“No.” I sigh mournfully into my Manhattan, swirling the straw around the ice. “It’s hardly a long-term solution. What happens when one of us meets a man?”
“They’d probably want a threesome.”
The sophisticated older lady sitting a few feet away gives us a disapproving side-eye.
“I’m going to have to accept it, Orla,” I murmur, staring into the V-shaped glass filled with red liquor. “I’m leaving. I tried, but let’s face it…” My voice cracks. I can’t cry in this fancy bar.
“No.” She grabs both my hands, lifting them in the air like she’s performing some ritual. “There must be a way. Maybe they won’t find anything on your criminal record. Does it get wiped after a while?”
I give her a weak smile. “Not this soon, no. It’ll still be a big dirty mark against my name.”
She hums and squeezes my hands tighter. “Maybe they’ll miss it?”
“They won’t miss it.”
“The au pair agency did.”
“The agency are cowboys. They also tweaked my resume so much I sounded like Nanny McPhee. Quinn took blood from me. He means business.”
Her hands release mine as she sinks back into her seat. We both go silent.
“Maybe they won’t care what’s on your record? You didn’t go on a murder spree. It was just a… series of unfortunate events.”
I smile to humor her. That’s not how the police saw it and that’s not what’s on my record.
Drawing a slow breath through her nose, she places her fingertips over her eyelids. “Deep breaths. Positive thoughts. We have to have faith. One year from now, we’ll be celebrating in this bar as legal citizens of New York. I’ll be working for the NYPD, probably having earned a medal of honor, and you’ll be a carpenter winning… Carpenter of the Year!”
She still has her eyes closed, so she can’t see mine rolling. “Have you been reading The Secret again?”
She opens her eyes and grins. “If you believe it will happen, it will happen.”
I exhale heavily and take a large gulp of my Manhattan, welcoming the burn on its way down. If my last hope is wishful thinking, it’s a sad state of affairs.
“I’ll be right back.” Orla slides off her stool, causing her skirt to ride up. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll be here,” I say cheerfully, swirling the last of my cocktail. “For now,” I add quietly to myself.
I watch Orla walk away. My heart twinges. Soon, we won’t be doing this together. We’ve been best friends since we were kids. We were neighbors, we went to school together, and we bunked off school together. The only time we spent apart was when she’d go on holiday to the United States to visit her relatives, and I was so jealous.
Now these past few months, we’ve living in each other’s pockets, in the loft of Uncle Sean’s house in Queens.
“He’s here,” the woman behind me says, interrupting my private pity party. Her excited tone makes me want to eavesdrop on their conversation. “I saw him coming out of the restrooms.”
“You’re kidding me,” whoever is with her replies. “We have to find a way to bump into him accidentally.”
I scan the bar, looking for signs of someone famous, mildly curious. Who’s here? The guy in the corner looks vaguely like Al Pacino.
The woman says something in a lower voice to her friend, which is inaudible to me. Her friend laughs. I wish I could catch more of their chat.
I lean back slightly on my stool. This isn’t a good plan, considering I’m a bit wobbly from the cocktails.
Bad timing.
The bartender zooms past me. I barely catch his arm as he reaches for my glass.
“Hang on!” I lunge forward and snatch it up, my fingers gripping the stem firmly. “I’m not finished.”
He looks at the nearly empty glass and then at me, barely suppressing an eye roll.
I scowl in return. Waste not, want not. It’s no more than a dribble, but I’m not wasting a drop.
I tilt the glass back, making sure I don’t miss a single drop, then place the empty glass in front of him.
“I’ve been thinking in the bathroom,” Orla announces as she returns.
I wait for the grand revelation.
“We should have one more,” she says, smiling at me with glazed eyes. “One more, and then we’ll head home.”
***
One becomes four. We drift around the hotel’s ground level, surrounded by overpriced, high-end stores, in pursuit of the entrance.
Orla is going in and out of stores we have no business being in, and I wish I could put her on a leash.
It takes me a moment or two to realize what the buzzing noise is. The stolen cocktail glass clinks noisily against the toiletries from the hotel bathroom as I struggle to locate my phone under all the crap in my bag. I finally find it under the soaps and fish it out.
I press connect on the unknown number.
“Clodagh?” a deep American voice drawls down the line. “It’s Marcus.”
My heart goes from resting to racing. “Yes?”
“Good news,” he booms. “You’re good to go. You start Monday.”
Abruptly, I stop still in the throngs of people, nearly dropping the phone. How much have I drunk? “I… passed the vetting?”
I look around for Orla, but she’s wandered into another shop. Typical.
He chuckles softly down the line. “Weren’t you expecting to?”
“Uh.” I expel a strange gargle. I’m not even sure it came from my mouth.
“We’ll need you to move in on Sunday.” Marcus either chooses to ignore my shock or isn’t fazed by it. He sounds like he’s walking. “Mr. Quinn will meet you on Sunday afternoon.”
“Right,” I breathe, staring dazed into the window of a luxury lingerie store. I force a casual tone even though my heart does the bongo against my chest. “Send me the details. I’m delighted.”
“Excellent. Don’t mess this up, Clodagh. You won’t be able to stay in New York if you do.” The words hang in the air as an ominous warning. “Mr. Quinn’s driver, Sam, will pick you up.”
Something isn’t right. Is it possible for the police to make mistakes? Doubtful. Is Quinn’s vetting really lenient? Again, I doubt it.