• • •
Shoshanna dragged me out of the pub and into the stunning quiet of the street.
“Look at you, Iris Thorne! Look at you!” She danced on the sidewalk and hugged me. We sort of jumped in a circle.
“I did it!” I said.
“You fucking did!” Shoshanna crowed.
“Language, young lady,” the doorman said, but he was smiling. “Nicely done.”
It took me a whole series of beats to realize he was giving me a compliment.
“Thank you.”
Eamon came out of the pub, and my nerves spun out of control all over again. I couldn’t look at him, and Shoshanna didn’t wait for me to. She hooked both of us by the elbows and skipped up the red brick of Grafton Street, pulling us along, whooping in triumph.
The sky was full of stars, which was strange for a city. No light pollution, but then, there weren’t towering skyscrapers here. I snuck a look at Eamon and caught him looking at me.
Shoshanna was lit up as well, delighted with everything in her tipsy way. “You know, I feel like singing an Irish tune,” she yelled. “‘Oh Danny b—’”
“No, no.” Eamon clapped a hand over her mouth. “You’re in the republic, Shoshanna. That’s the Northern Ireland anthem, girl.”
Shoshanna licked her lips and grimaced. “Salty. Why are boys’ palms so salty? Do you guys ever wash your hands? You know who has great hands? Roxy.”
“Roxanne?” I blurted. “The makeup artist?”
“The one and only. You guys don’t think twenty-five is out of my age range, do you? Wait, don’t answer. She’s out of my league. She’s probably in the same dating pool as Ellen Page. And then there’s queer, little me.”
“There’s nothing little about you, Shoshanna,” I said.
“Especially your interest in girls,” Eamon finished.
Shoshanna roared with laughter. I didn’t know a person could actually do that. “Do you know what we need?” she asked. “We need to bring our fourth wheel into this little triumph.” She got out her phone and made a FaceTime call.
Julian picked up right away, his face looking all weird in the camera’s intense close up.
“Shosh! You better still be in Ireland!”
“I am!” she said. “And you know what happened? This girl”—she shoved the phone in my face—“played guitar and sang for a whole crowd of people! She nailed it.”
Julian got closer, frowning. “Iris? What’s going on over there?”
“Shoshanna’s drunk,” I said. “We’re going to bring her back to set.” I was so happy to see him it took a moment to realize, the last time we’d texted, he’d been pissed. “She was going to quit, but Eamon and I talked her out of it.”
“I never should have left you three.”
“You had business, you heartthrob,” Shoshanna said.
Julian looked off camera and said something.
“Hey! Let us see her! Elora, come to the phone! We want to see if you’re real!” Shoshanna yelled.
Someone laughed off camera, and Julian held his arm out farther, showing off the prettiest, most petite girl I’ve ever seen. She had her knees up to her chin and a smile that seemed…well, peaceful. “Hi,” Elora said. “I’m real!”
“Oh, Jules. She is the cutest. You were not kidding. Wow.”
I snatched the phone from Shoshanna, worried for Elora who might not have enough context to appreciate our drunk heroine. “We’re going to get Shoshanna in a bed. You guys have a nice night!”
“Iris?” Julian held the camera close again. “Things are…all right over there?”
“They’re getting better,” I said. “And we’re going to come up with a plan to turn things around.” I pressed end, and Shoshanna skipped ahead of us, singing an improvised song about the beauty of Elora, or was it Roxy?
I turned to Eamon for the first time since I’d charged onto that stage.
He stood, hands in his pockets, his expression mightily shy. “You were amazing, Iris.”
“I think I’ll die if we talk about it.”
“Just so you know.”
I spun around to face the gorgeous night. “What should be our plan to save the movie?”
“Step one, get Shoshanna off the streets. Step two, figure out a step two.”
“Good. I like a two-pronged approach. Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my flat,” he said. “It’s a short walk that way.”
“Tell me you’ve got an awesome bachelor pad with three flat mates, a few lava lamps, and nothing but a brick of cheese in the fridge!” Shoshanna yelled.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, not quite.”
Twenty minutes later, we were walking along a row of old stone houses with brilliantly colored doors. Eamon stopped before a vibrant-blue door with a lion’s head knob. He tried to turn his key quietly, but his mom yanked open the apartment door. I would have known she was Eamon’s mom out of a casting call of a hundred Irish moms. Mainly because she had the same crystal eyes and curly hair that was likely part of an underground fight club.
“What are you doing in town?” She wrapped him in a huge hug that was no small part wrestling maneuver. Shoshanna took this as her cue to join the hug. Eamon’s mom let go of her son and took a good look at her. “Well, come in. I’d say this one is in need of some Digestives.”
We entered the house, and I couldn’t believe I was meeting Eamon’s mom smelling like a pub, wearing a stretched out T-shirt, and accompanying a drunk Shoshanna. “You could have warned me,” I muttered at Eamon as we filed into the kitchen. Eamon’s mom wasted no time in giving Shoshanna a sleeve of chocolate biscuits.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured before turning to his mom. “Mam, this is Shoshanna Reyes, our Sevyn. Shoshanna, this is Gráinne. If you call her Mrs. anything, she’ll make you pay for it.”
“Mrs. O’Brien is my mother-in-law. How would you like to be called by your mother-in-law’s name?” Gráinne took Shoshanna’s chin, giving her a hard stare. “So this is Sevyn, is she? Yes, I see it. Leave no pints behind. That’s definitely
