Chapter 1 Tara

Chapter 1

Tara

T he day Tara Chadwick received wedding invitations from three different ex-girlfriends, she had her first ever twinge of regret at being a lesbian.

The first invitation, for a destination wedding in Cabo from her college girlfriend, she turned down with real regret because she was set to be at trial. She made a note to send them some Le Creuset and mourned the opportunity for a beach vacation. The second, for a lavish affair at an old plantation from the second-to-last girl she'd dated, she shredded without responding. Getting married at a plantation automatically disqualified them from either gifts or attendance.

The third had a New York postmark and a return address for Carrigan's Christmasland. She would have scowled at it, except that her mother had invited her to a Botox party last week, and as a newly minted partner in her law firm who couldn't afford to make waves, she was expected to attend certain events. And because the wife of an influential judge had been there, she hadn't been able to decline. So, forehead frozen, Tara just thought hard about scowling, threw the card on the table, and called Hannah Rosenstein.

"You're coming," Hannah said instead of hello when she answered. "It's not optional."

The invitation wasn't for Hannah's wedding (which Tara had missed because it was a surprise, something she was still annoyed about); it was for Miriam's.

Miriam Blum, Hannah's cousin and Tara's ex-fiancée.

The problem was, Tara was still friends with Miriam—they'd been more friends than lovers to begin with—and she was even closer with Hannah. She wanted to go to Miriam's wedding.

Or maybe she wanted to want to go.

She wasn't angry about their breakup, and she'd long since gotten over being hurt, but she couldn't seem to get over feeling embarrassed. Miriam had disappeared to the Adirondacks, fallen for a tree farmer, and not bothered to break up with Tara until she had shown up in person. She was doing a pretty good job of not dwelling on what a fool she felt like, but revisiting the scene of the crime was sure to bring up more feelings than she wanted to have.

She didn't say, "I don't want to be there as the loser single ex everyone feels they have to include as an amends." Instead, she said, "It's only three weeks from now. You can't ask me to upend all my Christmas plans."

Hannah made a scoffing noise. "You've known they were engaged since August. You probably blocked out the date in your calendar as soon as you got the text."

She had, even though she hadn't been sure she would get an invite.

She'd been prepared to go, had in fact already told her family that she wouldn't be available for Christmas dinner. But now that the date was looming nearer, attending felt impossible. She would almost rather spend the holiday with her awful family than be a not-quite-insider observer to the Carrigan's circus.

Carrigan's Christmasland was a Jewish-owned, Christmas-themed tourist extravaganza opened by Miriam's eccentric great-aunt in the 1960s. Both Carrigan's the place and the Carrigans' found family were a nonstop roller coaster of A Lot. It made Tara, who had been raised in a menacing Southern gentility, very stressed out.

Tara sighed into the phone. She had to come up with an excuse Hannah would never agree to. "I will come on one condition."

She texted Hannah a link to the re-creation vintage wallpaper she'd found. It looked exactly like the hideous parrot wallpaper in the Christmasland Inn at Carrigan's, and it cost a fortune.

"I'm not setting foot in that inn again while that moldy, disgusting wallpaper is still up. Let me pay to replace it, and I'll come." This was perfect. Hannah was weirdly attached to the mold and would never, ever let her spend that much money (although why come from absurd amounts of ill-gotten wealth if you couldn't spend it on your friends?). Besides, how could they change all the wallpaper in three weeks, as this was their busiest time of year?

"You know we can't accept that kind of gift from you—" Hannah started. There was a shuffling noise, and then Hannah's husband, Levi, came on the phone.

"We absolutely can accept it. The wallpaper is a hazard, and it's a miracle we haven't gotten a health code violation yet. If Hannah would let us replace it with something attractive, instead of forcing us to find a reproduction of the original wallpaper, the cost would be reasonable."

He paused, and she could hear him add, in a muffled voice, "Besides, babe, you have to think about—"

Hannah shushed him, and Tara's spidey sense lit up.

She squeaked in glee. "Hannah Naomi Rosenstein! You're pregnant!"

Hannah shushed them, even louder. "I haven't told my in-laws yet and I do not want them to find out by overhearing us."

"Levi, tell that stubborn wife of yours to count the cost against Cole's grocery bill," Tara said. "I'm buying you the wallpaper whether I come or not. It's a baby present."

Cole Fraser was Tara and Miriam's best friend—he'd been the one to introduce them, back when Tara was in law school and Miriam was hiding out from her shitty family. Through Miriam and Tara's relationship, Cole had been the glue that held them all together. Currently, they were sharing custody of him, bouncing him between their houses, because he'd been disowned by his shitty family. He'd been at Carrigan's for the past few months, moping and eating and pining for Sawyer, the hot bartender at the nearby dive bar. At 6′5″, he could put away a breakfast spread. While the inn was doing well, an unexpected guest who wasn't paying or doing any work must be straining their budget.

"SOLD!" Levi declared. "I'll get my dad to install it."

Damn. Tara had forgotten that Mr. Matthews, Levi's dad and the inn's handyman, probably could change an entire hotel's wallpaper in three weeks.

Hannah's voice came back. "Should I put you down for one, then? You can call me about your meal choice later?"

"There are no meal choices," Levi argued from somewhere farther away. "I'm not a short-order cook. There's one meal. It's vegetarian. People can eat it."

"Maybe Tara has a gluten intolerance, honey."

Levi was a famous TV chef, but he was also often an actual short-order cook because he covered shifts at the Christmasland Inn, where he oversaw the culinary part of their events business. Tara wasn't paying attention to their argument, though. It was better to tune out Levi and Hannah when they argued, which was most of the time. They treated it as foreplay.

Instead, her brain was stuck on the idea of RSVPing for one.

A movie played out in her mind, of her showing up at Carrigan's with all its melodramatic gauche festive cheer, trying to keep her cool while surrounded by live reindeer and sticky gingerbread frosting and the world's creepiest animatronic cherubs. It was a nightmare scenario at best, but to also have to watch Miriam and her fiancée Noelle and Hannah and Levi and Cole and the hot bartender be adorably in love, while she sat at the singles table?

She would be alone with the parrot-covered walls closing in on her, raining tinsel in her hair. Her friends would pity her and feel obligated to worry about her and maybe even, God forbid, try to matchmake. Pretty much every person whose opinion actually mattered to her was going to that wedding, and she refused to be a bother, a burden, or pathetic.

She might have to go to her ex-fiancée's wedding, but no way in hell was she going solo.

"No," she interrupted, "I don't have a gluten allergy. I am allergic to avocados, but I eat them anyway. Life's short. I'm also not coming alone."

"You're not what?" Hannah asked, obviously giving Tara her full attention again, as Levi's voice faded in the background.

"I'm bringing someone." Tara managed to sound certain, a by-product of her time in front of juries.

"And who might that be?"

"My… girlfriend," Tara replied brusquely. "Who I'm not ready to talk about yet." Because she didn't exist.

"You're Carrigan's crew, Tara. Everything's our business," Hannah argued.

She was warmed by this statement against her better judgment. She should not want to be adopted into their little island of misfit toys, since Carrigan's was the Hotel California of Upstate New York, but it was nice to be wanted. "I am certainly not Carrigan's crew!"

"I'll ask Cole," Hannah said. "Love you, byeeeee!"

She hung up.

Shit. Cole.

Tara would definitely have to call Cole as soon as she fortified herself. First she needed a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. Besides, what the hell was she going to tell him? She'd never been able to lie to him.

She decided to walk down to Emma's. The cafe wasn't clean and minimalist or overpriced in the way her social set preferred; it just had good coffee and great pastries and waitstaff who knew her by name. It was comfortable and faded, unfashionable in the best way.

She and Miriam had come here together a thousand times over the course of their relationship, hashing things out over cups of coffee, and the last time they'd seen each other, it was where they'd put their relationship to rest. Those memories hadn't ruined the cafe. Instead, they'd seasoned it, like a good cast-iron skillet.

Tara needed that right now—and she was a little bit (or a lot?) hoping to see Holly. Truly, having a raging, unrequited crush on your regular waitress was almost as pathetic as going to your ex's wedding alone, but it couldn't be helped. Today was Holly's day off (and why did Tara even have her schedule memorized?) but sometimes she was there, anyway, baking.

Emma's was decorated for Christmas with a pink plastic tree hung with silver garland and would have delighted Miriam. The cook shouted at her through the passthrough to sit wherever she wanted, and the cashier waved at her like an old friend.

Did she spend too much time in this cafe? It was more comfortable than her pristine, carefully curated Single House. Her house had been called cold and silent, but until recently, she'd always thought of it as calm. Everything was beautiful, and nothing was loud.

Only lately had it seemed… like a set piece she'd built for a one-woman show. Like she was method acting her personality.

Which she was, kind of, because her real personality wasn't good for anyone.