Page 32 of An Irish Summer

All it took was one Instagram post from Fayola with a few hashtags about the Wanderer to gain immediate traction. A few other

guests inquired about the dress rehearsals and tea at the abbey, and Eamon reached back out to arrange something more consistent.

“When will you just accept you’re doing wonders for the hostel?” Flo said one morning over coffee in town. “You can be good

at a job without being attached to it, you know.”

I sipped my Americano and contemplated this idea. It seemed reasonable enough, except for the fact that this job happened

to be three thousand miles from home, so if I was too good at it, I was bound to get attached eventually.

“That’s what happens though, isn’t it?” I said. “You get really good at a job, and then you get attached to the job, and then

it just becomes your life?”

“You have it all wrong, tesoro ,” she said. “Too concerned that life is what you do for work. Or where you do it.”

“And what is it if not those things?”

“It’s everything in between!” The family of the crying baby looked over as Flo rattled her espresso mug in the saucer.

“It’s everything else you’ve done since you’ve been here.

And more than that, it’s everything you’ve felt .

Your life isn’t making reservations and booking events and answering phones, Chelsea. It’s cliff jumping when you’re scared

and dancing when you don’t know the steps and kissing men you think you shouldn’t and screaming at the top of your lungs at

a hurling match and speeding down the Wild Atlantic Way. Open your eyes.”

Flo sank against the back of her chair like she was exhausted, muttering in Italian and signaling the barista for another

espresso like we were at a cocktail bar. I was silent for a while, contemplating how I could possibly respond.

“I’m just saying you should consider letting go of these ideas about how you think life is supposed to go, that’s all,” she

said after a minute, noticeably quieter than she’d been speaking before. “There’s not even a ‘supposed to’ at all, really.

There is only what is.”

When I agreed to meet for a coffee, I didn’t think I was agreeing to meet for this .

“You make it sound so easy,” I moaned.

“It is,” she said. “Once you surrender yourself to it, anyway. It’s a mind-set. Americans always think you need to work to

earn pleasure, when really pleasure is the only point of being alive.”

“Have you always been so wise?”

“Ah, so you do see that it’s wisdom,” she said.

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“It couldn’t,” she said. “No ego here. Another thing that’s much bigger in America.”

“All right, all right, I get it. You think America is the worst.”

“I think American ideals are the worst,” she clarified.

“Cheers,” I said, clinking my coffee against hers and hoping vague agreement would put an end to this conversation.

“How are the applications going, anyway?” she asked, tanking my attempt at moving on.

I chewed my fingernail, trying to find a way to tell her I’d been deeply slacking on applying anywhere for lack of time and

opportunity and fear of rejection.

“They’re going,” I said, though I knew it was lame. “I should carve out some time today to send a few more, actually.”

“What does your friend think?”

“Ada?”

“ Sì. ”

“I should carve out some time today to call her too.” Only then did I realize how caught up I’d been lately and how I’d been

neglecting my usual priorities. I hadn’t even looked at job sites or spoken to Ada before that interview, and that was nearly

a week ago.

“The Wanderer sucks you in, doesn’t it?” she said, reading my mind. “Tell you what. I’ll leave you to it, and we can catch

up later, yeah?”

I glanced across the coffee shop at the string of old-school computers, having no choice but to resign myself to a morning

of trying to get my life back on track. Which I supposed was still the whole reason I was here, so perhaps I should have been

taking it a bit more seriously.

Flo and I air-kissed goodbye, agreeing to find each other later for a few drinks. After she left, I ordered another iced Americano

and dialed Ada.

“Chels?” Ada said after two rings. “Can you hear me?”

“Hardly. Why are you whispering?”

“I’m at Ben’s sister’s yoga thing.”

I had no idea what that meant.

“Why don’t you call me later, then?”

“No, no, I can chat. It’s in the park, and I’m way in the back. And it’s boring me to death. How’s it going? I feel like I haven’t heard from you in ages.” For us, a week really was ages.

“I know, I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s been weirdly busy here. I’ve learned to Irish dance. Sort of. And I sent some women

to a castle for a champagne tea in old dresses and then people saw it on Instagram and it’s been a whole thing.”

“Sounds like you’re making quite the impression over there,” she said. “And Collin?”

“If I tell you something, can you promise not to freak out?”

“No,” she said instantly, which made me laugh. I missed her. “But I can promise I’ll freak out quietly, so I don’t disrupt

the rest of the class.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, then launched in. The date, the kissing, the irresistible pull and tightening knot in my chest every

time I remembered it was going to end. By the time I was done, I could practically hear her smug grin through the phone.

“It’s even better than I hoped it would be,” she said, and I was pretty sure I heard her clap her hands.

“Yeah, well, it still has an expiration date, so...” I tried to laugh, but it was hollow. “But it is nice for now. Really

nice.”

“Do you want it to end?”

“Of course not,” I said before I could catch myself. “But I want to come home, which means it has to end, so in a way I guess

I do? You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Why?”

“So I know Ireland is working.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Softening you up,” she said. “Forcing you to let your guard down or whatever.”

“Since when has that been the plan? Wasn’t I just supposed to come here while I looked for a job back home?”

“Couldn’t there be more than one reason you’re there?”

“Not that we agreed upon.”

“Things change, babe.”

I could hear her smile through the phone, and for a minute or two neither of us said anything.

“I didn’t think I would like him this much,” I said eventually—quietly—like a confession.

“And we didn’t think you’d move to Ireland, either, and yet...” She let her voice trail off into silence.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Let yourself feel whatever you’re feeling, Chels. These feelings are good. You don’t have to fight them. And you definitely

don’t have to run from them. You can stay right where you are if you like.”

“I thought you wanted me to come home,” I said, “but lately it’s feeling like you’re trying to convince me to stay.”

“I want you to be happy. Wherever that is.”

“It’s Boston.”

“Great! Then I can’t wait for you to come home.”

I knew she meant it, but I also knew she wasn’t satisfied. She knew me better than I knew myself, which meant she knew something

had changed. Which meant I couldn’t keep trying to pretend it hadn’t. “I just don’t want you to think you can’t be happy in

two places,” she added when I said nothing.

“But I can’t live in two places.”

“Are you saying you’re considering living there?”

“Isn’t that what you just suggested?” I couldn’t remember whose ideas were whose anymore.

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know!” I didn’t mean to shout, but I was pretty sure someone in Ben’s sister’s yoga thing shushed me through the line.

“That’s okay, Chels,” Ada said, returning to a whisper. “You don’t have to know everything, all the time. But I’m always here

to support you and we can always talk about it. That doesn’t have to be right now. And it probably shouldn’t be because you’re

messing up my flow.”

I laughed at that. This was what best friends were for. They knew exactly how to rile you up and calm you back down.

“Like hell you know anything about flow,” I said. “How’s Ben’s sister?”

“She’s great! Really getting this yoga thing off the ground. I think their parents are still paying all her bills, but she’s

putting the work in.”

“And how’s Ben?”

Before she even answered I could feel her smiling, even from three thousand miles away. “We looked at rings this week.”

“You what?!” People snapped their heads up to look at me, but I didn’t care. “Why didn’t you start with that?”

Ada laughed. “I don’t know, we were on your thing!” I felt like such an idiot for rambling on about a job and a summer fling

while she was on the brink of engagement.

“So, he’s, like, about to propose then?”

“He’s trying to be coy. Pretending he just wanted to gauge my taste, that’s all. But I’m pretty sure he went right back to

the jeweler with his credit card.”

“Holy shit,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

“It’s finally happening.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

“Please,” I said. “Ben’s been madly in love with you since freshman year. I hardly think he’s going to change his mind now.”

“You’re probably right,” she said. “Who would have ever thought we’d both find love?”

“Ada! Oh my god. I have not found love.”

“What was that? Sorry, you’re breaking up. Service must be spotty.”

“Don’t make me scream so loud someone kicks you out of the class.”

“You’d get kicked out wherever you are first,” she said. “Besides, getting kicked out of the class would be a dream.”

“Do it for your future sister-in-law.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, though I knew she was secretly thrilled by the phrase. “You do something for yourself then, yeah?”

“Fine.”

We blew kisses through the phone and promised to call soon before hanging up. With a morning of job applications looming over

me, I found myself envying her yoga class. And I hated yoga.

I booted up the old computer, staring at my reflection as I waited for the home screen to load. My freckles had multiplied

tenfold since I’d gotten here, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d styled my hair beyond my air-dried waves. At first,