Chapter 7 Vanessa
Vanessa
I know we all have to take our turn, and I even support the idea of all of us pitching in to support our boys. I always want to do my share and then some, but the day I’m stuck running the pumpkin patch for the hurling team has to be the worst day we’ve had in Ireland.
It’s cold.
It’s miserably windy.
And it’s been raining nonstop since this morning.
After enduring all this misery, I’ve sold exactly four pumpkins.
We should’ve just closed today. Maybe I’d have a better attitude about it if I’d been paired with nicer moms. I’m not the president of the booster club.
I’m not even the secretary. I’m just a parent, like any other.
So I don’t have anything to do with who is placed in each rotation.
The woman who does run it, Naomi, is right next to me, and she and her bestie Maeve came two hours late.
Her son Cormac offered pot to Trace, and even if he didn’t take it, I hate that kid for it.
Naomi’s also the one who found out about me and Jack, though the discovery was pretty much Jack’s fault.
He was tired of hiding, which I understand.
Ever since she found out, Naomi’s been even less friendly.
Standing around with her but being left out of every conversation Naomi has with Maeve has been terrible. It’s worth any amount of snubbing, I suppose, to have Jack. Still, it’s not fun.
“You know, pumpkins are expensive here,” I say. “Back home, we could get a huge one, much larger than these we’re selling, for ten bucks or less.” Here, we’re charging twenty bucks for a small one.
“That’s the thing about pumpkins,” Naomi says. “They’re not native to Ireland. They came from America, in fact, and while people here do like the novelty of them, they just don’t do well in Ireland. I suspect they won’t be around as a fundraiser for much longer.”
Maeve forces a smile, but it doesn’t touch her eyes. “I’ll be glad when no one wants them. We have to stuff straw beneath them so they don’t rot. We have to carefully keep the frost away. They just don’t get Ireland.”
“They can’t handle our rain or our early frost,” Naomi says. “Basically, they aren’t hardy enough to thrive here.”
Yeah, yeah, I get it. They’re talking about me. Really subtle, ladies.
“Then why do you even sell them?” I blink. “You’d think the locals wouldn’t want them to begin with.”
“Well, even though the holiday of Halloween originated here in Ireland,” Maeve says, “you Americans added some panache to it.”
“That’s true,” Naomi says. “We Irish originally carved turnips for generations to ward off the evil spirits, but when Irish immigrants showed up in the Americas, they found these large orange gourds were easier to carve.” She smiles, but again, it’s superficial.
“And now, the tradition has come back here. At the end of the day, pumpkins are a novelty here. The Irish like to try strange things.”
Oh, boy. How thick do they think they need to spread this?
“It won’t last. Soon, the Irish will stop caring about pumpkins and kick them to the curb,” Maeve says.
“Who’s the pumpkin here?” Jack walks up behind me. “Because it almost sounds like you’re trying to say Vanessa is.” He slides his arms around my waist, and drops his chin on my shoulder. “And I think I need to be clear on something, if she’s supposed to be the pumpkin.”
The blood has drained from Naomi’s face.
Maeve looks like she just swallowed a bug.
“My entire life is better because I have the novelty of an American in it, and I have no intention of kicking her anywhere. But my position as coach of this team is a volunteer one. As an unpaid coach for your boys, I could quit at any time that the job becomes too much. I doubt you’ll find a better coach, but if my connection to the mother of two of the players is bothering you, I’ll quit so fast you’ll trip over a pumpkin and fall on your face. Are we clear?”
Naomi chokes.
Maeve just nods slowly.
“I can’t make you be friends with someone, and I don’t imagine my very smart, very kind girlfriend wants to be friends with you two if this is any indication of how you’ve been acting around her.
But if I hear of you making her feel unwelcome again, your boys will be off the team.
You can go screaming to the principal, but if they ask me, I’ll tell them that their playing wasn’t good enough to compensate for their horrible mothers.
” He squeezes my hand. “And that your son Cormac was caught with marijuana. I think that would convince them to ratify my decision.”
“We’re sorry,” Maeve says.
“I—my Cormac knows better,” Naomi says. “It must have been a misunderstanding.”
“Why don’t we close the stand early, considering the weather today?” Jack turns and holds out his left hand, the rain pelting his open palm where it reaches past the tent above us.
“We posted the hours.” I smile at him. “I’ll stay until it’s over. I’d hate for people to come and be turned away.”
“Are you sure?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I whisper back, rolling my eyes. Clearly they can still hear us. “I’d like to finish this out.” Besides, after his remarkable display of favoritism, I’d rather not give any of the other moms, mothers who might not already hate me, any legitimate reasons.
“Alright.” He lifts a pumpkin up on the counter. “Then you can check me out. My kids are really excited to carve this.”
“Will it be carved into something cute or something scary?” I ask.
“Only Americans do cute pumpkins,” Naomi says. “We always carve scary.”
“Actually, I saw something online that my daughter’s pretty keen to try.
” He pulls cash out of his wallet and plonks it down.
It still looks a little bit like funny money to me with all the bright colors, but I take it and start to make change.
“It’s a pumpkin that’s blowing a bubble, and you use a pink balloon for the bubble gum. ”
“That sounds really cute,” I say. “And I imagine scary spirits would be put off by the happy attitude, so it might still protect the house.”
Maeve rolls her eyes.
But Naomi forces a smile. “How fun.”
Jack glares at them both, and then he grabs his pumpkin and his change and heads for his car. “I’ll see you later.” He waves at me before driving away. I wonder how we missed seeing him pull up. I guess we were all pretty distracted by Naomi being a jerk.
I dread having to make conversation after he leaves, but it’s my lucky day apparently.
It stopped raining, finally, and as Jack heads down the drive, three more cars pull down it.
Naomi barely has time to say anything at all before we’re helping customers pick pumpkins, warty or smooth, round or lopsided, and making change.
Naomi’s helping a very irritating child who keeps kicking at the pumpkins we’ve pre-picked, when Maeve taps my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Excuse me?” That’s the last thing I thought she’d say.
“Naomi’s had a thing for Jack for a long time, and you don’t want to be on her bad side, so—” She shakes her head. “I knew better than to be such a witch to ye, and I’m ashamed of myself. Can we start over?”
I glance at Naomi. “You can pretend to hate me when she’s around. I won’t hold it against you.”
Maeve’s expression darkens. “I’m really not that weak a person.
I guess I just needed Jack to remind me of it.
” It’s started to rain again, but she doesn’t move to get under the small awning.
She just stares at me as the rain plasters her cute, reddish blonde curls to her forehead. “Can we please start over?”
“Sure.” Because it would be nice to have a friend, and. . . “I’ve been scared before, too.” I’m not proud of it, but I’ve been the person who didn’t say something when I should have. I’ve always wanted to be more like Sam or Natalie, but when push comes to shove, I’m just mousy old Vanessa.
Maeve’s smiling as Naomi walks back.
I panic for a moment, expecting her to issue some kind of horrible ultimatum, but Naomi doesn’t. She just goes about checking the cash box to make sure we can still make change while the horrible kid’s mother pays for their tiny greenish pumpkin.
A moment later, two more cars show up, and then two more, and we’re all scrambling again to help the people in them.
Naomi and Maeve seem to somehow get the pickiest people ever, including a woman who keeps complaining about how muddy it is—it’s actively raining, and it’s a pumpkin patch!
—so I’m alone when the last woman comes to buy her large, perfectly round pumpkin.
“That’s a beautiful one,” I say brightly. “In fact, that may be the nicest one I’ve seen all day.”
“Then I’ll pay double.” The woman plops down a fifty euro note.
“Oh.” My eyes widen as I try to take it. “Thank you. That’s so generous. The kids will really—” As my eyes finally rise to meet hers, I realize I’ve met her before.
It’s Jack’s mother.
I spent a lot of time talking to Sam about her, after our run-in, and we ran through exactly what I could say to her when we met again.
We even talked about some ways I could bring it up to Jack.
After all, he’d be the best one to advise me on how to handle his own mother.
But in that moment, as she glares at me, her long, perfectly polished fingernail still pinning her fifty euro note to the counter, every single word I practiced evaporates.
“I—you’re Mrs. Calihan.”
She arches one eyebrow. “Shanahan.”
I cough. “Right, duh. Sorry. I’m a little nervous.”
“Nervous?” She arches one perfect eyebrow, finally releasing the bill she practically punctured. “Why on earth would you be nervous to sell a pumpkin to your boyfriend’s mother?”
My cough turns into a fit. I sound like I’m about to die of tuberculosis. Maeve rushes toward me, patting me on the back. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“Keep the change,” Mrs. Shanahan says. “But why don’t you help me get this to the car.” She clicks a button and the lights on a massive, shiny black Range Rover flash.
“Right.” Maeve’s eyes widen. “Happy to.”
“Not you.” Mrs. Shanahan doesn’t even glance at her. “That one.” She points one finger at me.
I swallow, and straighten, and I grab the perfect pumpkin. “Sure, yes, of course.”
I struggle through the rain, lugging her huge, perfect pumpkin, and once we reach the car, I find that she’s simply standing beside it, an umbrella over her head, staring at me.
“Can you open the back?”
“I thought you would do that.” She tilts her head.
Rain sluices down my forehead and cheeks as I jam the pumpkin against my hip and fumble around the bottom of her back hatch, trying to figure out how to open it.
Finally, I press the button and release it, and it glides open.
“Phew.” I slide the pumpkin onto the carpeted back area, but before I can close the door, his mother clucks.
“You know, Ireland has two kinds of squirrels. Since you’re new here, you may not know, but the red squirrels you see are natives. They’ve always been here. The grey squirrels are invasive, colonizing most of the island and forcing the red squirrels out.”
I don’t need Sam’s script for this. I’ve had about enough of people telling me that I’m not meant to be here. “Respectfully, I’m not a pumpkin, and I’m not a squirrel. I’m a person. A very fed-up person.”
Mrs. Shanahan’s mouth forms a small o, and her eyes widen. “A squirrel?” She laughs. “What on earth are you saying? Why would I think you were a squirrel?”
I blink. I’m sure, waterlogged as I now am, I look almost like a bedraggled squirrel. “I—never mind.”
Mrs. Shanahan clears her throat. “As I was saying, when Jack was a young child, he came upon two tiny squirrels after a storm. They were chirping and chirping, and they’d been attacked by some sort of bug. They were in bad shape—and their mother had clearly been a casualty of the weather.”
“That’s sad,” I say.
She shrugs. “Not really. Laws of nature and all that.”
Okay, I hate her.
“But my son Jack loves two things in this world, and the first is—”
“Hurling,” I say, proud to know that one.
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, but everyone here loves that. Please do stop interrupting.”
I snap my mouth closed.
“He loves saving things, and he loves defying me.” Her lips compress tightly.
“And so when I told him that there was no reason whatsoever to try and save those grey squirrels, and when I told him that they were toxic and not worth any sort of effort, well, he only dug in harder. When I told him he was far too young to wake up at all hours of the night, feeding them with a dropper bottle, he ignored me. He set his alarms, and he woke up to them, and although one squirrel died, the other one lived. It became quite a nuisance, chittering and running, and chattering and making messes all over our backyard. The irritation went on for many years.” She grunts.
“You, Miss Interrupting Cow, have now triggered one of his strongest traits. As a fumbling widowed American, he wants to save you. I can hear it when he talks about you, and I can see it in his eyes. The fact that your kids also need help just sweetens the deal.” She sighs dramatically. “And now I’m really stuck.”
“How so?”
“If I point out how silly his infatuation with you is, I’ll trigger his other big flaw. He’ll dig in like he’s never dug in before, and he’ll love you even more fiercely to defy me.” She clucks. “You see the dilemma I have.”
She steps closer, the edge of her umbrella brushing the top of my head. “But I think I have one small advantage.” She pauses, the corners of her mouth turning up.
“What’s that?”
“I think you really do like my son, and I think you might be a decent person.”
A compliment? Really?
“And if you are, you’ll be smart enough to see that the last woman he tried to save was a disaster who nearly destroyed him.
He can’t survive another train wreck, even with as strong as he is, and he shouldn’t have to.
So I entreat you, Vanessa, I call upon your kindness and your generosity when I beg you to end things with my son.
Don’t force me to get involved.” She narrows her eyes.
“In spite of his desire to defy me, I won’t be defeated again.
So let’s keep things from becoming ugly. Just walk away.”
“What makes me so objectionable?” I ask. “Is it my age? Or that I’m American? Or that I have three children?”
Mrs. Shanahan shrugs. “Take your pick. All three, and more I won’t go into.
” She scrunches her nose. “Vanessa, you tell me. When you look at my son, do you really think you’re a good match for him?
Do you really think the two of you make sense?
Because if you do, I’ll walk away and leave you alone. ”
The saddest part is that she’s right.