“I am so happy,” she said. “We are gently floating down on a four-leaf clover.” He just looked at her and turned back to his Air Lick Us catalogue. The page was turned to a dog bowl that filled itself. She suspected he didn't even have a dog.
She wasn't going to let him get to her. From now on, she wasn't going to let anything get to her. This was more than a chance to start a new life, this was a chance to finally be free, to find out who she was without her father's compulsions and her mother's ghost.
You can't win if you don't play,
she heard the raffle man say.
You can't win, if you don't play.
Her unlucky streak had officially been broken.
Â
They bounced rather than landed. A bit rocky, but all in one piece. She had arrived. She flew out of her seat, a wasted effort since she was in the very last row. The group of boys who drank and partied as if there was no tomorrow, the ones who constantly reminded her why it sucked to sit so close to the bathrooms, chose now to sleep. Maybe she should tell them about her pub; from the amount she'd seen them drink, one night of their presence and she could probably stay afloat for the entire year. But no, she only wanted classy people at her pub. These filthy boys would not be welcome. She watched them awaken and stagger out of their seats. Her seatmate managed to skip ahead, as if he wanted to flee from her happiness. Screw him. She was not going to apologize for being happy.
Finally she was moving up. Just ahead there was a little old lady ever so slowly getting out of her seat. Carlene stopped so that she could go first. Good deeds! The flight attendant came down the aisle with the elderly lady's walker. She set it in front of the woman and smiled.
“There you are, pet,” the attendant said. Carlene was behind the elderly woman when they'd first boarded as well. Life coming full circle. The flight attendant tried to get her to sit at the front of the plane, but the old lady refused, ranting and raving about survival rates being higher at the back of the plane, ageism, and lack of decent biscuits, which, from her tone, was clearly the worst of the lot. The old lady was trying to peer into the overhead compartments.
“You're all set, luv,” the flight attendant said. The old woman stretched on her tiptoes and continued peering into the bin. She reached her hand up, but she could barely touch inside the compartment. She was so tiny.
“Let me help,” Carlene said. Although she could clearly see it was empty, she pawed around the bin anyway. “It's empty,” she announced. The old woman smiled. She was missing several teeth. Carlene wondered how she could even eat a biscuit. Finally satisfied she was leaving nothing behind, she inched her way up the aisle. There was an excruciatingly exact method to her exit-madness. First, grunting like a weightlifter, she heaved the walker in front of her, then she stopped and waited for it to hit the ground. Next she craned her head to the side as if listening for the thunk. Only then did she drag her faded yellow slipper up to meet it. Walker, lift, grunt, thunk. Slipper, shuffle. Lift, grunt, thunk, slipper, shuffle. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, grunt, thunk, thunk.
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Carlene held her passport and work visa out and waited for the female immigration officer to take it. The woman looked as if she'd been rolled in flour, deep-fried, and stuffed into a green uniform three times too small. She had a slight reddish mustache. Carlene tried not to stare at it and absentmindedly touched her own upper lip. Finally, the officer took Carlene's passport and visa.
“Reason for coming to Ireland,” she asked without making eye contact. Her voice could hardly be described as a soft lilt. Carlene cleared her throat.
Just say you're on holiday.
The officer finally looked at Carlene, then leaned forward and shouted as if Carlene was hard of hearing. “Reason. For. Coming. To. Ireland?”
“My great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Margaret, was from Ireland,” Carlene said. “County Mayo.” The officer did not appear as if she was impressed. She'd heard this before. Everyone thought they were Irish. Wannabes. “Her father, I guess that would make him my great-great-great-great-grandfatherâis that right? Four greats? Anyway, he joined the IRA when Mary Margaret was only sixteenâ”
Carlene stopped. Was she allowed to say IRA in the airport? Was that like joking you had a bomb? Because even though her great-to-the-fourth-power grandfather died trying to protect Ireland, a proud IRA member himself, she didn't want to come off as politicalâat heart she was more of a Gandhi followerâpeaceful revolutions and the like. Although now the Troubles had calmed down quite a bit, Belfast was the new Barcelona, and everyone was trying to play niceâ
Still, she had better change the subject before she got herself in trouble.
“The Philadelphia Irish,” Carlene exclaimed. “ âComplaining with a ham under each arm,' my grandmother used to say.” The officer was openly staring at her now. Apparently, that wasn't a good thing to say either. “Did you know there are a lot of Jews in Cork City?” Carlene said. The officer suddenly stood up. She grabbed the sides of her shirt, near her massive bosoms, and leaned forward like a gorilla showing her dominance. Carlene waited for her to flash teeth. People around them were starting to stare.
“Reason. For. Coming. To. Ireland!” the officer shouted. But before Carlene could respond again, the woman slammed her hands against the pane of glass. “And I don't want to hear about your great-great-great-can of beans, so.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“I won,” Carlene said.
Just say you're on holiday
. “A pub.”
“You what a what?” the woman said. She sounded quite alarmed, on the verge of panic, actually.
“I won a pub in Ballybeog,” Carlene said. There, she'd said it. The officer leaned forward and exhaled on the glass. A small cloud of breath obscured her mustached mouth for a moment.
“You won a pub in Ballybeog?” the officer said. She hit each word with equal force.
“Yes,” Carlene said with slightly more conviction. “I won a pub in Ballybeog.”
“You're the raffle winner?” the woman said. Carlene was by no means an expert on the Irish brogue, but the stress had definitely been on the word “you're.”
“That's right,” Carlene said. “I'm a winner.”
“How in heaven's name did ye win it?” the officer asked. Again, there was no opportunity for Carlene to actually answer. The officer kept talking. “Me niece entered that raffle. She bought ten tickets. She lives in New York. I wouldn't a mind winning it meself but it was only open to the Yanks, can you believe that? I said, now, wouldn't it be great, thanks be to God, if I could sit back and have a do-nothing job like running somebody else's pub? And I wouldn't be wasting company resources either because I've never had a sip of an alcoholic beverage in me life. I wouldn't have to sit here all day with yokes who sashay through here like they own the place due to some great-great-great-can of beans, so.” She leaned forward and punctuated the end of her outburst with another exhalation of breath. “I wouldn't have to wear this outfit. It pinches me in the middle, it does. And did ye know I only get until half past for lunch? That's only thirty minutes, lad. Ah, stop now. How many tickets did ye buy? Cleaned 'em out, did ye?”
“One ticket,” Carlene said. “I only bought one.”
“Hmmph,” the officer said. “I wouldn't be tellin' many people that, I wouldn't be tellin' 'em that a't'all. And you shouldn't sayâyou knowâaround here.”
“IRA?” Carlene whispered. The officer shook her head.
Jew,
she mouthed. Then, with a disgusted shake of her head, she stamped Carlene through.
C
HAPTER
8
The Ambassador of Craic
At the airport, Carlene boarded a bus to Galway. From there she was to wait by the fountain in Eyre Square for a man named Anchor, who would drive her to Ballybeog. She wasn't sure who he was, but on the phone he'd introduced himself as the “ambassador of Craic.” Thanks to Brendan, Carlene knew “craic” was the Irish word for “fun,” and not the cheaper cut of cocaine used by those who couldn't afford it pure. The bus was mostly empty, and Carlene sat up front. The driver caught her eye in the mirror and smiled. He was in his fifties with a trim beard and a pea green cap. He had warm brown eyes.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“America,” she said. No use leading with Cleveland, Ohio, and sucking the life out of the conversation before it even began.
“Ah, right. You'll love it here,” he said. “You've got the Cliffs of Moher, Aran Islands, Galway City. Do ye like live music, do ye?”
“I do,” Carlene said.
“They've got loads of musicians and young ones such as yourself in Galway.”
Carlene nodded and smiled and took in the cows grazing by the side of the road. She was in Ireland. She was on her way to her new life. She was glad she was in a bus; riding this high up, she felt safe. Even so, it was strange driving on the other side of the road, and every time she looked out the window, she felt as if they were about to get smashed by an oncoming car. Large signs leaving Shannon shouted: S
TAY TO THE
L
EFT
.
“Galway's nice all right,” the driver said. “And as I was saying, you should try to get to the Aran Islands. There's a ferry that leaves from Galway.”
“I'm actually not staying in Galway,” Carlene said. “Although I'm sure I'll eventually visit. I'm going to Ballybeog.” The bus swerved slightly to the right.
Stay to the left,
Carlene shouted in her head.
“Do you have family out there?” the driver asked. This time she decided not to mention her great-great-great-can of beans. Outside it began to rain. Carlene didn't mind. Even through the drizzle, everything looked quaint and beautiful, even the road signs.
“No,” she said. He was watching her again through the mirror. She wondered if it would be impolite to ask him to watch the road.
“This wouldn't have anything to do with the raffle, now would it?” he said.
“Raffle?” she said.
“I've had more Americans ask me about Ballybeog this past month than in me whole twenty years of driving,” he said.
I see,
she wanted to say.
And how many accidents have you had in these twenty years? Please, oh please, watch the road, and for the love of God, stay to the left
. Instead, she smiled. “Some American won a pub in Ballybeog,” he said. “Did ye hear about dis?”
“No,” she said. She was probably going to go to hell for lying to the nicest people on earth, but she couldn't take the chance that he would react like the woman in the airport, not with her life in his jittery hands.
“Ah, it's all over the news here, sure,” he said. “They're expecting him any day now.”
“Him?”
“Aye, I think it's some big shot on Wall Street that's won it, all right. But if he's thinking he can swoop in and flip it, he's got another thing coming. Not a little shack like that, out in the bogs.”
Carlene sat up straight. Flip? Shack? Out in the bogs? Suddenly she wasn't so concerned about him watching the road.
“You've been there?” she said. “It's a shack?”
Out in the bogs?
It was close to Galway, didn't they say it was close to Galway? Yes, she'd seen it on the map, it was close to Galway. Why did she let strangers rattle her?
“Ach, I've only driven on through it meself. But Ballybeog isn't exactly Galway, or Dublin, or Cork, or Limerick. It's just a wee little town. Ah, but greed is a mighty driver,” the driver said. “A mighty driver.”
Unlike some people I know,
Carlene thought.
“I heard it was a woman who won the pub,” Carlene said. “She's a small business ownerâa gym or somethingâand not greedy at allâjustâlucky.” Carlene smiled when she said “lucky.” She still couldn't believe it.
“I don't know if I would call winning that pub luck,” the driver said. “Out in the middle of nowhere, like.”
“So you said,” Carlene said.
“Are you going to make it to Dublin?” the driver said.
“Eventually,” Carlene said.
“Now, winning a pub in Dublin. That would be lucky, all right,” he said. “Nothing to bog you down out there.” He laughed heartily at his own joke and looked at her to see if she was laughing. She was not. He winked and began to sing. “In Dublin's fair city, the girls are so pretty.” He smiled again. This was getting annoying. She was tired of him smiling, and winking, and saying the word “bog.” She really, really just wanted him to watch the road.
“Are ye here for long?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I'm here for a good, long while.”
“A good while?” he asked. “How long is that, now? A fortnight?”
“Indefinitely,” Carlene said, racking her brain to remember how long a fortnight was. “I'm here indefinitely.” The bus swerved again. Carlene gripped the seat in front of her. “Stay to the left!” she yelled out before she could stop herself. The driver frowned at her in the mirror, and Carlene glanced apologetically at the rest of the passengers. Then she plastered her face to the window and closed her eyes. To her relief, it worked. The bus stayed to the left, and he didn't ask her any more questions.
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It was easy enough to find Eyre Square, a rectangular park in the center of the city. At the top of the square, an impressive pair of cast-iron cannons stood guard. In addition to the fountain, which was where she was to find Anchor, there were patches of grass and benches on which to sit, several large trees, and flags dotting the perimeter, a statue of an Irish writer (a seated man with a suit and a hatâCarlene was too far away to read the plaque), and a bust of John F. Kennedy.
Apparently, after his visit in 1963, Eyre Square was renamed the John F. Kennedy Park. This was a good sign. Kennedy claimed Irish ancestry, and it seemed
his
great-great-great-can of beans were not only welcomed in Ireland, they were lauded as well. If only her last name was Kennedy. Then again, tragically, they weren't the luckiest clan on the planet either.
Carlene wandered over to the fountain. It was a rectangular pool, in the center of which soared a copper-colored sailboat, a lone mast with a large center sail, accompanied by two baby sails in the back. This, Carlene learned, was the Galway hooker, the sailboat most commonly used on the West Coast of Ireland, designed to withstand heavy seas.
The fountain was the perfect size to toss in a shiny penny and make a wish. Unlucky Carlene loved fountains. Lucky Carlene was no exception. She loved their forceful spray, she loved watching a wall of water spread its fanlike tips into the afternoon air, she loved the initial burst from ground to sky, waking everyone up with a whoosh. But unlike the former, Unlucky Carlene, Lucky Carlene also liked wading into fountains. Taking her shoes and socks off and dancing with the spray, even if large crowds were gathered, even if nobody else was doing it, even though, or maybe especially because, it was forbidden. Anchor, who was supposed to be waiting for her holding a sign that would read B
ALLYBEOG
R
AFFLE
W
INNER
, was nowhere in sight. She would have preferred the ambassador of punctuality instead of the ambassador of craic.
It had been a long plane ride, then bus ride, and she was itching to relieve her cramped and sweaty feet. She stared at the fountain and made a dare with herself. She would take off her shoes and socks, wade in, run to the center, feel the spray on her face, toss her penny high in the air, make a wish, and run back out. The thought of actually doing it made her giddy. It was something the old her would have wanted to do, but never dared. College kids were gathered around the fountain, looking like hippies from the sixties. They might think she was odd, but she doubted any of them would pay much attention. The sweet, musky scent of marijuana filtered through the air. Maybe she was getting a contact high. Whatever the reason, she was going to go for it. She was a new woman, a lucky woman. Luck, she figured, was like a muscle. She would have to use it, stretch it, strengthen it. No pain, no gain. You can't win if you don't play. She took her boots and socks off, hiked up her skirt, and stepped bravely into the fountain.