Running Back (5 page)

Fingers wrapped around my arm and hauled me upright and against a warm, broad chest. “You’re drunk.”

Unable to deny it, I studied the way his head remained in focus while the world behind him danced. “Alcohol turns reality into avant-guard art.”

“Yes, and bad eyesight turns the world into an Impressionist painting,” he said. “Now what am I supposed to do with you?”

“You’re right!” I examined his eyes for a telltale ring of blue around his pupils. “Do you wear contacts?”

Then the warmth of his eyes distracted me, the way they weren’t really brown, but had depths that shone in the light. You couldn’t tell how long and curled his lashes were from far away, but this close I could see their bright shimmer in the lamplight. My throat worked and my tongue darted out to wet my lips.

He set me back. “Let’s get you a cab.”

“A
cab?
” My eyes widened to saucers, and I shook my head decisively. “I don’t believe in cabs. They’re for parents and rich people.”

“And drunks. Come on.”

I nodded, and then watched as he started away. I tilted my head back. In Ecuador, you could see the stars almost every night, scattered across the domed sky, but here everything was just a grayed out blackish-blur. I heard a sigh and found Mike back before me. He took my hand and tugged, so I obediently followed him. “Natalie. Look at me. Where do you live?”

I laughed. Who knew? In my parents’ house. At Cam’s. In the field. At Kilkarten. I wanted to live at Kilkarten. “Who cares?”

“I’m not taking you to my place,” he warned.

I barely managed a wave of scorn. “Like I’d want you to. No, I will sleep on the streets! I will wander the knolls of Central Park, beneath the stony stone-eyed poets—”

“And pickpockets? Or murderers?” He stretched one hand behind my back and lifted me up. Then we were moving, and then we were in a taxi.

The city blurred past in a streak of lights and colors. I think he tried to take my purse at one point but I yanked it back and buried it under me because only thieves took purses. The cab turned and here came Lincoln Center, bright and open, banners falling down the side of high white walls. People walked about in the carefully chic and cultured uniform of New York. We sped through the restaurants of Hell’s Kitchen, then that knot of congestion from Times Square to Penn Station. Out here on Tenth Ave, everything looked more industrial and rundown, and you got hints of the Javits center off to the right, the giant convention center that looked toward Jersey. Horses clomped along beside us, pulling their elaborate carts as they headed home for the night. I fell asleep watching a feather bob above a Clydesdale’s head.

I woke when the cab drew to a stop. When I opened my eyes, Mike’s face blurred above me, his hair shining even in the dim light. “You have pretty hair.” I reached up and ran my fingers through a curl. “Like fire.”

He blinked. “Thanks.”

My eyes closed again. “My mother has beautiful hair. She’s beautiful. Like a doll. I was always a bad doll.”

He didn’t answer, and so I peeled open a lid to see him. He frowned at me, a deep furrow etched along his brow.

My gaze dropped and I realized he was ransacking my purse. “What are you doing?”

The furrow vanished as he laughed. He held up his hands. “Relax. I was just finding your license so I could give the driver your address.”

“Oh. Right.” I leaned forward and told the driver myself.

Mike handed my purse back and put his hand on his door. “Well, then. See you.”

I caught his free hand and he stilled. “Have you ever been to Ireland?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” I sighed. “And I know it’s not magic.” I turned my head so I could see into his warm brown eyes. “I’m not crazy. Not Ireland or Ecuador or Greece. But I can pretend they are, see? At least for the weeks leading up and the first weeks there and then I can always go somewhere else, and who’s to know it wasn’t magic...”

Empathy flickered in his eyes. “I think you should go home now. He disentangled from my grip. “Goodnight, Natalie.”

And he was gone.

Chapter Five

Two weeks later, I descended into Shannon International Airport in the pale morning light. I relaxed as soon as we left the plane, as soon as the flood of Americans dispersed and the accents started to be tinged with what was, stateside, referred to as an Irish brogue. I was finally in Ireland.

Linguistically—the fourth branch of American anthropology, as delineated by Franz Boas who Had Opinions—Ireland was all torn up. There was no one Irish English accent, no “brogue” stretching from one end of the island to the other. In Ulster, they spoke similarly to the Scots, while suburban Dublin could sound almost American, and Dublin working class was non-rhotic, dropping their “r” just like in Boston. And the accent of County Cork, where we were heading, was supposed to be unusually musical.

In any case,
Cosmo
just rated Irish the hottest accent for the third year in a row.

I grabbed my bag and coffee and a bus south. The driver loaded my luggage into storage and smiled broadly. “Looking for your roots?”

I didn’t mind playing tourist when I
was
a tourist. I’d tramped around the Vatican in sneakers, and carried my camera in one hand and map in the other as I walked through Prague. But if I worked or lived somewhere, I wanted to blend in enough that people stopped me for directions. “No. I’m here to—study.”

The driver didn’t pause in throwing my luggage into the storage. “That so?”

“I guess.”

The ride to Dundoran was long and meandering but I didn’t mind, since the landscape absorbed my attention. Ireland was
green
; green like Oz, like emeralds and soda bottles and moss. A dozen shades of green, and to my eyes, parched by the yellow straw grasses of the Andes and the cement towers of New York, it was bliss. I leaned my forehead against the window, charting the rolling fields dotted with sheep. Sheep. I loved sheep.

I loved llamas more, but you couldn’t have everything.

The bus carried me into Cork which, much like my home, was both a city and a province. Ten thousand years ago, glaciers covered Ireland and much of northwestern Europe. When they retreated, they deposited rich soils all over Cork, making the land perfect for farming. Forests of elm and birch, hazel and alder, used to blanket the ridges and valleys of the land, but that had been cleared and replaced by bogs and peatland. Three large rivers wound through the country, forming fens and marshes. Ragged bays and peninsulas created the wild coastline: Beara, Sheep’s Head, Mizen’s Head.

I took another bus from Cork to the coastal village of Dundoran. The inn was located in the Dundoran civil parish, a mile and a half from the village and ten miles from the farm Kilkarten, well positioned for hill walking tourists and sprawling views of fields and sea. A peaked olive green roof rose over warm sandstone walls. Tall dormer alcoves curved out on either side of the main door, topped by stone balconies and more rounded windows. Baskets of flowers spilled out around the entrance, pink daises and white carnations and red tulips. Tall bright bushes backed the house, while pines cast shade over the parking lot.

The inn was the only one in the vicinity, since Dundoran wasn’t precisely a tourist location. If I’d been hiring out-of-town workers for the season, I might have tried to find a house to rent and set it up dormitory style, or set up camp near the land we were digging. But considering I’d planned to hire locals, they could have driven or taken the bus themselves, and the rates here were reasonable enough that I’d booked rooms for Jeremy and me, along with the two Irish archaeologists we’d planned to work with.

Now it was no longer relevant. I’d do what research I could, but after I’d walked over the public land and looked at the local records, I might go to Dublin and finish out the summer near Jeremy, though he’d also talked about coming down here to look at the land and local records, depending on whether I thought it worthwhile.

Inside the inn, warm sunlight slid across wooden floorboards. Across the room, a woman smiled at me from behind the counter. She reminded me of a sparrow—small and gray and fast. “Hello there, dear. You must be Natalie.”

I smiled back and rolled my suitcase over until I stood right before her. “That’s me. Are you Eileen?”

“That’s me. We’re all so excited about the dig.”

“Oh.” Taken aback, I struggled for words. “Um, well, uh, it might be delayed.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

“There’s some problems with—the land. Land rights. It’s a thing.”

If she noticed my incompetence at speaking, she had too much kindness to raise a brow. “But Patrick agreed to it.”

I bobbed my head. “That’s true. But now that he’s passed, there are some—complications.”

“Hmm.” Eileen sounded like a bird whirling. “I’m sure that can be cleared right up by talking to the new O’Connors. They’re staying here, you know.”

Oh, how I knew. “Is that so?”

Wait. They? “Are there multiple O’Connors?”

Eileen smiled as she handed my key card over. “Oh, yes. Mrs. O’Connor and her three children.” She leaned forward. “You should speak to the son. He’s a tall drink of water.”

I flushed. “Oh. Great. That’s just...swell.”

Oh my God, my ability to talk should be revoked. Swell? Who said swell anymore? Next I’d be all “gee whiz!” and calling things “nifty.”

Eileen smiled, and her eyes gleamed. “His family is renting one of the cottages in the back, but he’s staying on your floor. The room across from you, if I’m correct.”

“Wow. Cool. Awesome.” I snapped my mouth shut before my superlatives reached the stars, and jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “I think I’m going to bring my stuff up now. Nice to meet you.”

My room was on the third floor, at the end of a long hallway with a faded green rug on the wooden floorboards. As promised, my door faced another painted pale green. The number 12 was stenciled on in white, while a wooden decal of a dove was attached at eye-level. I stared at it, somewhat unnerved, and then certainty filled me that Mike would step out any second. I fumbled with my keys and the fussy lock, and then let out a sigh of relief when I’d closed the door behind me.

A huge westward facing window allowed light to fill the room, and I flipped on the overhead chandelier as well. The room was large with a slanted roof over the king size bed, which had been covered in pillows and a pink and white and green comforter. Faded wallpaper showcased a print of twining orange blooms and green stems.

I rolled my bag over to the closet and then collapsed spread-eagle on the bed.

Okay. Should I knock on Mike’s door so he wasn’t surprised to run into me? After all, the first thing I needed to do was call on his aunt and express my condolences. I’d also needed to find out if her late husband had any records or stories about the land that I hadn’t heard, and which locals would be good to talk to. I should check the town hall and church records too.

And now that I was here, it seemed possible Mike would at least let me walk over the land. I could do a preliminary digging report, in case he ever did change his mind.

In case
he
... But it wasn’t just him, was it?

I wondered what the other O’Connors would be like.

I showered and unpacked. My stomach tightened as I put away the work clothes I probably wouldn’t get a chance to wear, but couldn’t bring myself to leave behind. Work pants and shirts, along with hiking boots, hats, gloves, sweatshirts and a windbreaker. In Ecuador, it could start off freezing in the morning and be down to tank top weather midday. I didn’t think Ireland would be so drastic. Instead, I pictured wet. Lots of wet. If I actually had been digging, another pair of boots would’ve been in order.

I had brought my one black dress, since the slim fabric rolled up and could be squished down easily. I’d shoved it between my black flats and worn my walking sandals on the plane. The likelihood of needing anything fancier was smaller than the possibility that I’d dig at Kilkarten.

I’d brought a handful of American treats, too, which I worried might not be easily available—a bag of peanut butter cups, which I started snacking on, and a bottle of maple syrup. I’d tried to stomach the golden syrup used on pancakes here, and it just didn’t go down well.

My eReader went on the bed stand, along with the one paperback I’d brought, a volume of Yeats. Next to the book, I propped a photo of my parents, because I always felt like they should be there, and another of my three brothers. The last was of me and Cam our sophomore year of college. We’d gone to an ’80s party and looked ridiculous.

I hesitated before going downstairs. If I ran into Mike or any member of his family, I didn’t want to look like a schlumpy grad student. I pulled a nice cardigan over my tank-top, and then I wandered downstairs into an airy, well-lit dining room. I made myself a cup of tea using the electric kettle on the sideboard, and then set up my computer and wrote Jeremy to let him know I’d arrived.

I hadn’t been there half an hour when a shape shifted in the door, and I looked up. Mike O’Connor stood there, his lips parted slightly.

I smiled sheepishly. “Um. Surprise.”

He kept staring.

“I mean, not really a surprise, since you knew I was coming to Dundoran and this is the only nearby inn. But. I can tell by your face that you’re kind of surprised.”

He shook his head. “You have to be kidding me.”

I shrugged apologetically. “Not me. The cosmos, maybe, but I’m entirely innocent this time.”

“Maybe I’m hallucinating.” He dropped into a chair beside me and studied me carefully.

It became a lot more difficult to breathe. I tried a smile. “Why? Have you hallucinated me before?”

He raised his brows and my throat tightened. I should’ve thought more carefully before I spoke.

I cleared my throat. “If this is too weird, I could get a place in Cork—”

“No.” He spoke so quickly I was silenced, and a hint of color streaked across his cheekbones. “I just meant—I’ve spent a solid week touring Ireland with only my mother and younger sisters.”

It struck me as a little odd that he hadn’t come straight to Dundoran after a death in the family, but I skipped over that in favor of the family itself. “That’s right. Eileen—the innkeeper—said your family was here with you.”

“Yeah. They’re staying in one of the cottages out back. I’m staying in this main house, though—I needed space.”

I nodded two or three times more than necessary. “She also mentioned our rooms happen to be facing each other.” I let a beat pass to acknowledge the situational irony and ridiculousness of that. “What a coincidence.”

The crooked smile that curved his lips made me feel incredibly odd and self-conscious. The way he looked at me made me think he was imagining exactly what nearby rooms might mean.

Time for a topic change. “So! I saw that lateral touchdown pass in the AFC title game last year. Pretty badass.”

Shock crossed his face, and he stared at me like I’d started spouting Greek. Well, at a non-Greek spouting appropriate time. Greek spouting did occasionally happen at academic conferences. “You watched that?”

“Well, yeah. I’m a Leopards fan.”

He cocked his head slightly. “No, you’re not.”

What was that supposed to mean? “Am too.”

He flashed a sudden, wide grin at me. “So you knew about me. The day you walked into my office.”

I shrugged. “What’s to know? You’re shockingly fast. Two years ago you had the single season record for yards-per-carry. You’re theoretically charming.”

He shook his head, still smiling. “You ever come to any of my games?”

I swallowed. “A couple.”

He leaned closer, and I mirrored him. When our knees brushed energy jolted through me. “Wow. But you treat me with so little respect.”

A new voice rang out. “Oh my
God.
”

I automatically straightened away from Mike and glanced toward the doorway, and stared in shock. A girl with deep red hair stood in the frame—a younger, female version of Mike. She’d gathered her hair up in a huge messy bun and stabbed it through with lacquered chopsticks, and the red seemed even more vibrant compared to her all black outfit. Black lined her narrowed eyes, while heavy, expensive jewelry dangled off her ears around her neck. She scowled in my direction. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I glanced at Mike with rounded eyes to see if that was directed at me.

Slight color rose on Mike’s cheekbones. “This is my sister, Anna. Anna, this is Natalie.”

I waved. “Nice to meet you.”

Anna tilted her head. “You’re an American.” She pursed her lips together, and then I watched as suspicion visibly entered her mind. Her eyes flickered back and forth between us. “Wait.
Wait.
”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mike said levelly.

She started shaking her head. “Do you two—do you two
know
each other?”

Mike and I exchanged a glance. “Um,” I hedged. “We met once—twice—in New York.”

“Oh my God.” Now she spoke directly to her brother. “I can’t believe you. Are you serious?”

Mike finally sounded exasperated. “Anna, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Anna raised one hand and pressed another to her heart like she was about to place an oath. “God forbid you want to spend any time with your
actual fucking family.
” She turned and stomped off.

Mike and I watched her go, and her comments slowly fell in place for me. I looked at Mike. “Did she think...that I came here with you? Like as a...girlfriend or something?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I think so. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I said on autopilot. “I mean, it makes sense why she’d be mad at you then, if she thought she had her brother to herself and then he’d brought some random girl with him.”

He let out a deep breath and leaned his head into his hands. “Before this week, I’d forgotten how much teens talked in italics.”

That startled a laugh out of me. “I don’t know, sometimes I think I talk in italics a lot. Or all caps.”

Two more women walked through the door, at a much more sedate pace. One had the same bright hair as Mike and Anna, and looked my age. The other, a pale brunette, wore jeans and what everyone else called a mom haircut, though my mother would never be caught dead like that. She smiled, and I saw an echo of Mike in her.