didn’t feel up to it tonight. She wanted to eat with someone easy and familiar.

There was a seat next to Ryan and the black boyfriend. That would be good conversation, but Margot would be sitting with Ryan the following night. There were empty seats on either side of Pauline and Rhonda—but no, never.

Then Margot saw Beanie flagging her down. Perfect—except for the fact that Kevin would soon appear. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Margot sat with Beanie.

Beanie said, “Didn’t Nick and Finn come with you?”

“No,” Margot said. “They showed up really late, and they needed to shower and change, so I left without them. They walked here, I guess.”

“I haven’t seen either of them,” Beanie said.

Margot scanned the room. “You’re kidding,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to eight,” Beanie said.

Margot attacked her lobster, ripping the body apart, pulling the meat from the tail, cracking the claws, and dumping the empty shells in the bowl in the middle of the table. The clambake at the yacht club had been her mother’s suggestion. Margot understood the reasoning behind it—it was a regional specialty, extravagant yet casual. But it was a mess! All these southerners were dressed up. They might not feel like fighting with their dinner.

Margot dipped a lobster claw in drawn butter. Mmmmm. Well, there was no arguing with that.

Nick and Finn, she thought. Still at large. There was only one thing to assume, but even Margot couldn’t go there. Nick wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t. He had a moral rip cord. He would pull it.

Margot managed to get all the way through her lobster and eat half an ear of corn before Kevin appeared, hovering over Beanie’s left shoulder.

He said, “Come on, we have to sit with Dad.”

“What?” Beanie said. “I’m sitting here.”

“I know, but you have to move. Dad wants us to sit with him.”

“I’m sitting with Margot,” Beanie said. “And I’m halfway through my meal, honey. Just sit here, with us.”

“Dad wants us over there,” Kevin said. He pointed to the table where Doug was sitting with Pauline and Rhonda.

Margot threw her crumpled, butter-soaked napkin onto her plate. “It’s okay,” she said to Beanie. “You can go. I’m done.”

Kevin said, “I’m sure you’re welcome, too. I think Dad really wants his family around. This is hard for him.”

Margot barked out a laugh. “Yes, Kev, I know it’s hard for him. It’s hard for all of us.”

“But especially hard for Dad,” Kevin said.

Margot gave her brother an incredulous look, which he pretended not to see. She loved how Kevin was now taking the whole family’s emotional temperature and triaging them. But especially hard for Dad. What about Jenna, who was getting married tomorrow without their mother present? What about Margot, who was trying to serve as daughter and sister and surrogate mother? What about poor Pauline—now there was a phrase Margot had never expected to utter—who had to witness all the Beth Carmichael worship and be a good sport about it? And meanwhile her husband was about to divorce her.