Chapter 9
“It’s not good, Abby. Mike says they’ve got him on contract work.”
Jess’s glistening face bobs in and out of the screen as she walks on the treadmill, her breathing loud but controlled. “You made a good move turning down that Marshall’s role.”
“I didn’t turn it down. I wasn’t offered anything.”
“I know, I was being nice.”
I roll my eyes, lying back against my pillow.
Another week has passed, another week when I haven’t booked a ticket home, when I’ve avoided Louise’s questions when I haven’t managed to avoid her entirely.
Dad keeps sending me companies he thinks I should work for (“Why don’t you just knock on the door and start a conversation,” he said, like I was applying to work in a grocery store in 1956) whereas Mam is texting me daily stories about her friends’ children and their various difficulties, convinced all I needed to do was to compare myself to people she thought had it worse than me.
(Shauna’s daughter is divorced. Twice . And her not even thirty-two.)
“Did you hear a Reuters reporter was parked outside Emma Wallace’s house last week?” Jess continues. “Some ‘where are they now’ article.”
“Are you serious? It’s been two months.”
“They’re desperate for it. You’d think by now some B-lister would have tweeted something questionable but there’s been nothing. It’s never a slow news day when you need it.” Her eyes flick to the phone. “Any luck yet?”
“Tons. Why else do you think I look so happy?”
“Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Reynolds.”
“What about the others?” I ask. Even though Jess left the company years ago, I’ve never known anyone with such a gift for keeping in touch with people. “Did you hear from Kenny?”
“Private equity. And Arnold’s already got a book deal about his experience, so he’s a douche. Chrissy’s gone to work for her father.”
“Didn’t you guys have a thing once?”
“Are you saying because she has a crush on me I can get you a foot in the door?”
“Kind of.”
“I already tried.” Jess sighs. “You need to be here, Abby.”
“I’ve only been gone a few weeks.”
“And you’re already going out of your mind. I can see it in your eyes.”
“If I’m going nuts here, I’ll be even more nuts over there. At least I’m not maxing out credit cards trying to pretend everything’s fine.”
She doesn’t answer, her gaze somewhere to the left as she stares straight ahead of her.
It’s seven a.m. in New York and, though I can only see the upper half of her torso from where she’s positioned me on the treadmill, I can picture the sleek lines of the gym in her office skyscraper, the sun rising over Manhattan as she looks out.
I feel a pang of longing just thinking about it.
But I know I’m right. My New York was only mine on my terms. Homeless, jobless, and skiving off my friends is not how I want to live.
“Then how about a change?” she asks. “Something different. Communications.”
“ Communications? ”
“Joey moved into communications and she gets to travel all the time.”
“I don’t want to travel. And I don’t want to go into communications. I don’t want to do anything else.”
“That’s because you don’t know anything else,” she insists. “I mean look at me. I got out. I’m still alive.”
“What an endorsement.”
“I’m just saying.”
I know she is. And it’s not like I haven’t considered it these last few weeks.
But I meant what I said. I don’t want to do anything else.
I don’t know how to do anything else. I could go back to college and retrain, sure, but as what?
And where would I get the money? Or would I put myself in even more debt to do it?
“Okay,” Jess says as her smartwatch flashes. “I’ve got to go do some deadlifts next to a bunch of men with bad form and veiny foreheads.”
“Thanks for squeezing me in.”
She comes to a stop as the treadmill stills beneath her. “It’s not just for you, you know. You should come back for me as well.”
“Is that your way of saying you miss me?”
“I miss stress-smoking outside a bar while you stress-watched me. Just don’t disappear. I’ve decided I’m too old to meet new people.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Au revoir, Abby Reynolds. Try not to fall into a bog.”
She disappears as the call disconnects and I roll onto my back, half squishing my carefully wrapped parcel.
Two more packages sit on the desk, ready to be mailed.
Yesterday morning I finally did what I knew I had to and put my last few designer pieces up for sale.
I’d been keeping them for interviews, indulging in fantasies of looking the part during my first few days in a new job, but with neither a job nor an interview on the horizon, it was time to bite the bullet.
I don’t know why I waited so long. They were sold in a few hours for more or less what I was hoping for and this morning I raided Mam’s old craft box for envelopes and tape to mail them out.
The world outside is nothing but gray drizzly mist, so I spend a few more minutes stalking old co-workers’ Instagrams before finally bringing myself to pull on my sneakers and leave my room.
The house is quiet. Tomasz is fast asleep after a night shift but as I tiptoe past Louise’s home office I can hear her talking on the phone.
We haven’t spoken much since the whole tampon debacle last week.
We’ll have to eventually. We’ll be adults and hug it out or make up or whatever the nearest thing to that we can do, which knowing Louise and I might not be that much.
But for now, I embrace the coward’s way out as I hurry down the stairs and out the front door.
The post office is located on the edge of town, housed in an old cottage that makes the inside cramped and cold.
The owner is the same one as when I was younger and seems starved for a chat, so I spend fifteen minutes longer than I need to talking about her hip surgery and her new neighbors and how you just never know what the weather’s going to do these days.
Global warming, we agree. Finally another customer comes in and she presses three cubes of butterscotch into my hands, sending me on my way.
I pop one into my mouth as I step outside, almost bumping into a man walking past. It takes me only a second before I realize who he is.
“Rory?”
Rory O’Meara, my first ex-boyfriend and teenage partner in crime, glances over his shoulder, polite expectation turning to confusion and then to shock.
“Abby?”
“Yeah.” I hesitate, suddenly a little unsure. We’d been close before, but we haven’t spoken in years. “I heard you might come—”
He hugs me, a quick squeeze that cuts off my words and for one bizarre moment, I’m transported back to being fifteen again. Rory always gave the best hugs. And it’s no different now as he envelops me, his beard tickling the side of my face, his tan jacket cold and slightly damp from the wind.
He pulls back to look at me, still smiling, and I find I’m smiling too, his enthusiasm infectious.
“You smell like my nan’s place.”
“That’s the butterscotch,” I say, nodding to the post office.
“Sure it is.”
“Shut up. What’s this?” I grab his hand, spotting the gold band. “You’re married?”
“I am. The poor girl.”
“Someone local?”
“No.” He smirks. “Her name’s Sinead. She’s from Cork and she’s a civil servant. Mam loves her. Great pension.”
“Well, that’s all that matters.”
He cocks his head, taking me in. “So did I miss something?” he asks. “Are you back now? Your folks okay?”
“They’re grand. Everyone’s fine. I’m just visiting.”
“Liar. You think I don’t know when you’re lying? You do this.” He smiles pleasantly at me, blinking once. “Didn’t you work for the devil? Lost a lot of people a lot of money?”
“I personally didn’t, no.”
“And now you’ve come crawling back to us.” He pauses to nod hello at an older man passing us by. “Where are you staying?” he asks. “With your sister? I bet that’s fun.”
“Let’s just say we’re both trying very hard.”
He grins but it vanishes as quickly it came. “Seriously though. Are you okay? It was on the news.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” I sigh, seeing no point in lying any more than I need to. “I’m not great,” I say. “Though you’ve probably guessed that by me wandering around here.”
“The Abby Reynolds I knew never wandered. She strode. A little bit heavy on her instep but—”
“I get it. Thank you.”
“It’s good to see you,” he says gently. “Even if it’s under shitty circumstances.
” He eyes me carefully, seeming to decide something.
“You sticking around?” he asks. “I need to get back to my parents now, but I’ll be back up in a few weeks to see people.
Maybe a little something on the beach? Pretend it’s not raining? You can meet Sinead.”
“I’d love that,” I say, surprised by how much I mean it. “And I’d love to meet her.”
We make tentative plans and I head back to the house in a significantly better mood than I’d left it.
Losing touch with people wasn’t exactly a choice I made when I left Clonard.
It happened naturally. College was intense and when we did message in those first few months, I found I had little in common with people like Rory, who stayed behind.
His world had suddenly seemed very small to me, whereas mine felt big and exciting.
New. I guess a part of me felt it would always be that way.
That I would always feel one step removed from this place and the life I worked so hard not to have.
And yet, while it’s been years since I’ve stayed so long here, years since I’ve been back at all, I’m a little shocked at how quickly I’ve grown used to it again, how easy people are to talk to over here.
How Rory just shrugged off a decade apart like it had been only a few weeks.
It bugs me all the way home and I almost miss when someone calls my name, stopping only when Pat Bailey pops up from the flowerbed he’d been weeding.
“I was hoping I’d run into you,” he says as I tug out my earbuds. “I gave my cousin a ring.”
“Your cousin?”
“The one in Dublin.”
“Oh. Right.” I vaguely remember Pat talking about him at the lunch the first weekend.
“Now,” he continues, pointing with his trowel. “He spoke to his neighbor who spoke to his son and he said they had something called rolling openings, so I told him I’d pass along your details. Now where did he say they worked?”
“That’s so kind of you,” I say, distracted as he limps around the hedge. I didn’t notice it when he came for lunch but now we’re outside it’s more prominent, a pull of his right leg, almost like he’s dragging it along. I frown. “Are you o—”
“Steven’s?”
I stare at him, the limp instantly forgotten. “Stewarts?”
“That’s the one,” he says, brightening. “You know it?”
“Your cousin works at Stewarts?”
“His neighbor’s son,” Pat corrects.
Stewarts.
MacFarlane’s competitor. Or they would be if they didn’t keep losing business left, right and center.
Not willing to get as down and dirty as the larger banks, their scrupulous business practice now mean they call themselves boutique .
But hey, even if they’re small, at least they’re still standing.
“Can’t say I’ve heard of them myself,” Pat continues as my mind races trying to remember everything I’ve ever heard of them.
“But then what would I know about these things?
Anyway, I told him all about you and how you were looking to get back into the swing of things, so to speak, and he said he'd be happy to pass on your details, so if you like, I can do just that.”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, please. That would be great.”
“Ah, good.” He looks delighted with himself. “I’m glad I could help. Susan wasn’t too sure but I get a feeling about these things. I’ve always had very good instincts.”
I stay a few more minutes, listening without really listening as he talks me through a particularly risky bet he made on a horse when he was a young man.
But my mind is on Stewarts. Stewarts, where I didn’t even try to apply to, knowing I wouldn’t get near the place.
But a personal connection? That’s different in my world, no matter how tenuous it might be.
This is something. It has to be.