It seemed to for Eamonn, or at least he felt some pity for the kid who was clearly still spiraling over his one comment. “Scarred you for life, did it?” Eamonn said. “I will take the gorgonzola, actually. You’ve sold it.”
Joe looked relieved, and when he glanced over at me, I said I’d have the same.
This place did feel romantic to me. I doubted that was why Eamonn had picked it—I didn’t even know if he’d noticed the ambience. But the booth was comfortable and snug, with redseats upholstered in the kind of velvety patterned fabric you might find in a nice train car. There was warm golden light from the fixture above, and then a soft red glow from a small lamp at the table. It made me smile a little, thinking how strange it was that less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d been sitting across a table from his brother, doing practically the same thing albeit in a very different context.
“What?”
I bit the corner of my mouth, shaking my head. “No, nothing,” I said. “I was just thinking…your brother is kind of obsessed with Diet Coke. He knows all about the formulations and the marketing plan and everything. Why is that?”
Eamonn let out a short breath that came close to a laugh, but without the humor. “I haven’t the slightest,” he said. “I didn’t know that about him. We’re not close.”
“Well, he moved so far away, and so long ago,” I said. “It makes sense that you’d be closer with your sisters.”
Eamonn ran his thumb along his lower lip, looking toward where our server had gone like he was already impatient for our food to come. His bottom teeth were a little crooked, two of them overlapping a bit, and I liked that detail about him. I turned my attention to the painting next to our table by the time Eamonn looked back over at me, not wanting to be caught staring.
It was of a man and a woman up on a hill, overlooking rolling green grass and a path lined with houses. The woman was sitting at the edge, gazing out over the view, while the man seemed to be walking toward the viewer, away from the woman. He was rendered with more detail—the buttons onhis coat, his face, even a flower pinned to his lapel. Their body language looked serene, like they were enjoying an afternoon stroll together. Surely he wasn’t actually going to leave her on that hill. He was just walking away for a moment because something caught his attention, maybe something he’d call the woman over to see, too. Or maybe he’d check it out and then go sit beside her on the grass, telling her all about whatever had caught his eye. The way the shadows were painted on her profile, it almost seemed like her head was turned his way, until you looked again and saw that it wasn’t.
When I glanced back, Eamonn was openly studying me, and he didn’t bother hiding it. Suddenly I was too warm, still wearing his jacket, and I shrugged it off. Eamonn watched me like he was tracking the chain of custody of a beloved clothing item, so I made a show of setting it neatly beside me, not wanting him to think I wouldn’t take care of it.
“What brought you to Ireland again?” he asked. Theagainwas a conversational garnish, a bit of politeness on his part, since we both knew I’d never given a definitive reason in the first place.
Clearly, he didn’t buy my blow-off answer about generally loving to travel. “I’m doing some research.”
The words had just popped out of my mouth, because they’d sounded good in my head.Researchwas a perfect catch-all excuse to be in a foreign country, I figured, but the problem was that it also directly contradicted what I’d said before, about wanting to take each day as it came. And of course it brought up follow-up questions, ones like…
“What kind of research?”
I didn’t even know the name of the place where I’d woken up, much less what it might be famous for or why I would’ve been doing any research there. But I could improvise. It wasn’t like he was going to ask for my full bibliography, especially if it was something he wasn’t particularly interested in or didn’t know much about. But then what if he did?
“Fairies,” I said. “I’m doing this art project. With fairies.”
The way I’d said it, it almost sounded like I thought fairies were real. Which, if you’d asked me yesterday versus today…I mean, who knew.
“Fairies,” he said, his mouth twisting a little. “Like leprechauns? Rainbows with pots of gold at the end of them?”
Okay, I knew it had sounded ridiculous. It had just been the first thing that came to my mind. “More like traditional Irish folklore.”
“James Stephens, Lady Gregory, that kind of thing?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. “Exactly.”
Something pinched at the corner of his mouth, like he was holding back a smile, and now it was my turn to ask. “What?”
“You do have a bit of the Becfola about you,” he said.
The server came to top off our waters, so there was a slight delay before I could ask Eamonn to clarify that statement. For all I knew he was referencing the most famous fairy tale in all of Ireland, one that would out me immediately as someone not really doing any research, but I was willing to take that chance.
“What’s Becfola?” I asked. I was repeating the word phonetically back to him, and yet it had sounded different coming from his mouth.
“Not what,” he said. “Who. Let me see what I can remember of the story. One day, the High King of Ireland and one of his princes were on a hunt, when they came across a beautiful woman. The king stops and asks her name, but she won’t give it. He asks where she came from and where she’s going, and she won’t say.”
Eamonn took a long sip of his water, raising his eyebrows over his glass as if to say,Sound familiar?It wasn’t hard to make the parallel to the way I’d been with him so far.
“Maybe it’s none of their business,” I said. “She doesn’t have to be giving out all that information, even if he is the king.”
“Funnily enough,” Eamonn said, “the king agreed with ya. He tells his prince, ‘You know what, I don’t need this woman’s past, just her future. There’s only one question I need answered from her, and it’sWill she marry me?’ ”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “Of course. The only reasonable thing to ask if you can’t get her name and number first. Are you meant to be the king, in this story?”
