Page 84 of Hers for the Weekend

Hannah spoke because she had the biggest voice. “Friends, we are here today because it’s time for our beloved favorite, Tara Sloane Chadwick, the phoenix of Charleston, to once again consign her old self to the flames and be reborn! Tara!”

She turned to Tara and held out the weird wooden pineapple. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” Tara solemnly took the object. She ran her hands over the words she’d written, saying goodbye to an outdated identity that had served her well, grieving the years she’d been telling herself not to be who she was.

For a moment, she thought about lobbing the thing overhand into the fire, but she was afraid Noelle would kill her. Instead, she walked up to the fire and carefully placed the wooden object in. She looked deeply into the flames, watching until the pineapple collapsed in on itself.

Turning around, she walked into Cole’s arms. Where had he come from? He kissed her hair, and she was fairly sure she felt some tears drop onto her head.

“Are you proud of me?” she whispered.

“Baby girl,” he whispered back, “you’re my hero.”

Looking around at everyone she loved, she said, “You know, I should probably at least stay until the baby comes.”

Chapter 28

Holly

All the Delaneys met Holly at the airport in matching Christmas sweaters.

Her dad’s hair, burnished copper with age, stood a head taller than most of the crowd, and Dustin’s, equally tall, was almost radioactive in its orange. Holly snickered to herself that his hair had never chilled out, no matter how much he’d prayed as a kid. Hers was exactly the same shade, but unlike Dustin, she owned it.

Mostly. Except for when people talked about it incessantly and touched it.

Caitlin had inherited their mom’s black hair, and both mom and daughter had tears in their blue eyes.

While she was struggling with her duffel (the strap of which was held on with duct tape), her dad grabbed the handle and handed her a sweater that matched the family’s. It occurred to her that, to have ordered one for her, her mom must have been holding out hope she’d come home.

On the car ride home, she was stuffed between Caitlin and Dustin into the back seat of the Saturn her parents had owned for twenty years. She and Dustin immediately got into a pinching contest, trying to see who could hurt each other the most without making any noise to alert their parents.

The trailer her parents lived in could probably be seen from space, it was so lit up with decorations. Her mom fussed that the neighbor three lots down had driven one town over to the Walmart with the better inflatable Santas, but her dad assured them all they’d win next year.

Win what? It wasn’t clear.

Under the tree were presents with Holly’s name, and a stocking for her hung on the mantel of the faux fireplace. It didn’t have the polished kitschyness of Carrigan’s, but after a week with millionaires, being home was a breath of fresh, seasonal-Glade-PlugIn-scented air. She felt her shoulders relax as she followed her dad back to the room she’d grown up sharing with Caitlin, only to tense again when her mom came after them and sat on Caitlin’s old bed.

She said, “So, we can’t help but notice you needed an emergency plane ticket to come home, and Tara’s not with you.”

“Yeah, Hol, where’s your rich girlfriend?” Dustin asked, leaning against the door frame. Behind him, Caitlin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of her way. She came through the door, then shut and locked it behind her.

He banged on it. “I can still hear you, you know! These walls are paper thin!”

Looking at them, Holly was too tired to keep lying. These people, who loved her so much they hung up her stocking even though she never came home for Christmas.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “She’s not my girlfriend. We were pretending, because Tara needed a date to the wedding, and I needed to convince you to stop trying to play matchmaker.”

“You lied to us?” her dad whispered, sounding heartbroken.

“I knew something was fishy!” Caitlin exclaimed.

“I can’t believe you!” Dustin yelled through the door. “Miss Self-Righteous made up a girlfriend!”

Her mom, who had been sitting silently wringing her hands, said, “Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to get back together with Ivy?”

“She did,” Holly’s dad, Caitlin, and Dustin all said in unison.

Wow, even Dustin was taking her side on that one. The same thought must have occurred to her mother, because she looked toward the locked door in surprise.

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