Page 52 of Road Trip
“Good Irish name, that.”
“Mary Helen Sullivan Dunagin. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”
“Quite musical,” he agreed. “Tell me, if you don’t mind, what kinds of things you care about.”
“Why do I feel like I’m being interviewed?” Maeve asked. “Those are pretty probing questions for a night of pub-crawling.”
“There I go again shootin’ off my big mouth,” he said, slapping the steering wheel for emphasis. “It’s just that I find you… intriguing. You don’t seem like a lot of the American women we get at Tarrymore. Forget I asked. Let’s talk about something stupid. Trivial even. Like, what was the first rock concert you went to?”
“Don’t laugh. Backstreet Boys, in Jacksonville, Florida, which is two hours away from Savannah. My friend Kristin and I lied to our moms and told them that we were going on a Catholic Youth mission trip!”
“How very edgy of you.”
“Not. If you haven’t already guessed this about me, I’m not a big risk taker. I was terrified that whole night that we’d be abducted and sold into the sex trade. I drank some nasty Red Bull and vodka combination and barfed my brains out in the car on the way back to Savannah.
“What was your first rock concert?” she asked.
“Oh, well, you might have noticed Tarrymore isn’t a big cultural center, but I did hitch a ride with my older brother to Dublin to see Sting when I was fourteen.”
“So much cooler than me,” Maeve said. “Now, what were you asking me?”
“Iwasasking what kinds of things you care about, but I’m very gratified to have heard about your early musical taste, which I find fascinating. And appalling. Do go on.”
“What do I care about? Well, obviously, I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the latest fashions. I suppose I care about being a decent person. About making the world a better, kinder place. I care about learning, maybe because I’m an educator.”
“A teacher? I should have guessed.”
“College English professor. Assistant professor. Or I was, until I got fired. Just before I came to Ireland, actually.”
“You? Fired? I’m officially outraged on your behalf. Who would do such a thing?”
“My department head. Someone I considered a friend. That’s the part that hurt the most. The betrayal.”
“What will you do now? Or do I have the great good luck of meeting an independently wealthy American heiress?”
“Definitely not an heiress,” Maeve said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been writing a novel. Probably come to nothing. Therese and I just found out the house we thought we were inheriting after Mary Helen died has a secret mortgage we knew nothing about.”
Liam touched her arm lightly. “I’m sorry. About the mortgage. And your mother.”
“Don’t be. She’d been ill for a while, and as a devout Catholic she kept telling me she was ready to go to heaven.”
“Nice to be so sure of such a thing,” he said quietly. He turned the Jeep into a small parking lot.
“And what about you?” Maeve asked. “What kinds of things do you care about?”
“Family. Friends. Making good whiskey that I can be proud of. Simple stuff, really.”
He pulled into a slot at the edge of the parking lot. “Here we are. This is the Three-Legged Goat. The Hooligans are playing tonight, so we’ll probably have to bully our way in to get near the bar.”
The building was an ancient-looking white stucco affair with half timbers and a swinging sign featuring a downcast-looking goat. A row of windows across the front of the pub revealed a lit-up Christmas tree inside. People streamed toward the door from the parking lot, and happy patrons spilled out onto the crumbling sidewalk, laughing, smoking, and clutching pint beer glasses in their hands.
Maeve started to get out of the Jeep.
Liam put his hand on her arm. “One minute. One more question. You just told me you’re acutely risk averse. And yet you agreed to go out tonight, alone, to a bar, with a man you just met.”
“It’s the accent,” Maeve said. “I never could resist a man with an accent.
“Now here’s one for you,” Maeve countered. “I’ve never had an American man ask me this many questions about myself. About my feelings and everything? Is this what men are like over here?”
