Page 19 of Hers for the Weekend

They were supposed to be using this time to get to know each other, but Holly found herself unwilling to break the cozy quiet of listening to gay music together, warm in a car on the highway, surrounded by snow. It was like they were in their own little lesbian snow globe music box.

Being comfortable alone was something Holly had long since gotten used to, but it was rare that she ever spent enough time with someone else to experience this kind of peace with them.

Outside of Philadelphia, the snow, which had been stalking them like a jungle cat for the past two hours, started to become too intense for even Holly’s comfort.

“I hate to say this,” she told Tara, “but I think we may need to hunker down for a while. Find somewhere for second breakfast, and maybe elevenses.”

Tara giggled, which was incongruously cute for her, and Holly wanted to make her do it again.

“I don’t know why,” Tara said with a smile, “but I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fan of hobbits.”

“I’m a fan of Liv Tyler. I was at a very impressionable age when Fellowship of the Ring came out.”

“Hmm.” Tara looked like she was doing the math. “You were, what, seven?”

“Some of us have deep roots, Tara. Deep, gay roots.”

“You don’t have to defend your Liv love to me. I saw Empire Records young,” Tara assured her. “And I have an aunt in Philly who would probably be thrilled to host us for brunch. I’ll call her.”

The phone rang, and a raspy Southern drawl that made Tara sound like a Canadian crackled through the car speakers. “Hello, sugar,” the woman said. “It’s so good of you to call.”

She and Tara exchanged pleasantries, each inquiring after the health of the other’s relations and offering prayers and condolences when the answers were unhappy, for a full five minutes. Holly was beginning to think they’d be through Philly by the time Tara got around to asking if they could stop.

It wasn’t that Holly didn’t understand Southern manners, exactly. She was Midwestern, so she was well versed in saying anything but the thing you meant and expecting the other person to understand what you were actually asking. Still, something about the way genteel Southerners circled each other made her skin itch a little.

Finally, Tara said, “Aunt Cricket, I’m driving to New York with a friend, and we happen to be about to drive through your little old town, and I thought, we can’t drive right by without stopping to inquire with my favorite aunt.”

Cricket snorted. “I’m sure this call has nothing to do with the storm outside and y’all needing a place to stop until it blows over.”

“Aunt Cricket!” Tara exclaimed, feigning indignation. “You know I adore you. I would never dream of imposing on your hospitality on account of some snow!”

“Well, I sure wouldn’t want you driving in it. Your sainted mother would never let me hear the end of it, if something happened to you. Y’all better come by.”

Tara blew out a breath as she hung up and reset the GPS with her aunt Cricket’s address.

“Your sainted mother?” Holly asked, amused. “Isn’t your mother…”

“Awful?” Tara finished for her. “Yes. Genuinely insufferable. So is Aunt Cricket, for that matter. I hate that old woman with the fire of a thousand suns.”

“Why are we going to her house, then?!” Holly asked, aghast. “We could have stopped in a Waffle House.”

Tara groaned. “I wish. I would kill for some cheese eggs. But if my mother found out I stopped in Philadelphia and didn’t go to Cricket’s, there would be hell to pay.”

“What kind of hell, Tara? You’re thirty-six years old. You’re independently wealthy. You don’t have to listen to an old woman yell at you for the way you live your life. You could just, I don’t know, not talk to your mother.”

Sometimes, listening to Tara talk about her family was like watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One minute, she was the smartest, wittiest, most interesting woman Holly had ever met, and the next, a switch flipped and she was robotically spouting total nonsense.

Tara turned her body in the passenger seat to look at Holly, although Holly was keeping her eyes on the road due to the limited visibility. In her peripheral vision, she saw Tara’s face tighten.

“The kind of hell where I stop being invited to parties, or golf, or polo weekends, and lose the opportunity to chat up the people in those spaces, to make under-the-table deals before we go before the judge so that my client has the best shot possible at trial. The kind of hell where my law firm suddenly realizes that they don’t need a lesbian firecracker junior partner who defends clients they see as disposable.”

Holly raised an eyebrow. “All for not stopping to see your aunt? What, did she give your mom a kidney? Save her childhood dog from a burning building?”

“It’s not about my aunt,” Tara told her. “She’s not actually my aunt, by the way. She’s my grandmother’s sorority sister’s daughter.”

“Oh, of course, the traditional definition of an aunt. Do they make a Hallmark card for that relationship?” Holly joked, and she snuck a fast glance to see a corner of Tara’s mouth quirk up. “So is it about control, then? Live your life the way we say, or it’s over?”

Tara made a skeptical sound. “They hold access hostage if I don’t do things the Right Way. Besides, if I’m doing things the Right Way, things are less likely to light on fire.”

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