“I take it your nan didn’t whack you with a wooden spoon when you were young?”
“No,” Angie says. “Our beatings came from our mother and were mental, involving the deliberate erosion of our self-esteem.”
“Subtle, but effective,” Sandra adds.
“What time tomorrow? Should I meet you here or?” Valerie asks. For a second I’m disappointed that this means I’m not spending the night with her, but obviously I’m both thinking with my dick and being selfish.
“I’ll come pick you up at the hotel at nine,” I tell her. “Sorry if that’s too early.”
“I can’t promise she won’t be hung over,” Sandra says. “It is our last night in Ireland together.”
The crazy thought of Valerie meeting some other guy tonight, some guy who doesn’t have an outlandish plan of lies, makes a hot coal of jealousy burn in my stomach.
Shite, I’ve got to get a hold of myself. This possessive version of myself, especially over someone I have no right to get possessive over, is entirely new to me.
“Perhaps you two should, you know, exchange phone numbers,” Angie says with a bemused look on her face. “Might come in handy during the fake fiancé thing. Tell us again why you want to do this?”
Since we still have our espressos to finish and they’ve only heard the truth second hand, I tell them the same thing I told Valerie. In the end, Sandra has watery eyes and is clutching her chest, while Angie looks moderately affected.
Then they leave and Valerie and I say goodbye for now. It’s just a wave as she makes her way to their taxi, which Sandra had called without me noticing.
A wave that’s distant and awkward and shy, the kind of wave you give someone you don’t know very well.
And that’s when it hits me that I don’t know her very well.
And I’m about to take her home.
To see my nan.
To see my father.
And have her pretend to be my wife-to-be.
What the fuck could possibly go wrong?
The next morning I have my stuff packed in the back of my Cayenne and I’m heading over to Valerie’s hotel.
The snow has transformed into grey slush and everyone looks positively miserable at the prospect of going back to work. I’m honked at twice for reasons I can’t discern, and by the time I pull up to the hotel, I’m ready to get out of Dublin before the city starts to implode.
Valerie is waiting on the steps, talking to the hotel’s doorman. I get to observe her for a moment before she sees me.
Am I doing the right thing?
Do you trust this girl to lie for you?
Don’t you wonder why she would?
I can’t say I haven’t been asking myself those questions a lot over the last twenty-four hours.
But now that I’m looking at Valerie, the doubt subsides. Just enough to think that maybe this will work anyway.
I mean, the woman is gorgeous. Even when she’s smiling politely at the doorman (and also frowning in such a way that it makes me think she can’t understand a word of what this guy is saying), she exudes something that I can’t put my finger on. I’m not poetic or worldly enough, perhaps.
The best I can say is that she reminds me of the first day of spring. Not the arbitrary date in March, but that first real day when the sun is out and the air is fresh and you close your eyes and you can almost feel yourself being reborn again.
I can’t say I’ve ever gotten that feeling from someone else before, and it’s just enough to cause my rapidly beating heart to slow.
I take a deep breath and get out of the car, heading to the steps of the hotel.
“Good morning,” I tell her, coming up beside her. “Are ye ready?”
Now that I’m closer, I can see the shyness in her eyes, the fact that she’s as unsure about this as I am.
“As I’ll ever be,” she says, and the doorman attempts to grab her suitcase but before he can I’ve already scooped it up and I’m gesturing to the car.
Meanwhile I can hear someone else behind us talking to the doorman: “Is that Padraig McCarthy? That fool should be back in the game. He looks fine to me.”
I wonder when they’ll learn I’m anything but fine.
I put her luggage in the trunk and quickly go around to her passenger door, opening it for her.
“Such a gentleman,” she comments, looking impressed.