Lola and Wulfric are there, suddenly. Wulfric pulls up a chair so that Lola can sit by him, forcing people to squeeze together to make room.

They’re just starting to serve, and a young manbun waiter comes over, clearly intending to ask Wulfric to move, being that the tables are designed for eight people, but then he seems to sense something foreboding about Wulfric, like a small animal sensing the presence of a malevolent force. He hesitates, then he pulls a place setting off a nearby table and sets it on ours.

“Thank you,” Wulfric says. “And I cannot stress this enough: I don’t want to see one speck of pineapple anywhere on this table. In fact, if I hear that even the tiniest molecule of pineapple is present anywhere on this floor or back in the kitchen, people will answer for it.”

“Yes, we’ve been made aware, sir.”

“Is somebody allergic to pineapple?” Sergei asks.

“Hugo is. He’s deathly allergic,” Wulfric barks. “I thought you went to school together.”

Meredith turns to Hugo. “You’re allergic to pineapple?”

Sergei says, “How did I not know this? We were roommates!”

“For crissake, what’s wrong with you people?!” Wulfric says in the most terrifying tone possible. “Pay attention! You could’ve killed him!”

Sergei looks pale. Meredith mumbles something about not knowing.

Hugo has his usual stormy poker face, but I, for one, am panicking. I reach for my water and deliberately knock it over into the breadbasket and condiment area. People jump up from their seats.

Waiters descend onto our table to clean it up and replace things.

The conversation never quite goes back to Hugo’s supposedly deathly allergies.

Even so, I’m quaking in my heels, hoping none of them will remember a specific instance where Hugo ate pineapple, or God forbid, produces photographic evidence.

Lola sits like a beautiful and mysterious sphinx, and when the fish is served, she points to it with a significant look at me and makes minnow biting motions with her fingertips.

ChapterFifty-Two

Hugo

The roadin front of the Regis Ritz is jammed with limos and taxis, and nobody seems willing to let anybody in or out. In other words, gridlocked.

Stella stares dolefully out the window at the throngs of people on the sidewalk.

“Quite the diversion back there,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” she says, clutching her golden purse, hopelessness radiating out from her.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Is it the pineapple?”

“No, it’s not the pineapple.”

“What, then?”

She turns to me, eyes shining, and not in a happy way. “How can you say that wasn’t our first kiss?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our first kiss wasn’t in your office. It was in the music room of my parents’ house.”

“But that wasn’t a real first kiss,” I say.

“Of course it was real,” she says.

“You didn’t know it was me. It was a kiss for another guy. I was sleeping at the time.”