Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (3 page)

 
I guess he could tell by the dumbstruck and pissed-off look on my face that it was me standing in front of him, because he unslouched himself and actually tapped his finger to his forehead in a dorky little salute.

“The bonnie Morgan, I presume!” He winked one cornflower-blue eye at me and grabbed my big suitcase before I could stop him. “I'm Colin, then! Follow me, lass.”

I was about to insist on taking my own suitcase because I'd already had enough of strangers touching my stuff for one day, especially strangers who felt free to make signs about my “arse” before we'd even met. Anyway my suitcase was an expensive wheeled job my mom bought from Land's End, so it was pretty easy to manage even though it was huge and weighed a ton, and I really didn't need any help. But before I could mention any of this, Colin hoisted the suitcase up on one shoulder like it was empty.

This surprised me, and all I could think of to say was: “It has wheels.”

“Does it now?” He grinned as he walked, with me half-running to keep up. “That's grand. If I had wheels, I'd skate about the whole blessed day. But I don't, do I? All I have is my merry old van. The gas-guzzling rogue! I hope it survives the trip. The bloody engine's been making a terrifying noise for a week now. Should get it fixed, eh?”

With me panting and chasing after him and him talking incessantly, without once stopping to take a breath, Colin and I hustled out of the terminal building and over to the Short-Term Car Park. His van was bright green except for the rust spots, with the astonishingly tacky Emerald Cycle Bike Tour Company logo painted on the door. The logo was, get this, a picture of a happy, winking leprechaun riding a bike and waving.

How lame is that,
I thought.
My parents must have found this company on the back of a Lucky Charms box.

I stared at the picture of the leprechaun, and the leprechaun stared back. The nightmare reality of putting my skinny arse on a bike seat for an entire week was starting to sink in, and it was not a good feeling. But anything had to be better than being stuck at home with my white-lipped, worrying parents and robot-girl Tammy, with the total lack of Raphael echoing through every square inch of my open-plan house, my no-name town, my ruined and empty life.

 
i'd thought about raphael a lot On the flight. When I was feeling nervous during takeoff, I thought,
Maybe we'll crash and I'll die and he'll be sorry.
I tried to imagine him sobbing with remorse at my funeral, but I couldn't, really.

And when we were up in the sky, high above the ocean, the passengers were watching the movie and the cheerful Aer Lingus flight attendants were taking a break from their constant offers of weird snacks (Black-and-white pudding? Lemon curd muffins? Good thing they had Pringles or I would have starved.), the plane was quiet, and I closed my eyes and got sleepy. That's when I remembered some nice things about Raphael. He was a good kisser, that's for sure.

Is. Raphael
is
a good kisser. He just won't be kissing me. Ever. Again.

“Step in, then, bonnie Morgan!” Colin had tossed my suitcase in the back of the van and was already behind the wheel. “No, lass, sit up front with me! I don't want to feel like the bloody driver, then, do I? We're going to be friends in a minute and you'd be embarrassed to be all alone back there shouting up to your old pal Colin.”

I climbed into the front and slammed the passenger side door. Right away I noticed the seat belt was broken. Mom had me well trained. Colin noticed me noticing.

“Should get that fixed, eh? Don't worry, lass, I've been drivin' since I was a boy-o. You mind if I smoke, Mor? We'll leave the windows open; I'm like a dog that way anyhow. I like to feel the air on my face.”

Since when did anyone call me Mor? Colin was acting like we were lifelong chums, and the only words I'd spoken to him so far were, “It has wheels.” Maybe that was sufficient basis for friendship in this part of the world. Maybe he was just a freak. One thing was for sure: There was no need to expend energy listening for what Colin was really thinking, because it spilled out of his mouth nonstop.

I rolled my window down halfway and looked over at him, careful not to smile. He grinned and clucked his tongue, which made the already-lit cigarette twitch in his mouth, and he revved the engine of the van. It sounded like a fleet of decrepit helicopters struggling to take off in the midst of a swarm of furious bees.

“Gotta get that fixed, eh?” And we were off.

 
 
i snuck glances Of colin driving as We made Our way toward our destination—someplace north of Limerick I think. He'd told me and showed me a map but I was not interested in maps. The scenery outside was pleasant, and we were driving on the wrong side of the road, which offered a kind of thrill, but I usually find people more interesting than scenery, and okay-looking young guys more interesting than regular people. So I checked out Colin. Discreetly, of course.

Colin was not any older than twenty-two, I guessed, and athletically built, with thick, lightly freckled arms. When he moved his foot from the gas to the brake, his thigh flexed and I could see an edge of muscle moving beneath the fabric of his thin khaki pants. He was baby-faced in a way that might make you think he was pudgy, but there was not one millimeter of tummy rolling over the waistband of Colin's pants.

If a guy has a flat stomach sitting down, those are buff abs indeed.

Not that I was planning on scoring a look at Colin's abs. It just made me think of Raph again. Raphael was very proud of his abs and even kept track of his monthly crunch totals, but when he sat down there was about a half-inch of roll he could never get rid of. God help you if you noticed it too.

So Colin scored points in the bod department. Unfortunately his hair color could only be described as strawberry frikkin' blond. It looked fine on him, but still. I found it annoying.

“Are you in a band, then?”

His stream of chatter had been relentless, and I'd only half-listened since I was busy checking him out, but this seemed to require a response. “No,” I said, after a moment's thought.

“All the girls I know with bald heads are in bands. What's that about, eh? If you want to be bald, be bald. No need to sing about it!” He laughed, thoroughly pleased by his own observation. “Have you got any tattoos, then?”

Well, I did not. But how would Colin ever find that out?

“Yes,” I said. And then, thinking it sounded more provocative, I said, “Two.”

Colin let out a low whistle. “You're a pistol, I can tell, Mor,” he said. “I almost got a tattoo once, at the end of a long night of too much drink. Praise the Lord I hadna enough money on me! Me mates'd convinced me to get the ‘Emerald Cycles' advert branded on me bum. What a life of regret and remorse that would been the start of, eh?”

“Don't you like leprechauns?” I asked, sounding snarky.
It has wheels. No. Yes. Two. Don't you like leprechauns?
I could still hold my end of our entire conversational history in the palm of my hand, but I suspected that this form of entertainment might soon reach an end.

“Leprechauns!” Colin snorted so hard I thought a booger would fly out of his nose. He floored the gas pedal. “Is that why you've come to Ireland, lass? To see the wee folk? Silly Mor!” Colin laughed harder and drove faster, but the laughter sounded forced. “Take it from your old pal Colin—there's no such thing as leprechauns!”

four

Why is it that anytime you do anything new that involves a group of people, the first thing that happens is “orientation”? Are human beings in such constant danger of becoming disoriented that we have to keep stopping and orienting ourselves? Up, down, inside, outside, moss growing on the shady side of trees. Like it matters.

I had crossed an ocean and I was tired and I just wanted to crash in my room and channel surf Irish TV. Instead I was squeezed onto a deep, squishy sofa between a pair of very tall blond people, listening to a sturdy freckle-faced woman spew enthusiasm.

“Welcome to orientation! The Emerald Cycle Bike Tour Company welcomes you to our fair country.” The freckle-faced woman was wearing a name sticker on her right boob. It read, “Mrs. Patricia Finneran-O'Hennessey.” Good thing she had big boobs.

“We hope you're all settled in and snug as bugs in your rooms by now. Isn't the inn lovely? It's lovely, isn't it? Nearly four hundred years old, can you believe it?” Mrs. Finneran-O'Hennessey-Boob clapped her doughy white fingers together politely, without making any real noise, while smiling and nodding at an elderly couple who were standing in the back of the room. The innkeepers, no doubt. They seemed about the same age as the house.

Mrs. Boob's symbolic finger clapping was joined immediately by some really loud, vigorous, whack-your-hands-together clapping. Source of sound: the two tall blond people on the sofa with me, one male and one female, though it was hard to tell which was which because they were both totally buff and sat up straight as mannequins and were wearing identical bike outfits.

Bike outfits?
I thought.
Hello, this is orientation
,
we're in the living room of Ye Olde Quaint Charming Irish Inn, gathered quaintly around ye olde fireplace, so easy on the spandex, there.

“ Wunderbar!”
cried the clapping girl. Her name sticker read Heidi. She was sitting pretty close to the fire, which made me wonder if spandex was flammable. Sure would be a bummer to get incinerated on the first night, especially after spending so many Euros on all that fancy bikewear.

“Take a look around the room at your fellow travelers. You'll be getting to know each other very well this week. There are no secrets on a bike tour, believe me!” Mrs. Boob laughed at her own hilarity. “Let me introduce everybody. Most of you have already met Colin—give us a wave, there, Colin!”

Colin was in the back of the room too, slouched against one of the dark paneled walls. He gave a little tip of his imaginary hat and grinned. I thought he might have winked at me too, but maybe it was just the flickering light from the fire. I made sure not to look at him again, just in case.

“Colin will drive the van that carries your luggage, and he'll take the same routes you'll be using except for the places where the roads are too narrow for the van to safely pass. He's your number-one backup plan out there. If you get a flat tire or a sore bum—it happens!—you'll be glad Colin's nearby.”

Mrs. Boob took out a clipboard. What would an orientation be without sticky name tags and a clipboard, I ask you?

“Now, for the adventurers! Allow me to introduce the Billingsley family. Just raise a hand when I call your names. Edward—that's Mr. Billingsley, I see.” There was a family of four on folding chairs directly behind the sofa. Apparently they were the Billingsleys. “Winifred?”

“How do you do,” said Winifred Billingsley to the room. She sounded very proper and British, like Julie Andrews. She looked a bit like Julie Andrews too. I tried to picture her elegant blond hairdo after eight hours in a bike helmet, all flattened out and sweaty. Maybe she'd let me shave it off for her, heh heh.

“And we've got the two wee Billingsleys along—Derek, ah, you're not so wee. There's a strapping lad!” Derek slumped down in his chair looking ready to die. I guessed he was about twelve. “And the lovely Sophie. Do you enjoy a nice bike ride, then, Sophie, dear?”

Sophie made a pouty face. “I like my
scooter
,” she whined. She was Tammy's age. Winifred shushed her promptly.

Brilliant. A week's vacation from robot girl and I get stuck with a British brat instead.

“I sympathize completely, Sophie,” said Mrs. Boob, with one of those fake you-and-me-against-the-world smiles grown-ups like to give crabby children. “On my days off from work I ride a sweet little Harley-Davidson. The hog is a welcome change, to be sure.”

Mrs. Boob? Biker chick? What kind of country was this? But Mrs. Boob was already on to her next victim.

“Mr. and Mrs. Faraday. Wait then, I see a cancellation marked here. It's just Mrs. Faraday, correct?”

Nobody said anything.

“Mrs. Faraday? Lucy Faraday? Are you with us?”

It took a while, but finally Mrs. Faraday raised her hand. She was in an armchair that was half-turned toward the fire. It was one of those kinds of chairs that has little wings on the side, so her face was partly hidden. “Yes. I'm here,” she said.

“And where's Mr. Faraday then?” asked Mrs. Boob, in her jolly way. “Though I know how the menfolk can be! Some of 'em won't leave the office for a holiday unless it's a national emergency. He's not sick I hope?”

“Not anymore,” said Mrs. Faraday, softly. “He died.”

That shut Mrs. Boob up for sure. But only for a second.

“I'm terribly sorry, dear,” she said, her pale face turning red behind her freckles. “I apologize for not knowing beforehand. We're so glad you're here with us during this difficult time.”

I was trying not to look his way, but I couldn't help noticing that Colin lowered his head and clasped his hands in front of him as Mrs. Boob said this. Then Mrs. Boob did the same. I was afraid they were going to expect us all to pray or cry or something, but then they both snapped out of it, and Mrs. Boob was just as merry as before.

“Home stretch, now! A warm
willkommen
to Heidi and Johannes Schein.”

The two spandexed blonds practically bounced up and down in their eagerness to raise their hands in the air. I clutched the sofa cushions so I wouldn't get knocked off. Mrs. Boob smiled at them. “You look far too young to be married. Are you brother and sister, then?”