by Sienna Blake
Andy certainly hadn’t changed, that was for sure. He was still miles past the line of appropriateness, still red-faced and balding, still a man who needed to be put in his place. The office was the same. The light in the lamp in the corner was still broken. An old bag of chips still on the edge of the desk. Even the Christmas lights lazily tacked up above his computer were still up.
It was like I hadn’t even left.
“Are you going to give me the job or not, Andy?” I asked, tiring of his petty little games.
“Of course I’m going to give you the job,” Andy said, his belly jiggling as he leaned forward in his chair. “How can I resist those tit—I mean, how can I resist that smile?”
I stood up from the chair. “Great,” I said, tone flat with not even a hint of a smile as Andy leered at me. “Can you get me the forms I need to fill out for payroll and stuff?”
Andy dismissed me with a wave of his beefy, freckled fingers as he wiped away tears from his eyes.
“It’s all still in the system, Kay-Kay the BJ Fav-Fav,” Andy snorted, clearly enjoying his “joke”. “I knew you’d be back. I knew you couldn’t resist this.”
Andy grabbed his nut sack that was half-buried beneath his belly, and I bit my tongue because I needed this job before my gracious friend kicked me out onto the street. And honestly, I needed the distraction. On the couch there was nothing to do but think about Darren. Darren, Darren, Darren. How much I missed Darren.
At least at Dooley’s Bar my mind was busy worrying about which dark and dingy corner Andy and his grabby hands with those disgustingly sticky fingers were hiding behind.
“I look forward to watching that cute ass of yours behind the bar tonight on my security cameras,” Andy called out after me as I quickly slipped out of the horrendous office. “Give me a little shake, would ya, Kay-Kay Queen of the Va-Jay-Jays!”
I shuddered at the sound of Andy’s pig-like snorts of laughter that snuck under the crack in the office door like some sort of toxic gas following after me. Sighing in relief in the small staff changing room, I leaned against the wall and dragged a tired hand over my face. I jumped when the door opened after me. Thank God, it was only Tina and not a fat, balding monstrosity.
“Kayleigh!”
I forced a polite smile as Tina leaned in for a warm hug.
“Did you have a nice holiday?” Tina asked as she slipped off her coat to put it in one of the five or so beat-up grey lockers.
I frowned in confusion. “Holiday?”
Tina pulled off her shirt to change into the Dooley’s work uniform: a tight t-shirt with a V-neck whose plunge rivalled that of Niagara Falls, selected by, of course, the boss man himself.
“Yeah, weren’t you on hols?” Tina asked, adjusting her t-shirt around her red push-up bra and glancing over at me.
“I—um, well…did everyone think I was?”
Tina laughed.
“I mean, where else would you have been? What else would you have been doing?”
I nodded slowly.
No one here believed that I had left for good. No one here believed that I would ever really leave the safety and security of my job, as demeaning as it could sometimes be given not just the clientele, but the harassing boss. No one here believed that I would try to do something more, be something more.
“Well, I’ve got to get out there,” Tina said, as I stood there pondering by the door. “You working tonight then?”
I smiled as she grabbed the door handle and paused. I nodded. “Yep, back at it.”
Tina patted my shoulder. “Good,” she said. “Grab a rack of pint glasses from the kitchen when you come, yeah?”
“Sure.”
The door to the changing room clicked shut behind her, and I was left alone once more. Now curious, I made my way to the locker that used to be mine. I assumed that when I left, Andy or one of the girls would have cleared it out: given my uniforms to the new girl, tossed my magnetic nametag, and parcelled out my leftover makeup, mints, and dental floss.
I was surprised to open the locker door and find all of my stuff still inside, not an item out of place. Nothing had been moved, not even an inch, let alone dumped into the trash bin outside with the empty beer bottles and past-its-date nacho cheese sauce.
I touched my nametag still stuck to the inside of the locker and thought again—it is as if I’d never left. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.
Nothing but me.
As if frozen in time, Dooley’s remained the same during my time with Eoin and the O’Sullivans and Darren in Dublin. It had the same sticky floors, the same greasy bar tops, the same drunk passed out at the end of the bar. The staff was the same: Andy and Tina and the other girls, too, judging by the names on the same row of lockers. And the memory of the old me stayed the same as well: the remnants of the old me were all still here, right where I left them.
I would slip right back into the old me. I would pull on my skin-tight V-neck that displayed my breasts gratuitously for those horny college kids. And it would fit; it would fit like a glove. I would snap on my magnetic nametag, too. My name was still Kayleigh, after all. I would fall into the same routine again of cleaning pint glasses, changing kegs, mopping slipped beer off of dirty floors.
I couldn’t help but feel like a butterfly trying to crawl back inside its cocoon.
Maybe I just tried to spread my wings too soon. Or maybe I never had wings at all; maybe I just had Darren.
With a sigh, I reached for my Dooley’s Bar nametag.
Darren
I’d left thirty-five voicemail messages on Eoin’s cell phone.
I’d sent another forty or so texts, most consisting of either “Call me” or “Please call me”.
I’d emailed him eleven times, tried to get in touch with him through his agent nine times, and harassed his rugby coach to let me into the training facility out in the parking lot of the stadium enough times that security was forced to walk me off the premises (I believe that lucky number was seven).
It had been a week since Eoin’s accident and the incident in the hospital and I was desperate to find him. What I would say, I hadn’t quite figured out. Thankfully I got to put all of my mental efforts into simply tracking him down.
The closest I’d gotten to him was as close as the rest of the population of Ireland: the tabloids. Just like everyone else, I’d read about Eoin’s very public benders, late night partying, and hook-ups with the hottest single celebrities. I’d read about him missing practice, showing up to coaches’ meetings drunk or high, and risking his future career as a rugby star with his suddenly reckless behaviour.
As a last-ditch effort, I drove over to Eoin’s place on a Tuesday at 8:03 a.m. I didn’t have any illusions that he would let me inside, but I didn’t need him to let me inside—I had a key. All us brothers had emergency keys. If Eoin wouldn’t face me and hear me out, I’d force him to by ambushing him in his bed.
I slipped the key into Eoin’s door and then as quietly as possible stepped inside his swanky renovated townhouse in Ballsbridge, one of the most upmarket areas of Dublin. My attempts at silence, however, were quickly dashed when my heel crunched down on an empty energy drink can in the entryway. I looked down to find the whole hallway littered with cans and empty bottles of Jameson. I tried to pick them up, but by the time I made my way to the living room, my arms were full. I found the recycling bin already overflowing and spilling onto the kitchen floor.
I stood in the centre of the living room, horrified to see the mess around me. There were takeout boxes scattered across the coffee table and couch, beer bottles covering the glass side tables, sticky shot glasses dotting the carpet, and women’s bras and panties flung over the lampshades and door handle to the patio outside with the jacuzzi that bubbled and spit unattended even now.
The sight of it all tore at my heart—I was the reason for this.
Unable to look at it all any longer, I picked my way through discarded clothes to Eoin’s bedroom door. It was cr
acked open. When I peeked inside I found the bed entirely empty. I tried to push the door fully open and discovered it was blocked by an entire keg. Party cups took the place of where the sheets and comforter should be on the mattress, and shattered champagne glasses shimmered with the rays of morning light coming in through the window. I checked the bathroom and then the rest of the townhouse, but it was obvious that Eoin was not there.
With a defeated sigh, I decided I would clean up the place. I knew it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for what I did, but I had to start somewhere. I had to do something. I busied myself for nearly three and a half hours collecting trash, doing laundry, making the bed, and vacuuming. I was reaching for the door handle to carry out the last of five black trash bags to the dumpster when the door handle turned on its own.
I stepped back as Eoin swung open the door. I wasn’t sure whose face revealed the most shock at the sight of the other. On the one hand, it must have been quite a surprise to see me standing in his entryway on a Tuesday morning with a bag of trash. But on the other hand, I hardly recognised the man standing in front of me.
Eoin was not just the baby of the family, but perpetually baby-faced as well: full cheeks, an infectious, non-stop grin, and bright, shining eyes that saw the world with curiosity and eternal optimism. But this was a man in front of me. A man with dark rings of exhaustion under his eyes. A man with red-rimmed, tired, defeated eyes. A man with narrow lips in a stern line. A man who looked haggard and in desperate need of a shower and a shave. He smelled like booze and looked like a bender.
I couldn’t believe this man was my baby-faced baby brother.
“Eoin, I—”
“The key.” Eoin held out his palm to me, but not before I caught sight of multiple club stamps scattered across the back of his hand.
“Eoin, please, can we talk? I just want to talk.”
Eoin’s pale face flashed red with anger, save for the purple bags beneath his eyes. He clenched the fist that still hung in the sling from his dislocated elbow and grit out between clenched teeth, “Darren, give me the fucking key.”
Eoin was breathing heavily, like a bull in the arena ready to charge. I felt the key to his place in my jeans pocket but hesitated. I feared this might be the only chance I’d get to make amends with him, or at least try to.
“I can explain, if you just—”
“I’m doing everything possible to forget you and to forget her,” Eoin growled. “And then you have the audacity to just show up at my door. Fuck you, Darren. Fuck you.”
“I—”
“Give me the fucking key before I add to your collection,” Eoin shouted, jabbing an angry finger at the ugly, healing bruises that covered half my face. “Those keys were for brothers. And as far as I’m concerned, we’re no longer that.”
“Eoin—”
“And don’t think that you can come in here and pick up a few bottles and call us square,” Eoin continued, voice shaking with rage. “Because that doesn’t even start to clean up the mess you’ve made.”
“Eoin—”
He advanced on me and I let him until my back collided with the entryway wall. He shoved his unshaven face right up close to mine, his whiskey breath hot on my cheek.
“Give me the goddamn key, Darren,” he hissed, shoulders tense like a spring about to pop. “I’m not asking again.”
I sighed and fished the key out of my front pocket. Eoin snatched it from me and stalked away, swaying slightly as he made his way to the living room. He collapsed on the couch.
“Now get the fuck out of here,” he grumbled into the cushions. “And get the fuck out of my life while you’re at it.”
I took my bag of trash and left. As I walked down the sidewalk, I heard Eoin stumble back toward the door and lock it behind me. This was followed by the sound of Eoin’s fist rattling the door on its hinges.
One thing was clear: he was nowhere near ready to forgive me.
The next thought that followed was terrifying: maybe he never would be.
I returned to the garage, which I had been avoiding all week. I didn’t want to be there. Whenever I smelled oil, I thought of her. Whenever my hands tightened around a wrench, I thought of my arms tightening around her waist. Whenever I heard an engine roar to life, I thought of the life we could have had together, and I had to immediately kill the ignition before I fell apart completely.
But my stack of uncompleted work orders was piling up higher and higher, and the number of customer voicemails on my phone was growing longer and longer. Besides, there really wasn’t anywhere I could go without thinking of Kayleigh. She was everywhere.
She was a mist, always around me, against my face, light on my lips, tangled in my eyelashes when I closed my eyes, and yet…and yet I could never grasp her, I could never manage to hold onto her, I could never cling to even a piece of her before she was carried away on the cold Irish wind.
I trudged into the little back office to grab the stack of work orders. But as I was flipping through them, a small piece of scrap paper tumbled down between my feet. I picked it up and froze at the sight of Kayleigh’s swirly, delicate handwriting.
I sank into the chair, letting the work orders fall and scatter across the floor, as my eyes flew over the note:
D,
It’s not really fair that I never got you a Christmas present when you got me one so lovely and thoughtful. I’m sorry that it’s late in getting to you, but I hope it can maybe bring you some happiness. Never forget that you deserve it.
Please use it. For me, at least.
I wish things were different.
~ K
Below her note was simply an arrow that pointed to the other side of the piece of paper. I flipped it over and stared at what was written there till the sun sank low on the horizon and the street lamps flickered on one by one down the street. I stared at it till my fingers and the tip of my nose grew numb in the cold. I stared at it till it was so dark, I could no longer read it.
But by that point there was no way I could unsee it.
Kayleigh’s Christmas gift to me was a telephone number.
Sophie’s telephone number.
Kayleigh
It wasn’t the first time I’d felt Andy’s grimy hands on my ass.
All of us girls at Dooley’s knew full well the “team building” slaps or the “good job tonight” squeezes or the “Oops, I thought that was the door handle” gropes. I’d had him harass me in the kitchen, harass me in the changing room, harass me on the dance floor, in the bathroom, and behind the keg room. No, it certainly wasn’t the first time I’d endured Andy’s physical advances.
But on that cold January Saturday night, with a tray of sudsy pints in one hand and a bucket of ice in the other, I decided right then and there amongst the packed crowd at Dooley’s that it would be the last.
I dropped the bucket of ice and let the tray of overflowing pint glasses crash to the floor next to me. The entire bar immediately went silent as all eyes, glossy or otherwise, looked at me. There was a time where the most noise I would make was an anonymous complaint report that was calmly and respectfully written and emailed in to a non-existent HR department.
But that was not me anymore.
This time I wanted to make a scene. I wanted to make a mess. I wanted everyone to remember that one bartender at Dooley’s who let that pig have a piece of her mind.
“Did you just touch my ass?” I asked Andy, voice loud enough for the entire bar to hear it.
Andy glanced nervously at the line of bartenders and crowd of patrons all staring at him.
“What’s that now, Kay-Kay love?” Andy said, laughing nervously and trying to play it off coolly.
“My name is Kayleigh,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And in case you didn’t hear me properly, I asked if you just squeezed my ass in my place of work.”
Andy’s already red, splotchy alcoholic face turned even redder and splotchier. “No, no, of course, I didn’t—”
&nb
sp; “I think you did.”
Andy eyed the crowd that was whispering excitedly to one another. No one knew they would be receiving free entertainment tonight.
“Kayleigh, maybe we can discuss this further in my office,” Andy leaned forward to whisper.
He tried to grab for my wrist, but I pulled my body out of reach.
“I think we can discuss this right here,” I said defiantly.
Anger flashed across Andy’s piggish features. “You’re making a scene, girl,” he hissed.
It was my turn to lean closer to him. I grinned and said loudly and clearly, “Good. And you know what?”
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I’m about to make an even bigger one.” Snatching the most expensive bottles on the top shelf, I shouted to the packed bar. “We’re drinking on our beloved boss tonight, folks.”
I lined up a long row of shot glasses and messily poured them one by one, not caring that expensive whiskey dripped down the sides of the bar.
“A shot for the time you tried to show me your cock beneath that Santa hat,” I shouted. “A shot for the time you threatened to fire us if we didn’t wear these slutty shirts. And a shot for each time you touched one of us inappropriately without our consent.”
I kept expecting my ma’s shrill, incensed voice to come hissing in my ear over the hush of the stunned bar. “You’re being extremely rude, Kayleigh Scott. You’re making a mess. Who in their right mind will hire you after this? Be quiet, child! Be quiet!”
But as the whiskey splashed over the lips of the shot glasses, I found my ma entirely absent. The harsh glare of the microwave light in a dark kitchen didn’t replace the Christmas lights still hanging from the bar. The crowd didn’t disappear, leaving me alone at an empty table no longer set for three. The music remained and my ma was nowhere to be found.
Instead I was surprised to find that it was Darren’s voice that I heard in my head. “Go, Kayleigh. Don’t let anyone push you around. Don’t let anyone take from you what is yours. Louder. Louder still.”
