Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(43)

“I know what you’re thinking, Lavender,” Mary-Margaret said, challenging Holly with that slight twitch of her eyebrow, that curl of her mouth. “I know what you want to do.” Mary-Margaret eyed Holly’s mouth, apparently aware cookies were being stockpiled behind pursed lips. “But you don’t have the guts,” Mary-Margaret snarled, an excited wide grin spreading across her face.

I get it now. Everything’s a game to the bored Mary-Margaret St. James. Mary-Margaret pushes, hoping someone in this village will push back. But no one does. Well, guess what, Mary-Margaret? I’m pushing back.

Holly added cookies to her mouth and started to chew, slowly. They were moist. Chewy. Formed perfect little balls inside her mouth. It was bold, Holly knew. But what the heck? She was facing a prison sentence as Mary-Margaret’s secretary, facing a nickname she might never live down. Lavender? No thank you. If Holly didn’t take Mary-Margaret down now, there’d be no telling what Mary-Margaret might do to her.

“Madam Secretary”—Mary-Margaret slipped from her chair, moving with precision and stealth toward the annex door—“you might want to rethink this.” She was smiling a wicked smile. Appeared absolutely thrilled by what Holly was suggesting she was about to do—absolutely thrilled.

Holly? Holly couldn’t tell if they were enemies or forming some kind of twisted friendship. This was how young girls acted—thrilled by a ridiculous, daring stunt that solidified a friendship. But Mary-Margaret wasn’t Holly’s friend. They were grown women. Moms. They were supposed to live by rules, proper codes of conduct.

“Lavender,” Mary-Margaret taunted, “you’re bringing the cupcakes to the PTA meeting tomorrow. I can count on you, right? You won’t let me down.”

Holly shook her head. Stuffed her mouth with another cookie. Her cheeks puffed out. “Not bringing no dang cupcakes. And my name’s not Lavender. My name . . . is Banks,” Holly muttered, pressing cookies against the inside of her lips, cookies ready to storm the gates. “Holly. Banks.”

“Whatever you say, Lavender.” Mary-Margaret inched her way toward the annex door. Swift. Like a jackrabbit.

But Holly was cocked and loaded. She rounded the corner of the desk with the pastry box in one hand, packing cookies into her mouth with the other. She formed perfect chewy bullets in her mouth. One after the other. Holly’s heart raced. What’s happening. What’s happening?

“Let me be the first to congratulate you on your new position, Lavender.” Mary-Margaret reached for the door. “Wow. PTA secretary. You’re going to be so busy this year.” She punched the door handle with the side of her fist—and then took off!—out the door and down the steps.

Holly followed in hot pursuit—spitting cookies in rapid fire. Bam! Bam! Bam! It was such a release, both literally and figuratively. I’m a Hasbro Nerf gun. No! I’m the dancing queen. No! I’m Cookie Monster—unchained. Nom-nom-nom.

Mary-Margaret was about twenty feet ahead of Holly when she lost her footing and fell, hitting the pea gravel with an oompf! “Lavender,” she croaked. Smile on her face. Crawled a few paces before rising to her feet again. “Lavender, have mercy!”

Holly pushed another cookie into her mouth. Tossed the box. Mary-Margaret ran, and Holly gave chase, two women wearing the wrong kind of footwear. They ran like platypuses, strange creatures with appendages that baffled the observer and only seemed to get in the way. The limited circumference of Mary-Margaret’s pink pencil skirt compromised her running stride—legs chopping across the field like blades on scissors, feet sharpening to points in a pair of sling-back heels. Holly’s sports bra and piggy pajamas made her the dancing queen, but she had to curl every muscle in her toes to keep her flip-flops from falling off. Never mind that her mouth was chock full of peckled peanut butter cookies. It hurt to run with toes clenched like a fist; Holly’s shoes kept slipping off. She improvised by running with a sideways gait, like a lumbering giant, the way the Hunchback of Notre Dame would run if given the chance and inspiration.

Wind whipping through their hair, they both stumbled at different times and at different places on the soccer field, at first falling with a clumsy thud, then scrambling to their feet to resume the chase.

They were halfway across the field when dozens of sprinkler heads rose from the earth to water the grass—and them: two spasmodic, galumphing school moms sprinting as best they could across campus, a PTA president and her would-be secretary. They were wild. They were moms. And they were setting a horrible example for the children.

Mary-Margaret reached the building first, slammed against an entry bar to open a door, rushed inside, and then pushed the door shut before Holly could catch her. Out of breath and with cookies in her mouth—Holly unloaded everything she had all over the door’s glass panel, firing peckled peanut butter bullets like she was “Momma Ragu” Sauce, a hit woman in the Sicilian Mom Mafia.

What just happened? What in the world possessed me to chase that woman? Cookies spent, Holly bent over, hands on knees, gasping for breath. Do wild animals end a chase wondering what just happened?

Safe and sound on the other side of the door, Mary-Margaret—the Pink Witch in this strange Land of Oz—clapped and squealed with delight, mouthing to Holly through the window, “Don’t forget the cupcakes!” She flipped the safety lock on the door, then skipped off down the hallway, leaving Holly locked outside, sucking air, examining her life, her choices, her actions. Some of the children in a side-facing row of classrooms gathered at the windows to stare at Holly bent and panting beside the emergency exit. Please, God. Let Ella have a front-facing classroom. Please. Please, I’m begging.