Hers for the weekend, p.21
Hers for the Weekend, page 21
Tara pulled a sweater over her head and reached for a pair of leggings. “You were definitely not this giggly about marrying me.”
“That’s why I didn’t marry you!” Miriam said, bouncing onto her feet and hopping off the bed. “Okay! Let’s go find coffee and muffins, and the hairdresser is supposed to be here from Lake Placid soon. Do you know the hairdresser? He cut Hannah’s hair. He’s the only person who can deal with my curls. And then you can make sure that I didn’t miss any wrinkles in my jumpsuit when I steamed it because I should not be allowed to steam things but I couldn’t let my mom do it because I’m pretty sure she would ruin it on purpose to get me to wear the dress she thinks I don’t know she snuck in and—”
Holly looked at Tara. “Don’t let her drink any more coffee.”
“Come on, little bit,” Tara said. “Let’s feed you. Tell me what you’re envisioning for your hair.”
This was her comfort zone, and why she had come. Finally she could help, and maybe earn a little bit of the space her friends had made for her here.
Following happily after her, Miriam started talking about Cher going to the opera in Moonstruck.
After steaming the jumpsuit, Tara left Miriam in the hands of the hairdresser, whom she of course did not know, having not been at Carrigan’s in more than a year, but who had, she admitted, done a killer job on Hannah’s hair. She stuck her head out into the hall and was immediately snagged by Cole.
“You have to come help Noelle. She won’t let me fix her hair at all.”
“Why would you fix Noelle’s hair?” Tara asked, allowing herself to be pulled into the room Noelle was using to get ready. “She has much better hair than you do.”
Noelle met Tara’s eyes in the mirror she was sitting in front of. “Thank you. That’s what I told him.”
“Okay,” Cole argued, “that’s fair, but you’ve been messing with it for forty-five straight minutes and according to Hannah’s minute-by-minute itinerary, you were only allotted thirty-nine minutes, and now you absolutely have to get into your tux.”
“Wow. Do you think Hannah will plan my wedding?” Tara said, flipping through the multipage document Cole had been waving.
Cole’s eyes lit up. “She will if you get married at Carrigan’s!”
She leveled him with her best “are you fucking kidding me” look, but he was immune. Putting her hands on her hips, she turned to Noelle. “Can I fix your hair? I guarantee I will make it hot as shit.”
Noelle regarded her seriously in the mirror, then nodded. “I probably should not let the woman whose girlfriend I stole do my hair for my wedding, but I can’t get the yarmulke to sit right and you do have excellent hair yourself.”
“Fiancée,” Tara reminded her. “You stole my fiancée. But I owe you for that. It would have been a really shitty divorce in a couple of years. And I would never, ever fuck up a butch’s hair on her wedding day.”
Cole looked between them. “Is there, like, a lesbian code of honor I don’t know about?”
They both laughed at him, and Tara fixed Noelle’s hair and then her suspenders.
“I need you!” Hannah said, bursting in.
“Me?” Noelle and Cole both asked, each pointing to themselves.
“Hell no.” Hannah looked appalled. “I need Tara.”
Tara shrugged, and Hannah pulled her out into the hallway. “Rabbi Ruth needs you to—”
“TARA!” Miriam shouted, her head popping into view in the hallway. Her hair looked amazing. “My zipper is stuck and I can’t get my eyeliner wings right!”
“Don’t you people have a wedding planner?” Tara asked. “What were you going to do if I didn’t come to this wedding?”
“Not get married,” Miriam said, as if it were obvious. “Fix my zipper!”
Sighing, she ducked into the room. “Can someone else help Rabbi Ruth?” she called back to Hannah.
“I got it,” Hannah said, her eyes looking only a little panicked. “Somehow.”
Cole was right behind her. “Mimi, is there a secret lesbian code of ethics?” he whined. “Oh, you look incredible. But is Tara going to fix your eyeliner wings?”
“How would I know?” Miriam asked him. “I’m a bisexual. The bisexual code of ethics is, like, don’t sit correctly in a chair and all cops are bastards. The lesbians tell me nothing.”
“Should I be a bisexual?” Cole wondered aloud.
Both Tara and Miriam looked at him.
“No, it won’t work.” He sighed. “I’m too gay.”
Cole had come to his understanding of his own homosexuality late and was trying to make up for lost time by jumping all in as hard as he could. Tara was, obviously, thrilled for him, and also secretly entertained.
“Okay, Mir, turn toward me. I’m going to fix your eyeliner.”
“Cole,” Miriam said over Tara’s shoulder. “I love you. Go away.”
“Should I find someone who needs something from me?”
“No,” they both said at once.
Cole pouted. “I’m going to go make out with Sawyer.”
“Not in the walk-in,” Miriam joked.
“As if Levi would ever let me back in his kitchen,” Cole scoffed.
Miriam grimaced. “Someone should probably keep an eye on him, but it can’t be me.”
“I’ll text Holly,” Tara said. “She can make sure he doesn’t leave any doors open in Noelle’s work shed or anything.”
Miriam paled. “Please try to get him to get dressed?”
“What are the parameters?” Tara asked. “Is he allowed to wear pants embroidered with lobsters?”
Laughing, Miriam nodded. “In fact, I have special ordered him brand-new lobster pants with a matching suit jacket. All he needs to do is put it on.”
“You love him so much more than I do,” Tara observed, her eyes wide with horror.
“Hmm,” Miriam said, smiling a little. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s weird that you’re insightful now,” Tara told her. There had been a lot of years when Miriam barely noticed the world around her.
“Isn’t it?” Miri turned back to look at herself in the mirror and gasped joyfully.
Tara’s eyes absolutely did not well up with happy tears. Nope. Not even a little. “Your eyes are perfect, your face and hair are perfect. Are you ready? What’s next?”
Hannah opened the door. “You ready for photos?”
“Can one of you put on my shoes? I can’t bend over in this jumpsuit. I wanted to look sexy, and I flew too close to the sun,” Miriam said, sticking out one leg and pointing her toes.
Tara sighed, picking up her foot and slipping on her bedazzled Chucks. “This is a bit far, even for a lesbian. You know this is not what normal people ask of their exes on their wedding day, right?”
Miriam blinked at her, mascaraed lashes sweeping down onto her elven cheeks. “We’re not normal people. We’re Team Carrigan’s.”
“Speak for yourself,” Tara said, horribly aware that she wanted to be Team Carrigan’s, even if she felt she didn’t deserve to be. “I’m going to go check on Holly and finish getting dressed, okay?”
“I literally don’t know what we would have done without you today,” Miriam said, squeezing her hand.
Tara tried to smile. “You know me. Indispensable.”
Because she made herself that way, because she had always been certain no one would ever love her enough to keep her otherwise. That was too much introspection for the middle of this wedding.
She managed to get back to her room without being waylaid by anyone else needing her for anything, and slumped back against the door once it was closed behind her.
“Sloane.” Holly smirked from where she was sitting on the bed and zipping up her boots. She looked stunning, long burgundy lace sleeves falling past her wrists and hugging her body.
“Siobhan,” Tara acknowledged, pushing off the door. “Those people are so needy.”
“You know they’re going to want you for pictures.” Holly pushed off the bed and walked toward her. “Let’s get you into your dress.”
Tara shook her head. “Why would they want me in pictures?”
Holly blinked at her. “Uh, you’re family?”
She blew out an exasperated breath, although she was secretly what Miriam would have called verklempt. These five days had been healing in a way she could never have expected, allowing her a glimpse of what it would feel like to be unconditionally accepted in a family. That glimpse was going to sustain her for a long time when she went back into the breach. She would never have been able to feel all those things if Holly hadn’t been here, to be an anchor and a home base.
“You made all this possible,” Tara told her, trying to sound less choked up than she felt. It was ridiculous to cry over this. “Having you here, on my team, allowed me to be present for them in a way I could never have otherwise. I would have been in my head, worried about how I was coming across and what they were thinking of me.”
Before Holly could respond, Tara pulled her vintage mint and gold brocade dress over her head and turned so Holly could zip her up. She did, but then she dropped a soft kiss on Tara’s shoulder blade, left bare by the wide boat neck that dipped low in the back.
“I feel very grateful to have been here for this,” Holly whispered against her skin.
They walked hand in hand down the hallway, Tara trailing her fingers over the parrots on the brand-new, vintage reproduction wallpaper that didn’t smell at all like mold. Everything was beginning brand-new this week. Hannah and Levi were growing a new life, Noelle and Miriam were starting a new marriage, and Tara and Holly… well, they might be starting something real.
Tara believed that Holly was talented, smart, and hard-working enough that, if she tried, she could do anything in the world. It wouldn’t be simple, but Tara would happily work to convince her family that a small business owner was the ideal partner, if it meant she got to be with Holly. She just had to convince Holly that being with Tara was worth it.
She was absolutely certain that Holly would be happier if she left waitressing to bake full-time, but she wasn’t convinced that Holly would be happier with her.
Chapter 22
Holly
Holly found Cole dutifully getting dressed, adjusting the sleeves of his suit coat and fidgeting with his hair—fixing wave by individual wave with his very expensive curler/blow-dryer.
“Nicholas Fraser, are there lobsters embroidered on your suit? For a Jewish wedding?”
He grinned. “I asked Rabbi Ruth and they assured me it was hilarious.”
Holly eyed him. “Is hilarious what you were going for?”
“Holly Siobhan Delaney, letting people think I’m hilarious is how I get away with everything. Also, it’s fun.”
How did he know her middle name? She suddenly realized he’d probably run a full background check on her, to protect Tara, without telling either of them.
She didn’t ask. Instead, she told him, “You’re a beautiful blond, blue-eyed cis white man with millions of dollars, Cole. That’s how you get away with everything.”
“I mean, you’re obviously not wrong, but—wait, we should definitely have a conversation about the ways in which the kyriarchy both enables and tightly restricts behavior, but not today! I have to go take pictures, and watch my BFF get married, and dance with my cute boyfriend.” He picked up his blow-dryer again, and Holly took it out of his hands.
“Your hair looks perfect. As long as you were going for majestic surfer waves. If not, we need to start over.”
He looked in the mirror. “Do you think there’s time to start over?” he fretted.
“No. Put on your tie and let’s get moving.” She put the tie in question in his hands.
He snatched it up, twirled it around, and began to tie it around his neck with a deft hand. He had, apparently, done this a time or two. “So,” he said, “how are things going with you and Tara? Any inconvenient feelings developing?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Look,” she sighed, “it would be hard not to develop some romantic feelings for Tara. She’s one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.”
Cole pumped his fist in the air. “Honestly, everyone who’s not obsessed with her is wrong.”
“It’s not that simple, Nicholas. We’re way too different for it to ever work.”
He made a scoffing noise. “That’s fake. Look at Sawyer and me. We’re wildly different people. He’s an upstanding local politician. I’m…” He trailed off, clearly trying to decide how much to say about what he actually did.
She smirked. “I hate to tell you this, but local politicians and criminals have been in bed together since time immemorial.”
“But I love the ocean, and he loves the mountains! I’m an Episcopalian who almost went into the priesthood and he’s an atheist! I want us to commit to forever, but he doesn’t believe in marriage, and I would never invite the government into my sex life!”
Counting on her fingers, she countered, “You’re very rich, so you have a sailboat on the coast and you go there whenever you want. You can have a nice Unitarian commitment ceremony with a humanist minister and never file a marriage license, everyone wins. You almost went into the priesthood?!”
“Tara’s also very rich, which I’m sure can solve several of your problems. We don’t talk about the priesthood. If I look too closely at the call to ministry, it gets louder, so we pretend it’s not there.”
“You’re a really odd duck,” Holly told him. “Good, but odd.”
“It’s because I’m a swan,” he said seriously, as if this made everything about him make sense. And, honestly, maybe it did. “Look, I’m not saying there’s nothing standing between you and Tara. I know Tara. She self-sabotages like it’s a full-time job. I don’t know you well enough to know your fatal character flaws yet, but I’m sure you have them.”
Holly gasped in mock indignation. “I’m practically perfect in every way.”
She straightened his bow tie, patted him on the arm, and pulled him out the door. Once he was safely deposited with the photographer, she watched him pose with the brides and goof around with Tara. He said something to her that made her fold in half with laughter. She hadn’t even known Tara’s spine bent that way. Or that she was capable of laughing that hard. Holly wondered how Tara thought she could ever be happy living half a country away from Cole. Maybe the long-term separation would make her start to realize that there was nothing in Charleston that made her happy.
“She seems to fit here, doesn’t she?” Elijah Green asked, coming to stand next to her.
“I wish I could convince her that she could be professionally and personally fulfilled here,” Holly said. “Her family is slowly poisoning her, and I really like her, but I know if we got involved, it would poison me, too.” She looked over at Elijah, who was listening politely. “Sorry, that’s so much info I just dumped on you.”
He raised one shoulder elegantly. “I wouldn’t hang out with this group if I didn’t sort of enjoy people dumping their drama on me. It’s a hobby. Come to Carrigan’s, make some popcorn, hear the mess.”
“Aren’t you, like, a very busy lawyer and a parent to young twins and a competitive Scrabble player in your spare time? Do you have time for other hobbies?” she asked him.
“You make time for what you love.” He smiled. “But speaking of my children, I think it’s time for them to join the photos. I’m going to make sure neither of them has gotten cookie crumbs on their clothes.”
Holly looked around. “There are cookies?”
“Where Mrs. Matthews is, cookies also are,” Elijah informed her.
She went off in search of Mrs. Matthews, who gave her pfeffernuesse and left Holly alone with her thoughts so that she, too, could join the pictures. Everyone, it seemed, was being photographed as part of the wedding, except for Holly. She was pretty sure they hadn’t asked her to be in the photos because, even if they believed she and Tara were dating, they didn’t believe she’d be around long enough to have her in the pictures.
The buzz of an incoming call pulled her out of staring forlornly at the blue delft kitchen tiles, mouth full of cookie, feeling sorry for herself that she couldn’t grow old with someone like Tara. Holly twisted on the kitchen stool to fish her phone out of her purse, which she’d dumped unceremoniously on the floor beneath her.
“Fucking dress,” she mumbled, falling off the stool and landing, hard, on her ass as she managed to snag the phone, only to find an unknown number calling. Because she was still flustered from falling off a chair onto the Carrigan’s kitchen floor in her most expensive outfit, she answered instead of sending it to voicemail.
“Holly Delaney speaking.”
“Miss Delaney. This is Mrs. Chadwick.” On the surface, Tara’s mother sounded a great deal like her daughter. Polished old money accent, familiar cadence. People who didn’t know Tara well would have trouble telling them apart. Holly didn’t. Tara’s voice had a million facets underneath the top layer of ice.
Her mother’s voice was ice all the way down, and Holly was pretty sure Mrs. Chadwick was calling to try to freeze her out of Tara’s life.
“I hear from my dear friend Cricket that you are attending an event with my daughter. Naturally, since Tara told me nothing about this, I found myself curious and looked you up. Your Instagram seems to suggest that you may be more than friends. This is, of course, unacceptable. You will stop seeing her immediately, or I will make you unemployable anywhere in South Carolina.”
The call ended before Holly could respond or fully process what Mrs. Chadwick had said. It was like waking up in the middle of an earthquake and wondering why the floor was shaking, only to put the pieces together once the rumbling had stopped. Which was, Holly thought, not a bad metaphor, since Tara’s mom was the equivalent of a natural disaster. She pushed the phone across the floor, instinctively backing away like it was a coiled snake. God, her butt was going to bruise so bad.
Had she just been daydreaming about a world where she and Tara could be together? How had she let herself forget that Tara’s world, the world she’d chosen, would poison Holly? Not slowly and accidentally, but swiftly, intentionally, with malice. Unless Tara agreed to become estranged from her family and leave her law practice, them being together would always be a daydream.
