Jamie then regaled him with the tale of how their mother Glenda, who had moved to San Francisco the year before with a married man she worked with, left silence on the phone line. And added, "Well, that's disappointing."
And Jamie had answered, "My best to your married boyfriend.”
So Sarah walked out one afternoon when Jamie was at work and moved back to Boston. And Jamie felt her world collapse into a tiny nothing.
To lift her spirits, her older sister Christy would take the train into the city from Rye to keep her company. And they would go to The Dojo on St. Marks and eat Swiss Soy Burgers and that salad with the amazing Tahini sauce. Then they’d traipse through the farmer’s market in Union Square.
Christy wasn’t good with emotions or words or feelings but she was good at showing up. She was a few years older than Jamie so 28 to Jamie’s 25 at the time.
“Look. You’re gonna be fine,” Christy announced bossily as they made their way through the Sunday farmer’s market in Union Square. Jamie's heart aching with Sarah’s recent departure.
“Thanks,” Jamie said.
“You know what your thing is, Jamie? You love too hard.”
“Ah,” Jamie said. “Love advice from the girl who broke up with her high school sweetheart because he started wearing bellbottoms.”
“Hahaha….” Christy chuckled. “Yeah, that was harsh.”
“I don’t think I do.”
Christy laughed a big bellows of a laugh. “Oh, come on… We all know. You love too hard. Remember Bosco?”
“Oh God…Don’t--”
“That little brown stuffed dog? You carried that thing everywhere. And when you were seven, that kid Scotty who lived behind us with the weirdo family plucked Bosco right out of your hands when you were watching some kids play kickball and tossed him up a tree. And said if you told anyone he would kill the thing, which was weird cause you know… it was a stuffed dog. And you didn’t tell Mom or Dad and the next day I came by and saw you sitting under that tree crying like someone had died. So I got a ladder from the Chisholm’s house and got Bosco and then told Dougie what happened. And like all good 14-year-old brothers, he went and found that weirdo Scotty at the playground by the Little League and punched him in the face. Then shoved him onto the merry go round and spun it around, so the kid was spinning around and Dougie kicked him in the ghoulies every time it went by.”
“You two had quite the system.”
“The point is, you can’t be the sensitive one. The sensitive one always dies in the movies. Didn't you see Papillon?”
Jamie squinted into the late afternoon sun. “Okay, thanks.”
She looked around Union Square - at the stalls and the brightly colored vegetable, and the New Yorkers picking up and squeezing fruit.
“Christy, why are we in the farmer’s market? I never turn my stove on.”
But Christy wasn’t finished her helpful lecture. “And like, remember when Dad left?”
“How many of these stories do you have?”
“Probably more than seven…”
“Great.”
“Remember what you did? When Dad left?”
“Yes. I - ”
“Asshole packs a bag and announces he’s got a new family and walks right out the fucking door one Saturday afternoon and what did you do? Dougie gave him the finger. I wouldn’t look at him. Mommy threw a frying pan at him. And what did you do?”
“Let’s not - ”
“You chased after the car.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Chased after the car. Little girl running after a Dodge Dart down Leewood Drive and halfway to downtown Rye. He drove away and you chased after the car. And not for a block. You ran for like half a mile. And Dougie had to go find you and double you back on his bike cause you couldn’t even walk you’d run so hard.”
Jamie gazed across Union Square West and watched an old lady examine a pomegranate suspiciously at a stall.
“Thank you for this trip down memory lane.”
“… You know what I’m saying.”
“I love too hard.”
“Way too hard.”
“So I’m not supposed to love then.”
“SO HARD.”
“I CAN’T FUCKING HELP IT!”
So that’s how the pep talk would go. Christy and Jamie.
Then up they would walk up to Grand Central and, just like when they were kids, buy a Milky Way bar at the newsstand in the center of the Vanderbilt room.
And then Christy would catch the 5:15 back to Rye and her husband Gord and their two kids and a different life. And goodbye was a stiff hug and a literal pat on the back. It didn’t look like love and support, but it sure felt like it.
Sarah broke Jamie’s heart into a thousand mismatched pieces. And even worse, the heart she broke was never Jamie’s heart before she met Sarah. She built it, she owned it, then she shattered it
So when Jamie finally kissed someone again that two days before Christmas snowy night on Christopher Street. When the world opened up as its most beautiful, everything seemed possible.
Until a car and a muffler and a baseball bat changed everything.
Jamie glanced down at her notebook. Don’t think about that night.
She shoved the memory away and wrote in her notebook instead.
“Art. The people who love art. Tell interweaving interconnecting stories of the people who work in this gallery.”
“Research life in Florence, get actual street names. Get a map from the library or maybe we have one at the bookstore somewhere. Map of Florence.”
“Celia…. The new director of this newly created museum, everything she lost in her life when she left. An American transplanted. Having to live her life in this new place. Love. She should be in love with someone? Or fall in love with someone? A fellow curator? A difficult Italian artist lady?”
Jamie glanced up from her writing. She watched a young couple in matching denim jumpsuits holding hands in front of a Vermeer.
Sometimes the weirdest things make you feel crushingly alone.
She flipped the page of her notebook and found the phone number she’d written down. From the note left on the counter upstairs at the bookstore: “Call me if you wanna do somethin’ - Bridget.”
Jamie thought of her life.
Insomnia, panic attacks, nightmares…
And how to go on?
That stupid therapist had said it. “Jamie, what you need is what you most fear - connection.”
What’d she know? The woman had a well-worn copy of The Thorn Birds on her desk.
But something had to change. Jamie knew it.
Ten minutes later, Jamie sat in the phone booth just next to the gift shop. It smelled like wood panelling and old, minty gum.
She let her fingers dial the number Bridget had written down for her. Her heart started pounding.
“Don’t be home… Don’t be home…”
A cheerful Irish old lady answered.
“Oh - hi,” Jamie said. “May I speak to Bridget please?”
“Aye,” she said brightly. “Bridget’s not home at the moment. Who’s this then?”
“Uh - Jamie. A friend.”
“She’s uptown at the place with the hobos.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Would ya like ta leave a message, love?”
Jamie paused. This was her chance to chicken out. Don’t make a plan. Just let it go. This was stupid. Don’t open up to her. Don’t let Bridget in.
If she let someone into her life, she could get hurt.
Maybe she could just hang up and life wouldn’t have to change.
But then again… life wouldn’t change.
Jamie closed her eyes and breathed into this loneliness inside her that she couldn’t bear anymore.
“If you could just tell her… I’ll meet her tonight at the Blue and Gold on St. Marks at 8 pm, if she’s up for it.”
The Irish woman chuckled. “Alrighty, lass I’ll let her kno
w.”
“Thanks.”
Jamie placed the receiver back in the cradle. The sound of her dime ching-chinged in the phone somewhere. She slid the phone booth door open.
Her heart was racing.
In a land of Son of Sam and sleepless nights - everything staying just as it is was the only comfort she had.
But that kiss… Bridget’s hands on her body. More of that might just make everything better.
19
Bridget Dwyer stared at the homeless guy with the leaf in his fro.
"What I'm sayin', my friend, is all we got today is chili."
"I don' want chili!"
She paused, letting the ladle sink into the chili like a disappointment.
"And I don' want England to beat Ireland in the World Cup but we get what we get."
She looked across the church hall on 33rd Street. Sitting at one of the tables, a well dressed black lady with two little kids. The kids were sitting like they were in the fanciest restaurant in town. Napkins on laps, best behavior. Sweet kids. Bridget had seen the lady here before - she and the mom got on great. Her name was Celeste and she worked down the street at Gimbel's, ladies shoes. Beautiful lady. Proud. Kind. Made her miss her own ma. Bridget got the feeling it was husband taking her money and spending it on booze problems. Back in Belfast that was every second family down any street.
Bridget came here every Thursday afternoon to serve some people for an hour, then head back to work unloading boxes and moving books at the bookstore. Maybe today she would pop into the church upstairs and light a candle, say a prayer.
And like usual, she’d stare at the confessional. And not go in. Then walk up front and slide into a pew. And silently tell Jesus what she had done, expecting no forgiveness. And receiving none in return.
85 more good things might lighten her soul.
20
“You want the fuckin’ gun or not?”
So far for Tommy Hill, New York City had been one pushy fuckin idjit after another, not like Belfast. Or London. Or fuckin’ anywhere.
“Gimme a second to think, fella,” Tommy Hill snapped.
Tommy Hill looked around the back room of this deli on 113th Street. All they sold out front was old stuff like dusty cans of Campbell’s soup that no one bought. He eyed the guy with the knife scar on his face and the one eye that went sideways and the gold tooth in the front.
He felt the weight of the little, fat, cold .38 in his hand
“Yah, I think so - but I dunno - this one - yer tellin’ me it’s too hot.”
“I’m sayin’ a guy used it for a job in New Jersey. I’m sayin’ it’s not hot as long as you don’t get caught.”
“I asked for a .45?”
The thing about this shite little .38 - one of these crap American Saturday Night Specials he knew, was that they were fuckin’ unpredictable. Blasting when you didn’t mean to shoot and jamming when you pulled the trigger in a guy’s face.
“Look, man -” the guy said, “All Freddy tells me is you need a piece - didn’t say you’d be fuckin’ window shoppin’ and comparin’ product. It’s a .38. With five good bullets. You need fuckin’ one to make a hit. Two more to seal the deal. You want it or you wanna fuck off back to Ireland and I can find someone else to fuckin’ take it.”
Tomy wanted to punch the guy.
“How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
The truth was this was the only lead Tommy had.
“Yeah alright - I’ll take it.”
He slipped the guy a fifty.
Tommy shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans. He pulled his t-shirt over it, slipped his knapsack over his shoulder and headed out through the not-a-real-deli onto 113th street to the subway.
Time enough to hit all the Irish bars. He’d find her. Never was a Belfast man or woman went to a new city and didn’t hit a pub. The picture he’d gotten from the Provies was a couple years ago but it was her.
He brought her in in the first place. “Tommy I want to make them pay for what they did to Billy…”
So it’d been his fault she was there. Then the timer busted and the bomb went off early. Three people died. Bridget O’Shaughnessy, who wanted to be a nurse and worked at the news agent on Milloy Road, pretty fast stopped being a badass. Fuckin’ guilt or whatever. And grassed on them all in an untraceable phone call from a pay phone.
Now seventeen of their guys were in Prison awaiting a trail that won’t come for two years.
She came to two meetings and knew too much.
Like she was so innocent.
He would find her.
21
“So you’re tellin’ me you never tried a chip buddy?”
“Depends - what is it?”
Jamie had a swig of her second bottle of Budweiser, sitting across from Bridget in a window booth at the Blue and Gold on St. Mark’s on this Friday night.
They’d been there an hour and so far it was a lot of laughing and a lot of fun.
Bridget leaned forward and talked with her hands. She was on her second pint of Guinness.
“Okay, bolt yerself in, ” Bridget said. “Ya take yer piece a white bread.”
“I’m with you so far. This I can cook.”
“Ach, yer hopeless. Butter it? Can ya do that?”
Jamie sputtered an unexpected laugh. She raised an eyebrow, talked loudly over the bustling Blue and Gold and the music blaring from the jukebox. “Yeah, I can manage that.”
“Then ya carefully place yer chips on it with all the love ya can muster.”
“And - that’s it?”
Bridget scowled. “No, that’s not it! That’s open face. Who’d eat that? The Queen and Prince Philip? Get out the doilies. No. So you’ve got yer chips - ”
“Wait - Chips. You mean french fries.”
“Lord Alfuckinmighty. Christ. Yah. French fuckin’ fries.”
“Because chips are potato chips over here. Just wanna be clear.”
“Fine - yer french fries,” Bridget scowled. “Ya take that, take the other piece a bread ON TOP – and ya close the sandwich. Done. Chip buddy.”
“Ah. Fries on buttered bread. Sounds like heaven.”
Bridget let a smile curl across her lips. “Oh, it’s fuckin’ heaven alright, Jamie Brennan.”
The way Bridget’s eyes were gazing into hers, suddenly made Jamie feel uncomfortable. Awkward. Shy. Stupid. This was the first time she’d been out with anyone who wasn’t her friend Lynette in two years.
Jamie tilted her bottle of beer to her lips and glanced across the bar. The place was filled with Friday night energy. Aerosmith blaring out the guitar riff of Walk This Way on the jukebox. The clatter and yell of random N.Y.U college kids at overflowing tables with overflowing ashtrays. Single straggler guys at the bar with beers and a drunk middle-aged lady making eyes at the hunky bartender.
“So, Jamie…”
Bridget was leaning back in the booth, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Bridget…”
Jamie heard a guy’s voice next to their booth.
“Hi there…”
She looked up. Two drunk looking N.Y.U boys were standing next to their table with come-hither eyes. A taller smarmy blond one who looked like Hubbel Gardiner from The Way We Were but dipped in mold. And a shorter, dark-haired guy with a leering grin.
Bridget turned and smiled. “Ach, sorry love. I was just talkin’ to my sister here about how I might get rid a this V.D. can ya give us a minute?”
They didn’t even bother to say goodbye, slinking away with a quick shuffle and horrified faces.
Jamie suppressed a smile and hid a laugh. “You’re very good at that, Bridget.”
“Not in the mood, Jamie Brennan.”
Jamie took her in as Bridget had a sip of her Guinness. She was something else - in her navy blouse and her jeans. With her hair up. The red flush in her cheeks. Her deep blue eyes.
Jamie felt her heart race. But this wasn’t desire. Crush. Love. Whatever. This was
friendship.
“By the way, I don’t think this is a date,” Jamie said.
Bridget retracted her head. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her smokes. “Who cares if it is?”
“I don’t want you to think I think -”
“I truly don’t care - ” Bridget laughed.
“- I just thought we could be friends and-”
Bridget held up a hand. “Make the words stop, Jamie Brennan.”
She shook a cigarette out of the pack and onto her lips. Then flipped the dented zippo from seemingly out of nowhere and lit up the smoke. She clicked the lighter shut and shoved it in her jeans pocket.
She let the cigarette dangle from her lip and lifted a foot up onto her seat, leaning back.
A sexy smile crept across her face. “You gotta lighten up, lass.”
“I just didn’t want you to think I was asking you out.”
“Who cares if you were?”
“But I wasn’t.”
Bridget chuckled. She raised an eyebrow. “Alright, we got that clear. I’ll send it out on the teletype. News at 11.”
Across the bar, the Aerosmith song ended and a new one started. Filling the place with jangly guitars and driving drums.
Jamie lit up. “Ah! I put this on. Love this song!”
“Me too.”
“It’s a band called -”
“ - Yeah, Blondie - ”
“It’s a song called - ”
“X Offender, love it, ” Bridget said. “They’re grand. I’d a thought you were more inta The Bay City Rollers or the Doobie Brothers whatever those are...”
“Hardly. The Clash?”
“The best.”
Bridget had a puff of her smoke. She let a smile curl on her lips. “Ian Dury and the Blockheads…”
“The Jam?”
“In The City! Weller’s a genius.”
“Agreed.”
Jamie had the last sip of her Budweiser.
She glanced up at Bridget.
“Why do I feel like I can tell you stuff I can’t even tell myself?” she laughed.
Bridget shrugged. “Maybe cause you can,” she said. “Or maybe cause you’re drunk - so there’s that possibility.”
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