In any event, the two of them are already sitting at the gate when we arrive, Sadie’s sandaled feet resting on her bulging backpack; she’s wearing denim shorts and an Outward Bound hoodie, her hair in a long French braid. “Hey,” Ian calls, raising an easy hand in greeting. “You came.”
“We came!” Sadie agrees cheerily. Gabe, for his part, looks less than convinced. Still, he seems game enough, chatting with Ian about the crummy fielding the Red Sox have been doing lately and asking if we want anything when he and Sadie get up to get coffee.
“Not so bad, right?” Ian asks me as they trot across the terminal, digging a Tana French mystery out of his bag and looking at me hopefully.
“No,” I have to admit. “Not so bad.”
I page through my own book while they’re gone, losing myself a bit in the story of a fancy party full of diplomats held hostage by South American terrorists. By the time Gabe and Sadie turn up again it’s nearly time to board. As Gabe’s passing by he drops something in my lap; I startle, blinking down in surprise at a package of Red Vines. For a second I think,dumbly, that he brought them from Star Lake—that’s how strongly I associate them with home—but when I look up at him in confusion he only shrugs.
“Saw them at the newsstand,” he explains in a voice that pretty clearly communicates,I am begging you not to make a big deal about this. “Thought maybe you’d want ’em for the plane.”
“Um.” I clear my throat. “Thanks,” I say, but he’s already sitting down on the other side of Sadie, peering at something she’s showing him on her phone. I might as well be vapor.
Ian glances over curiously. “I didn’t know you liked those,” he says.
“I used to, yeah.” It’s an understatement: I basically lived on Red Vines last summer, gnawing through them by the pallet load. I kept an emergency stash of them everywhere, my work locker and my nightstand and in the glove compartment of my car. I couldn’t find them in Boston, though, not to mention the fact that I wasn’t exactly hankering for culinary reminders of Star Lake after everything that happened. I haven’t even thought about them in months.
But Gabe remembered.
“Attention, passengers,” the gate attendant calls over the loudspeaker. I exhale, grateful for the distraction, and shove the Red Vines to the very bottom of my purse.
Imogen is staying in a caretaker’s cottage on the grounds of a Sisters of the Resurrection convent on the west coast of Ireland, in County Kerry, where the hills are so green they’realmost blue. From the airport we take a bus to another bus, then drag ourselves and our backpacks two long miles up a steep, narrow lane flanked on either side by fields dotted with tiny white stucco houses. A light, chilly rain is falling, the smell of it brackish and new.
“You guys regretting coming with us yet?” Ian calls over his shoulder, his grin wide and energized underneath his Sox cap. He loves an adventure more than anyone I’ve ever met—except maybe Sadie, whose body was apparently built for mountain climbing and high ropes courses and who looks like she could hike from here to Belfast without breaking a sweat.
“Not yet!” she calls cheerfully, her braid swinging back and forth like a horse’s tail.
For his part, Gabe is quiet, one thumb hooked in the strap of the duffel slung over his shoulder; he hasn’t had a ton to say since we got off the plane, and I can’t exactly blame him.
“I do have to pee, though,” Sadie continues, slowing down a bit to wait for me, then peering over my shoulder. “We getting close?”
“I think so?” I frown, puffing a bit from the long tromp up the hill. I’m following the map on my phone, but even with the international plan I sprung for my service is spotty here, fading in and out again. I’m starting to worry we’ve passed Imogen’s turn altogether when a church finally rises up in the distance, tall and stone-clad and spired. Next door is a sprawling Tudor that must be the convent, flanked by a bright, teeming garden; beyondthatis the tiny cottagethat belongs to Imogen and the other fellows. In her emails she described it as her hobbit hole, and I see now she wasn’t exaggerating: it looks half collapsed, crumbling mortar and mossy roof and a distinct list to one side, like it’s one heavy rainstorm away from being absorbed back into the earth.
My heart stutters in pure anticipation: I haven’t seen Imogen since she came to visit me in Boston last fall after everything happened, the two of us cuddled in my extra-long twin bed watching movies on my laptop and eating convenience-store Pop Tarts. My pace quickens as I hurry up the leaf-slicked walkway, my roller bag bouncing awkwardly along behind me. I’m just reaching out to knock on the peeling red door—there’s no bell that I can see—when Imogen flings it open and squeals delightedly. “You made it!” she crows.
“There aregoatson your lawn,” I blurt out.
Imogen laughs. “There sure are,” she agrees, apparently unfazed by their quiet bleating. “They belong to the ag kids, they’re all named after Beatles.” She steps back, smiling at the rest of my traveling party. “Come on in, guys.”
Imogen has gained weight in a way that makes her look like a fifties pinup girl or a Botticelli angel, all milk-pale skin and jet-black bangs; she’s barefoot in a long floral sundress, a million silver bracelets up one arm. She introduces herself to Ian and Sadie with a grown-up confidence, then holds her arms out to Gabe. “Gabriel,” she says, mock formal. “Always a pleasure.”
“Imogen,” Gabe echoes, grinning wry and rueful. “Likewise.”
The inside of Imogen’s cottage reminds me of the set of some whimsical, madcap romantic comedy, only ugly. It has low ceilings and exposed wooden beams and a rust-colored kitchen that hasn’t seen any updates since the seventies at the latest; there’s a teeny sitting room with an ash-filled fireplace, a faded rag rug covering the sagging hardwood floor. “I’m going to put you guys on the pullout, but I can’t make any promises about how comfortable it is,” she tells Gabe and Sadie, nodding at a flowered love seat that looks as though perhaps it was rescued from a nursing home sometime before any of us were born. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s great,” Sadie promises. “Thanks so much for having us, really.”
Imogen laughs. “Let’s see if you’re still saying that once you’ve been here a couple of days,” she warns. “The convent isn’t exactly the kind of tourist attraction that draws people from miles around.”
We shuffle down the dim, narrow hallway that leads to the pair of bedrooms at the back, Sadie peeling off into the tiny bathroom. “When you flush the toilet, there’s always this moment you think you clogged it, but don’t worry,” Imogen instructs. “Just keep holding the handle down and eventually it’ll work.” She grimaces as the door shuts, lowers her voice. “I mean, like. Most of the time.”
She leads us into a bedroom that smells strongly of cedarand is outfitted with a pressboard bureau, an antique student’s desk, and a gruesome painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. “My roommate just went home to Alberta,” she explains, gesturing for Ian and me to drop our stuff on the narrow twin bed. “She was losing her shit about missing you, though, Mols—she’s like your mom’s biggest, creepiest fan. She brought all her books here in her suitcase to keep her from getting homesick.”
“I didn’t know your mom was an author,” Sadie says, coming back out into the hallway. “That’s so cool.” Then, to Imogen: “You were right about the toilet, by the way.” Back to me: “Has she written anything I’d know?”
“Um,” I begin, purposely not looking over at Gabe. “Well—”
“Hey, did I tell you I bought wine and cheese like a damn adult?” Imogen interrupts loudly. “Come on, it’s in the kitchen. We’re going to have to drink the wine out of mugs with pictures of Saint Peter’s Basilica on them, but that’s okay.” As soon as Sadie’s back is turned she mouthssorry, and I shake my head; after all, it’s not like I’ve never had to explain my way out of that particular situation before. It’s an awkward occupational hazard of having your mom write a thinly disguised, hugely bestselling novel about your teenage love life.
