Page 85 of Blame it on the Bet
She leaves the sentence hanging for me to fill in the blanks. With a sigh, I look straight ahead and consider my reply.
“This Hennessy is beautiful and sweet and brilliant and sexy. She thinks she has to live a bigger, shinier life than the one she grew-up with, and so she’s miserable. But when she’s at home, in Mayhem, with her crazy sisters and those nut- ball neighbors of hers, she just…” I pause, searching for the right words. “She just comes alive.”
Helen is staring at me as if I’ve sprouted a second head. “What?” I ask, feeling myself growing defensive.
She shakes her head. “No, it’s just that I’ve never heard you talk about a woman that way. They’re usually just hot or, if you really like them, smokin’ hot. But she’s different, this Hennessy,” Helen deduces correctly.
“Yes, she is,” I agree. “If I’m honest, it’s why I made that ridiculous bet with her. It was just a stupid excuse to stay in town—to stay close to her. And then, once I was there and I got to know her and to feel like a part of the community, I didn’t want to leave. For just a little while I could pretend that I was a normal guy, falling for a normal girl.”
“Bryan…you don’t have to pretend. You can have a normal life. You deserve to be happy. Why don’t you just go and get her?”
“I can’t,” I say with a sad smile. “This time it can’t be about getting everything that I want. It’s about her getting everything she wants. And she doesn’t want me, Helen.”
And just like that, the weight of my own words falls upon me. The anvil is back, and it feels about a hundred pounds heavier.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
HENNESSY
They fill the pub and spill out into the streets. I stopped counting somewhere around two-hundred. Sitting on one side of the room is a coffin, borrowed from the Mayhem High School drama department. The lid is down and littered with pictures of the pub, from the early days of Mama and Pops to the day we held Jackson’s christening here.
“…and so, Jack said to me, ‘Charlie my boy, you’d better put a ring on that girl’s finger before she realizes she’s much too good for you!’ And I did!”
A swell of laughter greets Charlie Edwards as he tells the story of how he came to propose to his wife, Sofia. They’ve been married for fifteen years now and have four children. Charlie is only one of more than a dozen people who have taken the stage, standing by the coffin to tell a story about the pub or my parents. There’s a bottle of Irish whiskey up there and a line of clean shot glasses so that each story can be toasted.
Most of these tales have had us rolling on the floor, but more than a few have brought tears to my eyes. And to my sisters’, as well. Our part-timer, Carly, has taken over bar duties so that Jameson, Walker, Bailey, and I can have front row seats for this part of the wake. We’ve heard about marriages and births, as well as the dearly departed, but my favorite memories are the ones about the young couple who scrimped and saved to buy this pub and run it while their family grew along with the town.
I’m stunned when King Colby walks out of the mob and pours himself a shot. His eyes find ours.
“Hennessy, Jameson, Walker, Bailey… I knew your father more than twenty years ago, when I first came to Mayhem. He was an affable man who always had a story or a smile or a joke. Only, I didn’t want to hear any jokes or tall tales. You see, when I moved to Mayhem, it wasn’t to retire from my job, it was to hide. I was hiding from the grief of losing my wife, Abigail. I moved here to get away from the happy memories that should have comforted me…but which haunted me, instead.”
The four of us look at one another, and I realize the pub has grown perfectly still. This is the most that King has ever spoken to any of us, about anything. And it’s the first that anyone in this building has ever heard of his life outside of Mayhem.
“It was my first Christmas here—my first Christmas without her—and I just couldn’t bear to sit at home and watch television, so I went to work in that same office, right across the street. Your family was living here at the time, upstairs in the apartment. I guess you could see the light on in my office from there, because I’d barely been at my desk for half an hour when I heard a soft knock on the glass door. I looked up, and there was your sweet mother, Elaine.”
I gasp out loud. I can’t help it… It’s the first time anyone’s said her name in ages, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard this particular story. I lean forward, riveted by the surly old man standing in front of the coffin.
“If it’d been anyone else, I’d have shooed them away. But I just couldn’t leave that pretty young woman standing out there in the cold. Especially when I saw the child holding her hand. A little girl, pretty as a doll, with rosy cheeks and hair the color of sunshine. That was you, Hennessy,” King says with a nod in my direction.“You had on a little red coat, and your hair was up in a big, red bow. You couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. So, I unlocked the door…” King’s voice suddenly catches, and he wipes at the dampness around his eyes with his calloused palms.
“I unlocked the door and looked at Elaine. And she just looked down at you, Hennessy, and nodded. You smiled at me, then—I remember so clearly because your front tooth was missing—and you said, ‘Santa came, Mister Colby, and he left a present for you under our tree!’”
Oh, wow… I think I remember this…
“Elaine insisted that I come up for Christmas dinner. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter how hard I tried. You held my hand, Henny, all the way across the street and up the stairs. When I got there, I found that your mother had already set a place for me at the table, and there was, indeed, a present for me under that Christmas tree. Jack put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘King! We’ve been waiting for you.’ And they had been. Not for a single moment did I feel as if I was intruding. That was their gift, your parents, making people feel welcome, no matter who they were, where they were from, or what they’d done, or said, or been. It just didn’t matter to them. While you were in O’Halloran’s, you were a member of the family.”
Bailey is bawling while Walker makes an unsuccessful attempt to hide her tears by pretending she’s got something in her eye. Somewhere along the way, James has grabbed hold of my hand and is hanging on for dear life. As for me, the only thing I can think of right now is Bryan Truitt, and how my parents would have been ashamed of the way I treated him before he left town. Before I forced him to leave town. I wipe a rogue tear with the back of my hand and try to focus on moment. Plenty of time for guilt and recriminations later, I suppose.
“I’d like to raise this glass to Elaine and Jack O’Halloran and their girls—the Whiskey Sisters—who helped to give this community its soul. Mayhem, and the rest of the world, will be a lesser place without O’Halloran’s Pub in it.”
By the time King Colby raises his shot glass, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.
…
I’ve stepped out along the side of the building to get a little fresh air when King finds me. Before he can say a word, I throw my arms around him.
“Thank you for that,” I whisper and deliver a soft peck to his cheek. I can see him blushing, even in the dark.
“Uh…yeah, well… It’s one of my special memories, Hennessy. And it’s not one I share. Ever. I wouldn’t have tonight, except I wanted you to hear it before I tell you something else.”
