10. Hildy
Hildy
ONE WEEK BEFORE THE PRESCOTT-SCHAFER WEDDING
TAMNIèS, France—“Do you think I’m being punished?
” Hildy asked Corinne. She’d already given a blow-by-blow account of her confrontation with Walter and his new girlfriend, during which Corinne had remained surprisingly calm.
Hildy suspected it had something to do with the two-hour massage that had left the hotel room smelling like a field of lavender.
“Let’s not make it more than it is.” Corinne sipped her detoxifying lemon water. She’d turned down Hildy’s offer of wine on the grounds that she planned to drink her body weight in rosé tonight.
That was the theme of this evening’s welcome party: Roses and Rosé.
Hildy had been planning to repaint her nails a delicate pink, but the bloody red she was currently rocking seemed more fitting under the circumstances.
The goal was warrior queen, not bubblegum princess.
Which Corinne would understand if she hadn’t had all the stress pounded out of her.
“Walter being here is not a small thing,” Hildy argued. “It’s an outrage. How dare he pull a stunt like that?”
Corinne rubbed more lotion into the back of her hand. “A wedding reporter chasing the biggest wedding of the year? Shocking. Or were you talking about his other reason for being here?”
“It happens over and over,” Hildy insisted, ignoring the dig about Maude. “Walter appearing out of nowhere.” She made an exploding gesture with her fingers. “Poof!”
“One, I’m pretty sure the ‘poofing’ is mutual. And two, if you’re waiting for me to say that you and Walter are connected by some deep and mysterious invisible string, don’t hold your breath.”
Annoyingly, Hildy had been angling for a crumb or two of acknowledgment, though she would have settled for pity. There he goes, all up in your business again. What a conniving snake!
“I’m talking about repeating patterns. Gradually working out the kinks in your karma until you evolve to a higher form.” She hesitated. “Maybe Walter and I are trapped in some kind of loop, until we fix our mess.”
Corinne slow-blinked, like she was giving it serious thought.
“You see what I’m talking about?”
“I see plenty.” Corinne peeled off the eye mask she’d been using as a headband, fluffing the hair at her crown. “Like how hard it is for some people to tell the difference between destiny and dysfunction. They have so many of the same letters.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I know.” She took another sip of her water before setting the glass aside. “I’ve been thinking.”
“You mean like right now, during our conversation?”
Corinne pretended not to hear. “Maybe it’s for the best, Walter being here.”
Hildy eyed her warily. “How do you figure?”
“Because you know how important this story is for us. We have to nail the Prescott wedding. There’s no other option.” She waited for Hildy’s nod of acknowledgment. “This week is going to be a pressure cooker.”
“The Rolls-Royce of pressure cookers,” Hildy reminded her, because they weren’t exactly serving time in a penal colony.
“Still,” Corinne carried on, undaunted, “the battle lines are drawn. We’re on one side, and Walter is over there.
” She gestured at the wall. “As someone who’s had a front-row seat for your whole deal with him, I’m thinking this could be the moment you settle things for good.
Battle royale. To the victor go the spoils. ”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. If everything went according to plan, snagging the Prescott wedding would be much more than a onetime circulation boost. A story this big would establish Life, Styled as a player on the main stage, without sacrificing any of their youthful freshness and vitality.
She didn’t know what Walter stood to gain, besides a chance to show off in front of his girlfriend. And a trip to France. Maybe he’d been promised a raise, or at least a bonus, but Hildy had an entire business to run. People were depending on her.
“When you say ‘settle this’ do you mean this assignment or—” Hildy let the question trail off, hoping Corinne would fill in the details.
“Yes,” Corinne answered. “All of the above. Break the chains of the past. Wash that man right out of your hair. Go big or go home.”
Inspirational speeches were not Corinne’s forte, but Hildy appreciated the sentiment.
“I have no idea whether you’re manipulating me or being totally sincere, but I kind of like it, so.
” She shrugged, accepting the kernel of truth behind the platitudes.
It would feel incredible to one-up Walter in a head-to-head competition.
That would silence all the lingering doubts (his, Hildy’s, her family’s) about whether she’d earned her place.
She tucked her hair behind her ears in the universal sign for shit’s about to get real. “Walter’s ass is mine.”
“Or you could just say ‘go team,’” Corinne pointed out. “Keep it nice and simple.”
The site of that evening’s welcome event was a walled garden adjacent to the hotel.
The roses and rosé were as advertised: blush-pink bottles glistening with condensation arrayed on a long line of tables, with a twelve-foot botanical wall as a backdrop.
Neon letters (F everyone had issues, and it made sense that this would be one of hers.
Hildy was also aware that she had a habit of collecting surrogate mothers (not including Corinne, who was as maternal as a vegetable peeler).
There was no great mystery behind the inspiration for the magazine’s Found Family feature.
The important thing was that it happened to be a work of genius that regularly made people cry on public transportation.
That was the definition of resourcefulness in Hildy’s book: leveraging your personal baggage to make great content.
Most people didn’t realize how much psychology was involved in being a magazine editor. It wasn’t enough to understand what readers wanted or why a certain story mattered. You also had to have a feel for how your writers were wired, since most of them were as high-strung as racehorses.
Case in point: Walter Burns, the first reporter she’d ever managed.
Hildy had intuited early on that he had a chip on his shoulder about growing up without a lot of money, so it was her job to reframe situations to keep him from getting twitchy.
We’re not going out to dinner; it’s just a cup of coffee.
Talent writes its own ticket, so walk into that place like you own it. That kind of thing.
It had worked well … until it didn’t.
That was a long time ago, though. Grown-up Walter had no problem holding his own at fancy weddings.
Where Hildy had to practically turn cartwheels while twirling a baton, all that was required of Walter was to fix those big brown eyes on someone and listen like his life depended on it.
Which proved Hildy’s point that money wasn’t the only currency that mattered.
Not that Walter would be lacking in funds for long if things got serious with his Prescott heiress.
International-travel-plus-family wedding didn’t exactly say “casual.” Interesting how he didn’t have an issue with Maude’s background.
Apparently some women were allowed to come from wealthy families without it counting as a character flaw.
Fiona waved, her other hand clutching the arm of a smiling blond guy with the side part and slicked-down hair of a little boy in an old-time sitcom, though the muscles and tan were very much of the modern gym era.
Time to work. Hildy put her shoulders back, relaxing her face into a smile as she approached the happy couple.
“Hildy, this is Robbie,” Fiona announced, bouncing with excitement. “I’m so glad you finally get to meet him.”
Robbie offered a firm handshake and the easy grin of someone who had been described by his college roommate as “the guy most likely to sleep through having his eyebrows shaved off and not be mad about it afterward.”
“Hi,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming.”
“Hildy’s the one doing the story about us,” Fiona whispered, since Robbie clearly had no idea which of their many guests he was addressing.
“Sweet.” Robbie blinked like he was searching for something else to say. “Can I get you some of me and Fee’s favorite pink wine? We like to drink it while we watch the sunset, because the colors kind of match. Pink sky, pink drink. And it’s less sweet than a cosmo.”
Hildy could picture the two of them in matching Adirondack chairs, clinking glasses. She smiled at the image, and also because it was important to get Robbie on her side.
“Thank you so much for inviting me here to help you capture your wedding memories in a glossy, full-color format you’ll be able to look back at and really cherish for the rest of your lives.” As opposed to finger-staining newsprint.
“Cheers to that!” he replied. “You can never have too many pictures of Fee. Especially when she dresses up.”
“Aww, sweetie!” She buried her face against his shirt, nuzzling him with her nose.
“What did I miss?”
Hildy tried not to flinch. She couldn’t let Walter know he’d caught her off guard, creeping up from behind like a shadow. “They’re really excited about the awesome wedding story I’m going to write.”
“Sounds like I got here just in time.”