My Wanderlust Bites the Dust

by Eliza Watson

  Maybe Grandma had felt guilty bonding with her children after having left George in England to be raised by the Dalys.

  George frowned. “So she wasn’t a kind mother?”

  “She was kind, just didn’t share her past or some of her feelings with family. That hurt my mom and her sisters.”

  “How many sisters does she have?”

  “Two, Dottie and Teri. They’re all in their fifties.”

  “It may take them a bit to get over the shock. I’ve had eight years to process the news. I was quite upset that I wasn’t told sooner, providing me the opportunity to meet Bridget Coffey, who I’d assumed had already passed away when I learned of her. My family didn’t have contact with the Dalys in Ireland.”

  George listened with interest while I told him about his aunt Emily Ryan, who spent holidays at the Daly estate next to Grandma’s childhood home. How she’d provided what little knowledge I had about Grandma’s life in Ireland. How Grandma and John Michael had met.

  “All my mother could tell me was that Bridget’s family were tenant farmers on the Daly land and my parents marrying each other estranged them from family,” he said. “They must have really been in love to fight all odds to be together. She thought she was giving me a chance at a better life and didn’t want me torn between two feuding families. I would love to meet your mother. You must all come for a visit. The Dalys made their money off Irish tenant farmers like your grandmother’s family. It’s as much your estate as mine.” His kind smile included his gray eyes. “After all, we’re family.”

  Yes, we were.

  “I can see the reasons behind her decisions and don’t feel it’s my place to judge her,” he said.

  That was generous and open-minded of him, since I was having a difficult time not judging Grandma. I felt bad over leaving behind a dog in Ireland I’d never even met. I couldn’t imagine if Mr. MacCool were a child. If I felt this way, how would Mom respond to having a half brother kept from her? Grandma hadn’t merely left her buried husband in England, but a child. What other secrets had she left behind when she’d immigrated to America?

  * * *

  My mind was still reeling after two hours chatting with George about our families and life on the Daly estate in Lancashire. He gave me the photos. I wondered if Mom would stick his wedding photo in the drawer with his parents’ pic or if she’d even want it. I’d put him in touch with Sadie Collentine, Grandma’s niece in Killybog, Ireland, who lived just up the road from the Daly and Coffey homes. I requested that he allow me to contact his aunt Emily first to ease the shock. I hoped I could keep my promise about Mom being in touch soon. After all, she couldn’t blame George for being her half brother, could she?

  I whisked past the front of La Haute Bohème, not wanting my coworkers to see me if they were just heading back to their rooms. I felt bad having ditched them, but better them than George. I hid in a doorway around the corner and called Rachel. I’d phoned her and Declan earlier about capturing Oscar and saving my reputation, so I went right into George Wood’s shocking news.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I have no clue.”

  Seriously? Rachel was always the one with a plan. The one who could think rationally under pressure. That was why I always asked myself, What would Rachel do in this situation?

  “I mean, we have to tell Mom,” I said. “We can’t not tell her. Right?”

  “Yeah, we have to tell her. Holy shit,” she muttered again. “I just don’t know how we’re going to tell her. There’s no chance he’s lying, is there?”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “Maybe he thinks we’re rich.”

  “He doesn’t need money.” I described the Daly estate in England and told her about George’s offer for us to visit the home he believed was ours as much as his.

  Rachel gasped. “What if he plans to leave it to our family in his will? If you hadn’t connected with him, the house might have become a funeral home. Cool old houses are always turned into funeral homes.”

  “He didn’t say he was leaving us the estate. It was a figure of speech. And I’m not researching our family history hoping to find some long-lost rich relative.”

  “No, but it could be a bonus.”

  Family was slowly becoming more important to Rachel than work, but some things about her might never change.

  “Besides, I’m sure there’s an heir to the estate, some third cousin,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s no longer how it works. Or it’s privately owned, not an estate per se.”

  “Can we please focus on a plan for telling Mom right now?”

  “I can’t focus. My head is ready to explode. Let’s regroup and talk tomorrow morning.”

  I agreed.

  I called Declan and got his voicemail. I left a message that George Wood had some interesting news and hadn’t intended to abduct me. He texted that he’d call me soon. It was times like this I wanted to be able to hop into a car and drive over to my boyfriend’s house to share the news, a hug, and moral support.

  Despite the fact that I didn’t own a car.

  As much as I dreaded facing Blair, it would be easier to get it over with now than to wait until morning. And I’d feel bad going to my room if the staff was still working. I entered the office with a sense of dread to find Blair sitting alone at her desk. She gave me a peeved look, her maroon lips pursed, making her chin and cheekbones look even sharper.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come back to help.”

  “We got it done,” she said in a clipped tone.

  “I had a family emergency. I just met a half uncle I never knew existed.”

  While I recounted the story, she didn’t even fake interest. No flicker of curiosity in her dark eyes. No look of compassion for the life-altering news I was still processing.

  “It’s hard when family matters come up on-site and you’re far away from home,” she said. “I’ve missed two uncles’ funerals. It’s just as hard making the choice in advance between work and personal obligations. I missed my sister’s wedding two years ago. My mom didn’t talk to me for six months. And I’ve missed my husband’s birthday the last four years because of an annual meeting.”

  She hadn’t missed a beat turning my shocking news into a discussion on the consequences of choosing personal obligations over professional ones.

  “You don’t regret any of the choices you made?” I asked.

  Her gaze narrowed, surprised I was putting her on the spot. I wasn’t doing it to be confrontational. Well, maybe a little. But after Rachel’s comment about me making time to meet with George Wood or regretting it, I seriously wanted to know how Blair felt about her choices.

  She shrugged. “I’d have regretted losing my job more. My husband has come to accept that traveling a hundred and fifty days a year is part of who I am.”

  Rachel was a full-time planner, but she traveled half that. She’d still missed plenty of family events.

  “He’d be pissed if I lost my job. We used my frequent flyer miles for a Tahiti trip last year and Bali the year before.”

  What if her hubby decided he wanted a woman who would be there to share all their special occasions? Maybe he already had one. Blair spent every Valentine’s Day with Mr. Gauthier. I didn’t want Declan and me to ever accept the fact that we only saw each other a few days every month or two. However, Declan canceling our Chicago trip to book the Amsterdam meeting made me worried that he did accept it.

  Blair’s phone rang.

  “Speak of the devil. My husband. I’ll call him back later.” She tossed her phone to the side. “Be down at five. I’m going to have you do departures. The ground company rep will be here around ten. I know you have to depart at noon.” Another call rang on her phone. “It’s the client. I have to take this.”

  She wasn’t going to ask me to work the Monte Carlo incentive like she’d told Mindy. Now Declan and I wouldn’t be able to meet up in
April or May. After St. Paddy’s Day, when were we going to see each other again?

  Yet I felt a sense of relief rather than disappointment over not having to work with Blair again or be subjected to such a toxic work environment. I didn’t get why the staff continued working for her. Money? With the instability of the job, they couldn’t afford to turn one down, never knowing what was next. On that first Dublin meeting, one of the reasons I’d decided to continue with this job was the appeal of being my own boss and having control over whom I worked for and when.

  But ultimately, the job controlled me, not vice versa.

  After I’d hunted down the macaroon thief, Blair knew my strong work ethic and determination, yet she was on the fence about my judgment. So on the Monte Carlo program I’d still have had to prove myself when the shit hit the fan, which it would because it always did. This was going to be the case with every new planner. And according to Mindy and Chad, I’d be taking on new clients for the rest of my career, or at least trying to.

  Crap. I never responded to Declan’s client about the Miami gig in April.

  Had I subconsciously failed to do so?

  Chapter Seventeen

  I sat at my guest room desk, wrapped in my new spa robe doused in pillow spray, sipping Irish tea and munching on Taytos, composing an e-mail accepting the Miami meeting. My phone rang. Rachel. Excellent. She must have figured out a way for us to tell Mom about George.

  “This chick is going to be the death of me.” Rachel let out a frustrated growl. “She’s a complete idiot, then uses me as the scapegoat. I’m going to fly to Dublin and smack her.”

  She was referring to Gemma, an admin assistant at Flanagan’s beer. She was at a hotel working the small executive meeting that I’d helped Rachel plan. My only work in January.

  “Forget the March and April meetings they want me to do. I don’t have time to plan them, let alone rectify the mess this dimwit makes.”

  “I’m sure Matthew McHugh knows it’s her fault. Precisely why he asks you to plan them.”

  “Well, I’m not doing any more Flanagan meetings unless I can have you go on-site. Like the one in April for fifty people. No way is she going to be able to handle it.”

  “I’d love to do it. What week is it?”

  “Starts on the seventh.”

  Declan was working in Dublin until the eighth, so we could squeeze in a few days and see each other after all.

  “I could also plan the March meeting and go on-site.”

  I knew Flanagan’s CEO from my first meeting last fall. He’d been ecstatic at Christmas when I’d won the silent auction prize of cooking with Finn O’Brien and had my pic in the paper wearing Flanagan attire, unknowingly blocking the competitor logos behind us. I’d earned a bonus for helping get Brecker Dark into O’Brien’s restaurants when I wasn’t even a Brecker employee.

  “The March one is only twenty people and not until the end of the month, after you’re home from the Brecker trip. They wouldn’t pay for your airfare back to Dublin.” Rachel heaved an exasperated sigh. “Flanagan’s needs a full-time planner.”

  “Or a competent admin assistant. When I was an assistant, I did a way better job than this woman.” And I’d been fired from the job eight months ago. In my defense, Andy’s stalking had made me a complete wreck. I hadn’t been a stellar admin, but better than this Gemma woman. “I could do her job.”

  “You could. Actually…they might be open to hiring a full-time meeting contractor they don’t have to give benefits.”

  A stable paycheck would be wonderful, but I needed health insurance, paid holidays, sick days… Travel was the only perk this job provided, and seeing the inside of hotels and airports rather than sightseeing attractions really wasn’t a perk.

  “You could work out of my office a few days a week, so I could give you some direction. But they aren’t going to pay your air for the smaller programs.”

  “What if they didn’t have to pay for it? That would be a huge cost savings.” I almost had enough frequent flyer miles for an international ticket, and Declan had offered me some of the bazillion miles he’d banked up.

  “Are you saying you’d pay your own airfare or that you want to work in Dublin?”

  My heart raced. Work in Dublin? The thought of a stable job and living in Ireland about made me dizzy with excitement.

  “Work in Dublin,” I blurted.

  Rachel let out a faint laugh. “Mom would kill me if you moved to Dublin. She still hasn’t forgiven me for getting you into the industry, even though hiring you for that first meeting was her idea. She worries when you’re gone for a week.”

  “She’s doing much better. She no longer contacts me a half dozen times a day.”

  Silence filled the line.

  “Are you serious?” Rachel asked.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “The cost of living in Dublin would be high compared to what the position would pay. Look at all the money you save living with Mom and Dad.”

  “But I’d have a full-time job and could get a roommate.”

  “Gee, who’d that be?”

  My dog, Mr. MacCool. I hadn’t been thinking Declan. Going from seeing each other every fifty days to shacking up would be crazy.

  “Is Declan the reason you don’t want me to move to Dublin?”

  “No. It’s just that picking up and moving to another country isn’t that easy. Not like you’re part of the EU. Who knows if you could even get a work visa.”

  “I can check into it. Why not at least propose it to your boss? I’m sure he’d rather have you focused on Brecker meetings. You’d spend a lot less time training me than you do troubleshooting all the crap this woman effs up.”

  No response.

  What happened to all that faith Rachel supposedly had in me? Her apology on the phone the other day? Saying I’d come a long way since my first meeting in Dublin? Telling me not to allow Blair to shake my confidence? Had that been a bunch of lies to make me feel better?

  “I know this would be a big step, but I really think I can handle it. I’ve worked every role on this meeting, even security, hunting down the macaroon thief. And it’s huge, two hundred attendees.”

  “But you’ve only gone on-site for five programs and been doing this job part time for a few months. You’d be in way over your head.”

  “I’m more qualified than the ditz doing it. And you had less experience when you started planning at Brecker. You’d never been out of the country. Once I plan a few programs, I’ll be good. These are cookie-cutter meetings. A room for twenty to fifty attendees, breaks, lunch, and an occasional reception or dinner. That’s it.”

  “There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter meeting. For a reception, how many pieces of appetizers would you do per person? What would the meal guarantees be for a seventy-five-person meeting? What is room attrition in a contract?”

  I scrambled for at least one answer.

  “These are basic questions every planner should know. When you help me plan a meeting, I take care of all these details. I just have you make calls to check availability and maintain the registration. Executing a meeting and planning one are two very different jobs. This is crazy, Caity. You always do stuff on a whim, not thinking it through.”

  “I do not.”

  “How long have you been considering moving to Dublin?”

  “Awhile.”

  “Five minutes isn’t awhile. If you move there for Declan and you guys break up, you’ll quit Flanagan’s and move home.”

  “You still think I’m a quitter? And just because I let Andy screw up my last job, and my life temporarily, doesn’t mean I’d let Declan. I don’t want to be dependent on him. On any man.”

  “I just don’t want you to make another mistake.”

  As if all I did was make mistakes.

  “Let me run the contract planning past my boss, and if he okays it, I’ll talk to Matthew McHugh. Do that for a year so I can train you on actually planning a meeting.”


  “A year? That’s crazy.” Stay calm. Don’t go berserk because Rachel was hired as a planner with zero experience but thought I needed a year and a half to be qualified enough to get a job. “How about a few months? After I help plan and go on-site for the March and April meetings?” That sounded reasonable.

  “This is your only option right now, Caity. We’ll talk later. I have to go fix this meeting.”

  Dead air.

  Fuming, I put a death grip on my phone. Rachel thinking I was such a slow learner made me more furious than her calling me a quitter! Granted, I’d had a history of not sticking with stuff. I’d changed my major four times. I’d dropped French and my dream of studying in Paris after struggling through three language semesters. I’d never stuck with a boyfriend except for Andy for two long ignorant years. But I’d done the elf job three years in a row, and I’d graduated college. Even though Rachel was right, I’d be in over my head, I couldn’t believe she wasn’t even considering it.

  This was my chance at a job where coworkers would know my work ethics, trust my judgment, and not wonder if I was a thief. I needed the stability that came with a steady paycheck, same boss, and same coworkers. To have a job that provided more balance between my personal and professional lives. Most of Flanagan’s meetings were held in Dublin at their headquarters or the Connelly Court Hotel. I’d be home nights to eat dinner, walk Mr. MacCool, and meet friends for a pint. It’d been over two years since I’d done Martini Mondays with girlfriends.

  Could the cost of living be that much higher in Dublin than Milwaukee? Despite Rachel being dead against me moving to Dublin and working for Flanagan’s, I was curious and searched apartment rentals online. A tiny one-bedroom near St. Stephen’s Green was almost $1,700 a month without utilities but with a lovely alley view. I’d have the added expense of internet, food…necessities my parents currently provided. Yet public transportation would eliminate the need for a car.