Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

He stepped to the sidewalk to take a look down the street, and there he saw Nick and Pauline, marching side by side, neither of them talking, neither of them smiling. They looked like they were going to a funeral or to the dentist for a root canal.

Doug turned to Abigail. “My wife, Beth, Jenna’s mother, died seven years ago of ovarian cancer.”

Abigail said, “Yes, I know. Roger told me. And Jenna showed me the Notebook. It touched me very deeply, I must say.”

Doug wondered if Abigail Pease had read the last page of the Notebook. He had been meaning to do so all day; he was hoping it was something that would give him strength.

“Beth was a remarkable woman,” Doug said. Now he really felt like he was confessing something. As Pauline drew closer, Doug spoke more quickly. He wanted to get the words out before she could hear them. “I mean, she was a hospital administrator and the mother of four children, and my wife, which may or may not sound remarkable, but she was also one of those people that everyone gravitated to. She was the magnetic north of our family, she held us together, she made us work. Every single one of us adored her.” He swallowed. “But especially me.”

Abigail’s hand rested on Doug’s forearm, and her pale blue eyes were glued to his face, and suddenly whatever physical attraction Doug had felt for her evaporated. What he wanted, what he really wanted, he realized, was someone to listen while he talked about how much he missed Beth. He had never been able to talk to Pauline because Pauline had always been jealous of Beth’s memory, and therefore unwilling to listen. But maybe if Pauline had listened, Doug would have been happier. Maybe, but maybe not.

“I’m sorry, Dougie,” Abigail said. “Today must be difficult.”

Doug nodded and stuffed his hands into the satiny pockets of his tuxedo pants. There was so much he wanted to say about how difficult the weekend had been, but there wasn’t time or opportunity because Pauline was approaching. Doug watched her march up the steps. Her hair was escaping the confines of her bun, and her eye makeup had been rubbed off. Her eyes looked like small brown holes. Her chest was mottled red, and her breathing was erratic, maybe from crying, or maybe from the brisk walk.

“I’m here,” she said. “Where do you want me?”

“We’re going to take a Carmichael family portrait,” Abigail said. “With Stuart.”

Abigail called everyone together and began arranging them: Doug, Pauline, Margot, Kevin, Beanie, Nick, Jenna, Stuart, the six grandchildren, and Rhonda-they nearly forgot to include Rhonda! Doug realized then that he hadn’t expected Pauline to show up. And worse than that, he had been hoping she wouldn’t show up. He wanted a Carmichael family portrait that was free of Tonellis. He wanted to insist on a photograph-maybe the photograph after this photograph-that included only him and his kids and his kids’ spouses and his grandchildren. Was that awful? Yes, he decided, it was awful, and as badly as he wanted it, he decided he would take the remaining pictures with Pauline standing next to him as his wife. Years from now when he reflected on this day, he would remember posing for these photographs as one of the last things he would do to make Pauline happy. He would include her now, in the center of his family, in a spot that rightly belonged to another.

“Smile, Dougie!” Abigail called out.

Doug smiled.

A Letter for the Matron of Honor

Dear Margot,

Hi, it’s Mom! I will assume I’m talking to you here and not Finn or Autumn or some other friend that Jenna has made after I’m gone. If you and Jenna have had a falling out-if you, for example, fought over who was to inherit my copy of Rumours signed by Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham, or my brand-new set of gardening tools from Smith & Hawken, get over it. Kiss and make up. You, Margot, need to stand at your sister’s side. She was there for you in Antigua, remember, and she was in the delivery suite for the birth of both boys. You are so lucky to have a sister. I only had cousins, which wasn’t really the same thing.

My cousin Astrid served as my maid of honor. We were very close, but she tended to be flighty, and in the days leading up to my wedding she was hormonal and cranky and more concerned about the pimple on her chin than anything else. I was worried I had chosen the wrong person-my cousin Linda was more steadfast-but on the day of, Astrid shone brightly, I am happy to say.

Here are some thoughts on how you can help your sister on the day of the wedding:

Maintain her bouquet. Hold it for her when it needs holding. Keep track of it when she sets it down.

Have Kleenex at the ready, an emery board, dental floss, Band-Aids, tampons, eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick.

Know the schedule.

Make sure she always has a glass of champagne.

Make sure she eats! I didn’t get a single bite of food at my reception at the Quilted Giraffe, something I’ve always regretted.

Accompany her to the ladies’ room.

Tell her she’s beautiful when she smiles. You both are. My beautiful girls.

To talk to Edge alone, Margot had to wait for Rosalie to excuse herself for the ladies’ room. This turned out to be a test of endurance. Rosalie was downing glass after glass of champagne, but she hung stalwartly at Edge’s side. Her bladder must have been the size of a volleyball, but as Margot watched her, she seemed untroubled. She was more attractive than she had seemed in the church, which irked Margot.

Rosalie was quick and lively; she was a woman who oozed confidence and was comfortable in her own body. Her face was freckled, but her breasts, which were pushed up and out to lovely advantage by the bodice of her dress, were all roses and cream. Margot could barely keep her eyes off Rosalie’s sweet and luscious bosom, so Edge must have been mesmerized. Of course, Rosalie hadn’t breast-fed three children. Rosalie had one of those sexy-gravelly voices, which was perhaps the thing Margot envied the most. She had always yearned for a sexy-gravelly voice but instead had been given a voice that sounded camp-counselor chipper on a good day, and shrill and strident on a bad day. Margot couldn’t stand to hear herself recorded; she only liked her voice when she had a scratchy sore throat or had spent all night screaming at a rock concert, and her rock concert days now were few and far between. As a placement person, Margot knew how important voice was. After all, you not only had to look at someone eight to ten hours a day in the office but also had to listen to them. Rosalie had been blessed with a voice that was a cross between Anne Bancroft and Demi Moore.

Advantage Rosalie. Margot couldn’t deny it.

As the maid of honor, Margot was meant to chat and socialize; she was meant to make sure that Jenna had a full glass of champagne at all times and that Jenna ate a canapé from one out of every three trays presented to her. But Margot’s constant surveillance of Edge and Rosalie distracted her from these duties. He did see her, right? He knew she was here, he realized he couldn’t spend the whole night ignoring her, he would have to explain himself.

Margot stood in line at the bar with Ryan’s boyfriend, Jethro, who looked marginally less uncomfortable and out of place than he had the night before. Margot wondered if it was difficult to be openly gay, citified, and black at a WASP wedding on an island thirty miles out to sea.

She said, “What did you think of the ceremony?”

He said, “Well, it wasn’t without intrigue.”

Margot wondered for a second if he was talking about Edge and Rosalie-but how would Ryan’s boyfriend from Chicago know about that? Then Margot realized Jethro was referring to Pauline’s wild exodus from the church. She chastised herself for being so self-absorbed.

Margot said, “The Carmichaels are always good for some drama.” She hadn’t asked her father why Pauline left the church-partly because she felt she knew too much already, but mostly because she had been focused on only one thing, and that was Edge and Rosalie.

“It just as easily could have been the Graham family,” Jethro said. “Trust.”

Their turn at the bar came. Margot ordered three glasses of Sancerre-one for Jenna, two for herself-and then she was faced with the question of how to carry three glasses without spilling one down the front of her grasshopper green dress. Jethro offered to help, but he had three drinks himself-Ketel One and tonics for himself and Ryan, and a Heineken for Stuart.

Margot said, “Oh, I’ll manage,” and she held the three glasses in a balanced triangle with both hands and tottered through the grass in her dyed-to-match pumps toward Jenna, who was talking to her gaggle of young teacher friends. Margot handed off the wine and said, “You eating?”

One of the young teachers-Francie or Hilly-said, “I just made sure she had a chicken skewer.”

Jenna beamed at Margot. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. “Isn’t it perfect?”

Margot took a breath and willed herself not to glance over at the proposal bench, where Edge and Rosalie were standing, talking to Kevin. Was it beautiful? Yes. The sky was brilliant blue, the sun had achieved a mellow slant, the tent was a masterpiece of natural elegance. There was a jazz combo playing now-four members of the sixteen-piece band that would start up after dinner-and the music floated on the air along with chatter and perfume. Waiters passed trays of champagne, along with chicken satay and lobster fritters and blue-cheese-stuffed figs wrapped in bacon and mini-beef Wellingtons. The local Nantucket legend, Spanky, had set up his raw bar in an old wooden dory. This was where Margot parked herself to spy on Edge. She would double-fist her wine and suck down oysters and flirt with Spanky-all the while, her surveillance camera would be trained on Edge and Rosalie. They were still talking to Kevin and might remain there all evening. Kevin never shut up.