Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

She was the bride; she could do as she wished.

Finn, Rhonda, and Autumn processed to Pachelbel’s Canon in D, played by two violins and a cello.

Before she processed, Margot checked on the children behind her. Brock held the velvet pillow with the two rings attached. Ellie had a basket of New Dawn rose petals filched from the vines that climbed the side of the house. She was wearing the silly hat, which would add comic-and-cute relief.

It was Margot’s turn. She stepped forward in her dyed-to-match pumps. She thought, Smile. Be poised. She thought, All this planning, all this money, for this one moment. She thought, I saved this wedding. Maybe that was overstating the case, maybe Jenna would have come down from the church tower with the same conclusion on her own, but Margot liked to think that she had been the catalyst. Maybe tonight, or maybe forty years from now, Jenna would tell someone the story of how scared and hurt she had been-and how Margot had hunted her down and how the wedding had been saved.

It was amazing, really, how many thoughts could ricochet through a person’s brain in the period of time it took to walk thirty feet.

Margot was halfway down the aisle when she saw Edge. Her breath caught. He was gorgeous. He wasn’t gorgeous in the way Brad Pitt or Tom Brady was gorgeous; he was gorgeous in a sophisticated, graying, wealthy, powerful way. The manner in which he held himself commanded attention, along with the fine cut of his suit, the sweet, tight knot of his lavender tie. He looked tan, which was impossible because he’d been in court all week-but yes, he had color, his skin glowed with the sun.

Then Margot noticed the woman beside him, a youngish woman with red curly hair and a million freckles, the kind of freckles that Margot would do everything but sell her children to avoid. The woman wore an off-the-shoulder emerald green dress that cinched at her impossibly tiny waist. She and Edge weren’t touching as Margot passed, but Margot could sense they were together. They were together. Edge had come to the wedding with a date, and he hadn’t warned her.

Or maybe he had. There were those two text messages on her phone, and possibly others since then.

Margot kept the smile plastered on her face, but it was a chore; it felt like one of the straps of her dress had snapped and she was trying to keep the bodice from slipping. At that very moment, Abigail Pease appeared a few steps in front of Margot in the aisle and snapped her picture.

It didn’t matter how good a photographer Abigail Pease was, that picture would show heartbreak.

Margot took her place at the altar, just as they had practiced at the rehearsal, but now she was trembling, and she didn’t know where to look. At that moment, the church broke out in delighted gasps and muted laughter as Brock and Ellie processed. Abigail was going crazy with the camera, the hat was a stroke of genius, Ellie was both cute and composed, and Margot knew she should savor the moment because this would most likely be the only time Ellie served as a flower girl. But Margot’s eyes were drilling into the back of Edge’s head. Who had he brought with him?

Suddenly everyone rose.

At the back of the church stood Jenna and Doug.

Margot watched Edge touch the emerald back of the freckled redhead’s dress and lean over to whisper something in her ear.

It was Rosalie, Margot realized. His paralegal. All those tedious hours of work had led to… sex on Edge’s desk or in Edge’s burgundy swivel chair or in the partners’ lounge after hours-or all of the above. Of course, all of the above! Margot’s vision started to blotch. She felt like the turtle who had long ago veered off the side of their dining room table and crashed to the ground, landing upside down. She could not right herself.

Jenna was processing down the aisle on her father’s arm. Her father was holding it together better than the day before; there were no actual tears, although his expression was pained, as though his shoes were too tight. Jenna smiled beatifically, she was a Madonna, Margot couldn’t remember a time when she had ever looked more beautiful. Margot checked on Stuart. His eyes were brimming with tears, and he mouthed, I love you.

Margot bowed her head. Edge would be looking at her and thinking… what? That she was a good, cool kid, a pretty girl, a great lay, but that it had been doomed from the start. Margot was Doug’s daughter. Edge had always held a part of himself in check because of this fact. But was dating his paralegal any better? Rosalie, from the look of her, was ten years younger than Margot; Margot put her at twenty-eight, so she was thirty years younger than Edge. Thirty years younger! Men were disgusting creatures; the younger the woman they took to bed, the more powerful they felt. Or something like that. Wouldn’t Doug have an issue with Edge and Rosalie together? Maybe not, maybe it was standard practice to screw the paralegals, what did Margot know? She knew nothing. Nothing at all.

Jenna and Stuart met at the altar. Doug kissed Jenna’s cheek and gave her a squeeze and then leaned in to shake Stuart’s hand, then pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. There were sniffles in the church. Doug sat next to Pauline, who was wearing a rust-colored dress that made her look like a monk.

Reverend Marlowe raised his hands and in a commanding voice said, “Dearly beloved.”

Margot stood at Jenna’s side, she did not faint or falter, she did not throw up, she lifted Jenna’s veil and held her bouquet-and in between performing these duties, she sneaked surreptitious glances at Edge, who had put on his bifocals to read the program. Rosalie looked interested in the actual ceremony; her eyes wandered from Jenna to the groomsmen to the bridesmaids, then back to the groomsmen. Was she looking at Margot? Did she know who Margot was, beyond being Doug Carmichael’s daughter? Did she know that Margot and Edge had been lovers up until-well, until today, Margot supposed, although the last time she had been with Edge was eight days earlier, and the last time she had spoken with him was Monday night. Any way you sliced it, it was clear that Edge had been cheating on Margot with his paralegal Rosalie, although it couldn’t really be called cheating because Margot and Edge’s relationship had no official status.

Rosalie looked at the groomsmen again.

Beanie stood at the pulpit to do her reading. She was wearing a navy sailor dress with white piping-typical Beanie. People didn’t change, Margot knew this, and yet it constantly took her by surprise. People were who they were.

Beanie adjusted the microphone and cleared her throat. Margot was dying to sit down. The ceremony lasted twenty-five minutes start to finish. Margot was still an hour away from her first glass of wine.

Beanie started to read. “Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink. Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain…”

It was a beautiful poem, an appropriate choice; Margot had really adored it until this moment. Now, she defaulted to her philosophy of Love Dies. Or, in the case of her and Edge, whatever was between them had died before it became love. At least for Edge. Margot thought she felt love, but probably it belonged in another category. It was pointless obsession with a man who had never wanted her the way that she wanted him. Whatever the case, the fact was that looking at Edge sitting with Rosalie hurt. It hurt.

“I might be driven to sell your love for peace, or trade the memory of this night for food… It may well be. I do not think I would.”

A stifled cry came from the pews. Margot snapped from her own thoughts at the very moment that Pauline stood up. Pauline pressed a tissue to her nose and mouth, but another sob escaped. She rustled her way to the aisle, then executed a half run, half walk in her high heels until she was at the back of the church. This caused no small disruption. Everyone murmured and whispered, and when Kevin took the pulpit to read the lyrics to “Here, There and Everywhere,” nearly everyone was facing the back of the church, eyeing the door through which Pauline had disappeared.

Margot looked at her father. He was sitting with his eyes closed, no doubt wishing that he could rewind the last thirty seconds and make them go differently.

Margot thought, Dad, do something. But what was he to do? Chase after Pauline and miss his daughter’s wedding?

Margot saw motion to her left. Rhonda stepped off the altar and hurried down the aisle in the wake of her mother.

The Tonellis, Margot thought.

The church was really a-chatter now. But Kevin, never one to doubt his own importance, took the microphone.

“Here, making each day of the year,” he read. “Changing my life with a wave of her hand, nobody can deny that there’s something there.”

The Prenuptial Agreement

I’m not talking about a legal document. If you feel you need a pre-nup, or if Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be comes from billions of dollars and wants you to sign a pre-nup, consult your father. The kind of “pre-nup” I’m talking about are the agreements you make with Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be before you marry.

It basically all boils down to who, in the marriage, will be responsible for the following:

Trash

Emptying dishwasher

Mowing lawn

Laundry

You take two, he takes two. I suggest taking the lawn mowing. You’ll recall I mowed the lawn in the sunny middle of the afternoon wearing a bikini top with my headphones on, playing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” as loud as it would go. Afterwards I always had an ice-cold beer and admired my perfect lines and the deep, green smell. Do not automatically gift that slice of heaven to your husband-enjoy it for yourself!

She had always drifted in church. No matter how hard she tried to pay attention, her mind wandered. The same had been true for long sessions of the state senate. Some windbag would have the microphone, loving the sound of his own voice, and Ann would doodle or pass irreverent notes to Billy Benedict from Winston-Salem. She would think, All the real legislating gets done in bars and good steak houses. Nobody’s mind gets changed in here.

Ann had thought it would be different with Stuart’s wedding. She had thought she would hang on every word so that she could re-create it for herself and others later. This was her son getting married; it was one of those things she was meant to reflect upon on her deathbed. But as soon as Jenna walked down the aisle and kissed her father and stood by Stuart, Ann started to float away. She thought, The best part of a wedding was seeing the bride walk down the aisle. Everything else was anticlimactic. Why was that? Did anyone listen to the readings or the prayers? Did anyone listen to the minister’s sermon or the vows? Did anyone care if the couple had children or miscarried, if they made their mortgage or were foreclosed on, if they stayed together or split up? People, Ann thought, were self-absorbed. They cared about themselves, and sometimes about one other person. And, of course, every mother cared about her child, that child being an extension of herself. Ann had long suspected that all human behavior boiled down to biology, and that the whole catastrophe with her and Jim and Helen could be chalked up to Helen wanting a baby and Jim following an atavistic desire to propagate the species.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister said.

Ann studied the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses. Such an interesting choice, that green.

Stuart was standing nice and tall, square shouldered, dignified, respectable. As the firstborn, Stuart had accepted the burden of perfection. He had never given Ann or Jim one moment of trouble; he had always been the exceptional child that every parent dreamed of.

The readings began. The love poem first, recited by the sister-in-law. It was the first and only poem Ann had ever really appreciated. She had taken a class on Frost in college and had found it boring���all snowy woods and stone fences. Helen was more of a poetry person. She had cultivated her flaky-literary dramatic persona to great effect back in Durham. Ann recalled a moment during the cabernet dinner at the Fairlee house when Helen had raised her enormous balloon glass of wine the color of blood and recited:

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like

musical instruments. Where there was silence

the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.