Nope.
Margot stood on the balcony alone, taking in the pointed top of the tent with its fluttering green and white ribbons, and Alfie’s artificially raised limb. Margot recalled when her most pressing worry had been about rain.
She recalled when her most pressing worries had been about herself: Edge, her drowned phone, the reappearance of Griff in her life.
She stomped upstairs to the attic. The six kids were in the middle of a world-class pillow fight; feathers fell like giant flakes of snow, and Brock, the youngest of Kevin’s sons, was crying. Margot collared Drum Jr.
“Have you seen Auntie Jenna?”
“No,” he said. He frowned contritely. “I’m sorry about the mess.”
Feathers could be cleaned up. New pillows (foam) could be purchased. Brock would stop crying in a minute or two; he, like Ellie, was a tough little kid.
Margot dashed back downstairs. She caught Beanie on her way to the bathroom. Beanie was wearing a pair of men’s white cotton pajamas with her own monogram on the pocket.
“Have you seen Jenna?” Margot asked.
Beanie shook her head. She said, in a froggy voice, “Is there coffee?”
“Downstairs,” Margot said.
Beanie entered the bathroom. The only room Margot hadn’t checked was the guest room, where Rhonda was staying. What were the chances that Jenna was in with Rhonda? Should Margot check? Of course, she had to check. But at that instant, the guest room door opened and Rhonda stepped out, wearing running shorts and a jog bra, which showed off her perfect, if slightly orange, six-pack abs.
Margot said, “You haven’t seen Jenna, have you?”
Rhonda said, “No, why? Is she missing? Is she, like, the runaway bride?”
“No,” Margot said. “No, no.”
“Do you want me to help you look for her?” Rhonda asked. She pulled her dark hair into a ponytail. “I’m happy to help.”
Rhonda was nice, Margot decided. She was, Margot realized—perhaps for the first time ever—her stepsister. But probably not for much longer.
“I’m good,” Margot said, flying down the stairs. “But thanks for offering! Enjoy your run!”
To avoid the kitchen—Nick, Finn, her father—Margot cut through the formal dining room, where the table was laden with hotel pans and serving pieces for the reception. The grandfather and grandmother clocks announced the hour in symphony. Seven. Margot popped out the little-used rear west door, wedged between the powder room and the laundry, to the backyard.
Margot checked the proposal bench, where she had been sitting a short while ago—empty. Then she entered the tent, which looked even more like a fairy-tale woodland now that the sun was dappling in. Margot searched among the tables and chairs, looking for her sister. Was she hiding in there somewhere? Margot peered up the center pole, where she had imagined her mother’s spirit hovering.
No Jenna.
Out the back of the tent, past the as-yet-unmolested perennial bed, to the driveway. All cars present and accounted for. Out to the front sidewalk, where Margot could just barely discern the ghost of her and Griff kissing. It was so early that the street was quiet; there wasn’t a soul around, which was one of the things Margot loved about Nantucket. In Manhattan, there was no such thing as a quiet street.
No Jenna.
She was gone.
THE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 21
Band or DJ
Band! Preferably one that can play both “At Last,” by Etta James, AND “China Grove,” by the Doobie Brothers.
ANN
She woke up sprawled across the massive, soft, luxurious hotel bed alone. She lifted her head. Hangover. And her eyes burned. She had fallen asleep crying.
“Jim?” she said. Her voice was as dry as crackers. Jim had pulled on khaki pants and a polo shirt and had left when she asked, clicking the door shut behind him. Ann figured he went down to have a drink at the bar, then slipped back upstairs after she was asleep.
But he wasn’t in the room.
“Jim?” she said. She checked the bathroom—there was enough room in the Jacuzzi for three people to sleep comfortably—but it was empty. She checked the walk-in closet and opened the door to the balcony.
No Jim.
Her head started to throb, and her breathing became shallow. She had lost H.W. once, when he was nine years old, at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh. Ann had had all three boys in tow; they were headed to the ag tent to see the biggest pumpkin and the prettiest tomatoes and to taste prize-winning hush puppies and dilled green beans. But Ann had stopped to talk to one of her constituents, and at some point during the conversation, H.W. had wandered off. He was missing for seventy-four minutes before Ann and the state fair security officers found him in the Village of Yesteryear, watching a woman in colonial garb weaving cloth on a loom. Ann had spent those seventy-four minutes in a purple panic; it had felt like someone had flipped her upside down and was shaking her.