CHAPTER 3
Seamus
I maneuver down 8th Street, while Wren chews my ear off through my Bluetooth. Most people from out of town would have their navigation system on. But I’m not from out of town and only losers and out of towners use their navigation systems in the city. Anyone who’s lived in Philly at least five years should know where Termini’s bakery is. If he doesn’t, he needs to get the hell on outta here.
“Don’t forget. Sol wants Finnie to have a groom’s cake. She doesn’t care what kind and neither does he.”
I roll to a stop at the light. “Why can’t he pick it out?”
“He and Killian are guest commentators for that big fight on Saturday. They’re leaving for Vegas some time tonight. They’re also hosting the next few Fight Nights and have to sort through the next batch of contenders.”
“That’s right.”
In the background, I hear her fingers flying across the keyboard at rocket speed. “I’m going to seriously owe you for helping us out,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe all the stuff I have to do at the office before me and Evan leave for Sweden.”
“It’s no biggie. I’ll take care of you and Finnie.”
“Good. The venue Ma picked out for the engagement party has a separate room for desserts. A separate freaking room!” she repeats. “We have to fill it and make it pretty, so try out as many of those little cakes as possible. The place can make their own, but they don’t compare to Termini’s. Their cake was dry enough to use as bricks and the icing would have made damn good mortar. You feel me?”
“Dry cake, shitty icing. I got you.”
More typing, some quick talk to someone asking for Evan’s schedule, and what sounds like paper being ripped. I’m tired just listening to her work.
“I need those little bitty cakes,” she says, sounding like I don’t understand and might screw up. “Stuffed little pastries or whatever. I also need them to be different each time.”
“Different?” I ask.
“Yeah, like a theme.”
“Theme?” I ask. Okay, this was supposed to be an easy job. Me eating cake and her liking me for doing it.
“Seamus, I have a rehearsal dinner, the bridal luncheon, the reception, and the breakfast the day after, and anything else Ma comes up with. I don’t want to look like a cheap ass who recycled the same thing over and over again.”
“I can respect that,” I say. I stop at a light, waving to two women who stop to admire the goods.
“Ma thinks I have time for all of this,” Wren adds. “Like all I do all day is fetch Evan’s coffee and write notes up in shorthand. Shorthand, Seamus. She thinks that shit still exists.”
“Aren’t you his secretary?”
“My title is administrative assistant to the CEO of iCronos, moron. Believe me, I do more than order him coffee.” She sighs. “Evan’s under the gun to finish a project he’s presenting to Sweden’s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, as well as to the Regional Medical councils, and I’m helping him. I don’t have time to pick out desserts for events I don’t want to have. We’re running an empire here.”
“Evan’s out of his mind about marrying you. I thought for sure he’d want the two of you to take care of all the wedding stuff.”
“He does,” she says, her voice softening. “But this deal is important and we have to wrap it up before the big day so we can actually enjoy our big day. The ceremony, reception, and honeymoon we’re planning together. Those are the things we’re excited about. Everything else, though . . .” She groans. “I just can’t. I never signed up for this blushing bride-to-be bullshit. I wanted to get married on the beach with just us. But no. Ma insists I get married in a church or risk God releasing a plague that will have flying monkeys shooting out of my lady bits. No one needs that shit.”
I swipe a hand over my mouth to cover my laugh. As the only girl in the family, Wren is screwed ten ways from Sunday and twice from Saturday. I can picture her waving her arms like she does when she’s pissed. “You know when I mentioned the beach to Ma, she asked if I wanted to be responsible for unleashing the apocalypse?” Wren adds. “She asked me that bit of crazy right to my face.”
“What did you say?” I ask.
“I told her that the second coming doesn’t depend on me and Evan getting married in a Catholic church, and you know what she said?”
“Are you trying to kill your mother?” I offer, taking shortcut when I see an accident up ahead.
“Yeah, she did! She even brought up all that fire and brimstone shit. You know that always gets me. I tell you, Catholic guilt can slap you upside the head like a drunk, nasty bitch.”
This time I do laugh out loud. “You sound a little stressed, there, Wren.”
“That’s because I am, genius. Did you know I’d have all this crap to do?”
“Nope,” I say, cursing when I run over the mother of all pot holes.
Wren ignores me going full speed ahead. “No wonder so many people get married in Vegas. This isn’t natural. All these different events to mark the only big event that matters. Can’t I just get married and skip the rest?”
“You can if you want Ma to die and come back to haunt you leading the Four Horsemen. You know Ma’s been waiting for this day. Remember when Grammie—God rest her soul—used to pray the rosary?” I drop into my best expression of Grammie, her Irish accent so thick you could spread it across soda bread. “Oh, sacred Jesus, forgive this undeserving and hell-bound child for her many sins and let her find a man deserving of your grace. Do not strike her down with your mighty spirit. Bless her womb as your beloved father blessed your mother’s so she may have strapping, intelligent, and dashing boys, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“You remember all that?” she asks.
“Hell, yeah. It was how she said good night.”
“True. God rest her soul,” Wren agrees. “To be fair, I wasn’t the hell-bound child. That was Finnie. I was the destroyer of dreams and all things pure.”
“Yeah?” I frown. “I thought that was Grammie’s nickname for Curran?”
“No, he was God’s answer to birth control. Killian was Damian from the Omen.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, turning back onto 8th. “I remember her squirting him with holy water every Sunday before mass, so God would let him in.”
“In Grammie’s defense, he did look like that creepy kid after the bowl cut Ma gave him,” Wren adds. “Angus was ‘Gluttony’ and a few other of the seven sins, depending on the day. You were Judas, on account of you always ratting us out.”
“I remember that much. Hey, what was Declan?”
“Dear boy. That kiss-ass was always the favorite.”
“Bastard,” we both mutter.
I pull up in front of the bakery and start to parallel park, only for some shithead to try to take my spot. He gets out of the car and so do I. He takes one look at me, gets back in his car, and leaves.
“Did you hear me, Seamus?”
“Nah, some dipshit just tried to steal my parking spot.”
She pauses. “Did you get it back?”
“Ah, yeah,” I reply like it’s obvious, because it damn well is. “What were you saying?”
“I was asking you if you are going to bring someone to the wedding, the rehearsal dinner, and all the other shenanigans I’m supposed to be a part of.”
“Do I have to?”
There’s a long dramatic pause. Never a good thing with Wren. “Listen Seamus, I know we gave you a hard time the other day about being old as fuck, still being single, and no woman in sight without a long list of baby daddies. But our hearts were in the right place.”
“Sounds it,” I say.
She sighs. “We just don’t want you to be alone, you know? You hear about those spinster women found dead, their faces half-eaten by their twenty cats. We don’t want that to be you. We don’t want to find you dead, alone, surrounded by asshole cats licking their whiskers.”
How did I go from being the reigning stud in the family to my family stressing I’ll die a death by pussy?
“Why the hell is it when everyone has someone they need, everybody needs to have someone, too?”
“I wasn’t supposed to find someone nice,” she replies by way of an answer. “I was supposed to be that spinster, Seamus. I don’t even like cats. It was okay for you to be alone, because you’re a man and men supposedly have more opportunities.”
I turn off my car, because I know Wren isn’t done yet. She doesn’t disappoint.
“But then I did find someone, proving I wasn’t such a lost cause. You hear what I’m saying? If I can, by the grace of God and our dead grandmother—God rest her soul—find someone good and kind, you can too.”
“Thanks for the pep talk there, Wren. I’m glad we had this heart to heart.” I start to open my door when she stops me with her words.
“Are you trying to kill Ma?”
“Are you seriously asking me this question, again? For someone who is trying to help, you’re not helping.”
“My point is, there is someone out there for you. You just have to find her. Forget all the skanks. Stop spending your weekends watching football at Killian’s and eating your weight in nachos. Go to church and find someone. Someone nice. Someone who isn’t going to steal my purse.”
“It was one time,” I insist. “And I paid you back the bills she stole.”
“Seamus.”
“And the clothes.”
“Seamus.”
“And your panties.”
“Seamus! I don’t care about all that.” She pauses. “Okay, the panties were a big deal, because honestly, what the fuck? But all that aside, I care about you. What’s going to happen if you don’t find someone in the next few years? Or worse, if you end up with some psycho you don’t deserve?”
I slump into my seat, every curse word I know falling into my mouth like a landslide. Wren is feeling a lot of pressure. Finnie’s fiancée, Sol, is too. Ma isn’t doing so hot, either. They have weddings to plan and a long list of nightmares that I can’t possibly relate to.
I don’t get their preoccupation with me. They have better things to do. I want to yell at everyone to mind their damn business. Except I can’t. Pains in the ass or not, in their own demented way, my family means well. I try to ease at least one worry the best way I know how. I lie.
“You’re worried over nothing. I already have someone lined up to bring to all your shit.”
Instead of shutting Wren up, she gets more nuts. “Who are you going to bring?” she asks slowly. “Seamus, it can’t be just anyone. I don’t want any drama. I want a decent meal, say hello to few people, and get the hell out so I can have naked time with Evan.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s . . . nice.”
“When you say ‘nice,’ do you mean all her tats are spelled correctly, or she won’t burst into flames if she walks into church?”
“There won’t be any flames,” I assure her. “And she’s got no tats.” I grimace. Now I’ve gone too far.
“Who is she?” she presses. “This can’t be some woman you met at a bar.”
Well, there goes Plan A.
“She has to be a decent human being,” Wren says, laying it out. “Someone you wouldn’t be afraid to tell Father Flanagan you were with the night before.”
Shit. Is she kidding? It’s bad enough I can’t pick up someone at a bar. Now she’s expecting someone with morals, too? I was just going to hit someone up on speed dial. But by the way she’s acting, it won’t be enough to get Wren or Ma off my back.
“I’m bringing the woman I’m seeing,” I blurt out.
I know I’m screwed even before she says anything. “You’re seeing someone?”
“Sure.”
“Someone who doesn’t deflate when you’re done for the night?”
“That was one time!” It was also a joke. We blew up a bunch of adult dolls and shoved them in Curran’s patrol car. But we’re men and that’s what men do to other men at their brother’s bachelor party.
“Then who is it?”
“Who’s who?” I ask, trying to buy myself some time.
“Who is the woman you’re planning to bring to all the events I have to attend so the Four Horsemen don’t gallop across the dead remains of my wedding party?”
I look around like she’s somehow spying on me from the next building. I used to be a great liar when I was a kid. Don’t judge. If you grew up in my family, you had to learn to lie to survive, to have somewhat of a social life, without your mother kicking down a door and dragging you out of an underage drinking party by the hair. But since turning legal, and Ma retiring to Florida, I haven’t really had anything to lie about.
“Ah, Georgina . . . Glass.” I smack myself on the forehead for being such an idiot.
“Georgina Glass,” Wren says. She’s not impressed by my Brady Bunch reference. Truth be told, neither am I. “Tell me you’re screwing with me.”
“Course I am.” I scroll through my contacts as I speak to her on my phone.
Most of the women on my list are, by some miracle of God, married. Some are on their second marriages and possibly third. One is on probation, but I think she’s doing real good now, learning computers and shit. The hottest one is in prison, but the crazy psycho needs to be there for the safety of Philadelphia and any man in the vicinity with a penis. One, I definitely can’t call, because I accidentally made out with her mother. I know what it sounds like, but you ain’t perfect, either.
“You’re not seeing anyone. Are you?” Wren asks, sounding disappointed and maybe a little heartbroken, too. “This is all bullshit to keep Ma alive.”
Sweat gathers along my crown. I start to panic, but try not to let it show in my voice. “Have I ever lied to you? Scratch that. Have I ever lied to you about a woman? Never mind,” I add, realizing I’m only digging myself into a bigger hole. “The thing is, I can’t really tell anyone.”
“You’re gay, aren’t you? Come out of the closet, Seamus. The rest of us pretty much figured as much. God, I’ve never met a blue-collar man who obsesses over hair gel more than you do.”
“I’m not gay, Wren.” In a way, I wish I was. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with psycho women. “It’s just that . . . I just met this girl. She’s real shy and stuff, and I didn’t want to put any pressure on her by attending all these family events. We’re just getting to know each other. I don’t want to scare her off. Hear what I’m saying? This girl is special.”
It’s a line of bullshit I don’t even buy myself. The O’Briens have this thing, a curse if you will, once we get to talking there’s no stopping us. Words fly out of our mouths before we give it much thought and next thing you know we’re in confession giving Father Flanagan an earful. For the most, part it’s harmless and only adds to our rather spectacular personalities. Today, all it does is bend me over a table and give my rock-hard ass a good smack.
“If this girl is so special, how come we haven’t heard about her before?”
“Did you hear me? It’s new and we’re getting to know each other.”
“Did she just get out of prison?”
I’ll give her this, it’s a fair question.
“No, she’s a nice girl. A good girl. She goes to church and helps out in soup kitchens and shit.”
Wren doesn’t believe me and neither do I. Where is such a magical creature found? Not in Philly, I’ll tell you that much.
I’m ready to take it all back. Let Wren know this is what she’s reduced me to, a lying idiot with a make-believe girlfriend
“And she likes you?” she asks.
I should stop right where I am. But I don’t. My lie takes on a life of its own. “Why wouldn’t she? I’m a catch.”
My mouth is out of control. I didn’t sound believable at first, but now I find myself getting defensive and needing to protect my pretend girlfriend. What the hell’s wrong with me?
Stop speaking, asshole, I tell myself. But here I go, kicking myself in the balls to save Wren and my family the trouble. “I make a decent living,” I remind her. “I’ve got some money put away and I’m the best looking one of us.”
“Seamus, I’m not saying anyone wouldn’t be lucky to have you—”
“You’re not?” Hey, that’s kind of nice.
“I’m only saying most of the women you run around with suck, leaving you with nothing but a restraining order and a new security system.” She pauses, and as if it pains her, asks, “So, what’s her name?”
“I’m not telling you.” Because I don’t know my own damn self and Jesus God in heaven, make it all stop.
“Why? If this girl is so amazing, why can’t you just tell me her name or who she is? Is it someone I know?”
“I want it to be a surprise.”
“Why?”
“Because few things are anymore.” I open my glove compartment, hoping to find that roll of duct tape so I can tape my mouth shut.
“Do I know her?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I say. Damn. It’s like I’m possessed or something.
“Seamus, I’m really stressed here. If you’re lying to me or playing games, it’s not funny. We’re all worried about you dying alone and those damn mutant cats munching on what’s left of your toes.”
“Eh, you have nothing to worry about. I’m bringing someone. Promise.” I rub my face, hoping to rub the last few minutes from my mind. “You can trust me, Wren.”
“Okay . . . I believe you. Just—”
“Just what?” I ask.
The other end of the line grows eerily quiet before the distant sound of Evan’s voice echoes through, dripping with worry and something else.
“Darling, are you all right?” he whispers in his thick British accent.
“Fine,” Wren says, forcing out the word and allowing another seep of that tension to cut through the mic. “Just finishing up with Seamus.” Her voice is heavy. “Seamus, just pick out whatever you think will look good on the dessert table. If you need anything, call me.”
The way she says, “If you need anything,” makes me think she’s no longer talking pastries.
“I won’t let you down,” I say, staring at the sign to the bakery.
I mean what I say. Now, all I have to do is fly to Oz and swap out some red shoes for a girlfriend.