Twenty-Four
JAIME
I’d never seen Margot like this. Not once in the thirteen years I’d known her. She’d always had a boyfriend—we joked that she was a serial monogamist—but her relationships had always ended amicably or she’d been the one to break things off.
This was something else entirely.
Calm, cool, cultured Margot Thurber Lewiston was having a very unbecoming ugly cry on her bedroom floor. Curled in a ball with a (probably heirloom) quilt pulled tightly around her shoulders, she sobbed and howled, her beautiful face contorted in misery and covered with tears and snot.
“Margot, come on. It’s going to be OK.” On her knees at Margot’s side, Claire patted her back. “Want me to get you a hanky?”
“Want a pillow?” I offered from where I sat on Margot’s bed. The expensive sheets were all untucked and twisted as if she’d thrown a violent tantrum on her bed and then rolled right off it onto the hardwood floor. She had a rug beneath her, but still—she couldn’t have been very comfortable.
Not that she cared about comfort. She didn’t answer either one of us, just kept crying and crying, her slender body shuddering pitifully beneath the quilt. She was nearly hoarse from wailing, but nothing we said had consoled her so far.
My own throat was tight—I’d never felt so helpless. Truth be told, I wasn’t good at this. I didn’t know what to say because I’d never been in her position. Even my shittiest breakups in college, before I’d sworn off relationships, hadn’t done this to me. I hadn’t cried like this since—
Quinn.
It suddenly struck me that the way Margot was carrying on reminded me of the way I’d cried the night I’d told Quinn I loved him and he’d laughed at me.
Turning off the warning bell in my head, I got down on the floor with a little square pillow embroidered with the words Like Mother, Like Daughter. I looked at it for a second before putting it down near Margot’s face.
“Here, Gogo. Put your head on this. You’re going to have a terrible headache as it is.”
Nothing. More choked sobs.
“Margot, honey, talk to us.” Claire tried to lean down and make eye contact, but Margot’s puffy eyes were shut tight. We still didn’t know exactly what happened. After getting her text asking us to please come to her house as soon as we could, we’d rushed over and found her like this. She’d nodded yes when we asked if something had happened with Tripp, but we had no other details.
Exchanging a worried glance with Claire, I stroked Margot’s hair. Usually blown out to smooth, shiny perfection, right now it looked and felt like it might contain a couple bird nests. Maybe a squirrel corpse or two.
“OK then, cry it out,” I said, realizing that there was no stopping this train. “We’ll be right here when you’re ready to talk.” I lay down on the floor too, curling up on my side, hands tucked under my cheek.
“Yep.” Claire lay down on the other side of her and patted her shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere.”
A few minutes ticked by, and Margot’s sobs slowed, then quieted. Finally, she took a long, shaky breath. “OK.” She exhaled. “OK. I think I need some whiskey.”
“You got it,” I said, hopping to my feet. I might not be good at soothing a broken heart, but shooting whiskey? That I could do.
I hurried down the steps of Margot’s beautiful townhouse and pulled a bottle of Two James Grass Widow Bourbon from a kitchen cupboard. Tucking it under my arm, I grabbed three little glasses from another shelf and headed back up.
When I reached her bedroom, Margot was sitting up against the bed, blowing her nose in a tissue. Claire sat next to her, holding the box.
“Just what the doctor ordered,” I said, setting the glasses down and sitting cross-legged, facing them. I opened the bottle and poured about an inch into each glass, handing one to Margot and one to Claire. Setting the bottle aside, I picked up mine and we all took a sip.
Margot sighed. “God, I need this.” She tipped her glass back again, finishing the contents.
“Easy, hon,” Claire warned.
I picked up the bottle and poured her some more. “So easy.”
It almost made her smile. “Fuck, you guys. My head.”
“I can imagine,” I said. Her eyes were so red and puffy, I didn’t know how she could see. “Want to tell us what happened?”
She sipped again before talking. “Probably exactly what you think. I brought up getting engaged last night at dinner, and he changed the subject. I tried again when we got back here, and he went home with a headache. I tried a third time this morning after brunch, and he finally admitted he’d been putting off telling me something for a while because he didn’t want to hurt me.”
“What did he say?” Claire asked.
“That he changed his mind. He doesn’t want to get married.”
“Doesn’t want to get married now? Or ever?” I wondered.
Margot nodded. “That’s what I asked. And he said definitely not now, and maybe not ever.”
“Well, what the fuck?” I frowned. “Why did he lead you to believe otherwise for the last three years?”
“I asked him that too. He said people change.”
“Within a few months?” Claire snapped. “He just asked you about a ring in December!”
“I know,” Margot said before a big swallow of bourbon, “but now he says he’s perfectly happy with the way things are and he doesn’t want anything to change.”