Page 11 of Hers for the Weekend

Tara nodded, the corner of her mouth twitching in what might be the start of a smile. “Okay. Uh… you know about my parents. They’re the kind of people who give interviews to Garden & Gun about how their families go back to before the war of Northern aggression.”

“My family is annoying, but their worst crimes are varieties of Tater Tot casserole and trying to interfere in my life.” Holly laughed. If she and Tara had a fling, she’d have to ensure it was long over before she ever had to meet Tara’s parents, because she would tear them apart.

“That sounds lovely, honestly,” Tara said. “Should I ask what’s in a Tater Tot casserole?”

“You should not. What about siblings? Did your parents make an army of evil blond minions?”

“I have an older sister who has always done everything my parents have ever wanted. Went to the right school. Pledged the right sorority. Got her MRS degree.”

Holly gasped. “Tara Chadwick, are you the black sheep of your family?!”

“More like the rainbow sheep, but yes. You have no idea. I’ve never been good enough at being…” Tara’s fingers tensed on the steering wheel, and she bit her lip.

“A manifestation of demonic energy in an overpriced dress?” Holly supplied.

Now Tara did smile. “Something like that. I went to Bryn Mawr, and then Duke Law—to the horror of my father, who is on the board at University of South Carolina School of Law. And of course, I not only failed to get my MRS but my fiancée broke up with me for a lumberjack.”

“Noelle is a tree farmer.” Holly laughed. “Which I know you know, because I can see you liking the Carrigan’s Instagram stories.”

Tara grumbled. “Yeah, yeah, she has a master’s in forestry. From Yale. It hasn’t stopped my family from judging me as less desirable than a woman with a collection of dungarees.”

“Doesn’t Miriam also have a collection of dungarees?” Holly asked. “Wait, why are we calling them dungarees? And Noelle went to Yale? That’s impressive. Go Miri.”

Tara glared at her, and Holly giggled.

“What else? Hobbies?” she said, since the topic of Noelle’s eligibility as a spouse was obviously a little sensitive.

“I play tennis and golf well, but I hate them. I sail with Cole when he’s here. I keep up with the WNBA.”

“The very model of a modern rich white Southern lesbian,” Holly said. She’d meant it to be teasing, but she saw Tara flinch. Maybe they didn’t know each other well enough for that kind of teasing yet. Maybe Tara hated The Pirates of Penzance.

Everything about Tara’s perfect exterior made Holly itch to mess her up, but she had to go slowly or Tara would bolt.

“I wasn’t, always. The model of decorum. Arguably I was a very good model of the sort of harmful, reckless privilege that is so common among the children of South Carolina’s old money. A lot of our set, Cole’s and mine, got away with more than we ever got caught for. We never killed anyone—but we did enough.”

Holly watched her as she spoke, hands clenched so tight on the steering wheel that they might have to be pried off with a crowbar. “Were they really your set, though? I don’t know you that well, but even if you’ve changed a lot since you were a teenager, I have trouble imagining you putting up with those people.”

“That’s a very kind assumption,” Tara chuckled sadly. “Given the kind of people I put up with now.”

She wasn’t kind, but she liked Tara seeing her that way, so she didn’t contradict her.

Holly decided to change the subject. Their fake relationship didn’t require unpacking Tara’s deep-seated feelings of guilt about her teenage years.

“What about Carrigan’s? What do I need to know?”

“No one has ever been as weird about where they live as the people at Carrigan’s Christmasland, to begin with. It’s like they’ve been brainwashed into wanting to spend their lives in the freezing wilderness. They’re all obsessed with the place, and I say this as a person from Charleston.”

Tara’s voice had dropped into her lawyer cadence, like she was arguing her case in front of a jury. Holly stuffed a chip in her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

“Also, they all have nicknames. Like Cole calls Miriam ‘Mimi.’ Miriam calls Hannah ‘Nan.’ Hannah calls Levi ‘Blue.’ No one can just go by their name.”

Holly waited a second to see if Tara was done. “Isn’t Cole a nickname? Don’t Southerners call grown men things like Buster? Also, I feel like it’s a pretty core tenet of queer liberation that sometimes people don’t go by the names their parents gave them.”

Holly had never seen someone’s shoulders touch their ears before.

“What about it annoys you so much?” she asked, more gently.

Tara pursed her lips. “It’s so embarrassing, but I always wanted people to call me by my middle name, Sloane, and I could never make it stick.”

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