Page 102 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“Oh. No, thank you.” Tadhg ducked his head and looked almost boyish for an all-too-fleeting moment. “I’m really sorry. I don’t eat lamb. I should have said, before you went to all this trouble.”

My fork clattered to the plate, and glistening globs of gravy flew into my wine and speckled my shirt. Oh no. I swallowed the lump in my throat, which unfortunately was half cold-blooded terror and half lamb. The entire table turned to stare at me as if I’d just taken off my top and basted my breasts with gravy.

No no no no no. I had a vivid recall of bouncing that baby in my arms and it nuzzling in as it tried to sleep in the crook of my neck.

“I’m . . . This is lamb?”

“’Course it is. What’s the matter with it?”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Maedhbh. I can’t eat lamb either.”

“What? You too? Why not?”

I grimaced. “Because I fell in love for the first time in my life today. And it was with a baby lamb.”

“Well.” Maedhbh blinked for a minute at the two beautiful lamb pies she’d made for us all. “Well, I hope you like potatoes, in that case.” She laughed, and so did everyone else.

I let out a breath. “If it’s any consolation, the bite I had was incredible! I am so sorry.”

“No, no. You’re grand.”

I caught Tadhg’s eye, but he cleared his throat and looked down at his plate, suddenly embarrassed.

“No skin off my nose,” said Gear’oid. And then he reached over, grabbed my plate, and plopped the massive helping of pie on top of his own while everyone laughed.

Gear’oid: My mother was a helluva woman. Chin like a door stopper, she had.

Maedhbh: You’ve got that same chin, my love.

Gear’oid: Aye, I do. But it looks beautiful on me, doesn’t it?

Maya: This is Maya weighing in for the audience at home. I can confirm, as a wholly impartial judge, that Gear’oid does, in fact, have a beautiful chin.

Gear’oid: There, ye see! Anyway, so this woman, my mother, God rest her, she had got it into her head that I would be marrying the widow Ronan down the road, because she’d been left with a fine plot of land and thirty head of nice, fat cattle. The thing was, this poor widow had all the sweetness of a hacksaw, and she wasn’t at all interested in havin’ me around. That didn’t matter to my mother, who saw all that fat cattle and wouldn’t take no for an answer. But she was scared of the widow Ronan, you see. That’s why she wrote to Jackie and had him come up here to, you know, charm the woman. Bring her around to the idea.

Maya: And did you like the widow Ronan, Gear’oid? Did you want to marry her?

Gear’oid: Oh, no, she was a terrifying woman, make no mistake! Have you shaking right out of your boots, she would. Not to mention she’d a face like a bag of rocks and a body that could pull a tractor. I can say that now because she’s long gone herself, rest in peace, you old ballbuster. And she didn’t like the look of my short, scrawny arse either, so the feeling was mutual.

Maya: Sounds like you both dodged a bullet, Gear’oid! So tell us all, how did you end up paired with the lovely Maedhbh instead?

Gear’oid: Well, you see, Jackie had a scheme, of course. We’d gone ’round for tea, the four of us with Jackie in tow at the widow’s farm, and she’d nearly pummeled me with the teakettle. After that, he’d pulled me aside. And Jackie said, he says, “Now, I know a girl two counties over that I think would suit you down to the ground, Gear’oid. If we can keep this little idea from your mam until things are more settled like, would you be interested in getting to know her?”

Maya: And that was Maedhbh?

Gear’oid: That was Maedhbh. And when I tell you that from the very first moment I saw her, I was head over heels. Have you ever seen anything like her? The most perfect thing on God’s green earth, I tell ye—

Maedhbh: Oh, give over, Gear’oid, nobody wants to hear all that mush.

Maya: Uhhh—this spinster does! Tell me everything!

Gear’oid: Well, she’s sweet as pie, funny as anything, eyes like Elizabeth Taylor, and a body like Sophia Loren.

Maedhbh: Oh, for heaven’s sake! What will the people over there in America think of us?

Maya: They’re going to eat it up! So it was just as easy as that, Gear’oid? Jackie introduced you two, and you fell for each other?

Gear’oid: Easy? What are you talking about, easy? You should have seen what sort of madcap schemes Jackie had to come up with to make me mam think the new match was her idea!