Beautiful Day Read Free

that she
wasn’t
Jenna’s maid of honor. She had been miffed when Jenna first announced her decision
     to Margot and Finn, over dinner at Dos Caminos. Finn had ordered three margaritas
     in rapid succession, then gone silent. And then she had gotten her nose out of joint
     about itagain at the bridal shower. Finn was upset that she had been stuck writing down the
     list of gifts while Margot the maid of honor fashioned the bows from the gifts into
     a goofy hat made from a paper plate. (Jenna was supposed to wear that hat tonight,
     to her bachelorette party. Margot had rescued it from the overly interested paws of
     Ellie, her six-year-old daughter, and had transported it here, more or less intact,
     in a white cardboard box from E.A.T. bakery.)
    Margot had told Jenna that it would be fine if Jenna wanted to ask Finn to be the
     matron of honor. Margot was eleven years older than Jenna; Finn had always been more
     like Jenna’s sister. Now Jenna and Finn were both in the throes of the nuptial era;
     everyone they knew was getting married. For the two of them, being the maid of honor
     was an actual
honor
—whereas Margot had been married and divorced and, quite frankly, couldn’t care less.
    But Margot knew the reason why Jenna would never ask Finn to be matron of honor. It
     was because of the Notebook. It had been assumed by their mother that Margot would
     serve as Jenna’s maid of honor.
    Margot said, “Finn just got married last October.”
    “Oh, really?” Griff said.
    Finn gazed out at the water. “Yeah.”
    “Her husband is a golfer, too,” Margot said. “Scratch!”
    Finn’s husband, Scott Walker, had been on the golf team at Stanford, where Tiger Woods
     had played. Now Scott was a hedge fund manager making a bajillion dollars a quarter.
    Finn made a face like she had just eaten snail and vinegar stew, and Margot wondered
     if something was awry in her seemingly perfect marriage. Scott, Margot knew, wasn’t
     coming to the wedding because of one of the inevitable conflicts for those mired in
     the nuptial era:
his
best friend, his roommate from Stanford, washaving
his
bachelor party this very same weekend. Scott was in Las Vegas.
    Probably Finn just missed him, the way that Margot missed Edge. The way that Margot
     lived in a perpetual state of missing Edge. She had sex with Edge, she had conversations
     with Edge, some more meaningful than others, she occasionally had dinner with Edge—but
     never the movies, never theater, never ever any kind of benefit or dance or party
     where other people they knew would be in attendance. Those kinds of events Margot
     attended alone or with her brother, Nick, who was always sure to leave with someone
     else.
    “Well!” Margot said. She was dying to put the small talk with Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming
     King, to bed. She would have excused herself to check on the children below, but she
     wasn’t feeling well enough to even step inside the cabin in the name of such a bluff.
     “Have fun playing golf! Birdie, birdie, eagle!”
    “Thanks,” Griff said. He took a step toward the chair where his
Wall Street Journal
awaited, and Margot thought,
Okay, that’s over. Good-bye, Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King!
Jenna could have asked Idi Amin to take their picture and Margot might have been
     less flustered.
    “See ya,” Margot said.
    “Have a great wedding,” Griff said. And then to Finn, “Nice meeting you, lowly bridesmaid.”
    Finn scowled at him, but undeterred, Griff called out to Jenna, “Congratulations!”
    Jenna raised her eyes from her iPhone long enough to offer the quick, impersonal wave
     of an Oscar winner.
    Finn said, “I’m going down below.”
    Margot nodded, and with a glance at Griff and another awkward, unnecessary “See ya!”
     she took Jenna by the arm and led her to the railing on the side of the boat opposite
     from Griff.
    “Look,” Margot said. She pointed past the hovering seagulls and the scattered sailboats.
     They could