least give it a shot. You owe it to us, if not yourself. We cannot listen to your whining much longer.”
“Mal?” Sean asks.
“Hmm?”
“Is Kathleen…single?”
“As far as I’m aware.”
“Do you reckon…”
He completes his question, I’m sure, but my mind is drifting back to Roryland. I pick up my phone and type her name in the search engine. There are only so many Aurora Belle Jenkins in the world, surely. There are a load of pictures of Disney princesses and articles about how to make your own Disney slime before I get to the important stuff.
Outside, thunder cracks, and out of nowhere, it starts to hail.
Random or fate? Sometimes I feel like the world is screwing with me when I think about Rory.
I find her on a New Jersey-based high school website, in an article dated two years ago. She won a photography award of some sort. There’s a picture of her holding her cheap statue in the shape of film, staring at the camera, flipping the finger with a mocking pout. Eyeliner, fishnets, and Toms intact. The girl who left me behind.
Why did I have to find out you exist?
“Anyway…” I shake my head. “Even if I wanted to give her a ring, I don’t have her number or anything like that.”
“Pity,” Sean mumbles into his drink, eyeing the girls at the opposite table.
He looks a bit cross. Then I remember he asked me something about Kathleen. Sean and Kathleen are not in the same IQ bracket. A bit of an odd pairing, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.
“Wait, doesn’t your granddad know her mam?” Daniel snaps his fingers, his eyes lighting up.
Yes, yes, he does. He would have their home number. Rory is not supposed to know about it—not about him knowing her mother, and not about how I know and kept it from her. There’s no chance in hell my granda is going to give me the number, but I could just look at his little phone book. Problem solved.
Of course, there’s a chance Rory went back, got to college, and has already met the love of her life. But if she hasn’t…
If she hasn’t, I’ll take long distance.
Or casual dating.
Or anything, really.
I stand up, finishing my pint in one go.
“Keep us posted.” Daniel slaps my back.
Sean loosens the collar of his shirt, clearing his throat and sliding into a seat next to the girls.
I get out of the pub, heading toward my grandfather’s house on foot. He lives across the village, not terribly far, and I need the fresh air to sort my mind. I hear footfalls behind me, but I don’t slow down. Kiki appears by my side. She is wheezing.
“You’re actually going through with this?”
“Why not?”
It should bother me that Kath has been eavesdropping on my conversation. She’s had her nose stuck in my business as long as I can remember. I chalk it up to Kath being Kath. You take the bad with the good in people.
The good: she’s a grand friend, protective, and never steers me wrong.
The bad: she’s mad as a box of slimy frogs and likes it when I torture her with mixed signals. If I stop, she crumbles and enters a state of depression.
“It’s crazy. You live on different continents. She will never leave America and move here permanently. What kind of future do you have with her?”
“We’ll work it out.”
I round a corner. She’s at my heel.
“That’s just something people say when they can’t figure out how to make something work.”
Kath is practically running to match my stride. We are at my grandfather’s door now. I fish the keys out of my pocket—I have a key for granda’s lock, because his cat, Saoirse, needs taking care of sometimes when he’s on one of his week-long church things.
Kath grabs my arm and yanks me back, jumping in front of the door. “Don’t!” She flinches. “Don’t call her.”
I give her a slow once-over. Christ on a bike, Kath’s oddness has an extra shine today.
She pushes my chest away from my grandfather’s door, her eyes shimmering. “She is not the girl for you, Mal. I am. I’m the right O’Connell girl.” She slaps her hand against her chest, full-blown crying now. “And I don’t care that you probably slept with my half-sister. And I don’t care that you have feelings for her. And I don’t care that she told me you were nothing but a fling to her. I still want you, and I’m tired of waiting.”