Chapter 21 Tara

Chapter 21

Tara

I t's Christmas Eve! I'm getting married in four hours!" Miriam exclaimed.

Tara opened her eyes. Miriam was sitting on top of her and Holly, eyes wide as saucers, hair in every direction.

"FOUR! HOURS!"

Tara looked at the clock. Indeed, it was six a.m., so Miriam was getting married in four hours. But that didn't explain why she was sitting on their bed.

"Why are you sitting on our bed?" Holly asked groggily. Tara was glad someone else thought this was strange.

"It's so weird and I need someone to talk to and I can't talk to Cole because he's staying at Sawyer's and Hannah is already super busy and Levi is cooking and, I mean, have you met my mother?"

"I'm glad I rank above your mother on the list of people you can talk to," Tara said, shifting to rest against the headboard, "although I'm still not clear on what you're doing in our bed."

Miriam sighed dramatically, throwing up her hands. "You can't judge me! I'm the bride!"

"Get off me, I'll come help with… whatever it is you need right now. But close your eyes, because I'm naked." Tara nudged her gently and rolled out from under her.

"I've seen you naked," Miriam said, her hands dutifully over her eyes.

Holly cleared her throat. "Not to be hopelessly monogamist, but I personally would prefer if you did not continue to see her naked, and I think your soon-to-be-wife would agree."

"Ah! Wife! I'm going to have a wife!" Miriam squealed. "I'm going to be a wife!"

Tara pulled a sweater over her head and reached for a pair of leggings. "You were definitely not this giggly about marrying me."

"That's why I didn't marry you!" Miriam said, bouncing onto her feet and hopping off the bed. "Okay! Let's go find coffee and muffins, and the hairdresser is supposed to be here from Lake Placid soon. Do you know the hairdresser? He cut Hannah's hair. He's the only person who can deal with my curls. And then you can make sure that I didn't miss any wrinkles in my jumpsuit when I steamed it because I should not be allowed to steam things but I couldn't let my mom do it because I'm pretty sure she would ruin it on purpose to get me to wear the dress she thinks I don't know she snuck in and—"

Holly looked at Tara. "Don't let her drink any more coffee."

"Come on, little bit," Tara said. "Let's feed you. Tell me what you're envisioning for your hair."

This was her comfort zone, and why she had come. Finally she could help, and maybe earn a little bit of the space her friends had made for her here.

Following happily after her, Miriam started talking about Cher going to the opera in Moonstruck .

After steaming the jumpsuit, Tara left Miriam in the hands of the hairdresser, whom she of course did not know, having not been at Carrigan's in more than a year, but who had, she admitted, done a killer job on Hannah's hair. She stuck her head out into the hall and was immediately snagged by Cole.

"You have to come help Noelle. She won't let me fix her hair at all ."

"Why would you fix Noelle's hair?" Tara asked, allowing herself to be pulled into the room Noelle was using to get ready. "She has much better hair than you do."

Noelle met Tara's eyes in the mirror she was sitting in front of. " Thank you. That's what I told him."

"Okay," Cole argued, "that's fair, but you've been messing with it for forty-five straight minutes and according to Hannah's minute-by-minute itinerary, you were only allotted thirty-nine minutes, and now you absolutely have to get into your tux."

"Wow. Do you think Hannah will plan my wedding?" Tara said, flipping through the multipage document Cole had been waving.

Cole's eyes lit up. "She will if you get married at Carrigan's!"

She leveled him with her best "are you fucking kidding me" look, but he was immune. Putting her hands on her hips, she turned to Noelle. "Can I fix your hair? I guarantee I will make it hot as shit."

Noelle regarded her seriously in the mirror, then nodded. "I probably should not let the woman whose girlfriend I stole do my hair for my wedding, but I can't get the yarmulke to sit right and you do have excellent hair yourself."

"Fiancée," Tara reminded her. "You stole my fiancée. But I owe you for that. It would have been a really shitty divorce in a couple of years. And I would never, ever fuck up a butch's hair on her wedding day."

Cole looked between them. "Is there, like, a lesbian code of honor I don't know about?"

They both laughed at him, and Tara fixed Noelle's hair and then her suspenders.

"I need you!" Hannah said, bursting in.

"Me?" Noelle and Cole both asked, each pointing to themselves.

"Hell no." Hannah looked appalled. "I need Tara."

Tara shrugged, and Hannah pulled her out into the hallway. "Rabbi Ruth needs you to—"

"TARA!" Miriam shouted, her head popping into view in the hallway. Her hair looked amazing. "My zipper is stuck and I can't get my eyeliner wings right!"

"Don't you people have a wedding planner?" Tara asked. "What were you going to do if I didn't come to this wedding?"

"Not get married," Miriam said, as if it were obvious. "Fix my zipper!"

Sighing, she ducked into the room. "Can someone else help Rabbi Ruth?" she called back to Hannah.

"I got it," Hannah said, her eyes looking only a little panicked. "Somehow."

Cole was right behind her. "Mimi, is there a secret lesbian code of ethics?" he whined. " Oh , you look incredible. But is Tara going to fix your eyeliner wings?"

"How would I know?" Miriam asked him. "I'm a bisexual. The bisexual code of ethics is, like, don't sit correctly in a chair and all cops are bastards. The lesbians tell me nothing."

"Should I be a bisexual?" Cole wondered aloud.

Both Tara and Miriam looked at him.

"No, it won't work." He sighed. "I'm too gay."

Cole had come to his understanding of his own homosexuality late and was trying to make up for lost time by jumping all in as hard as he could. Tara was, obviously, thrilled for him, and also secretly entertained.

"Okay, Mir, turn toward me. I'm going to fix your eyeliner."

"Cole," Miriam said over Tara's shoulder. "I love you. Go away."

"Should I find someone who needs something from me?"

" No ," they both said at once.

Cole pouted. "I'm going to go make out with Sawyer."

" Not in the walk-in," Miriam joked.

"As if Levi would ever let me back in his kitchen," Cole scoffed.

Miriam grimaced. "Someone should probably keep an eye on him, but it can't be me."

"I'll text Holly," Tara said. "She can make sure he doesn't leave any doors open in Noelle's work shed or anything."

Miriam paled. "Please try to get him to get dressed?"

"What are the parameters?" Tara asked. "Is he allowed to wear pants embroidered with lobsters?"

Laughing, Miriam nodded. "In fact, I have special ordered him brand-new lobster pants with a matching suit jacket. All he needs to do is put it on."

"You love him so much more than I do," Tara observed, her eyes wide with horror.

"Hmm," Miriam said, smiling a little. "I don't think that's true."

"It's weird that you're insightful now," Tara told her. There had been a lot of years when Miriam barely noticed the world around her.

"Isn't it?" Miri turned back to look at herself in the mirror and gasped joyfully.

Tara's eyes absolutely did not well up with happy tears. Nope. Not even a little. "Your eyes are perfect, your face and hair are perfect. Are you ready? What's next?"

Hannah opened the door. "You ready for photos?"

"Can one of you put on my shoes? I can't bend over in this jumpsuit. I wanted to look sexy, and I flew too close to the sun," Miriam said, sticking out one leg and pointing her toes.

Tara sighed, picking up her foot and slipping on her bedazzled Chucks. "This is a bit far, even for a lesbian. You know this is not what normal people ask of their exes on their wedding day, right?"

Miriam blinked at her, mascaraed lashes sweeping down onto her elven cheeks. "We're not normal people. We're Team Carrigan's."

"Speak for yourself," Tara said, horribly aware that she wanted to be Team Carrigan's, even if she felt she didn't deserve to be. "I'm going to go check on Holly and finish getting dressed, okay?"

"I literally don't know what we would have done without you today," Miriam said, squeezing her hand.

Tara tried to smile. "You know me. Indispensable."

Because she made herself that way, because she had always been certain no one would ever love her enough to keep her otherwise. That was too much introspection for the middle of this wedding.

She managed to get back to her room without being waylaid by anyone else needing her for anything, and slumped back against the door once it was closed behind her.

"Sloane." Holly smirked from where she was sitting on the bed and zipping up her boots. She looked stunning, long burgundy lace sleeves falling past her wrists and hugging her body.

"Siobhan," Tara acknowledged, pushing off the door. "Those people are so needy."

"You know they're going to want you for pictures." Holly pushed off the bed and walked toward her. "Let's get you into your dress."

Tara shook her head. "Why would they want me in pictures?"

Holly blinked at her. "Uh, you're family?"

She blew out an exasperated breath, although she was secretly what Miriam would have called verklempt. These five days had been healing in a way she could never have expected, allowing her a glimpse of what it would feel like to be unconditionally accepted in a family. That glimpse was going to sustain her for a long time when she went back into the breach. She would never have been able to feel all those things if Holly hadn't been here, to be an anchor and a home base.

"You made all this possible," Tara told her, trying to sound less choked up than she felt. It was ridiculous to cry over this. "Having you here, on my team, allowed me to be present for them in a way I could never have otherwise. I would have been in my head, worried about how I was coming across and what they were thinking of me."

Before Holly could respond, Tara pulled her vintage mint and gold brocade dress over her head and turned so Holly could zip her up. She did, but then she dropped a soft kiss on Tara's shoulder blade, left bare by the wide boat neck that dipped low in the back.

"I feel very grateful to have been here for this," Holly whispered against her skin.

They walked hand in hand down the hallway, Tara trailing her fingers over the parrots on the brand-new, vintage reproduction wallpaper that didn't smell at all like mold. Everything was beginning brand-new this week. Hannah and Levi were growing a new life, Noelle and Miriam were starting a new marriage, and Tara and Holly… well, they might be starting something real.

Tara believed that Holly was talented, smart, and hard-working enough that, if she tried, she could do anything in the world. It wouldn't be simple, but Tara would happily work to convince her family that a small business owner was the ideal partner, if it meant she got to be with Holly. She just had to convince Holly that being with Tara was worth it.

She was absolutely certain that Holly would be happier if she left waitressing to bake full-time, but she wasn't convinced that Holly would be happier with her .