The Pub Across the Pond

by Mary Carter

  “Oh my God,” Becca said. She began to fill out the slip of paper.

  “What about you, miss?” the man asked Carlene.

  “Oh, she won’t enter,” Becca said without looking up. “She’s the unluckiest girl in the world.” Even though there wasn’t a mean bone in Becca’s body, and she was telling the truth—Carlene was severely lacking the luck gene—it still hurt to hear it announced with such gusto by her best friend. Carlene secretly wanted to tell Becca to shut up. But Becca had made it clear that she was not responsible for anything she said or did “in her condition.” Carlene couldn’t wait until the baby was born so she could stop biting her tongue. The man in the tent was staring at Carlene with watchful eyes.

  “You look very lucky to me, miss, if you don’t mind me saying,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Carlene said. “I really can’t complain.”

  “What are you talking about?” Becca said. “You complain all the time.”

  Carlene smiled, hoping to cancel out Becca’s declarations and show him that she was a gentle soul filled with nothing but gratitude for the good things in her life.

  “I have things pretty darn good,” Carlene said. She hated the sound of herself. Like an actress on an infomercial.

  “You look good to me, miss,” the man said.

  “Oh, she’s looks and brains lucky,” Becca said. “Just not lottery lucky.”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly the lottery,” the man said. “But you know what they say. You can’t win if you don’t play.”

  “You’ve got to be in it to win it,” Carlene said. Becca threw her a look. Carlene wished she hadn’t spent the morning preaching about how she was going to start saving her money—how she only had thirty dollars on her, and she wasn’t even going to spend it all. Unfortunately, ten bucks had already been spent on a stomachache. “Are the proceeds going to a good cause?” Carlene said. She knew then, good cause or no, she was going to enter the raffle. Becca’s attitude was really getting to her, and she wanted to prove to this smiling Irishman that no matter how unlucky she was, she was still willing to get in the game.

  “Well, I’m sure if the family is raffling off the pub, there’s a good reason for it all right,” the man said. Carlene stepped closer and looked at the picture. Up close she could read the sign above the pub.

  “Uncle Jimmy’s,” she said.

  “I believe he passed away,” the man said. “And times are tough, as you know yourself.” He quickly crossed himself. Becca did the same. Oh, if your rabbi could see you now, Carlene thought.

  “That’s so sad,” Carlene said.

  “Ah, but you can help out today with just twenty dollars.” The man leaned in until he was only an inch or so from Carlene’s face. He smelled of cigarettes and tea. “And you never know, do ye? Luck is like the weather. It can change like that.” He snapped his fingers. Carlene jumped. Becca folded her entry, kissed it, and stuck it in the box.

  “Is it in Dublin?” Becca said. “The real one?” she added as if the fake one were listening.

  “No, no, I’m afraid not. She’s on the West Coast of Ireland, near Galway.”

  “That’s so cute.” Becca turned to Carlene. “Did you hear that? The pub is a she. Like a truck or a boat.” Carlene didn’t answer, she was back to looking at the women on the poster.

  “Uncle Jimmy’s daughters,” the man said.

  “Oh,” Carlene said quickly. She hoped he didn’t remember Becca insinuating they were strippers. Becca linked arms with Carlene.

  “Let’s go get soda bread,” she said.

  “Wait,” Carlene said. She dug in her purse and counted out her money. Eighteen dollars. She thought for sure she’d only spent ten. With her luck she’d probably dropped two. Maybe the wind had carried it away and it was stuck to some beer guzzler’s sweaty gut. She looked at Becca. “I’m two dollars short,” she said.

  “You didn’t buy the Celtic cross necklace because you said you were broke,” Becca said. “And it was only fifteen dollars.”

  “I know. But I want to help out Uncle Jimmy,” Carlene said. Becca leaned in and lowered her voice.

  “He’s dead,” Becca said. “I don’t think your twenty dollars is going to help.”

  “His daughters, then,” Carlene said.

  “Ah, good girl,” the man said. “Twenty dollars, luv.”

  “Come on, Becca,” Carlene said. “I’ll pay you back.”

  Becca sighed as if Carlene were her teenage daughter, hitting her up for an extra week’s allowance. She rolled her eyes at the man as she dug two dollars out of her Coach purse.

  “Don’t complain about this later,” Becca said. She handed her the two dollars.

  “I won’t,” Carlene said. “And thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Becca said. “But if your luck does change, you owe me.”

  Carlene and Becca sat at a small green plastic table set up on the sidewalk and daydreamed over generous pieces of Irish soda bread, butter, and homemade jam. “Can you imagine winning a pub in Ireland?” Becca said. She spoke with her mouth full.

  “It rains a lot in Ireland,” Carlene said.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Becca said. “Job security.”

  “I don’t follow,” Carlene said.

  “Remember when I lived in Seattle for six months and I called you crying every day because all it did was rain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you this because I didn’t want you to judge me, but all I did to get through it was drink.”

  “You still drink. I mean, when you’re not expecting. You own a wine bar,” Carlene said. Last year Becca had opened Wine on the Flats, a wine bar in Cleveland, where they lived.

  “That’s nothing compared to how much I drank in Seattle,” Becca said. “Rain, rain, rain, rain. It was all I could do not to throw myself off the Aurora Bridge.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re not selling those raffle tickets,” Carlene said.

  “I’m just saying—you’d make a lot of money.”

  “I hope whoever wins it isn’t just after money,” Carlene said. “Did you see how cute the pub was? It was family owned. God, it must be hard for them to sell.”

  “Maybe sad enough for them to keep drowning their sorrows at the pub,” Becca said. Carlene laughed. “Oh,” Becca said. She grabbed Carlene’s hand and put it on her stomach. Carlene pretended to feel the baby kick. “Shane wants to win a pub in Ireland, don’t you, Shane?” Becca rubbed her stomach.

  “Shane?” Carlene said.

  “Or Shania,” Becca said.

  “Shane or Shania Weinstein,” Carlene said. “What does Levi think?”

  “Loves them,” Becca said. She gave Carlene a look. Carlene laughed.

  “I would just die. I would just die to win a pub in Ireland,” Becca said. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Carlene wasn’t going to answer. It was probably a rhetorical question. Becca often pretended to listen, when in reality she wasn’t listening at all. And you couldn’t tell by looking at her because she had perfected the I’m-listening look. A slight tilt of the head, index finger poised by her lip, eyes on the speaker, chin up. Often, when Carlene was done spinning a tale or spilling her guts, she would discover Becca had actually been formulating the menu for an upcoming dinner party in her head, or rearranging the seating chart, or mentally grocery shopping, and once she even admitted to listing, in chronological order, every song in Xanadu.

  And Carlene really would die to win a pub in Ireland. Unlike Becca, whose entire family, both maternal and paternal, had come from Israel, Carlene actually had Irish heritage. Her maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Margaret, came to America from County Mayo when she was only sixteen. The Troubles were in full swing when Mary Margaret’s mother passed, and her father joined the IRA. Mary Margaret was sent to Philadelphia to live with a cousin. Carlene’s maternal grandmother, Jane, who lived four years longer than Carlene’s mother, used to sit with Carlen
e drinking tea and regaling her with stories of far, far-away relatives who were from a magical place the Good Lord had blessed with soaring cliffs that hovered over the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and rolling hills with a thousand shades of green.

  Sometimes, Carlene’s grandmother would put an album on the record player and sing along with an Irish ballad—“Danny Boy,” and “The Fields of Athenry,” and “The Rose of Tralee”—and Carlene would be transported into another world. A world of fiddles, flutes, harps, guitars, pianos, and tin whistles. Haunted windswept voices sang of life, land, beauty, death, drink, regret, mothers who were still alive, and hills with a thousand shades of green. There were days when her grandmother would refuse to sing because she “didn’t have the pipes” or the pipes were leaking, so Carlene would try to sing along instead. When songs spilled into her grandmother’s tiny, dark sitting room, Carlene’s chest would fill and expand as if it were about to burst. On rare occasions, Carlene’s grandmother would get up and dance.

  Carlene loved these moments with her grandmother, but above all, it was her stories she cherished the most. When it came to hearing about her long-lost relatives, Carlene was a bottomless pit, constantly begging for more. There weren’t nearly enough stories for Carlene to hold on to, so she would often replay the same ones in her head, adding and deleting details, until she could no longer separate fact from fiction. Stories about her great-great-great-grandmother walking to Catholic school and passing Protestant children who would yell out, “cat lickers, cat lickers,” to which they would respond, “prote-stinkers, prote-stinkers!”

  Or stories about James and Charles, the twins. Those great-great-great-uncles were black sheep, her grandmother said, but they still had hearts of gold. They must be something, Carlene thought, for like Mary Margaret from County Mayo, her grandmother said James and Charles were “great” three times in a row. Carlene wondered if she would ever do something so remarkable that she would be great times three. The twins were drinkers, and gamblers, and wickedly handsome. They moved to Atlantic City, and died, one week apart, at age thirty-three. The exact cause of their mysterious deaths, if her grandmother knew, was never articulated, but Carlene always assumed it was due to their wickedly handsome ways.

  “You’re Irish too, you know,” her grandmother often said. Oh, Carlene knew. She knew it the way her lungs almost burst just listening to her grandmother play those songs on the record player. She knew it the way she could close her eyes and feel herself standing on a windswept cliff, see the ocean pounding the rocks below, or feel her small body rolling down the rolling hills with a thousand shades of green.

  Becca made a fist and knocked on Carlene’s forehead. “Anybody in there?”

  “Sorry,” Carlene said. “I was just thinking about Ireland. My great-great-great-grandmother was—”

  “Wouldn’t you just die?” Becca said. There it was, she wasn’t really listening.

  “I couldn’t even imagine,” Carlene said.

  “Imagine, running my wine bar in Ireland,” Becca said.

  “It’s not a wine bar, Becca. It’s a pub.”

  “It doesn’t have to stay a pub. It would be my place. I could change it into a wine bar.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a big wine country. They do seem to like their pints.”

  “I was in Dublin, the real one, remember? And I’m telling you, it’s a very sophisticated city. They’re, like, so European now.”

  “They’ve always been European,” Carlene said. Carlene had never been to Europe, or Asia, or Australia, or the Middle East. Becca had been everywhere.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This pub isn’t in Dublin. Near Galway, didn’t he say?” Carlene said. Becca shrugged.

  “Did you know there’s a large Jewish population in Cork City?” Becca said.

  “I did not know that,” Carlene said.

  “Oh yes. I learned all about it when we toured Cork. Apparently, when the Jews were fleeing to America during the war, the boat stopped in Cork, and when the captain, or like whoever, yelled out, ‘New Cork,’ a lot of the Jews thought they said ‘New York’ and they disembarked.”

  “Wow,” Carlene said.

  “Do you have any gum?” Becca said. “God, I hate this baby. I need something in my mouth all the time.” Carlene stuck her hand in her pocket. She pulled out a couple of crumpled bills.

  “What do you know,” Carlene said. “Two dollars.” She held the money out to Becca. Becca grabbed both of Carlene’s hands and squeezed them so tight, Carlene wondered if she was in labor.

  “You know I didn’t mean it. You know I do not hate this baby.”

  “Of course I know that,” Carlene said. “I never believed you for a second.” Again, she held out the two dollars.

  “Forget it,” Becca said. “I’d rather you owe me.” She looked at her watch. “Do the Irish eat sauerkraut? I’ve got a yen for some sauerkraut.”

  Carlene laughed. “Sauerkraut is German,” she said. “But I’ll bet we could find some cabbage.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Becca said. “Corned beef and cabbage.” Carlene stood. Becca remained sitting. Finally she stuck her hands out and allowed Carlene to pull her up off the chair. Becca bought corned beef and cabbage and Carlene bought a beer, and they watched children ride ponies with green saddles. Becca reached over and took Carlene’s hand.

  “I hope this isn’t making you think of Brendan,” she said.

  “Not at all,” Carlene said. “Not at all.” But even as the words were coming out of her mouth, Carlene could feel herself tense up. Becca was crossing a line, using her condition to talk about Brendan, something that she had already agreed not to do. Brendan was a long time ago, Brendan was in the past, and she didn’t need anyone reminding her.

  “Good,” Becca said. “You deserved so much better.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you imagine if you won the pub in Ireland, and you ran into him, like?”

  “Wouldn’t that be something.” Seriously, condition or not, she was pushing it.

  “Or you fall in love with some other Irish man,” Becca said.

  “Never again,” Carlene said. “They are the best of men, they are the worst of men.”

  Becca held up her soggy sandwich. “I’ll eat to that,” she said.

  Carlene clinked her beer bottle with Becca’s corned beef. “Cheers,” she said.

  Carlene worked at Jabs, her father’s training gym for professional boxers. Her father, Michael Rivers, was an ex-boxer himself. When he failed to rise to the ranks of a professional, he opened the gym—just a few months before he met Carlene’s mother. Growing up, Carlene spent more time at the gym than she did in their two-bedroom apartment above it. Now she managed the day-to-day operations. Her father had OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and instead of growing out of it, as he always promised he would, he was just getting worse. Compared to the over-orderly, sanitized world her father lived in, Carlene loved the smell, sounds, and sweat of the gym.

  She loved the squeak of tennis shoes on the linoleum floor, the patter of boxers’ feet, the grunts and groans accompanying their jabs. She loved the ropes that hung from the ceiling, thick twisted vines that she would swing on when no one was looking, she loved the punching bags she would pummel with her fists, she loved the practice ring she would crawl into when she was all alone, punching and jumping and ducking. She loved the sound of whistles being blown, and sweaty men with towels thrown over their muscular shoulders. She loved it all. Her motto in here was “let ’em see you sweat.” When it first opened, the gym was all men. Carlene used to sit on a stool near the ring, hold their towels, and suffer through teasing, hair ruffles, and play jabs. Her small fists would bunch up in imitation of theirs, and she’d strike at phantom enemies in the air.

  Carlene knew that had she grown up with her mother, she would have missed out on all of this. But Renee Rivers died from a weak heart when Carlene was only six. Carlene was raised in the gym,
and she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She wondered if it made her a horrible person to think such thoughts, but she just couldn’t imagine her mother allowing her to be around all those grown men, all the swearing, all the sweating, all the punching. She probably would have taken ballet or tap-dancing class with the other little girls her age, maybe only allowed an hour a week at the gym, such as Saturday afternoons when her mother needed some retail therapy, or her hair done, or a mani-pedi. At least that’s how Carlene always imagined it.

  Now there were plenty of women who trained at the gym. It had been Carlene’s idea. First, she suggested women’s boxing for fitness. She convinced the cutest boxer at the time to teach the class. It was a huge success. She added self-defense, then private boxing lessons, and then, slowly, the professional female boxers came to train. She’d doubled their membership. But on this day, she just didn’t feel like working.

  It had been one month since the Irish festival, and weighing in at a whopping ten pounds, twelve ounces, Shane Weinstein had been born the night before. Carlene had just come from the hospital. She’d never seen Becca so happy. Watching her friend hold her son in her arms was joyous. It also brought unexpected feelings of jealousy to the surface. Carlene was thrilled for Becca, but something ached inside her when she saw that fat baby, when Levi reached over and stroked Becca’s cheek, and when the three of them just sat, and smiled, and breathed in the silence of what they had just become. A family. Carlene was a long, long way from being a mother herself, if it ever happened. In order to do that, she’d have to find a relationship she could sustain for more than a couple of months.

  Carlene approached the door to her father’s office. She paused, hoping just once she’d open it and find his desk littered with papers and coffee cups and loose change. She’d give anything to see her father sitting in the middle of clutter. She knocked four times, then paused, counted to four, and once again knocked four times. It was the only way he’d ever answer.

  “Come in.” She opened the door. Her father was sitting behind his desk. It was clear and polished. He wore blue rubber gloves. The tiny, immaculate room reeked of Lysol.