THE LUCK OF THE IRISH (IN LOVE)
By
Ginger Voight
*****
PUBLISHED BY:
Copyright ©2012
©2012 “The Luck of the Irish (In Love)” by Ginger Voight
“I hate this city!”
This declaration was uttered by the feisty, ginger-haired Siobhan Flannery. Her Brooklyn accent was as heavy as the steel door she burst through as she tried her level best not to bring the winter storm in with her.
Her friend and coworker, Jeanne, sent her an amused smile. “You say that every day.”
“I mean it every day,” Siobhan replied. She dusted the snowflakes from her heavy coat before hanging it on the hook by the door. Curse that stupid groundhog and his shadow. A blizzard had hit the city almost six weeks to the day of his dire prediction.
Siobhan was quite over trudging through the ice and snow to get back and forth to her job as a waitress at O’Shannon’s Bar and Grill in Manhattan, especially this close to St. Patrick’s Day.
It was really quite a wonder to behold how many people became Irish one week a year. The Big Day loomed four days ahead. If Siobhan had a time machine, she’d set it for five days in the future. She was tired of the rude frat boys of all ages, wearing a “kiss me I’m Irish” T-shirts, expecting her to fulfill their every demand. Even in her lonely single state, she quickly bored of all the lewd come-ons and the tired pickup lines.
The very next moron who uttered, “Nice hair, Red. Does the carpet match the drapes?” was going to get a pitcher of green beer dumped in his lap.
By the time she was twenty-four, Siobhan had learned one painful truth. It was hard to find Prince Charming in a cold, hard city of millions. Long dissatisfied with dating, she was perfectly content to smile and serve for their money. When her shift was done, she’d return home to her stack of novels piled up high by the tiny tub in her tiny studio apartment to scratch any romantic itches.
Despite the chaos, the tips were good in this festival of frivolity, so she couldn’t brush it off no matter how much she wanted to feign the flu for a week. Instead she tried to leave her bad attitude at the door as she joined in the fray.
She brought food and drinks to the crowd who had gathered at O’Shannons, blizzard or no blizzard. This was New York; nothing short of a movie-scale disaster with aliens or meteors would send these revelers home. They were in all the Irish spirit, especially the short, redheaded man seated in section three.
His pants were old and his red coat a bit thread-bare. His stocky black shoes added about two inches of height that he desperately needed, the tall brown hat with a dull brass buckle added another six. A stringy, curly beard dripped from a jawline that dropped to a pointed chin, and he regarded her with his bright green eyes as she came to take his order.
“I’ll have a pint of your finest ale,” he said in full brogue. Siobhan grinned at the funny little man, who endeavored to go all out on his Irish getup, complete with an old pipe he popped into his mouth.
“There’s no smoking in here,” she advised.
“Ain’t lit,” he retorted without looking her way.
She shrugged before returning to the bar to fill his order.
For several hours he camped at her station, ordering nothing but drink after drink, while he played solitaire quietly. He said nothing to the people around him, an ever-changing crowd of partiers who laughed and talked so loudly there was a constant buzz in the room.
In station three, it was almost as if time stood still.
He took his time playing his game and never once looked up to summon her for another drink. He simply grunted when she came by to ask if he needed one.
It was nearly closing time before Siobhan knew it. Her tip jar was half as empty as Jeanne’s, who didn’t have a strange little man renting her most popular and profitable station. She sighed as she glanced toward the table where he played his Solitaire. Last call came and went but he showed no interest in packing up his things and leaving, even as the crowd thinned and he was the only customer left in the joint.
How was she going to get rid of this guy?
Each minute ticked agonizingly by. Patrons left. Coworkers clocked out. The clock ticked loudly on the wall behind the bar, chiming every-half hour. Nearly an hour after closing only the manager Gus and Siobhan remained. He glanced to where she sat at the bar, counting her receipts and trying to keep busy so she didn’t drop kick her newest patron right out the door. Her feet were tired, her ears were ringing and she was ready to go home before the break of dawn.
“You want me to get rid of him?”
“May you have better luck than me,” she offered as she gathered her things and headed toward the back.
Before she could head back out into the restaurant Gus poked his head through the door. “There’s good news and bad news.”
She groaned as she followed him to the table, which was recently vacated by her last customer. That was clearly the good news. She really didn’t even need to ask what the bad news was. The single gold coin on the table told its own story.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she grumbled as Gus handed her the coin. “Is it even real?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Doesn’t look like any money I’ve ever seen. Probably a stage prop. That guy sure was committed to his costume.”
She sighed as she examined the coin. It wasn’t money. It probably wasn’t even gold. What a super-duper night she was having.
Gus couldn’t help but take pity on her. “You head on out. I can clean up.”
She shook her head. Might as well see her crappy night right to the bitter end. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Get home before Dorothea remembers where she keeps her rolling pin.”
He gave her a friendly pat on the back before he gathered his things to leave. She grabbed a broom and a rag to clean up around the table. The more time passed, the more steamed she got about her “tip.”
What an inconsiderate jerk! He sat in her station all night, depriving her of other customers, and then left her some dollar store trinket as a consolation prize. She pocketed the coin, determined if she ever saw the creep again she was going to find an orifice to cram it – Brooklyn style.
She stifled a yawn as shrugged into her heavy coat. She set the alarm code for the restaurant, using that second or two to brace herself against the bitter blast of cold she was likely to face when she opened the back door. She took a deep breath and forged ahead before she lost her nerve.
As the door slammed shut behind her, however, what lay before her stole any breath she might have been holding. It wasn’t the gray and gritty alley of New York City in the wee early hours – it was a brilliant green meadow in the bright light of day. She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes, but the scene around her didn’t change.
She turned back to the bar, but the steel door had been replaced by a heavy wooden door to what looked like a tavern from the days of old. She grabbed the iron handle, half-expecting her fingers to pass right through it like the late night hallucination it surely had to be. But it was real and fit solidly in her palm. Try as she might to open it, the door was locked and the entire structure darkened and empty despite the hour of day, which felt like mid-morning.
Her brow creased as she stepped tentatively away from the tavern and into the meadow. The grass was so green it didn’t seem real – as real as it could be for the mental meltdown she was clearly experiencing. “What the hell?” she said out loud, but her voice died on her lips. There was no Brooklyn accent – but a very distinctive Irish brogue just like the one her funny little customer had used. Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth, glancing around to see if anyone heard her – but she was completely alo
ne.
“This is insane,” she said to herself. The foreign dialect rolled like pebbles in her mouth.
The more she spoke the more freaked out she became, and her feet began an unconscious journey down the stone path that cut straight through the green pasture in front of her. The scenery around her reminded her of every picture she’d ever seen of Ireland. The sky above was the clearest blue, everything below a vivid green Rolling hills were covered with bushes and plants, flowers and fields of clover that stretched as far as her eyes could see. It was almost impossible to take it all in. She found herself running down a slope, holding out her arms to keep her balance on the rocky pathway as she followed it down to an inky blue lake. It reminded her a bit of Central Park, though there was no city skyline surrounding her, just acres of unblemished countryside. “What is this place?” she again wondered aloud.
“The Emerald Isle of course,” answered a male voice in the