“You see!” I hiss. “Shadow-man!”
“Look, be nice to him. Be transparent. We don’t want his lawyer getting up your butt, okay?”
“But you said…”
“Erin, I know what I said. He should have done his due diligence and I stand by that. Just don’t antagonise him, okay?”
“Was she pretty?” I ask. The question has been burning in me since she mentioned the Skype call.
“Who?”
“The lawyer, Rid, the lawyer!”
“Not as pretty as you,” she says without missing a beat.
“Ahh… is that an honest answer or a best friend answer? ‘Cause I can take the truth…”
“Goodbye, Erin.” And with that the line goes dead.
I take a deep breath and open the office door to go in search of Micheál. He’s sitting at one of the high tables in the window having a coffee. I duck out of the bar and run into the fancy French bakery next door to grab us a couple of croissants.
Time to make peace. The last couple of days have been tense with Micheál shadowing me and watching my every move. I’ve felt his eyes on me all the time and it’s not a friendly feeling. I come back inside and stop at the coffee machine to make myself an espresso.
“Good news!” I declare as I sit down across from him handing him a croissant.
“Delivery arriving on time?” he asks archly.
I smile at him genuinely for the first time since Ireland. “Truce?”
“Maybe,” he says taking a bite of his croissant. “What’s the good news?”
“Well, the lawyers have talked and basically they recommend that we work it out between ourselves.”
“Another deal?” he asks, amused.
I ignore the remark and continue. “You can have access to the books, business operations, employee records, tax documents, etc. Full transparency. And, after a designated period of time, enough time for you to get a sense of the business, we may come to a new arrangement.”
“New? Don’t you mean fair?”
“Micheál, please.”
He stares at me for a long while and I shift uncomfortably. It’s like he’s looking right into my soul and I’m not sure that I want him to. A smile begins and the corners of his beautiful mouth and spreads into a full-on grin. God, he’s gorgeous.
He reaches his hand across the table and I take it. A fizzy electricity passes from him to me. We shake. Well, he shakes, really, because I’m immobilized. It’s a deal.
“Come on, I’ll show you how things work.” I get up and go into the office and he follows. We spend the next few hours looking at spreadsheets and discussing the merits of one supplier or product over another. Micheál clearly has a good head for business and even makes a couple of helpful suggestions, making me wonder why his business in Ireland is struggling. It’s lunchtime by the time we reemerge and the staff are all set up for Sunday lunch.
“What have ye got planned for today?” asks Micheál.
We’ve been getting along well and I misinterpret the question. “Eh, I should really stay here and make sure everything’s ticking over. But you should go out and explore the city.”
“No, Erin. I mean what have ye got planned at the bar? And, just to be clear, I’m not here on holiday. I want to get the best out of this situation.”
“Right, of course,” I say embarrassed. “Um, Sundays we usually don’t do very much…”
“Why don’t ye offer a Sunday Roast lunch? And get some Gaelic football or a hurling match on the TV in the back room? And, ye’d be mad not to do a brunch on a Sunday— people love that.”
“Really?” I ask. “We kind of have a young crowd. They don’t really eat much.”
“You mean the cokeheads? No, I don’t suppose they have great appetites. Is that who ye want to cater to, Erin? Twenty-somethings trying to get off their tits on shots or coke? Is that what a pub is to ye?”
“Look here, Micheál,” I begin, grabbing a handful of knives and forks, ”that’s what the punters want. Cheap shots and loud, bangin’ music. And, yes, neon flashing leprechauns! They don’t want traditional music and readings of Ulysses or bloody bodhrán players.” My voice rises with each syllable.
“Okay.” He puts his hands up in surrender. “Ye’re the boss.”
“That’s right,” I say and busy myself with setting up tables. Of course I know that cokeheads and burgeoning alcoholics are not the kind of clientele that I had hoped to attract, but times have changed and I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn away paying customers because I’m pining for some lost version of ex-pat Ireland.
CHAPTER THIRTY
RIDLEE
WHEN A LAWYER TELLS A family member she’s sorry for not being around for two weeks because she’s been too busy, they usually have a hard time understanding. A best friend in crisis is worse than that. Talk about a downward spiral. Erin won’t even look at me as I sit across the bar from her.
“Erin, I swear to God, I’ve been working non-stop for two weeks!”
“Right,” she says as she yanks down the tap for a beer she’s pouring for another customer. “Too busy. Got it.”
I lean in to plead without letting the entire bar know our business. “It’s a mass-tort action, Erin. Millions of dollars are at stake. If I didn’t stay there at that office until three in the morning and then at the hotel where they were preparing, I would have been fired.”
She moves away to serve the beer, and I watch her as she goes. Her movements are stiff and I could swear she’s lost weight. Looking around the bar, I can probably guess what’s bothering her, but I don’t need to. Her constant stream of angry texts over the past week have told me the whole story. Michaél has more than made his presence felt; he’s pretty much taken over. No more neon leprechauns, no more drinking contests, no more of any of the things that Erin had incorporated into the business over the last year exist here anymore.
Erin’s back at the beer taps and her mood isn’t any better. She fixes a bitter smile on her face. “So you hung out at the Ritz with all your lawyer friends, too busy having room service to just drop by, is that it?”
“Hung out? Room service?” I shake my head at her. “Listen, Erin, I know you’re pissed at what Michaél’s done, but that has nothing to do with me working on a case at the firm.”
“No,” she leans in and hisses at me, “but it has everything to do with me following your legal advice and ending up in this situation.”
So that’s it. That’s what’s bothering her above everything else. It’s like a knife has been stabbed into my heart and twisted. She really believes what she just said.
She stops talking and then presses her lips together. I can’t tell if she feels angry or guilty about her accusation, but it doesn’t matter. Now I’m pissed, and not at her.
Michaél saunters over from the other side of the bar where he was chatting with some woman he was serving drinks to. According to Erin’s texts, he’s working here full time ‘to get a feel for the business’ or so he says.
“Do you want to continue to discuss this here or should we go into your office?” I ask in a carefully measured tone. The last thing I want is for the enemy to know that Erin’s in a weak position emotionally. If she’s blaming me for this mess, that means she feels like she doesn’t have a friend in the world, and I need to fix that.
“My office would be lovely,” she says with fake cheer. She throws a bar towel down under the bar top and moves off, not even acknowledging Michaél.