Bust Read Free Page B

the conventional sense but she knew how to use what she had and, by Jesus, she used it. She was medium height with brown eyes and brown hair, but she changed all that — went blond, went blue eyed, went wild. She got a boob job, contacts for her eyes and already had the attitude. Then her mother died and they cremated her — her father said he wanted her burned, “lest she return.” Angela got the ashes, kept them in an urn on her bookcase. When Angela’s Ashes came out she rushed out and bought the book, thinking it had to be some kind of sign or something. She didn’t bother reading it, but liked having it on her shelf. Other books she bought but never read included ‘Tis and A Monk Swimming . She also had some DVDs like Angela’s Ashes , Far and Away , and The Commitments . When it came to music, only the Irish stuff really did it for her — Enya, Moya Brennan and, of course, U2. She would’ve stepped on Gerry Adams to get to Bono.
    Most of her money went on clothes. The most basic lesson she learned was that if you wore a short skirt, killerheels and a tight top, guys went ape. Her legs were good and she knew how to hike a skirt to really get the heads turning. She saved her money and went online to book a week in Belfast, brought the urn with her — which caused some commotion with Homeland Security, but in the end she was allowed to bring her Mom if she stashed her in freight, which she did. She stayed at the Europa, the most bombed hotel in Europe — that’s what Frommer said anyway — and the customers were pretty bombed themselves. The city was a shithole — drab, grey, depressing — and the Sterling, what was the deal with that? And people kept getting on her about Iraq, like she had any freakin’ say about it. She did all the sightseeing crap — maybe seeing blown up buildings did it for some people, but it bored the hell out of her. When she threw her Mom’s ashes into the Foyle there was a wind, of course, and most of her mother flew back into her hair. When she told the old guy at the hotel desk what had happened he said, “Tis proof, darling, that the dead are always with us.”
    Evenings, she ate at the hotel and had drinks at the bar. She didn’t want to go out, not because she was afraid but because she couldn’t understand a goddamn word anyone was saying. The bartender hit on her and if his teeth hadn’t been so yellow she might have been into it. For the first time in her life, she felt American and that Ireland was the foreign country. The blended accent that got her so far in New York seemed useless here.
    Her second-to-last night, she was sitting at the bar and a drunk began to hassle her. The bartender, of course, didn’t help. The drunk had a combat jacket, sewage breath, and was going, “Ah come on, you want to suck me dick, you know yah do.”
    It took her a while to actually figure out what he wassaying because of the accent; it sounded like, “Orr... kom on... yer want to truck meh duck.”
    Finally, she put it all together. Before she could react, a man appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the guy by the front of the neck and had him out of there in no time. Shaking, she tried to put a Virginia Slim into her mouth, and the bartender raced over, flicked a bic, and said, “There you go.”
    She accepted the light as she wanted that hit of nicotine then blew a cloud of smoke in Yellow Teeth’s face, said, “And there you go you spineless prick.”
    Unfazed, the bartender said, “I love it when you talk dirty.”
    The other man had returned and now stared at the bartender, and said “Leg it shithead.” Then he turned to her, asked, “You okay missus?”
    She could understand him, because he was from the Irish Republic and had soft vowels, sounding kind of like her Dad. He had a scar on his face, long grey hair and was as thin as the guys on Christopher Street. His lips were mangled but, hey, he was the first guy in the whole damn province she saw with good teeth. And the