Layla blinked, focusing back on Rosie, who clearly had been in the middle of something that Layla had entirely tuned out.
“What?” Layla said. “Wewanthim to come. It’s the night before their wedding.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Catch up, Grandma. I’m not talking about Michael now. I’m talking about Matthieu.”
“Matthieu?”
“The hot driver? From the night we went on the boat? Were you listening?”
“Oh,” Layla said, obviously having not been listening. Still, rude to get called a grandma, especially when she was wearing this top. She wasn’tthatmuch older than Rosie. “Yeah, I—”
“I mean, look, getting finger-fucked in the back of his work vehicle was honestly a top-three experience of this trip, but also, it’s not like it’s the start of arelationship. When he talks I don’t even understand what he’s say—” She broke off, digging her elbow sharply into Layla. “Oh my god, Michael’s here, fuckingfinally.”
Layla’s eyes snapped to the entrance, shaking off her momentary curiosity—Matthieu the driver! Rosie was really a dark horse—to see Michael coming through the door, head down. He was in a suit—navy, well-tailored, a purple flower tucked into hislapel, probably a Manon MacKenzie production. But Layla had never seen anyone look less put together while wearing something so nice. Even with his head lowered she could see his skin was red along his neck, a stark contrast to the bright white of his pressed collar. His hair, which he usually had meticulously combed, looked haphazardly done, uneven on one side. When he took a step, Layla saw that one of his shoes was untied, a string flapping against the parquet.
All that, she maybe could have ignored. A harried groom, a big night, a forgotten final look in the mirror before getting out the door.
But two things made it impossible.
First: When he lifted his eyes, he did not, for once, look for Emily immediately. Instead, his gaze seemed unseeing, drifting over the room as though he didn’t recognize anyone here at all.
Second: Griffin was not with him.
“Why the long face!” Rosie whisper-shouted, referring to Michael, but at this point, Layla was well past foreboding. She wasn’t anticipating something going wrong anymore; she was watching it happen.
“Rosie, can you—” she started to say, hoping to ask her to…she didn’t exactly know what. Designing some sort of distraction in that skirt seemed possible, or maybe announcing to the room the thing about the top three events from this trip. If she could get Rosie to pull focus, she could go over to Michael. Find out where Griffin was, find out how to help.
But Robert had already noticed Michael, crossing the room to pat his shoulder and say something jovially scolding about his tardiness, immediately drawing him over to the Nantes cousins, who were probably still getting the stink eye from the Placketts for being so foreign, soFrench.
Layla felt a pang of sympathy for Michael, of genuine understanding. She remembered her own rehearsal dinner, her and her father’s distance from each other impossible for anyone to miss, the tongue-clicks of pity over Vaughn (“Oh, your only brother!”) being unable to make it, all of it contrasted with the MacKenzies’ gregariousness and warmth and abundance.
She’d loved that about them.
But it had been so much pressure sometimes. Especially early on.
Michael was smiling in a strained way, shaking hands, leaning in to say what Layla thought was, “Again, I’m sorry?” to one of the cousins who was speaking quickly, probably in her thickly accented English. For the first time since arriving in Paris, since that first morning after the dinner where shethoughtit had all gone wrong, she thought she could probably be more useful to Michael than to Emily.
“Can you distract Emily for a few minutes?” she said to Rosie. “I’m going to grab Michael real quick. He looks a little overwhelmed.”
Rosie said, “Uh,yep,” as though this was the only plan that made any sort of sense, and then she was flouncing off, probably to call Miranda’s husband “Finance Guy” to his face.
Layla did not hesitate. She breathed in through her nose and put on a placid expression, a realwalking up the airplane aisleexpression, holding her champagne lightly and weaving her way toward where Robert and Michael and the cousins stood, Céline a new and sharp-eyed addition, judging by how keenly she was watching Michael.
“Laylapalooza!” Robert said in welcome, extending an arm as though she might automatically tuck herself right there, the way she had so many times in the past, when she was like a daughter tohim. But she dodged it, worried it would delay her. She smiled at the cousins, who had already given her double-kisses in greeting when they first arrived, one of them—her favorite, Anne—leaning in totskdramatically and say that Jamie must bebête comme ses pieds.
“I’ve been sent with a message for the groom,” she lied, a light, conspiratorial tone in her voice, the kind ofI’m doing one of those secret errands!codes that no one ever questioned at a special event.
Anne said, “Oh! We beg your pardon!” in her lovely accent, and drew everyone away, including Robert, who looked like he was going to attempt—probably not for the first time—to pry the Placketts out of their corner.
Layla was waiting, wanting everyone well out of earshot first, when Michael said, “A message.”
No inflection in it—no question mark at the end, and when she turned to look up at him, he was already looking down at her with that strange blankness in his eyes, unlike anything she’d ever seen since she’d first met him.
He looked hollow.
“Michael,” she said, nervous now, that briefI don’t careboldness absolutely abandoning her. “I was wondering if I could talk to you about—”
“Are you over Jamie?” he interrupted.
