Margot ate three oysters. She was joined, temporarily, by Stuart’s father, Jim, who attacked the pile of jumbo shrimp rather indecorously.

Jim said, “Hell of a party.”

Margot faked a smile and slurped another oyster. “Mmmhmmm.” No other response seemed to be required of her, thank God. She needed Jim Graham to stay right where he was, shielding Margot and keeping her safe from any conversation that might cause her to miss her chance with Edge.

Rosalie’s glass was empty, Margot could see, as was Edge’s. But then the girl with the champagne came by, and Rosalie accepted a glass with a smile, and Margot read Edge’s lips as he ordered a Scotch.

Margot’s heart cracked open a little bit more. Margot kept a bottle of Glenmorangie in her liquor cabinet at home for the evenings when Edge stopped by.

Rosalie had a steel-reinforced bladder. She outlasted Margot; Margot had to go. She bypassed the elegant portable bathrooms set up in a discreet corner of the yard beyond Alfie, and instead went into the house and headed up the stairs to her own bathroom.

On the second floor, Margot heard voices, then a rhythmic banging. Margot stopped. The noise was coming from Jenna’s room. Finn and Nick. Margot nearly shouted at the top of her lungs. GROSS! But she refrained, slamming the door to the bathroom to make her point instead.

She hiked up the skirt of her grasshopper green dress and peed, holding her forehead in her hands. The banging continued against the wall behind her, and she heard Finn cry out in ecstasy, and Margot thought, All right, I’ve had enough. She washed her hands and stared at her reflection in the dingy medicine cabinet mirror.

I’ve had enough!

But she wasn’t sure what that meant, and she didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly she heard her mother’s voice. She knew it was her mother’s voice and not her mimicking her mother’s voice because Margot did not like what the voice said.

It said, Get back out there, honey. Pronto.

A glass bell sounded: dinner was served. Everyone sat except for the wedding party; they lined up so that they could be introduced by the bandleader and then take their places at the head table. Everyone in the wedding party had been asked to divulge one “interesting thing” about themselves to be read aloud by the bandleader. Margot was introduced as follows:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our maid of honor, who has taken surfing vacations on four continents-Margot… Carmichael!

Polite applause. Margot wasn’t crazy about the surfing vacation answer because all those vacations had been taken with Drum Sr., and at least half the people in this tent knew it. But the word interesting had presented a challenge because the things that filled Margot’s days-work placing executives in major corporations, raising three kids as a single parent, conducting a clandestine relationship with her father’s law partner-weren’t interesting. Margot would have liked to have said that she played classical guitar or spoke five languages, but neither was true. The fact was, she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t have any skills-except for surfing. And although her surfing had always been eclipsed by Drum Sr.’s surfing, she had ridden waves in Bali and Uruguay and La Jolla and the north shore of Oahu and the frigid waters of South Africa. There was a picture hanging in her father’s office of Margot in her wet suit with her dark hair slicked back and her face tanned-somehow the Asian sun had not brought out her freckles-crouched on her board in the tube of a left-hand break off the tiny Balinese island of Nusa Lembongan. Edge had once admitted to being captivated by that picture of Margot, even before the two of them started seeing each other.

You look powerful, dangerous almost, like a jaguar ready to pounce, Edge had said. It’s incredibly sexy.

That had been one reason why Margot chose to mention the surfing. She had wanted Edge to recall that picture of her.

Margot sauntered across the dance floor like a game show contestant toward her seat, thinking, Smile brightly! Don’t trip! Shoulders back, head high!

She couldn’t help herself. She sneaked a look at Edge, who was sitting next to Rosalie at her father’s table.

He winked.

Margot made it to the life preserver of her seat as the bandleader introduced “Our best man-who scored a perfect sixteen hundred on his SATs and still didn’t get into Princeton-Ryan Connelly Graham!”

Margot thought, He winked! She didn’t know whether to be thrilled or indignant. Indignant, she thought. How dare he wink! But thrilled won out. He had noticed her!

Then a thought broke through Margot’s despair. Maybe Edge had brought Rosalie to this wedding as a front to throw Doug off their trail. Margot felt sweet relief, followed by a glimmer of actual happiness. Of course that was why Edge had winked at her like a conspirator. He must have assumed she knew that was why he’d brought Rosalie. Rosalie was a straw candidate. Margot wondered where they were staying. Had they gotten two rooms? Oh, please, Margot thought. Please let that be the case. Please let this be a huge misunderstanding on her part.

She drank red wine with dinner. Did she eat? She and Jenna had set up no fewer than six tastings to come up with the menu of field greens with dried cherries, goat cheese, and candied pecans, the choice of seared rib eye or grilled swordfish, the baked potato with choice of decadent toppings, the pan-roasted asparagus with lemon and mint-and yet Margot could only recall eating a single perfectly toasted salty-sweet pecan and one bite of rosy, juicy meat dragged through béarnaise sauce. Ryan was seated next to her on one side, and Jethro on the other. Ryan was a conversational dynamo, he could uphold his own side and Margot’s side with minimum output from Margot, and whereas Margot flogged herself for not doing a better job-Ryan had once confided that he thought Margot had ten times the personality of Jenna-she was determined to constantly monitor the situation between Edge and Rosalie.

They seemed so happy, Margot thought, that they had to be acting. Definitely acting. This was all a game.

And then, just as the dinner plates were cleared and Ryan pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket on which he had written his best man’s toast, Rosalie pushed back from the table and stood. Edge stood also, and for a second Margot feared they were leaving. But Edge was only standing to be polite, and the crack in Margot’s heart widened. When Edge had taken Margot to dinner at Picholine, which had been the most sublime and grown-up dinner date of her life, he had stood when Margot excused herself for the ladies’ room, and then stood again upon her return. It was one of the fine, old-fashioned, charming things about him-elegant manners, respect for the gender.

Of course, now Margot realized that the dinner at Picholine and the subsequent night at Edge’s apartment had all been a lubricant to ease the way for him to ask Margot to betray her professional principles.

Rosalie left the tent. Edge sat back down and said something to Doug that made him laugh.

Rosalie going to the bathroom wasn’t the answer, because Edge was still trapped at the table with Doug. Margot couldn’t very well plop down and engage Edge in the conversation she needed to have with him with her father present.

Still, Margot rose and, at what she thought was a discreet distance, followed Rosalie out of the tent.

“Wait, Margot!” Ryan called after her.

Margot whipped around, feeling caught. “What?”

“You’re going to miss my speech!” he said.

“I’ll be right back,” she promised.

She saw Rosalie leaning against Alfie’s tree trunk, smoking a cigarette.

Rosalie smoked. That explained her voice. Edge had once told Margot that everyone smoked in law school as a way of handling the pressure. Edge himself had smoked in law school and had continued until his second wife, Nathalie, demanded that he quit.

Rosalie didn’t yet see Margot, and this bought Margot some time to think. What should she do? She wanted to introduce herself and see if Rosalie had any reaction. Would Rosalie know that Edge and Margot were lovers? Would he have told her? Certainly not-that might cause a security breach with Doug. But maybe Edge had felt the same pressure Margot had felt earlier this weekend to just tell someone, and during one of their late-night prep sessions for court, he had told Rosalie.

If Rosalie didn’t know, should Margot tell her? Or should Margot just engage Rosalie in casual conversation that would allow her to figure out if Edge and Rosalie were really dating or if they were only coworkers?

At that moment, Margot heard the distinct chime of spoon on glass, and the tent grew quiet. Ryan’s speech. Margot didn’t want to miss it. Any conversation with Rosalie was bound to leave her livid or in tears. Margot spun on her dyed-to-match heels and headed back toward the tent. She nearly smacked right into Edge, who was hurrying from the tent himself.

His presence shocked her. Before she could dream up a single appropriate word to say, Edge grabbed her arm.

“Margot,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Um…” she said. “I went to the bathroom?”

He stared at her.

“I was headed there, I mean. But I wanted to get back to hear the toasts.”

“You followed Rosalie out,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Margot said. As much as she craved his touch, she didn’t like the way he was holding her arm, and she didn’t like the way he had used his lawyering skills to make it seem like she was the one who had done something wrong. And as badly as she had wanted to talk to him, she wasn’t sure how to start.