Chapter 26 Holly

Chapter 26

Holly

W hen she left (okay, was kicked out of) Carrigan's, Holly had no spare clothes or car keys or toothbrush. She didn't even have her phone.

The front lawn was deserted, with everyone inside for the wedding. It felt eerie, snow blanketing the still-blinking reindeer noses and sliding off the tall pointy hats of statuary of Santa's elves. The trees were dark sentinels, whispering in the wind about what an asshole she was.

She shivered against the cold and wished that, if she was going to storm out, she'd thought to do so with a coat. She felt very much like Edmund Pevensie, out in an unknown wilderness and likely to sell out her loved ones for a little Turkish Delight.

As a kid, she'd always assumed that if she ever got sucked into a portal universe, she would be the hero. Lucy or Peter, hopefully, because Susan got shafted. Here she was, though, the villain of the story.

How was she going to get out of here? She didn't exactly know how to hot-wire a car. Not that she would steal a car from these people. Maybe Cole, he could afford it. Possibly this wasn't the time to be considering a career of Robin Hooding.

It was a moot point, anyway, because her misspent youth had been spent in the library, not learning how to steal cars, even from millionaires. She definitely couldn't walk into Advent. It would be a hike in daylight, in summer, in good boots. She was in heels, in winter, in the dark.

She couldn't call an Uber, because she didn't have her phone and there weren't any up here. She was weighing the benefits of trying to sneak back into the house to sleep in the library for the night, when Gavi Rosenstein stepped up beside her.

"I heard you fucked up big ," Gavi said.

Holly nodded decisively. "Oh boy."

"Catch." Gavi tossed her a set of keys. "Take my Outback. It should make it down the road safely. Ernie's should be open with a skeleton staff, for people who don't have anywhere to go on Christmas Eve. I'll let her know what's going on, and she'll let you stay for a while."

"Are you sure?" Holly asked. If she were Ernie, she'd probably kick herself out.

Gavi smiled, as if they could hear Holly's thoughts. "If Ernie kicked out everyone who made terrible life choices, she'd have a hell of a time running a dive bar. Anyway, I have to get back inside, but I'll make sure your stuff goes with Ernie."

Wow, they were a master at predicting guest needs, even if Holly was no longer a guest.

"Go back inside before you miss the reception," Holly said, suddenly tearing up. Now that her anger had frozen in the snow, she wished she were inside eating her own cake. She'd been excited about it.

Instead, Holly inched the SUV down the hill from the farm into town, hunched over the steering wheel, her nose nearly touching the windshield. She was used to driving in snow, in Iowa, but snowy mountains were a different creature entirely.

They felt like that, a creature, alive and breathing around her. She was grateful that it took all her effort to drive without crashing, so she couldn't replay the fight with Tara in her head.

She pulled up in front of Ernie's bar, shaking, and pried her fingers from the steering wheel. She sat back against the driver's seat and closed her eyes. Get out of the car, Siobhan. Go into the bar. Get a drink. Get warm.

All of her internal monologue was directed toward Siobhan, but no one in her life ever called her that. That was probably something she should unpack at some point. That for the past several years, no one in her life called her by her real name, just by a part she'd been playing. That the only person in her life she'd stopped acting for, in almost a decade, was never going to talk to her again.

Tonight, however, she wasn't going to unpack anything.

Everyone she knew was at the wedding, so she was able to slink into Ernie's and get a table against the wall without anyone greeting her. The last thing she wanted to do right now was be in a crowd of people. What she really wanted was a room she could lock herself in, so she could—what? Freak out? Scream? Cry? How did a person exist in their skin after they fucked up as badly as she just had?

For the second time in an hour, she realized that the one person whose advice she needed was Tara. That thought, the feeling of desperately wanting only Tara, in front of her, immediately, and knowing she couldn't have that, probably ever again, because of her own actions, was almost too much to breathe through.

When the waitress came to ask if she needed anything, she ordered a Fried Everything platter, because getting plastered seemed irresponsible but she sure as hell needed something to dull her feelings. As she dipped fried pickles in ranch dressing and ate them, mechanically, one by one, tears streaming down her face and onto the mozzarella sticks, the last week flashed in front of her.

Tara's absolute inability to say no to her family or to listen to music made by straight people unless it was nineties country by women. Her deep-seated belief, trained into her by her family, that none of her friends loved her or wanted her around. The way she funded Miriam's art career, and forgave her for the breakup, and saved her wedding, in a desperate attempt to make herself indispensable to people who already thought she was indispensable for no reason but that she was herself.

Herself, the woman who sang like she'd been trained in a choir, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of lesbian history, who used to steal cars and set fires but now got her Draper James tailored into pencil skirts. The woman who put on bedazzled pink cowboy hats in truck stops and looked like a babe in them.

Holly had never met anyone as contradictory or as fascinating as Tara, anyone as committed down to their bones to making amends for a mistake.

When the shit hit the fan and Holly felt cornered, she got mean. She lashed out like a snake and bit whoever had the poor fortune to be walking by. Ivy's nickname for her had been Cobra. When Tara's shit hit the fan, her first impulse—her absolute in her bones gut reaction—was kindness. Sure, she could be a little petty, or cold, but when it came down to the wire, she instinctively gave people the benefit of the doubt, and she never walked away from things because they were hard.

Since her divorce, Holly had assumed that she would never want to get involved with someone for life, because she couldn't imagine another person she'd ever want to fall in love with. She'd never even been close, since Ivy. And then, out of nowhere, the last person she'd ever expected had blown into her life like a storm off the coast.

"Are you Holly?" the waitress asked. When she nodded, the woman told her, "Ernie texted to say you'd be in and that your meal was on the house? She says you'll be sleeping in the apartment above the bar for a while? It used to be Sawyer's place but I guess he rented something bigger to fit all of Cole's clothes?"

Her name tag said Kinzi , and she looked like she couldn't possibly be old enough to be serving alcohol legally. Holly blinked at her, trying to figure out when she'd gotten old enough to think the serving staff all looked like babies.

Kinzi smiled at her, a little flirtatiously. "I'm off in thirty if you want me to show you up?"

Holly put her head in her hands. How could she have a hangover when she hadn't had anything to drink? "How old are you, Kinzi?"

"Um, twenty-two?"

Holy shit, she'd been in elementary school when Holly had been getting married.

Before she met Tara, Holly had a habit of hooking up with the hottest waitress in any bar, but the very idea of hooking up with anyone made her tired.

"I'm flattered but unavailable, kid," she said, and winced. She sounded like a jaded old man in a noir movie.

"Oh." Kinzi looked down at her apron. "Well, I can still show you up? The lock has kind of a trick, and if you don't do it right, the door sticks?"

Holly did not ask if Kinzi was sure, since she obviously didn't know she phrased every sentence as a question.

Half an hour later, she let herself get led up the back stairs to a little apartment that had clearly been recently stripped of all its extra stuff by someone moving out. There was a neatly made double bed, faded blue paisley curtains that would do nothing to keep out the sun, and a beat-up old wooden dresser, plus a rickety metal bedside table with a lamp. It looked like someone had furnished it from their grandmother's garage sale.

It also felt like home and comforting as hell after a week of feeling like a fish out of water with millionaires and celebrities.

"Um, do you have, like, a bag?" Kinzi asked, hovering in the doorway as Holly sat down on the bed and felt the old springs bounce.

"It's coming with Ernie," Holly said.

Kinzi was silent for a moment, obviously waiting for an explanation that wasn't coming. "Okay, well, the bathroom should be stocked? Brady, the guy who took over for me? He can get you anything if you need it before Ernie gets back? I'm going to go wrap some presents for tomorrow?"

God, tomorrow was Christmas.

"Thanks, Kinzi, this is perfect," she said, trying to channel Tara and be polite, since this girl had done nothing but be kind and helpful (she'd even hit on her respectfully) and also because she thought Ernie would frown on Holly snapping at the waitstaff. Holly was, she was certain, already on thin ice.

Kinzi nodded and went to leave, turning back at the door. "The TV works but only on channel three?"

"Who needs more than one channel?" Holly joked to put Kinzi at ease. "Merry Christmas, Kinzi."

That got a genuine smile. "You too, Holly."

Sometime after midnight, she was propped up against the lumpy pillows on the bed, watching an informercial on channel 3, when Ernie knocked on the door.

"I wasn't sure you'd still be up, but I wanted to check that you were okay," she said, pulling Holly's duffel inside with her. "And give you your clothes, since you're still stuck in the dress you wore to the wedding."

Holly smiled a little wryly. "It's really kind of you, especially considering…"

Ernie waved her words away. "I don't have any loyalty to Tara, and she's got a whole battalion to ride for her. You helped me out when you didn't have to, so I'm returning the favor. So. What do you need? You obviously can't drive back to Charleston with Tara, but after Christmas, we could get you on a plane? Or you can stay here as long as you'd like. The offer stands—I could use a waitress like you."

"You don't think the Carrigan's crew would avoid the bar like the plague if I was there?"

This earned her an eye roll. "Please, what is this, high school? They can come in, or they can miss pub quiz, and Miriam never misses pub quiz."

It was a tempting offer. She liked Advent, and she'd already been thinking about moving on from Charleston. She couldn't imagine going back to Emma's, having to serve Tara coffee and cake and pretend everything was fine. But she would have to go back to pack up her apartment and get her car. And before that…

"I think," she said, taking a deep breath, "that what I'd like to do next is go home for Christmas."

Ernie blinked at her, then looked at her watch. "Okay, well, it's already Christmas, and I don't know where home is, but you might need to pull off some kind of magic trick to get there. Do you know what travel is going to be like today?"

"Know anywhere I can rent a car? It's a fifteen-hour drive, or twelve the way I drive. If I leave now, I can be there before they eat lunch."

"Oh, you're not leaving now. You're sleeping." Ernie shook her head. "If you want to leave after you sleep, I'll start looking at flights or find you a car. Or a Greyhound. But you might want to think about planning to do New Year's with your family."

Holly didn't want to wait. Now that she'd decided, after all these years of avoiding Christmas at home, she wanted to go immediately. She admitted to herself, though, that maybe she didn't want to keep sitting alone in her feelings. No matter how poorly she'd treated Tara, her parents would be thrilled to see her and would bandage over all her wounded emotions.

"I'll sleep," she conceded, and Ernie left her to do that.

Before she put on her pajamas, she finally texted her sister back. After the unanswered "Where are you?" text, there had been several more, increasingly worried, "What the hell is going on?" texts.

Holly: Hey, I'm still in Upstate New York… but I'm looking to head home. Help?

By the time she woke up the next morning, there was a plane ticket in her email. She didn't know how her sister had done it—or how she'd afforded it—but she didn't question it. She just got her ass in gear to make her flight on time.

She left Ernie a note, taped to the old TV:

I can't thank you enough. Maybe I'll see you again, someday, when you really need a waitress.

She left the keys to Gavi's Subaru on the bedside table and ordered the town's one Lyft to the airport.

And then she headed away from Advent, and Carrigan's, without a backward glance. She'd finally found something bigger and badder to run away from than home.