Mismatched

by Elle Casey

  “Gina will courier over copies of the will that relate to you, your mother, and your uncle and any other relevant documents. Have a nice day!”

  And she’s gone.

  Gina, the real secretary, has appeared and leads me to the elevator. On the way down, I try to make sense of what just went on in there. I shuffle awkwardly out into the autumn sunshine and stand on the pavement, my head reeling. There’s only one thing for it. Pulling out my phone, I text Ridlee.

  SOS … LMIRL

  Ping - Her reply comes instantly.

  SUP?

  I admire her gallant attempts at text abbreviations. We usually end up spelling everything because neither of us has nailed this textspeak thing the way other people our age have. We just can’t remember what all the acronyms mean. I write back.

  Need to C U. UnLtd booze @ mine. ASAP!

  I start walking toward the subway. I had imagined myself riding home from the lawyer’s office in a taxi, the official owner of The Pot O’Gold and maybe a few quid richer for good measure. But instead, here I am: half owner of the business that I spent years building and no cash prize from Granny. So it’s home on the T for me.

  Don’t get me wrong; I loved my grandmother, for all her flaws, but she died at a good age — ninety-six, it turns out. It’s been a month now, and I’ve accepted her being gone. But this half a bar business? Now, that is unacceptable.

  Ridlee will know what to do. I walk on, my step a little lighter. “Yeah, Rid’ll know what to do,” I say aloud. Just knowing my friend will be there for me makes everything better, less hopeless.

  CHAPTER TWO

  RIDLEE

  “RIDLEE HERE!” I CHIRP INTO the phone, pretty much high on life since I just got some seriously awesome news. Everything is falling into place in my life, just as it should. “Keep it short and keep it sweet, cuz I’ve got wheels up in ten. And when I say wheels, I mean ankles.” I snort at my completely inappropriate joke. There’s only one person in the world who can truly appreciate my humor, and she’s on the other end of the phone right now. I wouldn’t dare talk this way to my co-workers or anyone else for that matter. To them, I am completely serious, entirely straight-laced, and always focused on my goals. And right now, my goal just happens to be getting laid.

  “Who is it?” Erin says with suspicion lacing her voice. “It better not be that knacker Jeremy.”

  “Jeremy is not a knacker, first of all. He’s a rapper, I told you that already.”

  “He stole your iPod, Rid. Rappers rap. Knackers steal. Completely different career paths.”

  “He borrowed my iPod while simultaneously forgetting to ask permission, which technically isn’t stealing since he was missing the malice aforethought required by law.” I sniff with feigned annoyance. “And it doesn’t matter because I got it back.” Erin’s right; Jeremy is kind of a tool, but he does have a couple of redeeming qualities. So what if they’re only any good to me in the bedroom? It’s not like I’m going to marry the guy.

  “Remind me once more why you continue to go back to that gee-bag? Personally I wouldn’t ride him for practice.”

  “And, remind me again what a gee-bag is, back on the old sod of Ireland?”

  I can hear Erin sighing. She’s been trying to teach me Irish slang, but sometimes I get confused. “Gee-bag. Gee as in fanny, but our fanny, not yours; the front fanny. You know, vagina. A.k.a. minge, poonany, bearded oyster, vertical smile, cherry-pop, beaver. Do I need to go on?”

  “So Jeremy’s a vagina-bag? Iiinteresting. Well, I can’t argue, I guess. He is pretty talented in that area.” I turn the corner, headed towards my car that’s parked on the street outside my employer’s office building. I imagine him naked and sigh.

  “We are talking about the same Jeremy, aren’t we?” she says, doubting my evaluation of his skills.

  “Big dick? Size of a baseball bat? Loves going downtown?” And completely inappropriate for me, which is perfect. I don’t need complications like love and relationships with needy men getting in the way of my upwardly mobile life. “The guy who borrowed my iPod.”

  “Ah, right. Got it. That’s him. Anyway, enough about that gobshite. I need your legal advice.”

  “Excellent, considering as how I just got the news that I … wait for it …”

  “No!” she squeals. “You didn’t!”

  “I did. I totally did. I passed the bar exam!” I’m so excited I can hardly stand it, and my voice is all over the place as a result. “I’m officially a lawyer in the greatest city on earth!” Fist pump! I grin at the homeless man who starts drunkenly fist pumping along with me. I’d kiss him if he didn’t smell so bad.

  “Oh my God, gwan ya good ting!” Erin sighs happily. “Oh, I’m so proud of you. This is excellent timing, ‘cause I’m completely and utterly serious when I say that I need to hire you.”

  “For what?”

  “I went to the bloody solicitor’s office today.”

  “Lawyer, Erin. Solicitors don’t exist here any more than unicorns do.”

  “Okay, that gimp of a lawyer’s office.”

  “She sounds nice.” In the seven years I’ve known my best friend Erin, I’ve learned many Irish swear words. In fact, I’m undergoing a kind of Jedi training in Irish slang, so Erin keeps the language colorful for me at all times. It’s not taking too much effort at the moment.

  “Okay, so she was really quite friendly, all things considered, but she’s still a manky bitch.”

  “A super nice picture you’ve painted for me there, sweetie, but may I remind you once more that I am a business lawyer and not a probate attorney?”

  “Get away te fook with your hair splittin’. It’s six of one or half a dozen of the other. You know the law, so just wear your big-girl lawyer pants to the pub tonight so we can strategize our arses off.”

  ‘Fuck it’ is Erin’s favorite response to anything bothering her, but when she’s especially angry like she is now, her Irish accent gets really strong and it sounds like she’s saying fook. I can’t help but smile at it, even when she’s mad. Seven years of fook it, and I’m still not tired of hearing it. Someday, I’m going to go to Ireland with her crazy ass.

  “Is it that bad?” I press the button on my Audi A1 keychain and open the locks. Settling into the car, I inhale the delicious leather scent. My signing bonus from the firm paid for this baby. That and the loan I took out that I will be paying off in my first year as an associate with one of the biggest law firms in Boston. Aaaaand another fist pump! The engine actually purrs as I pull out into traffic and attach my phone to the holder on the dashboard. Erin’s voice comes out over my car speakers.

  “It’s worse. Worser that worse.”

  I frown. “That’s … unexpected.”

  “You’re foockin’ tellin’ me. I never saw it comin’. The old biddy blindsided me but good.”

  “What’d she do? She didn’t cut you off, did she?” I know how devastated Erin would be if this were the case. She wouldn’t be talking to me on the phone like this; she’d be jumping off a building. It can’t be that bad.

  “Pretty nearly so, yeah. The old wench. You know, only the good die young, Rid. You know that, right?”

  “So you’ve said about a thousand times. What’d she do?” I’m ten blocks away from the knacker … I mean Jeremy. He better not have stolen any more of my stuff.

  “She only gave me half the pub. Half, for fook’s sake! If she wasn’t already toes up, I’d throttle her meself and bury her behind a dumpster.”

  “What?” I slam on my brakes to avoid running over a bicycle messenger. “Bastard!” Flipping him off gives me very little satisfaction since he doesn’t stick around to enjoy it.

  “She is a right bastard, you got that straight— though, teaching point here, Rid … we usually use ‘bastard’ for males. But I’ll tell ye who is a right fooking bastard— Padraig Flanagan, that’s who! I’d love to get my hands on that bollox.” Erin’s growling now.

  “I’m lost. Who�
��s Padraig Flanagan?” I turn left, the view of my apartment coming into focus. I’m already tingling with desire imagining Jeremy there, waiting for me. It’s been a really long week.

  “He’s the fooker who’s now fifty-fifty with me in the pub. Aren’t ye listenin’ t’ anthin’ I’m sayin’?”

  “Who is he, though? A cousin?”

  “How the hell do I know? I’m just the idiot who poured her heart ’n soul into the place and brought it up, like a fooking phoenix from the ashes, to the shining pot of glorious gold it is today.”

  “Yes, you are, sweetie.” I turn into the underground parking and glide into my parking space as I adopt my most soothing tone. “Don’t you worry one little bit over this. We are going to fix it right up and then get you started on turning the P.O.G. into the number-one Irish bar chain on the entire East Coast.”

  “East Coast? Why think so small? Try entire United States.”

  “Okay, then. United States it is.” I get out of my car and lock it up, my blood pressure going through the roof at the idea of sliding into my silk sheets as Jeremy slides into me.

  “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” Erin asks, sighing in defeat.

  “Hmmmm…?” I’m stepping onto the elevator as my cell phone signal fades out.

  “See you later t’night, ho. Go get your flange serviced.”

  “Smooches!” I say, just before closing my phone.

  The elevator is completely silent. It gives me fifteen or twenty seconds on the ride up to imagine what my next hour is going to include. Wine for me … beer for him. Soft music. Lights low. Naked legs, intertwined. Sweaty, slippery bodies and clothes strewn around the room…

  I start to use my key, but the door isn’t locked and it pushes in with little effort. I haven’t even seen anything yet, but I already know that my normally perfectly pristine apartment is a wreck. Pizza boxes are stacked near the front door and the distinct odor of pot permeates the front entrance. My iPod is sitting on the front hall table with a giant tangle of headphones around it.

  “What in the holy hell …?” I come around the corner of the foyer and look at the destruction that used to be my living room. My couch is covered in hairy men wearing football jerseys and they’re all staring at a television screen that has naked women dancing on it.

  “Oh, hey, babe, what’s going on?” Jeremy smiles up at me from the armchair where he’s reigning over the clan of the cave bears he calls his boys. His ugly gold tooth winks out at me. “You’re back early.”

  I give the knacker who’s about to be tossed out of my fifth floor apartment a tight smile. “Jeremy, can I talk to you for a sec?”

  “Yeah, babe, sure.” He stands up and trips over his friends’ legs. They’re all too high on life and whatever it is they smoked my condo up with to pay me or him any mind.

  We make it to my room with the door closed before I blow my top.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing out there?!” My hands are clenched into fists at my sides. They’re itching to slap his stupid, in-desperate-need-of-a-shave face, but I resist … for now, anyway.

  “Just havin’ a little party, babe, no big deal.” He sidles up to me, hands going for my waist.

  Normally, I’d find this part fun, where he acts all suave and kind of dangerous and I pretend to be an innocent damsel who’s not sure if she wants to mess around or not, but right now all I want to do is send his balls right up into his throat, courtesy of my stilettos.

  I back up to stay out of his reach and to keep myself from turning him into a eunuch. “No big deal? No big deal?!” I throw my arm out towards the living room. “You’ve destroyed my apartment! Your pet gorillas are probably farting God knows what into my leather couch right now. I’ll never get their stench out of here! All the Febreze in the world isn’t going to fix this catastrophe. And I just passed the bar exam, you idiot! I can’t have you cheezedicks in here smoking dope. What’s wrong with you?”

  He frowns enough to pull his eyebrows into one giant, very messy caterpillar. “Yo, babe, chill, a’ight?” He grins in what I’m sure he thinks is a sexy manner. “Ain’t no need … to get all tee’d … cuz you got meee … and I got the weed …” He pulls a plastic baggie out of his pants as he chuckles over his busta rhyme and dangles it between us.

  I sigh out heavily, disgusted with myself. What. An idiot. Erin was totally right about him. Gee-bag indeed.

  Why? Why do I not listen to my friend when she tells me the fuckwad that I’m sleeping with is a class-A scumbag? I don’t know why. There is no good explanation. I am an educated woman who normally has a brain and knows how to use it.

  Poor Erin. She has diligently and regularly warned me off bad choices for years, but I have yet to learn my lesson. Men are my kryptonite; terribly stupid men with way too much excess body hair are the worst. But that all stops today. No more dickwads for me. I’m a bone fide lawyer now.

  He comes closer, but I push him away. “No. Stop.”

  “Come on, sweet sister, come play with daddy.”

  I cringe as I walk backwards, avoiding his outstretched hand. Did I actually fall for that crap before? Did this turn me on the last time we were together? God, I hope not. And ew, his knuckles are hairy. Why did I never notice that before? I need to get my head examined.

  As the back of my thighs bump into my nightstand, I hold out a very serious finger right up to his face. “Stay the hell away from me and don’t you dare touch me with that Sasquatch paw.”

  He stops coming towards me and backs his chin up into his chest. “Sasquatch? You callin’ me Bigfoot?”

  I turn around and yank open my drawer, sliding the nine millimeter handgun out and pointing it at the floor near my side. “Yeah, I’m calling you Bigfoot.” I gesture towards the door with a jerk of my chin. “And now I’m calling you done. Get out of my apartment and never, ever come back as long as we both shall live.”

  “You a crazy bitch, you know dat?”

  He looks like he’s considering whether I’m serious or not, so I help him make the right decision. I raise the gun and point it at his chest. He doesn’t know it’s not loaded. “Get. The fuck. Out.” I am so Rambo right now, it’s not even funny.

  “Why you bein’ so harsh all of a sudden? Damn, bitch, you be stone cold frosty ta-night.”

  “And stop talking like a stupid rapper idiot, Jeremy, you fucking wannabe. I know for a fact you graduated BU with a major in English Lit, dipshit!”

  “Fuck this,” he says, turning and leaving my room.

  I fall to my butt on the edge of my bed as he calls out to his homeboys and herds them out the door. I can hear them grumbling the whole way. They’re so lucky I don’t have any bullets for this gun.

  “Fuck you, crazy bitch!” the knacker yells before slamming the door shut.

  I start laughing once I know I’m alone, but it’s when I wander out into the front hall and see that he’s stolen my iPod once again that I really lose it. I fall to the floor just inside the door, holding my stomach and laughing until I feel like I’m going to puke.

  I realize I may possibly be suffering a hell of a contact high when I finally calm down and find myself lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. “Gold-toothed, poser, Sasquatch, motherfuckin’ knacker,” I say out into the empty space above me.

  I snort some more laughs out as I struggle back to my feet and head into my bedroom to prepare for my evening at the Pot ‘O Gold. Gotta get my lawyer panties on so I can help my best friend get her bar back…

  CHAPTER THREE

  ERIN

  IT’S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE I’ve been back to Ireland. I lean across Ridlee to look out the window of the plane as we begin our descent into Dublin airport. Dense clouds cover the city as we wobble our way through turbulent wind and atmosphere into my hometown. Things aren’t much better on the ground. I feel slightly responsible for the weather.

  “It always looks bad when you land,” I say, perhaps a bit too brightly, as Ridlee and I walk acr
oss the tarmac and into Dublin airport.

  Ridlee looks so chic. Thanks to the Valium, she slept pretty much all the way here, clad in a velour juicy tracksuit. Fifteen minutes before landing she disappeared into the tiny toilet and re-emerged wearing a Burberry skirt and blouse, classic Burberry trench coat, and brown leather boots, her hair and make-up expertly done. The fact that Burberry is an English label doesn’t matter to her; it’s close enough to Ireland. She’ll be going all Madonna on me soon, from the Mrs. Ritchie era — all twinsets and pearls.

  “Chill, Erin. We’re not here for the weather. I do know something about Ireland you know.”

  “Oh yeah, such as?”

  “Such as Liam Neeson and Colin Farrell are very hot, and I love the Irish accent.”

  “Which one?” We’ve made it to the baggage hall and are waiting for our luggage.

  “All of ‘em.”

  “Really? What’s your favorite? ‘Cause you know there are almost as many accents here as there are people.”

  “And I love them all. They’re super-cute.”

  I smile at my friend’s enthusiasm. “What about my accent? Is that ‘super- cute’?”

  “No, because you have an American accent. Except when you’re angry. Then you go all bad-ass Irish.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “You so do!”

  “I soooo don’t!” Why have I gone all valley girl?

  Ridlee looks knowingly at me.

  “Ah, stick it up your arse, Rid.”

  “That’s better.” She winks at me and then lets out a squeal as she spots one of her wholly impractical Globe Trotter suitcases on the carousel. We both lean in and try to grab it.

  “Allow me.” A tall man in a suit leans in and hauls it off the runner, setting it gently down beside my friend. She smiles sweetly, and the two remain in suspended animation, mutually admiring one another, while the rest of her ridiculous luggage sails by. After Jeremy the scumbag, she has vowed to only shag men in suits, or at the very least, trouser pants.