DAY 1/SATURDAY
“Business or pleasure?” The Irish customs agent asked the two bag-laden American tourists.
“Tracing our family tree,” said the woman with way too much enthusiasm by way of an answer. She was petite, in her early 60s sporting an unfortunate at-home hair color experience that was a bit startling. To complete the look, she was wearing a Kiss Me I’m Irish! sweatshirt, with a lace collar. The wife, Quinn assumed as she waited her turn behind the couple in line.
The enthusiastic woman continued, “We’re heading to Wicklow. His great, great
grandmo—”
“Great, great, great grandmother.” He interjected with an air of authority. He looked like a miserable, penny-pinching miser who surely would spend the next two weeks in Ireland complaining that the rooms were cold, there was not enough ice in his drinks and would try to make his point by talking loudly. Very, very loudly.
“His great, great, great grandmother is from there.” She said. “We think there’s a castle!”
Despite the epic level of tedium unfolding in the line, this was not the most miserable moment of the last few thousand miserable moments Quinn had endured in the past 36 hours.
As the two tourists in front of her gathered their bags and moved on, the Customs agent indicated to Quinn to step forward.
“Business or pleasure? He asked, scanning Quinn’s passport.
“Neither.” She replied with a mix of impatience and exhaustion.
“How long are you staying?” the agent asked, peering over his glasses at her curious expression.
“Booked for five days, hopefully, will leave after four.” She said. And as an optimistic afterthought, “Three, if I can manage it.”
She didn’t seem to fit the gushing American tourist as neatly as the last two. She seemed to be radiating impatience. He remembered the overly cheerful “Have a niiiiice day” Yanks from decades ago. A bit too loud, a bit too cheerful, a bit too much enthusiasm for the leprechauns and Blarney stones. But they meant well and brought endless money into the country. He couldn’t imagine where Ireland would be without the tourists. Having said that… he was reminded of the rather surly American in front of him.
He arched an eyebrow and continued. “Did you check any bags?”
“No, just my backpack and a carry-on bag,” Quinn replied and sighed as she shifted the weight on her shoulder. She had the copies of everything she needed for the next few days tucked in the backpack, including the DHL envelope that had put this all in motion. The carry-on held just the basics: a second pair of jeans, two sweaters, some clean underwear, and a toothbrush.
Navigating the next few days would be a straight uphill battle. But life on the other side of this week was what she had been working towards for years. Her whole life, really. She’d slay the dragons in front of her and put this place and its endless problems behind her. While this week was unexpected and an inconvenience, Quinn reminded herself that two weeks from now the tenure vote would be behind her and the interim chair of her department named. The madness of this week will be of no consequence and will fade quickly.
She would not let herself think about the possibility of money from her gran’s estate, though she spent no shortage of time yesterday researching to be sure there was no debt. If she would just take a deep breath and stay focused on the real goal playing out on campus after spring break, she could imagine life a few weeks from now. And that brought her heart rate back down.
Quinn was more than a little leery of good things coming from out of the clear blue. That was the sort of thing her mother counted on and had chased all through Quinn’s childhood. A windfall, a stroke of luck, a gift from above.
She did not expect that this week would bring about a life-changing sum of money. The house in Ireland was small, old, and surely in disrepair…it simply needed to be sold, and she hoped that whatever proceeds existed would cover the costs of Messrs. Prendergast Dyer and Smythe, solicitors at law.
Her goal for this week was to keep the madness contained and prevent it from derailing her plans. In response to the chaos of her childhood, Quinn built her life on plans and order. She was not a fan of the unexpected. Life is upended by surprises, not made better by a bit of luck or a knock on the nearest bit of wood, faux or otherwise.
Not only did she not count on luck, but she was also determined to keep surprises and “good luck” to the Hallmark channel, where it was properly classified as fiction. The outcome of this week was to have a neutral impact on the timeline she and Donna had put in place.
Delaying it wasn’t an option. And a “what if” sum of money, gained or owed, wasn’t worth thinking about.
Her phone buzzed in her hand, as another text from Donna pinged in, “What the hell time is it over there?? We need to talk.” Donna offered the support of a long-time friend and just enough pressure to remind Quinn who was boss. They both had a great deal riding on the decisions to be made in the coming weeks. And they were both unhappy about this unexpected trip. Quinn was a faculty vote away from tenure and stepping in as the interim department chair so Donna could retire in a few short weeks, transitioning things to Quinn as they had planned, leaving it in good hands. They had both worked hard for this for a long time.
“Miss,” the agent said impatiently with a nod to a prominently posted sign. “No mobiles in the line.” And he handed her back her passport.
“Sorry,” Quinn said sheepishly. She hit send in reply to Donna “Will call in 5.” and took back her freshly stamped passport.
“Welcome to Ireland.” The agent offered as Quinn reached for the handles of her carry-on and moved through customs. She heard a faint “Enjoy your stay” over her shoulder as she moved toward the exit.
The doors from customs to the airport opened ahead of her with a silent whoosh. The scene was as chaotic as one would imagine. She paused for a minute to find a path through it all and got bumped from behind as an exhausted young mother pushed her luggage cart through the doors while looking over her shoulder at the trailing children. Quinn was caught in a sea of tourists visiting Ireland, college students on holiday, hung-over hen party participants, and weary travelers returning home. On either side of the doors, there were dozens of people on the far side of the roped-off section with banners, hand-lettered signs, and flowers, scanning the faces of the arriving travelers. She watched as faces burst into smiles, eyes lit up, arms outstretched for a hug before the person was anywhere near within reach. Shouting, waving, and a few tears made up the scene before her.
No one ever waited at the airport with flowers for Quinn. Ever.
Love Actually was a film Quinn once watched out of curiosity. Everyone she knew seemed to love it. In an attempt to “fit in,” she caught it on TV one year and watched it with fascination and a bit of wonder, as if watching a fairy tale. The movie has famously done a terrific job of romanticizing this airport arrivals moment—which never really happened like that. As far as Quinn knew.
She stood on tiptoes to see above the throngs and found a way forward. She sidestepped the lost travelers, and the efficient executive-looking types and maneuvered around baggage trolleys, clusters of families, and a woman with a pram and she moved towards the exit. She jumped aside just in time to avoid a direct blow to the head from a want-to-be musician with a guitar strapped on his back.
Once outside, she paused and found herself wrapped in the mist of the morning and the dampness of an Irish spring day. There is an extraordinary quality to the air in Ireland, which she remembered clearly from her childhood. Nowhere in Ireland are you more than four hours from the coast. The wind comes across the water at you from every direction with the force of a freight train, clear and pure.
Reflexively, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Quinn was reminded of the moments she and her mother would step on Irish soil at the start of nearly every summer during her childhood. Her mother would stop and breathe deeply the minute they were out of the airport. There is perennially a hint of peat smoke, green grass, and sea salt in the air.
And somehow a single breath of that pure, clear, damp air transformed her mother. It calmed her somehow. Her shoulders relaxed, her smile brightened, and her tone changed. Quinn had watched the magic of the moment endless times as her mother breathed in the familiarity of home.
Quinn felt no such magic. Nor did she expect it. She did not have the same connection to this place that her mother did. Truth be told, she didn’t have a connection to any place. And she never really did.
Miserably failing the “deep breath” test, she adjusted her backpack and scanned the signs along the curb—taxis, buses, No Parking, etc. She spotted the sign for ground transport to the train station, stepped off the curb, and moved quickly across the roadway to the bus stop.
A taxi driver came to a screeching halt as she crossed, with less of a welcoming tone than the Customs agent of a few moments before. It took her a second to reorient herself to traffic coming from the left.
To say she was distracted was an understatement. She tried to sleep on the plane, but she was too focused on the meetings the following week. The lack of sleep, in tandem with a six-hour time change and the madness of this trip, and she was more than a little out of sorts. Traffic coming from the opposite direction was one thing more than she needed at this moment. She raised her hand to wave thanks to the taxi driver for not running her over and crossed to the bus queue.
What would the esteemed Irish firm of Prendergast Dyer & Smythe Esq do if she was run over in a roundabout, before ever leaving Dublin airport and never made it to their offices to sign the all-important papers?
And she didn’t even want to think of the poor bastard that would be tasked with telling Dr. Donna Bowling—the impatient retiring chair of the department who had a lethal golf swing and put the fear of God in anyone, by simply reaching for a club.
A bus into Dublin city centre to the train station and a train down to Claremorris was the order of business by day’s end. Quinn scanned the buses in front of her. There was no sign of the bus to the train station. The website said they ran from the airport every 15 minutes, so she found the queue for the next bus, took her place in line, and took the moment to call Donna.
“I just landed and got through customs. What’s up? You have sent 9 text messages since I took off yesterday afternoon. Most in all caps. What the hell?” Quinn asked Donna, as she scanned the buses approaching, looking for the one to Heuston Station.
“Greg is screwing with the agenda for next week’s meeting. And he apparently has asked a few grad assistants to help him edit your presentation. I know spring break seemed like an easy time to get away and deal with this, but it feels as if the sands are shifting here, and I have a bad feeling about this. Is there any way you can come back?” Donna was whispering, as if in a spy thriller.
“Come back? I literally just landed a few minutes ago.” Quinn said. “And he can’t edit my presentation. I simply left a copy with him in case there was a problem next week. He’s my ‘just in case.’ You are the one who told me to put a Plan B in place.” Quinn had left a copy of her presentation for next week’s meeting with Greg Kane, at Donna’s request. There is too much riding on the faculty meeting not to have a backup in place. Quinn had begrudgingly agreed and gave Greg an uneditable file of the presentation.
Greg is the plan you put in place and never want to use. He is the office equivalent of tinned vegetables in a storm shelter.
Quinn paused and briefly considered going back inside the airport and getting a plane ticket home. To hell with the estate and the “complications.” They aren’t my complications, she thought.
She broke her own rule and briefly let herself think about the possibility of unexpected and yet undetermined cash that could result from this week’s trip, and that gave her pause. Before yesterday, she didn’t know about her gran’s house or the estate. She had no idea of its value, but a few extra dollars of any amount would be a boost to her plans to buy a home. But that was not the priority right now. There was a plan in place and despite this minor detour, she would see the plan through.
Greg’s bad behavior is not going to derail that. The possibility of proceeds from the sale of her grandmother’s house was of no consequence. This is what she had spent her whole life doing—putting a plan together where none existed. Solving problems. Putting out fires others had started. Her need to eliminate chaos and bring order is the only thing that made any of this madness worthwhile. It’s the whole reason she’s standing in a bus queue, outside Dublin airport, on a grey, damp Irish morning a week before her tenure vote in the first place.
And as if the universe was sending her a sign, the double-decker bus to Heuston Station came around the corner and pulled up in front of her.
“I cannot get back on a plane and come back today. For God’s sake Donna.” She said. “It’s the damn weekend before spring break. I’ll spend the weekend grading papers and prepping for the meeting. I will meet with the lawyers on Monday, will sign what needs to be signed, and will be on a flight out on Wednesday. No one is on campus next week. It’s spring break, for goodnes’s sake. I’ll be back on Wednesday, take a few days to sleep off the jet lag and we’ll be back on schedule. What the hell is Greg thinking? He was simply a Plan B. My just-in-case while I get this sorted. I just need a few days in Ireland to sign some documents and close the estate, something my mother neglected to do ten damn years ago. Everything was in place when I left the office yesterday and should be fine until I get back at the end of the week. You are still the department chair. Sit his ass down and tell him to behave himself.”
“Quinn, I really th—”
“I am literally boarding a bus this very minute. Three business days. That’s all I need to sign the documents and get back on a plane. Lock him in your closet if you have to, but he’s not reworking my presentation. I’ll be back in time to make the presentation before the vote. We’ll be fine. I promise,” Quinn assured her boss, sounding more confident than she felt.
“All right. Three days. And thank God it’s spring break. You’re right. No one will be around for the next week. He can pace the halls and email grad assistants at all hours, but it will be a ghost town around here by day’s end. Honestly, I had forgotten about spring break. Nonetheless, you need to be on a plane back here Wednesday.” Donna said.
“We’ve got this. I’ll be back in time. It will be fine.” Quinn knew small-town Ireland and turning anything around in a few days would be tough, but she was determined to move through this as quickly as possible. And a promise of a three-day turnaround was the only thing that would get Donna off the ceiling at the moment.
“I know. That Greg is just a pain in the ass. I should have never hired that idiot. And soon you’ll be stuck with him.” Donna laughed and sounded a bit less panic-stricken. Behind her back, the faculty called her Chicken Little. Despite all her accomplishments, Donna was quick to assume a small mistake was a catastrophe and a tummy ache was a ruptured appendix.
“I have to go. I’ll call you later.” Quinn hung up and shifted her backpack.
Technology had made planning easy for every leg of this trip. She had both the bus and train tickets on her phone. She left nothing to chance. She loved the order that came with every advance in technology. AI would be a gift when it got here. And she was sure robots could do a better job at most things than many of the humans she knew. Case in point… Greg.
Quinn boarded the bus and put her bags on the seat next to her to ward off anyone sitting beside her.
She could have broken the trip up, spent a night in Dublin, slept in a comfortable bed, had a hot shower, and strolled one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Given her background in urban planning, the city’s layout, tied to its Viking history, would otherwise be a fascinating stop.
