Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(90)

Felony? Kittens? Greta and Jack—under the same roof? Was it Friday night yet? No? Holly closed her eyes. Gevrey-Chambertin. Gevrey-Chambertin. “Mom? You can’t decide to move in without asking. I have a family. The answer is no. No way. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you ripping through Primm. You think dealing with all of your shenanigans is fun for me? How is this my problem?”

“You think I’m a screwup?”

“Yes . . . sometimes.” Holly felt bad admitting this to her. “I do.”

“Well, I disagree.”

“Mom. You broke into my house. You called me in a pickle. I’ve got a dog, and yet, because of you, I also have a cat under my couch ready to give birth.”

“Holly,” Greta assured her, “I can handle Charlotte’s delicate state. I’m a—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Cat doula.”

“There’s no such thing as a cat doula!” Holly set her apple on the table. “You have to hide those boxes.” She pointed. “Now. Before Jack gets home.”

“Fine,” Greta muttered, moving toward the boxes. “I’ll find a convent for wayward girls. Maybe the nuns will shelter us until the kittens arrive.”

“Why are you limping?”

“I forgot to stretch before my yoga.” Greta turned toward Holly, legs bowed. “My kuter hurts.”

“Mom, wait,” said Holly. “Let me help.”

“Is this about the money I owe you?”

“No.” Holly exhaled, reaching for her first box. “I mean, yes, partially. But no.” She looked around. “I don’t even know where to hide these.”

“Maybe he won’t notice I’m here.”

“Not notice his mother-in-law and her pregnant cat?”

“We could try.” Greta shrugged. “We might get away with it.”

“You know what, Mom? I think that’s your problem. You somehow always get away with it.”

Greta smiled.

Holly didn’t.





36


Thursday night



It was Thursday night around eight, and Holly was finally home from the grocery store. Holly had taken the camera and mic off earlier after watching a few of Greta’s ukulele concerts on YouTube. Recording a video of a video on a video channel felt a bit like walking a staircase in an M. C. Escher lithograph. Holly couldn’t get her head around it.

“I got Lucky Charms, and I bought two percent.” Holly set the bags down. “Hold up. What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the monstrosity splayed across her living room windows. If you weren’t paying attention, they might have passed for—

“Curtains,” said Greta. “One-of-a-kind, custom-made curtains. I’m pretty handy with the scissors.” She twisted a hair tie into her curly gray mane. “My way of paying you back for the cat doula classes.” She winked. “Now we’re even.”

“No. No, that can’t be,” said Holly, panic rising from her chest. She moved quickly toward the front windows. It was one thing to have a bedsheet thumbtacked to a window for privacy when you moved in, an entirely different thing to have it fashioned into actual curtains. “That’s a bedsheet,” said Holly. “A used, worn-out flannel bedsheet. Mom. That sheet’s from Jack’s first apartment.”

“Not anymore!” said Greta. A clap of her hands showed her delight. “Ta-da! You wanted curtains? Now they’re curtains.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” said Holly, eyes wide, wanting to cry. “It looks like an amateur rope artist trying”—Holly was stunned into disbelief—“but failing to perform some sort of a swinging-rope act. Like something out of Cirque du Soleil. But more ‘cirque’ than ‘soleil.’”

“Nope! Wrong again, Holly. What you’re looking at is called a cascading jabot. See how it swoops down and then swoops back up? That’s ‘jabot.’ It’s French! It means ‘crop of a bird.’”

“It’s not French. It’s flannel. And it’s freaky looking,” said Holly, pressing her fingertips against her temples, hoping to find a pressure point to relieve the stress that was welling up inside her. “Flannel curtains? Mom. There’s no such thing. That’s never been done in the history of curtain making.”

“Aw, come on. Where’s your sense of adventure? I think it’s nice to have fluffy white clouds cascading across and down both sides of a living room window. Look on the bright side. It might be dark and rainy outside, but inside, nothing but clear blue skies!”

“Are those shoelaces?”

“I needed something to tie it all together.”

“Where’d you get the shoelaces?”

Greta winced, crouching down a bit, fumbling a smile. “From the family shoes?”

“Mom!”

“I needed piping along the top edge—something white to match the clouds, so I washed all the shoelaces in bleach and then braided them. You should be happy, Holly. Those shoelaces saved you a lot of money.”

“What’ll the neighbors think?” Those are Collette’s windows. Collette’s!