CHAPTER 17
Stephen pointed it out when he looked at my chart three weeks ago.
“It’s almost your birthday, Clementine. You’ll be nineteen on July 9. That’s only three weeks away.” Stephen was enthused. “You’ll have a mad party back in the States. I bet the whole of Cleveland will come out to celebrate you.”
The empty cottage echoes. Stephen assumed that I would be home by now. That my memories would be back. That Clementine would have returned to her life and that today would be a day when memories stacked on top of past memories—this one with a special note because I had lived through the worst ordeal a person can, and survived.
Nothing is what Stephen expected it to be. Home isn’t Cleveland. I am not Clementine. And that stack of memories is as apparent as evaporated water on hot pavement.
But it’s still my birthday. Today I am nineteen. I don’t feel any different. My face is the same face I saw in the mirror yesterday. My purple hair is more muted and slightly grown out. My skin has a glow from being outside, and the chronic fatigue that rocked me when I first left the hospital is gone. But I feel an extra energy in the air, like something needs to happen.
I sit alone in the kitchen, mulling over my options. I could spend the day relaxing like Kieran said. Get out my Ireland book and read up on more places to visit. Maybe go see the golf course in Waterville. Catch a boat tour out to the Skellig Islands. But doing this by myself feels awfully lonely. I hate being lonely. And with my strength finally coming back, I never want to be bed bound again, relaxing or not. That’s no way to spend a birthday.
And while baking usually makes me feel better, it seems desperately lame to bake my own birthday cake.
Fun won’t be found in the cottage, I’m sure of that. With my notebook in my pocket, I head out to find some, hoping this time Kieran is right—it won’t end in a near-death experience.
At the Secret Book and Record Store, Clive and I watch Siobhan organize a rack of vintage dresses for the third time. This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but when I walked down the stairs, into the familiar scent of cardboard boxes and plastic wigs, and saw Clive chewing on his lower lip, concern written on his face, my quest for fun shifted.
“She’s wearing bloody runners,” Clive whispers to me, discreetly pointing at Siobhan’s feet. She’s wearing a pair of dark-blue sneakers that look like they’ve never been worn. The place is empty on this Saturday afternoon. In all honesty, I’ve never really seen the place very busy. I’m not sure how Clive stays in business. Most people who come to this part of Ireland want shops with wool sweaters and Celtic crosses to hang on their walls, not fishnet stockings and spike-studded bras with matching garter belts. “I’ve never seen her in a pair before,” he says.
“Never?” I ask. Clive shakes his head.
“They’re too bloody ordinary for her. The closest I’ve seen was when she came in wearing four-inch platform pleather boots that came up to her midthigh. That’s casual for Siobhan.”
Her makeup is even muted today, and her pink hair is pulled into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.
“Look at her hair,” Clive whispers. “Not a speck of product in it. She looks like a buggy-pushing mum who hasn’t opened a glamour mag since uni.”
“Maybe she’s practicing for when she has the baby,” I offer. “Trying on a more sensible look.”
Clive shakes his head. “Von has never used the word ‘sensible’ in her life.”
It’s not my place to share the conversation I overheard between Siobhan and Kieran. Clive may pride himself on knowing everyone in town, but some secrets should remain so.
“Something is definitely off,” Clive says. “Siobhan would never wear runners. It’s just not like her.”
“Why don’t you just ask her?”
Clive gives me a sarcastic face. “When has asking Siobhan a question ever ended well for you?”
“Good point.” I start to bite my nails. What Clive is saying makes sense when put together with what I overheard this morning. Siobhan’s dad wanted her to get an abortion or give the baby away. And now that she hasn’t done either, her whole life is about to change. “What would Jane Austen say?”
Clive shakes his head. “This is so Marianne and Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.” He leans in close. “Marianne falls madly in love with the dashing young rogue, Willoughby, only to have her heart broken when he marries another woman for money.”
“What happens to Marianne?”
“She falls into a deep depression and almost dies.” Clive puts his hand to his mouth. “This isn’t good.”
“But it’s just a pair of sneakers, or runners, or whatever you call them.”
Clive gives me a hard glare. “It’s never just a pair of runners. People are defined by what they wear. It’s a walking mantra. Von’s clothes usually say, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ That outfit says, ‘I’ve given up. Pass me a bonbon.’ Go talk to her.”
“Me? She doesn’t like me.”
“So it can’t get any worse!” Clive shoves me in Siobhan’s direction. I stumble and glare back at him, but he waves me toward her. She’s reorganizing the rack of dresses for the fourth time as I approach.
“Hi,” I say quietly. Siobhan doesn’t respond. I shoot Clive a skeptical look, but he gives me a visual nudge to keep going. “I found this on my walk over here. Not very unique, but I thought you might like it anyway.” I offer Siobhan another piece of blue sea glass.
She takes it from me and puts it in her pocket without examining it. “Thanks.”
“So how are you today?”
“Grand.”
This isn’t going anywhere.
“So . . . ,” I say. “I never properly thanked you for the clothes.”
“Don’t bother.”
“And what I said the other day . . . I was upset—”
“No need to explain.” Siobhan moves to another rack of dresses.
Another dead end. I’m running out of options.
“I was hoping you could help me with something,” I say.
“What, Yank?”
The first idea that comes to mind slips from my mouth. “Well, it’s my birthday, and I thought I’d buy a new outfit. Since you’re the most fashionable person I know, I thought maybe you could help me pick something out?” Then I add quietly, so Clive can’t hear, “Plus, I haven’t seen a customer in here all day. I’m a little worried about this place. I’d like to help Clive out.”
From across the store, Clive yells, “It’s your bloody birthday! Why didn’t you say something!” He crosses the room and grabs me in a hug, squishing me in his arms.
“It’s just a day,” I say, pinched in his grasp.
“It is not just a day.” Clive sets me down. “We need to do something special.”
“You really don’t need to do that.”
“Yes. We. Do.” Clive is emphatic. He thinks for a second, and then his whole face brightens. “Let’s play dress-up.”
“Pardon?” I say.
Clive pulls a red pleather halter-top dress from the rack. “Von and I used to do this all the time when the place was dead.”
“When is this place not dead?” Siobhan says, a little more pep to her voice.
“Thank goodness you work for free.” He smiles at her and continues. “We’d dress each other up to pass the time. Now it’s your turn. Let us dress you up for your birthday!”
“I don’t know.” I back away.
“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Clive pleads. He turns to Siobhan. “Von, I need your help.”
It’s right now that I realize this isn’t just about my birthday. Clive is doing this for Siobhan, too.
I take the dress from Clive’s hands. “Please. I don’t trust Clive. I’ll end up in that.” I point to a pair of assless pants hanging on the wall.
“You’d look damn good in those,” Clive says.
I beg Siobhan. “Save me?”
Dark circles hang under her eyes, but a hint of a spark returns to them.
“I think you’ve proven you’re not a girl who needs saving,” she says. “You do fine on your own.”
It’s the first compliment Siobhan has ever given me, and possibly the best birthday gift I could ask for.
“OK,” she says. “And no assless pants.”
Clive rolls his eyes. “You’re such a fucking prude.”
Siobhan grabs a stack of dresses, her posture straighter as she walks toward the dressing room. “That word hasn’t been used to describe me in a long time.”
After twenty dresses, ten pairs of shoes, and more jewelry options than I can count, Clive and Siobhan finally agree on my birthday outfit. The dress is white with cherries decorating it. The neckline is heart shaped with capped sleeves, which Clive says accentuate my “perfectly voluptuous” chest. A red belt cinches my waist. The bottom of the dress flares at an A-line from waist to knee. Siobhan adds a pair of lavender T-strap shoes, saying they give the outfit the perfect muted accent.
“It’s a refined pinup look,” she says, examining me from head to toe.
My reflection barely resembles the girl who walked in the door. “You should do something in fashion one day,” I say, but Siobhan waves me off. I’ve spent every day in jeans and T-shirts that can get covered in paint or stand up to whatever task Kieran and I have set out to do. But not since I’ve been here have I dressed nicely. It makes me stand up straighter. I actually feel pretty and girlie—a feeling I didn’t know I liked until now.
I spin to make the dress flare. “Clive, if clothes speak, what does this dress say?”
“Fuck me.”
I stop twirling. “I’m taking it off.”
But Clive grabs my arm as I turn for the changing room. “No, you will not. You look brilliant. What’s wrong with a little sex appeal? Right, Von?”
Siobhan just glares.
“It’s not right,” she says. “It’s just not right.”
Clive seems worried again. “What’s not right?” I ask.
“The picture’s not complete.” She grabs me by the hand, drags me over to a chair behind the counter, and pushes me down in it. “Stay there.”
Siobhan disappears into the back room, only to return moments later with her large purse. She dumps the contents on the counter—makeup, a curling iron, gum, money, and more makeup.
“You can’t wear that dress without black eyeliner and red lipstick.” Siobhan searches through her makeup bags.
Clive gives me two thumbs up, and when Siobhan grabs my chin to turn my face toward her, I say with all the sincerity I have in me, “Thank you, Siobhan. For everything.”
She remains callous. “It’s your fucking birthday. Don’t get used to it. Now close your eyes . . . Muppet.”
Three weeks ago, I would have been hurt by her words, but today, nothing could feel better.
Siobhan works on my face and hair for a while, without letting me see what she’s doing. She curls and pins my hair back, taking her time. Clive watches us, his reactions varying from surprise to amusement to awe. Occasionally, a customer comes down the stairs, and Clive yells, “We’re closed! Special occasion.”
This isn’t what Stephen or I had envisioned for my birthday, but what has been? I’m beginning to think it’s a waste of time trying to predict the future. Life takes too many turns.
“Final touch,” Siobhan says, standing in front of me. “Act like you’re going to kiss someone.” My stomach jolts.
“If you could kiss anyone on your birthday,” Clive asks, “who would it be?”
“I don’t know,” I lie nervously.
“Someone famous, maybe?”
“Stop asking her stupid questions, and let me work,” Siobhan says. “Now pout your lips, Yank.”
Siobhan smooths on red lipstick and then stands back as I sit, my mouth still holding the shape. She says, so that I can hear, “I can see how someone would fall for you.”
“What?” I whisper back.
She turns and says to Clive, “She’s done.”
“Let’s see,” Clive says, clapping his hands.
He makes me model my new look, his face bursting with excitement, before I check myself out in the mirror. Siobhan has transformed me into a true pinup girl—black eyeliner rims my eyes, my lips as red as the cherries on my dress. My hair curls back from my face in an old-fashioned style only Siobhan could replicate. I barely recognize myself, but at the same time, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more like . . . me.
Clive wears a goofy grin. “Sex, sex, and more sex,” he says. “This was a great idea.”
Siobhan stands next to him, her hand holding the bottom of her belly, her face pinched. She takes a deep breath.
“Are you OK?” I ask.
She waves me off. “Stop asking so many damn questions.”
The three of us stand in the empty store, me dressed to the nines, Clive and Siobhan watching me.
“So . . . ,” I say. “What do I do now?”
The store is quiet. All three of us wait as if an idea is just seconds away from presenting itself. But it never does.
“This is an opportune time for a ball,” Clive says. “I wish people still threw balls.”
“You’re having Jane Austen delusions again.” Siobhan rolls her eyes. “It’s becoming a problem.”
“Well, she can’t go home. She looks too good. We need to show her off.”
“In Waterville?” Siobhan says. “Nothing ever happens in this town.”
“Actually . . .” My beautiful lavender shoes have my feet aching to celebrate the day. And my dress . . . Suddenly, I want to dance and twirl. Clive is right. “Would a party work?”