Chapter 7 An Experiment in Talking to Strangers in Panel Vans
I agreed to go with Jackie again to the Matchmaking Festival that evening.
Deep down, I was hesitant to leave the quiet cottage with the ticks of its clocks and the soft noises of contented animals that called in on the breeze through the open windows.
But it was time to go to work. Others had their cubicles. I had a matchmaking festival.
“I’ll call ’round to a few boys I know to see if they’d make the journey over to meet ye tonight. And you should be getting calls in a day or two. Be leaving in about an hour, will that work for ye?”
“Oh. Um. Sure. Thanks, Jackie.” He nodded and walked on to do some chore or other before my brain could stop twisting long enough to ask him what any of that meant.
Would people be traveling for a date with me?
Tonight? What people? Who were they? Was he going to tell me anything about them?
And what sort of calls? My stomach did a bit of hand-wringing.
“HEY, MOM.”
I was glad that I had gotten an Irish SIM card in advance and paid for unlimited international calls. Having instant access to Mom, Dad, and Sims felt like a vital lifeline.
“Hey, pumpkin.”
“Oh, hi, Dad.” I was on speakerphone, their preferred method of conversation, even in, say, a restaurant or at the supermarket.
“How is Ireland? Are you calling to invite us to a wedding?” Mom laughed. Probably less because she thought this was a funny joke and more because she knew it would rankle me.
“What a comedian. Not yet, Mom. I did have a date already, though.”
“A date already? You’ve only been there for a few hours!” Dad said.
“Our girl works fast. Keep those morals good and loose, honey.”
I laughed. “Mom! Stop it. No danger of that, anyway. It was . . . explosively bad. He hated me so much. They burned the pub to the ground when we left, to kill the bad vibes.”
“Ah, well. He’s an idiot, then,” Dad said. “You can’t please everyone, pumpkin. So don’t try to. Just do like you’ve always done. Hang up your ‘closed’ sign and move on to the next opportunity.”
This was an old thing from my childhood, when I was an awkward little nerd and making friends was hard.
Kids were often mean, but the tools that Mom and Dad had taught me—don’t take things to heart, never try to change myself to please other people—they were easier said than done, of course, but over time I had mastered them, and they had served me into adulthood and actually helped to make all of these terrible first dates fun and manageable instead of soul-crushing.
“Thanks, Dad. We’re heading back to the festival tonight. And get this: I think I might . . . have to dance.”
They gasped in unison.
“Morty, get my smelling salts!”
IT WAS NOT my first time walking toward the music in the square, but where I had been blissfully ignorant of what was awaiting me the night before, this time I knew all too well.
Something writhed a little uncomfortably in my gut.
I might actually have to dance. Totally unpracticed.
In front of a crowd. With touching. I lied to myself and suggested that maybe I could somehow successfully dodge it again and spare myself this particular humiliation for at least one more night.
Or maybe I’d get lucky and no one would ask.
Or maybe I’d get lucky and the world would end.
But as we walked up to the square, heads turned, and I realized all too late that walking anywhere next to Jackie Kelly during the month of September in Lisdoonvarna was tantamount to wearing nothing but a sandwich sign over one’s otherwise naked body that read: “HUSBAND WANTED. APPLY WITHIN.”
People swarmed Jackie. I felt my breaths coming a little too fast and told myself to slow it down. You’ve got this. Smile. Don’t let them smell your fear.
“Drink first? For courage?” I suggested. Jackie was speaking to someone, but when he turned around and saw my face, he changed course.
“Not a bad idea, Maya. It can be our little tradition. Seemed to do us some good yesterday, if I recall.”
We headed into the pub of the hotel off the square, which I was delighted to discover was named the Ritz, despite being quaint and old-fashioned and looking nothing at all like its swanky Parisian counterpart. The same man tended the bar and grinned at us as we came in.
“All right, Jackie? Maya?”
“Aye, we’re grand, thank you, Bobby.”
“You remembered my name,” I said. “What a pro!”
He laughed. “I hate to say it, but everyone remembers you right enough after your blind date with Tadhg last night.” He smiled. “Ah, you’re a brave woman, you are! You know what? This one’s on the house. You too, Jackie, what’ll it be?”
“Oh, I’ll take a Bushmills, please and thank you, Bobby.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an Irish whiskey.”
“No, no. I think I’ll start a little slower today.
” It was only just after six, and I figured I would probably be in for a long night, and if I was going to dance, I would have to dose carefully—too little alcohol and I would be a nervous wreck, too much and I would make a total ass of myself and probably injure several innocent bystanders.
“Just some light summery lager would be great, thanks.” Bobby gave me a taste of one on draft, and I nodded, but that was all the time we had before the wife-hunters descended.
“Jackie. I’m in town until Sunday. Can you find me a wife before then?”
“I got my hair cut like you suggested, Jackie, but it doesn’t seem to be helpin’. And one girl last night said it looked like I’d just got out of prison!”
“Now, if a woman says she’s fifty-two, do you think she’ll be too old to have kids, Jackie?”
Jackie waited for the word storm to stop and answered carefully. “Well . . . there’s no telling what a bit of luck can do.” But I couldn’t tell which one of them he was responding to.
“Hello there. Can I get you a drink?” someone new asked me.
“Oh, no, thank you. This one’s pretty full.”
“Hi, I’m Ollie.” New Haircut moved in, only just realizing that I was standing next to Jackie, and not wanting to waste any time.
“I’m Stan. Nice to meet you.” Wife by Sunday stuck his hand out, and I shook it. “You don’t want to be givin’ Ollie here any of your time. Word is he just got out of prison.”
“Hey, don’t go tellin’ women that! Me mam cut this, and she said I looked handsome.”
Jackie caught my eye and what I could only guess was a look of abject horror on my face. “Why don’t we go outside and have a seat, Maya? How does that sound? Get a bit of fresh air like. Just until you get your dancing legs, that is.”
Thank God for Jackie. I’d name my next cat after this guy.
We went back into the bright summer afternoon and found half of a wooden picnic table to have a seat. Jackie sat with his back to the dancing so that I could have the view. The music was too loud for us to make conversation, so we sat and sipped our drinks, and I got lost in watching the dancers.
This place felt almost like stepping back in time.
It was such a simple pleasure—music, dancing, people catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.
Nobody danced like this where I came from, and yet I knew people from this part of Ireland had been coming here to dance for generations. It was so wholesome.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out to see an unexpected text, rather than a WhatsApp message from home. Jackie was here; who else could it be?
maria this is arnold i’m waiting in the van
Um.
. . .
What?
My first instinct was that it was the wrong number. I hadn’t given anyone my number here. But then “Maria” was just a little bit too close to “Maya” for comfort.
“Uh. Jackie. Any idea what this is?” I held it up to him, and he covered the sun from his eyes and squinted at it. Please, for the love of God, tell me it’s a wrong number.
“Oh! That’s Arnold. Good chap, Arnold. Got here early.”
“You . . . gave him my number?”
“’Course I did. I’ve sent loads of men your number.”
DRAG ME TO HELL!
“What? Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” He laughed. “This is what you’re paying me for!”
I laughed too, but more like the hideous strained noise you make when the bikini-wax lady tells you to flip over.
This. Is this a service I’m paying for? And just how many was “loads”? And who the hell were they? And what did Jackie tell them about me? And would they be calling? Like an actual phone call? And—dear God—if they did call, would I have to answer?
Oh no.
Another buzz.
got in over an hour ago
God in heaven! My face contorted, and I bared my teeth in awkward horror as I held up the new text to Jackie. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Well, I guess you’d better go and find him, then. You do have a date scheduled soon enough.”
“We do?”
We do?!?
Why the hell had I done this to myself? Suddenly and very unexpectedly, I missed my apps.
My nice, safe little apps where I could peruse a stranger’s collection of selfies in bathroom mirrors standing next to urinals, and bios where they said they were “into working out,” from an undisclosed location many miles away, safe and cozy in my anonymity.
Another text!
white van across from the hydro
I showed this one to Jackie too with mounting terror, in hopes that he would come up with a better answer this time.
“Well, go ahead and text him, Maya. Tell him you’ll be right there.”
“But who even is this guy? And why doesn’t he just come here? Why do I have to be the one to go find him in his murder van?”
Jackie laughed. “He’s probably just a little shy. All right. I’ll go with ye. He’s a nice enough boy. I’m sure he’s not a murderer.”
“That . . . is just not as reassuring as it’s supposed to be.”
He stood up with his drink, so I did the same.
“Only one way to find out, though.”
“Jackie!”
When we got there, the adult man was still sitting in his van.
This gave me pause, as he was in the middle of town during a singles festival, when he himself was presumably single and looking, and where there were plenty of places to drink or eat or dance or listen to music. This did not. Bode well.