by Cathy Lamb
“My goal? Get out of Ireland.”
She continued to tell the story of that cataclysmic year, how she was hired as a maid on a ship going to America through a “client.”
“I took the job, and left Ireland. We were hit by two storms. We almost died. At that point, the boat listing and pitching, I was so miserable and alone, I thought that death would be better for me. We landed in New York, and I was ill and half-starved. The captain told me I had to pretend I was well or the officials would send me back to Ireland. I smiled. I pinched my cheeks for color. I chatted. I passed. I was in. I was an American.
“I used the money I had to take a train to Oregon. Why Oregon? Because I met a woman on the boat who said you could hide from your past and be a new person out west. Hiding appealed to me. On the boat over, I decided that I could no longer be a prostitute. I would rather die. On a farm near the river I got a job picking strawberries for the summer.”
She talked about being broke, not having enough money for food or shoes, and certainly no money for anything pretty or frilly. “I was in survival mode. I ate strawberries morning, noon, and night. When I could, I snuck corn, tomatoes, lettuce, and carrots out of another farmer’s fields.”
After getting fabrics, lace and satin from the farmer’s wife, my grandma talked about how she made herself a silky pink slip and what it did for her all day long under her one, drab blue dress. “I felt pretty for the first time in my life because I was wearing silk. I felt like I could do something different, be someone different. I could look people in the eye because I didn’t feel so destitute and desperate. Maybe if I wore nice clothes, no one would know that I had been whipped and raped. No one would know that I had been a prostitute. I needed to hide, and silk and satin helped me do that.
“When I was nineteen I met The Irishman. His name was Cecil O’Rourke, and he had arrived from Ireland a few months before me. He, too, was an orphan. I would not become his girlfriend at first, because I did not feel worthy. I was dirty. I was used.” She put her hands together, her pearl and diamond rings flashing. “But I made the mistake of giving in to my passion for him one night. I, the young woman who had sold herself to many men for food, pulled away, then ran away from him as fast as I could. Cecil followed me, and I told him everything, his arms wrapped around me. He told me . . .” She stopped, the memory still overwhelming her, her voice cracking. “He told me the past was past, that our love would be the future.”
I heard many sighs from women in the audience.
“Cecil was broke, like me, but he was smart, and he worked hard. He built a construction company. I built a lingerie business, and in between we loved each other madly.” She smiled, soft and almost sweet.
“I used the color pink in Lace, Satin, and Baubles because it was my mother’s favorite color. The lights in our factory are shaped like tulips because my father brought my mother tulips before his accident. I put in fainting couches because I felt faint so often from hunger when I was younger. The fainting couches remind me to be thankful that I have enough to eat. I use chandeliers because we didn’t have electricity in Ireland, and the chandeliers remind me that I’m not in poverty living with lice and bugs.
“To me, Lace, Satin, and Baubles is not just another company. It’s my legacy. It’s me. It’s in honor of my parents, my sister, The Irishman, my family. I gave myself, all of myself, to get here, and I want to leave something of value for others. Providing jobs is of value. It means that people can buy a home, they can pay for their children’s educations. That’s my legacy. We’ve given money away to charities and for scholarships. That’s my legacy. This company has provided for my own family, the people I adore and love the most, the people whom the Irishman adored and love. That’s our legacy.
“My name is Regan O’Rourke. I was a desperately poor, hungry girl in Ireland. My family burned to death in a fire. I was whipped and raped by an evil and violent man. I became a prostitute. And then I came here, to America, and I overcame my past.” She lifted her chin. “I became the owner of Lace, Satin, and Baubles. I am grateful. And, by damn, I’m proud of myself.”
The video went off. The room was completely black, utterly silent, except for the flickering of candlelight.
The sound of Grandma’s heels tapping on the runway—from the other end—echoed through the factory. Everyone’s heads spun around, the standing ovation thunderous as Grandma proudly walked the entire runway in her full-length, blue velvet dress with a flowing train. When she arrived at the front of the stage, one lone spotlight on her, she stood, regal, proud, chin tilted up, a slight smile on her face. She was magnificent.
Lacey, Tory, my mother, and I stood behind her, trying hard not to bust out in tears.
Grandma indicated that people were to sit down. When it was quiet again, she took off her pearl earrings and handed them to Lacey. Tory received her pearl bracelets. My mother received two strands of her pearl necklaces, and I received the other two. Eric stood to the side with a video camera, so Grandma was also on the huge screen above the audience.
I unzipped the back of her blue velvet dress while Grandma faced the audience. I unhooked her black bra, then turned her toward us, her back to the audience. She held my gaze. I waited. She closed her green eyes for one second, then nodded. Gently, my mother and I pulled her blue velvet dress to her waist.
She stood half-naked onstage, the video camera projecting her head and back onto the screen.
I heard the gasps. I heard the horrified exclamations, the choked, “Oh, my God!”
The whip marks were still visible, still raised, crisscrossing her spine, her shoulder blades, and her slim waist, decades later, from Ireland to America, down the curve of a rainbow, on the back of an owl.
I looked at my mother, who had given up all pretenses of keeping it together, her tears a river of pain. Tory and Lacey clutched each other, Grandma’s scars a scar for all of us.
After a minute, I refastened her bra and zipped her up. Lacey handed her her earrings, which she reattached. Tory fastened her bracelets around her wrist, and my mother and I put her pearl necklaces back on.
I handed Grandma a microphone, then we all stood back, out of the spotlight.
“Lace, Satin, and Baubles is not only about lingerie and negligees,” Grandma said. “It’s about women. It’s about how we want to live our lives. It’s about what we think about ourselves and how we think. It’s about valuing ourselves enough to wear something stunning, something lacy, not to show it to someone else but because we know that we deserve it. We know that we can get out into a world that is sometimes cold, and sometimes dangerous, and be someone in it. We can become who we dreamed of becoming, we can leave a bad past behind, and we can look beautiful doing it.”
She stopped when the clapping became too loud, and waited for silence again.
“I am not defined by my body or what has happened to it. I am not defined by beatings or an arching whip or a dangerous man, or by the wreckage of prostitution. I am not defined by my age. I am not defined by what others think of me. I am defined by myself. I will define myself to me. I will live, I will laugh, I will love. I will not be silenced. I will not be invisible. I will be me until the very end. And I will look beautiful.”
The clapping and cheering started again, people on their feet, arms in the air.
“I dared,” she said, those green eyes glittering. “I dared to found a company that would leave a legacy. I dared to live the way I damn well wanted to live.”
The clapping almost overrode my grandma’s message, so she raised her voice, her words echoing across that factory, over the satin, over the lace, over the baubles, and back to Ireland.
“I dare you to live the life you want to live and to leave your nightmares behind you. I dare you to dance, I dare you to sparkle, I dare you to wear gold tassels. I dare you,” she shouted above the cacophony. “I dare you”—she pointed at the audience—“to be you.”
The lights snapped off, the factory in total darkn
ess, the cheering absolutely deafening.
When the lights came back on, all of us, including Lacey’s whole family, Blake, Scotty, my mother, and all of the employees in their lingerie, were on that runway, Grandma in the center of it.
As it should be.
The next morning, newspapers from all over the nation were talking about our Fashion Story. They talked about our life stories. They ran photos of the embellished lingerie that our employees had designed. They could not get enough of Grandma’s life story. The whole Fashion Story was on YouTube, this time uploaded by Eric.
Our website crashed twice. We hauled it back up.
We were inundated with orders.
Lace, Satin, and Baubles had made it.
Lacey and Tory have many talents.
One of them is shopping. They came by my tree house to get me three days after The Fashion Story.
Lacey said to Tory, “Get a trash bag.”
Tory grabbed a bag.
“Hey!” I protested.
They ignored me. Everything in my closet was thrown out. The only things I managed to snag back were two green and yellow college sweatshirts and an orange and black high school sweatshirt. All my clothes fit into one large, black trash bag.
Tory and Lacey stood and studied me, their eyes sad, that one saggy bag between them.
“What?” I asked, defensive.
“A closet is a reflection of how a woman feels about herself,” Lacey said.
“Your closet says that you feel nothing about yourself. You feel that you are dog poop. You want to be invisible. That’s what your closet shows,” Tory said. “And it makes me mad!”
“Why on earth would my closet make you mad, Tory? It’s not like you have to dress from it.”
She shuddered. “Don’t even say that. The thought makes me feel like Humpty Dumpty. I’m mad because you should not feel like this about yourself, Meggie. Like an empty closet.”
“No.” Lacey shook her head. “You’re better than this, Meggie. You need to sparkle again. Shine. Give yourself some lovin’. Like Grandma said at The Fashion Story.”
“Ya ain’t no trash lady, but this—” Tory waved her hand. “It’s inexcusable. I’m taking this to Goodwill. I don’t want the ex–Frumpster Dumpster Queen to have any chance to put these rags back on. No, bag lady”—she put up a hand to ward me off—“stay away or you’ll find out how much of a weapon my cast is.”
My grandma said she was tired and didn’t want to shop no matter how much we pleaded, and she made me promise I would start wearing the clothes she bought me so I wouldn’t look like a lost, possum-hunting hillbilly. We met my mother at the mall. I thought my debit card was going to burst into flames.
Afterward we went to a late lunch of sushi, then headed to a spa. My hair was highlighted and trimmed to the middle of my back. My eyebrows were waxed. My facial smoothed things out. My massage took out the kinks. My fingernails and toenails were pampered with pink flowers.
Lacey clapped, then raised both hands in the air, and yelled, “Meggie’s back!”
Tory said, “You are more delicious than a martini, and that’s saying a lot.” She kissed my cheek.
My mother, dressed in her beige slacks and comfortable shoes, wagged a finger at me and said, “You and the chief could so easily play ‘Chief Captures the Thief.’ It’s a titillating bedroom game . . .”
It was vain.
It was silly.
It was like being in high school and getting all dressed up, hoping that the boy you like sees you. You deliberately go to wherever he is and prance around.
I wanted to prance.
I crossed the street and knocked on Blake’s door. It was late, but he’d told me to come by any time for dinner after the shopping spree.
I smiled. I almost giggled.
I was wearing tight jeans, four-inch cheetah print heels, a purple, low-cut shirt with a cross-bodice, our best purple push-up bra, a turquoise-silver necklace and matching earrings, and beaded bracelets.
My curls were soft and tight, sort of that uncontrolled look that I’d had before, that I still felt belonged to me. I had on lipstick, liner, and mascara, so I didn’t look pale sick, like I had hepatitis or the plague. My dark brown, coffee-colored eyes looked happy.
Blake was speechless.
I smiled into those gray-blues, shut the door, walked into his arms, and pulled his head down to mine. He responded with fire and passion. How I love that man’s fire and passion.
“How hungry are you, Meggie?”
“Not hungry at all.”
“Good.”
He carried me to his bedroom in his arms, and it was two hours before we ate. He was absolutely stellar in bed. This did not surprise me. He also liked my push-up bra. I liked him liking my push-up bra. It had been designed by Tory. She privately called it her “Slut Line.” It’s actually called Satiny Seductions.
He liked my lacy purple panties, too. Those were also part of the “Slut Line.”
They came off quickly.
And later, “Meggie, I love you no matter how you look.”
“I love you, too, Blake. Kiss me again, would you?”
He would.
31
Ireland is a country that sings to your heart. County Cork, where Grandma, my mother, Tory, Lacey, the baby Victoria, and I were staying, is Irish magic. The beauty wraps itself around you like a hug. My mother kept telling me to look for leprechauns.
It’s a country of different shades of emerald green stretching to the ocean. It’s a country of Blarney Castle, glowing rainbows, soaring cliffs, craggy beaches, fog-touched mountains, and rivers that wander. It’s a country of colorful homes filled with the memories of generations of people long gone lining up on the water, church steeples that touch the sky, and villages that look like they were drawn from a picture book.
And, as Tory would say, the pubs aren’t bad at all. Grandma liked the cigars, loved the whiskey. She took a lot of naps after the whiskey.
On Friday, we set out for our destination. After getting directions, we drove down a long road that seemed to meander here and there, sheep on one side, then a meadow, then a white stone house, next a bay with sailboats, followed by stones in a circle.
We finally arrived at a small, well-tended cemetery.
For the first time in her life, Grandma put her hands out to my mother and me, and we helped her, her gait unsteady, tears streaming, as we headed to a corner of the graveyard. At one point she stopped and “patted the fairies” on her back, her face pale.
Her composure deserted her as she stood over the graves of her mother, her father, and her sister: Teagan, Lochlan, and Keela MacNamara. She dropped to her knees and touched the gravestones, her tears watering each gray slab, her body seeming to crumble before my eyes as she leaned over to kiss each one, her fingers caressing the names that had weathered with time.
“I’m coming home soon,” she whispered hoarsely to them, her Irish brogue thicker than I’d ever heard it. “I’m coming home.”
The evening we returned home from Ireland, we dropped Grandma off at her house. We walked in with her, unpacked her suitcases. My mother insisted on staying, but Grandma refused her company. “I saw the rainbow, the leprechaun, and the owl. Now I need to be alone, Brianna.”
Tory argued and said she would stay, but Grandma said, “I’ve had enough of our family’s company. Go get a martini.”
Lacey said she would stay but wouldn’t bother her at all. Grandma said, “With Victoria screaming, no, thank you.”
I said I wanted to stay. “I’ll be quiet, Grandma. No talking.”
“No, you won’t, you chatterbox. My ears need a rest.”
She reached out her arms and hugged each one of us, then opened up the traveling jewelry box she’d brought with her.
The longest strand of pearls she gave to my mother, who held her mother close, their cheeks together.
She gave Lacey, Tory, and me the other strands, all equal in length, placin
g them gently over our heads.
“I love you,” she told us. “Thank you for being a part of the Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club, and thank you for going to Ireland with me.”
We hugged her, told her we loved her.
Grandma died that night.
She was with Teagan, Lochlan, and Keela MacNamara and Cecil O’Rourke, The Irishman, once again.
Regan O’Rourke was home.
My grief for my grandma swept me off my feet, held me aloft in shock, then dropped me down to earth where the pain spread like I’d been hit by lightning.
She had had a heart attack. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
“You knew that Grandma was sick?” I asked my mother in disbelief at my grandma’s kitchen table the next afternoon, after the mortuary had taken her away. Lacey and Tory were there, too, also looking as if they’d been hit by lightning.
She nodded, lifting her glasses up and wiping her face with a white lace handkerchief she’d sewn herself. She had gone by Grandma’s to check on her and found her in her chair, a glass of whiskey spilled on the floor, her cigar in the ashtray.
“She told me about a month before the Ireland trip. She asked me not to tell anyone. She’s known for about a year.”
Known for about a year. That’s why she was so insistent that I come home....