My Wanderlust Bites the Dust

by Eliza Watson

  He panned his phone across the lively square filled with couples and restaurant windows lit up in red and pink hues. I should have made the trek to Old Town Square, but my feet were killing me. Prague’s square looked romantic from the pictures I’d seen in my travel guide.

  “I wish I were too.” I plastered on a cheery smile to mask the aching inside me to be with Declan. Stay strong!

  “I have a surprise for ya.” His phone zoned in on a street performer dressed in a black tux, holding a guitar. Great. A romantic serenade to make me a blubbering idiot.

  However, rather than “La Vie en Rose,” the man broke into a lively tune. “Hey where did we go…Down in the hollow…”

  Declan sliced a hand in front of his neck, cutting the guy off. “Not ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ mate. I said ‘Galway Girl.’”

  The performer gazed off into the night, a pensive look on his face.

  Declan shook his head. “No worries.” He gestured to the guitar, and the man nodded, handing Declan his instrument. Declan gave the guy his phone to take over the video call. He pretended to strum the guitar, singing without accompaniment. “Well, I took a stroll…I met a little girl…’Cause her hair was auburn…her eyes were blue…”

  “Galway Girl.” My favorite song from the movie P.S. I Love You. I burst out laughing, glad I’d combed my hair and wiped the black circles from around my eyes.

  Declan hopped up on the edge of the fountain, as if he were on stage, the naked statue behind him. His voice grew louder, and he totally got into his fake guitar playing. People were gathering, snapping pics, a few clapping along. My foot was tapping in rhythm to the song.

  Declan jumped down from the fountain. “…ain’t nothin’ like a Milwaukee girl!”

  People clapped, and several tossed change on the ground in front of him.

  “Woot, woot!” I yelled. “Brilliant!”

  He took a bow, then disappeared a moment while he exchanged the guitar for his phone.

  “How am I ever going to beat that?” I asked.

  He smiled, catching his breath. “How about ‘Frosty the Snowman’?”

  Declan had walked in on me singing the Christmas carol in Paris.

  His smile faded. “Ah, sorry. Have to get back to the dinner.”

  I tried to act upbeat, not wanting to put a damper on his romantic surprise, which turned out even more romantic than he’d planned. “We had room service pizzas in the office.” Except for Rita, who’d ordered a plate of bacon. If working 1,500-person meetings didn’t give her a heart attack, her comfort food would.

  “We’re having family-style pasta. How mad is that? Being in Italy and eating pasta.” Declan laughed.

  He blew me a kiss, and we said ciao.

  I placed my fingertips against my lips as if the touch of Declan’s kiss lingered, imagining the taste on my lips…

  I had to come up with something special to do for Declan. His birthday was in April, but I didn’t know the date. I texted Zoe, who immediately responded April 19. The week after we were planning to meet up in Chicago. Perfect. I had to start planning something like dinner at the top of the John Hancock Center or a romantic cruise on Lake Michigan. I’d done the romantic Seine cruise in Paris by myself, and Declan had done it with fifty attendees while I’d dined with six-year-old Henry at a magician’s show. Maybe I could bring the romance of Paris to Lake Michigan…

  While humming “Galway Girl,” I made a cup of tea, opened a bag of Taytos, and settled in at my computer to search for Chicago dinner cruises. Not cheap, but the pics of a boat cruising along the Chicago skyline lit up at night were très romantic. I gazed longingly at a couple drinking wine on a deck, imagining Declan as Cary Grant and myself as Audrey Hepburn in the movie Charade, floating down the Seine…

  We were definitely doing a cruise.

  I checked out Ireland’s news on Facebook. I followed County Westmeath’s newspaper, Carter’s pub, and Peter Molloy’s, and several local businesses in Killybog and Declan’s hometown, Glenteen. Conway’s restaurant was running a ten-euro special on chicken curry. I about gagged at the thought of the goose curry I’d nearly puked on at Finn O’Brien’s cooking lesson in Dublin. Other than that, it was all good news.

  A rap sounded at the door. I tiptoed over and peered out the peephole at Ted and a huge man in a dark suit holding a clipboard and a small jar. I’d seen him lurking around the meeting space. Why was hotel security and Ted at my door? An unannounced name badge check? Before opening the door, I eyed my badge sitting on the desk.

  Hotel security handed me a jar of honey. “From Nigel in banquets.”

  I hadn’t yet slathered on the first jar Nigel had given me.

  He gestured to his clipboard. “I need to file a report on the burn. May I enter?”

  An official report?

  “It’s really not that bad. And was my own fault. I’m not blaming the hotel.” I showed him that my bright-pink finger wasn’t blistered, bleeding, or charred. Even though it felt like it.

  “A formality,” Ted said.

  I debated stepping into the hallway or letting them into my room. Not wanting my coworkers to see us and question why security was at my door, I let them in. I answered their questions, embarrassed to admit what I’d done.

  “Do you need a doctor?” Ted asked.

  “No,” I blurted out.

  No way was I going to a hospital. If I hadn’t gone after nearly dislocating my shoulder, I wasn’t going for something so minor. My dad’s insurance didn’t cover international. I’d no longer be covered under it at all when I turned twenty-six next year. It’d be years before I’d be able to afford insurance, with my student loan kicking in. And I was starting to think I might need disability insurance even more than health insurance.

  After they left, I stuck my finger in the jar of honey, then wrapped it in a Band-Aid so I didn’t get my laptop keys sticky.

  What if I’d had to go to the hospital? Major medical expenses without international insurance coverage would put me into an even deeper debt. I had to carry international health insurance even if it was just basic coverage. And in a year, I’d be responsible for full coverage. I needed to create a budget to figure out how to pull a monthly insurance premium out of my butt. I’d never kept a budget. Balancing my checkbook about sent me over the edge.

  I had two meetings booked: Rachel’s St. Paddy’s Day meeting and Heather’s May one. I hadn’t received a cancellation fee for Heather’s February Venice meeting, so she’d booked me on a New York one in May. I also had my Brecker bonus, the amount to still be determined. That would pay my taxes and get me through the next two months.

  A half hour later, I sat slumped in the chair, staring at my budget on the computer. Alone in a hotel room on Valentine’s Day was not the time to see in writing how pathetic my finances were. At the rate I was going, I’d be out of debt just in time to retire. I had to get more work. I needed to travel 150 to 200 days a year to make a serious dent in my debt. That would mean buying two more suitcases and an extra stash of undies so I could work back-to-back trips like Mindy and Declan.

  I was jet-lagged just thinking about it.

  Yet, how many years would it take me to have enough clients to book me two hundred days a year?

  I wanted financial independence. To be able to stand on my own. I’d overextended myself trying to keep up with Andy’s lifestyle and live up to his standards. And now I was paying the price.

  Bernice and Gracie were still entering me in contests. Besides winning a dog, I’d won a muffin-of-the-month club subscription, which I’d given to my aunt Dottie for her birthday, and a hundred-dollar gift certificate for some barbecue restaurant chain in Texas. No big-screen TVs or lawn mowers that would bring me big bucks on Craigslist. The ladies were going to pay me the rest of my fee once I’d completed their research. They’d paid for my Ancestry.com subscription, and I was charging them a $200 flat fee for the project, rather than an hourly rate, since I spent hours trying to figure out wh
ere to even look for information. After weeks of research, I’d discovered the “sounds like” option on sites was critical for finding information that was incorrectly documented or transcribed. My $200 research fee came out to like twenty cents an hour. My event planning job paid a hundred bucks more than that daily.

  Maybe if I won enough muffin-of-the-month clubs I could open a bakery.

  * * *

  I woke up with my head resting against the wooden desk, a sweet taste in my mouth. I licked the sticky substance from my lips. Honey. I lifted my head, a clump of hair peeling from a gooey puddle on the desk. Ugh. I hadn’t planned on washing my hair today.

  I’d removed the Band-Aid and stuck my finger in the jar, which had tipped over in my sleep. A puddle had spread across the desk, coming dangerously close to my laptop. Better it was on me than my laptop. I licked the honey from my finger. The red mark had faded to a light pink, and the sting was gone. I tossed the jar in the garbage and cleaned up the sticky mess. I pulled my hair back in a clip until I could wash it.

  It was 4:00 a.m. Good thing I’d woken up, since I hadn’t set an alarm. Rather than entering muffin contests, I’d dozed off while researching Bernice and Gracie’s family history. After a hundred research hours, I’d finally had my first breakthrough. I’d discovered the baptismal certificate for their grandpa James McKinney in Montreal, Canada, rather than Ontario, where the women thought he’d been born. My French sucked and the writing was barely legible, but I was able to translate enough to determine that his father, James Senior, was a sergeant in Her Majesty’s 23rd Regiment Fusiliers. Unable to locate his military records, I’d sent an e-mail to my Irish friend Nicholas Turney—an elderly neighbor of Declan’s parents—asking if he had a contact who might be able to assist with accessing the records at an archive. A local historian, Nicholas had helped me with my Coffey family research, reassuring me that my ancestor hadn’t been involved in a murder.

  I’d immediately e-mailed Bernice and Gracie my discovery, even though I wasn’t certain if the man’s military documents even existed. However, every clue was a cause for celebration and gave them, and me, more confidence in my genealogist skills.

  I needed all the confidence I could get in any area of my life right now.

  Chapter Eleven

  My first day of creating balance in my life hadn’t been a huge success. It’d been more of a balancing act, and I was determined not to fall off the high wire I was teetering on. Yet I was starting off the day with little sleep, having stayed up to conduct more ancestry research. And I felt like a sticky mess even though I’d shampooed my hair four times and soaped myself down a half dozen.

  Only 6:00 a.m. and the office was already bustling. Courtney and Rita were stuffing name badges into holders. I checked to make sure my badge was hanging around my neck. A stash of Red Bull was iced down in a bucket on the floor by Courtney’s desk. She’d need every drop of it. Attendees arrived today.

  Blair was on the phone, and Mindy and Chad were engrossed in their laptops. Gretchen had stepped out. I was scanning e-mails, including one from Declan’s client offering me a Miami gig in April. Reaching out to his clients yesterday had paid off. I pulled up our Google calendars and reconfirmed that Declan was in London that week. His clients probably hired me because he was always busy.

  When had he added an Amsterdam meeting in April?

  Actually, he hadn’t added the Amsterdam meeting. His airline flight had linked to the calendar. We’d planned to meet up in Chicago that week since we wouldn’t have seen each other since St. Paddy’s Day. What about the romantic cruise I’d planned? My heart sank. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me about the trip.

  Declan only had four open days in April. Why did he need money that badly that he had to travel nonstop? He didn’t have an apartment. He crashed with his brother in London or at his parents’ if he needed a place to stay. His tiny car had to be paid off. He expensed most of his food to clients. Since Shauna’s death, he’d worked to escape his personal life, but he didn’t still need to escape.

  Did he?

  I wanted to shoot him an e-mail about the Amsterdam meeting, but I feared the conversation would turn into an argument even though I was more hurt than upset that he hadn’t discussed it with me. I needed to find the right moment to bring it up.

  An e-mail from Nicholas Turney popped into my inbox. He provided the link to James McKinney’s military records on Ancestry.com. I’d failed to locate the record because the last name was misspelled Makimey. That wasn’t even close. Blair was still on the phone, so I clicked the link. A faint document appeared. Heart racing, I enlarged it for better viewing, fingers crossed. The fancy cursive penmanship with tall, skinny, loopy letters was nearly impossible to read. It should have been mandatory to print legibly on all official documents.

  “Are you doing okay?” Blair materialized in front of my desk, startling me.

  I closed the research site. “Ah, yeah, breakfast is set, and—”

  “I mean your burn.” Her tone was more annoyed than concerned.

  “How did you know about my burn?”

  “Ted called me at eleven last night. They have to advise me whenever a security report is filed for an attendee, including staff. How bad is it?” She glanced down at my hand as Gretchen returned to her desk.

  I held up my pinky.

  “What’s going on?” Gretchen asked.

  “Caity burned her finger.”

  They both had to squint to see the faint pink mark. How could it have hurt so bad and now looked like nothing, making me look like a total wimp?

  “Nigel gave me some honey, and it worked wonders. A great anti-inflammatory.”

  Blair nodded vaguely. “I’m going to have you help out with registration this morning. Most of the international flights get in early, so the desk will be slammed until noon.”

  Why the hell couldn’t Chad help out at registration? He was only in charge of four meeting rooms, and the meetings hadn’t even started yet. The program kicked off tonight with a welcome reception, and I wasn’t even sure what time it started. Gretchen would rip me to shreds.

  “I haven’t had time to review the event orders,” I blurted.

  Gretchen look surprised by my concern over the BEOs, and Blair looked miffed that I was questioning her decision to stick me at the registration desk.

  “Gretchen’s got things under control in the F and B world.”

  Gretchen’s jaw tightened. “I planned to have Caity shadow the minibar attendant again. There are a lot more rooms checking in today.”

  “As long as it’s the same guy doing it, it’ll be fine. She gave him direction yesterday.”

  Gretchen’s lips pressed into a thin line, like she was struggling not to speak her mind. Her mouth relaxed slightly. “I’ll need Caity in the ballroom by three to help.” She gave Blair a pointed look.

  Blair shrugged. “Of course. Everyone will have checked in by then. There may be a few challenges with registration, so best to have an extra body this morning.”

  According to Rita, it was going to be a “bloody nightmare.”

  Wanting desperately to sneak back to my room and crawl into bed, I went in search of Nigel and an energy drink. I found the banquet captain in our breakfast room, talking to Armando, who avoided my gaze, rearranging scones on a platter.

  Nigel joined me. “How is your finger?”

  “Great.” I needed to put on a Band-Aid so if people asked about it, I wouldn’t have to show them it looked fine. Wanting to change the subject, I requested an energy drink.

  “Did your injury keep you up late?”

  “No, I was up helping two women research their ancestry before they visit Scotland this summer.”

  He arched a curious brow. “You’re a genealogist?”

  I shrugged. “An amateur. I dabble in my Irish ancestry.”

  Nigel’s face lit up, and he looked almost giddy. “Might I hire you to assist with some family research? My mother took one
of those DNA tests and has been devastated ever since. It claims she’s only twenty percent English, rather than a hundred percent, as she always believed. The results showed she was also French and German. I’m the only person she has shared the information with. She won’t even tell her dearest friend.”

  “I’ve read those tests can vary, and you inherit different amounts of DNA ethnicity from each parent.”

  “Family lore has it that my grandfather, who never knew his father, came from royal blood.”

  “What if I discover you have a connection to Louis the Sixteenth rather than Queen Victoria? You’re okay with that?”

  “I promise not to take off your head.” He winked. “Her birthday is in May. Would be the perfect time to show her written proof our family tree is indeed of strong English descent. Please consider it. I’d be most appreciative.”

  I’d hoped to finish up Bernice and Gracie’s research this month so I could start on my Flannery tree. I could feel for Nigel, wanting to solve his family’s mystery. However, my Flannerys might have come from royal blood, but I’d never know it at this rate. Yet, I could use the extra cash after I’d forked out all that money on stack dolls. And I needed to pay for my international health insurance.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” I said.

  “Splendid.” Nigel went off to grab me an energy drink.

  Armando rearranged sugar packets in a bowl while I checked the buffet. Nigel returned with a thick pea-green-colored liquid in a tall glass.

  My top lip curled back. “What is that?”

  “Enough energy to have you zipping around all day.”

  “A sixteen-hour day?” I took a sip of the slimy sludge that tasted like seaweed after it’d washed ashore and lay rotting on driftwood for months. “What is this?”

  “A mix of kale, broccoli—”

  I held up a halting hand. “Never mind. I’m better off not knowing.”

  “It’s what keeps me going. That and the loo on the lower level.”

  “The loo?”

  “It’s located down a remote hallway where the meeting rooms aren’t often utilized. When I need to get away from the madness, I hide out in the loo.”