5. Hildy
Hildy
ONE WEEK BEFORE THE PRESCOTT-SCHAFER WEDDING
“What if what’s a cave?”
“The wedding venue.”
“I don’t see Fiona Prescott as the spelunking type.” It was a wish as much as a prediction, since helmets would wreak havoc on Hildy’s curls. Not to mention her general dislike of dark and creepy spaces.
“Speaking of going deep,” Corinne continued, “we need to talk about the history before we get there. It’s definitely going to come up.”
“You know it’s not my fault that Walter’s here.” Hildy flinched as another French driver whizzed past like he was auditioning for Formula One. What was the speed limit? She didn’t have the brain power to translate kilometers into miles.
“Narcissism, party of one. I’m not talking about your history. This is cave art country. Prehistory central. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Lascaux.”
That explained her wedding theory. “We can do a sidebar,” Hildy promised. “Once we lock down the main story.”
“Right.” Corinne exhaled heavily. “It all depends on that.” She turned to face the window a beat too late to hide her worried expression.
“We just have to remind Fiona that working with us was her decision and people need to respect her autonomy because it’s her damn wedding. There’s a history of tension in that area, which should play to our advantage.”
“Okay, Machiavelli.”
Hildy’s conscience gave a guilty twinge. She generally preferred to use her powers for good. “Blame Walter! He’s forcing me to take the gloves off.”
Corinne fell into a ruminative silence. Hildy wasn’t sure whether she was silently judging or looking for landmarks as they zoomed past green hillsides dotted with occasional signs proudly advertising the local gastronomy. Ducks! Wine! Walnuts! The French made no secret of their priorities in life.
Unlike some people Hildy could name, who specialized in being as opaque as possible, even when they were chasing you across two continents.
“What’s the deal with the sister?” Corinne asked.
“They’re close, but there’s a pretty big age gap. And then when their mom died, the dynamic totally shifted. Maude has a tendency to treat Fiona like a child.”
It was one of the first things Hildy and Fiona had bonded over, this strange combination of being motherless and yet surrounded by controlling relatives.
Although the circumstances were not identical, since Fiona’s father was still alive and her mother had died of natural causes, as opposed to signing away parental rights to continue her career as an ethnographer in a remote South American rainforest while Hildy was raised by an overbearing uncle and succession of step-aunts, plus two boneheaded cousins who treated her like a combination little sister and household pet.
Everybody had their own story—as Hildy had pointed out more than once during an editorial meeting.
In her case, there was even a peer-reviewed journal article about her disappearing parent’s decision to “repudiate the first-world Western trap of the patriarchal nuclear family” to pursue the “higher goal” of research.
Maybe if her mom (aka the egg donor) had known Hildy’s father was a few short years from a fatal car accident, she might have stuck around.
Or not! It wasn’t like Hildy had a window into her mother’s thoughts, beyond what she’d shared with the rest of the world.
Hildy assumed her coloring and her curls were her mother’s legacy, since she didn’t resemble the rest of the Johnson clan.
Sometimes she worried she’d also inherited her missing parent’s relentless ambition, though hopefully Hildy was less cold-blooded about it.
If she had to manipulate Fiona, it would be gently—and with her best interests at heart. As well as Hildy’s. And her magazine’s.
“I mean in terms of Walter,” Corinne clarified. “What’s his connection with the sister?”
“They met at a wedding.” Hildy made a conscious effort to loosen her grip on the steering wheel. “Remember the nouveau agrarian paradise bride last fall? That was Maude’s cousin.”
“Met as in they were introduced or…?” Corinne let the question trail off, though they both knew what she was really asking: Did they hook up or what?
“Allegedly he was interviewing her,” Hildy said, before Corinne could go there. “About plants.”
Corinne snorted as if she’d heard that line before. It was gratifying to know Hildy wasn’t the only one who found that excuse a little thin.