“Good evening.” A man stood off the side of the porch with clippers in hand. His long face and loose jowls looked familiar.
“You’re the gardener, right?” I asked with a smile.
“Edgar, yes.” His lips pulled wide, showing yellowed teeth with somewhat long canines. “How nice of you to remember. It has been such a long time for you.”
By his tone, it sounded like he was commenting on my age. I nearly clapped back with, “For you too, buddy, don’t fool yourself.”
“It has, yes,” I said instead.
“You’ll have to come and see the labyrinth,” he said, opening the clippers but not leaning toward the perfectly tended hedge. “I’ve made some additions. You’ll be lost for days this time, I swear it.”
“Wow, good memory.” I remembered when Diana and I had explored it. She’d led the way in the beginning, winding deep into the heart of it. The problem had come when it was time to leave—each path she led us down came to a dead end. We’d been confused. Then scared. We’d worried we’d never find our way out. But then…I just kinda…started walking, I remember. I felt my way, as odd as that sounded, listening to my intuition. We’d eventually made our way out the exit, half a day after walking in the entrance. “How do you even remember that? I didn’t until you just brought it up.”
He closed the clippers again and winked. “I was waiting to save you girls. It was the shock of my life that you made it out. I knew then that you were destined for great things.”
“I was destined for great things because I made it out of a plant maze?” I asked, laughing.
“Yes,” he answered, clearly not seeing the humor.
“Oh.” I gave him my best please-don’t-kill-me-and-bury-me-in-the-maze smile. “Okay, well…see ya.”
“Yes.”
Niamh sat on her porch, rocking slowly, her pile of rocks at her side. It appeared she hadn’t had any more Mr. Tom sightings.
“Hey,” I said, coming to a stop in front of her house.
“Well,” she drawled back.
I looked down the street, suddenly socially unsure. Then back, wondering if I’d gotten it wrong. “Were you…headed to the pub, or…?”
“Right, yeah.” She leaned forward and labored out of her chair. “’Course.” She checked her rock pile, glanced down the street, then back at the big house. Her eyes narrowed, but when I looked back, all I saw was Edgar waving.
“Are you ready yet?” she asked, as though I were the one causing the delay.
She was wearing a tighter shirt than the one she’d had on earlier, and I couldn’t help but notice her chest. One breast pushed against the fabric, and the other…didn’t seem to be there at all.
Before I could pull my gaze away, Niamh said, “Lost it in the war.”
“Wh-what’s that?” I struggled to say, clearly caught looking. So embarrassing.
“The tit. Lost it in the war.”
“Oh…the Vietnam War, you mean?” I’d almost said World War Two.
“What do I look like, a yank? No, the war on breast cancer. Yeah, it won that battle, but I won the war.”
“Oh.” I was saying ‘oh’ a lot lately. “Congratulations.”
“For what? Getting rid of the tit, or winning the war? Because I’d be just as happy to lop off the other one while I’m at it. They’re a waste of space, aren’t they, flopping around like they do. Sure what good are they anyway? I don’t have an infant to feed—what do I need them for? They’re just needless weight, that’s what I say.”
I nodded because…well, yeah, that was the truth.
“Do you head to the bar every evening?” I asked as we left the porch and started walking down the street. Although I’d never excelled at small talk, I hated awkward silences even more.
“Eh,” she said on a sigh. “Not so much every evenin’, no. I shy away on Fridays and Saturdays because of all the Dicks and Janes that fall into da place.”
I scrunched my brow. “Dicks… Are there some really rowdy people in this town? Like bikers or something?”
“No—ahhhm.” She made a circular motion with her finger. “That’s just what I call…ahm…out-of-towners. Tourists.”
“Oh right. Because of all the tasting rooms, right? This is a big wine town, I noticed.”
“Oh yes, definitely. Harvest season is coming up and there’ll be loads of tourists all through here. They’ll swarm the place. Miserable bastards…”
She grumbled away until silence fell between us, which became increasingly heavy, gooey, and oppressive.
“And how is the wine?” I asked when I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Strong.”
“I meant…like the different kinds?”
“Red, white, that weird halvsie type—all strong.”
I’d expected her to walk slow, given her age, but as we continued up the street, I was embarrassed to realize her pace was making me break a sweat.
“Why’d ye leave him then?” she asked, and I half staggered at the unexpected personal question.
“He left me, actually.”
“Bastard.”
“No, it’s good. I was relieved. I didn’t want to be the one to initiate the end, but we both knew things had fizzled. Well, fizzled is putting it lightly.”
“You’re too nice, so ya are. That’s yer problem. If you’re not happy, figure out why and change it.”
“Yes, well, after a certain point, it became easier to stay together than to break up. And also, if I’m being honest—”
“I hope so. Liars just waste my time.”
“—I was scared to leave. He made the lion’s share of the money and I’d been with him for half my life. It’s daunting, going out on your own. Calling it quits on something you thought would be forever. I felt like I was giving up. That maybe I should just keep trying. I don’t know. But when he finally ended things, all I felt was relief.”
She huffed. “While you were paralyzed with fear, your happiness suffered. That’s a call to courage if I ever heard one.”
“Well…I don’t know about paralyzed…”
“You’re free now, at any rate. Better late than never. Did that useless gobshite make you dinner at least? Or polish the silver arrowheads? We might need those soon. If we have to take down the uncrowned alpha, we will take down the uncrowned alpha. I do not look forward to it—he is exceptional for his kind—but he does have age working against him. We can manage if we have’ta.”
It occurred to me belatedly that she wasn’t talking about Matt, and also that she was talking gibberish. Freaking bananas, the whole lot of them, but it struck me that they had a similar vocabulary. Maybe it was something in the wine.
I played it safe. “He made me dinner, yes. It’s not really his job, though. He’s—”
“It is absolutely his job. What else is he good fer? Besides lazing around. No, no, you make him work, so you should. Really give him hell. It’s good for him.”
As we approached the end of the main drag, she pointed to the right instead of walking straight ahead to a cute little hotel bar I’d seen coming in.
Our destination was a dive bar with a warm orangey glow emanating from the many open windows and two doors. A few motorcycles leaned against their kickstands out front but most of the parking spots were empty.
“Now,” Niamh said in that sing-song voice.
“This is where the locals go?” I asked, following her into the establishment.
A pool table took up the center of the main room, the balls currently in play with two scruffy characters holding cue sticks. The bar lined the far side with a young guy standing behind it and a few guys on the stools pushed up to it, each separated by a seat or two. Down the way there was an open door leading to another room, recessed by a couple of steps. I could see the hint of a pool table beyond it.
Niamh made a bee-line for an empty stool at the end of the bar farthest from the door. I eyed the few tables in the back and down the way before following, claiming the stool between Niamh and a really hairy guy with a pug nose, rosy cheeks, and eyebrows that could really use a trim before they grew legs and crawled off his face.
The young bartender wandered over, visibly swallowing as he did so. “Hello, Missus O’Connor.”
“Well, Paul, howr’ya? How’s it goin’?” She positioned herself just so on the seat.
“Good, tha-thank you.” His gaze shifted to me. “Hello.”
“Hi,” I answered, polite smile in place. He seemed to relax slightly.
“Do you have a wine list?” I asked.
“Sure.” Paul dragged out the word as he turned, looking along the back of the bar, then turned back. “Can I see your I.D.?”
Startled, because it had been quite a while since I’d been carded, I hesitated.
Niamh leaned onto her elbows, eating up a little of the distance between them. “Paul, what age are ye?”
“What?” he asked and his eyes widened, like he’d suddenly found himself looking into the eyes of a predator.
“What age are ye?” she asked again, slower.