• Lunch: one apple, two plain rice cakes, Diet Coke
• Calories: 150
• Taste: zero
• Days to audition: 32
As I pedaled my bike, a man I recognized as the local butcher strolled with his wife, an umbrella over their heads. “Good day to you, Finley from America.”
“Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. Walsh.” I loved the sound of their accents.
“Sure, we saw you running this morning,” Mr. Walsh said as I stopped, putting my toes to the ground. “We called out to you, but me wife said you had in those ear thingamabobs and couldn’t hear. Running so fast, you scared the coats right off me sheep.”
I laughed, my legs still jelly from pushing myself four miles.
Pretty good for not putting on running shoes in a month.
“Next time you come round, you stop in for tea,” Mrs. Walsh said.
“I’ll do that.” As I pedaled away, I thought how back home, we threw out invitations and knew it was just polite talk. In Ireland? It meant I’d better see you at my house soon.
A light misting rain peppered down on this chilly Wednesday afternoon, and I held my own umbrella while steering my bicycle with one hand, a skill I was proud to have acquired. And one that was necessary. I was sure I hadn’t had a frizz-free day since arriving. I guess it was the price you paid to be in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Hopping off my bike, I wheeled it under the awning of the Rosemore and went inside. Every time I opened the door, a wave of disappointment washed over me. The nursing home looked the same. Smelled the same. Felt the same. I didn’t know why I kept hoping for it to magically transform into Disney World or some other place of happiness and smiles. But it was never going to do that. This was a building where old people came to spend their last days. Where they came to die. Like Mrs. Sweeney.
I said hello to the nurse on duty at the front desk and found my way to Mrs. Sweeney’s door. “Hello?”
I waited for Mrs. Sweeney’s usual command to leave, but heard nothing.
The room was dark, save for the dim light coming through the window. I flipped on the lights.
“Mrs. Sweeney!” She lay on the floor in a heap, eyes wide, shaking. I rushed to her and dropped to my knees. “Are you all right?”
She closed her eyes. “Does it . . . does it look like I’m all right?”
“Let me call the nurse.”
“No.” Her whisper sounded loud in the still room. “Just help me up. I’m . . . I’m too weak.”
“You might’ve broken something. I don’t think I should try to move you.” What would Erin have done? She’d have known all that medical stuff.
She lifted her head and glared. “Am I not eighty-three years old? I believe I would know if something was broken. I just can’t get meself up. Quit your prattling and give us some assistance.”
Reluctantly, I eased my arms under hers, and together we slowly raised her from the floor. The woman weighed no more than Erin’s stick of a brother, and as I settled her into her silver wheelchair, she heaved a long breath.
“Thank you.” She rested her elbow on the chair and leaned her head into her hand.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Fine.”
“Because you just thanked me.”
“’Twas an accident.” She continued to take deep, quivery breaths with her eyes closed, as if she was trying not to relive those last few moments on the floor.
“What happened?”
Mrs. Sweeney remained quiet for a long stretch before finally answering. “I had to go to the loo. Normally I can take meself.” She lifted her head and took some steadying breaths. “It was dark. I was groggy. Tripped over my slippers.” Holding up her hands she grimaced. “No harm done.”
“This time,” I said. “And how long had you been on the floor?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped as the color returned to her cheeks. “Make yourself useful and get us a glass of water.”
Biting my tongue, I did as I was told, letting my heart return to its regular pace.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”
“It’s lunchtime.” I forced my voice to speak in notes of calm.
“You crazy Irish folk let your teenagers run all over town for lunch.”
“Where you do nothing but find trouble.”
“The more scandalous the better. Like visiting nursing homes.”
I handed her the cup. “I still think I should call the nurse. Have her check you out.”
“Don’t you dare. I’ve been poked and prodded all day.”
“And nothing hurts?”
“Just me ears.”
“From my prattling. Yes, got it.” I smiled just to annoy her. “I brought us a book to read.”
She harrumphed as I sat down and pulled it from my bag.
“Stephen King.” I showed her the cover. “Carrie.”
“I read that years ago.” Mrs. Sweeney rubbed her elbow. “I guess I could give it another listen. Until you find me another.”
“Since it’s about a girl who ends up terrorizing people, I thought maybe you could pick up some new tricks.”
She slid me a look. “The only evil in this room is you.
Impertinent girl.”
She was half right. Sunday as I sat with the O’Callaghan family in the seventh row of their church, I found myself tuning out. After I doodled my name fifty-seven times on a bulletin, I started strat-egizing my approach with Mrs. Sweeney. The assignment wasn’t going away. I needed to deal with her in a way that would keep her at arm’s length—because I would not be getting attached—yet I needed to be friendly enough to get her to cooperate.
My church-inspired conclusion was that she was obviously a proud woman, so if she was anything like me, sympathy over her situation would not win her over. After my brother’s disappearance, there was nothing I detested more than people oozing with softly spoken words and hugs that went on way too long. And Mrs. Sweeney didn’t need that either.
At least that was the theory. And since I came up with it in a church, surely it was inspired by God. Or boredom. Either way, I thought it was sound. I’d just have to log in those twenty hours as quickly as possible, then I could say good-bye to the crabby woman.
“Are you ready for me to read?” I took her outstretched cup and placed it on the bedside table.
“I was ready ten minutes ago. If you wait any longer I’ll have time to write a novel meself.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I opened the book and read, filling the sentences with an animated voice and pausing for suspense at all the right places, composing a soundtrack in my head, heavy on the strings.
By the time I got to chapter three, Mrs. Sweeney’s eyes had closed and her breathing came slow and even. I’d have been insulted, but I decided I liked her this way.
“Knock, knock!” Nurse Belinda stuck her head inside and smiled. “Cathleen, I brought the mail. Oh.” She lowered her booming voice. “She’s asleep.”
I double-checked to make sure Mrs. Sweeney was truly out. “She fell this afternoon,” I whispered.
“Did she now?” Belinda shook her head, and the salt-and-pepper bun on her head tottered. “She’s had a rough week. Hardly gets out of bed now. It breaks my heart.” She held out an envelope just as an alarm went off somewhere down the hall. “Do me a favor and stick this in her top drawer. I’ve got to go check on a resident. Cathleen always tells me to throw her mail away, but I know she just digs these letters out of the trash and saves them.” The alarm continued to squawk like an angry bird, and Belinda sailed out of the room.
I tiptoed around Mrs. Sweeney’s bed and to her dresser. I reached for the top drawer, and the thing wouldn’t budge. Gripping the pull, I gave it a yank. On the third try, it flung open and letters spilled onto the floor.
Peering inside, I saw stacks and stacks of letters. Same white envelopes. Same address. To Fiona Doyle, Galway. From Cathleen Sweeney.
Each one marked return to sender.
Just like the one in my hand.
“Now, we’re just looking today, Erin.” Nora O’Callaghan held up a soft ivory dress that shimmered under the lights of Hargood’s House of Formal Wear, a store that mostly carried a small selection of custom bridal wear and custom pieces.
“So the girls wear white dresses and the boys wear . . . ?”
“White shirts,” Erin said. “Nice pants, many wear suits, usually in light colors.”
“I was hoping the guys had to dress like Columbus.” I flipped through two racks of white flowy dresses, the kind you’d wear on a summer night on the beach or frolicking through an Irish field of wildflowers looking for fey folk and leprechauns.
“Do you see anything you like?” A woman popped her head between two racks, a measuring tape dangling from her neck and a pincushion wrapped around her wrist.
“Deirdre here makes them special every year,” Nora said.
“Sure. Me and me daughter. We order some too. Those folks in China make a good St. Flanagan’s Day dress as well.”
“Nothing compares to yours, and you know it.”
Deirdre held up a humble hand. “You get the dress in one of the four sizes,” she said to me, “and we alter it to fit.”
“Och, Erin, what about this one, then?” Nora held up a white thing with a ruched top and tea-length skirt.
“That one’s made just for your tiny frame,” Deirdre said.
“What do you think, Finley?” Erin asked.
“You’d look beautiful in it.”
Nora grabbed an armful of choices and pushed us toward the dressing rooms. “In you go. I’ll pass the garments over. I’ve left your dad and Liam at home fixing a broken washing machine, so quickly, if you please. I’m afraid, given too much time, Liam will have the thing torn apart and refashioned as a robot.”
“Who are you asking to the dance?” I asked Erin from my dressing room as I lifted my sweater over my head. The full-length mirror in front of me framed my body, and I stepped closer and stared. My eyes traced the line of my hips, my convex stomach, the legs beneath my jeans.
What did the world see when they looked at me?
“I’ve a mind to ask Samuel Connolly,” Erin said from the other side of the wall. “He’s a fifth year, but mature for his age. Very smart. Not much time left to ask though. Why don’t guys get as stressed out about this as we do? I think he likes me, but I’m not sure.”
“He’d be an idiot if he didn’t like you.” I pulled a dress on, letting it slide down my arms and cascade over me. The material lay soft against my skin and I tried to imagine myself dancing in a cute guy’s arms. Beckett Rush’s smiling face came to mind, and I blinked it away. Silly thoughts.
Reaching for the door, I stepped outside. “What signs have you seen that Samuel’s interested?”
“Oh, lots of them,” Erin called. “He said hello to me on Tuesday. Waved at me from his bicycle last Sunday. And I’m fairly certain he smiled when we passed him in our car on Friday. But I could be wrong. He also might’ve been sneezing. It was from a distance. Hard to tell.” The dressing room door creaked as Erin stuck out her head. “So basically either he’s madly in love with me . . . or he doesn’t even know I exist.” With hesitation on her face, Erin joined us.
Nora dug in her purse and pulled out her phone. “Oh, if your father could see you now, he’d burst into tears.”
“Mam, no pictures!”
“It could be your last festival dance. Next year you’ll be gone. I have to document the memories.” The camera flashed twice. “And, Finley, you’re a vision, you are.” She snapped two more. “Your mam will flip.” Nora walked a circle around me. “Just a nip and tuck here and there. Deirdre will make this fit as if it were made for you.”
Erin smiled. “I think it is.”
We changed back into our clothes, both Erin and I having our eye on our favorites.
“There’s himself calling again,” Nora said as she followed us out of the dressing room. “This is the third time your father’s called. I better take it.” She held the phone to her ear and walked toward the front of the store.
Just as Beatrice and the Poshes walked in.
“Oh great.” I turned and faced the other direction, studying a rack of dresses with great interest. Mother-of-the-bride dresses.
“Hello, Bea,” Erin said. “Shopping for a dress?”
“I’m helping my friends select theirs.” Bea and her minions simultaneously smirked.
Erin’s smile didn’t falter. “Found your own already?”
Beatrice tossed her hair. “I had it special ordered, of course.” Her chin lifted as she looked around. “My father had me order a few different gowns for the Hollywood premiere of the movie, so I went ahead and got a dress for the dance. If I’m not working on the next movie, I suppose I’ll be at the festival. I do hope you can find yourself a date this time.” She looked at Erin with feigned pity. “It was so sad last year, to watch you go alone.”
Erin’s mouth dropped. “Well, I—”
“And two years in a row?” Beatrice and her girls shared a snotty smile. “Total social death, I would suppose.” Her lips curled in a smile. “Good luck with that.”
“But . . .” Erin’s cheeks glowed pink. “I . . . I have a date.”
Like a bad paranormal movie, time seemed to stop as I looked at Erin. And she looked at me.
“Is that so?” Beatrice’s voice dripped with disbelief as thick as cake batter. “Who?”
Erin cleared her throat and glanced at me again. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
If was official. My host sister had crossed over to the dark side.
Desperation had just made this good girl go bad.