11. Walter
Walter
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO
NEW YORK—According to the map on his phone, Walter had reached his destination.
The security gate looked like any other industrial storefront in Brooklyn, until he spotted the metal DG logo above the buzzer, as in Domaine Gabby.
The proprietor must not want random hipsters stopping by in search of wholesale sparkling wine.
Walter had a different target in mind.
The assistant he’d spoken to on the phone buzzed Walter into the building and introduced himself as Duri. “Gabby’s in back. Should I let her know you’re here?”
“I’m good. Thanks for your help.”
“Write nice things,” Duri said before heading back to what Walter presumed to be his office.
The light at the end of the corridor suggested daylight, so Walter was only partly surprised to step through a heavy steel door and into a glass-roofed atrium. A bar lined one wall, and there were a handful of high tables made from wine barrels.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Hildy said, setting down her glass of champagne. She was seated at the bar, glaring at Walter as if he’d just stolen her parking spot.
“Hello to you too.” Had she really thought he was going to let her last performance go unanswered? Walter wasn’t that big of a sucker. Not anymore, anyway.
He turned to the woman in a floral jumpsuit with waist-length box braids. Even without the context clues, he would have recognized Gabby from her online bio. “Walter Burns,” he said, extending a hand.
“You write the wedding column.” She had a firm handshake. “Bells and Whistles.”
He nodded, never sure how to respond when people recognized his professional affiliation. I’m sorry? It’s harder than it looks? No, I don’t get to eat the cake?
“There’s no personal connection between us,” Hildy preemptively declared. “Just to be clear on that point.”
Gabby’s eyes slid between them. “I have no idea what’s going on here, so this is me making an informed decision to move on.”
Smart of her. Walter should have made the same call a long time ago. “Duri said it would be okay if I stopped by.”
“Actually, we’re kind of in the middle of something.” Hildy made a flicking motion with one hand.
“The more coverage the better, as far as I’m concerned. You’re not going to make me choose, are you?” Gabby laughed at that, missing the venomous scowl Hildy shot Walter.
“I’m all about supporting woman-owned businesses. Believe me, I know how hard it is to launch a start-up in this economy.” The only thing missing from Hildy’s performance was a violin.
“Interesting.” Walter let Hildy sweat a little, since they both knew he could expose the truth about her background any time. “Are you getting hazard pay for day drinking on a Tuesday afternoon?”
“I should,” she sniffed, looking him up and down.
Walter did the same to Hildy, taking in the silky sheen of her shirt and the crisp pinstripes of her tailored skirt. “That must be your working-the-salt-mines outfit?”
“Is fashion part of your beat now?” Hildy fluttered her lashes at him. “I didn’t realize you were branching out.”
For a shot fired at random, that one stung.
It was a question Walter had been asking himself more and more lately: Should I want more?
And if so, what? Maybe he needed to push himself harder, try his hand at politics or public health reporting.
What if he was stagnating on the wedding beat?
He tucked those fears away before Hildy caught a whiff of them.
She was the last person to understand career angst, or any other form of self-doubt.
Must be nice to be born into money and a professional destiny.
Gabby turned to Hildy with a frown. “Did he run over your dog or something?”
“Not my dog, no.” Hildy added a pensive tip of the head, as if Walter had done something much worse.
“You don’t want to hear about us,” Walter assured Gabby. “That’s old news.”
“Snoozeville,” Hildy agreed, more emphatically than strictly required.
He kept his eyes on their hostess. “I want to know more about you.”
“I’m not the story.” Gabby edged behind the bar as if she could physically evade his question. “This is the heart of what we do.” Ice sloshed as she lifted an open bottle of Domaine Gabby Demi Sec from the bucket on the counter. “Can I pour you a glass?”
Hildy made a show of sipping from her flute of bubbly, in case Walter needed a reminder she’d gotten there first.
He wondered if Hildy knew how true that was, considering Walter had learned about Domaine Gabby from a Life, Styled stringer he’d overheard talking to the bartender at a wedding in the Hudson Valley.
It was a good story: the fresh-out-of-college business major convincing a vineyard in France to partner with her to bring high-quality champagne to an unexpected corner of Brooklyn.
There weren’t a lot of women in the wine industry, much less women of color.
When he ran into Corinne coming out of a coffee shop this morning and casually asked what she’d done with her partner in crime, her vague reply about fizzing it up in Brooklyn had been enough of a clue to rearrange Walter’s plans for the day.
Why not combine an interview with a little light torture? Two birds, one stone.
Ignoring Hildy’s eye roll, he slid onto the stool next to hers.
Fifteen minutes later, Hildy kneed him in the thigh for the sixth time. Or was it the seventh? The shape of her kneecap was going to be imprinted on his leg.
“Oops,” she said, swiveling in the other direction. “I keep forgetting you’re there.”
It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t waited until he was mid-sip every single time.
“Do you sharpen those things?”
“Only my tongue.” She stuck it out at him when Gabby wasn’t looking.
“What do you think of this one?” their host asked, wiping the condensation off a new bottle.
“Juicy,” Walter said on autopilot, yanking his gaze from Hildy’s mouth.
“I’m not sure he’s a champagne person,” Hildy sighed, as if his lack of savoir faire caused her personal distress.
“It’s true I grew up in more of a Diet Dr Pepper household.”
“Not what I was saying.” Hildy took a sip of her drink.
“Champagne is the beverage of joy. It’s pure effervescence, sparkling on your tongue.
Hope and excitement and giddiness. Whereas Walter has always struck me as more of a …
hmm.” She pretended to think it over, glossy nails drumming the bar. “Glass half empty kind of guy.”
“I do prefer a little substance with my bubbles.” He locked eyes with Hildy. “Solid fundamentals that stand the test of time, as opposed to empty promises that trick you into making bad decisions.”
Gabby looked worried.
“But this has all the complexity and nuance anyone could want.” Walter angled his glass to catch the light. “It’s like eating a piece of homemade sourdough bread with Irish butter and just a hint of orange blossom honey, and yet light as air.”
Gabby held up a finger. “I can use that. Hold on.” She reached under the counter for a spiral-bound notebook. While she was writing, Duri stuck his head in.
“Sorry to interrupt. You have a call.” His eyebrow choreography suggested time was of the essence, though the crisis apparently wasn’t serious enough to stop him from winking at Hildy. Another day, another conquest. Did she ever get tired of keeping so many hearts on a string?
Gabby excused herself, Duri hot on her heels.
“You are such a suck-up. Irish butter and an orange grove, blah blah blah,” Hildy mocked as soon as they were alone. “Maybe you should go into PR.”
“Think you can do better?”
“Shhh!” Her eyes narrowed in concentration. She’d always had the curiosity of a cat. It was one of the things that fooled Walter into thinking they were cut from the same cloth.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?”
“Not with you breathing like that.” Hildy tried to pinch his nostrils, but he ducked out of the way, grabbing her by the wrist.
Neither of them heard the door open.
“Oh good. You two fools plus alcohol. What could possibly go wrong?”
Walter recognized the dryness of Corinne’s delivery before he turned to see her standing in the doorway.
“Gabby got called away.” He tried not to look guilty, which should have been easy since he wasn’t technically doing anything wrong. Anyway, Hildy started it. “We’re sitting here very quietly waiting for her.”
Corinne’s sniff was laden with disbelief. “Fancy meeting you here, Burns.”
A flustered Gabby hurried back into the tasting room.
“See?” Hildy said to Corinne. “There she is.”
Walter got a rare glimpse of Corinne’s softer side as she introduced herself to the proprietress.
Her expression conveyed the unmistakable blend of bashful and eager that said I find you attractive.
Judging by the prolonged eye contact that accompanied Gabby’s lingering handshake, the feeling was mutual.
“I’m so sorry.” Gabby’s apology was mostly directed at Corinne.
“I need to run ten cases up to the Bronx. The sommelier at Batista is freaking out, because she’s a total diva, but they also move a ton of bubbles, so I have to stay on her good side.
” She broke off, remembering that she was talking to three journalists. “Off the record.”
“Need a hand?” Corinne offered, already tightening the belt of her coat.
Gabby looked surprised, but not in a bad way. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no.” She grabbed a canvas tote and a water bottle, and Corinne followed her out the door.
“They ditched us,” Hildy observed after silence had settled over the tasting room.
“Pretty much,” Walter agreed.
The toes of her shoes tapped the underside of the bar. “You can go, you know.”
“So can you.”
“I think I’ll stick around.”
“Me too.”
“It’s probably going to be a while.”
Walter shrugged. It wasn’t like he was bored. He lifted one of the open bottles from the ice bucket, angling it toward Hildy’s glass in a silent question.
“It would be a shame to waste it.” She nudged her flute a little closer, watching him divide the champagne between them until the bottle was empty.
Since Hildy didn’t seem inclined to talk, he flipped to a clean page in his notebook, jotting down his thoughts about the setting. A light rain pattered against the glass roof. Walter tipped more champagne into his mouth. It wasn’t the worst place he’d spent an afternoon.
“See anything you like?” he asked. Hildy practically had her nose pressed against the open page.
“Like I can read your handwriting.” It had been a joke between them once, but those days were long gone.
“Are you going to the Martell wedding?” he asked, not wanting to dwell on the past.
“No, I’m sending someone.”
The booze must have loosened his tongue, because he blurted out the first reason that came to mind. “Hot date?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
This time he kept his mouth shut. It was none of his business.
“It’s not like I make a habit of blowing off work for my social life,” she said.
“Did I say that?”
“You were thinking it.”
“I didn’t realize you’d added mind reading to your long list of skills.” Walter was utterly cooked, if so.
Her nostrils flared, and he felt a rush of anticipation.
What kind of tongue-lashing would she give him this time?
He was so focused on waiting for her lips to move, it blindsided him when her arm shot out and grabbed his notebook.
Before Walter could process what was happening, Hildy ripped out a page, wadded it up, and shoved it down the front of her blouse.
She crossed her arms, grinning as if she’d checkmated him. He let his gaze stray slowly over her mouth and chin before dropping to the telltale lump under her shirt. If that was how she wanted to play it, he was more than willing to call her bluff.
Hildy must have read the intention in his face. He’d barely started to lean in that direction when she fished the crumpled paper out of her bra and crammed it into her mouth. Her jaw worked, up and down.
“Blah,” she complained, spitting the damp wad onto her palm.
Walter raised both hands when she tried to give it back to him. “I’m not touching that.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“Says the person who ate paper.”
“I didn’t eat it.” Hildy shook her head, like he was the ridiculous one. “It’s totally intact. Go on. You can have it back,” she said, flapping it at him.
“No thank you.”
“It’ll dry out.”
“I don’t want your regurgitated paper.”
“Give me a break. I barely chewed it.” Wincing, she reached into her mouth. “Thought I might have missed a piece. That flavor really lingers.”
“Where are you going?” he asked when she stood.
She swished the last of the champagne from cheek to cheek before setting down her glass. “Home.”
“We could share a ride,” he suggested, when she was halfway to the door.
After a pause, she turned back to face him. “Why?”
“To be sure you make it there safely?” Walter didn’t know why he phrased it as a question. As if there were any other possible motive for following her home.
“Save the knight in shining armor routine for someone who doesn’t know better.” The door slammed behind her with an echoing clang.
Walter picked up the damp scrap of paper, intending to bank a shot at the trash can behind the bar. Somehow, he wound up tucking it into his pocket instead.