26. Hildy
Hildy
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE PRESCOTT-SCHAFER WEDDING
TAMNIèS, France—When the knock sounded at Hildy’s door that evening, her first reaction was hallelujah, a break from talking about numbers with Corinne!
Until she found herself face-to-face with a despondent Robbie, at which point the spreadsheets didn’t seem so bad. She steeled herself. Time to pay the piper.
“Do you want to come in?” Hildy gestured behind her. “Corinne and I were just having a quick business chat.” That was a euphemism for making emergency plans in the likely event that our current business model goes up in flames.
“Actually, I was hoping you could come outside. To talk to Fiona.” He stuck his hands in his pockets.
“It’s about the wedding,” Robbie finally admitted, surprising exactly no one.
He glanced past Hildy at the papers spread on her coffee table, overseen by a grim-faced Corinne.
“But I don’t want to interrupt your meeting. ”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hildy said. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to apologize. Give me five minutes and I’ll be right there.”
Robbie nodded, still looking weighed down by his cares. “She’s at the pool.”
“Got it.” Hildy sent him off with an encouraging smile, closing the door before turning slowly back to Corinne.
“You’re coming, right?” Hildy asked, ducking into the bathroom.
Corinne set down her wineglass. “Talking people around is your area. Half the time they don’t even realize it’s happening.”
“I mean, they sort of know,” Hildy said, keeping it humble. “They just choose to go along with it because they realize it’s in their best interests.”
“Either that or you wear them down until they don’t have any strength left to resist.”
“Potato, potahto.” Hildy hesitated, afraid to give voice to her fears in case it made them manifest. “What if I fuck it up?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that would be very bad. For our bottom line.”
“And sad,” Hildy reminded her. “For Fiona and Robbie.”
“Yes, Dr. Seuss. And don’t forget how mad you’ll be if we get kicked off the story and Walter has it all to himself.”
“Right.” She shook out her arms. “Okay, I’m getting fired up.”
Corinne stood to gather her papers. “Go get ’em, tiger.”
Fiona was sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the deep end.
“Mind if I join you?” Hildy asked, kicking off her sandals.
Fiona glanced at her. “Did Robbie find you?”
“Was he not supposed to?”
Fiona swished her feet, not quite making a splash. “You probably think he’s super mellow, but he has a hard time when I get upset. You know how some people can’t see someone puke without throwing up?”
“Are you feeling sick?” A rocket went off in Hildy’s brain, blazing a trail of hypotheticals.
Is Fiona pregnant? Does she know she’s pregnant?
Was Hildy going to have to be the one to get Fiona Prescott to pee on a stick?
She tried to remember if she’d seen Fiona partaking in the wine tasting, but as usual Hildy had been too occupied with Walter to pay more than passing attention to the rest of the world.
“This is like emotional distress.” Fiona touched her chest. “If I cry, Robbie starts crying. It’s super intense.
And then his eyes will be all puffy and bloodshot, and people will assume we don’t love each other, when it has nothing to do with that.
I wish we could be alone, just the two of us, instead of having all this”—she gestured at the hotel, or possibly the entire countryside—“breathing down our necks.”
“Do you want to talk about it? Or I could get your sister?” Hildy wondered why Robbie hadn’t sought out Maude in the first place.
“Good luck with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s with Lo?c.” Fiona slid her a knowing glance. “I should have known that whole thing with your guy was a smoke screen.”
“Walter isn’t my guy.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to put a label on it if you’re not there yet.”
“Yeah, no, that’s not—we’re not together.”
Fiona frowned like Hildy might be holding out on her. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“But he’s totally into you?”
Hildy’s heart chose that moment to take up ski jumping. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You’re into him, though.” Fiona didn’t even have the decency to make it sound like a question.
“You know what? Let’s talk about you. And Robbie! Who is such a great guy.” Hildy infused her voice with maximum cheer, like a human air freshener pumping out clouds of cinnamon-scented bliss. “Which is why all that stuff I said in the cave has nothing to do with the two of you.”
Fiona looked down at her feet, swishing up and down without breaking the surface of the water. “You’re worried I’m going to call off the wedding.”
“No! It’s not that.” Hildy paused to check in with her conscience, verifying that what she’d just said was true. Or if not the whole truth, at least in the ballpark. “As you may have noticed, Walter and I have … a history. If he says the sky is blue, I say it’s purple.”
“It could be,” Fiona pointed out. “At sunset.”
“See? You’re an optimist. Usually I am too. All that dark stuff was coming from a place of panic and bitterness. Walter and I don’t bring out the best in each other. Not like you and Robbie.”
Fiona twisted the fringed hem of her cover-up. “So you don’t really believe all those things you said?”
Hildy wondered if she was crossing a line by getting this involved, but she was a person first and a journalist second.
Having a heart-to-heart with the bride wasn’t that different from hand stitching seed pearls to someone’s bodice fifteen minutes before she was due to walk down the aisle, which Hildy had also done.
Not to mention the part where the current crisis might be a teensy bit her fault.
“All that matters is what you think. You have a lot more experience with love than I do.”
“Actually,” Fiona countered, “Robbie said we could learn from you two.”
“Oh? Learn what, exactly?”
“Don’t hold on to anger for so long that your love gets lost and buried and you fight all the time.”
“Right.” Before Hildy could point out that “love” wasn’t really the right word, Fiona went on.
“I never fight with Robbie. The closest we got was when we took Viennese waltz lessons for the wedding and Robbie wanted to add a breakdancing circle in the middle. Is that weird?”
The breakdancing? Hildy almost asked, but Fiona wasn’t finished.
“Does it mean we’re not passionate enough?”
“Not at all! Fighting isn’t fun.” Sometimes it was a little bit fun, but Fiona didn’t need to know that.
“Uh-oh.” Fiona tilted her head at the other side of the pool, where a dark-haired mistake from Hildy’s past was standing in the shadows. “Looks like he found you.”
“He was probably looking for you.”
“Mm, no. I could be a stack of towels right now. That’s how much he noticed me.” Fiona shifted her weight, leaning back on her hands. “It’s nice to be ignored for a change.”
That was an unexpected angle for a bride. “Is it?”
“Yeah,” Fiona admitted. “This whole week, I feel like every conversation is the dentist’s office.”
“Painful?”
“All up in my face. Open wide, Fiona! We want to poke around your private business with stabby metal things. Keep smiling! A little bigger! Are you happy? How happy? Show us!”
Hildy let the dust of Fiona’s speech settle before replying.
Big emotions deserved their own space. “It does suck, to feel like you’re a blood bag and everyone is a mosquito.
The love of the masses doesn’t keep you warm at night.
” She’d never been a bride, but Hildy’s time as a so-called celebutante had taught her more than enough about the sensation of having your life on display.
“Especially when the one person you want to be watching you isn’t.” Fiona’s voice trembled.
Oh shit. Was she pining for someone else? Hildy could deal with logistical snafus and mood swings all day, but the human heart was trickier to wrangle.
“You mean—?” Hildy made it sound like she was confirming something she already knew, praying Fiona would fill in the blank.
“My mom.” Fiona’s eyes were damp. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Hildy nodded, even though her answer was closer to sort of.
Walter chose that moment to stroll over. “Am I interrupting?”
“Walter has a mom,” Hildy heard herself say.
“I—yes?”
“Lucky,” Fiona sighed.
“Yeah, but look at him.” Hildy nudged Fiona with her elbow. “Is he getting married?”
Fiona’s teary gaze ping-ponged from Hildy to Walter. “Not that I know of?”
“He’s not.” The false alarm with Maude was already fading from Hildy’s memory like a bad dream.
“I’m not,” Walter agreed, waiting until Fiona looked away to shoot Hildy a where are you going with this? brow lift.
“See? No one has everything. He still has his mom, but he probably lives alone in a sad bachelor pad.”
“So sad,” Walter murmured. “Stacks of pizza boxes, and cheap posters Blu Tacked to the wall.”
The desire to see for herself burst like a firework at the back of Hildy’s brain, but she refused to be distracted.
“He isn’t coming home to someone like Robbie every night.” She jerked a thumb at Walter.
“True,” he agreed. “He’s never there.”
Hildy locked eyes with Fiona. “You have so much love in your life. Think about that, instead of what you might or might not be missing.”
“You’re right.” Fiona tipped her head back to stare at the night sky. “I am very lucky. And I hope you have someone who loves you too.”
“Me?” Hildy was excruciatingly conscious of Walter listening to every word.
“Um, yes. My uncle and my cousins. Several of my step-aunts.” She forced herself not to glance in Walter’s direction, even though her family was far from a neutral topic for the two of them.
“They don’t understand me, but they do love me. ”
And maybe that was as good as it got for most people. The idea of finding someone you could talk to about anything, who connected with you on the deepest level and adored you anyway, was a dangerous illusion. Hildy had learned that at a young age and lowered her expectations accordingly.
“I know there are people who have much less than I do. Not just in money or houses,” Fiona clarified, lest they think she was out of touch. “Ugh, that’s enough about me. Let’s talk more about you two.” She waved at Walter to sit.
He settled down a little closer to Hildy than seemed warranted.
Fiona took this in with avid interest. She probably also noticed Hildy staring at Walter’s calves as he rolled up his pants.
Was he a runner now, or was he getting that cut from CrossFit?
If only this were an interview and she had an excuse to barrage him with questions.
“So how did you meet?” Fiona asked. “Was it at a wedding?”
“Sort of,” Walter began.
“It’s a boring story,” Hildy cut in. “Not worth repeating.”
Walter leaned forward. “She’s being modest.”
“No, I’m being honest. There’s a difference.”
“Really? I’d love to hear you explain it.”
“Good thing you’re used to disappointment.
” Hildy forced herself to leave it at that when she realized Fiona was watching this exchange like it was the hot new drama on HBO.
At least she looked entertained rather than mopey, almost as if …
the Walter situation wasn’t a liability after all.
Or not at the moment anyway, when Fiona was desperate for a distraction.
And what was more diverting than knowing other people’s lives were more fucked up than yours?
Hildy felt the tug of an idea trying to take shape from the swirling cauldron of her thoughts. Fiona was tired of being stared at. She wanted more time with Robbie. A distraction lightened her mood. She had doubts about her wedding plan …
“She’s plotting something,” Walter whispered to Fiona.
“You don’t know that.” It was a reflexive denial. Hildy’s brain was running full scheme ahead.
He made a low grinding noise. “I can hear the wheels turning.”
“That is not how my brain sounds.” She jabbed a finger at the side of her head. “My mind is an electric vehicle.”
“Scooter?” he guessed.
“Porsche.” Hildy locked eyes with Walter, daring him to challenge her metaphor with gratuitous mansplaining.
Fiona pressed her lips together, stifling a giggle.
Right. The plan. That was the primary objective.
“So what is it?” Walter asked.
She turned to Fiona. “I think you need a minute to reconnect with the heart of what’s happening here. We can’t let all the noise and confusion obscure what matters most. Which is why I think we should go see your castle.”
“Now?” Fiona’s eyes were huge. “In the dark? Us three?”
“You and Robbie,” Hildy corrected. “And me.”
“And also me,” Walter interjected.
“Plus Corinne,” Hildy said, since apparently they were making it a group outing.
“We’ll have to ask Maude. And she’ll probably want to bring her secret boyfriend.” Fiona glanced at Walter, who nodded to confirm he was cool with Lo?c’s presence.
“Meet by the van in fifteen minutes?” Hildy phrased it as a question, trusting everyone to understand it was really an order.
“This is so spontaneous.” Fiona pressed a hand to her mouth, like she couldn’t believe their audacity. “It’s not even on the itinerary!”