• Two eggs, 200 calories
• One glass of orange juice, 110 calories
• One slice of something similar to bacon, approximately 2 grams of fat
My ability to rattle off nutritional information was one of my few talents, learned when I’d need to lose some quick weight each year for cheerleading tryouts. I couldn’t remember a single math formula, but the nutritional breakdown of a chalupa? Embedded forever.
On Monday morning, I sat in the breakfast nook with Liam and Erin. The sun streamed in through the bay window as I took a drink of juice and watched Sean and Nora buzz about the kitchen, cooking for their guests as if they were in a race. Still jet-lagged, it made me tired just watching them.
“Sean, hand us that toast.” Nora zipped past her husband, doing three tasks at once. “Finley, I’m sorry we didn’t get out and about this weekend. It’s a busy season here at the B and B, but as soon as things calm down, we’ll take you to some good places.”
“Like the stalactite cave,” Liam said. “It’s dark and creepy. And kinda drippy.”
“Your brain’s drippy,” Erin said. “Mam meant the really important places.”
“There are some I’d like to see soon.” I thought of the pictures in my brother’s journal. “Like the Cliffs of Moher.”
“Beautiful spot near Doolin,” Sean said from the stove. “Not too far, so.”
The O’Callaghans were kind enough to give me the grand tour of Abbeyglen this weekend, but the demands of their inn didn’t allow for too much time away. I hated being without a car. If I had my own transportation, I’d have just driven myself. But even Erin didn’t have a car. She said hardly any of the teens did. Such strange torture.
“Are you nervous about school?” Erin asked.
“A little.” Who wouldn’t be? I’d been at the same private school all my life. And now I was going to an all-girls Catholic school. What if the girls at Sacred Heart didn’t like me? What if they made fun of my Southern twang? What if I didn’t catch on to their Catholic school ways? What if this uniform skirt cut off my air supply?
“Here’s the plate for table six,” Sean said. “French toast, eggs, and fruit.”
“Young man.” Nora peeked beneath the table at her son’s feet.
“Where is your other sock?”
Liam shrugged. “I could only find one.”
“We have to leave in fifteen minutes. Go find it.”
“I looked.” Liam’s pubescent whine came out like the honk of a flat horn.
“Och, the first day of school always affects him like this.” Nora grabbed her son by the arm. “Let’s go. I have a feeling you didn’t look too hard.”
Sean nudged an egg in the skillet. “Can someone take this plate out?”
“I will,” Erin said.
“No!” Nora stopped, her foot poised on the first step. “Not after last time you won’t.” Her kind eyes turned to me. “Would you mind?” She jerked her highlighted pixie head toward Erin. “This one can’t be trusted. Last time she served a guest breakfast, we found her thirty minutes later, sitting at the table rattling on about her earthworm collection.”
Erin bit into a piece of sausage. “I like to share my passion for science.”
“Our guests do not want to hear about worm droppings at the breakfast table.” She gave Liam a small push. “Go on with you.”
“Table in the corner by the fireplace.” Sean handed the plate to me, then adjusted the strap of his ruffled apron. “Did I mention I used to ride in a tank for a living?”
Pushing the door open with my shoulder, I walked into the dining room where six tables draped in white cloths filled the space. At eight o’clock, only four of the guests dined, and their low chatter bounced off the hardwood floors.
The guest in the corner sat toward the fireplace with his back to me, a book in one hand, a cup of tea in the other.
“Here you go.” I placed the warm food on the table.
And got a look at his face.
“You.”
Beckett Rush lifted his head and smiled. “Good morning t’you, as well.” He put down his book and glanced at his plate. “You didn’t spit on me toast, did you now?”
“You’re staying here?”
“I am.”
“Here? At Birch Hill House? In one of these rooms? At this B and B?”
Beckett grinned at my babbling. “Don’t you go getting any ideas about stealing the spare key and sneaking into my room.” He covered his mouth in a whisper. “The innkeepers’ daughter already tried it.”
Of all the host families to stay with, I was residing with the one housing Beckett Rush. Unreal.
“Since I’m here for a while working on a movie, I guess we’ll be seeing each other around.” He picked up his syrup and poured a whorl of it over his plate. “Only in Ireland for a few days, and you’ve already found your pot of gold.”
This was the O’Callaghan’s customer. I couldn’t snark off to him. I couldn’t.
Oh, but I wanted to. What was it about this guy that had me itching to bare my claws?
I somehow managed to unclench my teeth. “Have a nice day.”
He pierced a bite with his fork. “Dream about me while you’re at school.”
“Would that be with or without your false teeth?”
He gave me a slow wink. “They’re fangs.”
“Kind of sad you have to use props to get the girls.”
“It’s absolutely tragic, isn’t it?” His smile reached his eyes. “Be sure to put me on your prayer list.”
My socks cut off my circulation, my uniform sweater itched, and my underwear seemed to be staging some sort of revolt to make me as uncomfortable as possible.
And these were the good points of the day.
I sat in fifth period and listened to the English teacher, Mrs. Campbell, give a preview of the year. No matter the country, it was the same spiel. If you didn’t do your homework, you were going to flunk. And if you flunked, you’d never get your dream job. And if you didn’t get your dream job, then you’d need to start practicing the phrase “Did you want biggie fries with that?”
As she lectured, I glanced down at my desk and realized that sometime during the hour, I’d rearranged my supplies. Three pens rested in a perfectly aligned group at a ninety-degree angle to my notebook, which rested in the exact center of the desk.
I did so like order. After Will died, when I wasn’t sneaking out of the house, I was organizing the family closets.
“Students, you are sixth years.” Mrs. Campbell paced the front of the classroom, her eagle eyes somehow falling on every one of us. We all looked like carbon copies in our dark shoes, plaid skirts, and navy cardigans. “After you sit your leaving cert this spring, you will be released into the real world. Do you know what you want to do? Where you’re going? Do you know who you want to be?”
My stomach tightened with her every question.
How was it I was eighteen? A senior? On this ledge of two lives, preparing to jump off and go to college and leave my childhood behind?
My brothers both shot from the birth canal with their destinies stamped to their butts like signatures on a Cabbage Patch Kid. Alex picked up his first football at two and never looked back, becoming one of the nation’s most beloved quarterbacks. And Will had gone on a mission trip in the eighth grade and forever championed for the plight of the less fortunate, whether through his work on CNN or his foundation to build schools in Afghanistan.
So far I was the family screwup.
But that was going to change.
“Every year we ask our sixth years to complete a final project.” Mrs. Campbell stopped near my desk, which was unfortunately at the front. “This year’s theme is serving,” she said. “We don’t want to just send out intelligent young women into the world, but kind, compassionate ones. Please take one of these sealed envelopes and pass it back.”
I picked an envelope from the top and handed the stack to the girl behind me and tried to smile.
“I’m Beatrice Plummer,” she whispered. “You may have heard of me.”
“I don’t think so.”
She ran a manicured nail under her envelope. “My dad is the principal. Mr. Plummer.”
“Must be hard to have your dad as principal.”
“Actually I find it quite useful. Do you know Taylor Risdale?”
“The actress?”
“My third cousin, she is.” Her braggish tone scrubbed over my nerves. “She’s filming a movie here.”
“I believe I did hear something about that.”
“I’m in it.” Her pleased grin let me know that it was an honor she was even talking to me. “So you’re the new girl. The American?”
I nodded.
“Would you like to sit with me and my friends for lunch?” It came out with enough confidence to be more of a statement than a question.
We girls can sometimes be like wild animals, able to sniff out the strongest among us. Within seconds, I took in the total picture of Beatrice—her black sequined headband, the way her dark hair fell with perfect symmetry over her shoulder, diamond studs twinkling in her ears. Even her regulation socks somehow looked cooler than the rest of ours.
I’d just met Sacred Heart’s queen bee.
“Thank you. But I’m eating with Erin.” I gestured to where my host sister sat on the opposite side of the room. “Want to join us?”
Beatrice’s glossy lips curved into a facsimile of a smile. “A word of advice?”
“Um, okay.”
“You could aim a little higher.” She delivered her sales pitch with all the finesse of a used car salesman. “With some guidance you could be one of the cool girls here, so.”
“Like you.”
She flipped her hair. “Of course.”
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll give it some thought.” I might’ve been born privileged, but my momma hadn’t raised no snob. Well, just when it came to egomaniacal actors.
I turned back around as Mrs. Campbell cleared her throat for attention.
“Students, please open your envelopes.”
I peeled open the flap and reached inside.
Cathleen Sweeney.
“On your paper is the identity of a person you will be spending a lot of time with.” Mrs. Campbell clasped her hands together, her eyes alight with excitement. “Each one of you will be adopting a grandparent from one of our nearby nursing homes.”
Okay, I could do this. A chance to cheer up an elderly person? How hard could that be?
“You will be expected to see your grandparent at least twenty hours by the term’s end. You will read to them, talk to them, get to know them, become a part of their lives. And before our Christmas holiday, you will turn in a portfolio to me.” Mrs. Campbell passed out a pack of papers, and the classroom filled with the sound of thirty girls flipping through the stapled pages.
Mrs. Campbell explained each assignment and how we’d be graded. “My plan is that this experience teaches you more than any textbook ever could.” She paused and her eyes panned the room. “My hope is that when you walk away from this . . . you are not the same.”
An assignment that could change my life?
Sign me up.