Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(9)

Holly threw her arms up—then lowered them. What was she doing? Hands up? She wasn’t under arrest. Weeeoooweeeoooweeeooo. “I thought it was an exit.”

Weeeoooweeeoooweeeooo.

“Why are you trying to escape?” Mary-Margaret grabbed the exit bar—weeoo—yanked it shut. Alarm stopped. “Goodness.” Mary-Margaret wiped her brow. “You need to switch to decaf.” She swung around to face the crowd with arms extended to reassure them. “Everyone settle down. I got this.” She returned to Holly. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Holly started to say, “I live on Petunia Lane,” but Mary-Margaret interrupted her after the word Petunia and said, “You can’t leave now. You haven’t volunteered for anything.”

In script writing, if one character interrupted another character, the first character’s dialogue ended with a space followed by two hyphens.

HOLLY

I live on Petunia --





MARY-MARGARET

You can’t leave now. You haven’t volunteered for anything.





But Holly suspected something else was going on with this conversation. Mary-Margaret hadn’t interrupted her; she had flat-out ignored her. She didn’t give one hoot that Holly lived on Petunia Lane. Forget the two hyphens; what Mary-Margaret did was gloss over all Holly’s words—practically her entire sentence. Holly might as well omit all her words and just leave the hyphens. Maybe add a hyphen. And some punctuation marks.

Like this: “---.”

Or this: “---?”

And this: “---!”

“Do you collect Box Tops?” Mary-Margaret tapped her foot. “We need a Box Tops Mom.”

Holly wondered, Why the panic? Why the pressure to volunteer? Couldn’t Holly do this another day? No offense to Mary-Margaret, but Holly had only lived in Primm a few days. She wasn’t used to jumping right in. She thought she’d take a month or two to unpack, settle in. And besides, with Ella starting kindergarten, Holly needed to find a job. It would be foolish to commit to anything right now. And truthfully? The high-pressure sales tactics triggered something in Holly: fight or flight. Holly chose flight.

Holly told Mary-Margaret she had to get home, but it came across like this: “---.”

“I think you’re brave for wearing yellow to a pink event.” Mary-Margaret pointed to the PRIMM on Holly’s shirt. “I love that! It says you’re confident. Secure. You don’t care what people think. I admire that. I’m drawn to secure people, and secure people are drawn to me.”

Mary-Margaret grabbed a pink PRIMM T-shirt from a nearby table. It was exactly like the one Holly was wearing, except pink. “Here.” She pushed it toward Holly. “I assume Penelope’s already recruited you to play for Team Buttercream? Oh, but you should know: colors matter on and off the F.U. Frisbee field. You don’t have to play for the Pink Erasers to wear pink to a school event. We’re women. We should support one another. What’s your name?”

“---.”

“Well, I support you, Polly.”

“---.”

“Molly. Sorry.” Mary-Margaret moved quickly to a nearby table to grab a few clipboards. “Here. Sign the Anything and Everything clipboard. No, wait.” She put the Anything & Everything clipboard down to pick up another. “Sign the Available on Short Notice clipboard. Volunteer for something, and I’ll forgive you for wearing a confrontational shirt to a PTA meeting. You know you practically declared war, don’t you?”

“---.”

Holly had told her no, she didn’t realize she was declaring war at a PTA meeting, but Mary-Margaret ignored her. Who is this woman? Is she a narcissist? Is she that self-absorbed? Holly had met people like her. She was the guy who’d take you out to dinner at a sports bar so he could cop a glance at the game on the TV screen above your head while you tried to hold a meaningful conversation with him. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yup, yup, he’d say. She was the boss who’d call you into her office to ask your opinion about something but then check email while you were talking. Politicians were the worst. Shake their hand at a political rally—they smiled and nodded and then moved on to the next person in line. You could prepare what you were going to say to someone like that, but when it was your turn to speak, they glossed right over you. Like you weren’t even there. The world was full of people like Mary-Margaret.

“So you’re new here?” Mary-Margaret offered Holly the clipboard. “Volunteering is a great way to meet other moms. These clipboards are like online dating sites. You simply sign up, and then presto! Instant friends.”

“---.”

“Never mind. Don’t sign,” said Mary-Margaret. “Because I’ll write your name on the clipboards. I’ll pick something extra, extra special.”

Holly started to walk away, but Mary-Margaret followed her.

“Do you like to volunteer before school, during school, after school, in the evenings, or on the weekends? Because the PTA accommodates all schedules. At-home moms, at-work moms, at-home working moms, at-work homing moms . . . whatever you are. Whoever you are. We’re here to help you help us.”

The conversation felt like Holly was on social media. Everything was talk, talk, talk, but no one was listening. Mary-Margaret kept uploading post after post after post—and couldn’t care less if Holly was an authentic part of the conversation.