Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(46)

The man wore jeans and a dreary brown T-shirt with a navy-blue train car and the words

ferroequinologist

hung like an iron horse

He told Holly, “The last person to rent this car was a distinguished Panamanian man with business dealings in China. Car was fine for him.”

“Is that so?” Honestly? I couldn’t care less—just tell me it’s not infested with bedbugs.

“His family left China to build the Panama Railroad in the nineteenth century,” he added.

Oh, please, no. He’s not going to talk my ear off, is he? Holly did have one question for him: “What’s that mean?” She pointed to the word ferroequinologist, hoping for a short answer.

A broad smile spread across his face. “Well,” he began. “A ferroequinologist is someone who studies trains.” He tapped a thumb across each syllable on his shirt. “Ferro means iron. Equine means horse. Iron horse. I’m a rail fan.”

Do I look bored? Because I am.

With no other way of getting home, Holly signed on the dotted line and climbed into the brick-red Buick, hoping she wouldn’t arrive home covered in fleas. She started her slow slog home by clutching the steering wheel and peering over the dashboard. She felt uneasy, as if she’d forgotten how to drive, familiar buttons not in the familiar places. The car sat so low to the ground, its sagging seats so worn, she swore her feet were almost level with her waist. How was this okay for a distinguished Panamanian man with business dealings in China? This awkward position coupled with the rank smells reminded Holly of the time she watched her film school roommate’s dog drag its butt across their living room floor.

Holly was sitting at a traffic light beside a Wendy’s in Southern Lakes, when who did she see? Jack. Eating a sandwich. But wait. Who’s he with?

Holly leaned toward her passenger window, squinted a bit, and yup. It’s them. He’s with Bethanny. Miles and miles and miles from the office, apparently not working, but certainly enjoying themselves over a tray of fast food. Jack must have been telling one of his oh-so-charming, overly animated jokes because his arms were up, and then they were down, and Bethanny’s head fell back, and she laughed and laughed and laughed. Qualms. That’s what Holly had. Holly had qualms about the way her husband’s arms were moving, qualms about the way that woman tossed her hair, qualms about the suspicious circumstances surrounding what she knew was her husband’s number one single combo—no cheese, no onions—medium size with a Dr Pepper. He’d have exactly four packets of ketchup on his tray for his french fries, and if a pepper shaker was within reach, he’d pepper his fries into oblivion. But Holly was the only woman who should know that. Bethanny shouldn’t know that. And yet, now she did. Bethanny knew what Holly’s husband ordered at Wendy’s. And Jack knew what Bethanny ordered. This was not okay with Holly. Nor was it okay with Holly when Bethanny reached across the table to take one of Jack’s fries and eat it. Seriously? Was another woman eating Jack’s fries? Yes, she was, and Jack wasn’t stopping her. That’s not okay. That’s way too intimate. Get your freaking hands off my—

When she was growing up, Holly’s mom had so many qualms about Holly’s father. They looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary: qualm was from the Old English cwealm, meaning death or plague, a word that worked its irksome way through the Old High German qualm, meaning despair. This uneasy, sudden pang of doubt and despair Holly felt prompted her to swing the jalopy she was driving—the rattletrap, the banger, the beater, the motley tin lizzie spawn that was her rental car—into the parking lot and . . .

Dang that Jack! I’m not a jealous person. So why am I doing this?

Holly whipped, a safe distance for spying, into a parking space and then, through the restaurant window, watched them eat as if she were watching a movie at an outdoor drive-in theater. Holly became Jennifer Aniston, with no popcorn but a front-row seat, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ate their seductive dinner in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Everyone knew what came next for Brad and Angelina in that movie: gunfire, hot sex, and an explosion that literally blew their house off its foundation. Fifty million in box office sales opening weekend. Worldwide sales of over 475 million. Jennifer? Her Hollywood ending? Not so good. And okay, it didn’t work out for Brad and Angelina either. Which proved there were no winners when a dinner like that was eaten. Was Holly jumping to conclusions? Or witnessing something she’d sensed but didn’t want to face?

That’s it. Can’t take it anymore—I’m going in for a Junior Frosty.

Holly killed the engine, pulled the keys from the ignition, but dang it again, she couldn’t go inside because of her pink piggies. When Holly was in kindergarten, and her dad was in Miss Mayfield, her mom let six months pass without dying her roots. Eventually, if Greta pulled her hair into a ponytail, she had the head of a brunette and the tail of a blonde. As much as Holly wanted to disrupt Jack and Bethanny’s fast-food evildoing, she wasn’t getting out of this Buick litter box to storm into Wendy’s sporting leather flip-flops and a sports bra that made her ta-tas look like blah-blahs. She wasn’t doing it.

Holly drew the bill of her baseball hat low, near her eyebrows, so Jack wouldn’t recognize her. She’d cry if she could catch her breath. She’d kill them with Bethanny’s black plastic salad fork if she thought she could get away with it. Who orders a salad at Wendy’s? Instead, after a few minutes of watching their quickie meal at a quickie restaurant, Holly stabbed the key back into the ignition, revved up the engine, and drove herself home, butt dragging like a dog with worms. Wish this were someone else’s movie. Wish I wasn’t Jennifer Aniston. Why was the girl next door always blindsided by the sultry salad eater with the heart-shaped ass?