What Happens Next (15 page)

I look over at him smiling smugly. He thinks I’m a snotty fallen cheerleader who’s finally gotten one of those things he’s had his whole rotten life: a bona fide reputation. I can’t believe I sat and ate all those pastries with him. All that fat and calories, and for what? So he’ll like me? Screw him.

“How about drug dealing?” I snap. “I could do that. Grow a container garden of weed in my basement? You could teach me the ropes—which seeds to plant, proper lighting techniques?”

He smarts visibly, his eyes wounded. He grabs his backpack, slumping past me as the bell rings.

“You think you know everything about me, but you don’t know shit. See ya ’round, Sid.”

He slams the door on his way out.

I am stung with guilt; he was just throwing a joke out to lighten me up after saving my ass. I am left alone in the AV room, arms crossed like a brat, the lights buzzing overhead.

15

The days are
getting longer. It’s five o’clock on Saturday and I’m at the park, resting with Ronan after a good run. The sun is still fairly high in the sky and the temperature is a tolerable fifty degrees. While it feels warm in comparison to last week, some overzealous, cabin-fevered fools are actually wearing shorts, running along the bike path pretending not to be freezing their half-nekkid asses off. I am sitting on a bench swing with Ronan at my feet. Ronan looks out at the water, the wind blowing his fringe back, his tongue flapping as he pants. I pull his travel bowl out of my backpack and give him some bottled water to drink. We ran six miles today and we’ll run another one and a half on our way home.

Ronan laps the water up and then looks back toward the lake. I wonder if deep down inside somewhere, he knows instinctually about the Irish Sea and where his ancestors came from. Does he know that he is a war dog by nature? That is, before domestication bred the scrap out of him? I remember the way he bared his teeth at Corey when he pulled up his truck a couple nights ago when we were jogging. I am sure, if provoked, he could shred someone. But right now, he is happy to sit with me, sniffing the watery air and spying far-off gulls diving for fish.

I don’t know Ronan’s birthday, so I decide to make it St. Patrick’s Day, which is tomorrow. Besides my mom and brother, he is my one true companion. I decide that I will ask my mom if we can go to the parade tomorrow, all four of us, meaning Ronan, too. Yes, I will do something fun and positive with the people I love. It will be a new day. A rebirth. A turning of the proverbial inner leaf.

All this fresh air and goodwill should generate some relief from the guilt I feel for having bawled Corey out, but it doesn’t. I still feel like a total jerk.

“Let’s go, Ro,” I say, getting up from the bench.

My dog and I head toward home.

It’s five a.m. I went to bed at eight and woke up at four. Eight magnificent hours of sleep, uninterrupted by nightmares or restless leg syndrome. I swiped one of my mom’s sleep aids and slept right through the guilt of having done it. The proverbial inner leaf is starting to curl around the edges already.

But now I am on a mission—a guilt-eradicating mission. I left Ronan at home, where he is surely pouting at the window. I am walking to The Diner on Clifton. Their special Patty’s Day breakfast menu is already on the board, served midnight until noon.

I scan the choices. There is the Leprechaun’s De-Light for the waist-conscious: warm soda bread and low-fat jam served with unsweetened Irish Breakfast tea. Sounds good, but not what I’m looking for. There’s the Patty’s Day Porridge for the more traditional diner: thick Irish oatmeal served with brown sugar, Irish butter, heavy cream, and blueberries on the side. Better, but not really practical as a to-go item. And for the true believers, there is the Irish Rib-Sticker Morning Feast: two eggs any style, served with warm boxty toast, bangers and hash, back rashers, and a simply mouthwatering side of blood pudding.

Thanks, I’ll pass.

Last on the menu is the Cottage Staple, and bull’s-eye, just what I need:

Beef and cabbage.

All day long.

On a plate.

Or in a bun.

Shelley Keep It Green is working. The revelry starts early in this neck of the woods, and the place is already full of merry, drunken auto workers fresh off the night shift. I order three corned beef and cabbage sandwiches to go and stand in the foyer, salivating at the smells wafting from the kitchen.

“So you’re starting early, eh?” Shelley Keep It Green says as she hands me my bag.

“Aye,” I say with a fake Irish brogue.

She smiles.

“Fiona, right? You give up veganism for Patty’s Day?”

Ah, jeez, she remembers me. I’m ordering corned beef after claiming to be a skateboarding vegan. I could say it’s for a friend? That I’ve got a Guinness-soaked tofu platter waiting back home?

“Um, yeah, about that—my name is actually, um—Cassidy. Sid for short. All that stuff about being a vegan and everything, well, I—I made it up. I’m not a vegan. Or a skateboarder. I wasn’t in school that day and just needed somewhere to hang for a while. I’m sorry I lied. That was a weird thing to do.”

Then I laugh nervously and add a hopeful joke: “I don’t even know what carbon footprint really even means.”

She rolls her eyes and rings my order up.

“Yeah, I kind of figured you were full of it, being that you were wearing leather gloves that day. Eighteen dollars.”

I hand her a twenty. She pulls out two bucks from the register drawer.

“Keep it. And thanks for going along with my insanity. I needed it that day.”

“Sure, no problem. But, don’t lie to me again,” she says, wagging her finger.

“I won’t,” I say, smiling.

“So, where you headed so early in the morning?”

“To see a friend. Well, to try and see a friend. If he’ll see me, that is. We had this sort of fight and I’m going to grovel.” I hold up the to-go bag and add, “Bribery.”

“Ah, yes. Food—gets ’em every time. But it’s kind of early for corned beef. You sure he wouldn’t like something sweeter, like a pastry or something?”

“Oh, no. No pastries. Anything but pastries. Real food only. He works at DiRusso’s.”

“Then the corned beef’ll do it. It’s not Slyman’s, but it’s pretty good.”

“Thanks. Have a happy St. Pat’s.”

“You, too. And good luck with the bribery.”

I give her a quick wave and then head out of The Diner. The bakery is four blocks away and it’s freezing out. I walk fast so the sandwiches won’t get cold. I did an earlier pass of the bakery to make sure he was working. His truck was parked around back by the trash bin.

I stop to collect myself on the side of the florist shop next door. I don’t want to be breathing heavily when I go in. I smooth my hair, which is extra loaded down with product so I don’t look like the the Bride O’Frankenstein when I start up with the groveling. I calmly walk over to the bakery and step inside.

The jingly bell on the door rings, and an old Italian man comes teetering out from the back. He has on a bright green apron with iron-on letters that spell out kiss pasquale! today, he is irish! It’s not a cushy sit-down bakery like Panera, but a small, “real” type of bakery where it’s all made to go; a friendly enough atmosphere, but with a “Get your food and get out. Go home to your families, people. Next!” sort of vibe.

“ ’Eppy St. Patrick’s Day to you, Miss. You look-a Irish beauty with your pretty hair. What I get for you today? We gotta nice-ah scone and a fresh-ah soda bread. Today we Irish, too. Heh, heh.”

The old man’s eyes twinkle and I see why Corey works here. It’s so laid back, like The Diner—no stuffy dress codes or stupid policies on proper ways to greet customers. And there’s real music on—I can hear The Strokes playing in the back.

“Um, I’m here to see Corey,” I say.

The old man’s eyes widen with intrigue and genuine surprise.

“Corey? You here for Corey?”

I nod.

He steps in closer, leaning across the counter while lowering his voice. “He’s a good boy. You date him? He no tell me nothing hardly, ’less I, how you say, push it out of him.”

Then his voice goes higher and he waves his hand around and whines.

“
Leave the boy alone, Patsy! Stop be so nosy!
My wife tells me this. But Corey, he like son. So… you girlfriend?”

His eyebrows wiggle up and down.

“Uh, no. We’re just classmates. Is he here?” I smile nervously, glancing at the swinging door to the kitchen. The old man looks disappointed that I have no juicy scoop for him.

“Ah, well. You too pretty for him. He needs haircut, he look like sissy punk, like Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo with that long hair.

“Coreeeey!” he hollers and waddles out from behind the counter, over to the front door, where he grabs his coat from the coat tree and steps outside. He lights a cigar and leans his back against the front window to smoke.

After a minute, Corey comes out, wearing a white apron over several T-shirts, whistling and wiping his hands on a towel. He looks at me, cuts the whistle, and stops dead in his tracks. He continues wiping his hands, slower this time, and then slings the rag over his shoulder. His head cocks back coolly, his arms cross defensively.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

He has flour on his cheek.

Suddenly, I feel completely stupid and exposed, standing like an idiot with a big greasy bag of corned beef at five in the morning. Who eats corned beef at this hour? What the hell was I thinking?

I open my mouth to speak but nothing lucid comes to mind.

“What? You want pastries or something?” he says coldly. “Or did you come to chew me out some more?”

I slump and breathe out. Then I take a breath and just let it rip. I don’t look at him when I speak, I look anywhere, everywhere, and say really fast…

“I’m sorry. It… I… it was a really crap thing for me to do, to tear into you like that, especially after you stepped up like you did, I could have been suspended, expelled maybe, and I had no right to treat you that way. Totally ungrateful and major tool behavior. God, and after you wrote that letter and got the website shut down? I feel really bad, like a big jerk, I’m just a… I’m just…”

Then I force myself to look at his face and say it more slowly.

“I am really sorry.”

He looks at me, arms still crossed, face stoic, saying nothing.

“I brought you corned beef,” I say timidly. My shoulders crunch up, and I hold the bag up, wiggling it like a moron.

His arms uncross as he saunters out from behind the counter, pinning me in place with a dirty eyeball stare, like I’m up to no good and he’s coming over to get to the bottom of my bullshit. I lower the bag and my eyes widen as he comes to a slow stop about a two feet directly in front of me. He towers over me, his hands are now on his hips, and he is giving me a steady, unwavering stink-eye.

Damn, he’s big.

After a second or two, he calmly reaches out and takes the bag from my grasp. He brings it up and cups one big hand underneath it and rolls the top of it open with the other hand. Still eyeballing me, he spreads the top apart with his floury fingers. He peeks down inside, just a quick downcast of the eyes, before resuming his glare. Then his eyes soften a little.

“Fine,” he says, sighing. “Let’s eat. There’s a table in the back.”

16

“So I hear
this high-pitched shrieking sound, like an actual cat fight, and I look out and you’re wrestling around with Barbie and Skipper, cussing like I don’t know what.”

“I was cussing? I don’t remember any cussing,” I say through a mouthful of food. God, I’m so freaking hungry. I can only imagine how much fat and calories I’m inhaling right now, but man, is it good.

“Oh, you were cussing, all right. You called her a… what was it again?”

Corey holds his sandwich and looks up contemplatively.

“Oh, yeah, I know. ‘A dirty dishrag skank.’ ” He enunciates each word with precision. “Yeah, you were telling her she was going to be… and how did you phrase it? ‘Balder than Elmer fucking Fudd’ when you were done with her.”

He takes a big bite of sandwich.

“Fiction! I did not say that,” I say, choking a little on my food and slapping the table before pointing a finger at him. “Bullshit-fiction, never happened.”

“Did, too. Ask her,” he says matter-of-factly, mumbling through a mouthful of corned beef.

“But I don’t remember it. I mean, I remember being angry and some kind of words coming out of my mouth, but I don’t remember what they were. And I’ve never called anyone a dirty dishrag skank in my life. What does that even mean?”

He laughs. “Then you had a rage-induced blackout, because you totally said it.”

I take another bite, swallow, and then lean in with curiosity. “Can you really black out from rage?”

“Sure,” he says. “Rage can do strange things to the mind. Rage can make you forget things. It happened to me once when I was about eight. An entire ten minutes erased from my life.”

“What happened? Was it a fight?”

“Yeah. Well, not a physical fight—a verbal one.”