Colette wrinkled her pert little nose when Des let off a rasper in his sleep. Nothing dishy about her husband right now, she thought grumpily, turning on her side, wishing she could go and sleep in her own luxuriously appointed guest room, which she often did when she was at home in Manhattan. Why was it that she always looked forward to coming back to Ireland, but when she actually got here, it was never as good as anticipated and often, indeed, she couldn’t wait to be gone.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
‘You should give Jazzy a call and see if she’s OK,’ Hilary suggested over breakfast the following morning.
‘What? Why should I ring her? She should ring me and apologize,’ Sophie exclaimed indignantly. Leanne prudently said nothing and demolished another mouthful of crispy bacon topped with fried potato and dipped in egg yolk.
‘I know that. You know that. But still I’m sure she’s embarrassed and after all she is in a strange country and doesn’t know many people here. It would be a kindness,’ Hilary said lightly.
‘Yeah well I don’t feel kind,’ Sophie retorted, spearing a piece of sausage.
‘It’s up to you, of course.’ Hilary smiled, offering her daughter a slice of buttered toast.
‘Uuhhh,’ muttered Sophie, wishing her mother wouldn’t do the emotional blackmail stuff on her.
‘I suppose I’d better ring the little skanger,’ Sophie moaned to Leanne later that morning as they warmed up for a basketball match against a rival school’s team. She dribbled the ball along the court at a run, segued into a lay up and felt a ripple of satisfaction as the orange ball sliced through the net cleanly, giving a satisfying thud as it bounced on the wooden floor.
‘We’ll do it when we’re finished here.’ Leanne shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal and it will get your mother off your back. You only need to say hello and goodbye.’
‘OK,’ Sophie agreed, catching a rebound from the board from a shot missed by another girl. She aimed and scored again. If she could do the same when they were playing the match she’d be more than happy.
‘That’s unfortunate, darling, that you are off colour. You were fine when you were going out last evening.’ Jacqueline gazed at her granddaughter, noting her pallor and the way she winced every so often as if the light hurt her eyes. ‘What would you like for lunch, seeing as you had no breakfast? We’ve had ours but there are cold cuts and salad, or prawns and crab—’
‘Umm . . . just coffee and toast, Gran, please,’ Jasmine interjected hastily, afraid if she heard any more about food her stomach would erupt again. She felt truly horrendous, but at least the hellacious headache she’d woken up with had eased. Her parents had gone apeshit this morning before they had gone out and demanded her credit card back and told her that she was, like, so grounded. It was a real bummer.
‘Well the dead arose and appeared to many. You’re up at last,’ Frank exclaimed jovially, strolling into the breakfast room with his Irish Times under his arm. ‘As soon as you’ve had something to eat I’m going to take you into the Law Library with me. If you decide to study law, and I really hope you do, you’ll find no better place of learning than the King’s Inns Law Library. It will rival the best of anything you have in the US, I can tell you,’ he declared proudly. Jasmine’s heart sank. Her grandfather really wanted her to be a lawyer and was always going on about the King’s Inns. The last place she wanted to go to today was a stuffy old library.
‘Em . . . the thing is—’ Her cell phone rang and she slid it out of her jeans pocket and flipped it open. ‘Excuse me a sec, Granddad,’ she said politely, and opened the French door and sauntered into the sun-drenched garden. She had thought it might be her mum but the number that flashed up on her screen was an Irish number and she saw Sophie’s name. She cringed. She had made such a jackass of herself last night, much of which she couldn’t remember. The last person she wanted to talk to was Sophie.
‘Hello,’ she said cautiously, expecting a barrage of abuse.
‘Hi, Jazzy, how are you feeling?’ Sophie asked politely.
‘Umm, not so good,’ she confessed.
‘OK . . . Well I just rang to see if you were OK,’ Sophie said awkwardly and Jasmine guessed her mother had pressurized her to make the call.
‘Look, sorry if I . . . er . . . messed up your night.’
‘No probs, enjoy the rest of your holiday.’
‘Listen . . . em . . . could I hang out with you for an hour or two? Could I take you for a pizza or McDonald’s or latte or something to make up for last night?’ Jasmine saw a potential escape from the trip to the dreaded Law Library.
‘It’s fine, honestly, no worries,’ Sophie said hastily.
‘Pleeease, Soph! My granddad wants to bring me to the Law Library and I have the hangover from hell and I can’t tell him that,’ Jasmine blurted.
‘Oh! Well, Leanne and I have sort of made plans,’ Sophie said crossly.
‘Please, Sophie, cut me a break here,’ Jasmine pleaded. ‘I swear to God, it’s just for an hour then you can split and I can do my own thing.’
‘Hold on, I need to check it out with Leanne.’ Jasmine could hear a muffled whispered conversation, and Leanne saying, ‘Do we have to?’
Jasmine felt like telling them to get lost, but if she could say she was meeting them, even for a short while, it would get her out of spending the afternoon with her granddad and his
