by J. L. Fynn
We pulled to a stop next to an old picnic table. When I was a kid it had been bright red, but the sun had bleached it to a faded brick color and no one had taken the time to do anything about it. I swung the door open and climbed down from the cab. Jimmy Boy made a beeline for the trailer, the door banging shut behind him. That morning, the leg of our foldout table had thrown in the towel and collapsed under our breakfast dishes. I’d hoped the mess would finally convince Maggie it was time to move back into the house and have some real furniture, but she’d just set herself to cleaning up and shooed us off to the hardware store.
Instead of going inside to help, I settled myself on the faded red bench and rested my back against the picnic table’s edge. I stretched my legs out across the patch of grass in front of me and tried to imagine what tonight’s party would look like. In years past, the bride’s family would rent a fire hall or hotel ballroom for the reception, but that was before the clan’s reputation as “a bunch of rowdy gypsies” got us banned from every rental space in St. Tammany Parish.
“Back so soon?”
I turned, startled by the voice behind me. It was all brogue without a hint of slow, Southern drawl. Maggie emerged from around the side of the trailer. Our massive wolfhounds, Yeats and Beckett, flanked her, obediently keeping pace as she strode across the lawn. Their wiry coats were a gleaming variety of blacks and grays, but each had a twin patch of white at his chest as if they’d lain down in a puddle of bleach. The mud on Maggie’s long skirt and the basket of lavender she carried on her wrist told me she’d been digging in her garden out behind the trailer.
My mam was different from the other women in the Village—really from any woman I’d ever seen. To be honest, I’d never been certain of her age, but the skin of her face was still as smooth as it had been when I was small enough to sit in her lap and tangle my fingers in the charcoal curls that hung loose around her shoulders. She seemed older and wiser than any woman in the Village, but still as young and spirited as any girl. She paused and turned her face up to the sun. When she looked at me again, something flashed in her green eyes, and I was immediately suspicious. It was a look I’d become familiar with; it meant she had a secret she was anxious to reveal that I might not be thrilled to hear.
In spite of my sudden discomfort, I smiled at her. “Hey, Maggie.” I almost never called her mam anymore. She was simply Maggie to everyone who knew her. “Just got back. Jimmy Boy is already inside working on the table.”
“And you’re out here lazing around instead of helping.”
I shrugged. “There’s hardly enough room for both of us to sit at the table, let alone work under it.”
“If this is going to be another conversation about living in that house, Shay, you might as well save your breath.”
She walked to the table and set her basket down. Shadowing her every movement, the dogs sat. Even in that position, they were impressive animals. Their long, narrow heads reached the height of Maggie’s ribcage.
“It’s hot today.” I scratched Beckett behind the ear, and he inched forward, nuzzling his head into my hand. Drops of saliva from his panting tongue dripped onto the knee of my jeans.
“Aye,” she said, swiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “It certainly is. It’ll be hard for those lasses to stay looking their loveliest when they’re melting in their fancy gowns.”
I chuckled at her. Though other Traveler women reveled in the opportunity to put on expensive dresses and decorate their hair with jeweled ornaments, Maggie had far simpler tastes. She preferred light cotton dresses, and she only ever wore one piece of jewelry: a silver pendant with three interlocking spirals hanging from a leather cord.
If she were any other member of the clan, her tendency toward simplicity would’ve been looked down on—might’ve even gotten her dragged—but Maggie was special. She was a Traveler in the truest sense—born in Ireland and still clinging to the oldest traditions of our kind.
I appreciated that she wanted to honor the old ways, but I never understood why that meant we had to live in a tiny trailer while my father’s house sat empty next to it. Still, when my father’s people had fled Ireland during the Great Famine, Maggie’s had stayed behind and struggled through it. The same strength that allowed her people to survive such a nightmare had been passed down to her.
“Speaking of the wedding,” Maggie said, drawing my attention back to the conversation. She took a seat next to me and inclined her head slightly. Both dogs stood and ambled to the shade of an oak, then collapsed with a thud at its roots. Yeats, the larger of the two, stretched his jaw in a whining yawn and settled his head on Beckett’s back.
“Yeah?” I asked cautiously.
“Little Rosie Sheedy stopped by here this morning, just after you left.”
I turned to look at her. “Yeah?” I said again, though now curiosity replaced concern. “Looking for me?”
“I believe she was, though she knew better than to say so.” Maggie wrinkled her nose. “She asked me for a love charm. Said now that her sister’s getting married, she’d like to attract her own husband.”
Maggie’s connection to the old ways meant her handcrafted charms for luck, love, fortune, or health and her herbal teas to calm nerves or promote fertility were highly coveted in the Village. It wasn’t unusual that a young woman would stop by seeking such a thing, but apparently Rosie wasn’t such a welcome visitor.
“You’d better watch your drink tonight, boyo,” Jimmy Boy said from the steps of the trailer. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to mix up a love potion of her own after Maggie turned her away. You could end up with lavender and Clorox in your Guinness.”
Both dogs raised their heads. Their bodies remained motionless, though the fur at their necks bristled and their ears perked. Maggie lifted her hand without looking at them, and both dogs lowered their heads but continued to keenly observe the scene.
Maggie cocked an eyebrow at Jimmy Boy as he crossed the lawn to join us. “And who says I turned her away?”
“You did, didn’t you? You know what kind of trouble Shay could get into messin’ around with the clan leader’s daughter.”
Maggie stared at him for a moment, a curious expression crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Sit down, lad,” she said.
After a moment, Jimmy Boy plopped heavily onto the bench next to me and crossed his arms over his chest. We both looked up at her, waiting to hear what she’d say next, and it occurred to me that my brother and I both yielded to Maggie almost as obediently as the wolfhounds. She stood back to take in both of us for a long moment.
Due to decades of intermarriage, everyone in the Village vaguely looked alike, but somehow this hadn’t extended to us Reilly boys. Jimmy Boy and I hardly appeared related at all, let alone brothers. He had a stocky build with hair the color of a rusty tractor wheel, which I assumed he’d inherited from our Da, though I’d never seen more than a grainy picture of him in the twenty years I’d been alive. Jimmy Boy’s eyes were a dull gray-blue that looked downright colorless compared to the emerald green eyes I’d inherited from Maggie, along with her tar-black hair. I was lean and at least an inch taller, despite him having three years on me.
“I told Rosie I didn’t have the time to help her, but there won’t be any stopping that girl now she’s got the idea in her head.”
“I don’t know why it’s such a bad idea,” I said, flashing a wolfish grin I hoped would provoke my brother. The swift smack he delivered to the back of my head was totally worth it.
“You don’t think you’ve made yourself enough of an outsider by going all the way through high school? Maybe you’d like to be physically tossed out of the Village by the Sheedy boys, too?”
I ducked my head, rubbing at the back of my skull. “Hey, finishing school wasn’t my idea. You know I’d rather have been out on the road with you.” I hadn’t hated high school if I was being honest, but I had hated the feeling of being different. Going to school past the seventh grade wasn�
�t done. I’d once heard of a few Traveler boys from another clan who had gone on to play for the LSU football team, but they were definitely the exception and not the rule.
“If it had been up to me, you both would’ve been in school,” Maggie said.
Jimmy Boy snorted out a laugh. “Then I’m glad it wasn’t. What good it do him?” He jabbed an elbow into my ribs. “All that schooling, and he’s still empty-headed enough to go weak in the knees whenever Rosie Sheedy bats her eyes at him.”
“At least I don’t flirt with country girls,” I said and aimed my own elbow-jab in return.
“Stop trying to change the subject. I thought you didn’t even like Rosie.”
“I like her well enough, and she can get me to where I wanna go. Feelings, love, and all that—they just get in the way.”
Jimmy Boy shook his head. “How in the hell’d you get to be so jaded? You tell those mutts over there you love ‘em every chance you get, but when it comes to people, you’re as closed up as Pop Sheedy’s safe.”
“Aww, that’s not true.” I wrapped my arm around Jimmy Boy’s neck and pulled his head down to pin it against my side. “I love you, big brother.”
Jimmy Boy shoved me hard to free himself, then punched my arm for good measure. I lifted my hand to retaliate, but Maggie’s voice stopped me mid-swing.
“That’ll be enough from you two. You’ve got a table to mend, and I need to fix myself up before the women head over to the church.” She took a few steps toward the trailer before turning back to look at me through narrowed eyes. “Your brother’s right, though, Shay. If you don’t watch it, your ambition’s going to get you in trouble.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but her expression warned me that it best remain shut. Maggie gave a curt nod, and a smile brightened her face again. Without a word, she retrieved her basket and marched toward the trailer. The wolfhounds hopped to their feet and followed after her. Maggie stood on the steps of the trailer, patiently holding the door open, then pulled it shut behind them.
Left alone with my brother, I stood so I could face him full-on. Maggie might not understand, but I had to convince someone I wasn’t being a fool.
“If we started working with the Sheedys, think how much more money we’d be bringing in. Our family’d be back on top like before Da went away.”
“Da didn’t ‘go away,’ Shay. He got himself killed because he wanted to be the best, bring in the biggest scores. And you’re picking up just where he left off. You need to learn your place in this clan, and that ain’t beside Pop Sheedy’s daughter. Got it?”
His words stung, and I clenched my fists at my sides. It wouldn’t have been the first time my brother and I came to blows over something, but before my temper reached its boiling point, he stood and gently gripped the back of my neck in both hands. “I know it’s tough. I want a new truck and a bigger place and a pretty girl on my arm just like the next fellow, but it’s just not in the cards. You and I are on our own, and that’s fine. We bring in enough to put food on the table and take care of Maggie, and you getting in over your head with Rosie Sheedy could ruin us. Promise me you’ll stay far away from her tonight.”
“But, Jimmy, I—”
“Promise.”
“Fine.” I jerked free of his grasp and took a step back. “I’ll be sure to keep to myself.”
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU KNOW, THOSE are meant for drinking, not staring at,” Jimmy Boy said, settling himself in the lawn chair next to me with a sweating glass of Guinness in each hand.
“Sláinte.” I grinned and raised my own glass, then followed the toast with a gulp of the thick stout.
“That’s how it’s done,” he said, tipping back one of his.
“But I’ve got an empty hand,” I said, gesturing to Jimmy Boy’s dual drinks. “I’m already falling behind.”
He chuckled. “I’ve gotta take up the slack for old Seldom Fed over there.” He pointed to a portly, middle-aged man sitting alone at the end of a long bench that ran along one side of the pavilion. “He’s taken the pledge again, mostly to get that goat he calls a wife off his back for a few more months. He looks miserable, poor old fool. I think he was better off listening to the banshee wail about his drinking.”
Seldom Fed O’Hara had earned his nickname by eating like a starving man who’d finally been blessed with food. Apparently, giving up the drink only increased his appetite because he already had a heaping plateful on his lap and was attacking it with a fork. I wondered what Jenny O’Hara would have to say about it when she returned from the church with the other wedding guests. Although many of the men didn’t bother attending the service—we preferred to stay behind to start the drinking portion of the festivities early—most of us weren’t bold enough to dig into the food before the rest of the clan had returned.
Jimmy Boy emptied the glass in his left hand and started in on the one in his right. He downed a quarter of it in one swig, then belched loudly. “I’ll tell you, Shay. Living is sucking the life outta me.”
I grunted in amusement. “Yeah? How’s that?”
“All…this.” He waved his arm in front of him as if he were trying to shoo away imaginary flies. “I know you’ve only been going out on the road for two years or so, but I been conning since I was twelve.”
“Right, but you’re only twenty-three. You sound like you’re coming up on retirement.”
“Sometimes I wish I was. Honestly, the only reason I give your big schemes any attention at all is because I figure a big score would make it possible to take it easy for a while. Maybe get married, give Maggie a couple grandkids.”
I took another sip of beer to buy time before I responded. The alcohol was already beginning to make things seem a little dream-like. Other Traveler men could drink several pints before feeling anything, but I tended to approach drinking the way the women did—as something only done on special occasions.
“If you hate conning so much, you could always give up the game,” I finally managed after giving the alcohol a little time to loosen my tongue.
Jimmy Boy sputtered on Guinness. He swallowed hard, laughing as if I’d made the funniest joke he’d ever heard. When he caught my awkward smile, the laughter died. His brow knitted in confusion.
“For all my bitching, I honestly can’t imagine not going out on the road once in a while. Settling down and giving up the game sounds great, and it’s worked for men in other clans, but you know what would happen if one of us just up and quit. While everyone else would be out on the road, I’d be here alone. I couldn’t stand all these people going on like I never existed.”
I blew out a long breath and relaxed back in my chair. “It’s just that sometimes you make me nervous. You start going on about packing it all in for a simpler life, and I start to worry about what that would mean for me and Maggie.”
“I’m talking outta my ass is all. Hey,” he said, clapping me on the back. “We should talk to Uncle Pete and Hollywood about—”
Jimmy Boy didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Car horns blared from the front, and everyone in the pavilion turned their attention toward the sound. The honking continued, and vehicles appeared on the lane, traveling in a slow procession. The parade of Cadillacs, Lincolns, and late-model pickups crawled past us. Metal clanked as each car circled around, shifting the coins the owners had dropped into their gas tanks to bring good luck.
In the back of every truck, two or three girls perched on lawn chairs, poised like beauty queens and twice as painted up. In stark contrast to the men, who’d been drinking at the pavilion in rumpled slacks and collared shirts, the women wore huge gowns filling the space of each truck bed with a wash of pink, purple, and green. The jewels they wore in their hair and the sequins coating their dresses glittered in the dying sunlight. Young men gathered around the edges to get a better view, some standing, some pulling up chairs and settling in for the show.
I stayed in my seat but craned my neck, trying to see beyond the fence of onl
ookers. The young women on display were almost unrecognizable and not only because unmarried men and women rarely spent time together outside of formal occasions. Each one was so heavily made-up that she resembled a porcelain doll more than an actual human girl. They all beamed, clearly enjoying the attention.
Once the pavilion was surrounded, wedding guests began unloading from their vehicles. The groom and a younger man, who I guessed was his brother given the similarities between them, climbed out of a silver Lexus, grinning in matching designer tuxedos. They made their way across the cement floor of the pavilion to a row of chairs decorated with flowers and ribbons for the wedding party. Next, a stout man with a shock of white hair stepped from a black Cadillac. Pop Sheedy stooped for a moment to help his wife out of the car and then rested both hands on his burgeoning belly, offering his elbow to Bridget. The groom’s father was next. Rail-thin and well over six feet tall, he ducked his head to clear the doorframe of his own black Cadillac. Apparently, he had no wife to help from the car and so crossed quickly to his sons.
Next, the community procession began. Women with new babies to show off came first. Next, some of the older married women, who took this opportunity to show off new jewelry purchases instead of children. Finally, the unmarried girls began climbing down from truck beds, aided by the young men who’d had the privilege of driving them. They walked slowly through the pavilion, circling around the huge floral arrangement in the center of the floor in a loop of brightly colored satin, tulle, and organza.
The last car door opened. Rosie Sheedy, a baby-faced seventeen-year-old girl with black curls teased to a height that defied gravity, took the hand of the young man who’d chauffeured her to the party. A pang of jealousy tightened my stomach as her gloved fingers closed around his, and I was secretly glad that he struggled to get her out of the Lincoln Town Car with any grace. Her hoop skirt crumpled as she squeezed herself through the door, but immediately sprang back to life, forming a three-foot barrier around her legs on all sides. The dress was an irritating shade of teal blue, but I could easily look past her bad taste in clothing given who her family was.
