Beautiful Day(59)

Jenna’s eyes filled with tears, and Margot became confused. Did Jenna have a strong alliance with Pauline that Margot didn’t know about? Did Jenna love Pauline? Pauline was fine, she was okay, on a good day she could be sort of fun—at Halloween, she dressed up as a witch to give the children of Silvermine candy bars—but Margot had no attachment to Pauline, and she assumed her siblings didn’t, either.

“Hey,” Margot said, patting Jenna’s back.

“It’s just…” Jenna said.

The door to the ladies’ room flew open, so that music floated in. The band was playing more Sinatra—“I’ve Got the World on a String” (her mother’s suggestion of “only standards” had been obeyed). By now, Margot guessed, the blueberry cobbler had been served. She glanced up to see who was coming in.

For the sake of poetry, Margot half expected to find Rhonda, or possibly even Pauline herself, entering, so she was taken aback to see… Finn.

Finn wore a silver Herve Leger bandage dress, which Margot knew to cost fifteen hundred dollars. Finn’s hair was a mess, and she appeared flushed. Her cheeks were bright red with sunburn, and her eyes were shining and manic.

Margot thought, Oh, God, no. He didn’t.

“Hi!” Finn said. She was glowing. She would have glowed with a paper bag over her head.

He did.

Jenna spun around so quickly that her skirt flared; it was like a Solid Gold dance move, and Margot would have laughed had it not been for Jenna’s tone of voice. In twenty-nine years of knowing her sister, Margot had never heard Jenna speak sharply to anyone, but now her voice was a glinting dagger.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Finn gnawed her lower lip, and Margot could tell she was trying not to burst out in an explosion of bubbles and rose petals.

Jenna looked at an imaginary watch. “It’s eight thirty. You were supposed to be at the church for the rehearsal at five. Three and a half hours ago. Where have you been?”

“Um…” Finn said.

“You’re my best friend!” Jenna cried. “I needed you with me. When you needed me last night, what did I do?”

Silence from Finn, who now looked appropriately contrite.

“I went home with you!” Jenna shouted. “I left my own bachelorette party, which Margot had been planning for months. I went home and let you cry on my shoulder about what an asshole Scott is. Oh—and he is an asshole!”

Margot watched her sister with near-anthropological interest. She was watching the first-ever fight between Jenna and Finn. Jenna could be a spitfire. Who knew?

Finn’s face dissolved. She was going to revert to type and cry. This Margot could have predicted, and she further predicted that, upon seeing Finn’s tears, Jenna would relent and apologize for her tone. But instead Jenna grew fiercer.

“Answer me,” Jenna said. “Where were you?”

“With Nick,” Finn said. “Paddleboarding at the beach, then trying to get home from the beach.” Here she flicked her eyes at Margot. “Then we took showers and got dressed at home, then came right here.”

No, Margot thought. It had not taken two hours for them to shower, dress, and walk the half mile over here.

“Did something happen?” Jenna asked. “Did something happen between you and Nick?”

Margot couldn’t bear to hear the answer. She didn’t want Finn to admit the truth, and she didn’t want to hear her lie. Margot put up a hand. “I’m leaving,” she said. “You two can finish this in peace.”

“Thank you,” Finn whispered.

As Margot pushed open the door to leave, she heard Jenna say, “Tell me the truth!”

Outside, in the corridor, Margot surveyed the happenings in the rest of the club. It was, from the look of things, a lovely party. The band was playing “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” Margot’s father was dancing with Beanie, Kevin was dancing with Rhonda, Ryan’s boyfriend was dancing with Pauline. Nick was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eating what appeared to be a club sandwich off a paper plate. Unlike Finn, Nick was not radiating ecstasy and moonbeams. He seemed his usual nonchalant, nonplussed self, maybe even a little subdued. Perhaps he was bummed because he’d missed the lobster buffet, or perhaps he was suffering guilty pangs about the sex acts he had just performed with the newly married childhood neighbor girl.

But who was Margot kidding? Nick didn’t suffer guilty pangs.

Margot had to get out of there.

You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family to a friendly acquaintance.

Goddamned Griff, Homecoming King, was right. She would love.