Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

What now? She stormed into the house and took the receiver from him. He said, “And as soon as you’re off, I need you to gather the bridesmaids. Abigail is out front, shooting your father and Jenna right now.”

“Okay,” Margot said.

“We were ahead of the game,” Roger said. “Now we’re running behind.”

“Okay,” Margot said, less patiently. Roger was a slave driver. She reminded herself that this was why she loved him. Into the phone, she said, “Yes? Hello?”

“Margot? Are you okay?”

Margot plopped into a kitchen chair. Around her, the caterers buzzed like bees. It was Drum Sr. He was supposed to call every Saturday at noon his time, three o’clock eastern time, but he was often tardy. It was quarter after three now, which was pretty prompt for him, although quite frankly Margot had forgotten about his weekly call, and furthermore, she wondered why he hadn’t decided to skip the call, since he knew Jenna was getting married today.

“Oh,” Margot said. “Sort of.”

“I tried calling your cell phone, like, forty times,” he said. “Do you have it shut off?”

“I sunk it,” Margot said. “I dropped it in the toilet at the Chicken Box.”

“You’re kidding!” Drum said. He laughed gleefully. “Wow, you must be having more fun than you even expected! Is everybody there? Kevin, Beanie, Nick, Finn, Scott…?”

“Yes, yes, yes, not Scott, he’s in Vegas,” Margot said. She felt a pang of longing then, longing for Drum. He had been her husband for ten years and her boyfriend for two summers before that. He had been a part of this family, especially close to her siblings, especially fond of Beanie, his fellow in-law, and Jenna. How did it feel to not be included in this wedding? Margot should have invited him. He should be able to see the boys in their blazers, Ellie in her white eyelet dress with the matching white sandals.

“Hey, listen,” Margot said. “I could really use your help.”

“Of course,” Drum said. “Anything. What can I do?” His voice was so open and friendly that Margot couldn’t help but think, He is a good guy and a doting father. There had been times in the two years since their divorce when the sound of his voice had irked her. After moving to California, he had acquired a surfer dude twang that made him sound like even more of a slacker and a bum than she already believed him to be. But right now he sounded capable and attentive; he sounded like himself. He sounded like exactly the person Margot needed.

After Ellie got off the phone with her father, she stomped into the house, and Margot trailed her at a discreet distance. From the middle drawer in the bottom row of the thirty-six tiny drawers of the apothecary chest, Ellie pulled out a plastic change purse, this one indistinguishable from the many plastic change purses that she carried in her many pocketbooks and handbags, all of them crammed with shit.

Hoarder, Margot thought. My fault. Because I divorced her father and she’s afraid of giving up anything else.

From the change purse, Ellie pulled out Jenna’s wedding band.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

Margot clenched the ring in her palm and sighed. A fifteen-thousand-dollar ring stuffed into one of the drawers of the apothecary chest, where they might not have found it for twenty years, when it would have magically appeared like a prize in a game show. Margot wanted to believe that Ellie would have handed it over of her own volition. But maybe not. Maybe it was a secret she wanted to keep safe. The poor child. “No,” Margot said. “In fact, I have an idea. Follow me.”

“Margot!” a voice called out. “We’re waiting for you!” Margot glanced out the back screen door. Somehow Abigail Pease had lassoed Autumn, Finn, and a freshly made-up Rhonda, who were all standing in a line in the backyard, holding their bouquets. Off to the side stood Jenna and their father, with Kevin and Nick.

“One second,” Margot said.

“No, not one second, Margot,” Roger said. “We need you now.”

“Sorry,” Margot said. She led Ellie by the hand out the side door. She had spent all weekend being a daughter and a sister-and now, finally, she was going to take time to be a mother. She opened the tailgate of her Land Rover and brought out the white cardboard box from E.A.T. bakery. She lifted the hideous bow-and-paper-plate hat out of the box.

“Would you like to wear this when you walk down the aisle?” Margot asked.

“Oh, yes, Mommy!” Ellie said. She jumped up and down and her sandals crunched in the gravel and she clapped her hands. She looked less like a world-weary teenager-before-her-time and more like a six-year-old girl. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Margot placed the hat on Ellie’s head and tied the ribbon under her chin.

“Very fetching,” she said, and she kissed her daughter’s nose.

Seating Arrangements

The key to seating: Everyone should feel included and important. You want each of your guests to have a friendly face at his or her table, although surprising mix-and-matches have been known to work, such as my cousin Everett and my college roommate Kay, who have now been married for seventeen years. Yes, they met at our wedding.

With the exception of divorce, infidelity, or a long-standing Hatfield-McCoy feud, anyone can be seated with anyone. Give them enough alcohol and they will enjoy themselves.

I do have strong feelings about the “Head Table.” If a bridesmaid or groomsman is married or has brought a date, I believe the spouse/date should be included at the Head Table. This is a controversial stance. If your brother Nick serves as groomsman (per my suggestion on page 6), and he chooses to bring a stripper named Ricki whom he met in Atlantic City the week before as his date, should Ricki be granted a seat at the Head Table? Should Ricki be included in all of the Head Table photos?

Yes.

The reason I say this is because when your late uncle David married your aunt Lorna in Dallas the year before your father and I got married, your father served as best man and was seated at the Head Table, and I was seated across the room with Lorna’s elderly aunts and her deaf, flatulent uncles. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the state of Texas to make me enjoy myself at that wedding.

The wedding was on! Ann didn’t have many details about how Stuart’s gaffe had been fixed. All she knew was that Margot had found Jenna, Jenna had called Stuart, and they had made amends over the She Who Shall Not Be Named crisis. Or at least temporary amends, amends enough to proceed with the wedding. Ann knew from experience that Stuart and Jenna would revisit the topic of Crissy Pine again, and probably again.

Ann had butterflies as she ascended the steps of St. Paul’s Church. It was beginning!

As luck would have it, the first person Ann saw in the sanctuary was Helen. Helen was wearing fuchsia, which was just another word for the hottest pink the eye could handle-and a fascinator with pink feathers.

Really? Ann thought. A fascinator? This wasn’t a royal wedding, it wasn’t Westminster Abbey, Helen wasn’t British; she was from Roanoke, Virginia. The fascinator wasn’t fascinating; it was absurd. Ann felt embarrassed on Helen’s behalf. The pink of the dress was an assault on the senses. Ann had a hard time looking at the spectacle that was Helen, but she had a hard time not looking at the spectacle that was Helen.

Ann waited in the vestibule for all the guests to be seated, including the Lewises and the Cohens and the Shelbys in the middle pews of the groom’s side. Then the music stopped momentarily and started up again, a new song. Ryan appeared at Ann’s elbow.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered.

Ann beamed. She would never say she had a favorite son, but she was very glad that she had a son who could be counted on to constantly lift her spirits, like Ryan.

“Thank you,” she said. “So do you.”

Pauline was escorted down the aisle by Jenna’s brother, Nick. Ann waited for Pauline to be seated in the front pew on the left, and then she and Ryan stepped forward. All the assembled wedding guests turned to watch them, and this felt good to Ann. She was an important person here, the mother of the groom, and her dress was sensational if she did say so herself. It was a long sheath with cap sleeves in a beautiful shade of turquoise silk that gently ombréd into jade green around her knees. The only jewelry she wore was her dazzling new strand of pearls. She carried a small silver clutch purse that contained her lipstick and a package of tissues. She smiled at the wedding guests who turned to admire her, whether she knew them or not. She couldn’t help but remember when she had been the bride and had walked down the aisle at Duke Chapel to a lineup that included Jim, his fraternity brothers, and Ann’s roommates from Craven Quad. Jim had been grinning, and sweating out the shots of bourbon that he and said fraternity brothers had done only moments before the wedding. They had been so young, so innocent, and unaware that any roadblocks might lie ahead.

The second time they got married, it was just the two of them and the three boys, no trip down the aisle, but that hadn’t mattered. They were older and wiser, and they were resolved. Nothing would take them down again.

Ann knew she should be basking in the moment, but she was distracted by the fuchsia. Helen’s dress was another one-shouldered number that was inappropriate on a woman her age. But the problem wasn’t the dress. The problem was that the scrutiny wasn’t mutual. As Ann passed Helen’s pew, Helen was looking at her cell phone. She was… texting. Texting in church, during a wedding! What Ann wanted, what she required, was Helen’s attention on her.