Page 5 of An Irish Summer

The pilot had given us a weather update as soon as we were on the tarmac at Shannon Airport, an hour from Galway, but the

“gentle mist” she described was more of a cold, spitting rain that clung to my hair and my face and my clothes as I waited

for a taxi. A few buses had already come and gone, with their drivers announcing the number of stops they were making on the

way to Galway.

“Are you sure, there, lass? Save you a couple euros, it will,” one of the drivers had said through the door at me, grimacing

at the taxi stand.

“Thank you, but that’s okay,” I’d said, trying to sound confident in my decision to get a cab, when really I should have said

I have no idea how to get to where I’m supposed to be living for the next two months and I’ve never been to Ireland before

and I have no real idea what I’m doing at all .

“Suit yourself.” He’d shrugged, closing his doors and rejoining the flow of traffic. When a cab finally arrived and we’d discussed

the astronomical fare to get me to the hostel, I made a mental note to learn the bus system after all.

As we drove away from the airport and onto the highway, reality settled into my bones alongside the cold rain that seeped through my clothes.

I felt how I imagined Dorothy must have felt when she woke up in Oz.

Only instead of a rainbow, I was greeted by slate-gray skies and overlapping shades of soft greens for miles and miles.

I leaned my head against the window, letting the glass quell my anxiety and cool the burning in my cheeks.

After miles and miles of the very nothingness I was so afraid of, seemingly out of nowhere, the countryside became a small

village, and I felt the pressure of my impending arrival. The village seemed mostly residential, save for its own small high

street. I clocked a few shops wedged between pubs and markets and parks, though the rest of the village seemed to be small

cottage-esque homes with gardens triple their size. Its colors were wind-worn and faded, but it seemed impossibly determined

to remain cheerful in the face of the temperamental Irish weather. For a fleeting moment, I envied that resolution.

Toward the end of the high street, the taxi slowed to a stop outside what revealed itself to be the Wanderer. The facade was

unassuming, wedged between what I assumed to be the hostel’s bar and a small grocery store, and if it wasn’t for the colorful

bunting draped over the awning, I might have missed it altogether. After paying the painfully high fare and thanking the driver,

I hauled my suitcase from the trunk and turned to face what would be my home for the summer.

“You must be Chelsea.” An older woman, undoubtedly Lori, came bustling out of the front door with her hand outstretched. She

sounded so much like Helen I felt my heart squeeze in my chest.

“Yes, hi,” I said, trying to sound cheerful despite the exhaustion from the flight. “You must be Lori.”

“What gave it away, my good looks? Or did Helen leave that part out?” Lori pretended to push a lock of hair over her shoulder despite her pixie cut, and a quiet laugh slipped from my lips.

If it wasn’t for their matching caramel eyes and their identical voices, I never would have believed they were sisters.

Where Helen was reserved and put-together, Lori seemed to be the creative hippie type.

“Let’s get you inside,” Lori said before I responded, draping an arm around my shoulders and leading me through the doors.

The lobby of the Wanderer looked exactly like the brochure, only the colors were somehow brighter and gaudier in real life.

A neon sign reading fáilte , a word I quickly learned to mean “welcome,” blinked erratically behind the reception desk, casting the left side of the lobby in an artificial glow. The right side seemed

to serve as one of a few common areas, boasting a pool table, a few vending machines, and a handful of mismatched beanbag

chairs.

“Like what you see?” Lori asked, watching me look around. I hope my face didn’t give anything away. I wasn’t sure like was the right word so much as processing . Truthfully, it reminded me a little of my undergraduate dorm, only somehow more run-down. The carpets were shredding at

the edges, the wood paneling was chipping off the walls, and there were a few bugs in the light fixtures.

“Yeah,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “Looking forward to seeing the rest of the place.” That part wasn’t a lie, at

least. I was dying to see my room, mostly because if I didn’t lie down in the next ten minutes I was liable to fall asleep

standing up.

“Let’s get to it, then,” she said. “The grand tour awaits.” She motioned out of the room, bangles clanking loudly up her arm

as she did so, and I obeyed.

“So, the rooms you’re seeing now are the guest rooms. We have four-person to twelve-person dorms, all mixed gender, and a small handful of private rooms. There are communal bathrooms on each end of the hallway, and all guests and staff have access to this laundry room.

” She swung a door open and I peered in at the stacks of old washers and dryers, trying not to wince as their cacophonous thumping flooded the hallway.

It was a far cry from the in-unit arrangement I had in Boston, which I tried not to think about.

“And just down here we have the gym,” Lori said as we rounded another corner. A few foggy glass windows framed the “gym,”

which was hardly more than a few old treadmills and a sparse stack of free weights. I never thought I’d miss paying nearly

two hundred bucks a month for an unnecessarily bougie Pilates studio, but I never thought I’d be living in a hostel in Galway,

either, so there was a first for everything.

For a second, I wondered if Jack and Helen had actually ever been here.

“And over here,” Lori said, pulling me back into the present, “we have another common area, this one with table tennis, a

projector, and loads of board games.” She talked as we walked, swinging open doors and greeting staff and guests along the

way. I kept my gaze ahead of me, offering only shy smiles when someone forced eye contact, too overwhelmed by the space itself

to register new faces. “The common areas are a great way to meet people, so I’m sure you’ll be spending a lot of time in them.

Best to jump in right away!”

I offered a wordless nod, trying, and failing, to appear grateful.

I hadn’t even put down my luggage and was already expected to socialize?

Play board games? I was more of a one-martini-at-happy-hour-with-Ada-then-home-by-eight kind of girl.

I was still processing the state of the communal laundry room, so I had a feeling it would be a while before I jumped in on the group game night.

“And up here,” she said as we climbed a narrow set of crooked stairs, “are the staff rooms. Yours is room two, right here

on the left.” She opened the door with a brass key, and I stood motionless in the doorway.

Helen had told me the room was cozy, but I hadn’t realized “cozy” was code for “minuscule.” The single bed shoved into the

corner of the room reminded me of the one I slept on during my week sleepaway camp, nothing more than a wooden frame and a

paper-thin mattress. The only other furniture was a small desk beneath a window and a wooden wardrobe to match the bed frame.

I fumbled along the wall for a light switch, only to learn all I had was a floor lamp with a pull string.

“This is...” I started. “Thanks, Lori.” I was too tired to say anything else. And the tone in her voice on the tour was

too proud for me to ever let it slip that her sister had massively oversold the property, even if it was the truth. All I

wanted to do was flop face down on the bed and close my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, I would be back in Boston. On

my fourteen-inch mattress with my ambient fairy lights.

“I hope it suits you,” she said, raising her eyebrows in my direction. Had I given something away? Could she tell I was deeply

out of my element and, quite frankly, terrified?

“It’s great,” I said, reminding myself not to complain about free rent to the woman putting a roof over my head. I could do

that with Ada later.

“If you need anything, just— Oh, Collin! Come in here for a minute, would you?” She called to someone in the hall.

I fought to suppress a groan. The last thing I needed was to be intro duced to anyone right now.

I was disheveled, certain the bags under my eyes made me look like I’d been in a boxing match, and I wasn’t exactly in the friendliest mood.

“No need to trouble anyone,” I started, desperate to be left alone, “I wouldn’t want to—”

“Chelsea, this is Collin.” She held her hands up like she was on a game show, framing Collin like the grand prize. And for

the second time since I walked into this room, I was paralyzed.

Collin wasn’t much taller than me, which meant his eyes were that much closer to mine. They were such a clear green they looked

like marbles, and I had to swallow twice so my mouth didn’t dry out completely. His sandy hair matched the faint freckles

that dotted his cheeks, becoming scarce as they crept to the angles of his jaw, which made sense to me. I too would be wary

of approaching something so sharp.

“Aye, pleasure to meet ya, Chelsea.” He extended a calloused hand, and I tried not to notice how it felt in mine. I was busy

contemplating how I felt about the sound of my name in the Irish accent, and I didn’t have the brain capacity at the moment

to do both.

“Collin is kind of our jack-of-all-trades,” Lori explained. “He’s mostly the hostel tour guide, you know, taking visitors

around the country, but he also does a bit of bartending and sometimes some farm work off the property.” Collin’s wide smile

at her description was lopsided, but his teeth were surprisingly straight.

“She oversells me,” he said, nudging Lori. “I’m mostly a pain in her arse.” She laughed, perhaps a bit too loud, wiping nonexistent

sweat from her brow.