Chapter 6 #2
What Puck can’t do, though, is pair Mia with Zander.
That’d be suspicious, not to mention needlessly risky.
Part of producing is knowing when to go for broke and when to let a plot line build.
It’s tempting, given the condensed time frame here, to just jam the former lovers together right away and hope for fireworks.
But Puck has to do this carefully. There will be more opportunities to get them alone between now and Friday.
For now, it’s a good enough start to put Lena on the board.
“Mia and Peter!” Puck declares instead. The bride and the best man. An inoffensive pick to everyone but Zander, who Puck spots stifling a grimace. Was he hoping the “app” would pair him with Mia? Maybe he’s got some fire left in his belly after all.
As they look over the rest of the list, Puck realizes they’re quickly running out of names, and it’s getting harder to keep track of who they’ve paired off.
So, without thinking, they call out the first two people they notice who haven’t been matched yet—“Zander and Anya!”—not realizing who that leaves remaining.
“I’m with you, then, Dr. Croquet,” Robyn says, and it’s obvious to Puck she’s not happy with the outcome, even though she’s keeping her look of disdain just on the right side of undetectable to the group at large. What is this girl’s deal?
“Yup, Robyn with a ‘y’ and Puck,” they confirm, looking down at their phone for full effect, worrying that they might be overselling the whole app schtick. But they seem to have gotten away with it.
The wedding party assembles by the “starting stake,” as Robyn called it, and because Puck assigned the teams, they all naturally turn to them for guidance on the order of play, too.
They rattle off the colors of the balls at random, accidentally assigning their own team first. Already they feel like they’re making too many unforced errors, but that’s mostly because of Robyn’s rude interruptions.
Regardless, Puck can get this back on track.
The hard part of this particular subplot is over.
So why are they still feeling rattled as they line up their first shot?
Puck whacks the ball embarrassingly far afield of the first wicket, eliciting amused chuckles from the wedding party. “Easy, there!” Zander teases. The unsurprising truth is they’ve never touched a croquet mallet before in their life.
“I’m a little rusty,” they try to explain to Robyn, who ignores the excuse.
“What kind of a name is Puck anyway?” she asks, while they wait for the rest of the teams to take their first hits. “Were your parents hockey fans?”
“Were yours Batman fans?” Puck fires back a bit childishly, but they don’t care.
They’re too busy watching Damon as Lena takes her first hit.
It’s not just her hair and wardrobe that have changed; the way she carries herself is more poised, too.
Lena delicately tucks her hair back behind her ears as she prepares to hit the ball.
Her dress clings to a body that was there all along but never shown off, stretching against her curves as she swings and connects with the ball.
Is Damon noticing this? Puck tries to track his gaze, but Robyn pipes up again, dividing their attention.
“Puck is such an uncommon name, though,” she says.
“Well, my parents didn’t name me that,” Puck brusquely replies, not even bothering to look over at this nuisance next to them. Instead, they’re trying to read Damon’s expression as Lena returns to his side.
“How’d I do?” Puck overhears Lena asking him.
“A lot better than Puck,” Damon says, and Lena laughs.
Puck doesn’t mind if some flirtation comes at their expense, so long as it will help them later on.
“So it’s a nickname then,” Robyn presses, testing Puck’s already thinning patience.
“No, Puck is my name; I just chose it myself.”
Mia is lining up her shot, and from where Puck is standing, it looks like Zander is all but ignoring Anya to keep his eyes locked on his ex.
Their suggestion over breakfast must have worked fast. Maybe too fast?
Should Puck rein him back in today? The pacing matters here; he shouldn’t come in too hot, and historically, that has been difficult for Zander to resist doing.
“And why’d you pick Puck?”
Robyn. Again. Puck is done with this. “Because it rhymes with my favorite word,” they say, whipping out the answer they only fall back on when they’re extremely annoyed.
Francis interrupts the awkward conversation. “Team Robyn: You guys are up again.”
“Excuse me,” Robyn says, turning to Puck. “I have to go fix your mistake.”
Puck watches as Robyn strolls across the lawn to their team’s blue ball.
It matches her workout wear perfectly, and Puck hates Robyn all over again just thinking about her outfit—and her exposed midriff.
Croquet isn’t SoulCycle; this is a sport old British people play on cruise ships.
Puck’s stray hit left their team’s ball at an almost impossibly acute angle several yards from the wicket, but Robyn is unfazed.
She lines up the shot, practice-swings the mallet like a pendulum between her legs a few times, and then strikes with confidence, sending the ball gliding across the grass and bouncing off one side of the wicket before passing through it.
The group is so stunned that some of them start applauding.
Even Puck is rendered momentarily speechless.
“You didn’t tell me you were an expert,” they say when Robyn returns to their side. “I should give you my PhD.”
Robyn is not amused.
“You know, I’ve been planning this wedding with Mia for months,” the maid of honor says, finally unloading on Puck while the other teams take their second turns.
“I went to three croquet lessons just so I could be sure this day went well. And then you waltzed in and dumbed down all the rules before I got here.”
“I didn’t realize,” Puck says.
“You didn’t ask” is the maid of honor’s stern reply.
Puck may be the de facto leader of Homewreckers, but Robyn clearly takes her title here seriously.
In all their scheming on the hotel stationery, Puck never stopped to consider—though it probably should have occurred to them—that every wedding already has its own producer.
This one is a type-A nightmare in Lululemon.
“So that’s how you know what a wicket is,” Puck says in an attempt to deflect Robyn’s annoyance. Can’t they just laugh about this and move on?
Robyn frowns. “It’s almost your turn again. Try to do better this time.”
Puck tries to mimic Robyn’s technique, and their next hit gets commendably close to the second wicket, but their head is spinning the entire time: Is Robyn going to get in the way of the plan?
Can something be done to … neutralize her?
She seems scarily committed to ensuring this wedding goes well, far beyond what her role requires, and this will certainly make stopping it more challenging.
But Puck has dealt with stubborn contestants before.
So many people come onto Homewreckers thinking they’ll get to call the shots, and they have to be humbled. Robyn can be put in check too.
But as Puck walks back to Robyn, taking in the look of her all the way from her trendy white Sambas up to her perfectly shaped eyebrows, they’re even more alarmed by another, even more urgent sensation rising within them: They do, unfortunately, need to fuck this hot mean girl as soon as possible.
Puck should be celebrating that, only a few feet away, an increasingly competitive Damon is now this close to teaching Lena how to use the mallet by straddling her from behind. He starts to scoot his hips close to hers, then thinks the better of it.
“Watch me,” he says instead, stepping around in front of her and modeling the ideal form.
“You’re a pro!” Lena responds, without a hint of irony, and it’s exactly the kind of flattering comment Damon would have found annoying coming from her in college, but now it looks like he’s flexing beneath his polo to try to impress her.
He’s treating her completely differently now that her face is no longer hidden behind a pile of hair like Cousin Itt.
Puck’s plan is already working, and it’s only been in effect for an hour.
Maybe they shouldn’t rein Zander in; maybe it’s time to step on the gas, especially if this Robyn girl is going to be a problem.
Could they wrap this whole thing up tomorrow?
What are they meant to be doing again? A spa day?
Or was it the picnic? Robyn is probably the one who slipped those itineraries under everyone’s doors, Puck realizes.
Is she going to wake up at four a.m. every day this week to consult the weather forecast?
More importantly, what is she doing before that? Does she have any availability in the middle of the night, perchance?
Puck is admittedly having trouble concentrating because they’re consumed by the thought of pulling this girl’s ponytail as they ride her from behind, her face buried in bedsheets, moans of pleasure only barely muffled by the mattress.
Then, after she came, she’d flip over and look up at Puck, her skin dewy with sweat, and ask, “Is that all?” And no, it wouldn’t be all.
Puck shouldn’t want to hook up with the most spiteful, normative-looking woman at this wedding, but that may be exactly why they want it.
They crave Robyn in a way they’re almost too ashamed to admit to themself.
Puck should want to sleep with some alternative-looking cater-waiter with a nipple ring, not a woman ripped straight out of a Macy’s catalog.
But even though they can commandeer this croquet game with ease, trying to force their body to want anything other than what it wants would be pointless.
Later, though. Puck doesn’t want to lose focus, for Mia’s sake. Protecting their friend’s future happiness is a lot more important than bedding a bridesmaid. But if Lena doubles Puck’s chances of success, maybe Puck has time for two missions.