Mismatched (4 page)

I break away from my dad and try to save Ridlee from my mother, sliding my arm round her shoulder before Mum can get her in a vice.

“Everyone,” I announce, “this is my good friend, Ridlee. Ridlee, this is everyone. Literally, everyone. The entire family.”

“
Dia daoibh,
” she repeats, arms outstretched. Her head is bobbing and she’s beaming benevolently at the entire O’Neill tribe. Think Buzz Lightyear meeting the aliens in Toy Story 2.

“Knock it off, will ye.” I guide her to the bar while her bags are now being ridden by my seven-year-old cousin, Danny.

“Does he know that they’re Globe Trotters?” she asks, craning her neck in the direction of her luxury luggage as I lead her away.

“I doubt it.” I push her more firmly toward the bar.

My dad saves the luggage and my other aunts and uncles take Danny and the other kids off to school, saying a quick goodbye and telling us to have a pint for them. I kiss them all and promise to catch everyone for a knees up soon.

“It’s obligatory to have a pint of Guinness upon landing. No arguments,” I explain to Ridlee, who seems perplexed that we mean to start drinking before breakfast. The Dublin airport bar is more or less empty, but then it is still only nine a.m.

“Pints all round?” asks Uncle Miley, nodding to the barman.

With the others all gone it’s just Ridlee and me, my parents, and my Uncle Miley and Aunty Ger.

“My lovely brother will sort ye out, Boss,” says Uncle Miley to the barman, somehow managing to lift six pints of Guinness off the bar at once.

This is typical Miley; he orders and carries the drinks, but someone else pays. Usually my dad.

“Would you like a tray with that?” asks the barman, winking knowingly.

“Ah, Jaysus, don’t ye think I’ve enough to carry!” retorts Miley, with a wink of his own. He brings the drinks over to our table and sets them down without spilling a drop.

“Would’ya give us a job in yer pub over there in Boston, Erin, would’ya?” he asks.

“In a heartbeat, Uncle Miley. In a heartbeat.” I take my first sip of the black stuff, and God, it tastes good. I look at Ridlee who is staring at her pint glass.

Everyone’s watching her as she tentatively takes her first sip. “Mmm, yummy!” she chirps, but you can tell she doesn’t think it’s yummy at all with the way she winces after. Guinness is definitely an acquired taste. Still, plenty of time for that. Aunty Ger arrives at the table with an armload of cheese and onion crisps.

“So, Pet, ye’re the proud owner of a pub, are ye?” asks my dad.

“Half a pub,” I mumble into my glass while taking a slug of my Guinness.

“What’s that?”

“Half a pub.” I look up from my drink. My mother, father, and my aunt and uncle are staring at me.

“The old bint didn’t give the whole thing to ye?” asks my father, his voice rising. “After all the work you put in?”

“Jack! Keep it down. And don’t talk about my mother like that. It’s wrong to speak ill of the dead.” The last part my mother says under her breath.

“It’s just a legality. We’re gonna fix it.” I smile confidently in Ridlee’s direction.

My father looks from me to Ridlee, and back to me again. “You and ... I’m sorry, what’s yer name again, Love?”

“Ridlee. As in Scott. Like ‘Alien’ but with an ‘E’. Well, another ‘E’. Two Es, really.”

My father does his pirate face — one eye cocked, mouth askew — and turns to me. “Is she right in the head?”

“Ridlee’s a lawyer, Dad.”

“Oh,” is all he says, taking another swig of his pint.

“So, what’s the story with yer granny’s pub then, Erin?” asks my Uncle Miley, shifting his stool closer to the table.

“Well, she seems to have left half of the pub to someone called Padraig Flanagan. Ridlee and I are going to find him and buy him out. For a fair price of course.”

“A fair price, is it?” asks Uncle Miley, all wily now.

I smile at him. We understand each other perfectly. Ridlee smiles too.

“Well, a fair price of what the bar used to be worth,” I explain. “Before I did all the renovations and basically saved it from bankruptcy. Here, look.” I pull some photos out of an envelope I have in my bag. They show the pub before any of the renovations were done. The plaster is hanging off the walls, there’s sawdust on the floor, and crap everywhere— teapots and plates and all sorts of junk from the old country.

“Nice,”says Uncle Miley, “but what did it look like before?”

“That
is
before!” His response deflates me a bit. Doesn’t he see the sawdust? The tired tea service?

A collective “oohhh” goes up as the photos are passed from person to person.

“What does it look like now?’ asks Aunty Ger.

I grin and pull out the brochure that I had recently put together for a marketing campaign. My family leans in to have a look.

“I’ve gutted the place so that it’s now one huge room instead of little snugs and nooks and crannies.”

The brochure shows an immense bar with stools running the length of it and a neon Fightin’ Irish leprechaun above it. There are neon shamrocks here and there and gaelic football jerseys on the walls. There’s a photo of me pulling a pint, wearing a green shirt with the words
Kiss Me I’m Irish
emblazoned on the front. A huge, green, cardboard shamrock behind me offers three shots for three dollars during happy hour.

“Lovely, sweetie,” says my mum, handing the brochure back to me. A general ‘
mmm
’ is emitted from my dad, aunt, and uncle.

“You don’t understand!” I hear myself whining. “That’s the kind of thing they want, right Ridlee?”

“Right!” says my loyal friend, but I can tell she doesn’t really know what we’re on about. She hasn’t been to a proper Irish pub yet. The airport bar doesn’t count.

“Look, I’m sure ye know best, Darlin,” says my dad, “but ye wouldn’t catch me drinkin’ in one of those ‘themed’ bars. How can ye even have a conversation with all the music and the televisions blaring and the general din?”

“People don’t want to talk, Dad, they want to get drunk.” I slump back in my seat and almost fall backward off the stool.
Why does my family always have to make me feel like a child?
It doesn’t matter what I do; it’s never good enough.

“Don’t mind us, Pet,” pipes up my Aunty Ger, “we’re just old fogeys who enjoy a bit of atmosphere in a pub. I’m sure yer themed bar is lovely.”

“The Pot O’Gold has atmosphere! Doesn’t it, Ridlee?” My plea stinks of desperation, I can smell it. But I can always rely on Rid.

“You betcha! It’s bustin’ with atmosphere, especially on Rave Night. Although the cokeheads can get out of hand sometimes.”

My uncle cuts in, “Lookit, if Erin wants to have a theme bar instead of a real pub, that’s her business!”

“Thank you, Uncle Miley. I think...”

“The real question is how is she going to deal with this Flanagan fella?”

Everyone around the table nods gravely. He waits for a moment before going on. “Now, I’m thinkin’ that the best way to deal with him is with a couple o’ baseball bats and some heavies. Or a shooter. I know a guy.”

“No!” I am almost on my feet. “No violence!”

TOLD YOU
, Ridlee is mouthing to me from the other side of the table. She pulls her hand out from under the table, thumb cocked and index and middle finger pointed. She’s seen one or two too many episodes of Love/Hate and is convinced that this is the way problems get sorted in modern Ireland. I should never have turned her on to the show; I’ve created a monster.

“We’re gonna work this out the right way,” I say, facing my friend.

Four faces turn from me to Ridlee. Sheepishly, she returns her imaginary gun to its holster. “That’s right,” she agrees, nodding. “Legally.” She raises her almost full pint glass.

“Legally!” we chorus, though some more enthusiastically than others, and raise our almost empty pint glasses.

“
Slainte
!” says my dad, tipping his glass to clink.

“
Slainte
, to your health,” says Mum.

The rest of us do the same and drain our glasses.

“
Slainte!
” Ridlee takes a sip of her Guinness and winces ever so slightly.

“You don’t have to drink that,” I tell her.

“What? No, I love it! Yum!”

“Give over!” My uncle takes her glass and downs the pint in one. “Amateur,” he mutters with a smile, and we all follow him out of the pub and into a typical September Dublin morning.

We hurry to the car to avoid the rain that’s beginning to fall and head home. Ridlee and I have one night here before we head down to County Clare. A fun night in the Big Smoke.

CHAPTER FOUR

RIDLEE

ERIN’S ALL EXCITED ABOUT SHOWING me her hometown, but I’m way more interested in seeing the sites right here in her family’s house. My two-hour nap has completely recharged my batteries and I’m ready to soak up the Irish magic. I’ve only seen bits of the city as it went past the car windows, but it was enough to realize that the real sparkly stuff isn’t out there; it’s inside the houses, with the people. And Erin’s people are insane. I mean that in the nicest way. I could totally hang out with them for longer than one night we’ve planned and probably never get bored, not even for a second.

If it’s not the accent getting to me, it’s the humor. I’ve never heard so many off the wall expressions. Her aunt called her uncle a harse’s ass and a fierce hoor loud enough that I heard it in my sleep and incorporated it into my dream. I don’t even know what a fierce hoor is, but in my half-sleep/half-awake state, it was an angry prostitute with wild hair and bared teeth.

Erin’s whining at me again. “Come on, Ridlee, you can’t mean it. Stay here all night?” She gestures to the window. “But there’re the pubs and the clubs and Dubs. We’re missing out hanging around here with this lot.”

“Dubs? Is that another Irish expression?”

“Dubliners. Irish lads. They build ‘em brawny here.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me, going for the hard sell. “I think you might like ‘em.” Her grin could not be more cheesy.

I play it cool. “I can wait. I’m kinda likin’ the vibe here at Casa O’Neill.”

She almost stomps her foot. “You can’t be serious! My Uncle’s already three sheets to the wind and my father won’t be too far behind. Anything can happen then. I’ll be humiliated.”

“That’s kind of what I’m hoping for.” Searching through my suitcase, I wonder what the appropriate outfit might be for sitting around an Irish living room, being regaled with tales of Erin’s childhood. Definitely something black. With a touch of green, maybe. I’ll totally blend.

“You’re a bad person,” she says. “A wretched excuse for a human being. Selfish. Heartless.” This is her last ditch effort.

“I know. I agree.”

She huffs out a puff of air. “Fine. If you insist on dragging me kicking and screaming through my childhood again to provide cheap entertainment, I’ll have to get locked. You’ve left me no choice. My mum has a bottle of Jameson hidden under the kitchen sink and I mean to empty it directly into my bloodstream.”

“Good. I have my camera fully charged.”

“I’ll expect you to hold my hair out of the way when I’m bent over the loo retching my guts up.”

“Consider it done.”

She leaves me alone in the room, and I make sure to slip my camera into my pocket before following her out. I’m seriously going to document the hell out of this trip, since it’ll probably be my one and only vacation to the Emerald Isle. Lord knows Erin’s not planning on coming back. She acts like this place gives her hives. And I couldn’t imagine being in this country without her translating all this English for me. The accent is so thick I only catch about half of what everyone’s saying.

When I get out into the dim living room, I assess the situation. The men are on one side of the room and the women on the other. There are well-worn, darkly cushioned chairs for Dad and Uncle Miley and a low-slung flowered couch for Aunty Ger and Mum. Erin is just dropping into the space between the ladies when they see me.

“It’s a bit early for dinner, so I’ve put out some nibblies over there on the sideboard if you’re interested.” Erin’s mother gestures to a narrow table against the wall, just before the door opening that leads to the dining room.

“Oooh, good idea,” I say, wondering what it is exactly that Irish eat for snackage. I head in that direction.

“Watch out for the toad eyeballs,” Erin calls out across the room.

My hand pauses, hovering over a plate of round brown things. “Them are some mighty big toads,” I say under my breath.

“Stop it, Erin,” says her mom. “We don’t eat a toad’s eyeballs. Where’re you gettin’ that from?”

I move left, stopping in front of the next dish.

“Might want to pass on the ground goat’s udder dip,” Erin says.

Her mother’s voice goes up really high. “For Jaysus’s sake, Erin. What’s got into you? Are ye drunk?”

Uncle Miley raises his class. “Cheers, love. Get me another, would you please?”

I take a cucumber slice and turn around, biting into it with gusto and then holding up the remaining half at my friend.

She lifts an eyebrow. “Enjoy your leprechaun nipples.”

Aunty Ger smacks her leg as she gets up to refill her husband’s beer. “You’re such a tease. Just like your dad.” The stockings she’s wearing under her brown dress make a swishing sound as she moves.

I take a high-backed wooden chair, sitting just between the men and the women, my back to the fireplace. “So … who wants to tell me Erin’s most embarrassing story from her childhood?” I crunch away on my leprechaun nipple, ready to be regaled with tales from her dark past.

Erin is always such a mystery; she never wants to share stories about her family, friends, or home country. Now’s my chance to get the goods on her. Of course I plan to use every bit of it against her in the future, because that’s just the kind of friend I am. I cross my legs and grin at the family, one member at a time.

Erin closes her eyes and tips her head back to rest on the seat behind her. “Kill me now.”

Uncle Miley is the first to bite. He wiggles his ample bum to the edge of the seat and leans towards the center of the group. “Well, I suppose there was that time when she opened up a kissin’ booth on the corner, just down the road.” He gestures with his chin. “Made herself quite a tidy sum before she was shut down by the coppers. Bloody bastards.” He grimaces and takes a long pull from his fresh beer.