Page 1 of Since We're Here
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MADDIE
Friday, February 28
Ten jobs. Ten men who—together with my own dreadful decision-making—have led me to this depressing moment in rainy Ireland.
Boyfriend Disaster #1: Jonathan the Sketchy Line Cook
Job Location & Length: Chili’s, 1 year
My Age: 20
After dropping out of college, I decided to waitress while I figured my life out. Jonathan was a line cook. He wore t-shirts that declared edgy bands like The Killers and Snow Patrol. He was thirty, an entire decade older than me, and I thought it was so cool that I could attract a real man.
In hindsight, it was a big fucking red flag.
He groped my ass in the dingy breakroom that crunched with chip crumbs on every surface, and after having extremely fast (on his part) and extremely lackluster (onmine) sex with him in a car that smelled like fajitas, I quit with no notice.
Breakup Reason: bad sex, inappropriate age gap
My Distress Level(on a scale of 1-10): 1
Lesson Learned: There’s absolutely no reason for a thirty-year-old man to be hitting on a woman barely in her twenties.
My oversized suitcasebounces along the narrow cobblestone sidewalk in Dingle, and I shiver in my rose-pink puffy jacket and mid-thigh sundress amidst the darkening gray winter sky. Severely underdressed and underprepared.
I blame Aunt Evelyn for my situation, at least partially. Our late great-aunt used her twisted sense of humor to send me and my sisters each on a crazy bucket list journey last year, which is part of the reason I’m in Ireland now. In a very roundabout way.
Go on a vacation. Volunteer. Help your sisters. Change your life. Aunt Evelyn said all these things in her will.
My sisters seemed to have no problem with their lists—everything’s worked out perfectly for both of them. Stella fell in love with her ex-boyfriend’s best friend in London. Reese started her own website design business in New Jersey after fake dating her daughter’s Scottish soccer coach.
But me? I seemed to mess up my life even further, not make it better. And somehow in the process, I volunteered to plan Reese and her fiancé’s combined bachelorette and bachelor party. A twelve-day-long Irish road trip.
There’s a guy I need to find in Dingle—Reese’s fiancé’s Irish best friend—who is supposed to be helping me plan but hasn’treturned my emails. I think it’s reasonable that I now escalate the situation and show up at his doorstep.
In Ireland.
Not that I know where his doorstep is.
Or have his phone number.
This is probably not what my great-aunt had in mind.
I moan and shift the backpack on my shoulders. I’m achy and exhausted. And freaking freezing. Admittedly, the picture my brief research painted of Ireland at the end of February was about as far as possible from what I’d originally planned—a trip to visit my (now ex) boyfriend in Saint Lucia, disguised as an internship for my hospitality program.
I’m filled with rage at the thought of that cheating asshole, and the anger warms me just a tad. I should’ve left it as a holiday fling, like Reese had begged me to, instead of falling head over heels, like I always do.
I stop on the sidewalk to glance at my phone screen. There are no new texts from the estate agent who rented me an apartment—I guess I should sayflat—for the month. I continue to follow her earlier directions from the bus station, wishing I had on jeans and a chunky sweatshirt.
But when I left New Jersey yesterday morning, dressing like that felt like giving up. So I shoved the pile of sundresses meant for an island vacation into my suitcase and slipped on a green flowy one for the flight over.
The estate agent seemed doubtful I’d make it to Dingle by evening, and after the journey I just took, I understand why. I flew overnight from Newark to Dublin, then lugged my giant suitcase onto a bus from the airport to Dublin Heuston train station. I thought maybe it’d be smooth sailing from there, as the four-hour train ride through the Irish countryside was delightful, showing off rolling green hills, small towns in the distance, and a whole lot of sheep peppered throughout.
But no. It wasn’t smooth sailing.
I arrived in a tiny town called Killarney and had to wait around to catch the bus for a three-hour ride to Dingle. Including a transfer. My stalwart cheery facade crumbled somewhere in Tralee, the town where I switched buses.
