Eamonn looked at me, and I regretted the question. Just because he’d compared me loosely to some fairy-tale character didn’t mean the entire thing was an allegory for us, especially when it wasn’t like he was falling over himself to ask for my hand in marriage. “I’m not the king.”
I wanted to rush the story along, to get past any awkwardness. “So she says yes, I assume. Then what?”
He took a beat before continuing. “She marries the king, but it turns out that it was his prince who’d caught her eye. She can’t even enjoy being queen because she can’t stop thinkingabout him, and he likes her, as well. She and the prince make a plan to leave together, but when she wakes up on a Sunday morning to go, the king tries to get her to stay because a Sunday journey brings bad luck.”
“Oh!” I said. “They argue about that inLeap Year.”
Eamonn blinked at me. “Leap Year?”
I remembered the dismissive way Niall had brought up the movie, and wondered if it was a commonly held opinion among all Irish people that the movie was a joke. Or maybe that was a globally held opinion, since I couldn’t remember its exact IMDb rating, but I didn’t think it was high. I didn’t really care. For me, it was a comfort watch, the kind of movie I liked to put on if my period cramps were particularly bad and I just needed to lie on the couch and forget everything for a while.
“Sorry,” I said. “Go on with the story. The king wouldn’t mind the adultery of it all, he just doesn’t want it to start on a Sunday.”
That got a real, genuine smile out of Eamonn. It was such a nice smile, it stole my breath for a moment—the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the pop of a dimple in his cheek, before he ducked his head almost like he didn’t let himself show that expression for too long.
“I remember the line, actually—Although a king can do everything, what can a husband do?He can look out over Tara and rule it all, but he can’t rule her. So he lets her go.” Eamonn’s face had settled back into its neutral expression, but there was still that hint of a smile around his eyes, and I was so distracted by it that I missed half of what he said next.
“Wait, what?”
Eamonn placed his hands on the table like he was showing me how long something was, or, I realized, trying to depict a gate. “When she leaves the palace, it’s like passing through a door—from our world into a fairy world, where everything looks the same but different, the people unknown even though they’re known. The minute she crosses through, she forgets all about the prince she thought she loved.”
His words sent a shiver through my entire body.Like passing through a door.Was that what I had done? Was I Becfola after all?
A member of the waitstaff came with our plates, setting them down in front of us. Sandwiches made from hunks of dense brown bread with melted cheese dripping from in between them, a small cup of grapes off to the side as an added bonus. I didn’t even know if I liked gorgonzola cheese—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had it.
Joe stopped back by our table to check on us. “Oh,” he said, “you need a glass of pinot noir if you want to do it right. Or would you like to see the wine menu?”
I could tell this was some James Joyce thing again, but I really didn’t give a fuck aboutUlyssesat that point. I was too deep in Becfola’s story. “No, thanks,” I said, glancing at Eamonn. “Unless you—”
“All good,” Eamonn said to Joe. “Thank you.”
Wine might be what pushed this over the edge into feeling romantic, and I was too close to that edge already. To anyone on the outside, this would absolutely look like a date. Howcould you possibly guess,two people who just met but who have one weird coincidental connection?How could you guess,maybe this woman passed through a fairy door somewhere?
I barely waited for Joe to walk away before I leaned back in. “So then what happened?”
But Eamonn seemed suddenly uncomfortable, like he hadn’t meant to go on that long about this folktale and the server’s arrival had broken the spell. “The usual trials and tribulations. I can’t quite remember.”
Or maybe he’d sensed that I was overly invested in the story, and didn’t want to continue. Because I just didn’t buy that he couldn’t remember—not the same man who’d been telling the story so fully up until now, who could recall a specificlinefrom it.
“Like does she die? The woman usually dies in these kinds of stories, doesn’t she?”
He looked up, and at least this time if he’d guessed I was too invested in Becfola’s fate, it softened something around his eyes. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe she dies.”
I sat back in the booth, thinking about the story. I was sure it was a basic fairy tale, nothing more, maybe with some morality lesson at the end of it. But right now, none of it felt simple—not this old folklore, not whatever was happening with me, not Eamonn’s relationship with his brother or what I was even doing sitting here at this pub in a foreign country when I should be in a parking lot thousands of miles away.
“She must’ve told the king her name eventually,” I said. “If we know it in the story. And since they were getting married.”
Eamonn’s dimple flashed again, like he knew I was aboutto like what he had to say. “Actually, Becfola was the name given to her—it means ‘dowerless.’ Creative, right, since she came into the marriage with no dowry.”
“Ah.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, now I see the resemblance. I thought I was too plain to be Becfola, but beingbroke, that does sound like me.”
Eamonn’s gaze flickered away from me, a little shy. “I promise I was thinking more about the mystery of why you came here, what you’ve been up to. Nothing to do with the money part.”
“Sure,” I said, but I gave him a smile to let him know I wasn’t really offended.
“Speaking of,” Eamonn said, “we’re not far from Grafton Street, if you’d want to walk that way. It’s a lot of shops, but we can look around.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is it super touristy?” It wasn’t so much that I minded—I was a tourist, after all, however unintentional. But I didn’t want Eamonn to have to spend his day doing the kind of stuff that probably made him roll his eyes.
