My groggy vision cleared just enough to catch sight of a massive man in blue jean coveralls jabbing at me with a lug wrench like he was a boy and I was a beetle he wanted to check whether I was dead or not. I wasn't quite sure myself.
I groaned, and I guess that answered the question, for him at least.
"Get the hell off my bus," he grumbled irritably. "This ain't a halfway house."
I tried to sit up, but when the cheap fabric seats around me started to spin, I sank back down pitifully.
"Bus?" I croaked.
"Yeah." The man jabbed at me again, and I made a sad attempt at stopping him before giving up altogether. "This is a bus. Now get the hell off the bus."
I went to drag a hand over my eyes, only to stop halfway: my hand was covered in stamps from bars and clubs and God knows what else.
"What the hell?" I muttered in mounting confusion.
I craned my head to squint painfully out the bright windows, only to get jabbed in the ribs by the lug wrench again.
"Ow."
"Don't make me involve the Gards," the man warned. "Just get off the goddamn bus and be on your merry drunk-ass way."
I stared up at the man, blocking the brilliant sunlight with my hand. "Why exactly am I on a bus?" I asked.
The man threw his arms in the air, the lug wrench smacking the ceiling and setting off tiny hammers in my head.
"Hell if I know!" he bellowed. "I've been trying to get you off for fifteen minutes. Now get."
The big man leaned forward and roughly grabbed the collar of my wrinkled and stained suit jacket. He was about to drag me off the bus himself when a voice came from the front.
"Wait, wait! Wait, he's with me. He's with me."
There was the sound of little running feet, and then the American came into my hazy vision like a dream.
"I'll deal with him," she said to the driver. "Just give me two seconds and we'll be out of your hair."
The big man glanced warily from her to me, sagged helplessly against the seat.
"Two seconds," the girl insisted. "Promise."
I fell back with a moan when the driver shoved me away from him. He stormed past the girl, cursing down the aisle. All I wanted to do was lay my cheek against the cheap plastic armrest, curl up on the scratchy '70s geometric print, and die. But as I was closing my eyes, the American wiggled up next to me.
"Morning," she said, cheerful as a robin I wanted to shoot from a fucking bright blue sky. "Sorry I left you, but you were sleeping so sweetly and I figured you'd need this when you woke up."
I murmured a thanks when she eased a little glass into my hand. That's what I needed: a nice, cold glass of wat—
"What the hell?" I shouted, coughing and pounding at my chest from the burn in my throat and lungs. "That isn't water."
The girl laughed. "Water? Water doesn't have alcohol in it."
I stared at her incredulously before sniffing what I then realised was a shot glass.
"Wait, is this Poitín? Where the hell are we?"
"Glenda-something," the girl answered, taking the first shot glass.
In my bewilderment, I numbly accepted the second shot glass and let her guide it to my lips. I sputtered and shook my head as the liquor again burnt my throat.
"No, no, wait. Where?"
"Glenda-something," the girl repeated, glancing over her shoulder toward the front of the bus. "Look, we gotta get out of here. Take this and let's go. It's coffee."
The girl helped me wobble to my feet and then wrapped my hands around a hot mug. I followed her toward the front and closed my eyes to take an invigorating whiff. I opened my eyes and glared at the girl's back.
"There's liquor in here, too. Isn't there?"
The girl grinned over her shoulder at me and winked. "Of course."
It was all fine, I told myself as we passed row after row. I got a teeny, tiny, itty bit drunk last night and ended up on the wrong bus home. I'd just find another bus or call a cab. I'd be home in minutes, passed out in my own bed seconds after that. It was all fine.
But as I stepped off the bus, sheepishly avoiding the angry glare of the massive driver still wielding his lug wrench, I quickly realised it was all not fine. Because it wasn't city skyscrapers surrounding me, but lush, rich green mountains. There wasn't the honk of horns from morning traffic, but chirping birds and whispering wind through trees of every shade of green imaginable.
There was not a cab in sight and the only bus around was the one I just stepped off. I took a not-so-little sip of my spiked coffee to still my nerves. The girl was leading me on a small forest trail from the parking lot, her braid swinging merrily against her back.
"Um, when you said Glenda-something, could you have possibly meant Glendalough?"
I tensed for her answer. The girl snapped her fingers and smiled back at me. "That's it!"
I stopped on the trail, leaned my head back, and groaned. "Why the hell am I in Glendalough?" I moaned at the weave of interlacing branches above me.
The girl hurried back to me and interlaced her arm with mine.
"It was your idea," she said, urging me forward.
I eyed her warily. "My idea?"
I highly doubted that. Saturdays were my most productive work days: fewer people in the office, fewer distractions. I normally treated myself to a double espresso at 5:45 a.m. instead of my usual single, and I allowed myself an extra fifteen minutes of leisurely reading, typically the Financial
