Page 6 of Blame it on the Bet
“Mayhem. It’s in Minnesota.”
“That’s a place?”
“Apparently. I have no idea how to get there. You’ll have to figure that out. It’d be great if you could get me on the first plane out tomorrow.”
“Return ticket for when?”
“I don’t know yet. Depends on how long it takes me to get what I want.”
Helen snorts and rolls her eyes. “So, tomorrow night, then?”
“You know it. There’s a reason they call the Midwest ‘fly-over country.’” I grin. “Nothing there worth landing for.”
“Apparently there’s something worth landing for, or you wouldn’t want ‘boots on the ground.’ Speaking of which, would you like me to go pick up a few cold-weather wardrobe items before you go? Winter coat, boots, gloves, that kind of thing?”
“Nope. I don’t plan on being there long enough to need them.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? You think you’ll be able to get this sale squared away that quick?” “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Well, if you’re sure… You know the temperature can drop below zero this time of year, don’t you?”
In the beginning, I used to find this kind of conversation irritating because I thought Helen was questioning my judgment or my ability…or, at times, my sanity. But I’ve since come to realize that she has genuine concern for my wellbeing. Something I still find a little foreign…but not altogether unpleasant.
“I can have something waiting for you on that end if you don’t want to haul a coat on the plane with you,” she adds.
“Thanks, but I really am hoping to be in and out in under twenty-four hours.”
“All righty, then,” she says, jotting down a few notes on her pad. “You just do whatever you think is best. ”
Oh. I plan to.
Chapter Three
HENNESSY
“The Whiskey Sisters.”
That’s what the four of us have been called for as long as I can remember. Never in a derogatory way, though—it was always a sweet term of endearment used by our friends and neighbors. But it was more than a nod to the names our parents chose for us—it was about our relationship to the business itself. “Every O’Halloran has a stake in O’Halloran’s,” our father would tell us. And he wasn’t kidding.
I was drafted to wash dishes when I turned fifteen. Jameson got to file Pops’s paperwork. Walker learned the ins and outs of mixology long before she was old enough to drink. Even Bailey spent her summer vacations serving fish and chips to the tourists passing through town. It was a family business in the truest sense of the word.
After a fitful night’s sleep in my childhood bedroom, I dress and slip down the rear staircase—the one that goes from the apartment kitchen into the back corridor of the pub, where my father’s office and the kitchen are. When we were kids, my mother would send us down that way to kiss our father good night.
Everything is dark and still when I open the door at the bottom of the stairs. It’ll be another hour yet before Donovan comes in to prep for lunch, so I’ve got the whole place to myself. I head into my father’s office without bothering to flip the switch that illuminates the small, narrow hallway. I know it’s exactly eighteen paces from here. I know that I need to lift the door just a hair so it doesn’t catch on the frame. And I know the switch to my left will light the small lamp on Pops’s desk. With a deep sigh, I sit down in his wooden desk chair on wheels, the kind that they stopped manufacturing years ago because the base was unstable.
Sitting at the back edge of the calendar/blotter are framed pictures of us all. Mama and Pops on their wedding day. My high school graduation. James’s wedding to the dipstick. Bailey’s sweet sixteen. My favorite, by far, is a picture of Pops, sound asleep on Jameson’s couch, with a teeny, tiny Jackson also asleep, right atop Pops’s chest. I pick up the silver frame and rub a thumb across the image of my father’s face, so peaceful and content with his first grandson. When the rage bubbles up from somewhere deep inside,
I am totally unprepared. It seems to come out of nowhere. My chest and neck and face grow hot in stages, and I’m sure I must look like a thermometer with its mercury rising higher and higher. Hot tears sting my eyes and threaten to spill down my cheeks. My breath comes in short, raspy pants,
and I have to jump up to my feet. I pace the room, my hands raking through my long, thick hair. It’s as if I’m going to come right out of my skin.
Pant. Pant. Pant. Pace. Pace. Pace.
So many memories missed. So much time lost.
I’ve been such a fool.
The five words hit me like brutal slaps across the face. My head actually turns to one side instinctively, as if to avoid the blows. But they keep coming.
