Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

At the time, Doug could never have imagined the way he felt now. Disenchanted, trapped, eager for his freedom. He had thought that he would live out his days with Pauline in comfortable companionship. He had not predicted that his needs and desires would announce they wanted something more, something different.

When Doug got back to the house, it was only eight o’clock, and the sun was still up. He would have preferred to wait until dark when he could be sure Pauline was asleep, but he had nowhere else to go. He didn’t want to drink anything more with the long, middle-of-the-night drive ahead; he didn’t want to go to the club and get sucked into inane conversation about Mickelson’s chances at Oak Hill. He didn’t have a single person he could talk to. In a pinch, he supposed he could call Edge, but Edge lived in the city, and he had endured so much personal drama of his own that Doug would feel terrible heaping on more. Plus, Edge wasn’t particularly fond of Pauline, and so if Doug told Edge he was thinking of leaving Pauline, Edge might give him too much encouragement. Furthermore, Edge had been distant lately, and increasingly vague about his own romantic life. He was dating someone, Doug was sure of that. Edge had the measured calm and patience these days that he only displayed when he was having sex on a regular basis. But Edge didn’t talk about the girl, whoever she was, and the one time Doug had asked about the lucky woman who was keeping Edge on an even keel, Edge had shaken his head and turned away.

Doug had been puzzled by this reaction. He’d said, “Okay, sorry, not up for discussion, then?”

And Edge had said, “Not up for discussion.”

Doug entered the Tonelli house, afraid of what he might find. But everything appeared to be normal. The kitchen was quiet and undisturbed; the lamb chops still lay in the sink. Doug got himself a glass of ice water. His alarm was due to go off at 3 a.m.; he needed to get to sleep.

He crept up the stairs, feeling spooked by the silence. He had half expected Pauline to meet him at the front door with a frying pan in her hand. He had expected to hear her crying.

The door to their bedroom was closed. Doug thought: Go to the guest room. Sleep for a few hours, then hit the road. But that was the coward in him speaking. Plus, his suitcase was in the bedroom.

He cracked open the door enough to see rays of the day’s last sunlight striping the floor. Pauline lay on the bed, still wrapped in her towel. She was awake, staring at the ceiling, and when she heard him, she turned her head.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said. He paused, waiting to see if there was going to be a scene, but she was quiet. Doug sat on the bed and took off his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt and slacks, and stuffed them into the dry cleaning bag. He thought briefly of work and the shitshow Cranbrook case, which was going to trial in the morning. Then he thought about Nantucket and the house and the 150 guests, his children and grandchildren, his daughter’s future in-laws, his wife’s cousins. He had a wedding to host, a wedding his dead wife had planned and he had paid for. He couldn’t let the turmoil of his personal life get in the way of this weekend. In the hottest moment, as he was climbing into the car, he had sent Margot a text message that said, Pauline isn’t coming to the wedding. Now he regretted sending that message.

He climbed into bed next to Pauline, the way he had for the past five years. He had done something truly egregious, he realized, in marrying a woman he didn’t love.

“Pauline,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have read the Notebook.”

The Notebook, right. Doug had forgotten about the Notebook.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“You forgive me?”

“I forgive you for reading the Notebook,” he said. “Your curiosity was only natural. But Pauline…”

“And I can go to the wedding with you?” she said. “I mean, obviously, I knew you were speaking in anger when you said you wanted to go alone. I knew you would never, ever go without me.”

But he would. In his mind, when he pictured himself seven hours from now in the car, he was alone, windows down, singing to the radio.

“Pauline,” he said. But he was stuck. He couldn’t get the words out. Every single client he represented had endured a version of this conversation. Doug had heard about hundreds of them in minute detail, he knew which words to say, but he couldn’t make himself say them. Was it the courage he lacked, or the conviction?

Pauline laid her hand over his heart. She said, “You should get some sleep. We have to get up early.”

Hors d’Oeuvres at the Reception

Nothing with spinach (stuck in teeth) and no smoked salmon (bad breath).

Trust me.

Everyone loves a raw bar. Call Spanky-he invented the raw bar on Nantucket-and he is so in demand that he should be your first call once you say yes.

Your father loves anything wrapped in phyllo. He simply cannot resist a pillowy golden triangle-biting into one, for him, is as good as Christmas. What is he going to get?

Anything but spinach!

Outside the Chicken Box, there was a line a million people long. Margot felt herself filling with despair. All the people in front of them were kids in their twenties, and Margot’s feet were beginning to hurt in her four-inch heels, and she couldn’t stop worrying that either Rhonda or Autumn was going to spill the beans about her and Edge.

What had she been thinking?

Autumn said, “This line is pretty long.”

“I know,” Margot said. She wondered if they should cut bait and go home. It was after eleven now, and they had a big weekend ahead of them. She had already lost Jenna and Finn; she was only sailing with half a crew. Her dress was blotched with pink stains; it looked like the dress had hives. And yet Margot still felt there was fun to be had, if they stuck it out. They would go inside and dance, goddamn it.

She said, “Let’s go to the back door. I know someone.”

“I’m game,” Autumn said.

They stepped through the sand-and-gravel parking lot to the back of the bar, past the Dumpster and a silver tower of empty kegs. Margot marched up the back steps in her stilettos and knocked on the door.

She turned to Rhonda and Autumn. “I used to…”

The door swung open, and a dark-skinned man with wire-rimmed glasses stood looking at them.

Margot said, “Pierre? It’s Margot. Margot Carmichael.”

Pierre smiled. “Margot.” He enveloped her in a bear hug. “I would recognize you anywhere.”

He would recognize her here, half drunk, trying to avoid the line out front. This was the only place she’d seen him, approximately once each year, since 1995, when they’d dated.

They had only gone out three times, then Margot had met Drum and dropped Pierre like a hot potato. She had felt badly about it until she learned that Pierre had had a girlfriend the whole time they were dating anyway.

He said, “You’re down for the weekend? Or all summer?”

“Just the weekend,” Margot said. “Some of us have to work.”

Pierre laughed. He said, “I work, girlfriend. Believe me, a full house every night is hard work.” He ushered them into the back room and pulled three Coronas out of a cooler. He said, “You ladies have fun!”

“Thanks!” Margot said. “My sister’s getting-”

But her words were drowned out by the sound of the band and the writhing mass of humanity gyrating on the dance floor.

Autumn said, “Whoo-hoo, SCORE, girl, this is awesome!”

It was awesome, in a way. Margot had just capitalized on her long-ago quasi-romance with the bar’s owner to get them inside. The band was playing “Champagne Supernova.” Margot swilled from her cold beer.

“Let’s dance!” Autumn said.

Margot said, “I have to go to the ladies’. I’ll meet you up there.”

Autumn grabbed Rhonda by the hand, and the two of them threaded their way through the crowd, toward the stage.

Margot wandered to the back of the bar, where there were three pool tables and the crowd was thinner. The Chicken Box used to be the place she came to dance every night of the summer. When she was only nineteen, she sneaked in using her cousin’s ID to see Dave Matthews play. She had seen Squeeze, and Hootie and the Blowfish, and an all-girl AC/DC tribute band called Hell’s Belles, and a funk band called Chucklehead who frequented the same coffee shop that she did back in New York. Margot couldn’t decide if being at the Box made her feel younger or older.

She stepped into the ladies’ room. The girls waiting in line in front of her were all in college, with long hair and bare midriffs and tight jeans. Even when Margot was young, she hadn’t dressed that way. She’d worn hippie skirts and tank tops, or surf dresses with bright, splashy flowers. Her hair had always been in a bun because invariably she would show up here straight from a beach party where she would have been thrown into the ocean by one of her drunk brothers or one of her drunk brothers’ drunk friends.

Yes, she felt a hundred years old. She mourned her youth and lost innocence. She thought, I’m a divorced mother of three with a fifty-nine-year-old lover.

Imagine!

From her stall, Margot listened to a girl out by the sinks, talking on her phone.

“You’ve got to get here. The band is off the chain! Come right now…”

Margot pulled her phone out of her bag. How she hated the damn thing. But she was feeling okay, she had survived the evening, or mostly. She would just check her texts, and then, regardless of whether or not there was a text from Edge, she would go out and dance.