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“Unconventional? How so?” I asked as the doorbell rang.
“See for yourself,” Seamus said, blinking at me. “That’s him now.”
Chapter 24
Oh, I see, I thought when I went out into the hall and opened the door.
The young man was tall and Colin Farrell handsome, with spiky black hair and black Clark Kent glasses. Nineteen, maybe twenty. He was wearing a white-and-green tracksuit.
“Hello, there,” he said with an infectious smile and an Irish accent. “I’m Martin Gilroy. Father Romans sent me here about a job?”
“This way,” Seamus said, ushering him in before I could open my mouth.
The ruckus in the dining room ceased immediately as Seamus and I brought him into the living room. The kids stared at him in dead silence as we walked past.
“Hello, guys,” Martin said, smiling.
If he was fazed by the ten sets of wide eyes on him, he hid it well. He actually stopped and craned his neck to look in the doorway.
“Hey, what are ya having in there? French toast, is it? Breakfast for dinner?”
He crouched down next to Shawna and made a funny face. “Then what’s for breakfast, I wonder? Let me guess. Steak and green beans and mashed potatoes?”
I smiled along with the kids. This guy was pretty good. I was starting to like him already.
“So tell us a little something about yourself, Martin,” I said as we sat on the couch.
“Not much to tell, really,” he said, crossing a big neon-green Nike on his thigh. “Me home is a little town in County Cavan, Ireland, called Kilnaleck. Eight of us in the family, not including Mom and Da. Got out of farm chores by playing football, or soccer, as you lot call it, for what reason I’ll never know.
“Anyway, I got good enough at it to get a scholarship to Manhattan College. I’m also on the track team. Trying to get a mechanical engineering degree on the side, as I thought it might be good to have a backup plan if my dreams of becoming Beckham don’t turn out. I don’t drink, so that hampers the ol’ social life a bit at school. I like kids and staying busy, and, um, I could use the money.”
“Any experience?” I said.
“Plenty, since I was one of the oldest in my family. No one died on me. I also worked at the town camp since I was sixteen, so I got all my first aid stuff and all that.”
“Do you cook?” Seamus asked.
“Oh, sure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner,” he smiled. “All at the right times, too, if you want. Only kidding. Nothing fancy, but I can keep kids fed.”
“You know how to do laundry?” I said.
He took off his glasses and polished them on the edge of his track jacket.
“I can iron a crease in a pair of trousers you could shave with,” he said as he slipped the glasses back on. “Actually, that’s not true. I read that somewhere. But I’ve done laundry before. Separate the whites and the colors or something, right? Hell, I’ll do the windows, if ya want. Improvise and overcome, that’s me motto. Bring it on.”
“Martin, there’s ten kids out there. Ten,” I said. “What would you do with them? What would be your strategy?”
“There’s a park around here, right? Riverside, is it? Well, weather permitting, after their homework and whatnot, I’d keep ’em out there, run ’em around, like we do at camp. Get ’em tired, wear ’em down, and then dinner and off to bed while I hit the chores.”
I smiled. I didn’t like this kid. I loved him.
“When can you start?”
Martin shrugged and smiled again.
“I don’t know. When can I start?”
“Tomorrow? Say, six a.m.?” I said.
