Love & Luck

by Jenna Evans Welch

  Ian’s eyes quickly found mine. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Rowan shook his head roughly. “I’m not her friend. I’m her kid. She can’t keep coming to me with her problems.” His foot pressed heavily on the accelerator, and suddenly we went from flying to jetting, the scenery rushing past.

  Ian and I exchanged a worried look. The speedometer was rising. We were still in the okay range, but very high speed could be in our immediate future.

  I tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Uh . . . Rowan. You’re going pretty fast. Do you need a break? I could drive for a while.”

  “Or I could,” Ian offered, his hands twisting nervously. “I can’t promise I won’t drive us into a wall, but I could try.”

  “I’m the only one with a license to drive here.” Rowan let up slightly, but he was still going way over the speed limit. His hand gripped tightly around his phone.

  “Rowan, let me take that for you.” I reached forward, gently prying his phone away. “I think you and your phone need some time apart.” I tossed it discreetly to Ian, then rested my hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “Hey, Rowan, I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but you aren’t alone. We’re here for you.” It was almost exactly what he’d said to me back in Killarney.

  A long moment of silence unspooled, and then Rowan sagged forward, his speed slowly ticking down. Ian looked at me with appreciative eyes.

  “Sorry, guys. My parents are putting a lot of pressure on me. It’s been a really tough year. I just . . .” His voice wobbled.

  Ian’s eyes met mine again, and the message was clear. Help him.

  “Um . . .” I glanced down, my eyes landing on the guidebook. “What if we add an extra guidebook stop? There’s a castle between Killarney and Cobh. It’s a little bit off our trail, but it sounds really interesting.”

  “Blarney Castle?” Rowan’s voice instantly perked up. “That’s a great idea. I could really use some time to decompress.”

  “Uh . . . ,” Ian broke in. “I obviously want you to have some time to decompress, but I’m worried that another stop will make us late to Cobh. It took me a month of e-mailing to get the owner of the pub there to respond, and then she said she only had a one-hour window. I really don’t want to risk it.”

  Why was he being so clueless? Could he not tell the level of despair Rowan was in?

  “He really needs a break,” I said, shooting daggers at Ian through my eyes. “We’ll be fast. Also, how many Irish people have you been cyberharassing this summer?” Poor people. When he fixated on something, Ian could be relentless.

  “Only two,” Ian muttered, the tips of his ears glowing red.

  “We have plenty of time. And back there you did say that you owe me.” Rowan looked at Ian expectantly.

  Ian hesitated, a clump of hair disappearing into his mouth before he relented. “Okay. As long as we’re fast, it should be fine. I just don’t want another tractor situation.”

  Rowan and I shared a victorious smile in the mirror.

  The Blarney Stone

  There comes a moment in every heartbroken traveler’s life when she find herself dangling upside down from the top of a castle, lips planted on a saliva-coated rock, and she thinks, How on earth did I get here?

  Let me assure you, this is a perfectly natural part of the heartbreak process.

  The place? Blarney Castle. The saliva-coated rock? The Blarney Stone, a hunk of limestone with a sordid history and the propensity for attracting more than three hundred thousand visitors a year. Rumor has it anyone who locks lips with the magical stone will find themselves endowed with “the gift of gab”—the ability to talk and charm their way out of just about anything.

  I’m not entirely sold on the gab bit, but I do know two things the Blarney Stone is excellent for: communal herpes of the mouth and discussions about rejection. Let’s delve into rejection, shall we?

  Because you’re a human and because you’re alive, I’m going to assume that you’ve faced your own Blarney moment. A time when you’ve put yourself out there—vulnerable, dangling—but instead of the blessed reciprocity your heart yearned for, all you got was a slimy stone that did not in fact create any oratorical prowess.

  Been there. And I know exactly how that feels. I also know it’s tempting to believe that you’re the only person who’s been left hanging. But you’re not. Oh, you’re not. In fact, the pain of rejection is so common, it’s served as the inspiration for roughly half of history’s art (and, I would argue, acts of lunacy). And yet when it happens to you, it feels like something brand-new. Like the world has cooked up the worst thing it could think of and then called you in for dinner.

  That’s love for you. Universal and yet so damn personal. Solidarity, sister. Anyone who hasn’t gotten hurt is either a liar or a robot, and we all know that liars and robots make for terrible friends. Also, robot uprisings. Can we talk about the fact that we don’t talk about them enough?

  HEARTACHE HOMEWORK: You know what you’re going to have to do, don’t you, pet? Climb the castle, plunge into a gaping hole, and kiss the damn stone. Embrace the communal germs. They’re there to remind you that you are not alone.

  —Excerpt from Ireland for the Heartbroken: An Unconventional Guide to the Emerald Isle, third edition

  AS USUAL, IRELAND HAD NO interest in keeping to our time frame. Roadwork cluttered the road into Blarney—mostly construction workers yelling jovially to one another as they set up unnecessary-looking traffic cones. The castle wasn’t much better. The site was stuffed full of tourists and the variety of ways they’d gotten themselves there.

  After twenty long minutes behind a cranky row of tour buses, Ian threw his hands up. “How about I park, and you guys get out and do your thing?”

  “Don’t you want to see the castle?” I asked, craning my neck to get a glimpse. The castle managed to give off the impression of being both imperious and decrepit, a spindly old lady in a crown.

  Ian stuck his head out the window. “Seen it.”

  Rowan laughed. “All right, Ian. Take the wheel.” Rowan and I both jumped out, and Ian slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Watch out for roundabouts,” I said.

  “Ha ha, very funny. I’ll probably have moved two feet by the time you get back.” He lowered his voice, addressing me. “Keep it quick?”

  “Of course.”

  Rowan and I took off together, following signs that explained the Blarney Stone’s location at the tip-top of the castle. We crammed our way inside, shoving through giant picture-taking masses to get to the swirling staircases.

  I started up first, and I must have climbed fast because when I got to the top, I had to wait several minutes for Rowan to emerge. When he finally popped out of the staircase, he was breathing heavily, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  “It wasn’t a race, Maeve,” he said, throwing his arm around me and collapsing dramatically.

  I liked hearing my new nickname again. “I’ve been conditioning this summer.” I couldn’t quite extinguish the pride in my voice. I’d missed only two workout days the entire summer. The plan was to be as ready as possible for college scouts.

  “Just to be clear, you know you just ran up a hundred flights of stairs to wait in line to kiss a manky stone, right?”

  “No . . . we just ran up a hundred flights of stairs to kiss a manky stone,” I corrected, enjoying the chance to try out some Irish slang. At the front of the line, a Blarney employee carefully lowered a woman backward into a stone cutout, her upper body disappearing into the hole. “Look how much fun that is. You get to hang upside down.”

  “A bit of a thrill seeker, eh?” Rowan said, his gray eyes shining.

  “One hundred percent.” My brothers called me a thrill junkie, which was decidedly more negative. But it was the truth. Heights, roller coasters, the bigger the better.

  Rowan grimaced. “I’d expect nothing less from you. But sorry, Maeve, what I’m trying to say is that there is no ‘we’ in this enterpri
se. My mouth is not going anywhere near the Blarney Stone.”

  “Why? Is it a height thing?” I stood on my tiptoes to see over the wall. Besides the Cliffs of Moher, the top of Blarney offered the best panoramic view I’d had so far. Down below was an ocean of subtly shifting green, people scattered like colorful confetti. It even gave me the same sensation as the cliffs—I felt free, disconnected from all the heaviness waiting for me down below.

  Rowan joined me on tiptoe, even though he could see over the ledge just fine. “Heights aren’t the problem, Maeve.” He shoved his glasses up. “Look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but locals really mess with Blarney Stone. They pee on it, spit on it, all kinds of stuff. Trust me, you don’t want to kiss it.”

  I wagged my finger at him, a breeze blasting over the top of the castle. “Do you need me to reread the guidebook entry to you? Those communal germs are the whole reason we’re here. And besides, I grew up sharing a bathroom with three brothers. Being afraid of pee is not an option.”

  Rowan’s eyebrows shot up amusedly, just the way I knew they would. I liked surprising him. And besides, it was completely accurate. Once when I was in elementary school, I’d gotten so fed up with the situation that I’d drawn a bunch of arrows plus the words IN HERE on the toilet seat in permanent marker. My mom had laughed for a solid hour.

  “Queen Maeve, your bravery knows no limits. If you kiss the pee stone, I kiss the pee stone. You have my undying allegiance.” Rowan swept into a low bow.

  “Thank you, my lord,” I said, bowing back.

  When it was finally our turn, even my daredevil instinct faltered slightly. The cutout the stone was located in was really just a hole, the long drop down to the lawn safeguarded with just three metal bars.

  The worker beckoned to me. “Ready for the gift of gab, love?” He wore a cap, and his collar was pulled up against white stubbly whiskers.

  “Ready,” I said resolutely, ignoring the way my stomach spiraled. Rowan gave me a reassuring smile.

  I sat quickly on the ground, shimmying back until my butt was on the edge. The hole felt cavernous behind me, wind gushing up through it.

  “All right, then. Lean back, hand on each bar, back, back, all the way back,” the man chanted rhythmically, like he must have done a million times before. I followed his instructions until I was completely upside down, the man’s hands firmly on my waist. Blood rushed to my head along with Guidebook Lady’s words. Because you’re a human and because you’re alive, I’m going to assume that you’ve faced your own Blarney moment. A time when you’ve put yourself out there—vulnerable, dangling—but instead of the blessed reciprocity your heart yearned for, all you got was a slimy stone.

  Cubby’s face appeared, and a dart of pain traveled from my heart to the rest of my body. But instead of forcing the feelings away, I sat with them. Or dangled with them, I guess. Just like I had in Killarney. Again, none of the pain went away, but they did shift over slightly, revealing something that had been hidden. My feelings—my heartache, embarrassment, pain, all of it—weren’t me. They were something I had to go through, but they weren’t me any more than a pair of sneakers or a T-shirt was me. I was something else entirely.

  “Kiss the stone, love,” the man called down patiently, breaking me out of my epiphany.

  Right. I planted a quick kiss on the stone. It was, in fact, manky. And oddly empowering. I kissed it again, this time for Rowan.

  “Success!” Rowan grabbed my hand to help me once I was upright. “You okay?”

  “A little dizzy.” I wasn’t sure what to do with my new realization. It wasn’t like I could just throw off my heartache like a sweaty jersey. But could I look at it in a new way? As something that didn’t define me?

  I looked up at Rowan. “You don’t have to kiss the stone. I did it for you.”

  He grinned. “And now you have truly earned my undying allegiance.” He kept a steadying arm around my shoulders as we made our way back to the staircase.

  Back on ground level, I was just about to try to put my revelation into words when a voice shot through the crowd, spearing my attention. It was the kind of voice you couldn’t ignore. Bossy. Female. American.

  My feet froze to the ground. That couldn’t be . . .

  “All right, people, listen up. Cameramen are going first. The rest of you? Single file. I need one good shot and then we’re moving on to the next site. We’re already behind, so I need you to make this speedy.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “What?” I felt rather than saw Rowan turn toward me. I couldn’t move. Twenty feet away, just past a long steel bench, my aunt Mel stood in full camera makeup.

  “No,” I said more forcefully. Aunt Mel shifted to the left, yanking at her perfectly tailored blazer, and a second heaping of panic poured over me. It was Walter. And my mom. Walter must have sensed my gaze, because suddenly he looked up, his eyes locking on mine. A single thought erupted in my brain. Run.

  There was no time to warn Rowan. My feet pounded the pavement, and I rounded the corner of the castle so quickly, I slipped on mud. I needed a solid hiding place, somewhere I could gather my thoughts. Someplace . . .

  Like that. I spotted a small opening in the bottom of the castle and hurtled toward it, ducking under the low doorway and stumbling up two steps to a small room. It was barely the size of a walk-in closet, dark except for a thin shaft of light working its way through a chink in the wall. I sank to my knees, adrenaline rushing through my body. Now what? I had to warn Ian.

  “Addie?” My heart seized, but luckily it was just Rowan in the doorway, a serious frown crowding his features. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but there’s such a thing as common decency. You don’t just tear away from your travel partner with no explanation.”

  Common decency? Travel partner? Rowan reverted to the role of stuffy English professor when he was angry. Before I could assign this particular trait the label of “cute,” I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him in, our bodies colliding clumsily as he stumbled up the steps. The ceiling was much too low for him, and he ended up in a half stoop over me.

  “My mom’s out there. The whole wedding party’s out there,” I stammered.

  His jaw dropped—I’d never seen anyone’s jaw actually drop before—and he turned to gape at the doorway. “Which one was she? Did she see you?”

  “No, but Walt did. We have to find Ian, and we have to get out of here.” I crouched down to the ground, trying to still my trembling legs.

  “I’ll text him right now.” He started for his phone, but just as he pulled it out, a second voice boomed into the cave, sending me toppling and Rowan’s phone clattering.

  “Addie?”

  I sprang to my feet. Walt’s eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them, and he blinked unsteadily into the darkness. “I thought I was going crazy. I saw you, but you’re supposed to be in Italy and . . .” His gaze snapped down to Rowan, who was still hunting for his phone, and suddenly Walt’s face switched into Big Brother Mode. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Walt!” I threw myself at him just as he charged Rowan, managing to pin him back against the wall. This was escalating way too fast.

  “Whoawhoawhoa.” Rowan stumbled backward, holding his phone up like a shield. “I’m her friend.”

  “Everyone, listen!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. It was a risk, but it worked.

  I stepped back from a now-still Walter. “Walt, this is Rowan. He’s Ian’s friend. He’s safe.”

  “But . . . but you’re not in Italy.” Walt’s voice shot up to dog whistle levels. If he could hear how he sounded, he’d be mortified. “Mom thinks you’re in Italy. Everyone thinks you’re in Italy.”

  “And that’s how it has to stay. Mom can’t know we’re in Ireland. You have to keep this a secret.” I leaned in to emphasize my point and got hit by a solid wall of fragrance. Walt had a lot of things going for him—he was sweet and uncomplicated, and he could be extremely thoughtful. But he was not
good at cologne regulation. Which was unfortunate, because he also really, really loved cologne.

  “Addie, what are you thinking?” His piercing voice lifted another octave, raising my anxiety with it. If I didn’t derail him, he was going to run out and ruin everything. Time to deflect.

  I waved my hands in front of my watering eyes. “Walt, your cologne! I thought Mom said you couldn’t pack any.”

  “I only did two spritzes,” he protested. “Two spritzes and a walk-through. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Why can’t any of you get that?”

  Rowan suddenly piped up, catching on to my plan. “That’s got to be a John Varvatos. What is it? Artisan Acqua?”

  The shift was instantaneous. “Artisan Blu,” Walter said, his mouth twisting into a grudging smile. “You wear it?”

  Varvatos to the rescue. Rowan nodded vigorously as the tension in the cave lowered. “I’ve noticed that sometimes I have to water mine down a little because its one of the stronger scents. Might be worth a try.” Rowan was a master at argument disruption. My mom would adore him. I just hoped she wasn’t about to meet him.

  Walt dropped his hands to his sides, his voice now calm. “Addie, why aren’t you in Italy?”

  Insert plausible/convincing/nonincriminating explanation here. Minor problem: I was not good on my feet. Maybe if I just started talking, something brilliant would come out. “We stayed because of Ian. He’s . . .” I hunted through my brain for some sort of lifesaver, but nothing emerged.

  “They stayed because Ian’s doing research for a college admissions essay.” Rowan to the rescue again. “I’m a student mentor from Trinity College. Ian hired me to help him write the perfect paper. Right now we’re researching famous historical sites.”

  Not bad. Too bad Walt was never going to buy it. People were always falling for Walt’s laid-back-surfer-guy act, but it was just that—an act. Despite his lack of cologne awareness, Walt was most definitely not clueless. He had straight As and was working toward an accelerated degree in chemical engineering.