Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (10 page)

“I can't tell if you're teasing me, Morgan.” Mom's voice was getting shrill. “This is your
health
we're talking about. This is
serious
. This is
not a joke
.”

Whenever I try to sound extra serious it just makes me crack up. “I'm not teasing you, Mom,” I insisted, biting my lip. “The doctor was fine.” I was starting to sputter. “She even warned me about the fae—”

But then I thought:
Shut up, Morgan
. As deliciously fun as it would be to tell my mother that the doctor believed in faeries, I didn't want to run the risk of being shipped home to Connecticut right this second. As much as I had not wanted to be here before—for tonight, at least, now that Colin and I were pals again—I was the tiniest bit interested to find out what might happen next.

“The
what
? She warned you about the
what
, Morgan?” I could imagine Mom's free hand dialing the travel agent on her cell phone while she kept me on the other line, booking me on the next flight home.

“About the f-f-f-f-f-fact that I might have a stiff neck tomorrow but it was nothing to be alarmed about. She even told me I should definitely finish the bike tour. She said it would be good for me to keep moving so my muscles don't, you know, get paralyzed or something.” I said it all too fast, which made it sound fake, and of course some of it was. I crossed my fingers that the force of the nonrefundable tour deposit would help sway things in my favor.

Silence. “So. You don't want to come home?”

“No way, Mom! I'm having a great time!”

Silence.

“Don't you believe me?”

“I don't know, Morgan. It doesn't sound like you. I can't tell if you're lying or happy.” She paused. “Either way, it doesn't sound like you.”

“I'm happy, Mom,” I said. “That's what's different.” My voice dripped with conviction. “I'm having fun, that's all.”

“Okay,” she said. She sounded tiny on the other end of the phone. “That's great, honey. Okay. I'm putting your father on.”

“Morgan! What did you say to your mother?” My dad sounded pissed. What did I do now?

“Nothing! Why?”

“I don't know, but she's crying.”

Sheesh. Just because I said I was happy?

 
a little Witty banter, a little truth-telling, a long look into Colin's cornflower-blue eyes—aside from the hallucination-inducing head injury, it'd been a pretty swell afternoon.

Even the hallucination was fun, really. I hadn't mentioned it to Colin or the ER doctor because I didn't want them to think my senses had been so messed up by the head bonk that I needed exploratory brain surgery or something. Still, the memory of Fergus, Erin, Sam and the long-ago, faery-infested place they lived remained strangely vivid in my mind. Strange too what the doctor had said about the “faery road” and the “faery mound.” I wanted to know more, but Colin obviously didn't like talking about faeryland.

This was no time to lose focus, though. My put-the-moves-on-Colin plan was back in action, and I had to work fast since I'd only be here for a week. First step: This sweaty, dirty accident victim in gym clothes and Band-Aids needed to do some judicious grooming and outfit-picking for the evening, starting with soap and water.

Durty Nellie, that was me, all right. This inn had bathrooms with showers, but I needed to soak, so into the tub I went. The soap made my scrapes sting like hell but the water was warm and soothing, and I felt my stiffening neck muscles relax. I popped an extra Advil to take the edge off all my aches and pains, and by the time I got dressed I felt, not perfect, but all right.

Durty Nellie's had its own pub off the main floor of the inn. It looked pretty casual from the outside, so I put on a snug white blouse, tight jeans and little wedge heels to hoist my butt up a bit.

Even if Heidi shows up in a g-string, do not freak out
, I instructed myself.
Heidi is not the person Colin told all his private
stuff to today. She does not get his jokes and trade witty banter with him.

She is merely tall and buff and supermodel-looking, with long, blond, shampoo-commercial hair, limited English and a gullible personality. What guy would be interested in
that
?

Shit. I was fekked. I needed to do something to bolster my confidence, but what? Hair, not an option. Ass was already working. All that was left was boobs and makeup. And charm, I guess, but it was too late for drastic improvement in that department.

Boobs and makeup it was. I put on one of my more low-cut bras and left my shirt unbuttoned one rung below where I'd usually button it. A little peek of lace. Nice.

Add a double coat of mascara, ruby-red lips and all the jewelry I'd brought with me from home. Mirror check: very nice. There was definitely a girl looking back at me. She was an edgy, shaved-head, I'm-with-the-band type of girl, but hot enough and totally eighteen. And she was me. For tonight, anyway.

 
Colin had mentioned he wouldn't be at dinner because he had to tune up the bikes for tomorrow (he'd have had this chore wrapped up already if he hadn't spent the afternoon taking care of me, of course). Now that I was feeling and looking somewhat fabulous, the last thing I wanted to do was sit around with my tour mates, fielding questions about my death-defying bike stunt and listening to the Billingsley children squabble.

My plan was to saunter past the buffet, grab a plate of food and bring it back to my room, but when I got to the dining room I saw Lucy Faraday eating alone, thumbing through a newspaper and looking . . . not sad but not happy either.

Where the fek were Heidi and Johannes and the Billingsleys? The Pippin-Woodwards? Or Patty, even? I couldn't believe there was not one person available for Lucia to have dinner with. Except me.

Here I was, there she was. I could go say hello. I could find out if she wanted company or was happy with her newspaper. I could even apologize for acting like a jerk. Me apologize, imagine that.

Too hard. It was all too hard. The truth was I didn't want to sit with her, talk to her, deal with her. Not because of anything to do with her. It was because of me and what a dope I'd been earlier.

So I left (I was really hoping she hadn't seen me make the U-turn) and took my empty stomach for a walk. I'd had that big shepherd's pie lunch so I wasn't going to die of hunger anytime soon. I figured I'd get some food at the pub, later.

 
my Walk around town Was enjoyably ego-boosting, as I strutted my edgy new look around the picturesque medieval village like a rock star on a humanitarian tour. Small children stared, adults frowned or looked puzzled or made a point of ignoring me and the more punk-looking young guys smiled and called out,
Hey, hey, here's my number, call me, Sinéad, call me!
I was ready for my entrance at Durty Nellie's, feeling hungry and sassy and with a fresh coat of gloss over my lipstick.

If Raph could see me now,
I thought. One of the things he used to nag me about was that I didn't “dress up” enough when we went out. I always thought I looked fine, but if I wore sneakers instead of boots or didn't put any makeup on, he typically made some kind of comment.

“I'm not here to pick up guys,” I said to him once. “I'm with you.”

“But I like being with someone who other guys would
want
to pick up,” he explained.

“But that's gross.” Why I'd bothered to disagree I don't know; it was impossible to win an argument with Raph.

“No, it's not,” he'd said. “It's perfectly normal. All guys feel that way.”

And who was I to say he was wrong? I didn't know anything about “all guys.” I figured Raph was more of an expert on that subject than me. But maybe he was just an expert on Raph.

 
i Was expecting the vibe at durty nellie's to be YBBS, otherwise known as Your Basic Bar Scene: more male than female, more under twenty-five than over, music blasting from a jukebox and everyone there to get drunk and/or hook up. (Presence of a live band made it YBBSWB: Your Basic Bar Scene with Band. These abbreviations were coined by me and Sarah. Sarah had given me a fake ID for my sixteenth birthday in the hopes that she and I would soon become experts in YBBS. We'd barely begun our research before I started going out with you-know-who.)

But Durty Nellie's was a pub, not a bar. There was drinking and hooking-up going on for sure, but also families having supper with their kids and middle-aged ladies out whooping it up together after work. It was a real mix of people filling up the place, like a cross between a restaurant and a block party. The jukebox was a note of familiarity, but it only took Euros and was full of bands whose names I wasn't sure how to pronounce, like the Pogues.

There were round tables in the center of the dining area and wooden booths along the walls. In one booth I saw Patty with Heidi and Carrie Pippin, and a row of empty shot glasses on the table between them. Maybe it was the lighting, maybe it was the shots, but to my eye Carrie seemed to have turned a fairly vivid shade of green. Patty and Heidi were having a fine old time, if drunken chick-versus-chick arm wrestling is your idea of fun.

The bar itself was a massive dark wooden one about a mile long. One could easily imagine that it had been there unchanged for centuries, if not for the addition of that indispensable modern bar feature, the big-screen plasma TV broadcasting a sporting event. A dozen young guys were clustered in front of the on-screen game, and that was where I spotted Colin.

He saw me right away. “Hey, Mor,” he yelled across the room. “Is that a faery mound on top of your head, or are ye just glad to see me?”

What a clown he was, grinning at me in the dim light of the pub with a big mug of dark beer in his hand. His accent seemed to have grown thicker now that he was partying.

“What you just said makes no sense at all, Colin,” I said, ambling over to him.

“No doubt!” He laughed and looked down at the bump on top of my head, which honestly was not very big. “Ah, look at the poor little nub. It'll be prone to the sunburn, stickin' out in the open air like that. We'll have to get it a hat.” His voice softened. “But the rest of ye is looking sound, very sound indeed.”

Yessss.

“Thank you,” I said, standing up as straight as I could manage. Good posture maximizes cleavage, as Sarah always said. I was determined to act my pretend-age and be cool and wry, with no tantrums or giggling or insecurity attacks. A beer would be a big help right now, but I wasn't going to order one myself with all these guys hanging around. That would be pathetic.

Like me, Colin had cleaned himself up nicely since this afternoon. His hair looked damp from the shower and he'd put on a clean blue oxford shirt. It made the blue of his eyes practically glow, like the eyes of a Siamese cat.

“What'll ye be drinking, Mor?” he asked, right on cue. “You can have anything you like as long as it's beer. We have laws about such things in Ireland.”

“What's that?” I asked, nodding at his drink.

“That's Guinness, love. It'll make a man out of ye, though that would be a bloody shame, wouldn't it?” I think he might have stolen a look at my chest, but if he did it was quick. “Taste and see what you think.”

He held the giant mug to my lips, and I slurped. It was beer all right, but dark brown and bitter, nothing at all like the Coors from a keg and rum-and-Cokes everyone served at parties at home. I didn't hate it, exactly, but it would take some getting used to.

He saw the look on my face. “Too much too soon, eh? We'll start you off gently then. Pat! Beamish for the young lady, please!” Before I could even ask what a Beamish was, Colin had slapped money on the bar.

“Put your wallet away, Colin, this one's on me!” Stuart Woodward emerged from the pack of men hooting and cheering in front of the TV. An American Express card dangled from his fingers; it was one of those fancy plutonium ones that my dad refused to get because the annual fees were so expensive. (Dad was a great one for tearing the junk mail into confetti before throwing it in the trash; it's his form of stress relief: “Do they think”—
rip
—“I am made”—
rip rip
—“out of
money?
”
rip rip rip.
)

“I'm buying for Morgan here, but you can get my next one if you like,” said Colin agreeably. Stuart was looking bleary and happy, and he draped his arm around Colin's shoulders like they were brothers.

“Will do, man! You call me when you're dry!” He waggled his hand in a little “call me” gesture next to his ear and cracked himself up. Then, still chuckling, he wandered back in front of the television, where I saw him high-five some bewildered, beer-wielding men. Luckily the men were much more interested in the game than in Stuart's goofball behavior, and they tolerated the drunken foreigner without one person threatening to clock him in the face. A friendly country indeed.

I turned back to the bar in time to see a tall mug of pure foam being placed in front of me.

“Thanks, Pat!” said Colin. “You've outdone yourself.”

Pat looked at me with the narrowed eyes of a suspicious barkeep. In Ireland the drinking age is eighteen (I'd checked, believe me), so I wasn't too worried, since I'd been passing for twenty-one back at home. But I'd left my fake ID in my room. It would be a drag, not to mention way uncool in front of Colin, to have to go get it.

I widened my eyes and prepared to exude eighteen-year-old flakiness. Luckily Pat was in a forgiving mood. “That's not chocolate milk, there, young lady,” was all he said. “I hope ye've had something to eat.”