Page 10 of Where the Waves Kiss the Shore
Peggy had regularly talked about her most faraway grandchild, and Kasia was sure she had trained as a water sports instructor after it became clear she wasn’t cut out to take over her father’s property business.
“Not long, a couple of years. I’ve finally found something I love, and I’m good at it.”
The enthusiasm in her tone told Kasia she’d chosen the wrong subject if she had wanted to get rid of Tierney.
“But I’m unknown, so my images don’t sell for much. I need to get successful as a wildlife photographer, so I won’t have to be reliant on my dad. All he does is tell me what to do and when. I want to make my own decisions.”
Kasia turned from her weeding. “But surely you make decisions all the time. You’ve changed careers.”Again. “Peggy said you’ve been all over the world. You travel and explore without ever having to worry about money. And your only compromise is to go back and work for your father occasionally. Do you know what a privilege that is?” Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the judgmental edge to her tone.
“Please don’t use the “P” word. I know how fortunate I am in so many ways.” Tierney sat down on a picnic table and swung her legs.
Kasia watched her in her peripheral vision. Tierney wasn’t tall, but her energy took up more space than she should have needed. Her collar-length hair was as wildly curly as her cousins’ but instead of their vivid red, it was a soft chestnut brown.
“It’s just that my life was mapped out for me from the moment I was born, and as soon as it was clear I wasn’t going to be that person, I’ve been made to feel like a failure. Do you think anyone ever said, ‘So, Tierney, do you want to work in property?’ Of course, they didn’t. My friend Megan and I got shipped off to study business, whichsheloved, and when we graduated, Dad gave us each an old property and a budget for redevelopment and set us a challenge to see who could make the most profit.” She jumped down from the bench and stood in front of Kasia. “She’s the one being groomed to take over the company, so no prize for guessing who won.”
What sort of a person set his kid and her best friend up to compete? Kasia rocked back on her heels, giving up on getting any gardening done while Tierney was on her rant. “But was your project a good one? Did you feel proud of what you’d achieved?”
Tierney blinked several times. “That wasn’t what the challenge was about. I got distracted. I hung out in the neighborhood of the apartment building I’d been assigned and heard a load of stories about how local people were being pushed out of the area by big developers and gentrification—the stuff my dad does all the time. It made me mad, so I aimed the development at people who wanted to live there, not at investors. I worked with a social housing organization to make sure local people who couldn’t afford to buy were able to rent at reasonable prices.”
“That doesn’t sound like a failure to me.” In fact, it made Tierney a little more palatable.
“Well, it was in the eyes of my father. I knew then I couldn’t live his kind of life. Taking more and more, and never being happy with what you’ve got.”
Kasia dropped her tools and stood. “You’ve never needed to worry about what you’ve got though, have you? You’ve never had to wonder if you should just do that double shift anyway, even though you’re exhausted. Because the rent is due, and if you get ill, you won’t get paid, so maybe you should get the money while you can. You’ve never been in that position because it’s all been handed to you on a plate.”
“But that’s not what motivates my dad,” Tierney said. “He’ll never have to worry about paying the bills. Even if he stopped now, he could live in luxury for the rest of his life.” She continued her pacing. “I just want to work in a job where I can make a difference in my own little way. But jobs like mine don’t pay well. Unless you’re lucky enough to get that magical shot. And my dad treats me as if I’m some kind of loser, just for wanting to do something that doesn’t make me feel like a bad person. Do you think it’s asking too much to be taken seriously?”
Kasia sighed. Tierney was clearly oblivious to both her anger and the point of her argument. How had she got into this conversation in the first place? She didn’t want to get pulled into Tierney’s problems; she just wanted some job security. “I don’t know what drives your father, Tierney. I’ve never met him. But I can only guess that other motivations start to take over. The expectations of your employees and stakeholders. Your peers. People expect successful people to keep being successful. And if your dad buys into that world, he’ll judge his success in life on what others think of him. You must know that.”
Clearly, Tierney wasn’t the selfish brat Kasia had assumed she would be, but she still didn’t have a clue about life. It didn’t fill Kasia with confidence about the future of the hotel. And how had she never noticed in all those photos Peggyproudly displayed how damned cute she was? Her nose crinkled adorably when she became animated about her subject, and her vibrant, dark brown eyes reflected her every emotion. Kasia slammed the brakes on that train of thought. Tierney Walsh was not someone she wanted to think of in that way. She needed to stay focused and find out Kevin’s plans for the Waterside.
“I’m sorry your life isn’t working out at the moment, but let’s talk about the hotel.” She took Tierney by the elbow as if the contact could force her to listen to what she had to say. “That’s something you can have some influence over. I think your dad would listen to you if you told him how much this place needs a new roof and shared some ideas for development?—”
“Ha.”
Kasia dropped her hand in despair.
“Do you? He doesn’t listen to me about anything. He just tells me what to do and what he expects of me.” She threw herself down on one of the garden benches where Kasia served breakfast in the height of summer. “He sent me here to check out the hotel because he thinks I have nothing better to do.”
Fergus jumped up on the bench, and Tierney got distracted for a moment while she fussed with him.
“He’s not interested, Kasia. He doesn’t have the connection we do to this place. He just remembers that his mom never had enough time for him when he was a kid, and that his older brothers bullied him, and she didn’t notice. And that’s really why he never came back.” She pulled a cushion from the bench and hugged it close. “D’you know he used to send me over for summers on my own? The first time I flew alone, I was six years old. Granny picked me up from Shannon and by the end of the summer, I didn’t want to go home.”
Peggy had told Kasia about Tierney’s long summer visits and how much it had meant to her to spend all that time with her most geographically distant grandchild. She took offher gardening gloves. She might as well try to get to know the woman who could hold the power over her future. “What did you do all summer? It must have been idyllic, but who supervised you?”
“I just ran wild with all the other kids on the island. The locals, kids of families who returned for the summer, holidaymakers. We all hung around together in a gang. The big kids were expected to keep an eye on the tiny ones, but I always did my own thing.”
Kasia laughed against her better judgment. She couldn’t help but picture a smaller version of Tierney, running wild and probably talking the bigger kids into doing what she wanted. “But who checked you were safe and weren’t doing anything too dangerous?”
Tierney shrugged but didn’t loosen her grip on the cushion. “The holiday kids’ parents were usually a bit more aware. They’d give them times to come home for lunch and such. The rest of us would just go around to each other’s houses. Joey’s mom was always at work at the shop, but she’d leave a sandwich or some soup for Joey and their brothers. And there was always enough for me too.”
“Joey told me you hung out a lot together as kids. You were pretty inseparable, yeah?” Kasia kept her mouth in a smile, but she felt the burn of jealousy in her gut. What was wrong with her? How could she resent a little kid being friends with the young version of her current best friend?
“We were real close for most of our childhoods. Joey was three years older than me, but it sometimes felt like more. Maybe because I was always a short kid, and Joey was built like a tank by the time they were twelve. When my dad stopped sending me over and I went to college, apart from Granny, it was Joey I missed the most.” She tucked the cushion under her headand lay back on the bench. “I’m looking forward to reconnecting. I never should have stayed away so long.”
“Would you have come back if your granny was still here?” She wondered if Tierney felt any guilt about the time she could have had with Peggy when she was alive and well.
“I should’ve come back sooner.” She sat up, blinking. “I miss her like hell, Kasia.”
