Holly Banks Full of Angst (Village of Primm, #1)(97)

Holly took Ella’s hand, her backpack, and her lunch, and then shuffled her quickly down the steps and across the front lawn. Miraculously, Bus 13 sat patiently waiting at the end of their driveway. Holly couldn’t believe her good fortune. Why was he being so nice to her this morning? It almost felt like cheating.

Holly kissed Ella. Stuffed her lunch bag into her backpack, zipped it, and then hoisted Ella’s backpack onto Ella’s shoulders. “I love you, sweetie. Go get ’em.” Holly hustled Ella onto the bus steps, and then up Ella went, hardly awake, and without time to file a complaint or protest the fact she didn’t want to go to school in the first place. “Have a great day at school!” Holly said, feeling like a mom in a Mary Blair illustration.

“I did it,” Holly whispered. Placing her hands flat against her cheeks. I freaking did it! Ella’s on the bus. Unfreakingbelievable. How many more times would they have to do this before kindergarten was over? 176? See Jane? See Jane master motherhood?

Holly thanked the driver, wondering if she should say something about the fender bender, but he didn’t seem interested in Holly at all. Instead, his eyes were fixed squarely on the road ahead, as if he saw a dead animal and was contemplating rolling over it or driving around it. Holly watched as Ella walked down the aisle and took a seat next to a little girl who was wearing a headband. The bus door closed, but the bus wasn’t moving. Was everything okay?

“Is she on?” Holly heard Greta say.

“Mom? Where are you?” Holly walked toward Greta’s voice, toward the front of the bus. “Mom?”

Lo and behold, smack in the middle of Petunia Lane stood Sidekick Sweaty. Both arms stretched in front of her, the grille of the bus mere inches from the palms of her hands.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

“I’m catching the bus,” she said, her curly gray hair made wilder from a night of sleep. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Holly pulled Greta by the sleeve of her pajamas onto the grass.

Toot! Toot! Bus 13 pulled away, taking Holly’s sweet little Ella with it. As it headed up Petunia Lane, Holly pointed to the dented fender and streak of red paint from her Suburban Godzilla. “See that, Mom? I did that. Me.” It looked like a bite mark.

“You did? Well, I’m proud of you, Holly Tree,” said Greta. “You left your mark. Way to show this world you were in it.”

Greta smiled at Holly. A toothy smile, the kind that spread the cheeks and crinkled the eyes.

“What is it?” Greta asked, as the expression on Holly’s face fell.

“I forgot to brush Ella’s hair.” Dang it.





40


Still Friday



With Ella on the bus, Greta and Holly grabbed coffee, then sat at the kitchen table with Anna Wintour to begin pitting cherries. Jack came downstairs, witnessed the fiasco that was already underway, then announced he’d get breakfast on the way to work.

From her chair, Holly leaned her head back to kiss him. “Jack?” said Holly. “Greta’s moving in with us.”

“No she’s not,” he said.

“See? Point-blank refusal,” said Holly to Greta. “What’d I tell you?”

“Then consider it a long ‘visit,’” offered Greta.

“Good luck today,” Holly said to Jack, knowing he headed into a tough day at work.

“You too,” he said. Then to Greta: “Six weeks and not a day more. And that cat of yours better not have kittens under my sofa. Speaking of sofa, did we get new curtains?” And with that, out the door he went. Probably picking up his usual: coffee black with a corn muffin. Funny, Holly was no longer concerned about Bethanny. If Bethanny learned Holly’s husband liked his coffee black with a corn muffin, so be it. Holly wasn’t jumping to conclusions based on that.

An hour or two passed, and they were still pitting cherries. “This is killing me,” Holly told Greta, stopping to rub some of the stains out of her fingers. Holly couldn’t find cherry pitters at the grocery store, so they were using paring knives to cut a slice around the cherries, then using their fingernails to pry the cherries open to extract the pits. “This is unbelievably messy.” Holly had cherry juice on her lap, on her hands, up her arms. “This has to be the messiest, most labor-intensive pie ever created. Why couldn’t these be apple pies?”

“Apple pies are too easy for this town,” Greta said. “If it was easy—it wouldn’t be Primm.”

They pressed on and, just before lunch, finished pitting what felt like two thousand cherries. “Okay,” Holly said, “let’s get the cherries off the kitchen table so we can start rolling the piecrusts. After that, we’ll dump everything onto the bottom crusts and start on the latticework for the top.”

“Latticework,” Greta stated.

“Latticework is pretty. They have to sell at auction.”

“Holly.” Greta held a hand up to stop Holly. “We’re never going to be finished by five o’clock. What happens if we’re not finished by then?”

“That’s not an option.”

“What would you say if I told you I have a backup plan?”

“Not interested,” Holly told Greta. “Stay focused. You clean the table, and I’ll get the piecrusts.”