When Irish Eyes Are Sparkling

by Tom Collins

  “He doesn’t know?” they said in unison.

  “He didn’t tell you?” Gran said to me. Iris turned another page and kept reading.

  Liam was biting his lip, twisting the ring and not looking at me at all. I noticed then that Bren was doing the same thing. I hadn’t realized it before, but he wore the same ring. So, for that matter, did their parents and grandparents—and Jillian!

  Molly sighed as if unpleasant tasks were always up to her. “Traditional Irish wedding ring,” she said, “the way it’s worn says whether someone’s free or engaged.” She jerked her head toward Liam. “Left hand facing inward. Means he’s as good as married.”

  To whom? I almost, stupidly asked.

  Liam had his right hand over his left, hiding it from me, but I’d seen it enough times to remember what it looked like there on his finger. As good as—? But—but—but Liam had been wearing that ring that way ever since the fourth of July. Which means he’d put it on right after the night we had dinner with my mother and I—and I—

  I’d left him with a livid hickey and a sore ass and he’d decided I was the one? Just like that?

  Then I thought, Of course just like that, you idiot! This is Liam we’re talking about.

  But I hadn’t known. If I’d known—

  “Good as married,” Grandpa’s voice boomed, making me jump. His Irish accent ran deep underneath. His eyes, those green eyes the family all shared, were scanning me critically. “Good as married to Oliver Sutton.”

  I felt the food in my stomach turn to stone. The table was deathly quiet, even Iris looked up. I took a sip of tea to wet my throat; my cup rattled in the saucer as I set it back down.

  “Name sounds English,” he accused with clear disapproval. I saw Liam stiffen, and knew he was preparing to defend me.

  “I…always thought that it sounded American…Sir.” It was the only thing that popped to mind. I glanced around quickly, afraid that I’d just insulted the family patriarch and, by proxy, everyone else.

  Jillian was hiding her smirk in a sip of tea, while Brendan and Liam eyed me with identical expressions of what might be surprise.

  “Got ya there, Gramps,” Molly said, helping herself to another salmon sandwich.

  “More tea, Oliver?” Gran asked, lifting the pot. I thought I saw approval in the tiny smile she wore; at least I hoped that’s what it was.

  I heard a “hrumph!’ from Grandpa, but he said no more about it. Instead he started grilling Liam about where he and I planned to live, nixing almost every possibility Liam came up with.

  It came to an end at last and I got cordial shakes of the hand as we left and Grandma even hugged me good-bye. There were plenty of comments and whispers to Liam before we got out the door. I hoped they weren’t too bad.

  “Are you mad at me?” Liam asked quietly as we took the leisurely walk down the neighborhood sidewalk under the shade of green trees.

  “Mad?” I asked mystified. “Why should I be mad?”

  “About the ring. So many people in my life, friends and family, know what a Claddagh is that I took for granted you did, too.” He was twisting it on his finger again. “I never thought to mention or explain it to you. I know that sounds lame.”

  “It’s not lame; I understand.”

  “I didn’t mean to shock you like that.”

  “Well, it did catch me off guard,” I agreed. “But not because you think of me that way. It’s because I remembered when I first saw you wearing the ring, and I couldn’t get my head around the fact that you’d…cared about me that much so early in our relationship. That you would trust me so much.”

  “Do you want me to take it off?” he asked, even quieter.

  I stopped him. “God, no!” I said, pulling him into an embrace. “If that ring was mine to give you, I’d do it right now. I’ve never wanted anything more in this world than for you to be mine, Liam. I mean that. I l-love you.”

  I blushed saying it. It wasn’t anything I’d ever said to another man and I almost expected him to laugh. He did jerk back, as if shocked, but then his hand went to the side of my face, cupping it tenderly. His eyes gazed at me in wonder. “You do?”

  “Fuck yes. Enough so that I wish I’d done better in there with your family. I’ve never had to meet a guy’s parents and grandparents and all,” I apologized to him. “And I suck socially anyway. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much.”

  “Oliver,” he soothed and smiled. “You did fine. You stood up to Granda, you treated Gran—who loved you—like a queen, and Molly thinks you’re hot shit on a silver platter. I’m really glad you’re gay, by the way, as she’d have snapped you up if you weren’t and I’d have been the jealous one.” He grinned with triumph.

  “I know how important your family is,” I said, still hyped and anxious from the whole thing, “and I don’t want to fuck up with them or you.”

  “Of course you don’t, but so what? What if you do fuck up?” He kissed me then, right there, with the warm late-summer breeze rustling the leaves overhead, and people peering at us from their cars as they dove on home. “Our relationship isn’t an accident victim. It’s not going to die if you blunder.”

  I thought about that. He was right. Almost-paramedic that I was, I had been viewing things that way and I didn’t have to. With a sigh, I finally relaxed. “I guess not,” I said, putting my arm about him.

  “Did you know that you resemble David Bowie?” he demanded, as we headed toward the subway.

  “Only when I lose weight and get thin in the face.”

  He gaped. “So you knew all the time.”

  “Yep.” I grinned at him. “So. Does this mean I’m your type?”

  He elbowed me in the gut for that, but gently, as he knew I’d invite him to take his full revenge on me once we got home.

  *Liam*

  I expected the rest of the summer to be quiet, working at the pub and hanging with Oliver on my days off. I didn’t expect the changes heading my way. Amazing changes that happened one after the other it seemed, like a snowball rolling down a steep hill. It all started with that woman who’d been pestering Bren about me, the one who’d seen Private Dancer play and liked the dragon design on the white shorts.

  Oliver, cleaning out my pockets for laundry, found the card. So I called her. Seemed she didn’t want just one pair of jeans. She owned a boutique and wanted me to paint her several to sell. I met with her and she gave me twenty pairs in different colors to take home. For every one that sold, I’d get a percentage. Over that week, I painted all kinds of fantasy creatures on them, dragons mostly, but also sea serpents, unicorns, griffins and merfolk.

  I returned them to her, and promptly forgot all about them. Three days later, she called to tell me they’d sold like gangbusters, gone within two days, and to ask how fast I could have forty more ready, plus an equal number of shirts as she’d had several requests.

  Suddenly, I was so busy I had to quit working at the pub. I was also raking in the dough. I thought I must have been hallucinating when I saw my first check. Oliver assured me that I wasn’t. The boutique owner was in an upscale part of town and my fantasy garments did not sell cheap.

  That was the first change. Then, just as the weather started to cool down and I was getting ready to go back to school, Uncle Dev called me out of the blue.

  “I hear you’re looking for a new place to live, you and your guy,” he said. I agreed I was, adding that we were looking for a place that had two available apartments so we could live in the same building as Bren and Jillian, who’d finally set a wedding date.

  “Perfect!” he crowed. “I’ve a proposition for all of you.”

  Apparently, a year ago, some developers had fixed up some old lofts, splitting the largest ones in half. Uncle Dev, wanting to invest in real estate, had bought up one of these split lofts in hopes of flipping the two apartments, but then the market had sagged. He was putting them up for rent, and had decided to give us first dibs.

  “Lease with the option
to buy,” he explained.

  The half-lofts were located on the second floor of a former warehouse on the edge of Little Frisco, which was excellent, as I’d become very attached to the deli down the block from Oliver’s small apartment as well as the park we frequented to play basketball. Uncle Dev met me at the lofts and let me in to have a gander. One look at the soaring ceilings, brick walls, the view from the south facing windows, and I knew it was too good to pass up.

  “We’ll take it,” I told Uncle Devlin, speaking for everyone.

  Bren and Jill moved into their half-loft and set up an area for band practice, while Oliver and I fixed up one end of ours to be a studio for painting and a gallery to show off my art to prospective buyers. Oliver took the opportunity to point out that if I intended on bringing potential clientele into our living space I couldn’t act like a pig anymore. A raspberry was my dignified response.

  The rest of the space, living area, kitchen, bedroom and bath, I decorated, with Jillian’s help, in a South-Western style with plenty of cacti and other succulent plants, Native American motifs in the furnishings, geometric patterned throw rugs and the re-framed Lone Ranger posters from Oliver’s collection, which I had Sandy ship up from her garage. When Oliver saw the finished results, he was speechless. He just stood there staring, blinking and swallowing, his hand on my shoulder pressing hard enough to leave bruises.

  I think he liked it.

  Erin, who’d always complained about wanting his own place, was really put out on the day we removed our stuff from the apartment. It hit him hard to see his boychicks making their own nests, but as he had to come and practice with Bren and Jill, we ended up seeing him almost as much as before. That didn’t stop him from giving Oliver the evil eye, as if my guy had been the domino that had set all this change in motion.

  That finally changed the day Ollie got it into his head to make Irish stew. You’d think after a lifetime of having Gran’s stew, served up daily at the pub, and available to me any time, that I wouldn’t miss it. Funny thing is, after weeks of being away from the pub with no time to visit even, I’d started jonesing for that stew. I didn’t have time to make it, and neither did Bren. Oliver could have fetched some to-go while running other errands, but after hearing me wish for it for the umpteenth time he got it in his head to surprise me by cooking it up himself. He got the recipe from Bren and, one day, while I was meeting with the boutique lady, he tried to make it. He was just beginning to chop up the veggies when he got stuck, and went next door for advice.

  Erin was there to practice with the band. He went a little ballistic on hearing that Bren had given out Gran’s secret recipe. After blistering Bren’s ears over it—which phased Bren not in the slightest—Erin stormed on over to our place, muttering something about no one being fit to cook that stew right but him.

  “What’s that?” he demanded on entering the kitchen and pointed accusingly to the cutting board.

  “Um, a potato?” Oliver observed.

  “You chop ‘em up that small and they’ll melt away!” Erin said with exasperation, and went to work. When I arrived home that night I was welcomed by the familiar, savory smell of Gran’s famous stew and the sight of my beloved cousin giving my beloved Oliver cooking lessons, while commiserating with him about my terrible habits.

  Détente had been reached.

  That wasn’t the end of the changes, amazingly enough. Not only did my boutique clothing sell, but also the t-shirts Jill had made up with Private Dancer’s logo, the one I’d designed for the website. Bren, in the meantime, got his accountant’s license. He loved music and performing, but he was always more pragmatic than me. He knew how iffy show biz was, and while the band’s downloadable songs and gigs brought in enough to pay for gas and groceries, he never expected it to reliably pay the rent. So he worked part time managing money, including mine.

  The final change came just a month ago, right before Thanksgiving. Uncle Dev used his connections, an old girlfriend in fact, to get me my own gallery show. It made me regret, and not for the first time, that I hadn’t held out that olive branch to him sooner. Talk about a mench!

  It was one of the greatest nights of my life, with all the family there, and more than a few interested buyers wandering about, sipping wine and discussing my art. Erin set up his keyboard in a corner to provide the show with some music. It was awesome.

  My pictures of Oliver were especially popular, which caused him to hide behind Brendan most of the night. I finally broke away long enough to get my arm through his and drag him on a walk around the room.

  “I know modesty’s a virtue,” I told him, “but you’re being ridiculous.”

  “It’s your night,” he said back, and I got the feeling he wished he’d brought his mask, behind which he could hide. “People see the pictures and they all look at me rather than you. That’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s the way of things. The model always gets attention because they’re something tangible the viewer can focus on. I plan on painting a lot more pictures of you, so you might as well get used to it.”

  He sulked for a moment, then sighed and lightened up. “On the plus side, apparently I’m an asset.”

  “Well, duh!” I replied. “That’s what I keep telling you. Why have you finally seen the light?”

  “See Elmer Fudd over there?”

  He surreptitiously pointed with his chin in the direction of a group standing in front of the near life-sized painting of him. It was there for display only. The man in question was unmistakable. A baldpate framed by a fringe of dyed black hair; a pale face that likely only ever saw the sun from the backside, coupled with too much lip-gloss. He wore a black patent leather jacket with a satiny, violet shirt and a gold tie. A tiny, squeak-toy of a dog—whose locks had been teased into a kind of pompadour— was cuddled against his chest. I nodded to indicate I saw whom he meant.

  “Someone in his circle asked if you were gay, because of the paintings, the big one in particular, and he says back to him, ‘Aw the best awtists aw.’” With his back discreetly turned so as not to offend the man in question, Oliver mimicked the fey manner in which the man held the tiny dog, while flapping his free hand, just the way the fellow had been doing all evening. “And when someone pointed out that you couldn’t be gay because Brendan has a girl on his arm he says, ‘What? Aw you, bwind? That is cweawy a vewy pwetty boy in dwag!’”

  We laughed then found Jill and Bren and told them about it. Jill smirked and said that next time she’d come dressed in a stylish men’s suit. I said I thought she’d look luscious in a white Zoot suit with her hair done in bubblegum; she looked intrigued.

  “OK, so, are you gay because you’re a great artist, or are you a great artist because you’re gay?” Brendan asked with a snicker.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, “It must be one of those philosophical mysteries of the ages, like the chicken and the egg. Which came first, the cock or the brush?”

  Most of the lot sold, and I got huge offers on the painting of Oliver in bed, but there was no way I was selling that one. Next thing I knew, calls and email inquiries were coming in. I left Uncle Devlin a voice mail asking about how that “option to buy” thing on the lofts worked. Brendan and I both liked the idea of never having to worry about rent during lean times, not to mention we’d be able to put in a door between the apartments. We had a set of walkie-talkies right now, and those would still be useful, but a pass-through like the ones in motels where it’s two doors back to back so either of us could lock our side would make everything perfect.

  “Absolutely perfect,” I sighed dreamily, leaning across the Irish Eyes bar.

  “How cliché….” Mister O’Brian’s teasing jibe brought me back to earth. “Painters an’ bards livin’ in a loft? That’s quite a fairytale ye’ve spun, boyo.”

  “Here now, no cracks about fairies!” I joked, getting a wheezy chuckle from him.

  The pub was decorated with wreaths of dried poinsettias and evergreen gar
lands for its annual, holiday feast, which always took place the Sunday before Christmas. Outside the pub’s windows, snow drifted down and all the glass panes were edged in frost.

  Mister O’Brian was here, as he was every year, to eat as well as enjoy his sipping drink, which he’d nearly finished up in the time it’d taken to tell him what had happened since I’d last filled his glass back in August. I stood on the other side of the bar, my job tonight being to fix up eggnogs and hot, buttered rum, as well as the occasional Irish coffee or, in this case, honeyed whiskey.

  “An’ what about the dog?” he wanted to know. “Tha’s th’ one thin’ still missin’ from this fantasy picture.”

  “There’s an Irish Wolfhound mix we’re going to be looking into after Christmas,” I told him. “A rescue dog.”

  “Woof! Tha’s no a pup, tha’s a wee horse. Here’s t‘em then,” he toasted me and sucked down the final drops. “So, is that the sum o’ yer tale?”

  “Well,” I said modestly, “There is one last thing—”

  I glanced over at Oliver standing next to my grandmother by the holiday tree, which itself stood beside the crackling fireplace. On his middle, left finger was a collectable, silver ring I’d gotten off eBay. It featured a silver Lone Ranger on his rearing horse atop a polished black onyx. It’d been late September—mine and Bren’s birthday—and after celebrating with the family, we’d come home, each to our own half-loft apartments, to celebrate more intimately with our respective partners.

  Afterwards, lying next to Oliver, who was still covered in sweat and panting for breath, I’d brought out a wrapped box from under the bed.

  “Um, you’ve got it wrong, Liam,” Oliver said, puzzled. “I’m supposed to get you a present.”

  “Something I picked up from Lord of the Rings; do you remember when I read it to you? Hobbits give presents on their birthday instead of getting them. Besides, this is a gift to me as well as to you.” I cleared my throat as he tore away the wrapping paper and opened the box. He gasped at the ring he found within.