When Irish Eyes Are Sparkling

by Tom Collins

  “Do they have two sets of lungs?” was Oliver’s first question. A thing that size is gonna need a lot of oxygen to keep its fire burning.” Quick on its heels came, “And what about the digestive track? Do they have two stomachs or what? I can’t imagine how you’d get enough calories through a human mouth. They’d have to eat nonstop.”

  “Ya know, most fantasy fans want to discuss their, er…reproductive bits,” I pointed out, which elicited an I-bet-they-do eye roll from Oliver. “I do take your point on a personal level, but I can’t let that matter on an artistic level. If someone wants a Centaur, I gotta give ‘em a Centaur and it’s gotta look realistic. The problem is how to make the bone and muscle of a human’s hips meld with a horse’s withers and shoulders.”

  He thought about that, a crease furrowed his brow as if he were taking it very seriously. That amazed me. I thought for sure he’d dismiss it as impossible and leave it at that.

  “Spine’s the trick,” he murmured. “Keeping the man part upright, yet merging into the horse at a spot where it logically can run.”

  “Yes!” By George, he got it! “Yes, that’s it exactly…” I dragged out my drawing pad. “The difficulty is the human torso interferes with the equine shoulder blades if set directly—” We discussed it with sketches for another forty-five minutes.

  The closer to six o’clock it got the more anxious I felt and the more ragged my pencil strokes became. I did my best to hide it by putting away the pencils and paper. Bren and Jill had helped me pick out an outfit; the white button down with the navy, checkerboard pinstripes and navy slacks is what we settled on as being the right sort of high-tone casual that would be right for meeting Oliver’s mother. We were standing outside Buon Mangia, waiting, when he spotted their car pulling into the parking lot.

  My heart leapt into my throat. I took his right hand with my left, weaving my fingers with his, and tried to keep the daisies from displaying the fact that I was shaking. I was surprised Oliver didn’t resist the public contact, but was too busy freaking to concern myself with why. This woman had the power to destroy our budding relationship with a single word. Whether she knew it or not, I did, and I was terrified she would think I wasn’t good enough for her son.

  They parked and got out. I swallowed. My throat was drier than British wit. She eyed me as they walked over, looking surprised. I wondered about that, but was scared to ask. Her husband was a surprise to me, an Asian man about her age. They were about the same short stature too. He wore a suit and tie with the tie loosened and without the jacket, lending him a more casual air, while she wore a knee-length skirt in a soft cream paired with a silky-looking blouse.

  She was a curvy, surprisingly fit looking woman of middle age, stepping briskly with her head held high. She had a heart-shaped face framed by bronze colored, shoulder-length hair burnished with copper highlights. Her large, frank eyes were a cool, but not cold, dove gray. The eye shadow and lipstick she wore, to my painter’s eye, weren’t quite right. They were too strong for her fair complexion.

  “Wow, your mom’s pretty,” I said in Oliver’s ear, giving him a quick nuzzle with the tip of my nose. He grinned with pride, his posture straightening up then he did a weird little double take and eyed me with suspicion. I looked back quizzically, not understanding what was going through his mind. He shook his head, as if to scatter unwanted thoughts and smiled again.

  “Thanks. I’ve always thought so too.”

  She lifted her arms for a hug as she approached Oliver and I let him have his hand back. Mister Impulse squeezed through the bars of his cage like a rat and the next thing I knew I was stepping up and catching his petite mother in a bear hug as her husband and Oliver shook hands. She gasped and stiffened in surprise.

  “I just wanted to thank you,” I whispered to her, “for loving him when no one else would, and for doing such a great job of raising him. You did a terrific job. He’s amazing, incredible, and owes that to you, I think.”

  She relaxed and patted my back as if to tell me it was all right, she understood what I was feeling, but said nothing. We broke apart and turned to see her husband and Oliver looking at me as if I’d grown a third head.

  “So, you would be…” Sandy said, glancing from me to Oliver.

  “Oh, sorry,” he jumped in, taking his cue. “Sandy, Dom, this is Liam O’Shaughnessy. Liam, this is my stepmother, Sandy, and her husband Dominic Kwak.”

  “O’Shaughnessy?” she asked, arching her brow in the exact same way Oliver was always doing to me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I confirmed, taking her offered right hand with my left and bowing over it in my most courtly gesture. “Just don’t ask how it’s spelled. I still get lost after the ‘G’,” I finished, presenting the flowers. All three of them laughed.

  She took the daisies with a thank you and a smile that began in her eyes and spread from there. I turned to her husband while she admired her gift. Dominic surprised me by offering his left hand for shaking rather than his right.

  “Sir, it’s an honor to meet both of you,” I said, and I meant it.

  “Dom, please, and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he returned.

  His smile was warm and his handshake was firm without being challenging. I was beginning to relax, as things seemed to be going well.

  “So, Kwak, eh? Too bad you’re not a doctor,” I laughed.

  “Actually, I do have a doctorate in engineering, but I don’t use my title for the obvious reason.”

  “No way!”

  “Way,” he insisted, making me laugh again.

  “I like this guy, Oliver.”

  “Shall we?” Oliver asked, indicating the door.

  “By all means,” I said, taking Sandy’s arm and draping it through mine to escort her inside. Lucia, the owner’s daughter and the hostess, greeted us and had to have a hug from me and we went through a fresh round of introductions and explanations of how my family and hers were connected through my Uncle Joel who’d helped them with legal troubles years ago. Lucia was surprised by Oliver, but took it in stride and seated us at a quiet table before taking our drink order.

  “What would you recommend as an appetizer?” Dom asked me.

  “My favorite is the seafood antipasto alla Venezia,” I replied.

  His brow furrowed as he scanned the menu. “I don’t see that here.”

  “No, you won’t. They make it by special request for certain people.” I gave him a cheeky grin and a wink. “It comes with shrimp, two kinds of mussels, two kinds of clams, calamari and lump lobster and crab meat drizzled with extra virgin Oliver oil,” Sandy gave a single, snorted laugh and I grinned across the table at her, “and fresh lemon.” I wondered if they could tell I’d eaten here a lot.

  “Sounds great to me,” Sandy said and that decided it for Oliver and Dominic.

  Chapter Seven

  *Oliver*

  The restaurant was perfect, and I couldn’t believe how well things were going. When we’d stood out in the parking lot, Liam had laced hands with me and I hadn’t even cared, I was so nervous. So was Liam, if his trembling, sweaty-palmed hand was any indication.

  Sandy and Dom had arrived, my step-mom being her usual beautiful self, and I was pleased Liam had thought so, even if I had experienced a moment of double take remembering that he was bi-sexual and might not be seeing her in a purely aesthetic light. A foolish notion on my part, but I’d been having a lot of them since meeting Liam. Between jealousy, ecstasy, insecurity and elation this relationship was going to drive me crazy.

  Liam’s impulsive embrace of Sandy nearly gave me a heart attack. Sandy wasn’t the sort to hug strangers, but Liam said something to her and she relaxed. She even gave him that soothing pat on the back I knew so well.

  And she liked the flowers.

  Things got better from there. Dom and Liam hit it off immediately. I’d known the man for two years, he was married to my step-mom, and I still didn’t have that kind of easy rapport with him. Liam hadn’t told me he was frien
ds with the restaurant’s owners, but I was hardly surprised. I did feel guilty when he began to recommend menu items as if he were our waiter instead of our guest. But then he wrangled us a special seafood antipasto that had me in heaven.

  After that, I relaxed. I didn’t even mind him joking with Sandy at my expense.

  We moved onto the main course, with Dom taking Liam’s recommendation on the veal parmesan and Sandy going for the lighter chicken piccata. Liam ordered spaghetti and meatballs, and I got the linguini with clam sauce. With complimentary garlic bread it was quite a feast. Liam was on good behavior, perhaps because I’d placed him between Sandy and Dom, keeping him out of reach of me.

  Now and then I felt the toe of his shoe nudging mine. There was no stopping him.

  He entertained us with stories about his family, the pub and his studies. I had some selfish hope that he’d go on for the rest of the night, but I should have known he wasn’t going to let me off the hook.

  “So,” he said conspiratorially to Sandy even as he twirled and twirled his fork in spaghetti, “I’ve been wanting to know, and I think you’re the one to ask.” He glanced over at me and I saw a twinkle in his eyes. “What’s with the Lone Ranger? Oliver and the character I mean.”

  Crap. I cringed. Well, it wasn’t that embarrassing a story.

  “Ah.” Sandy smiled indulgently. “That was before my time, but I know the tale. And I have a feeling Oliver would rather I tell it. Wouldn’t you?”

  I blushed and glanced away. Dom chuckled sympathetically. Sandy, very mom like, enjoyed telling cute, boyhood stories about me, and Dom had certainly heard this one before.

  She leaned in. “Oliver’s mother liked to frequent garage sales,” she started, and though she stated it as a fact I could hear the contempt in her voice. I knew I probably shouldn’t, but I’d always excused my mother’s behavior toward me.

  “You and your father ruined my life,” my mom told me before she climbed into her truck and drove away forever. Knowing my father, I’d believed her and, at age eight, figured if she was right about my dad, she must be right about me. Maybe she would have been a better, happier person without us. So I forgave her in a way I’d never been able to forgive my dad.

  Sandy had not forgiven her.

  “She was one of those impulse buyers,” Sandy went on, “but on a tight budget. One day she and Oliver were doing the rounds at garage sales. He was about four at the time, yes?”

  “Five,” I corrected.

  “They found a very large sale going on, and while his mother roamed about searching for treasures, Oliver stayed where he’d been told to stay, by the old man at the table with the cash box. That’s when he saw this comic book. The old man asked if Oliver would like to see it.” Sandy sipped at her glass of white wine. “It was a Lone Ranger comic book.”

  “Really?” Liam stopped stuffing himself with spaghetti and perked.

  “The man started reading it to Oliver,” Sandy went on, “and they were about half way through when Oliver’s mom came up, arms full of junk—er, stuff. She haggled and paid. Oliver asked for the comic book.”

  Sandy’s lips pursed. She didn’t even bother to hide her disgust this time. “His mother said she wasn’t going to buy him any worthless garbage.”

  Liam stopped eating and frowned down at his food.

  “The old gent put everything into a bag. When they got home, Oliver’s mom put the bag down on the kitchen table, and that’s when Oliver saw the comic book poking out.” Sandy smiled.

  Liam grinned with delight. “Sweet.”

  “Here’s the best part. Not only had the man given Oliver the comic book, but he’d also tucked in a cassette tape of Lone Ranger radio shows.”

  “Wow.” Liam’s eyes were sparkling again, and looking at me in a way that made me feel shy as a schoolgirl.

  “Oliver’s father gave him his ancient tape player and Oliver listened to the radio shows while flipping through the comic book.”

  Best way to drown out my parents screaming arguments, I mused.

  “That’s how it always goes,” Dom piped in. “Somewhere around that age children always seem to find their first and most important idols.”

  “How old was it…the book?” Liam asked eagerly. Sandy blinked and so did I. No one had ever asked us that.

  “All I remember was that the price was ten cents,” I said. “I don’t think it was worth anything. Which I guess is fortunate as it was lost by the time I was seven.” I said that, but I had my suspicions on what had really happened to it. Likely, my dad had taken it to a comic book store and tried to sell it. Either it was worth something and he’d made some money, or it wasn’t and he’d tossed it out.

  That was my dear old dad, through and through.

  “Ten cents,” Liam echoed dreamily. “Probably early to mid-sixties, making the artist Tom Gill.”

  I think my jaw hit the table. “How did you know?” Even as I said this the comic’s title page flashed to mind, with that last name on it: Gill.

  Liam shrugged as if this were nothing. “Geeky parents. My brother, sister and I were hauled to conventions while we were still in the stroller, and no, I’m not showing you pictures of how my incredibly nerdy mom decorated those strollers or the costumes she put us in either. Let’s just say that one of us was made up as a baby dragon half hatched and it scarred us for life. Anyway—”

  He drew in a breath. “The minute I got into art, I started going to panels on fantasy and comic art and picking up all this useless trivia about artists. Tom Gill was a famous western artist who drew the Lone Ranger from the late fifties ‘til 1970. At a guess I probably heard that on a panel about drawing horses. I can’t tell you who wrote those comics, but I never forget an artist.”

  I think I gawked at him, lost in a sudden and bizarre wish to have known him when he was a kid. To have joined him at those conventions, maybe read comic books with him. What a difference it would have made to me to have had a friend like him, someone who might have enjoyed listening with me to those Lone Ranger radio shows.

  All the kids I’d played with had always wanted to be soldiers or jungle animals. I learned very quickly not to mention the Lone Ranger, as everyone laughed and made fun of me when I did.

  “Speaking of which…” Sandy said with a mock put-upon expression, “There’s a whole corner of my garage with your Lone Ranger stuff.”

  “Stuff?” Liam echoed.

  “Pictures, toys, DVDs.”

  “I told you, Mom,” I mock whined, it was an old game of ours that had started in my early teens. Sandy had asked me why I never whined like other teens and laughing, complained that she felt cheated. I’d told her she needed to nag me like other parents. So we’d started jokingly nagging and whining. “I’ve a tiny apartment. If the ambulance service decides to keep me once I’ve my paramedic’s license, I’ll get a bigger place, promise. And take all that stuff off your hands.”

  “I suppose it’s a good thing I got you something incredibly small for your birthday then,” she said.

  “Birthday?” Liam stiffened and glared at me. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday!”

  “It’s not,” I protested. “My birthday was June twenty-third. That was two days before our first date, so it’s not like I could’ve told you then. We hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers.”

  “And whose fault was that?” he demanded righteously.

  “I’m betting it was Oliver’s,” Sandy smirked. “But don’t worry, Liam. You didn’t miss anything. We’re celebrating it tonight.”

  “Good! So how old is the birthday boy?”

  “Twenty-two going on forty,” Sandy said, another inside joke, and pushed a box toward me. Liam snorted, nodded and rolled his eyes, indicating he knew exactly what she meant. “Happy belated.” It wasn’t wrapped. Sandy considered paper and ribbons wasteful and pointless, though she did give into the need for such at Christmas when gifts were laid out under the tree.

  The minute I saw the box I
knew what was in it. It was a tin with an old drawing of the Lone Ranger on his rearing horse. “Oh, my God—” I murmured, opening it. There was the watch, an image of the Lone Ranger on its face similar to the one in my painting. Racing across the desert.

  The watch had come out as a collector’s item five years ago, and I’d wanted it from the moment I heard about it. I’d never had the time or money to get it. It wasn’t cheap. “Mom—” I shook my head.

  “From Dom and I,” she insisted, and said, “check the back.”

  She’d had it engraved. Liam leaned in as I put it near the table’s candle. The inscription read: “Everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.”

  “Whoa,” Liam said. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t laugh,” I said, “It’s part of the Lone Ranger’s creed. My favorite line.”

  “My parents used to quote us kids words of wisdom from Star Trek and Star Wars,” Liam said deadpan. “If it’s worth knowing, it’s worth knowing; doesn’t matter if the source is Confucius or Bugs Bunny.”

  We hadn’t much room for dessert, and so it was decided that we should all just share the tiramisu for two. Liam made a break for the restroom, and he must have tipped off the owners on his way back, as, sure enough, when the tiramisu arrived there was a candle in it. Everyone in range sang happy birthday to me. I blushed and grinned and blew out the candle, making a wish unlike any other I’ve made before.

  Please, let me keep Liam.

  Dom paid, insisting it was his treat, and we left the restaurant full and happy. The night was warm, and dark. We must have lingered over our meal for a good three hours.

  I hugged Sandy good-bye as we reached the car. “He’s a keeper,” she whispered in my ear. That was all. Short and sweet, and I held her the tighter for that. She had to know I was hoping for her blessings.