Rhonda said, “Don’t be like that.”
“Be like what?” Margot said.
“You know like what,” Rhonda said. She shoved her phone at Margot. “Just take it.”
“No, no,” Margot said. When she looked down at the phone, she saw that the screensaver was a picture of Rhonda and Pauline taken the night before at the Nantucket Yacht Club. They were standing in front of the giant anchor with their arms wrapped around each other. Pauline, in her blue suit, looked like Gertie Gloom, but Rhonda was smiling wide enough for the two of them, perhaps realizing that it was up to her to put forward a good face on behalf of the Tonellis. “It’s okay, Rhonda. I’ll ask someone else.”
“You asked me,” Rhonda said. “Just take it.”
Margot couldn’t tell if Rhonda was being passive-aggressive (whatever that meant) or genuine. Margot didn’t really have time for games or mind reading, so she accepted the phone.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I’m done.”
“Whenever,” Rhonda said, shrugging. “Glad I could help.”
Margot considered asking Rhonda to come with her. This would then become the story of a woman and the stepsister she had never appreciated and was about to lose, as they hunted down the runaway bride.
But no, Margot wanted to do this herself.
“Thanks again,” Margot said.
“Good luck,” Rhonda said.
Margot turned the key in the ignition. The radio was playing Elvis Costello, “Alison,” and Margot thought about Griff the night before at the bar and how he had so easily identified her favorite lyrics in the other song, and she wondered what it would be like to be with someone who actually wanted to understand her, then she wondered if anyone would ever kiss her again the way Griff had kissed her, and she knew the answer was no. She was doomed to have experienced the very best kissing of her life with someone she would never kiss again.
This might have seemed like a problem if she didn’t have bigger problems on her hands.
“Why?” Stuart said as he descended the stairs of the groomsmen’s house, looking like death on a stick. “Is she missing?”
“What is it this morning?” Ryan said. “Everyone is going missing.”
“Margot!” Ann Graham said. “I hope you’re hungry. We have eggs.”
“Negative on the eggs, Mom,” H.W. said. “I just finished the ones left in the pan.”
“If you’ll excuse me.” These words were spoken by Helen, Chance’s mother, who was responsible for this whole mess in the first place. Margot was tempted to call Helen out right there and then, but she didn’t really have time for a grand confrontation with all the Grahams watching. Helen edged past Margot out the front door, followed by a very tall man who was wearing a pair of embroidered whale shorts that he must have bought right out of the front window at Murray’s Toggery.
Margot took one step into the house. She watched Helen leave, thinking, Interloper!
Stuart ran his hands over his bad haircut. “Is she missing?” he asked again. He looked green-maybe alarm, maybe nerves, maybe hangover. The house was trashed; it looked like it had hosted an all-nighter with Jim Morrison, John Belushi, and the Hells Angels.
“She went for a bike ride,” Margot said. “And I need to find her. Roger has a pressing question.”
All true. She congratulated herself.
“She hasn’t been here,” Ryan said.
Chance pulled aside one of the truly horrendous brocade drapes and said, “Thank God my mother is gone.”
Now Ann Graham looked worried. “When was the last time you saw Jenna?”
“A little while ago,” Margot said. She didn’t want to disclose anything more. “I should go.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Stuart asked.
Margot regarded Stuart. He was pale and sick with love. If he came with her, this would become the story of Margot and the soon-to-be-jilted groom as they hunted down the runaway bride.
Margot said, “Come outside with me?”
Stuart followed Margot outside, and she could sense that Ann Graham was antsy to join them. Margot and Stuart stood in the overgrown crabgrass of the front yard. It was warm in the sun, and Margot worried momentarily about freckles, then told herself to forget it.
“Jenna was really upset last night,” Margot said. “She called Roger and canceled the wedding.”
Stuart dropped his head to his chest. “Fuck,” he whispered.
That was the first time Margot had ever heard the man swear. He was such a good guy. “She’s upset about Crissy.”
Stuart held out a hand. “Stop,” he said. “I can’t even stand to hear her name.”
“You probably should have told her about the engagement,” Margot said.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Stuart said. “It only lasted a month. As soon as Crissy booked the Angus Barn for the engagement party, I broke up with her. And two weeks later, I moved to New York. I was done with her-done done done.”
“It feels like a big deal to Jenna,” Margot said. “She’s… well, you know how she is.”
“Sensitive,” he said.
“Yes,” Margot said. “And in this case, she’s also jealous. She was raised differently from the rest of us. You know, Kevin and Nick and I were always fighting for our parents’ attention. Always jockeying for first place. But not Jenna. She had their undivided attention.”
“Are you saying she’s spoiled?” Stuart said. “She’s never seemed spoiled to me.”
“She’s not spoiled,” Margot said. “But she’s probably not as experienced with this kind of jealousy as another person might be.”
“I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to tell her,” Stuart said. “I just didn’t want her to know. It meant nothing, it was a big fat mistake, and I wanted to pretend like it never happened.”
“She feels like you lied to her,” Margot said. “I understand it was a lie of omission-”
“I apologized fifty times, a hundred times. If she ever checks her phone again, she’ll see I called her seventeen times last night between the hours of midnight and five. I don’t know what else to do.” He put his face to his hands. “If she leaves me, I’ll die, Margot.”
“I have to go find her,” Margot said. “Let me talk to her.”
“I want to go with you,” Stuart said. “But I’m afraid I might mess it up even worse.”
“You might,” Margot said. She smiled to let him know she was kidding. “But I might, too.”
Margot drove out to Surfside, searching the road for Jenna. She turned down Nonantum Avenue and headed toward Fisherman’s Beach. From Rhonda’s cell phone, she called Jenna’s number. Jenna wouldn’t answer if it was Margot, or the number of the house, but would she answer if she saw a call coming in from Rhonda? Maybe.
But no. The call was shuttled right to voice mail.
Margot paused in the parking lot at Fisherman’s and walked to the landing at the top of the beach stairs. She scanned the coast to the left, then the coast to the right. No Jenna. There were only a couple of men, surfcasting at the waterline.
Margot remembered herself as a malcontented teenager, pacing this very beach with her Walkman playing “I Wanna Be Free,” by the Monkees, and “Against All Odds,” by Phil Collins. The beach was often shrouded in fog, which made it an even better place for soulful reflection for Margot and her adolescent woes: she hated her braces, her parents didn’t understand her, and she missed Grady McLean, who was back in Connecticut working the register at Stew Leonard’s.
Margot had also surfed this beach, too many times to count, with Drum Sr. He had been a bronzed surfing god back then, king of these waves. Margot had been awed by his grace and agility on the board. Of course she’d fallen in love with him! Every single person-man and woman, boy and girl-who had watched Drum surf had fallen in love with him. Margot had believed that the magic he demonstrated in the water, and on the ski slopes, would translate to real life. But as a landlubber, Drum Sr. had floundered. He had never been able to display the same kind of confidence or authority.