Just Like You Said It Would Be Read online

  Darragh’s eyes got serious. He leant back against the fence next to me. “You don’t want to?” he echoed.

  “I don’t know what you think we’re doing, but I can’t be like this.” Difficult as it was, I kept my eyes steady on his.

  “Be like what?” Darragh’s head dipped as he watched me.

  “You know what. You have this thing with Ursula—and then there’s Sophie and I have no idea who else. It’s a pretty claustrophobic playing field.”

  Darragh tossed his head back at the phrase. Hearing it on my own lips made me feel worse. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, but I don’t want this either,” I went on, my fingers clutching at the end of my sleeve. “I’ll really try not to be weird about all this in the future, but this is it. Everything ends here.”

  Darragh frowned. “There’s no playing field.” He pushed off the fence and stood in front of me, our bodies almost touching. “I tried to tell you that the other night and you didn’t want to hear it—you’d already made up your mind. But the truth is I haven’t even spoken to Ursula since Saturday night. That’s been on its last legs for weeks.”

  Saturday. Wow. He was practically a monk.

  Maybe there was something satisfying about knowing he was attracted to me. Twisted, I know. The worst part was that it still hurt. You’d think last Saturday would’ve snapped me out of my not so safe crush like a rapid detox, but obviously I wasn’t as smart as I’d believed. I meant what I’d said, though. I couldn’t do the curling up together in dark corners/no strings attached thing with him.

  “You think I’m just trying to get off with you,” Darragh said, his eyes tight on mine.

  I shrugged like it didn’t matter either way.

  “I mean it about Ursula.” His fingers brushed against my arm. “She’s not my girlfriend. It’s always been a casual thing.” He ran his hand roughly through his hair. “It’s been off and on since the beginning and lately we’ve walked away from it so many times that there’s really nothing left.”

  If really nothing left was the exact same thing as nothing left he would’ve just said so, and I stepped away from the fence.

  “There’s nothing between me and Sophie now,” he continued. “We have some history, but what you saw was all that happened. We’d just won the night, you know? You were there—everyone was cheering and in good form. She was the one who kissed me, not the other way around.” He stopped talking and pressed his lips together. “If we were in Toronto you’d have your past around you too. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  My mind was sifting through his words, trying to determine the truth. Darragh’s head dropped into his hand. “What do you think I’m like?” he asked. “Jesus, don’t answer that. I already know what you think.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. You were right before, I don’t know you well enough to think anything.”

  “And you don’t want to,” Darragh said, quoting me. I caught a flash of irritation in his eyes that made me sigh out loud.

  No. Maybe. I don’t know. He seemed to read the indecision in my face and he smirked and said, “You know, you’ve hardly been proving your moral superiority out here.”

  “Believe me, I know. And I’m not happy about it.” I bit my lip, resisting the urge to start arguing with him all over again.

  Darragh smiled disarmingly as he pushed off the fence. “Go in before they come looking for you. I’ll drop by the IFI after your class on Wednesday—it’s my day off.” Before I could protest he added, “We can at least talk about this, can’t we? Or do you already have that conversation figured out too?”

  He turned and started back towards the shed. I stood at the side of the house breathing in the smell of curdled milk a few seconds longer, ears sizzling and my body feeling like a guitar string that had been wound too tightly and would pop off at any second. Then I slipped noiselessly into the kitchen through the back door, second-guessing everything.

  Chapter 10

  You can still say things to me, you know?

  I went up to Jack’s room and stretched out on my bed, still feeling Darragh’s mouth on my lips and the way his body had pressed up against mine. Believe what you want, but I honestly hadn’t expected that. I thought we’d played through to the end on Saturday and the only thing left to worry about was damage control. Darragh kept tripping me up, changing the angles before I had the chance to work them out.

  Did he mean any of the things he’d said outside? Was whatever he had with Ursula really on its last legs? Had my mixed-up feelings made me judge him unfairly from that first battle of the bands? I burnt myself out analyzing my analysis of the situation that night, and then some kind of core logic took over and reined me in. It stopped me from emailing Joss about the kiss by the side of the house and made me keep my mouth shut about Darragh when I saw Clare in screenwriting class on Wednesday too. I even mustered enough concentration to work on my treatment for a few hours on Tuesday before my parents called.

  Because Uncle Frank was the one who answered the phone I fully expected that my mom and dad would know what I’d done on Saturday night by the time he handed it over. I braced for a lecture as I pressed the cordless to my ear, but it never came. Either my aunt and uncle were covering for me or they were depending on me to relay news of my grounding to my parents. Flustered, I rambled on about screenwriting class and fired questions about their travels at my parents. The truth, I kept to myself, not breathing a word about Darragh or the contest.

  Zoey was up before me on Wednesday morning, nibbling toast drowned in marmalade. She’d neglected to wash last night’s eyeliner off again and she glanced sleepily up at me as I padded into the kitchen. “Morning,” I said. “You’re up early.” Early for Zoey, anyway. My aunt and uncle had already left off for work.

  “I’m helping set up at the restaurant,” she grumbled. “The price you pay for booking a couple Saturday nights off—you inherit the shite shifts.” She bit into her soggy toast and momentarily stopped chewing. “Rory texted me late last night.” Her eyes changed from testy to apprehensive. “Ursula’s sister, Marieve, collapsed as she was coming in the door last night. She’s in hospital for anorexia.”

  “That’s awful,” I said swiftly. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “From what Rory said it sounded like she was at death’s door.” Zoey spread one hand out on the table in front of her. “But I don’t really know. It’s all third hand information.”

  I nodded at her, feeling bad for Ursula. But underneath that I was wondering what the news would mean to Darragh. Would he show up at the IFI today like he’d said he would? Part of me felt heartless even thinking about him and the other part was aggravated with myself for failing to get a grip. If Zoey knew anything about our meeting, she didn’t say and I ate my breakfast and left for class as fast as I could, struggling to keep my mind on things that really mattered.

  If there was anything that could distract me, it was screenwriting class. So far we’d spent most of our class time learning about things like format and stylistic fundamentals. We’d pulled apart screenplays to analyze what made them tick—plot points, character arcs, pacing—but soon each of us would be in the spotlight. Alone. I wasn’t any more comfortable with that than when I’d started the course ten days earlier. But Darragh had spun my nervous energy into a new form, one that impelled me to lean impulsively into the nerves and volunteer to read what I’d finished of my treatment.

  Mr. O’Shea gave me an encouraging stare as he indicated that I should go ahead. My cheeks were itchy as I started down at my printed page, already regretting raising my hand. For the first few paragraphs the words didn’t even sound familiar. My throat had shrunk to the size of a juice-box straw and my voice sounded tinny to my ears. Then I glanced over at Gianni and he smiled out of the side of his mouth, as if to tell me I was doing fine. Something clicked in my head. He wouldn’t have that casual expression on his face if I sucked. Brilliant boy Gianni, who was a walking film ency
clopedia, didn’t think I sucked.

  Once I was finished and had released my grip on my paper, a couple of people offered comments, mostly positive. Mr. O’Shea warned me to watch my pacing and pare the story down to essential scenes but seemed pleased with my choice of subject matter and what I’d written so far. The finished treatments were due in a week.

  I was giddy by the time class let out, both from taking the plunge of sharing my work and from wondering whether I’d find Darragh waiting for me out in the IFI lobby. I’d trampled over my own better judgment the last two times we were together and confusion blinked inside my head like a strobe light as my eyes scanned the area for any sign of him. I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t spot him but his absence still stung and I probably looked a little lost when Gianni sidled over and asked if I wanted to join him for lunch.

  We nabbed a table near the café door and I sat down across from Gianni, trying to believe Darragh’s absence was for the best.

  “So, Amira,” Gianni began, his menu open in front of him, but his attention focused on me, “how do you find this Irish summer? Ireland is a beautiful country but the rain.” Gianni threw his head back, frowning for emphasis. “I cannot believe how much rain. It is catastrophic.”

  “It’s not what I’m used to either. Canadian winters may be freezing, but Toronto summers are beach weather.”

  Gianni’s smile was filled with longing. “Irish weather makes me feel like an old man. I crave the beach.”

  “It’ll still be there when you get back to Italy,” I said, and even that reminded me of Darragh and how on Zoey’s birthday he’d told me that the time would fly in and soon I’d be home again. I sighed lightly into my palm before changing the subject. “So what do you think of the class so far?”

  Gianni and I shared a quiet laugh over the size of our classmate Sean Madding’s ego and spent the rest of lunch talking about screenwriting. He complimented me on my treatment and told me more about his love story script, which he planned to call Questo Piccolo Grande Amore after a seventies Italian pop song. “The young man in the song does not realize the true depth of his emotions until he and his love are no longer together,” he explained.

  “What does that title translate as?” I asked.

  “This little big love,” Gianni replied in his rich Italian accent. He started to sing exuberantly from across the table and although I couldn’t understand a word, forty seconds later I was convinced there were few things as heartfelt as an Italian love song, even when it was coming from a guy you had no romantic interest in. Although he sounded nothing like them, Gianna’s rendition reminded me a little of the Egyptian greats, Umm Kulthum and Abd El Halim Hafez—the passion in their voices, like they were overcome. You rarely heard people sing in English with the same abandon.

  The twenty-something-year-old Irish couple seated behind Gianni grinned in either appreciation or amusement. The emotions were contagious and I smiled back at them feeling, with a sudden burst of clarity, that Darragh didn’t matter and that it was the experiences of being in Dublin and learning to write movies that I was really head over heels with.

  I held on to that belief for most of the way home, but once I’d hopped off the bus and was within sight of my aunt and uncle’s empty driveway, my heart sank. Darragh wasn’t waiting there in his usual uniform of blue jeans and Docs, an apology for missing me at the IFI on his lips. He really wasn’t coming. Maybe he’d never intended to in the first place. The sky was darkening and a drop of rain landed on the tip of my ear as I hurtled down the street with nothing but the threat of getting soaked to hurry me onward.

  ______

  Over the next few days I spent most of my waking hours doing the only thing that made sense—throwing myself into screenplay work and jotting down dialogue.

  HELEN

  We don’t have to do this again, Andreas.

  ANDREAS

  (glaring at Helen)

  But we do. Nothing ever changes around here. He struts around like he’s better than us.

  SEBASTIAN

  You’re full of shit, Andreas. Everything you say is backwards—the truth stretched inside out.

  ANDREAS

  (shaking his head and laughing)

  Listen to him—the truth stretched inside out. You read too much, boy. You need to get out on your own, have some real life experiences, then you come back and talk to me about the truth.

  HELEN

  (sighing)

  I wish you the both of you would stop it for two seconds.

  ANDREAS

  Shhh, baby. I’m finished. You know I hate this as much as you do. It’s your little man here that has all the fight in him.

  SEBASTIAN

  (his palm forming a fist)

  I’m going out.

  ANDREAS

  Don’t hurry back, little man.

  I was a bona-fide screenwriting machine. No thinking about how Jocelyn was refusing to answer my questions about Noah. No counting down the days to Ajay’s trial in my head. No driving myself crazy with questions about whether I had the right to be angry with Darragh. Instead I was humming with a creative energy that settled inside me like a permanent feature of my personality.

  On Thursday afternoon Zoey told me that Rory had received a call from a band called Lost Souls Dinner Hour who’d caught them at Enda Corrigan’s. They’d lost their support act for the following Tuesday and wanted The Brash Heathens to open for them at Vicar Street. I was happy for my cousin, but didn’t let myself imagine how the gig would look, sound and feel.

  I wrote on and on, only stopping on Friday evening because Fiona and Andy had invited me over for dinner. Outwardly I acted like the perfect guest—gracious, funny, and chatty. I played with four-year-old Caitlin for ages and was reminded there’s nothing more engrossing than the world of your average four-year-old, full of monsters, fairies, and their own wacky sense of logic.

  Then it was Saturday and the forecast called for heat. Zoey had convinced most of her friends, Darragh included, to spend the day near the water in Dun Laoghaire. With my seven o’clock curfew still in progress I’d have to take the DART (the Dublin commuter train) back from Dun Laoghaire early alone, which would’ve been a convenient excuse for my absence. But I fought my instinct to hide out at home, miles away from Darragh. I had to be in his presence sometime; it’d be easier if we were part of a crowd where we could ignore each other.

  That’s what I said to myself, but I woke up feeling shitty and then took ages applying makeup so that it would look like I wasn’t wearing any. Eight of us made the trip south in two cars—me, Rory, Zoey, and Roisin in one and Gloria, Nick, Niamh, and Darragh in another. The Dublin coast was beautiful in the sunny twenty-eight degree Celsius weather (the hottest day of the summer so far), but the Irish Sea still looked cold. Couples and families strolled along the Dun Laoghaire pier watching the boats and clutching dripping ice cream cones.

  I wanted to be happy and caught up in the moment, like I’d felt that night in my aunt and uncle’s garden. The sun did help. So did everyone else, in buoyant moods because of the heat and the band’s upcoming Vicar Street gig. But I couldn’t flat-line my muddy feelings for Darragh while he was within reaching distance; I was only pretending they didn’t exist.

  “Are you trying to make us look bad with that tan, Niamh?” Rory teased as we all headed in the direction of a parked ice cream truck. I broke into a smile. Niamh had just returned from four days in Spain and her skin was toasted golden, unlike the rest of them save Roisin who sported bottled bronzer.

  “My complexion doesn’t understand the concept of tanning,” Zoey complained.” I’m either glowing white or lobster red.”

  Zoey might not have had skin designed to tan, but she had the fastest metabolism of anyone I knew. Before I could announce my envy on that score, someone grabbed my arm from behind.

  I didn’t need to see his face to know it was Darragh and I stopped on the spot, unsure whether I was more annoyed with him or myself. M
aybe I should’ve just kept walking.

  Darragh’s eye was several shades less angry than it had been at the beginning of the week, beginning to heal and turn yellow. “I’m sorry about Wednesday,” he said, staring down at my legs, bare under cut-off denim shorts. “I was heading out the door to meet you when Ursula rang from the hospital. She wanted me to collect her—she was in a state.”

  “Because of her sister,” I said evenly.

  “Because of her sister,” he confirmed, shifting his gaze to my eyes. “She’s been afraid she’s going to lose her.” He cleared his throat. “I rang Zoey for your mobile number after—to explain why I wasn’t at the IFI—but she said you didn’t have one.”

  “I don’t. But she never told me you asked.” Darragh and I loped slowly forward, leaving a gap between us and the rest of the group.

  “I told her not to. I couldn’t work out what to say to you. I kept hoping things would sort themselves out by the next time I saw you…” His voice trailed off. “Before you came along Ursula and I wouldn’t have needed to put an end to things; we didn’t have that kind of steady relationship. We just would’ve continued drifting apart without having to talk about it. I know you see it differently—that you want some kind of clean break, and I meant to give it to you. But that was before Marieve went into hospital. Ursula and me, we’re not together but she needs people to lean on right now.”

  It was my turn to look away. Considering what Ursula was going through I couldn’t blame him for not telling her about us. He’d have to be a selfish asshole to cut her off while her sister was in the hospital. “How’s her sister doing now?” I asked leadenly.