Summer at Castle Stone

by Lynn Marie Hulsman

  “I know you’ll love this book.” I pleaded. “It’s you, inside-out and backwards. I wrote it for you.” Panic rose in my throat. I could see I wasn’t reaching him. “Tom? It’s the kind of book I know you’ve always wanted.”

  His eyes went cold. “You don’t know what I want. You don’t know me at all. You and Brenda Sackler and the whole lot of you can go stuff yourselves.”

  “Can I just show you the book?” I pleaded. “I did it for you!”

  “Shut up!” he roared. “You did it for yourself, and I was a fool to trust you. Lesson learned. Again.”

  He looked up at the sky, mouth a thin line, and scrunched his eyes shut. “Jesus Christ,” he swore under his breath. He opened his eyes again and looked straight at me. “Leave this property.”

  He turned away from me and started walking. “I never want to see you again. End of.” He kept on walking into the darkness until he reached his entrance. I watched the back of his dark-blonde head disappear. Without warning, my mouth filled with vomit. I ran to the bushes at the castle wall and heaved until there was nothing left inside me.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

  The elevator doors opened onto the floor for Global-Lion literary, and I made my way to reception. “Shayla Sheridan here to see Brenda Sackler. I don’t have an appointment.”

  “Please take a seat.”

  I was only too happy to. After three days back, I still felt foggy and exhausted from jet lag. Or maybe it was a hangover from my break-up with Tom. I pushed the thought aside. This was going to be hard enough to get through, without my crying on top of it. As usual, it was freezing in the building. I wished I had a giant extra-hot misto from the Starbucks in the lobby, but girls who’d just humiliated themselves by borrowing five grand off their dads didn’t deserve to blow that much on a coffee. At least I had a job, sort of. A pair of snowbirds – old people who summered in the Northeast but spent the cold winters in Florida – in Hank’s building needed someone to housesit. It worked out nicely for me. Not only did I now not have to live with Maggie and Eric, or God forbid Hank, I’d get a small stipend for bringing in the mail and doing light cleaning.

  I pulled my old Adirondack jacket out of my plastic carrier bag and slipped it on. I knew it looked sad and unfashionable, but couldn’t be bothered to care. Underneath it was Monica’s pashmina, poised to be reunited with its coat rack.

  “Brenda said she can fit you in. You can go back.”

  I pushed through the glass doors and walked the familiar expanse of industrial carpet to Brenda’s desk. She was on the phone and she held up a finger to indicate that I shouldn’t speak. I sat in Monica’s chair.

  “No,” Brenda said into the phone. “No, absolutely not.” I could tell that Brenda was paying no attention to me whatsoever, so I started rifling through my bag, trying to get to her pashmina. Trying not to make noise, I pulled out a brown-sack lunch. I couldn’t afford to get caught on the streets of New York hungry. I set that on the corner of Monica’s desk, along with two library books, a bottle of water, and my journal. My formerly dazzling journal had endured a rough journey. Covered in dirt, coffee spills, and tiny rips it was now conjoined with a second kitten-printed volume I’d been forced to pick up in the newsagent’s in Ballykelty. Eyeballing Brenda, I visualized pulling out the pashmina and slapping it up on the coat rack. The time wasn’t right. I pulled it back under the chair with the heel of my shoe.

  “I can’t go any lower than that. At this point, you are insulting me and my client. No. I said no.”

  I had to pee. I tried to catch Brenda’s attention, just to mime that I was going. She refused to look at me. She must have thought I was going to complain about waiting. I didn’t mind a bit. I was in no hurry to tell her I’d failed on the book deal.

  It took forever to get the key from reception, walk down the endless hall to the ladies’ and then to wait because there was a huge gaggle of interns gathered around one of their sobbing own. The poor girl had forgotten to messenger a contract. Whether she’d be fired remained unclear. I did not miss days like that at HPC. I managed to press myself into an empty stall, do my thing, and wash up without getting involved.

  A few minutes later I slipped myself back into the chair next to Brenda’s desk. She didn’t look at me. For once, she didn’t have the phone glued to her ear. She had my journal in her hand.

  “Oh, hey, Brenda. Give me those.” I swiped for the journals. She dodged me.

  “The Irish cookbook’s been pushed back, by the way. Pub date was meant to be June, a year from now. Now it’s St. Patrick’s Day, the following calendar year.” Brenda barked out a laugh. “They think it’s their idea. Want to know how I got so rich? I’m a genius, that’s how.”

  “Brenda, I came here to tell you that Tom O’Grady will never sign off. There’s not going to be a book.” I reached out to take my journal from her hand, and once again she pulled it out of my reach. “I failed.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, flipping pages. She pulled out my handwritten letter explaining to Tom. “I’ve been down this road before.”

  “You told me before I left not to count on this book deal going through!”

  “Made you hungry, didn’t it?”

  “I’m telling you that Tom O’Grady will never let this book happen.”

  “Did you write it?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Send me what you’ve got and forget about it. Meanwhile, you want a book deal? I want this book.”

  “That’s not a book, it’s my journal.” I tried to snatch it, and Brenda literally stood up to avoid me.

  “I still haven’t figured out where you were going with How to Be an Adult in the City nonsense you trotted in here last winter, but this is fresh. You are the opposite of cool. You’re the anti-Carrie Bradshaw.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I pulled my Adirondack jacket a little more tightly around myself.

  “Could you whip this into a book? Fast?”

  “I guess I could, but I don’t want to.”

  “Sure you do. I’m assuming you took lots of pictures. You with goats, people on picnics, etcetera. It could be something like, The City Girl and the Irish Chef, but better? Do it anonymously if you have to. Call him the Farmer and call yourself the Student, or whatever. I happen to know Vera over at Piccadilly Publications is dying for non-fiction that reads like a novel. I also happen to know Pam Dowling had a young woman’s memoir fall through, and now she has a hole in her schedule. Hold on to your hat, Shayla. If we sell this as digital-first, this could all happen faster than you can imagine.”

  “I never said I’d do it.”

  “You should. This is good writing, kid.”

  “Really?” I didn’t think there was much left in me that was good.

  “Really. Reads like a dream.”

  I let that sit there for a second. Brenda saw a chance for the kill and swooped in. “Are you a real writer, or not?”

  When I didn’t answer, she pushed on. “I think I can sell the hell out of this. Now, unless you want to write The Dumbass Guide to Shingling Your Roof, I suggest go home and get to work on this.”

  The conversation was over. I stood to leave and stepped on my plastic bag. I picked it up, pulled out the pashmina, and handed it to Brenda. “Here’s Monica’s shawl.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “I stole it.”

  “Huh. That’s rich. I can’t figure you out, Shayla. What kind of a girl are you?” she asked.

  “That is a good question.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It’s better to be sorry and stay, than to be sorry and go away.

  I awoke that night at 2 a.m. I hadn’t slept more than four consecutive hours since the plane landed in Newark and Hank’s car had chauffeured us into the city. I was starting to think something was wrong with me. Matty must have said a dozen times that he thought I should be on Ativan or Klonop
in. Maybe he was right. Even when I managed to fall into a blank, black sleep, I awoke with my pulse racing and my heart skipping beats. Tom O’Grady had cast me out. I’d never see him again. It was the same feeling as when mom had died.

  Maggie had left me about five messages. I kept meaning to call her back, I never found the time. I should have called her by now. Between writing my proposal and changing my old blog over to the new one, I barely raised my eyes from the computer. Also, I found it hard to talk to her right now. I found it hard to talk to anyone in the city right now. No one understood that the rattle of the subway added to my anxiety about my failure. I couldn’t explain that the huge crowds of people overwhelmed me because I inadvertently scanned all the faces for Tom’s. I wanted to talk about the weather. I wanted to hear what people were cooking for dinner. No one I knew in the city cooked.

  My very rough draft of Tom’s book was off my desk. Out of sight, out of mind. I’d sent it to Brenda almost the minute I had walked into Fred and Irma’s apartment after the meeting. Handing it over felt like ridding myself of a problem. It was in Brenda’s hands now; I didn’t have to feel bad about it or dwell on it. If I could forget about it, maybe I could forget that last look on Tom’s face when he said he never wanted to see me again.

  Working on my memoir — if that’s what we were calling it — on the other hand, soothed me. I could tell the truth. No one had to know who I was. I still wouldn’t have my name on the cover of a book, but I could tell my story. In my story I was the girl Tom O’Grady had chosen. In my story I was Sheila from Castle Stone. I had become a ghost writer for my real self.

  If I didn’t need groceries, I would never have gotten out of my chair. My mind and spirit were still in Ireland, even if my body sat in the sprawling kitchen of a pre-war apartment on the Upper West Side.

  The only time I could breathe properly was when I flipped through all the photos I’d taken in Ireland. Pictures of Tony in his dressing gown, posing like he was sitting for a portrait. The girls at the hostess stand, all dolled up for the night. The first blossoms on the trees, the animals and their sweet faces.

  I had photos of most of the dishes for which I’d gathered recipes. I’d taken pictures for the proposal, and so I could eventually show them to the photographer as mock-ups. They weren’t good enough for a hard-cover cookbook, but they were certainly good enough for a blog. I lost myself in posting images of mince pies, and Barm Brack and spiced beef, and writing rhapsodic love letters to their flavors and textures.

  The corner by the kitchen table became my nerve center. I taped up the sketch of my hair after it had been cut and colored in Ballykelty. I taped up brochures I’d picked up at the tourist’s office with maps of the counties printed in shades of green ink. I taped up pressed flowers I’d taken from weddings at the church, and menus from the restaurants. I sat there drinking cups of tea, content to be surrounded by my souvenirs.

  I took license with the blog. Brenda planted a seed by saying my words read like fiction. In a way, this story was my fairytale. It was my truth, and if I didn’t stick cleanly to the facts, well, hey. Wasn’t that the way of the Irish storyteller?

  I didn’t know how I would end it, but then again, I’d never been in control. The whole thing had started against my will. As reporter, scribe, and poet, I strove to simply put words on pages without editing myself.

  In Love with an Irish Farmer

  American City Girl meets Irish Country Man

  My home page featured a photo of me, dressed in the wellies and coveralls Maeve had given me, obscuring my face by holding up one of the hens. My introduction reads:

  Hi, I’m Sheila. That’s me and a Bluebell hen on a certain farm in Ireland. I hope you enjoy my diary. It’s essentially bits and bobs about replacing my former identity as a downtrodden, harassed, New York City office worker with a new one: A pseudo-Irish country girl who gardens, tends animals, cooks, and actually draws deep breaths. Being in love makes everything better.

  As I lined up post after post, to be launched once daily, I always included images. I’d taken so many photos of things like the giant locks and skeleton keys from the castle, and the sweet faces of the horses and donkeys, and the church doorway. I had stacks of hand-drawn pictures of the Irish coastline, the village of Ballykelty, stone fences, and wooden wagons courtesy of my artist friend. If there was to be no book, why not use them for my blog?

  For over three weeks, I poured my heart into blog posts and whipping my journal into readable shape. I saw no one, other than the doormen and the counter people at Trader Joe’s, where I got my groceries, and at the pet store. I avoided Hank, even though he was in the same building. He asked me down for a drink a few times, but I declined. I wanted to be alone with Castle Stone.

  To be fair, I wasn’t entirely alone. My blog began to pick up traction and followers started interacting. It started simple, with reactions like, “Gorgeous photo of homemade Irish cheeses,” and my saying a simple thank you. I never told my loyal readers that I was back in New York. I’d have to eventually, I knew. I liked the idea of still being in Ireland.

  Lots of Irish-identified Americans and ex-pats followed and posted their two cents about the way things were done on their grandparents’ farms. My biggest group of followers became single girls, though. “Why don’t you marry him?” they asked me. “Because he didn’t ask,” I’d tell them. This spurred essay after essay about what real love is and how not to lose it.

  Readers asked me to give tips on how not to screw up a good thing once they’d found it. Girls began posting pictures of their men who had gotten away. I added a separate section for that: Lost Loves. I encouraged girls to tell the stories in 300 words or less. They asked me to rate my daily pain on a scale of 1 to 10. I added a bar graph. One follower called me “her favorite loser,” and the moniker stuck. This grew into an agony aunt Q&A page entitled “Dear Loser.” Other bloggers began blogging about me and linking to my blog.

  All the while, I’d carefully gone over my journal, line by line and turned it into a piece of epistolary literary non-fiction, and written a forty-page proposal to pitch it. I finally handed the proposal over to Brenda, who’d called me twice daily since our meeting to tell me to hurry up. I relaxed into the blissful feeling that it was out of my hands. But with that done, I couldn’t ignore the question: what next? I had to admit, I’d been using the blog to distract myself from the fact that the five grand Hank had lent me wouldn’t last forever. Sick to my toes, at Maggie’s urging, I updated my office resume. Eventually, I’d send it out to the usual suspects in publishing. Eventually.

  “You have to get back on the horse sometime,” she told me. I didn’t know what I would hate worse: getting job interviews or not getting them.

  I was already in my pajamas when I heard a knock on the door. I looked at the clock. It was nearly 10 p.m. It was strange to have someone knock directly on my door. People in New York called to tell you they were coming. They didn’t drop by. I missed that about Castle Stone. There, if you wanted to talk to someone, you walked around the grounds until you found them. In this building, anyone from outside had to buzz for permission to come up. Figuring it must be the super about the leaky sink, I twisted the knob.

  “Outta the way,” Maggie said, pushing through. “You don’t even get a chance to pretend you’re not here.” She barged through to the kitchen and deposited a large pizza box onto the table. Opening the fridge door, she shoved in two bottles of white wine.

  “Where’s the corkscrew?” I pointed to the drawer. She opened the bottle and flung open cabinet doors until she found wineglasses and plates, poured us each a drink and sat down.

  “So, you wanna know what I think?” She pulled a gooey slice off of the pie, plated it and scooted it across the table toward me.

  I took a huge bite of the spinach and garlic pizza. It was my favorite and Maggie knew it. She was buttering me up. I nodded.

  “I think you should just admit who you are. Put your name on all
of this.”

  I choked on my slice and glugged down half a glass of wine to stop my coughing. “Don’t be an idiot, Mags. For one thing, I don’t really want the whole world knowing I’m a big fat loser.”

  “You’re not a loser. Do you think you’re the first girl to get her heart broken?”

  “It’s not just that. People will know I lied about everything.”

  “Yeah, they’ll know you’re a human being. You made a choice, you regret it…next!”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Mags. You have a book deal, a trophy boyfriend, you always look like a million bucks. No one is judging you.”

  “You’re wrong, there. I never lie about where I came from. People judge me all the time. How did that low-rent mick from Jersey bag that hot, rich dude? Who does she think she is, wearing Chanel? It’s what makes me interesting.”

  “But the thing is…you don’t have far to fall, you see? It’s different with me.”

  “Because Hank’s famous? You’re the one who said you want to be out from under that shadow. Here’s a chance to have your own story: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Give people a chance to love you for it. Or give them a chance to hate you. That could happen, too.”

  “That sounds enticing.”

  “Better than having people ignore you.” She bit into her slice. Her words cut me to the quick. No one from Castle Stone had contacted me since I left.

  “Anyway, I flat-out can’t. It would out Tom.”

  “Out Tom as what? The object of your desire? So what? He’s a player in your story. It’s no reflection on him.”

  “I just have a gut feeling that he wouldn’t like it.”

  “Then maybe he shouldn’t have sent you packing in such a harsh way.”

  “I’m not looking for revenge.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is that he’s not in charge of the way the world sees you. Your life, your story.” Maggie put our plates in the sink and slid the pizza box into the fridge.