Page 20 of My Best French Wedding

Walter chose to ignore the silent accusation. Like she was one to talk about trust and loyalty.

“And what, you were the only member of the team who didn’t have plans tonight?” He tipped toward her like a bowling pin. Hildy took a wobbling step back before Walter managed to right himself.

“No, I had to cancel myextremelyexciting social engagement to deal withyou.” She moved to poke him in the chest. Thanks to Walter’s evasive stagger and Hildy’s overcorrection, her finger landed closer to his belly button. He choked down a laugh, but only because it was a ticklish spot.

“So you did follow me here,” he taunted. “Obsessed much?”

“In your dreams,” she hissed, with a bounce of frustration. “I’m here to deliver a message.”

“You could have texted.”

She scoffed at that. “As if I have your number.”

That shouldn’t have stung. Then again, his reactions to Hildy had never been entirely logical. “You found me,” he said, as if he were eager to move along and see what the contortionists and fire-eaters were up to, or swing by the Nightmare Parlor for one of the wedding favors, a complimentary mystery tattoo. “What’s the message? Or is that code for ‘someone’s about to give me a beatdown’?”

“Stop messing with my people.” Hildy loaded each word with menace, hands fisted at her hips.

“Yourpeople?” Walter shook his head in mock confusion. “I thought you were a team.”

“Don’t play innocent with me. I’m wise to your tricks.”

“Who’s playing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Let me refresh your memory. Two months ago, at that Edwardian LARPer wedding in Queens. A freelancer named June? Strawberry blond hair, with the little barrettes in front?”

She waited for Walter to fill in the gaps, but he could only shrug. He knew which wedding she meant—the fashions were hard to forget—but couldn’t see how his actions that day had been problematic, unless it was the fact of his existence Hildy objected to.

“I loaned her a pen. Did it leak in her bag or something?”

“I’m not here about apen. How petty do you think I am?”

“I feel like I probably shouldn’t answer that.”

Hildy stomped in frustration, then had to dance her feet around to regain her balance. “You told her to quit her job!”

Walter was shaking his head before she finished. “I definitely did not do that.” They’d chatted a bit before the ceremony, sure. And now that Hildy mentioned it, Walter vaguely recalled a young and nervous June bringing up her interest in macroeconomics. Since most of his career was built on random confessions from strangers, it hadn’t struck Walter as a particularly significant detail.

“That’s funny, because she left before the freaking vows and came racing back to the office to tell us about meeting this super ‘wise’ older man who helped her see that her real passion was going back to school to finish her PhD. I asked myself who she could possibly be talking about,” Hildy continued, walking in a slow yet lurching circle around him. “It was the ‘wise’ part that threw me.”

“Of course,” Walter murmured, when she glanced at him to make sure the insult had landed.

“But then it hit me—”

“Sounds painful.”

She held a finger to her lips for silence. “The only person who would do anything possible to undermine my magazine isyou.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t spend my days thinking about how tothwart you, Hildy.” Walter waited for a bolt of lightning to strike him down for lying.

“Then why did you use your Jedi mind tricks on her?”

“All I did was listen. It’s called empathy.”

“Maybe you should invest in a thesaurus because I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is ‘sabotage.’”

It was possibly the dweebiest argument they’d ever had, and that was not a low bar. “Listen, Hildy—”

“Ooh, are you going to mansplain something to me?” She lowered her voice to a rumble, in apparent imitation of him. “‘Listen, Hildy, sometimes people don’t want a job at your silly little magazine. Get over it.’”