is grilled chicken, so you can’t have any of that.”
It’s not as if he had looked up to greet me. Giles Cleveland doesn’t do greetings. I’m getting used to that, particularly since I am also getting the impression that he is very attentive, very tuned in to me. Without really looking at me. I can’t really look at him, either. His face has been so vivid in my mind, and I have been imagining such things that he would be embarrassed if he knew. Angry with me, maybe.
“I’ll have half a Guinness, please, Tim, and a veggie pie or something like that. Whatever. But veggie.”
“I’ll go.” Giles jumps up and blends into the crowd at the bar. He is wearing frayed light blue jeans, a dark blue hoodie, and sneakers. I think he looks lovely, but then I always do. He does not, however, look like a guy who dressed up for a Sunday night out, and I am disappointed that meeting Tim and me in a bar doesn’t even merit a change of clothes. Maybe my choice of a pleated tartan skirt, knee length, with opaque black pantyhose, Mary Poppins boots, and a black sweater was a naff idea for an Irish pub, but at least I made an effort. Cleveland, on the other hand, couldn’t care less whether I think he looks nice.
What am I saying?
He returns with three beers and three small bags of potato chips.
“Compliments of the bartender.” He grins.
“What’s the joke?”
“He wanted to know who the girl is with, and did she know that she’s wearing a County Leitrim tartan.”
I smooth the pleats of my gray-and-red crisscrossed skirt, a little awkwardly because squatting on this low stool I am showing more leg than I had intended.
“Well, at least I get a compliment from somebody…”
“What did you tell him?” Tim takes the pint off him.
“Sorry?”
“Who the girl is with.”
“I said she’s my wife.” Giles shrugs, utterly poker-faced, and Tim cackles into his beer.
Yeah, big joke.
I am still not sure why the boys want me with them tonight. Tim asks me a few things about Yom Kippur, and Giles listens but doesn’t contribute any questions, except hadn’t I celebrated Rosh Hashanah at Freddy Katz’s synagogue?
“I did, and the crazy thing was, I met a guy I knew at school, at home, and my mom recently met his aunt and gave him my phone number—you know what mothers are like. Well, Jewish mothers, anyway. Maybe you don’t know.”
“You met your childhood sweetheart from Queens in a synagogue in Shaftsboro?” Tim squeals. “God, your people really are few but well organized!”
“Bernie wasn’t my sweetheart! Quite the contrary. But yeah, it was weird.”
Giles is watching me, and I am ashamed. I know why I tell them about Bernie (and neglect to mention Elvira), and it has a lot to do with the woman who was waiting for Giles in their cabin by the lake yesterday. It also has a lot to do with his long, hard, be-denimed thigh next to my pantyhosed one.
The whole conversation is a little desultory. I eat my quiche, finish my beer, insist on getting the next round—Coca-Cola for Giles and me, more Guinness for Tim—and have the barman hit on me, playfully, in a charming Irish brogue.
“Eh, lass—why did you throw yourself away on a stuck-up Englishman?”
I push my money across the counter and give him my sweetest smile.
“Oh, but he’s a fantastic shag!”
I am still grinning when I set down the drinks, and Giles avoids my eyes so sheepishly I have to grin even more.
“So, what’s the, um, beef?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, not for nothing, guys, but I’m assuming there is more to come, apart from, ‘Will you really fast all day?’ and ‘How does atonement work?’ Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate this. I was getting a little lachrymose at the cottage, to tell you the truth. But there’s more, right? Has something happened?”
Giles glances over at Tim; Tim inhales and slumps against the wall behind him.
“They’ve drafted me onto the Sexual Misconduct Hearing Panel!”
Apparently three of the six members of the current committee have resigned over the investigation of Nick Hornberger’s misdemeanor, and procedure in the case of resignation is to immediately replace the former members.
Now I see why Tim is deliberately getting legless tonight.
“But—you’re in such a vulnerable position, with your tenure review pending! You shouldn’t be made to involve yourself in this kind of thing!”
“You’d think, but their logic works the other way around. I’m vulnerable, so I