Elin Hilderbrand: Beautiful Day

© 2013

Dear Jenna,

I have finally reached the point with my prognosis where I accept that there are certain things I will not live to see. I will not see the day your father retires from the law firm (he always promised me he would retire on his 65th birthday, safe to say that promise was only made to appease me); I will not live to see my grandchildren ride roller coasters, get pimples, or go on dates-and I will not live to see you get married.

This last item pains me the most. As I write this, you are a senior in college and you have just broken up with Jason. For my sake, you are pretending like it’s no big deal, you said you knew he wasn’t “the One”; his favorite politician is Pat Buchanan and yours in Ralph Nader. So it won’t be Jason you end up with-dishy though he was (sorry, true)-but there will be someone, someday, who will light you up. You will get married, and you have said that you would like a big, traditional wedding with all the bells and whistles. Since you’ve been a little girl, you’ve had your heart set on getting married on Nantucket, and although marriage is probably further from your mind now than it was when you were six, I hope that is still true.

That’s where this notebook comes in. I won’t be here to encourage or guide you when the time comes; I will, sweet Jenna, probably never meet the man you’re going to marry (unless it’s the delivery man from FTD who has been here three times this week. I can tell he has a crush on you). My hand aches knowing that it will not be squeezing your hand just before you walk down the aisle.

But enough feeling sorry for ourselves! I will, in these pages, endeavor to bestow my best advice for your big day. You can follow it or ignore it, but at the very least you will know where I stand on each and every matter.

I wish for you a beautiful day, Jenna, my darling. You alone will make it so.

Love, Mom

Finn Sullivan-Walker (bridesmaid):I can’t wait to see Jenna wearing her mother’s gown. It’s vintage Priscilla of Boston, silk bodice with a sweetheart neckline and lace column skirt. There used to be a picture in the Carmichael house of Jenna’s mother, Beth, wearing the dress. I was obsessed with that picture when I was younger, even before Beth died. Seeing Jenna in that dress is going to be surreal, you know? Like seeing a ghost.

Douglas Carmichael (father of the bride):I can’t stand the thought of giving Jenna away. She’s my last one. Well, I guess technically Nick is my last one, but Nick might never get married.

Nick Carmichael (brother of the bride):My sister has extremely hot friends.

Margot (sister of the bride, maid of honor):Can I be honest? I really just want this weekend to be over.

They were on the ferry, the hulking white steamship that was properly named the Eagle, but which Margot had always thought of as Moby-Dick, because that was what their mother used to call it. Every year when the Carmichael family drove their Ford Country Squire into the darkened hold of the boat, Beth used to say it was like being swallowed by a whale. She had found the ride on the steamship romantic, literary, and possibly also biblical (she would have been thinking of Jonah, right?)-but Margot had despised the ferry ride then, and she despised it even more now. The thick, swirling fumes from the engines made her queasy, as did the lurching motion. For this trip, Margot had taken the Dramamine that Jenna offered her in Hyannis. Really, with the seven thousand details of her wedding to triage, the fact that Jenna had remembered to pack pills for her sister’s seasickness was astonishing-but that was Jenna for you. She was thoughtful, nearly to a fault. She was, Margot thought with no small amount of envy, exactly like their mother.

For Jenna’s sake, Margot pretended the Dramamine was working. She pulled down the brim of her straw hat against the hot July sun, which was blinding when reflected off the surface of the water. The last thing she wanted was to freckle right before the wedding. They were outside, on the upper deck. Jenna and her best friend, Finn Sullivan-Walker, were posing against the railing at the bow of the boat. Nantucket was just a smudge on the horizon; even Christopher Columbus might not have said for sure there was land ahead, but Jenna was adamant that Margot take a picture of her and Finn, with their blond hair billowing around their faces, as soon as Nantucket was visible in the background.

Margot planted her feet at shoulder width to steady herself against the gentle and yet nefarious rocking of the boat and raised the camera. Her sister looked happy. She looked excited-happy that this was the beginning of her wedding weekend, which was certain to be the most fun-filled and memorable weekend of her life-and she also looked contented-happy, because she was confident that marrying Stuart James Graham was her life’s mission. Stuart was the One.

Stuart had proposed to Jenna on a park bench across the street from Little Minds, the progressive, “sustainable” preschool where Jenna was the lead teacher, presenting her with a ring featuring Sri Lankan sapphires and ethically mined diamonds from Canada. (Stuart was a banker, who made money buying and selling money, but he knew the path to Jenna’s heart.) Since that day, Margot had cast herself as devil’s advocate to Jenna’s vision of a lifetime of happiness with Stuart. Marriage was the worst idea in all of civilization, Margot said. For two people to meet when they were young and decide to spend the rest of their lives together was unnatural, Margot said, because everyone knew that human beings changed as they got older, and what were the chances-honestly, what were the chances -that two people would evolve in ways that were compatible?

“Listen,” Margot had said one evening when she and Jenna were having drinks at Cafe Gitane in SoHo. “You like having sex with Stuart now. But imagine doing it four thousand times. You’ll lose interest, I promise you. You’ll grow sick of it. And the enthusiasm that you used to have for having sex with Stuart will migrate-against your will-to something else. You’ll develop an unhealthy interest in cultivating orchids. You’ll be that mother on the baseball field, harassing the umpire over every pitch that crosses the plate. You’ll start flirting with the cashier at Whole Foods, or the compost guru at the local nursery, and the flirting will turn into fantasies, and the fantasies will become a fling, then perhaps a full-blown affair, and Stuart will find out by checking your cell phone records, and your life will be ruined, your reputation will end up in shreds, and your children will require expensive therapy.” Margot paused to sip her sauvignon blanc. “Don’t get married.”