Love & Luck

by Jenna Evans Welch

  Me and Cubby.

  “You’re sure you want to stay here?” Ian asked skeptically. We sat parked in front of a peeling, burnt-orange building that looked more like a prison than a hostel. Chains tethered the wrought-iron furniture to the porch, and bars lined the windows. “Are they trying to keep people out or in?”

  “I think it looks nice,” I said. “Very . . . homey. Authentic.” Rowan and I exchanged a look. It had taken some convincing to get Ian to agree to stay in Dingle overnight. He’d wanted to keep going, but our guidebook stop was at a place called Inch Beach, and this was not exactly beach weather. There was also the minor issue of hypothermia, which was starting to feel like more and more of a possibility.

  There was still one problem, though: Dingle was in high tourist season. And that meant no vacancy—except for the Rainbow’s End Hostel, whose way-too-cheerful, Flash-heavy website claimed to ALWAYS HAVE AVAILABILITY!!!! Now, having seen the hostel and all of its charm, I understood why.

  “Somewhere over the rainbow,” Rowan deadpanned. “How Irish is that?” He took the key out of the ignition.

  “Come on,” I added. “Anything has to be better than driving in that storm.”

  “And you get to work on your article,” Rowan joined in. “I’m sure you have plenty of material after visiting the Burren and Slea Head.”

  “True,” Ian admitted. “It would be nice to keep up on my writing. That way it isn’t a huge job at the end. Plus, I need to post to my blog.”

  “Perfect! Let’s go,” I said. Half a day in Clover, and already every bit of me ached. I couldn’t get out of the back seat fast enough.

  For someplace named Rainbow’s End, the interior was surprisingly lacking in color. All except for brown. Brown floors, brown carpet, brown linoleum, and a brass light fixture missing two out of five bulbs. Even the smell was brown: a mixture of burnt toast and the lingering of a pot roast.

  I made my way up to a rickety wooden desk. Papers cluttered its surface, and a cup of coffee sat on top of a grubby three-ring binder.

  “Hello?” I called out. Brown swallowed up my voice.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone is here. Maybe we should try somewhere else,” Ian offered.

  “There is nowhere else. Believe me, we tried.” I bypassed the desk and headed down a dark hallway. Light trickled from underneath a door. “Hello?” I called, pushing it open slightly. “Anyone here?”

  A guy with a mass of curly white-blond hair sat playing a video game, his dirty feet propped up on the table in front of him. A large pair of headphones encased his ears.

  “Excuse me?” I reached out to tap his shoulder, but just before I made contact, he whirled around, crashing noisily to the floor.

  “Are you okay?” I scrambled to help him up.

  “Okay? Not terribly.” He yanked the headphones off. He was in his late teens or early twenties, furiously tan, and built small and muscular like a rock climber. His accent was decidedly not Irish. Was it Australian? British? He smiled wide, and his white teeth contrasted sharply against his tanned face. “How are you going?”

  How are you going? What was the correct answer to that? Good? To Electric Picnic?

  He didn’t wait for me to figure it out. “So sorry about the mattresses. I know they’re utter crap. But I guess that’s why we have such an affordable rate. And be honest, you didn’t come all the way to the Emerald Isle to sleep anyway, right? You’re here to explore.”

  I raised my eyebrows, completely lost. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.” Someone he’d spoken to before.

  His eyes widened. “Oh, no. You aren’t with the German group, are you? Forget what I said about the mattresses. Sleeping at the Rainbow’s End is like sleeping on a cloud.” He sang the last part.

  “Nice save,” I said. “Do you have space for three people?”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Didn’t you see the sign? We always have availability. I already told you about the mattresses, but let me sell you on the good parts of our humble Rainbow’s End. We have a killer nightlife here. Party out front after dark every night, heaps of people, amber fluid, everything you could ask for.” He winked, erasing my ability to tell if he was joking or not. “I’m Bradley, by the way. Welcome to the Rainbow’s End, the most westernly youth hostel in Europe.”

  “I’m Addie.” I shook his hand. “You didn’t by chance write the content on the website, did you?”

  He bobbed his head enthusiastically. “That I did, Addie. That I did. Built the whole thing in forty-eight hours. That thing is pretty bodgy, but it does a lot of my work for me, which means I get to spend my afternoons surfing. ”

  “Do you surf at Slea Head?” I asked.

  “What kind of crazy do you think I am?” He folded his arms and gave me an appraising look. “Why do you look like you floated here? You weren’t out walking in the storm, were you?”

  “Driving. Our car isn’t waterproof.”

  “Ah,” he said, like he knew all about it. “I’m not supposed to let anyone in until after evening, but this looks like an emergency. You could use a hot shower.”

  “Yes, I could,” I replied gratefully.

  He grabbed a grimy white binder from the table and began flipping through pages full of names and phone numbers. The hostel’s record book, I assumed. “Where are you from?”

  “Seattle. Well, that’s where my brother and I are from. The other guy we’re with is from Dublin.” A loud creak erupted behind me, and Rowan and Ian poked their heads in. Bradley immediately launched himself at them. “You must be brother. And other guy. I’m Bradley.” He shook their hands enthusiastically. “But why aren’t you two as wet as this one? I thought your car wasn’t waterproof.”

  Rowan grimaced. “The back leaks the most.”

  “And the back is where I sit,” I filled in.

  “Way to be gentlemanly,” Bradley said brusquely, his gaze drifting back and forth between them.

  Ian yanked at his sweatshirt strings, his cheeks slightly pink. “She wasn’t supposed to come; we weren’t prepared.”

  “Yeah, yeah, save it.” Bradley waved them off. “Now come sign the book while little sister takes a shower.” He turned to me. “Bathroom is past the bunk room. Towels are in the closet next to it.” I was out of the room before he even finished his sentence.

  Despite the bathroom’s questionable cleanliness, the shower felt life-changing. I changed into a fresh set of clothes and wandered back into the lobby, tugging a comb through my hair. Bradley sat paging through a dog-eared copy of Encyclopedia of Surfing. When he saw me, he slow clapped. “Huge improvement. Huge. You look one hundred percent less like a boiled rat.”

  “Thank you,” I said, biting back a smile. “I wasn’t aware that I ever looked like a boiled rat, but that’s an incredible compliment. Do you know where the guys are?”

  He nodded his head to the dining room. “Bouncy one’s in there, trying to track down the Internet signal. Good luck to him. Sad guy is in the bunk room.”

  Sad guy?

  “Sad guy is here,” Rowan interrupted, walking into the room.

  Ouch. “Oh, sorry, bloke. I meant, um . . .” Bradley backpedaled.

  Rowan ignored him. “Addie, you ready to go to Inch Beach? It looks like it’s clearing up out there.”

  “Already?” I turned to look out the window. A patch of blue beamed brightly among the gray clouds. “That was fast.”

  Bradley dropped his book. “Weather turns pretty quickly around here.” He straightened up, dropping back into a sales pitch. “And might I interest you two in renting bicycles for the small fee of three euro apiece? I can also toss in the best free tour guide Dingle has to offer.” He extended his arms out wide. “Me.”

  Stretching my legs on a bicycle sounded like perfection. “That’s a great idea! Rowan?”

  He hesitated, keeping his eyes firmly away from mine. “Bikes would be great. I have no interest in getting back in that wet car. But . . . I’ve spe
nt some time on the peninsula, so I think I can manage the tour guide role.” He didn’t want an audience for the Heartache Homework. Rowan was really taking this seriously.

  “Ahhh,” Bradley sang, looking between us.

  “We’re just doing this guidebook thing,” I said quickly. My cheeks boiled even though I had nothing to hide.

  “Guidebook thing, is that what the kids are calling it?” Bradley winked. “No worries. I know when I’m not wanted. Bikes are around back in the shed. You can have them on the house. Just don’t tell my uncle Ray. And you’ll come to the party tonight, right? People start gathering on the porch at about nine o’clock.”

  Party? I’d forgotten about the party. “Maybe,” Rowan answered for us.

  “We’ll be there,” I said. Bradley winked, then took off down the hall.

  Rowan exhaled slowly. “That guy is too much.”

  “I like him.” I studied the fresh T-shirt Rowan had changed into. This one featured a cat holding a piece of pizza in one hand and a taco in the other. A purple-and-black galaxy played out in the background.

  “I think I like this one even more than the hypnotized cat,” I said, pointing at it.

  “Thanks.” He lifted the familiar coffee-stained book into the air. “Ready for an adventure?”

  “You mean am I ready to walk back out into the cold?” I flourished my hand toward the door. “Why not?”

  Poststorm Dingle had a completely different temperament. The heavy clouds had thinned into a soft haze, and water lapped restfully against the edges of the cliffs. We rode past a marina filled with colorful bobbing boats and signs about a local hero, a dolphin named Fungie, who, according to Rowan, had been visiting tourists for decades.

  “We’re here,” Rowan called back to me. We coasted off the main road, our bikes picking up speed as we curved down to a small inlet.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I know, right?” Rowan said.

  The sand at Inch Beach sparkled a deep gray, the sun kissing it with a touch of glitter. The tide was low, and silver ruffles of water unfurled lazily onto the shore. Out on the water, sunlight fragmented into kaleidoscope shapes. Stress melted from my shoulders, and my lungs opened up. I took the first deep breaths I had in days.

  Next to the sand was a small, sea-glass-green building with SAMMY’S STORE stenciled on the side. Large swirly script read:

  Dear Inch must  I leave you

  I have promises to keep

  Perhaps miles to go

  To my last sleep

  It reminded me of a paper I’d written for English last year about the similarities between Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and Emily Dickinson’s “A Bird, came down the Walk.” I loved Emily Dickinson. She didn’t get things like capitalization and punctuation right, but it didn’t matter because you could still hear exactly what she was saying.

  As we made our way toward the beach, two messy-haired kids emerged from the store holding ice-cream cones and chasing each other in a feisty game of tag. Their mom played along, lifting the young girl up in the air once she caught up with her.

  “She reminds me of my mom.” I nodded toward the woman. The girl now sat comfortably on the mom’s shoulders, the little boy speeding around them in a circle.

  Rowan pulled his beanie over his ears. “How so?”

  “The way she’s running around with them. She played with us. Lots. Even when it meant she didn’t get other stuff done.” My mom had never been a picture-perfect type of mom—the kind with a clean kitchen floor or a PTA résumé. But she was excellent at building blanket forts, and when she read to us, she did all the voices. Plus, she was just always there. Her going back to work had rocked me more than I’d thought it would.

  “She sounds really great,” Rowan said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Once, I was talking to Ian, and your mom came in to talk to him about school. I could tell she really cared.”

  “She does.” So why aren’t you telling her about Cubby? a little voice inside my head asked. I brushed it away.

  “So what’s your family like?” I asked carefully. I’d have to be deaf to miss the longing in his voice.

  “Ha,” he said unhappily. “It’s just the three of us—my mum, my dad, and me—and we’re a mess, that’s what we are. Sometimes I wish there were more of us, to spread the misery around.”

  In my experience, that wasn’t how misery worked. Or happiness, for that matter. Both tended to expand until everyone had an armful.

  I dug my big toe into the sand. “I’ll bet there are lots of perks to being an only child.” The words felt false as they slid off my tongue. Not that being an only child couldn’t be great—I was sure it had its pluses and minuses just like every family situation—but I didn’t even know who I’d be without my brothers. Especially Ian.

  “I guess so,” he said very unconvincingly. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders to the horizon. “You ready to do this?”

  The wind heard its cue, skipping off the water and blasting us with cold air. I had officially given up on being anything but frozen on this trip. “What Guidebook Lady wants, Guidebook Lady gets.”

  We headed toward the water, our toes sinking in the cold sand. When a cold wave slipped over our ankles, we both looked at each other in shock. “Cold” didn’t even begin to describe it. It needed a more dramatic word, something like “arctic” or “glacial.” Maybe “arcticglacial.”

  “We’ve got this,” Rowan said, extending his hand to me. Before I could overthink it, I grabbed tight, his hand warm and comfortable in mine as we plunged into the water.

  “So, back to the guidebook. What’s your thing?” Rowan asked. “What’s something you survived that you thought you couldn’t?”

  “Losing Lina’s mom to cancer.” I was surprised by how easily the words bypassed my filter. I didn’t usually talk about that experience with anyone but Lina. I’d tried a few times, but I found out pretty quickly that most people don’t actually want to know about the hard things you’ve been through. They just want to look like they care and then move on to the next subject as quickly as possible. Rowan felt different.

  He looked up, his gray eyes stricken. “I didn’t know her mom died. How long was she sick?”

  “Only a few months. It was so disorienting. One minute she was running us around town looking for the best fish taco, and the next . . .” I trailed off. The water tingled against my shins. Whenever I thought about those months after Hadley’s diagnosis, I remembered the sounds. The beeping hospital machines. The whooshing of the ventilator. How quiet Lina’s apartment was in the afternoons when I brought her her homework. I was supposed to be the go-between, delivering homework both ways, but the teachers all knew the score, so they never cared that I rarely brought any back.

  The water inched above my knees. “I don’t know if Ian told you, but Lina moved in with us right after the funeral. She was really shut-down. She even stopped eating, which is a huge deal, because she loves food more than anyone I know. I ended up getting really obsessed with cooking shows because the only way I could get her to eat was by making things I knew she couldn’t possibly turn down.”

  “You can cook?” Rowan said hungrily. “What did you make for her?”

  A tall wave slammed into our knees, sending a spray of salt water into my face. I wiped my eyes on the neckline of my shirt. It was taking every ounce of my willpower not to turn and run out of the water. “Triple chocolate cupcakes. Bacon-wrapped asparagus. Wild blueberry pancakes with whipped cream. Gourmet mac ’n’ cheese . . . That one was probably my best. It had four kinds of cheese plus bacon and truffle oil.”

  Rowan moaned. “I haven’t eaten anything but Sugar Puffs since I left Dublin yesterday.”

  “I thought you loved Sugar Puffs.”

  “I do love Sugar Puffs,” he said adamantly. “But I love bacon and truffle oil more.” He looked down at the water, then squeezed my hand. “How’s this? We far enough?”

>   For a second I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then I realized water was up past my midthigh, waves kissing the hem of my shorts. “Can you feel your legs?” I asked.

  He grimaced. “What legs?”

  “This is worse than being in the back seat of Clover.” We dropped hands, and I skimmed my fingers across the water’s icy surface. Rowan’s turn. “What about you? What’s the hardest thing you’ve survived?”

  “This year.” No hesitation. And no eye contact. Which for most people meant door closed.

  But me being me, I had to at least try the knob. “This year, because of your breakup?”

  He exhaled, then wiggled his shoulder like he was trying to shake off his mood. “Is this too depressing? I know you’re going through your own heartache; I don’t want to burden you with mine.”

  “You aren’t burdening me,” I said, telling the truth. I liked that he felt like he could talk to me. We were a support team of two. “And what was your girlfriend’s name, anyway? Or . . . sorry, girlfriend? Boyfriend?” I shouldn’t assume.

  “It was actually a goldfish,” he said seriously. “We dated for a whole year, but every few hours she forgot who I was and we had to start over.”

  “Oh,” I said, adopting his serious tone. “That sounds challenging. Did the goldfish have a name?”

  He hesitated for a second and his smile faded. “It’s my parents,” he finally said. “They’re getting divorced.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. His answer was not what I was expecting, but it shouldn’t have surprised me so much. Heartache came in all sorts of flavors. “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  “Me too.” He gave me a rueful smile. “If they could get past their issues, I think they’d actually be pretty great together, but . . .” He trailed off, shivering violently. I suddenly became acutely aware of the cold. He gave me a lopsided smile, his eyes not quite meeting mine. “I think I’m about to succumb to hypothermia.”