Page 21 of Hers for the Weekend

“God will never acknowledge their union, you know,” Cricket went on.

“Bless your heart,” Tara said, the cruelest thing one Southern woman could say to another, “it’s so kind of you to worry about her eternal soul, but I think I’ll leave her relationship with God between her and her rabbi.”

She smiled up at the servant who was bringing in finger sandwiches, nodding politely in response to the silent offer of shrimp salad. It would have been seasonally inappropriate except that Cricket seemed to keep her house in a state of perpetual South Carolina summer. Like the Snow Queen in Narnia, but with more carnivorous plant life.

Holly didn’t understand how Tara could be so totally unbothered by Cricket’s hatred. Holly herself was half tempted to turn the table over and dump her sweet tea on Cricket’s helmet of hair, throwing Tara over her shoulder as she ran out the door, snow be damned.

Under the table, Tara dug the nails of her free hand into Holly’s thigh, and Holly realized Tara didn’t need a white knight—she needed backup.

“How did you end up in Pennsylvania, Miss Bailey? Surely they must miss you below the Mason-Dixon,” she asked instead of throwing anything. She may have emphasized the Miss in Miss Bailey extra hard, since women like this often had sore spots about being spinsters (instead of all the other things they ought to have sore spots about, since spinsters were amazing, but bigots less so).

Holly was also certain no one had ever missed Cricket Bailey a day in her life.

Cricket turned to Holly. The corners of her mouth turned up in something that she certainly thought resembled a smile, although the fact that no other part of her face moved ruined the effect. It was a little uncanny valley, like someone had programmed an android to smile but had forgotten to code for the muscles above the nose.

“Well, Holly, was it? That’s a very interesting story.”

She went on to tell them a very long story that was not, in fact, even the tiniest bit interesting and somehow made Holly hate her even more. She paused only for dramatic effect when she wanted her audience to react, and to chide Tara for eating so much, reminding her that she was going to get fat.

At this, Holly shoved her mouth completely full of petit fours.

By the time the butler arrived to inform them that the snow had abated, Holly had moved from wanting to stab Cricket to wanting to stab herself, so that she could be rushed to the hospital and escape this greenhouse of genteel horrors.

Back in the car, Tara shook silently, grasping her hands together to presumably stop her reaction from being noticeable—but Holly noticed.

She wanted to hold Tara, or kidnap her and take her somewhere she would never have to talk to her family again, but most of all, she never ever wanted to get involved with her romantically.

Not that she ever wanted to get involved with anyone romantically, long-term, but if she did, hypothetically, it would be someone who didn’t constantly subject themselves to the worst people in the world. Even if Tara hated these people, she’d chosen to stay close to them.

Holly couldn’t imagine a life where she had to make nice with any of them, ever again.

She heard They Might Be Giants in her head, singing “Your Racist Friend.” Sure, these people would never accept her, and even if she did get involved with Tara, they would make it their sworn duty to tear her to pieces like they’d obviously tried to do to Miriam, but that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was, Holly would never accept being in a room with disgusting bigots for any reason, even for Tara.

Chapter 9

Tara

Tara needed to drive off the rage, but she had to wait until she could see through the haze in front of her eyes, so she let Holly start the next leg while she put her forehead on the dashboard and breathed deeply.

When would the point come when she’d stand up to her mother and say she wasn’t going to enter a classist, homophobic old snake’s house, no matter who she was? When would she admit that the ends didn’t always justify the means, if they made her a hypocrite?

She looked up to find Holly chugging Red Bull, driving like a bat out of hell, to the degree that was possible on the snow-covered roads. As pissed as Tara was, at herself and at Cricket, she couldn’t deal with Holly’s sizzling anger.

She had to somehow explain.

“There’s a piece to this puzzle you don’t have,” Tara said, wringing her hands. “I don’t think it will change your mind about the choices I’ve made but… it might help you understand why.”

“Let’s hear it,” Holly said. “I would love any context for why the fuck you put up with that. Because nothing you’ve said so far makes that bitch worth talking to.”

She didn’t know where to start this story, because she’d never told it before, but she gave it a shot.

“I always hated my family, but when I was a teenager, I didn’t know how to deal with that, so I ran wild and called it rebellion. Stealing cars and boats, running amok. And, in the end, arson.”

Holly spit diet Red Bull out of her nose. “ARSON?”

“There are napkins inside the center console if you need one,” Tara said primly. “We didn’t intend to commit arson. Well. We did, but slightly less impactful arson.”

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