“You’ve nothing to worry about,” he added for reassurance, but Deirdre, pummeling the dough for the apple tarts as though it was Eileen’s face beneath her fists, said nothing.
Eileen, everyone knew, had been destined for bigger things than an Irish village. Nobody, himself included, had really been surprised when she went off to America—despite her claim that he’d shamed her into leaving by carrying on with Libby. But while Eileen’s success had been expected, Deirdre was a different story altogether.
Poor Deirdre, he’d find himself thinking although truth was she’d never invited sympathy. It was just the way she had about her. Large and raw-boned, Deirdre wore the strained look that made him think of someone who’d walked too long in uncomfortable shoes. While the sun had always seemed to shine on Eileen, Deirdre lumbered along, mouth turned down, brow knitted, under a perpetual cloud.
But Deirdre’s dour look gave lie to her generosity and the softness of her heart. In the first few years after Libby died, she’d all but raised Tara and even today, he didn’t know what he’d do without her. She’d been working for him for years—cooking, managing the books, a bit of everything. A while back she’d married Frank, the fellow who kept up the grounds of the lodge. The couple had no children, but Deirdre was as fond of his daughter, Tara, and now the baby, as though they were her own—and had no hesitation about letting him know what she thought of Tara’s wanting to go off to America. Or of the hoopla over her sister’s visit after all this time.
“I’ve no patience at all with such nonsense,” she’d say, neatly summing up her feelings about both topics.
At the sink, Kieran scooped Deirdre’s peelings into a plastic pail that would be emptied outside on the compost pile. Deirdre was quite the tyrant about composting, that and saving the corncrake, a little bird that built its nest on the bogs and was in danger of becoming extinct. Deirdre and her corncrakes.
“Crex crex,” he’d heard her cooing to the baby the other day and it was a fair imitation too. “Crex crex.” Next she’d be fitting the baby with Wellingtons and taking her off on a bird walk.
“And another thing, Kieran,” she was saying now. “If I were you, I’d make very sure my sister doesn’t fill your own daughter’s head with foolish notions. This morning Tara said to me that she’d a fancy to live on the beach in Malibu and wasn’t that where Eileen herself had a cottage?” She shook her head. “They’ll be gone before you know what’s happening, you mark my words.”
Kieran looked at her. When the phone rang a moment later, he was grateful for the interruption.
“Kieran.”
Mrs. Doyle always sounded as though something terrible had just happened and, even though he knew her habit, he’d steel himself to hear the worse.
“What is it?”
“I was thinking that, to be on the safe side, you should keep a room reserved just in case Eileen brings her gentleman friend.”
Kieran took a breath. “And what name should I put it under?” he asked. “Mr. Trump, will it be?”
“YOU WANT TO GO WITH ME to Ireland?” Eileen asked Mr. Schwartz, the old man who lived in the apartment across the hall from hers. “My mother thinks I’m bringing a gentleman friend. I don’t want to disappoint her.”
Mr. Schwartz paused from dishing slices of beef brisket onto a platter. “You gonna tell her you’re after me for my money or my looks?” He speared another slice of beef, looked at her again and did a double take.
“What’d you do to your hair?”
“You like it?”
“It’s a different color.”
Eileen laughed. “You could say that.” After work, on an impulse, she’d had her mousy brown frizz bleached and straightened so that now it fell in long smooth wheat-colored strands about her shoulders. She’d been letting her hair grow out, ever since the last blond bomb-shell picture she’d sent home to save money for the upcoming trip. After the hair, she’d maxed out one of her credit cards at some trendy little boutique in West Los Angeles where a pair of jeans had set her back roughly the amount of her weekly take-home check. She’d also bought a bunch of other things designed to show the folks back home that Eileen Doyle in the flesh was every bit as glamorous and successful as the Eileen Doyle portrayed in her letters from America.
Mr. Schwartz had turned his attention back to the brisket.
“What d’you think?” she asked.
“It’s kinda dry around the edges, left it in too long.”
“My hair. Does it look good?”
“What’s wrong with the way it was?”
“Boring and mousy for starters.”
He grunted. “So they didn’t fire you after all?”
“Nope. False alarm.”
“Told you that, didn’t I? Think the worse and that’s what you’re gonna get. You want corn or green beans?”
“Whatever. But I didn’t get fired though…. Remember, I thought Brandi was gunning for me?”
“She’s gonna wait till you get back from vacation, that’s all.”
“Oh, jeez, thanks a lot. If that doesn’t ruin—”
“I’m yankin’ your chain, kid. Quit taking life so seriously.” He opened a can of corn, peered into the contents and glanced over at her. “This stuff’s got those bits of red—”
“Pimentos. That’s cool.” She watched him empty the corn into a blue enameled pan. Another one of her purchases had been a microwave oven—a Christmas present for him although she had her doubts he’d ever use it. Deeply suspicious of what he dismissed as lazy people’s gadgets, he’d only started using the toaster she bought him for his birthday and that was mostly because his back had given out, making it hard for him to stoop to use the oven grill. “Hey,” she said, “this time next week, I’ll be in Ireland.”
“I know it. Even got a bottle,” he said gruffly. “Thought we’d raise a glass to your journey.”
“Ah…” Smiling and simultaneously on the brink of tears, Eileen wanted to throw her arms around him except that the gesture would have embarrassed both of them. But it felt so good and familiar to be sitting in his windowless little kitchen, her refuge from the rest of the world. Mr. Schwartz, the only person she felt safe enough around to be completely herself. Whoever that was.
Twenty-five years she’d lived in L.A. and, as pitiful as it sounded, Mr. Schwartz was pretty much her only friend. My Friday-night date, she called him. They’d developed this routine that had been going on for more than five years now, ever since he moved into the building. Every week when she did her grocery shopping, she’d buy a brisket for Mr. Schwartz and apples or bananas for his turtle, Gulchy, who slept in a cushioned dog basket under the old man’s kitchen table. David his first name was, although she’d never called him that. They’d share the brisket as they watched old movies on TV. The brisket was the basis of an ongoing argument over whether it was better as Mr. Schwartz prepared it, or as corned beef—the only way to eat it, Eileen maintained.
She told him everything. He knew about her dead-end jobs, her dead-end relationships. He knew she was bummed about not getting the promotion at work, that she’d just about given up on even getting married, much less having kids, and he knew that her one big regret was that she hadn’t swallowed her pride and married Kieran O’Malley, even though she had caught him kissing Libby Bartlett. She’d even told Mr. Schwartz about the way her letters home had somehow taken on this weird life of their own.
When she first arrived in the States, the letters she’d sent back to Ireland had been meant to reassure everyone that she was doing fine, that although she missed the family, she’d made the right decision. And then a funny thing began to happen. The more she’d reassure them she was fine, the more desperately lonely and unsure she’d find herself. And invariably, just as she’d be on the verge of confessing the truth, a letter would arrive from her mother to say how proud everyone was of her and how brave she’d been to come to America all by herself and how no one but Eileen had that kind of courage and determ
ination. With tears splashing all over the letters, she’d tell herself there was no way she could let them down now.
So a year went by and then two. There was talk of Eileen coming back home for a visit, or of one of them coming to see her. Her initial reaction to both prospects had been panic; she couldn’t let anyone see how pathetic her life really was, but neither did she have the money for a return ticket.
It was out of this panic that the fictional high-powered executive Eileen was born. Eileen with the impossibly demanding schedules, constantly flying here and there—never anywhere near Ireland, unfortunately—with little time to breathe, let alone entertain visitors.
When her mother wrote to say she’d forwarded Eileen’s letters to the local paper where they were being published under the heading, Eileen’s News From America, Eileen abandoned any idea of coming clean and began to think of the whole thing as a kind of game. She’d find gossip column items about the lives of the rich and famous and weave celebrity names and exotic locales into her letters. She’d describe a meal she’d eaten in this ritzy restaurant or that, the details gleaned from a newspaper review that had caught her eye, or flip through a fashion magazine for the outfit she wore on last night’s date with Mr. Right.
Year followed year and she’d make vague promises that one of these days she was going to make the time to come back. Still no one really pressed her. “As much as we miss you and would love to see you, everyone in Clonkill knows the kind of life you have and we understand how busy you are,” her mother would write. “And we’re all so proud of you, Eileen. P.S. You didn’t tell us about the dress you wore to the Oscars. We want a full description next time. The reason I ask is I could have sworn that was you I saw on TV standing next to Julia Roberts. Your back was to the camera, but you were in silver, am I right?”
This sort of thing might have gone on forever, but then her mother had a mild stroke and Eileen’s sister, Deirdre, wrote to remind Eileen that their mother wasn’t getting any younger and it would mean the world to have Eileen home for Christmas…no matter how busy Eileen might be. Deirdre, with whom she’d never been close, had made it clear that it was their mother who would benefit most from the visit.
Naturally, Eileen had taken that dilemma to Mr. Schwartz.
“What’s the worse thing that could happen if you go home?” he’d asked.
“They’ll find out I’ve been lying all this time,” she’d replied.
“So they shoot you?”
“Maybe they should.”
“If they shoot you for anything,” the old man had said, “it should be that it’s twenty-five years since you’ve been back. What d’you think that says about you?”
“I don’t know what it says to them…all I know is I didn’t have the money.”
He’d given her a disgusted look. “If you can’t come up with anything better than that,” he’d replied, “I should shoot you. Anyone who’s got too much pride to ask for help when they need it…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She knew all about his views on pride. “Pride, schmide,” he’d say. “Pride’s like a big, fat, s.o.b. trying to squeeze through a narrow door. It takes up so much damn room, there’s no place for anything else to get through. Go already.”
His voice, telling her to eat up before everything got cold, brought her out of her reverie. Seated across the table from her, he was carefully pouring sparkling wine into two tumblers.
“So.” He handed her a glass. “What d’you want to drink to?”
She studied the froth of pink bubbles in her glass. “Kieran O’Malley,” she said before she could stop herself. “And second chances.”
He clinked his glass against hers. “You got it, kid.”
SO NOW HERE SHE WAS strapped into her seat in the main cabin of an Aer Lingus flight bound for Shannon, peering through the window and seeing nothing but her still unfamiliar reflection with its curtain of pale blond hair staring back at her.
She turned from the window to admire, once again, the understated chic of her traveling outfit—denim jeans and jacket. But not just any old jeans and jacket. These were sophisticated and well-cut, which they should be for what they’d cost her. And there was more of the same crammed into her newly purchased designer suitcases—which she’d actually jumped up and down on so they wouldn’t scream NEW too loudly and make it seem she was trying to impress anyone.
Kieran was to meet her at the airport, her mother had called to inform her.
According to her mother, everyone in the village had been falling all over themselves for the right to transport Eileen from the airport, but Kieran had been the most persistent. Even allowing that her mother had a certain talent for embroidering the truth (and had evidently handed it down), Eileen couldn’t help but feel a little buzz of excitement.
Could it be, was it too much to hope, that after twenty-five years, marriage, a daughter and now a granddaughter, Kieran still felt something for her? Some ember that time and life hadn’t managed to extinguish? The thought sent a small thrill through her. “You want something bad enough,” Mr. Schwartz was always telling her, “it’s gonna happen. You just gotta be patient.”
Okay, fine, but how do you tell where patience becomes delusion? They’d both been twenty-one, now they were more than twice that age. The young Eileen and Kieran who had vowed to love one another till salmon swam in the street would not be the middle-aged version that would meet up again at Shannon. People change. Maybe he’d grown garrulous, the way she remembered his father, or glum and resigned like his mother had been. Maybe he had hairy ears now, like his granddad.
“Breakfast?” A flight attendant with red curls and startlingly pale skin handed her a tray. If I looked like that, Eileen found herself thinking as she ripped open a package of salt and sprinkled it onto a dish of scrambled eggs, Kieran would be smitten. She was always doing that, fixating on other more attractive women, envisioning their perfect lives, their perfect relationships. Women who never woke up baggy-eyed with fright-wig hair. Thin women who didn’t polish off everything on their breakfast trays, even plastic-wrapped muffins with fake blueberries that tasted like grit.
She flicked a muffin crumb from the front of her jacket, downed the glass of orange juice. Glancing through the window, she saw a gray diaphanous curtain stretched below, shredded in part to reveal low white clouds casting dark shadows on green hills and fields. My God. She stared, transfixed by the brilliant, verdant greenness and felt the sting of tears in her nose. I’m home.
She gave up her tray to another attendant (long black braid, slim hips, perfect life) and grabbed her cosmetic bag from the travel bag under the seat.
The Occupied sign in both toilets glowed red. Her hands clasped around the cosmetic bag, Eileen stood and waited. How would Kieran greet her after all this time? Would he run to her with open arms and a huge smile on his face like some corny commercial? Kiss her passionately? She opened her mirrored compact, squinted at her reflection. Her lipstick had flaked, ditto her mascara.
“Ma’am.” The red-haired flight attendant tapped her on the shoulder. “You’re blocking the entryway.”
Ma’am.
Eileen flipped back a strand of wheat-colored hair that suddenly seemed ridiculous, as ridiculous as the designer jeans that were cutting like a knife into the flesh at her waist. As though she were pretending to be something she wasn’t.
Well? Her face hot, she returned to her seat.
I don’t want to do this, she thought. I don’t want to see Kieran. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. I want to pull the blanket down over my head and shut out the world. I want to go home.
She was home.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU’RE NERVOUS, Daddy,” Kieran’s daughter, Tara, observed. It was the day of Eileen’s arrival, an hour before he had to leave for Shannon, and she was following him from room to room, distracting him as he tried to remember where it was he’d put his keys when he came back from getting his jacket from th
e cleaners.
“Nervous?” He frowned at her. At twenty-six Tara bore a startling resemblance to her mother at the same age. On occasion though, something—the way the light hit her face, or a certain angle of her head—would so intensify the resemblance that it would bring him up short. This was one of those times. She’d just come in from outside, the shoulders of her red anorak wet from the snow, her hair glistening, her face pink from the cold. The keys temporarily forgotten, he just stared at her.
“Daddy.” Laughing now, she reached on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “You look demented.”
He rallied, moved to the office and lifted a stack of papers to see if the keys were underneath. They weren’t. Swearing, he set the papers down again. Too close to the edge, they fell and scattered across the floor. “Damn it.” Retrieving them, he banged his head on the edge of the desk. From the lounge where Tara had put the baby to sleep in a carrier bed, he heard a loud wail. “I know,” he muttered, “I feel the very same way.”
The weather wasn’t helping either. He’d woken early that morning to a blanket of wet snow. The day before had been perfect. He couldn’t quite decide why it mattered that Eileen have nice weather—any more than it would matter for any of the guests who stayed in the lodge—but it did somehow. He’d wanted her to see that California wasn’t the only place with winter sunshine, daft really but there it was.
“It would be so much better if you’d let me go with you,” Tara said, picking up the theme she’d first introduced when she’d rung him that morning. “That way you won’t have to think of things to say to her.”
“I’ll have no trouble thinking of things to say to her.” He strode into the kitchen. Tara, after quieting the baby, followed on his heels. “You’re all a lot more excited about this visit than I am,” he grumbled. Although he was beginning to realize that wasn’t entirely true. And then recalling Deirdre’s comments the day before, he asked, “And what would you have to talk to Eileen about anyway? Her house in Malibu?”
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