The bar down the street from Connor and Murphy's new apartment was called Myrna's Tavern. It was less than a little hole in the wall. It was tiny and packed with bodies. It was home.
It was late when Connor and Murphy stepped through its doors. Murphy had just gotten back from work and Connor had just finished moping around the house all day. Da had gone out that morning and was nowhere to be found. So out the boys went to drink themselves into a blissful stupor. When they entered the pub, they waded through the crowd and stepped up to the bar. There weren't any seats there, or anywhere as far as they could tell. So the boys stood leaning against the bar, beers in hand, surveying the scene.
"Are you Myrna?" Murphy asked the pretty girl at tending the bar.
The girl smiled cordially. "No. She is," she responded and inclined her head to a woman across the room. Through the smoke and the crowd, Murphy could see that she was a woman in her early thirties, with wild blonde hair and laughing eyes. The woman was making the rounds of the room and her easy attitude and sly wit were apparent in her talk with the customers. "I'm Jamie. What's your name?" Murphy smiled approvingly and moved away from the bar without responding to Jamie.
"Well, your friend's very single-minded," Jamie said, turning to Connor.
"Don't feel bad. He's just… an ass," he responded, turning back to his beer.
"Oh, I'm not insulted. It's not a big deal. It's just part of the job to make small talk with people who don't want to be talked to," she said brightly. "Can I get you another?" Connor nodded and she took his empty bottle from him. "I'm Jamie," she said as she handed him another.
"Connor." A seat opened up down the bar and he took it.
A few minutes later, after serving another patron, Jamie moved down the bar to where Connor no sat. "So, Connor," she said, leaning over the bar toward him, "I haven't seen you around here before. Are you new?"
"Not exactly. I've been around before."
"Ah. Must've been my night off," she said, crossing her arms under her and, in the process, pushing her breasts up and out of her shirt.
"What're yeh workin' fer tips?" Connor asked between swigs of beer.
"Sorry?"
"I thought yer job was ta make small talk with people not ta flirt 'em ta death," Connor said brazenly. "Gimme another."
"Hey, look you. I--"
"Piss off."
It wasn't that he was beginning to get buzzed or that she was trying way too hard, but that he was sick of everything that had to do with Chicago. He swore he would never eat pizza again. And he would never even think the name Oprah, let alone mention it. He looked up from his beer and found he could breathe again. Jamie was gone. Behind him he could hear Murphy boisterously courting his new target.
Another beer later, Murphy was back and flaunting a phone number. Connor's only response was, "Yeah, an' a lotta good that'll do yeh seein' as we haven't got a fucking phone."
"Hey, what the fuck's yer problem, anyways? What? Fucking what? It's not as if I loved her anyways, right?" Murphy attacked. "Face facts, Con. It's over between us an' them. We aren't goin' back and they aren't comin' here. It's done. Give up. Grow up. Move on."
"Murphy! Come tell the lads whacha tol' me!" Myrna called him over from across the room. Murphy grabbed his beer from Jamie and stalked off, heart lightening the farther he got from Connor.
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"So where'd you learn an Irish accent, anyways?" Anna asked as they reentered Trista's apartment. "From Connor?"
Trista laughed. "God no. Can you imagine? Him giving me speech lessons? Me asking him for them?! No. No."
"Where then?" Anna asked, laughing too and moving into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of orange juice.
"Ireland," Trista said simply.
"Ireland! You've been there?! Oh, that's so exciting. I haven't been anywhere. Well, Italy, but that hardly counts. All I did was take care of my great grandmother all summer in the countryside and in the heat. It was… not exactly educational."
"How fun."
"Yeah. I believe that's the exact description I was about to use." Anna took a sip of her orange juice and sat down on the living room armchair. "So when were you in Ireland?"
"Uh… it was a college thing, you know… semester abroad and all," Trista replied, hiding only everything but that.
"Oh. So tell me about it. Where did you stay in Ireland? Which college were you studying at?"
Trista tapped her fingers on the counter. "Ah… Anna… it's kind of late. Why don't I tell you all about it… some other time."
"Okay, Tris. Night then."
Trista began the short walk to her bedroom pensively. "Night."
………………………………...
"I think we should go back ta Boston," Connor announced as his brother entered the apartment. "We have a home there. We have friends there. We have--"
"We can have friends here too, and a home," Murphy said sullenly, tossing his jacket onto his mattress.
"We can't have anythin' here. Besides. What good are we doin' here?"
"Yeh think there's no evil in this city? Well then I've got a surprise fer yeh. Myrna, my new contact, told me about this old boyfriend o' hers."
"Yeah? An' what about what yeh said about them findin' us out an' all?"
"Oh I wouldn't worry 'bout that, if I were you."
"Why not?"
"Cause we got ourselves a copycat."
………………………………...
Trista emerged from the bedroom rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She stumbled into the kitchen and over to the coffee pot where she poured herself a cup of the coffee Anna made before the older woman woke every morning. After chugging about half of it, she set it back on the counter with a thud and rubbed her temples. "Headache?" Anna asked from the living room. A moan was Trista's only response. She picked up her cup of coffee and staggered into the living room. She set her coffee down on the coffee table and plopped down on the couch next to Anna. "What happened to miss upbeat?"
"Miss upbeat got hit by the world today. I'm Atlas from now on."
"What?" Anna asked, not understanding the allusion. She sat up straighter on the couch and took a sip of her own coffee, then pulled her blanket closer about her as she shivered.
"Never mind. I got hit by the world."
"Are you sure you didn't get hit by some tequila?"
"No…" Trista said pointedly, grabbing the other end of Anna's blanket and pulling it up about her shoulders. "I don't drink tequila and I can surely hold my liquor."
"Hey. Get your own blanket," Anna complained, pulling the blanket sharply toward her.
"This is my blanket." Trista pulled it back.
"Fine," Anna said, relinquishing her half and rising from the couch. "I'll just get a sweater."
"It's my sweater, too!" Trista called.
"So what?" Anna asked as she reentered the room sporting the aforementioned sweater. "Do you want me to move out?"
"Ugh!" Trista exaggerated in a fit of overwhelming upset.
Anna sat down timidly next to Trista, who pulled her blanket closer about her. "What's up?"
"I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know what I'm doing, trying to go on with this, trying to find them. They're too smart to be found." Trista was crying silent tears, but didn't seem to notice. "But I mean they have to know that the article had the wrong names in it. It's been all over the country. It's not as thought they don't have the number. It's not as thought they couldn't call."
Anna was quiet for a moment, unused to being the strong one. "Maybe… they don't have the money," she finally stuttered. "It is long distance."
"Anna, they aren't that poor. They call their mother in Ireland," Trista rebuked.
"Oh…"
"They could call and tell us where they are. The only reason not to is that they don't want us to know," Trista said, falling into her pit of despair again.
"Maybe they're just laying low," Anna offered, wanting to be of more service to Trista, who had been so good to her, but not knowing in the slightest how.
"Maybe." Trista shook her head. "Maybe not."
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A/N: Lalalalala! Two days in a row! Look at me! Review, please!