“I’m about to be a referee. It looks like The Pink Lady started a food fight. Is this customary at French engagement parties?”
She presses her hand to her chest and chuckles. “Mon cher, non. I think we’re watching a dramatic love triangle play out.”
What Cateline called a lorry when we were driving through the countryside, and I’d refer to as a truck, pushes a very small car covered in shaving cream toward the river. Gaston chases it, hollering in French.
The Pink Lady has abandoned her shaving cream and throws food at Cat, who dodges chunks of bread and cheese. The lady shrieks in a language that isn’t French, at least that I can tell.
I rush toward Cateline, but the grass is slick from the shaving cream and I slide under the table. Cateline’s ankles peek from under the cloth. I don’t want to startle her by grabbing one, so I lift the fabric and gesture that she come under to hide.
Yes, it’s silly and juvenile, but I am out of my league, a stranger in a strange land.
Cateline scowls at me. “Call her off.”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“How am I supposed to know who she is? I can’t even understand her.”
“Obviously, she knows you, Wolf.”
“Wolf? Not Monsieur Wolfe or Mr. Wolfe. Now I’m just Wolf?”
Dishware clatters nearby and a few people speak in frantic French. The table jostles and I realize this is ridiculous. I get to my feet at the same time I realize what Cateline must believe is going on.
“You think she’s after you because of me?”
“Why else would she be chasing me?”
My mouth opens and closes. “I don’t know. But I’ve never seen her before.”
“She’s been spraying me with shaving cream. That seems like something you’d be involved in.”
“Like a prank?” I ask as an olive bops me in the head.
Tugging Cateline with me, I duck behind a tree.
“She keeps saying something in Italian about a cat and fur.” Cateline shivers. “I think she wants to shave my head.”
I smooth my hand through her shaving cream-streaked hair. “Cateline, if I were involved, how would the woman have found me? How could I have orchestrated a prank this elaborate on such short notice?”
“You’re you.”
“I know, I know, I’m the king of pranks, but not even I could’ve pulled this off, given the intricacies and all the moving parts, what with the man in the truck pushing a car covered in shaving cream into the river.”
Cateline looks over my shoulder toward the water and winces. “Fair point.”
“And I’d hardly call it a prank, more like a soap opera.”
“It’s beyond dramatic.”
“And I’m going to guess The Pink Lady is upset with Gaston for rushing to you upon your return and filling his car, inside and out, with shaving cream.”
Cat’s lips part and she nods with understanding. “And that’s why she was chasing me. But what about the man in the lorry, pushing Gaston’s car into the river?”
“My guess is he is Mr. Pink Lady and is upset with his wife.”
She gasps. “That’s diabolical. It’s going to go viral.”
