Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

The bridesmaids and Jenna were due at RJ Miller for hair at eleven.

The caterers were coming at noon.

The florist was dropping off the bouquets at two.

The photographer was coming at three.

The musicians-two violinists and a cellist-were arriving at the church at four.

The Model A Ford, which was owned and driven by Roger’s son, Vince, was arriving at the house at four thirty to pick up the girls. Then it was showtime. Church at 4:45. The parents would be seated-Pauline first, then Ann and Jim.

The processional would begin at five o’clock. Roger had been eminently clear: he could abide anything but a delayed start to the ceremony. If Jenna or anyone else in the wedding party caused the musicians and the guests and Reverend Marlowe to wait, Roger would levy a ten thousand dollar fine.

He had delivered this news with his usual poker face, though Margot was certain he was kidding.

Margot entered the kitchen expecting to find Jenna. But there, crushed into a corner of the breakfast nook, were Nick and Finn. Nick had his arms around Finn, and his face was in her hair.

“Jesus Christ!” Margot said, mostly out of shock, but partially out of disgust, too.

“Marge,” Nick said in a world-weary voice that made him sound exactly like Kevin. “Please mind your own business.”

Margot stared at the two of them. The sight of them together was profoundly disturbing. It was incestuous! Finn had been a part of the Carmichael family for twenty-five years; she had been at the house all the time-at the table for Sunday dinner, around the tree on Christmas morning. She had gone on vacation with them to Disney World; Margot and Kevin and Nick had ridden Space Mountain a total of eleven times while Jenna and Finn had donned blue Cinderella dresses so that Beth could take them to the castle for breakfast with the princesses.

Now Nick and Finn were having a love thing. And Finn was married. They all realized this, right? Both Margot and Nick had attended the Sullivan-Walker wedding last October. Nick had been Margot’s ersatz date, until he hooked up with the chesty, frizzy-haired bartender. They all remembered that too, right?

“Where’s Jenna?” Margot asked, unable to say anything more.

“No idea,” Nick murmured. He was running his hand up and down Finn’s bare, sunburned arm in a way that struck Margot as very tender, especially for Nick.

“I don’t know what the two of you think you’re doing,” Margot said, “but I assure you, it’s a bad idea.”

“Shut up, Marge,” Nick said. “You know nothing about it.”

I don’t want to know anything about it! she thought. What she wouldn’t give to be blind, deaf, and dumb, or so self-absorbed with her own excellent love life that she couldn’t summon the energy to care about anyone else’s.

She said, “Finn, is Jenna up in your room?”

“No,” Finn said. She wasn’t able to meet Margot’s eyes, the little minx.

“Is Autumn in your room?” Margot asked, knowing the answer even as she asked the question.

“No,” Finn said. “She went back to the groomsmen’s house with H.W.”

Margot nodded. So Nick and Finn had shared Jenna’s room, which was why Jenna had crawled into bed with Margot and Ellie. Autumn had gone home with H.W. This was FINE because both Autumn and H.W. were SINGLE. Everyone did understand the difference, right?

“Good for Autumn,” Margot said. She left Nick and Finn in the kitchen and trudged back up the stairs to Jenna’s room.

In the hallway, she bumped into her father, who had showered and dressed. He was wearing cutoff jean shorts, circa 1975, and an orange-and-navy striped T-shirt that made him look like Ernie from Sesame Street. Margot nearly commented on the awful outfit, but he already looked morose.

“Hi, sweetie,” Doug said. “How’s everything going?”

Margot took a measured breath. She was tempted to tell him that he was going to lose over a hundred thousand dollars in wedding expenses because Stuart hadn’t been able to come clean to Jenna about his past.

Margot gave her father a tight smile. He was, most likely, headed down to the kitchen. What would he say when he saw Nick with Finn? Would he even get it?

“Everything’s fine,” Margot said.

Doug descended the stairs, and Margot turned the knob to Jenna’s room-no knocking, sorry, this had grown too urgent to worry about manners-and stepped in. The room was dim and empty. Jenna’s bed was mussed, but the trundle bed was neatly made. Margot saw sunlight around the edges of the balcony doors, which she opened, thinking she would find Jenna sitting on the deck, drinking her sweet, light coffee, overlooking the stage set for her beautiful wedding.

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.

Band or DJ

Band! Preferably one that can play both “At Last,” by Etta James, AND “China Grove,” by the Doobie Brothers.

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.

She felt similarly now. Maybe Jim had come back up to the room to sleep, and maybe he’d left again. Maybe he was down in the restaurant having coffee and reading the paper. But no, Ann didn’t think he’d been back. There had been no imprint of his body on the bed; she had definitely slept alone.

She brushed her teeth, washed her face, took some aspirin, put on the outfit she had planned especially for today-a cherry red gingham A-line skirt and a scalloped-neck white T-shirt and a pair of red Jack Rogers sandals that pinched between her toes, but which she’d seen nearly half a dozen woman on Nantucket wearing. Her outfit was too cheerful for the amount of anxiety she was experiencing.

Where was he? Where had he gone?

She checked her cell phone, now showing a dangerously low 12 percent battery. Nothing from Jim, only a text from Olivia that said, Party was wonderful. Madame X can go fuck herself.

Typical Olivia.

Where would Jim have gone? Ann racked her brain. She was a problem solver; she would figure it out. The Lewises and the Cohens and the Shelbys were all staying at the Brant Point Inn, which was a bed-and-breakfast. None of them would have had space to accommodate Jim in their rooms.

Had he imposed on the Carmichaels and slept on their sofa? God, Ann hoped not. How would that look, the father of the groom kicked out of his hotel room? Ann couldn’t believe she had ordered him out. But she had been angry last night, angrier than she could ever remember being in all these years. Jim had been right: it was Ann’s fault that Helen was here.

Then a ghastly thought encroached: Had Jim gone to spend the night with Helen? Had more transpired between them at the hospital than he’d admitted? They had looked pretty chummy upon returning to the yacht club.

Ann raced into the bathroom. She was going to be sick. Her body was in rejection mode, just as it had been twenty years earlier. For weeks after the hot air balloon ride, she had been unable to keep her meals down.

She retched into the toilet. Of all the things for the mother of the groom to be doing on the morning of her son’s wedding.

One day, of course, Chance would get married, and Ann would be subjected to the humiliating sight of Helen and Jim as “Chance’s parents” again. She had successfully avoided attending Chance’s graduation from the Baylor School because Ann had a senatorial session she couldn’t miss. But Chance would graduate from Sewanee in a few years. There would be the baptisms of Chance’s future children and then those children’s graduations and weddings.

Ann would never be rid of Helen. They were tethered together forever.

Ann rinsed her mouth and made a cursory attempt at applying makeup, although she had a salon appointment for hair and makeup that afternoon. As she was applying mascara, staring bug eyed and purse lipped at herself in the mirror, she realized that Jim must have gone and stayed with the boys.