by Annie Cosby
“My Seamus was groundskeeper for them,” Mrs. O’Leary said. “Many generations of Ritz have lived in that house. And my Seamus watched many of this generation grow up there.”
“In the summers, at least,” Ronan said quietly.
“Yes, in the winters, my Seamus loved keeping the grounds and having the place to himself. He would spend so much time there. He had a little shed at the back of the house; it was quite his little workshop. The late Mr. Ritz, you know, was a great supporter of foreign artists. He imported such lawn statues as you’ve never seen. My Seamus loved to tend to those—treating them for the winter weather and mending all sorts of ailments that befall them.”
I kept my mouth clamped firmly shut lest I let fall just how much I knew about the famed Ritz statues.
“He was quite close to the late Mr. Ritz,” the old woman went on. “The man was a very generous person, never forgot us at the holidays. They called him an industrialist. Can’t say that I particularly know what that means. Such a vague way to make a fortune, wouldn’t you say?”
“And, tell us, how did your father make his fortune?”
I stiffened and looked the brown eyes straight on. He was smirking, knowing—of all the impertinent questions—he’d lit on the one that bugged me the most.
“He runs Fullington Factory,” I said with all the pride I could muster. “A Midwest shoe manufacturer that services forty-two states.” At least that’s what it said above the door to his office.
“Isn’t that where those ridiculous shoelaces come from?” he laughed heartily.
“And what exactly do your parents do?” I stuffed the phrase full of as much assumption and acid as I could muster. I could tell, by the serious look on his face as he responded, that he’d understood the full of the intended insult.
“As it happens, my mom and dad run O’Brien Resort. No doubt, you couldn’t help but notice it. Unfortunately, it’s visible, I think, even from so far away as your palace.”
I was red-faced and seething, and absolutely unwilling to suffer one more joke about that damn pink house! I sat for a moment longer, listening to Mrs. O’Leary embark on a tale of sprites. Then I interrupted her as politely as I could muster, grabbed my bag, and excused myself.
“So sorry you have to go so soon,” Mrs. O’Leary called after my retreating back. “But do hurry back. Good-bye!”
The boy merely nodded as I flew down the steps, Princess at my heels.
“What a wonderful dog,” I heard Mrs. O’Leary saying as I walked quickly down the boardwalk. I realized with a jolt that she had a name now. My mysterious old friend full of magical tales was a prominent figure in other people’s lives, was a real person with a name in someone else’s world—in this Ronan’s world. I felt as if I’d just found out that some great legend was a farce. The old woman was Mrs. O’Leary. The magic was gone. The Easter Bunny wasn’t real—or, rather, he was real, a real person in a big costume.
At home my parents were unloading deck furniture from the back of the car.
“Cora, come help, your mom’s useless!”
I grumbled and went to help my dad carry the rusty items to the back porch where Mom was already pushing the pieces into different arrangements.
“Oh, honey, we just saw the Carltons and just guess what Mr. Carlton said!” Mom cooed. “He knows someone at St. Bernard!”
She was looking at my face expectantly, but I didn’t know just what emotion to feign.
“He hasn’t talked to the man in ages,” Dad said, “but they used to play golf together a lot—nothing bonds old men like golf. And his man’s on the board, really influential, apparently. That bodes well.”
“But I didn’t even apply to St. Bernard,” I said.
“That’s the best part!” Mom was absolutely beaming. “He thinks he could get you in without even applying!”
I unleashed a long groan, adding a severe roll of the eyes for flourish.
“Oh, yes, life is so terribly difficult,” Mom said sarcastically. “Do you not care what happens to you next year? In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s not a single school that will have you!”
“Hush,” Dad said. “Cora, St. Bernard is a great school, and the Carltons are new friends. They’d be happy to help.”
“I want to take a year off,” I said simply, gathering courage from the prospect of telling a proud Mrs. O’Leary how this conversation had gone.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad said simply. I was reminded instantly of the terrible boy, Ronan, and felt all courage drain from me. Ridiculous, I could imagine Ronan’s voice saying. He thought I was ridiculous. I deflated like an old balloon.
“Cora, you know you can’t do that,” Mom said. “You need to let us know what school you want to go to so that we can get you into it!”
“I don’t know if you remember, since it was ages ago that you went to college,” I said, “and rather pointlessly, too, considering you had your future set—”
“How dare you!” Mom cried.
“But,” I plowed on, “you’re supposed to apply to college. Which I did. And it didn’t work.”
“You are the most ungrateful child I’ve ever known!” Mom yelled. “In case you haven’t noticed, your future is just as much set as anyone else in this world. As if you’ll ever not be provided for! The least you can do for us who give you everything you want is go to college!”
“Yes, thank you for discussing this with me,” I said quietly. It was a tactic I’d learned from my father in countless business calls. End the discussion politely, with force. Refuse anyone who refuses you. Then hang up. I made for the stairs quickly.
“So we’ll just wait on Western. Sometimes those letters take a long time. They keep waiting to see if any spots open up.” Mom seemed to be trying to convince herself. I kept silent about the rejection letter. I wasn’t ready to let that out just yet. As long as we could pretend Western hadn’t yet stabbed me in the heart, we could put off this fight. This life-altering decision that was bound to end in tears one way or another.
“Rosie got into LNU,” I said quietly.
“See?” Mom said. “We don’t have to worry yet.”
Mrs. O’Leary’s face came unbidden to my mind. “It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to get into Western,” I said. “And if I did, I wouldn’t go anyway.”
I slipped inside as the yelling continued.
The next time Rosie called, I picked up simply because I was tired of ignoring her. We had been playing a game of phone tag; little did she know it was intentional on my part. I would call when I knew she was busy so that I could leave long, rambling messages. But for once, I felt up to the challenge of putting life here into words. I decided to act detached and happy, like this place was a thousand times better than any summer she could be having.
“Guess what!” was her greeting.
“What?”
“Steve and I broke up!”
“Why do you sound so happy?” I asked.
“Because I’m going out with somebody who’s a hundred times better. And just guess what his name is!”
“I don’t know,” I said, making a concerted effort to sound disinterested.
“Steve!” She cackled. “He works at the mall in that store that sells, oh god, what are they called, those things that—”
“I have so much to tell you,” I cut her off.
“Oh, what?”
Shit. I had nothing really. I’d just gotten sick of listening to her good news. It was making me feel unwanted, unnecessary in her life. I didn’t actually have anything to say.
“Did you meet some hotties on the beach?” Rosie asked.
“Well, yeah,” I said, as if this was the only thing that could be expected.
“Well, dish!” she shrieked.
“Uh … well, I met this one guy, his name’s Owen. He’s really hot, looks like an Abercrombie model. We’re getting really close; we go out all the time, actually.” I sounded more and more like my mother every
day, stretching the truth farther and farther, like a goddamn Laffy Taffy. “And there’s this guy who’s totally adorable, he’s, like, a swimmer and I see him pretty often.” That much, at least, was true. I didn’t mention that I saw him more than he saw me.
“Oh-migod! Are you gonna go out with him? The really hot guy?”
“Hey, I gotta get going, my mom’s a total nutcase out here.”
“Wait—I wanted to tell you about Josh.”
My heart seemed to slow a few paces. “Josh Watson?” I said stupidly.
“What other Joshes do we know?” she laughed. “Just guess who he’s going out with?”
I felt my temperature begin to rise. But it didn’t stop at normal, it went right on up, setting my troublesome cheeks ablaze. “Do you talk to him much?” I asked.
“Yeah, sometimes, but Cora, guess who he’s going out with—he has really short hair now. I think he must have buzzed it—”
“Rosie, I don’t care,” I said.
“I think he only buzzed it because Dan Lowe did his last week,” she went on. “And all the girls loved it. Casey Anderson was like throwing herself at him. But anyway, I was at the mall to pick up Steve and I saw Josh—”
“Rosie, I do not care!” I yelled.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “All right.”
I felt guilty, but not enough to apologize. I didn’t want to hear about Josh. Hearing about him reminded me that I didn’t have a boyfriend. Because Josh didn’t want to be my boyfriend. He’d said as much when Rosie had asked him outside the movie theater if he’d take me to dinner. Against my pleading, she’d asked him. And he’d said “No, thanks,” for all the world to hear.
More importantly, hearing about Josh reminded me that I wanted a boyfriend. But I didn’t want to be one of those girls who needed a boyfriend at all times. I couldn’t say this to Rosie, because she needed a boyfriend for Christmas and New Year’s and preferably a brand new one for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want to be like that. But I felt like that now.
“I’m gonna go,” I finally said.
“Okay, call me, okay?” She was light and flippant again. It was hard to fight with Rosie. “I have to tell you all about Steve. The new one, he’s so much cooler than Steve Debrowski. And most people call him Steven. Like Steve-en. I think that’s so much more mature, you know?”
“Yeah, I’ll call you,” I lied.
Ag Buaila le Seamus
Meeting Seamus
That summer, the sand was suffocating. It would gather in my shoes and in the folds of my clothes, only to pile up in the laundry room where I shook them out. It stuck to my hands and my hair, and even Princess’s ears. Tiny rivulets gathered in the house where the wind pushed it a little farther in every time someone opened the door.
I didn’t go to the pier in the morning anymore. The last thing I wanted was to run into the annoyingly cute jerk, Ronan.
It was proving too easy to hide from my parents that I wasn’t going to swimming lessons. Dad flew around a lot for business and even when he was here, he was either tucked in his room on his laptop, on the phone or gone golfing. Mom was in her own world of antique shops and her new B.F.F. Linda Carlton, and I spent as much time as possible away from the Pink Palace.
I started sleeping late and meandering toward Mrs. O’Leary’s house in the afternoon, generally checking the vicinity for any sign of Ronan before joining the old woman on the porch. If he was there, I’d spin around and quickly make my exit before they saw me.
One such day, however, Princess bounded ahead of me and joined Mrs. O’Leary and Ronan on the porch before I could stop her.
“Hello there, dear girl,” I heard Mrs. O’Leary greeting her.
I briefly considered walking home and pretending Princess had run away from me, but she was my dad’s favorite daughter and I didn’t dare face him without her safely in tow.
Mrs. O’Leary was delighted to see me.
“Come sit, dear,” the old woman said. “We were just discussing kelpies and changelings.”
I turned a delightfully amused face at Ronan, hoping to see him embarrassed to be caught in a world of fantasy, but his face was impassive, completely unperturbed. Those were the hardest boys to ignore: the ones that weren’t concerned with your opinion of them, not afraid to be caught listening to fairytales. I wasn’t exactly used to boys being concerned with my opinions of them, but I was used to them haranguing me for Rosie’s opinion, and, thus, attempting to please me by association.
To my utter dismay, Ronan stood and made a gesture for me to sit in the rocking chair. I mumbled a polite refusal, but Mrs. O’Leary entreated him to fetch her jacket and ordered me to sit. Ronan disappeared into the little house.
“What’s on your mind, dear?” Mrs. O’Leary asked me, her eyes on the ocean.
“Not much,” I said. I couldn’t help wondering if Ronan was actually looking for the jacket inside or just playing along like I did. “What’s on yours?”
She sighed deeply and fiddled with the silk scarf over her hair. “What always is,” she said simply.
I was about to inquire after what this could be, but there was rarely a need for that with Mrs. O’Leary. She went on without aid.
“Do you know of Shoney, dearie?”
I shook my head. “What’s that?”
“They say he was a spirit that dwelled in the waters near Scotland. Seonaidh, my Seamus would call him. Seamus had a great love of ale; it was the Celt in him. Do you know, people used to wade into the water and give an offering of ale to Shoney? It was meant to appease him and secure them a good harvest.”
I thought of drunken old Scottish men stumbling into the ocean and draining buckets of beer—draining just as much into their stomachs as the water. I didn’t say as much.
“But of course my Seamus liked to make a mockery of it. He was Irish, you know. He would go into the water with his ale and drink it all down—some might say that was a slight to Shoney.”
“I don’t think he’d mind,” I mumbled.
“Seamus liked to enjoy his ale, right here on this beach. You know, that is how we met. Me, swimming along minding my own business, and my Seamus roughhousing with ale and good friends.”
So she had met her husband when he was stark raving drunk. How quaint.
“I’d seen him before, of course. Every day, when I was swimming.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, possibly to see if I was listening. The parallels of the story were unsettling. Swimmers, spying, crushes, wanting to see the world? Who exactly had this old woman been talking to? Shit—did Ronan know more than he was letting on? Or was this woman just clairvoyant?
“But it took me a long time to make the change. To tell my mother. So when I came to the beach and met him, there he was with his ale. He was very taken with me. We moved into this little house and had a grand life altogether. Of course, as nature will do—it stifles things. Feelings. I started to yearn for a return to the water, but my Seamus kept me here.”
The statement was chilling. As was the way she said it.
“You don’t swim anymore?” I asked feebly.
The old woman started and stared at me for a long moment before laughing. “No, no.” The laugh faded and she spoke seriously again, though this time without looking at me. “That is not to say that had I the choice once more, I would not make the same decision.”
It was an echo of things she’d told me weeks ago, during one of our first talks. “To … to ‘see the world,’ you mean?”
“Yes, oh yes.”
“Is this it?” Ronan reappeared then with a deep purple sweater.
Mrs. O’Leary looked up rather hopefully but shook her head. “No, I am afraid not.”
Ronan slung the sweater across the porch banister, and the old lady settled down into her seat with a sigh. The scene had a practiced air.
“You can have your chair back,” I said, rising. I had been wandering in a salty dreamland and his reappearance had dropped me back into the
stifling world of teenage angst. I was determined not to be indebted to this jerk on any account.
But he shook his head. “I’m going to get back to work.” For the first time I noticed the pile of tools and metal objects strewn about the far end of the porch. He settled on the floor among them and immediately began prodding and twisting unfamiliar gadgets.
“Ronan is fixing my Seamus’s collection,” Mrs. O’Leary explained. “Fishing gear. All know I couldn’t be called upon to give the name or use of a single one of those things. I told him he could have it all if he fixed it.”
“Delightful,” I said, to please her. Ronan looked up and gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“He’s a fantastic fisherman, Ronan is,” Mrs. O’Leary said.
“Are you?” I said overly sweetly.
“Almost as good as he swims. He swims quite fabulously.”
“Do you?” I threw the same feigned smirk at him again.
“Every morning,” he said. I was startled out of my sarcasm. It could have been a simple retort to match my sarcasm—or it could have been a hint that he knew I was a semi-stalker. I preferred the term admirer. But any admiration was definitely gone now.
In any event, I decided to stay quiet until Mrs. O’Leary finished heralding Ronan’s various merits.
“He’s going to Ireland this year,” she said. Her brows furrowed and her eyes grew sad. “He’s getting so very, very old. How very many years he’s seen and yet still so young.”
Not only did that not make sense, but Ronan couldn’t have been older than me. Drama queen, I thought.
“It would have been a great comfort to my Seamus,” Mrs. O’Leary went on, “seeing the return of so many to the homeland. So many leave, never to return.” Her eyes appeared to be welling up. A sincere display of emotion at the memory of her husband, I assumed. “Seamus was a proud Irishman. As Ronan here. Aren’t you, lad?”
“My parents are Irish,” Ronan clarified.
“You could tell, of course, by the name,” Mrs. O’Leary went on. “Such a blatantly Irish one his father chose.” She wiped at one of her eyes.