18. Hildy
Hildy
THREE DAYS BEFORE THE PRESCOTT-SCHAFER WEDDING
TAMNIèS, France—According to an aww-inducing note in the wedding program, today’s entertainment, Un Jour à la Campagne, was an homage to Robbie’s favorite elementary school event, a daylong celebration of physical challenges in the great outdoors.
Instead of Popsicles and water balloons and three-legged races, the wedding guests would take part in slightly more elevated activities that paid homage to local culture.
Hildy thought it was nice they’d carved out a little time on the itinerary for something Robbie-centric, even if grown-up Field Day wouldn’t have been her first choice so soon after washing her hair.
A lot of weddings gave the groom less airtime than the DJ.
The fact that Fiona was willing to share the spotlight tracked with her observations about the two of them as a genuinely sweet couple.
Reason number infinity she needed to nail this story—once she established Life, Styled’s exclusive coverage rights.
A frisson of unease tried to hijack her thoughts, but Hildy kicked it aside. She had a plan for the day, and she was going to follow it. Step one: a little first-person immersion in current events.
When the bus delivered them to the open pasture outside the hotel village where most of the games would take place, she immediately looked for the archery area. Due to a mild Robin Hood fixation in childhood, Hildy had always suspected she might be a secret prodigy with a bow and arrow.
“Are you picturing me with an apple on my head?” Walter asked when she was standing in line for her turn.
“I wasn’t thinking about you at all.” For once it was true. Her thoughts had been fully occupied with a vision of herself in head-to-toe leather, supple and fawn-brown, not shiny and black like a divorced dad in a bomber jacket psyching himself up to “get back out there” on the dating scene.
“Bold choice,” Walter continued his unsolicited commentary.
Her first thought was that he was questioning her ability to pull off leather pants. Then she remembered he couldn’t actually read her mind, despite how often it felt that way. She executed a slow turn, like she was barely interested enough to spare the energy. “What is?”
“You. Shooting a bow.”
“You don’t think I can do it?” Her temper was at a low simmer, standing by to see how far he pushed it.
Walter rubbed the pads of his fingers together. “You might get blisters. Especially with those soft hands.”
“I’m touched by your concern.” Even though the soft hands bit was almost certainly a dig about her background.
“Don’t let me stop you. It’s no skin off my nose if you can’t type.”
“Since when are you an archery expert?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Hildy took her time looking him over, focusing on Walter’s upper body. Her memories of the coatroom incident were a mix of foggy and blade-sharp, but she did recall the firmness of his shoulders, and how easily he’d supported her weight while simultaneously crushing her against him.
“Not really,” she admitted.
Walter seemed surprised, as if he’d been bracing for a fight. Some of the tension left his posture. “I covered the MacCormack-McKissack wedding. Medieval theme. You weren’t at that one.”
“No. We did the Manion-O’Neills that weekend. In Newport.”
“With the regatta?”
“Yep.”
“Nice.”
“It was.” Look at her, agreeing with Walter Burns!
For a moment, they were two colleagues talking shop.
It was a dynamic Hildy had never imagined—neutral, casual, mild—instead of their usual all or nothing.
She tried to picture the two of them as polite acquaintances. The prospect was strangely deflating.
Hildy stepped out of line. “I changed my mind.” She glanced at her manicure as if that was the issue. Better for Walter to think she was a prima donna than watch her try something she might not be good at.
With a smile that was supposed to mean buh-bye, she headed toward the paint-your-own-pottery station. That was a skill Hildy knew she could perform even after several glasses of pinot.
“Can I help you?” she asked, when Walter fell in beside her.
“I was going to ask if you wanted to try canoeing.”
“You really think we could paddle in sync?” Hildy had a vivid mental picture of the two of them turning in circles for hours until they finally capsized from exhaustion. She stopped walking in order to glare more effectively. “Are you planning to follow me all day?”
“Yes, Hildy. I’m trying to copy off your paper.”
A person who didn’t know Walter well might have missed the undercurrent of snark, but to Hildy it was like a metal snap fastening into place. They were back in alignment.
“I thought you might be hoping for one last score,” she volleyed. “Déjà vu all over again.”
“Here?” He made a show of looking around. “In this field full of people?”
“You wish. A score as in selling a story about my private life to your former tabloid overlord. For old time’s sake.”
He took a step closer. “And what exactly would I report?”
“You want me to give you the headline? Way to phone it in, Burns.” Hildy surveyed the nearest cluster of wedding guests. “Maybe I’m dating him. In the pink shorts.” She indicated a group of Robbie’s college buddies on their way to the lake.
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Rugby thighs.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Yes, you do.” Hildy sent a flirty little wave at her hypothetical vacation boyfriend. He pointed at himself, brow creased.
“Do you even know that guy?”
“Does it matter? I’m sure you can get someone to take a picture of me standing near him. Voila! Instant relationship.”
To his credit, Walter took that one on the chin, lowering his head as if to say touché.
“I guess I could ask him out,” Hildy mused, staring at the sporty stranger as if giving the idea serious consideration. “Add a little meat to the story. As it were. Maybe it’ll turn into something. That would be a great anecdote to tell our grandchildren.”
Hildy’s imaginary paramour took a step in their direction, until Walter’s glare stopped him in his tracks.
“I don’t see it,” Walter said. “A guy like that—he’s not going to give you what you need.”
“Which is what?” It was foolish to allow Walter that kind of opening, but Hildy’s curiosity outweighed her sense of self-preservation.
“Someone who can go toe to toe with you.” Walter turned to face her. “Otherwise you’ll get bored.”
That was an uncannily accurate summation of her dating history. Hildy pretended not to care. “Well, let me know if you run across someone who has what it takes.”
“I will.” His inflection was just ambiguous enough to give her pause.
“Is that why you’re nipping at my heels, Walter? You think I require a chaperone?”
“Most of this stuff is for pairs, and I don’t really know anyone else. Except Corinne, and she went back to the hotel to meet Gabby’s shuttle.”
Hildy waited for Walter to correct himself. “And Maude,” she prompted when he appeared to have been struck by girlfriend amnesia.
“Oh. Right.” His slow nod was the definition of unconvincing.
“You know, don’t you?” A wave of guilt made Hildy’s skin prickle, like it was a size too small for her body. She should have said something sooner.
“Know what?”
Shit. Maybe he didn’t know. “Something about Maude?” she hinted, keeping it vague.
“Are you trying to trick me into revealing something about the wedding?”
“No! This isn’t about work.” Unless Walter disappeared to lick his wounds when the situation with Maude blew up.
It was not a thought that brought any satisfaction.
If anyone was going to make him run away crying when he got his ass handed to him at this wedding, it should be Hildy.
After she told him the truth about his girlfriend, because if their positions were reversed, Hildy would want to know.
And there was a difference between pranking someone and neglecting to mention the ticking time bomb under their bed.
“I know the timing isn’t great, and I’m probably the last person you want to hear this from, but I think Maude … might be involved with that Lo?c guy.” She braced herself for denial or even anger, but Walter just blinked at her, like he’d temporarily gone offline.
After waiting a few more seconds, Hildy’s patience ran out. “Are you doing some kind of man thing where you act like you don’t have feelings, or do you not believe me? Because I swear, I’m only trying to dominate you professionally. I wouldn’t mess with your personal life.”
“Good to know.”
“You don’t seem that upset.”
“I’m not.”
She studied his face for signs that he was crying on the inside before accepting that Walter was telling her the truth. Which meant … well, she wasn’t sure what exactly, except that she’d just embarrassed herself. “I should have listened to Corinne. She said you probably had an open relationship.”
“It’s not that.”
“Throuple?”
Walter sighed. “We’re friends.”
There was an audible pause before she asked, “Who?”
“Me and Maude. Who did you think I meant?”
“That. What you said.” She cleared her throat. “Explain.”
“We hung out a few times. It was obvious to both of us it wasn’t going to go any further, but she needed a date to her sister’s wedding, and figured I might want to cover it. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“When you say, ‘mutually beneficial,’ does that mean sex?”
“No. I told you—it’s not like that. At all.”
“Damn it!”
“You’re mad I’m not sleeping with Maude?”
“No! I’m upset that you fooled me. Here I am, a past master of the fake-dating form, and I totally fell for it.
I must be losing my touch.” She shook her head.
“And to think I was worried about your feelings. No wonder you don’t care whether she’s making l’amour with another dude. I thought you were just clueless.”
“You have a lot of faith in my observational skills. Considering how not subtle those two have been.”
“People see what they want to see.” Surely he’d been to enough weddings to realize that. “Love is blind, etcetera.”
Walter looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but a buzzing electric hum announced the arrival of Mr. Prescott aboard a tricked-out golf cart with garlands of flowers draped around the sides.
“If it isn’t the press pool,” he said, gliding to a stop beside them. “Enjoying yourselves?”
As with most of her conversations with their host, there were multiple layers to what sounded like a simple question.
Are you impressed with the scale of this production?
Can you believe someone as important as yours truly is taking the time to be friendly with the help?
I trust your publication will pay suitable tribute to the majesty of this wedding?
“Yes.” Hildy widened her eyes just enough to appear sweet and innocent without looking like a dope.
“Very much so,” Walter chimed in.
“We were pleased to be able to get Scudro. He did the landscape art piece you’ll see on the helicopter tour. You know, a lot of people think Banksy has gone bougie.”
Hildy nodded as if she’d heard the same thing, while privately wondering if Mr. Prescott had seriously attempted to hire the famously anonymous guerilla artist as a party clown for his daughter’s wedding week.
“Have you tried the life-size Settlers of Catan?”
“It’s on our list.” Walter didn’t specify which list.
“Good, good.” Mr. Prescott was already scanning the horizon. “You haven’t seen Maude, have you?”
Hildy stared at the grass as if she was searching for a four-leaf clover. There was no chance she could talk about Maude right now without giving away the game.
“She’s working on something at the castle,” Walter replied.
Mr. Prescott sighed. “Poor Maude is going to need a vacation when all this is over.” In case that wasn’t enough of a hint, he added, “I know she’s been wanting to visit the Maldives.”
That part was clearly directed at Walter, who managed to maintain an expression of casual interest. Because what this conversation needed was more layers of awkward.
Wrong guy, Hildy wanted to say, preferably while giving the golf cart a nice hard shove from behind.
There was just enough of an incline for it to roll away.
She forced herself to stand still as Mr. Prescott waved at someone standing near one of the food tents.
“There’s Philippe,” he informed them. “Do you know him?”
“I’m afraid not,” Hildy said, after sliding Walter a quick look to make sure he wasn’t nodding.
“Philippe Vasseur. Of Papier Propre. The largest supplier of paper products in western Europe,” he added when neither of them responded.
“Of course,” Walter murmured, as if that guess had been on the tip of his tongue. Hildy would have kicked him if she wasn’t wearing sandals.
“We’re like a family in this business,” Mr. Prescott continued, as though they’d requested an impromptu soliloquy about his corporate BFFs. “If you tallied up all the guests at this wedding, you’d be looking at near-total control of the global paper industry.”
If he was suggesting she work that tidbit into her story, Mr. Prescott was higher than a kite.
“Hard to put out a newspaper without paper, eh? Or a magazine.” He slapped his thigh a few times, which apparently signaled that the conversation was over. The golf cart lurched into motion, trundling slowly over the grass.
They watched in silence until he was out of hearing range.
“Some people watch too much TV,” Hildy said as the hum of the engine faded. As if scheming billionaires needed more negative role models. “I take it he doesn’t know. About you and Maude?”
Walter shook his head.
“He’s going to be so bummed.”
“I doubt it. I don’t exactly fit in with this crowd.”
“They’re not Hapsburgs, Walter. It’s the twenty-first century.”
“Like calls to like. Look at Robbie and Fiona.”
“You think money is what they have in common?”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
Hildy wanted to tell him that he was wrong about that. Money could hurt as easily as anything else people used against you.
“You could tell him,” Walter pointed out. “Maude’s father. About me. He might be pissed enough to send me packing.”
Did he really think she would stoop that low? Maybe his opinion of her would always be in the gutter. What was the French expression, “plus ca change”? She flashed him her fakest smile.
“No, thanks. I’m not in the business of selling secrets.”