14. Hildy
Hildy
FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE PRESCOTT-SCHAFER WEDDING
TAMNIèS, France—Walter had the audacity to act surprised when Hildy climbed onto the bus the next morning for that day’s signature activity, a local gastronomy tour and tasting.
“You made it,” he said, as if Hildy were known for blowing off scheduled events to play Baldur’s Gate with her buddies.
“It takes more than a canceled wake-up call to stop me.” Especially since she always set two extra alarms. Jet lag was no joke.
“Who would be so diabolical?” Walter asked, with a frown of fake concern. “At least it wasn’t kidnapping.”
“Nobody got kidnapped. You went there of your own free will. And it wasn’t exactly a gulag.”
“On the contrary. I found it inspiring.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Great background for my story. There’s nothing like historical context to give a piece of reporting depth, don’t you agree?
And Josephine Baker was such an icon. Another American expat, finding her castle in France—the story practically writes itself.
” He smiled at Hildy, all smugness and good hair.
“You must have had that in mind when you so generously sent me there.”
“Of course. Every step I take is meticulously planned.” She managed a thin smile of her own. “You’re welcome, by the way.” Hildy made a show of looking around the empty bus. “Where’s Maude?”
“She’s meeting us there.”
“Castle stuff?” Hildy guessed, wrinkling her nose in sympathy.
Walter’s eyes narrowed, as if he sensed a trap. “Yes.”
Never one to pass up an opportunity to grill someone about their private life, Hildy dropped into the seat next to his. “I have a question. About the two of you.”
“The two of who?”
“You and Maude.” Was it strange he had to ask? A little. But then he seemed distracted, blinking a few extra times as he focused on Hildy’s face.
“Okay,” he said, with visible reluctance.
Hildy took a deep breath. She could do this. “You probably know what I’m going to say.”
“Almost never.”
Was he for real right now? “It should be pretty obvious in this case.”
“Can I get a hint?”
“Sure. It starts with ‘were you dating her’ and ends in ‘when you had your tongue in my mouth behind the coatrack.’”
He had the nerve to blush, as if he was a sweet, innocent schoolboy. Ha! Schoolboys didn’t kiss like that.
“I seem to recall your tongue in my mouth too.”
Seem to recall? Like it was a faint memory?
Hildy could still feel the ghostly echo of his hand cupping her ass at inconvenient moments, such as right now.
The idea that she was doing involuntary Kegels over something that was barely a blip on Walter’s radar made her want to sharpen her claws on his shoulder.
“Since I wasn’t dating Maude at the time, my conscience is clear. ”
Walter’s mouth fell open, as if it had finally dawned on him what she was getting at. “No—me neither. There’s no overlap. Zero connection between the two.” He shook his head, in case the double denial wasn’t emphatic enough.
Hildy did the math in her head. “Then this is a recent development. Like, really, really recent. You figured what the hell, third date, let’s go to her sister’s wedding in France?”
More head shaking. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Huh.” She pursed her lips, pretending to think it over. “Because it looks like you’re getting ready to write about someone you’re also dating. Even though you allegedly don’t do that.”
“I can’t really talk to you about this,” Walter said after an uncomfortably long pause. He was staring at his hands, avoiding eye contact.
“Fine. Have it your way.” Springing out of her seat, she headed for the back of the bus.
“Hildy,” he said.
She tuned him out. It was none of her business if Maude cheated on Walter and they went through a big messy breakup that meant he had to leave before the wedding.
Life, Styled would be there to pick up the exclusive and run with it.
And what could be more important to Hildy than the future of her magazine?
The destination for today’s outing was a small agribusiness nestled among the rolling green hills outside the medieval city of Sarlat.
The Fauvard family had been producing foie gras and other duck-based delicacies for generations.
The actual food preparation took place behind the scenes, far from the tourist-facing tasting room inside a charmingly rustic converted barn.
While the proprietors described the delicacies they would be sampling today, Mr. Prescott beckoned at Walter to join him.
With the grace of a panther, Hildy prowled into eavesdropping range. It sounded like standard male bonding about all the meat they were about to eat, because God forbid anyone subsist on cheese and bread. Clearly Mr. Prescott was clueless about the magnificence of Girl Dinner.
Possibly she was being too harsh, but Fiona’s father had rubbed her the wrong way from the beginning, when he’d dropped several sledgehammer hints about his familiarity with her business.
Circulation growth (steady, if not astronomical); chief competitors; who among his “friends” had deigned to advertise in the pages of Life, Styled.
It could have been the mark of a polite host who studies up on his guests so he can make small talk, but to Hildy it smelled like a power play.
Mr. Prescott wanted her to know he had her number, in case she was thinking of printing something less than glowing about his daughter’s wedding.
She wondered if Walter had gotten a similar speech, or if his connection to Maude was enough of an insurance policy.
“Listen, I wanted to touch base about the wedding coverage,” Mr. Prescott was saying now. That was her cue.
Hildy deftly inserted herself between them. “I’m right here. Go ahead.”
“Good,” Mr. Prescott said, as if he’d summoned her. “Just making sure we’re all on the same page.”
“In what sense?” Walter asked.
“There’s no need to mention any of the fuss with this historic preservation person. Loke or whatever his name is. About the castle.”
Walter shot Hildy a look that said your turn.
“Which fuss would that be?” Hildy tried to sound like she already knew everything and was merely narrowing down the list.
“Red tape.” Mr. Prescott waved this off as if it were a gnat circling his lunch. “You know how these European bureaucracies operate.”
From the gravity of his hmm, you would have thought Walter routinely contemplated that very thing. Imports, exports. Embargoes. Shipping lanes. More business words.
“Are you worried it’s going to interfere with the ceremony?” Hildy asked.
“If it does, I know who to blame.” Mr. Prescott scowled through the open doors of the barn, shooting eye lasers at a mud-spattered car from which Lo?c had just emerged.
“He’s given poor Maude a hell of a time.
Not to mention the money he’s cost me.” He clapped a hand onto Walter’s shoulder. “I’m glad she has you to lean on.”
“Yes,” Hildy cooed, burying the sarcasm under a layer of sugar. “Isn’t she just so lucky? To have such a dependable and unwavering source of support.”
Fortunately, Mr. Prescott was oblivious to tone. Probably a survival mechanism, as the father of two daughters. With a vague farewell, he wandered off to hobnob with his other guests.
Meanwhile, Maude and her handsome history expert had joined the rest of the party in the tasting room.
Lo?c struck up an animated conversation with one of the staff members, who handed him a heaping taste of foie gras.
That would have been a fifty-dollar dollop stateside, but he didn’t hesitate to feed it to Maude, one hand cupped under her chin as he watched her lips close around the spoon.
Talk about gourmet foreplay. Get a plate, people. Maude dabbed at the corner of her mouth, which was still glossy and pink. Perks of being fed like a baby bird.
Hildy glanced at Walter to see if he’d noticed, but he was looking at her.
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
Unbridled sexual tension, Hildy almost said in response. “What do I think what is?”
Walter frowned, as if Hildy was the one missing the obvious. “The issue with the castle.”
“Roof or plumbing, if I had to guess.” She couldn’t quite read his expression. “Are you digging? Even though your girlfriend’s dad asked you to hush it up?”
He tried to disguise his flinch by scratching his neck. “It’s not a cover-up.”
“It’s a little bit of a cover-up.”
“Maybe it’ll be a moot point, if everything goes smoothly.”
In wedding-adjusted terms, “smoothly” translated to “nothing is messed up enough for guests to notice.” There was almost always a minor disaster behind the scenes.
The lighter ones—like choosing your wedding day to switch to a natural deodorant—made it into Life, Styled under the heading, “Psst! Letter to My Past Self.” A sewage-related disaster would be harder to laugh off.
“What will you do if the wedding doesn’t happen?” Hildy had an impulse to cross her fingers or toss salt over her shoulder to ward off the bad luck of saying the words out loud, but Walter seemed unperturbed by the question.
“Move on to the next extreme wedding.” His eyes flicked in her direction. “What about you?”
“Continue to thrive,” she lied.
No way was she going to tell Walter how much was riding on this story.
If Hildy couldn’t deliver on the promises she’d made to advertisers, a lot of them would walk, tanking the magazine’s budget for the entire quarter and possibly beyond.
So basically the wedding had to happen, even if Hildy needed to climb up there and hammer some roof beams herself.
Maybe if the person in charge of restoring the castle wasn’t distracted by a certain Frenchman, things would be progressing more rapidly. Oh brother, now Maude was brushing crumbs off the front of Lo?c’s shirt. Unless they were stuck on with superglue, she really didn’t need to rub that hard.