Mile High Guy (15 page)

Do you know what I once did? I went down to my local Tesco’s and bought a huge box of Milk Tray all for myself. And I felt terribly guilty about it. So guilty in fact that I started explaining to the girl at the checkout that the chocolates were for a friend of mine. As if the woman gave a fig!

‘Is that all you’re having?’ Amy stares at my salad.

I try to refrain myself from glaring at her. Why do thin people always comment on other people’s food? It’s a bit rich, isn’t it? It seems that the thinner they are, the more concerned they are about other people not eating enough.

‘I’m not that hungry,’ I explain wearily.

Her plate is full of pasta. I bet she won’t eat half of it but I will polish off my salad drenched in a high calorific dressing. I ask for a large Diet Coke and Amy asks for a regular Coke. Is she trying to prove a point? Oh maybe I’m just being paranoid. It’s very late. If I were at home I’d be in bed.

‘I wonder where the rest of the crew are?’ Amy says, as we take a seat.

‘I dunno, none of them rang me to see what I was doing.’

‘Nor me.’ Amy looks a bit miffed. As if there’s a possibility that the rest of the crew have organised a big night out without us. I couldn’t give a tinker’s curse what the others are up to. It’s bad enough being cooped up in a large metal container
with them for hours, without us all organising to meet up again as soon as we land. I mean we need a bloody break from each other!

‘Show us what you bought,’ Amy grabs my plastic bag like an excited child. When God was dishing out lessons in subtlety, Amy was obviously off getting her nails done.

‘Oh look, you got
People
! I love that magazine,’ she pulls it out of the bag. Luckily for me it’s just
People
she’s waving in the air, and not some saucy, erotic magazine.

If there’s one thing that drives me absolutely mad it’s someone reading a magazine I’ve bought before I’ve even had a chance to read it myself. Amy is busy flicking through the magazine and commenting on all the celebrities.

‘Would you look at the state of your woman?’ She points to a singing diva in a low cut sparkly dress. ‘If I’d a figure like that I’d keep it well covered up.’

I stare at her plate of pasta that she has already passed to one side. ‘Aren’t you finishing your dinner?’ I enquire.

‘Nah, I’m stuffed.’

See what I mean? She
must
be related to my pal, Kerry.

‘Oh look, there’s your man.’

‘What man?’

‘The one you were going on about earlier, Adam Kirrane.’

I feel my stomach muscles tense. I crane for a look at my own magazine but I can only see Adam’s picture upside down. I almost want to grab the magazine and clock Amy over the head with it.

‘He’s looking well there,’ she comments.

I say nothing. She’s staring at him and I suddenly feel very protective of Adam’s photo. I mean, anyone on the street can just walk into a shop, buy his photo and keep it and comment on it or slate it or whatever. And there’s nothing he can say in
his defence. It’s the price of fame I suppose, but I’m not sure I like it.

‘Here, show it to me,’ I pull the magazine towards me. I stare at the image and it’s hard for me to imagine I even know the guy, never mind the fact that we dined together last night. Adam is wearing a white tuxedo and he’s at some party in LA. He looks relaxed, suntanned, happy and quite at ease with being in the spotlight. I wonder
when the photo was taken. I wonder has he seen it yet. After all, it’s quite an achievement for an Irish actor to feature in a big American magazine like that.

Suddenly I feel very insecure. After all what would a huge star like that be doing with someone like me? What if he just sees me as another plaything, like a curious child in a toy department store? The very same guy could quite easily click his fingers
and have his pick of the world’s female population. Maybe I’m getting in over my head here. Perhaps I should leave while the EXIT sign is still visible. Oh God, I don’t really know what to do. I’d love to see a fortuneteller now. I just want to know
where all this is going. My heart is fragile enough without letting somebody else throw it on the ground to stomp on.

I push the magazine away again. I don’t want to
look at Adam’s photo anymore. What’s the point of thinking about him and trying to figure out where all this is going? He’d probably freak if he realised how much I was reading into last night’s date. God I wish I wasn’t such a romantic, I really do. But
sometimes I want my life to be just like the movies. I want love at first sight; lights, camera and action.

‘Do you want to go around any more of the shops?’ Amy asks.

No I don’t. I’ll go around the shops again when I’m not this tired. Anyway, I’m not keen on shopping with other people. It’s a pain. I just want to go to a bar now. And forget that Adam’s in America and I’m in America. But we’re not together.

God I wish in a way I’d never met him. Am I mad I wonder, as I struggle to get up off my seat? Being single is so much simpler. Granted, you don’t get the terrible highs you get in a relationship, but there are none of the horrible lows either where you just want to crawl under the duvet and not come out for days.

I often find that my single friends are a lot more career-driven than my ‘attached’ ones. This isn’t because they’re bitter or have nothing better to do, but because they don’t spend half the week wondering
if they’re partner is happy or not. They’re not constantly concerned about somebody else’s welfare, which is good. It isn’t healthy. Especially if they are out on a Friday night and you are sitting in. Or they are in New York. And you are in Boston.

You’re probably wondering about Tim and where he fits into all of this, but I’m convinced Tim rings me out of boredom, not out of love. I mean it. He sees me as a cinema partner or somebody to keep him company in the passenger seat, as he drives
around aimlessly on a Sunday afternoon. Like the hordes of other Irish couples who obviously can’t bear to ‘rest’ on Sundays either. Have you noticed the traffic jams on Sundays recently?

I wonder what people did on Sundays before Sunday shopping was introduced. I suppose they went for walks and that, or just sat and watched telly. I remember Mum and Dad always took us for a walk on Sundays to Dun Laoghaire pier. I dreaded it. I remember thinking the pier was the longest, most boring walk on the planet, and my little legs could never keep up. It was always freezing and I was
always bumping into other kids from school whom I didn’t like but was forced to talk to because our parents knew each other.

The only good thing was that we always got an ice cream afterwards from Teddy’s. However I would have happily foregone the ice cream, if it had saved me from walking that never-ending pier.

Now of course, I don’t think the pier is long enough. It’s too short, I think, to get any real exercise.
And it’s pretty boring too. If you want a proper walk go to Howth or the Dublin mountains or something.

‘Where will we go?’ Amy pipes up. ‘Where do you think everyone else is going? It’d be great if we knew, wouldn’t it?’

‘It
would
be great to know,’ I agree. ‘So we could go somewhere else.’

Amy looks so surprised I have to laugh.

I don’t mean to be rude, but people who spend their lives wondering where everybody else is, really annoy me. I’m sure you know those kind of people. They are so afraid that everybody else is somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else that
they end up never enjoying themselves. My advice is to start the party yourself and see who turns up.

‘Let’s go to Kitty’s,’ I suggest.

‘Kitty’s?’

‘Yeah, Kitty O’ Shea’s. Nice bar with talent. We need to grab a taxi though.’

Amy follows me outside and we both pull our scarves around our faces to prevent the icy air biting any exposed skin. I notice the Bostonians don’t look as cold as we do. Maybe they’re just used to the big freezes.

We hail a taxi and hop in.

‘I’m dying for a drink,’ Amy says. She’s reading my mind.

We tell the taxi driver where we’re going and hop out ten minutes later.

We enter the pub, which is Irish, but the only person in it who looks Irish is the guy behind the bar. All the other customers look American. They’re tall, well-built ‘suits’, who look like they’ve just popped in for a single drink or a bite to eat. By the looks of things, the crowd won’t be here all night. Pity. I wish they’d stay and keep me company. If this bar was in Dublin, I’d be here all the time. In fact, you wouldn’t be able to get rid of me.

The friendly bartender takes our orders and is back almost immediately with our drinks. I tip generously as I’m never sure how much is acceptable in the States and am always nervous about not
tipping enough. One of the air hostesses once didn’t tip enough after breakfast in a New York diner and the waitress followed her out onto the street and started shouting at her.

Of course, Kitty’s is not the type of place where people shout thankfully. There’s a nice atmosphere in here and I feel I thoroughly deserve a drink after
all my hard work today. Amy is drinking Malibu and pineapple. It’s a drink I used to love when I was about seventeen, as I couldn’t stand the strong taste of alcohol. Now I honestly don’t know how anybody drinks it.

I have a vodka and orange juice with lots of ice. They never skimp on ice in the States. Irish bartenders take note!

‘So what’s this big secret about Adam?’

I just blurt it out. I’ve decided I’m not beating around the bush for another hour.

Amy looks at me blankly.  ‘Who’s Adam?’

Oh for God’s sake
.

‘Adam Kirrane.’

‘Oh,’ she laughs into her Malibu and pineapple. ‘That’s hilarious haha. When you asked me about Adam I thought you were asking me about somebody we knew. The way you just said ‘Adam’ instead of ‘Adam Kirrane.’

She laughs again and I laugh too although I don’t find anything particularly funny. Mind you, she does have a point. If somebody asked me what I thought of ‘Colin’, meaning Colin Farrell, I’d probably think it was funny too.

‘I’ve been told not to say,’ Amy says in a very irritating voice, as she pulls a mock zip across her mouth. ‘You know yourself.’

Actually, no. I do
not
know at all. The one thing I do know however is that I’m sitting in Boston with a girl I barely know who keeps laughing for no reason. The other thing I know is that she claims to have this big secret about Adam. And I will not let her go back to her hotel room until I’ve got it out of her.

I absolutely will not.

And yes, I know I probably sound like a psycho.

‘Oh well,’ I shrug, deciding to change tactics. ‘It’s probably not even that interesting.’

‘Oh but it is though,’ she tilts her head to one side but still refuses to tell me the secret. What does she want? Money?

My mind is racing. What is this flipping secret? Does Adam like to wear women’s clothes? Does he have a love child? Does he have a history of violence? Does he swing both ways? Is he having an affair with Hillary bloody Clinton? God, I can’t stand this.

‘Mmm, that was lovely,’ Amy says dreamily after letting the remains of the Malibu and pineapple trickle down her throat.

‘Another one?’ I offer and shoot to the bar before she’s had a chance to answer. Amy is going to have another drink here whether she likes it or not. If I can’t personally get her to talk, a few drinks should do the trick.

I’m back with the round. Amy reaches for her purse.

‘Put your money away,’ I say firmly.

‘But . . . ’

‘You can get the next round,’ I say cheerily and pretend not to notice Amy’s rather crestfallen face as she realises we’re in for a far longer night than she thought.

‘Okay,’ she says in a quiet voice.

I can tell she’s pissed off.

‘So do you like flying?’ I ask completely changing the subject as if I don’t care if she’s not going to tell me Adam’s big secret.

‘Mmm, yeah, I love it. It’s always been my dream to fly, you know.’

‘Have you ever thought of doing anything else?’

Amy stares vacantly. ‘No, why?’

‘Oh I was just wondering.’

‘Would
you
like to do something else?’

‘Well I’m writing a script.’

‘A what?’

‘A script.’

‘For the telly?’

‘Well, a feature film.’

Amy looks at me like she’s trying to figure out if I’m joking or not.

‘It’s about Ireland during the famine,’ I tell her.

She’s not impressed. At least if she is, she doesn’t show it.

‘It’s about a family who have no money but whatever money they get the father drinks it and then . . .’

‘You could get Liam Neeson to star in it,’ Amy suggests brightly, and I notice she’s
drinking her Malibu and pineapple a little faster now.