Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(11)

“And every October, and then again in May, I’ll set up sixty science fair projects in the cafeteria before the four p.m. start of the science fair. You know how messy that is? Volcanoes? Smelly, moldy bread experiments?”

“---.”

Mary-Margaret ignored the reason Holly gave for not volunteering and instead added, “The year I was chair of the science fair? I dropped a lizard cage, and the screen popped off. Hundreds of crickets escaped down the hallway jumping for their lives. Have you ever picked up a Chinese green water dragon with your bare hands? Well, I have. And I was in four-inch heels. Jimmy Choos. I could have broken my ankle.” She led Holly to believe a tear was about to fall from the outer edge of her left eye. “But that’s what I do. I can’t help it. I’m dedicated.” Mary-Margaret dabbed at said tear with the tip of her finger. “I love my children.”

Seriously? Holly rolled her eyes, folded both arms across her chest. “---.”

“I’m sure you love your child too.” Mary-Margaret’s voice wandered off a bit, like she didn’t quite mean what she just said.

I’m done. Holly surveyed the room. Anything. I’ll say anything—just get me outa here.

“---.”

“Yes, I have given a lot to Primm Academy,” Mary-Margaret agreed. “So polite of you to notice. Now will you please sit back down? The break’s almost over, and I still have announcements to make. I haven’t found anyone to serve as my secretary. Yet. Now, please, Polly,” Mary-Margaret urged. “Sit down.”

“---.”

“Holly. Fine. Whatever.” Mary-Margaret set the clipboard on the table as a woman at the podium announced the ten-minute break was over and invited the room of mothers to take their seats. “But hear this.” Mary-Margaret leaned in, inches from poking her finger into Holly’s chest above the word PRIMM. “You’re either a School-Volunteer Mom or you’re not.” Mary-Margaret took a step back to regard Holly. “What kind of a mother are you?”

Holly squirmed. A bit. Okay, a lot.

“And don’t tell me you’re too tired or too busy to serve our beloved community because I’m tired, too, you know,” Mary-Margaret added. “Imagine being me for a day. Me, Mary-Margaret St. James. I’m the president of the Primm Academy PTA. Do you know how much pressure that is? I have to run this place. But more than that, I have to manage all of the moms. Moms! That’s like, next to impossible because moms run everything. They run companies, their households, their husbands, their children. Do you have any idea how hard it is to micromanage the micromanagers?”

Mary-Margaret returned to the podium to address excuses moms gave to avoid volunteering. “If you have to work? We have opportunities that fit your schedule. Can’t find a babysitter? Then bring the kids. Feel you’ve already paid your dues? Well, haven’t we all!”

Holly managed to take a seat on the far side of the auditorium, away from the other moms and next to the main entrance—next to the door that was propped open—the door without the security alarm.

“Because the truth is,” Mary-Margaret told the crowd, “we can’t build a future for our kids in a school where only twenty percent of the moms do all the work.”

Holly relaxed her back, slithered down her seat until her knees touched the floor and her head disappeared from view. On the floor now, she took to her hands and knees, crawling her way down the row of empty seats, up a side aisle, and toward the open door. As she crawled, she cupped her vanilla hazelnut in one hand, making sure it didn’t spill.

“Eventually, that semitruck will arrive with six hundred pounds of cookie dough, and someone’s gotta unload it onto the pallets,” Mary-Margaret was saying, “organize it by flavor, match it to the order forms, and deliver it to the children in their classrooms. I can’t be expected to do it all by myself. Not me, not Mary-Margaret. Our children depend on us. Us. That word is plural. Not singular.”

Hidden from Mary-Margaret’s view, Holly scurried on all fours like an overly exuberant baby just learning to crawl.

“No one can do everything,” Mary-Margaret reminded everyone. “That’s why everyone—everyone should do something.”

With a quick turn to the right, Holly crawled past the threshold of the door and arrived in the foyer outside the auditorium. She’d made it. She was in the lobby. Free! Free at last!

“PTA dues may be tax exempt.” Mary-Margaret was still talking. “But moms are not work exempt.”

Holly rose to her feet on the tightly woven gray floor mat, standing on the words Primm Academy. She brushed any dirt off her knees, then leaned back to take a long, slow swig of coffee. “Psst!” A handful of moms signaled her, silently applauding her escape. One mom flashed a spiral notebook, scoring Holly’s exit a perfect 10.

Holly waved, feeling like a celebrity, proud of her death-defying escape from Mary-Margaret’s PTA meeting. It was a bold move, but someone had to do it. Just as she was about to give her new fan club an enthusiastic two thumbs-up, Holly heard Mary-Margaret at the podium say, “Because let’s be honest. It’s not fair that some moms let other moms do all the work. Truthfully? It’s a bit selfish, don’t you think?”

Great. Now I feel like a jerk.

And then, from the podium: “Wait a minute. Where’s Polly? The mom in yellow? She didn’t leave, did she? I sure hope not. My meeting’s not over yet.”