Beautiful Day(81)

Chance pulled aside one of the truly horrendous brocade drapes and said, “Thank God my mother is gone.”

Now Ann Graham looked worried. “When was the last time you saw Jenna?”

“A little while ago,” Margot said. She didn’t want to disclose anything more. “I should go.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Stuart asked.

Margot regarded Stuart. He was pale and sick with love. If he came with her, this would become the story of Margot and the soon-to-be-jilted groom as they hunted down the runaway bride.

Margot said, “Come outside with me?”

Stuart followed Margot outside, and she could sense that Ann Graham was antsy to join them. Margot and Stuart stood in the overgrown crabgrass of the front yard. It was warm in the sun, and Margot worried momentarily about freckles, then told herself to forget it.

“Jenna was really upset last night,” Margot said. “She called Roger and canceled the wedding.”

Stuart dropped his head to his chest. “Fuck,” he whispered.

That was the first time Margot had ever heard the man swear. He was such a good guy. “She’s upset about Crissy.”

Stuart held out a hand. “Stop,” he said. “I can’t even stand to hear her name.”

“You probably should have told her about the engagement,” Margot said.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Stuart said. “It only lasted a month. As soon as Crissy booked the Angus Barn for the engagement party, I broke up with her. And two weeks later, I moved to New York. I was done with her—done done done.”

“It feels like a big deal to Jenna,” Margot said. “She’s… well, you know how she is.”

“Sensitive,” he said.

“Yes,” Margot said. “And in this case, she’s also jealous. She was raised differently from the rest of us. You know, Kevin and Nick and I were always fighting for our parents’ attention. Always jockeying for first place. But not Jenna. She had their undivided attention.”

“Are you saying she’s spoiled?” Stuart said. “She’s never seemed spoiled to me.”

“She’s not spoiled,” Margot said. “But she’s probably not as experienced with this kind of jealousy as another person might be.”

“I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to tell her,” Stuart said. “I just didn’t want her to know. It meant nothing, it was a big fat mistake, and I wanted to pretend like it never happened.”

“She feels like you lied to her,” Margot said. “I understand it was a lie of omission—”

“I apologized fifty times, a hundred times. If she ever checks her phone again, she’ll see I called her seventeen times last night between the hours of midnight and five. I don’t know what else to do.” He put his face to his hands. “If she leaves me, I’ll die, Margot.”

“I have to go find her,” Margot said. “Let me talk to her.”

“I want to go with you,” Stuart said. “But I’m afraid I might mess it up even worse.”

“You might,” Margot said. She smiled to let him know she was kidding. “But I might, too.”

Margot drove out to Surfside, searching the road for Jenna. She turned down Nonantum Avenue and headed toward Fisherman’s Beach. From Rhonda’s cell phone, she called Jenna’s number. Jenna wouldn’t answer if it was Margot, or the number of the house, but would she answer if she saw a call coming in from Rhonda? Maybe.

But no. The call was shuttled right to voice mail.

Margot paused in the parking lot at Fisherman’s and walked to the landing at the top of the beach stairs. She scanned the coast to the left, then the coast to the right. No Jenna. There were only a couple of men, surfcasting at the waterline.

Margot remembered herself as a malcontented teenager, pacing this very beach with her Walkman playing “I Wanna Be Free,” by the Monkees, and “Against All Odds,” by Phil Collins. The beach was often shrouded in fog, which made it an even better place for soulful reflection for Margot and her adolescent woes: she hated her braces, her parents didn’t understand her, and she missed Grady McLean, who was back in Connecticut working the register at Stew Leonard’s.

Margot had also surfed this beach, too many times to count, with Drum Sr. He had been a bronzed surfing god back then, king of these waves. Margot had been awed by his grace and agility on the board. Of course she’d fallen in love with him! Every single person—man and woman, boy and girl—who had watched Drum surf had fallen in love with him. Margot had believed that the magic he demonstrated in the water, and on the ski slopes, would translate to real life. But as a landlubber, Drum Sr. had floundered. He had never been able to display the same kind of confidence or authority.