Elin Hilderbrand: Beautiful Day

Jenna was on her phone.

Margot said, “Who are you calling?”

“Stuart!” Jenna said.

Stuart, of course. Margot thought, with a glimmer of hope, that maybe Stuart had the Notebook. If he didn’t, he would fly out the door of his office and drive to godforsaken who-knows-where-Brooklyn-or-Queens to personally dig through the lost and found at the dispatcher’s office. Stuart would be able to offer Jenna comfort; he was the only one who mattered.

Margot didn’t have anyone like that. She could never call Edge about something like the Notebook. Instead she called her father. No answer. She called again and left a voice mail.

“Hey, Dad, it’s Margot. Jenna has misplaced the Notebook. She had it last night at dinner, she said? She thinks maybe she left it in the cab? Any thoughts? Call me back.”

Margot then sent her father a text: Jenna lost Notebook.

And another: Please call me.

Jenna, meanwhile, was still on the phone with Stuart. In the Notebook, their mother had referred to Jenna’s future husband, whoever he may be, as her Intelligent, Sensitive Groom-to-Be-and Stuart fit the bill. Jenna had already calmed down; she had stopped crying.

Margot marched upstairs. Jenna’s luggage was in the hallway, and Margot started to look through it, thinking, Please appear, please appear.

What appeared were a pair of shapely, tanned legs. Finn’s legs. Margot used to have legs like that, back in her surfing days, before she worked sixty-five hours a week trying to support three kids and an ex-husband.

Finn said, “Why are you going through Jenna’s things?”

Her voice was accusatory, but Margot didn’t even both looking up.

Finn said, “Oh, shit.”

“Exactly,” Margot said. A second later, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. Involuntarily, she thought: Edge.

But it was her father.

“I have it,” he said.

Margot filled with giddy relief, and Jenna sobbed with tears of joy. One of the best feelings in the world was finding something you were sure you’d lost forever.

A little while later, a white van pulled into the driveway behind Margot’s LR3. She poked her head out the side door. The Sperry Tent Company. She hoped she didn’t have to sign anything or decide anything. She hoped the four guys who hopped out of the truck knew exactly what they were doing. She hoped that Roger, the wedding planner, had reminded the tent guys about her mother’s perennial bed.

Beth had been a fanatical gardener, and some of those perennials were over forty years old, which made them heirloom. Or maybe not. Margot knew nothing about gardening; every year, she killed one store-bought herb garden by placing it on her fire escape and forgetting to water it.

Out the back screen door, which faced the yard, Margot called to her children, “The gentlemen are here to set up the tent! Either make yourself useful or get out of the way!” Ellie was lying on her stomach on the swing, spinning in circles until the ropes were twisted to the top.

“Eleanor, come in, please!” Margot called.

“No!” Ellie said.

Margot sighed. Was it too early for wine?

Upstairs, Margot heard Jenna and her maidens milling around; she caught the occasional burst of laughter. The hysteria over the missing Notebook had subsided-THANK GOD-and shortly thereafter, Autumn Donahue had arrived in a cab from the airport. Autumn had been Jenna’s roommate at the College of William and Mary. She had beautiful copper-colored hair and freckles and brown eyes and was the visual antidote to Jenna’s and Finn’s uncompromising blondness. Autumn swore like a sailor, and she could turn any situation pornographic in seconds. At the bridal shower, which had been attended by Pauline, as well as Jenna’s future mother-in-law, Ann Graham, Autumn had seen fit to give Jenna a two-headed vibrator and a tube of lubricant.

“Just turn that thing on for Stuart,” Autumn had said. “He’ll love it.”

Autumn always dated three men at the same time; she called these men her “lov-ahs,” and she sometimes threw a random one-night stand into the mix. She had never been in love; she had no intention of ever falling in love.

Quite frankly, Margot admired this about Autumn.

Margot was waiting for a text from Edge. She had texted him the night before to tell him that Drum Sr. was getting married. What she’d written was: Drum Sr. is getting married to someone named Lily the Pilates instructor.

When, after thirty minutes, she hadn’t received a response, she had written: No, seriously, Drum Sr. is getting married.

Margot had fallen asleep with the phone in her hand, waiting for a response. But in the morning there was still nothing from Edge. Margot found this silence perplexing. He often let one or more of her texts go without a response, but a text about her ex-spouse remarrying? That was real news. It deserved something. Then Margot began to worry that Edge wasn’t responding because he thought Margot was fishing for a proposal herself. Ha! The mere idea of a proposal from Edge was ludicrous. He had allowed her to spend the night at his apartment only once-and then only because he’d had a favor to ask of her.

She wouldn’t let herself think about that night, Picholine for dinner first, then the unprecedented invitation to sleep over, then the ask, like a cold hand on her throat. Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King. She couldn’t think about it.

Maybe Edge was just busy. He had been preparing for court all week; he was taking over something called the “shitshow Cranbrook case” for Margot’s father. Margot had asked what that meant, but he hadn’t told her; he couldn’t tell her about any of his cases-not only because it was privileged information, but because Edge didn’t want Margot to accidentally slip up in front of her father.

The result of this was that Margot knew next to nothing about Edge’s work life or how he spent his days. She almost preferred the way things had been with Drum Sr. Drum Sr. had done nothing for work, but at least that nothing had been reported to Margot in excruciating detail. Going for run in park. Back from run. ATM, $80. Warren Miller film-off the hook! Thinking about enchiladas for dinner-ok with u? Store. Sale on canned tomatoes, buying 3. Picking up Ellie now. Walking. What is name of Peyton’s mom? And what is wrong with her face? Margot used to sit in her office at Miller-Sawtooth, which was the most prestigious executive search firm in the world, and receive these texts and think, Don’t you understand that I am too busy for this piddly-shit?

Now, with Edge, Margot would kill for some piddly-shit. She would kill to know what he had for breakfast. But he told her nothing. If he was feeling expressive, he would text, In court. Or, With Audrey, who was his six-year-old daughter.

Margot checked her phone: nothing. It was quarter to six. Maybe Edge was in a meeting with a new client; those could take a while. Maybe he was so busy preparing for court-with his favorite paralegal, Rosalie -that he simply hadn’t had time to check his phone. But Edge checked his phone compulsively. The red light blinked, and he salivated as though the next text or e-mail was going to offer him a million free dollars or a house on the beach in Tahiti. With clients, he prided himself on responding within sixty seconds. But Margot he let languish for days.

Most of Margot and Edge’s relationship had taken place via text, which had started out seeming modern and sexy. They would go back and forth for hours-and unlike in actual conversation, Margot could take her time to compose witty responses. She could text things she was too shy to express in person.