Mismatched (3 page)

“Smooches!” I say, just before closing my phone.

The elevator is completely silent. It gives me fifteen or twenty seconds on the ride up to imagine what my next hour is going to include. Wine for me … beer for him. Soft music. Lights low. Naked legs, intertwined. Sweaty, slippery bodies and clothes strewn around the room…

I start to use my key, but the door isn’t locked and it pushes in with little effort. I haven’t even seen anything yet, but I already know that my normally perfectly pristine apartment is a wreck. Pizza boxes are stacked near the front door and the distinct odor of pot permeates the front entrance. My iPod is sitting on the front hall table with a giant tangle of headphones around it.

“What in the holy hell …?” I come around the corner of the foyer and look at the destruction that used to be my living room. My couch is covered in hairy men wearing football jerseys and they’re all staring at a television screen that has naked women dancing on it.

“Oh, hey, babe, what’s going on?” Jeremy smiles up at me from the armchair where he’s reigning over the clan of the cave bears he calls his boys. His ugly gold tooth winks out at me. “You’re back early.”

I give the knacker who’s about to be tossed out of my fifth floor apartment a tight smile. “Jeremy, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Yeah, babe, sure.” He stands up and trips over his friends’ legs. They’re all too high on life and whatever it is they smoked my condo up with to pay me or him any mind.

We make it to my room with the door closed before I blow my top.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing out there?!” My hands are clenched into fists at my sides. They’re itching to slap his stupid, in-desperate-need-of-a-shave face, but I resist … for now, anyway.

“Just havin’ a little party, babe, no big deal.” He sidles up to me, hands going for my waist.

Normally, I’d find this part fun, where he acts all suave and kind of dangerous and I pretend to be an innocent damsel who’s not sure if she wants to mess around or not, but right now all I want to do is send his balls right up into his throat, courtesy of my stilettos.

I back up to stay out of his reach and to keep myself from turning him into a eunuch. “No big deal? No big deal?!” I throw my arm out towards the living room. “You’ve destroyed my apartment! Your pet gorillas are probably farting God knows what into my leather couch right now. I’ll never get their stench out of here! All the Febreze in the world isn’t going to fix this catastrophe. And I just passed the bar exam, you idiot! I can’t have you cheezedicks in here smoking dope. What’s wrong with you?”

He frowns enough to pull his eyebrows into one giant, very messy caterpillar. “Yo, babe, chill, a’ight?” He grins in what I’m sure he thinks is a sexy manner. “Ain’t no need … to get all tee’d … cuz you got meee … and I got the weed …” He pulls a plastic baggie out of his pants as he chuckles over his busta rhyme and dangles it between us.

I sigh out heavily, disgusted with myself. What. An idiot. Erin was totally right about him. Gee-bag indeed.

Why? Why do I not listen to my friend when she tells me the fuckwad that I’m sleeping with is a class-A scumbag? I don’t know why. There is no good explanation. I am an educated woman who normally has a brain and knows how to use it.

Poor Erin. She has diligently and regularly warned me off bad choices for years, but I have yet to learn my lesson. Men are my kryptonite; terribly stupid men with way too much excess body hair are the worst. But that all stops today. No more dickwads for me. I’m a bone fide lawyer now.

He comes closer, but I push him away. “No. Stop.”

“Come on, sweet sister, come play with daddy.”

I cringe as I walk backwards, avoiding his outstretched hand. Did I actually fall for that crap before? Did this turn me on the last time we were together? God, I hope not. And ew, his knuckles are hairy. Why did I never notice that before? I need to get my head examined.

As the back of my thighs bump into my nightstand, I hold out a very serious finger right up to his face. “Stay the hell away from me and don’t you dare touch me with that Sasquatch paw.”

He stops coming towards me and backs his chin up into his chest. “Sasquatch? You callin’ me Bigfoot?”

I turn around and yank open my drawer, sliding the nine millimeter handgun out and pointing it at the floor near my side. “Yeah, I’m calling you Bigfoot.” I gesture towards the door with a jerk of my chin. “And now I’m calling you done. Get out of my apartment and never,
ever
come back as long as we both shall live.”

“You a crazy bitch, you know dat?”

He looks like he’s considering whether I’m serious or not, so I help him make the right decision. I raise the gun and point it at his chest. He doesn’t know it’s not loaded. “Get. The fuck.
Out
.” I am so Rambo right now, it’s not even funny.

“Why you bein’ so harsh all of a sudden? Damn, bitch, you be stone cold frosty ta-night.”

“And stop talking like a stupid rapper idiot, Jeremy, you fucking wannabe
.
I know for a fact you graduated BU with a major in English Lit, dipshit!”

“Fuck this,” he says, turning and leaving my room.

I fall to my butt on the edge of my bed as he calls out to his homeboys and herds them out the door. I can hear them grumbling the whole way. They’re so lucky I don’t have any bullets for this gun.

“Fuck you, crazy bitch!” the knacker yells before slamming the door shut.

I start laughing once I know I’m alone, but it’s when I wander out into the front hall and see that he’s stolen my iPod once again that I really lose it. I fall to the floor just inside the door, holding my stomach and laughing until I feel like I’m going to puke.

I realize I may possibly be suffering a hell of a contact high when I finally calm down and find myself lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. “Gold-toothed, poser, Sasquatch, motherfuckin’ knacker,” I say out into the empty space above me.

I snort some more laughs out as I struggle back to my feet and head into my bedroom to prepare for my evening at the Pot ‘O Gold. Gotta get my lawyer panties on so I can help my best friend get her bar back…

CHAPTER THREE

ERIN

IT’S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE I’ve been back to Ireland. I lean across Ridlee to look out the window of the plane as we begin our descent into Dublin airport. Dense clouds cover the city as we wobble our way through turbulent wind and atmosphere into my hometown. Things aren’t much better on the ground. I feel slightly responsible for the weather.

“It always looks bad when you land,” I say, perhaps a bit too brightly, as Ridlee and I walk across the tarmac and into Dublin airport.

Ridlee looks so chic. Thanks to the Valium, she slept pretty much all the way here, clad in a velour juicy tracksuit. Fifteen minutes before landing she disappeared into the tiny toilet and re-emerged wearing a Burberry skirt and blouse, classic Burberry trench coat, and brown leather boots, her hair and make-up expertly done. The fact that Burberry is an English label doesn’t matter to her; it’s close enough to Ireland. She’ll be going all Madonna on me soon, from the Mrs. Ritchie era — all twinsets and pearls.

“Chill, Erin. We’re not here for the weather. I do know something about Ireland you know.”

“Oh yeah, such as?”

“Such as Liam Neeson and Colin Farrell are very hot, and I love the Irish accent.”

“Which one?” We’ve made it to the baggage hall and are waiting for our luggage.

“All of ‘em.”

“Really? What’s your favorite? ‘Cause you know there are almost as many accents here as there are people.”

“And I love them all. They’re super-cute.”

I smile at my friend’s enthusiasm. “What about my accent? Is that ‘super- cute’?”

“No, because you have an American accent. Except when you’re angry. Then you go all bad-ass Irish.”

“No, I don’t!”

“You so do!”

“I soooo don’t!”
Why have I gone all valley girl?

Ridlee looks knowingly at me.

“Ah, stick it up your arse, Rid.”

“That’s better.” She winks at me and then lets out a squeal as she spots one of her wholly impractical Globe Trotter suitcases on the carousel. We both lean in and try to grab it.

“Allow me.” A tall man in a suit leans in and hauls it off the runner, setting it gently down beside my friend. She smiles sweetly, and the two remain in suspended animation, mutually admiring one another, while the rest of her ridiculous luggage sails by. After Jeremy the scumbag, she has vowed to only shag men in suits, or at the very least, trouser pants.

“Eh, there’s the rest of your luggage, Ridlee,” I say trying to muscle past the lovebirds and catch it before it does a second tour.

“Ah, Americans!” says the guy, his eyes not leaving Ridlee’s face.

This irritates me no end as
she
has not yet said a word. Parts two and three of her luggage are ducking back through the hole in the wall, and of course there’s no sign of my generic black Walmart case.

“I am. She’s not,” coos my idiot friend. “Erin’s Irish. Like you.”

“Is she?” He tears his eyes away from her face briefly to shoot me a look, but in a mili-second they’re glued back on her face. I am sooo used to this, playing second fiddle to my gorgeous, sexy friend.

“She doesn’t sound Irish,” he says smiling lazily at her.

“I know, right? I was just telling her that. But, you do.” She moves her hand toward his face as though she’s about to brush her fingers against his cheek but pulls away at the last moment, all demure.
 

I have seen this scene play out a million times, and they always fall for it. I spot my bag lumbering toward me, wedged between two massive cases. It looks like it’s been attacked by an angry bull. Grabbing it, I heave it onto the trolley that I cleverly commandeered earlier, and head toward the exit. Ridlee has her bags and is following close behind, her whipping boy hot on her heels.

A huge cheer goes up as I walk through the double doors, and instinctively I cringe. A massive banner reading WELCOME HOME ERIN! is blocking the faces of the entire front line of people waiting to collect friends, colleagues, or loved ones. It’s my family. All of them.

“Hi!” I screech with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. I hate any kind of familial emotional displays.

My mother thrusts herself forward, blocking the exit for anyone else who might be hoping to enter the country today, and throws her arms around me. I gasp at her unexpectedly vice-like grip and try to maneuver her away from the exit doors so that people can pass us.

“Welcome home, Erin!
Céad míle fáilte
! A hundred thousand welcomes!” she yells.

My mother was actually born in the States, but since moving back to Ireland, she has taken up learning Irish, or
gaeilge
. She reminds me of those religious converts who always have to be even more pious than the regular religious folk. Frequently, she’ll announce proudly that she’s more Irish than the Irish and speaks
as
gaeilge
at every opportunity. For those who don’t understand — that is, most of us — she follows with an English translation.

At the height of her Irish mania, it was decided that I would be sent to an Irish-speaking school. I spent the first three months listening hard for my name amidst all the guttural diarrhea that was spoken at me. It was a strict school and you could get into trouble without even knowing what you’d done wrong. I was in a fight-or-flight state for all of my thirteenth year and yet was reminded daily how lucky I was to be fluent in our mother tongue. The name Erin means Ireland in Irish.

Much hugging and back slapping ensues. While my mother is one of two children, my father comes from a very large — read:
Catholic
— family, and most of them and their offspring have turned out to welcome me home.

“Ye better not have forgotten your roots,” says my Uncle Miley as he grabs me in a bear hug. “None of that ‘garbage’ and ‘to-may-tow’ bullshit, do ye hear me?”

I try to nod, but my face is pinned to his chest. He smells of stout; Guinness, to be exact. I’m not one for pushing the ‘Oh, but don’t the Irish love a drink’ stereotype, but my Uncle Miley really does like a drink. Several in fact. He was on a one-man mission to drink as much Guinness as possible so as to save the company from being sold to a foreign company back in the nineties. It seems he succeeded because the Guinness factory is still there.

My Aunty Geraldine steps in to save me. “Put the girl down, Miley!” She pulls me to her and grabs hold of my cheeks. “Don’t they feed ye over there? You’re all skin and bone!” This is clearly bullshit. I am most certainly not ‘skin and bone’. It is just a pre-text for Geraldine to feed me every time she sees me. She’s a feeder.

The love keeps comin’ from all directions until I finally see my father at the back of the crowd. He is waiting patiently, leaning against a wall. I go over to him.

“How’re ye, Dad?”’

“So, you decided to come back to the auld sod finally, did ye?”

“I haven’t had much money for air fares, Dad.”

“Aragh, don’t give me that crap, Erin. Ye know we’d have flown ye home for a visit.”

“Margaret needed me.”

At this my father actually guffaws. “Ay, like a hole in the head.” He looks at me for the longest minute before pulling me in for a hug. I hug back hard. “Well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters. And who’s this young lassie?”

I look up to see Ridlee standing in a sea of fancy luggage, a huge smile plastered on her face. She’s holding a card in her hands. Her whipping boy from the baggage claim is walking away grinning, suffering what I call ‘the Ridlee effect’.

“Ahem!
”
she clears her throat.

My father looks on bemused while my mother smiles encouragingly. That’s all Ridlee needs.

"Dia daoibh!" she hollers.

God, that girl’s got balls.
So that’s why she wanted to know how to say hello in Irish. I cringe for her. Strangers are smiling at her indulgently, the way you do when a child or a handicapped person attempts something challenging, as they maneuver around her.

"Dia 's Muire dhuit, God and Mary be with you!” answers my mother, rushing toward my friend.