Tom

Her flight was two hours late, according to the airport monitor, but Tom didn't much mind. He liked people-watching and the airport was the perfect venue for that. He didn't come here very often. His friends, like his family, were all home bodies. Sure, they enjoyed the occasional jaunt around the Irish countryside, but why ever leave Ireland? Where else was there to go?

Matthew was the exception, of course. He'd travel back to England to see his mother for the holidays and elsewhere for the occasional vacation. This trip, though, was different. This trip might be the last Matthew took before he left Ireland to return home for good. Tom knew that and wasn't too proud to admit that it scared him a bit. Not just because Matthew was his best friend, but in many ways because he considered Matthew the only witness to his having done something with his life. Matthew knew him at Cambridge, was with him as he wrote and published what he thought would be his first, not his only book. If Matthew left now, it might be as if Tom had never left Ireland, had never been a real writer at all. In Tom's mind, Matthew tethered him to the grand dreams he'd once had about what he could do and where he could go.

But Matthew needed to move on, and Tom knew it. So Tom soldiered on, playing the role of the supportive friend and tried to look for something that would spur whatever it was inside himself that had gotten him into Cambridge and that had made him a writer, at least for a time. So far, all he'd found was that he was very good at replacing the ribbon of his typewriter, which he used up by writing tediously detailed descriptions of people he watched on the street, the pub and, today, the airport. He was no longer depressed, hadn't been for a long time. But he was bored. And people-watching, if nothing else, soothed his boredom.

For the last 15 minutes or so, he'd had his eyes on a young couple and their baby, no more than two years old. They were departing, but their luggage was over the weight limit, and they'd been arguing about how to best redistribute the weight so the airline would take their bags. The man's salt-and-pepper hair made him look older than his face did—Tom guessed anywhere from 36 to 43 years old. She was a few years younger and still wearing a bit of her pregnancy weight from the look of her too-tight trousers. Both seemed in dire need of a vacation, and Tom hoped, for their sake, that the holiday included a baby-sitter somewhere along the line.

He shifted his eyes to the right a bit, to the hall that welcomed arriving passengers to Dublin. He was about to check his watch again when he spotted a young woman with a dark grey wool pea coat and a blue and green striped scarf. She had brown hair with a slight curl, just past her shoulders and parted down the middle. Her eyes, even from this distance, Tom could see were the brightest blue. She was beautiful, but not the obvious kind all take notice of, the kind you have to stop and observe to really appreciate, the kind he liked best. She stepped a bit away from the moving crowd and took in her surroundings. She took a deep breath, then smiled.

Whoa.

For a second, Tom thought she had spotted whoever had been waiting for her—lucky bastard—but after a moment he realized she was just standing there smiling. In her face, he could see she felt a bit of pride in herself and eagerness and . . . peace? Tom, before he caught himself thinking it, very suddenly and very ardently wished to be the person she was coming to see, to be in this moment with her and share in whatever it was she was feeling. He wasn't sure how long he'd been staring when he realized she was looking straight at him.

If he had been in possession of his faculties just then, he would have looked away embarrassed, but for the life of him he couldn't take his eyes away. He saw her move her eyes to his lap—Was she sizing him up?—and then start walking toward him, his eyes opening increasingly wider in shock and a bit of panic as she approached.

She stopped directly in front of him, and put on that same smile that had completely disarmed him moments ago from yards away. Discombobulated, he moved to get to his feet so quickly he almost fell back into the chair. He wondered if he'd conjured her up out of thin air.

Here's the perfect woman you ordered, Mr. Branson. Will there be anything else?

"I'm Sybil."

"Uh, hi. . . . I'm Tom." Was this happening?

There followed what felt to him like an interminable minute of awkward silence.

She narrowed her eyes, amused but also a bit wary. "Is the car nearby?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The car. I assume you're the person Matthew sent to pick me up." She pointed to the sign that moments ago had been resting on his lap while he was waiting but now lay on the floor.

MISS SYBIL CRAWLEY

Oh.

OH!

Ugh.

Reality hit him like a dull hammer. He shook his head, trying to pull himself out of the trance watching her had put him in.

"Right. Sorry—I was in a bit of a fog just then." He smiled nervously, trying very hard not to look the fool he probably seemed to her at this moment. She smiled, clearly oblivious as to her effect on him. Dear God.

"So this is your bag, then?" he asked pointing to the large suitcase she was pulling. Obviously, you daft prick.

"Yes." She shrugged sheepishly, and, as if trying on sarcasm for the first time, added quietly, "I like to travel light." Just kill me now.

He managed to pull himself together long enough to take the suitcase from her and point her toward the exit and parking lot. They walked in silence to the car, and once there, he quickly stored her suitcase and moved to open the back door.

Her brow furrowed and she spoke in mild surprise.

"Oh, so you're Matthew's chauffer, then? I thought he said a friend would be picking me up. Either way, I'd rather the front if you don't mind."

Tom smiled sheepishly. "No—yes—I mean, that's fine—you riding in the front. I'm not a chauffer. Not anymore, anyway. Old habit."

She smiled looking a bit relieved and stepped into the car as he held the front passenger door open. Tom rolled his eyes at himself as he went around to the driver's side and climbed in. He smiled rather tightly at her as she looked over at him, all gorgeous and bright, from the passenger's seat. Get a bloody grip.

"So how do know Matthew?" Sybil asked once they were on their way.

"We went to uni together, back in England. I convinced him to move here after."

"And you used to be a chauffer?"

"Kind of. My father used to have a car shop, did repairs mostly, but he had a few town cars to drive clients around for a couple of law firms and business types. When we were in school, my brother and I drove them sometimes. Kieran runs the shop now."

"And your father?"

Tom scratched his forehead before answering. "Um, he passed away a few years ago."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"No, please. It's all right. . . . It's been a while now."

He looked over at her as she gave him a small smile then turned to the window. He let another moment go by before starting the conversation again. He liked the sound of her voice. Huskier than usual for a woman and—Lord help us but it begs to be acknowledged—disarmingly sexy.

"So what brings you to Dublin?"

"Nothing particularly. Looking for an adventure, I suppose." He raised an eyebrow at her and she smiled that smile again. "I need a bit of a break, and I've always wanted to come here. I'm a bit of a James Joyce fangirl."

Tom brightened at this. "Oh, yeah? What's your favorite?"

"It's a bit clichéd to say, of course, but Portrait. I mean that's everyone's favorite isn't it?"

"Except the ones who claim Ulysses is their favorite, but I'm sure most of them are lying."

This made her laugh. "I'm afraid I'm not ambitious enough to claim that one. My best friend and I have a rule that you can't call a book a favorite until you've read it at least three times. I stopped with Ulysses at two."

"You've read Ulysses twice?" He asked a bit in awe.

"Well, I had to," she said matter-of-factly. "I didn't really understand it the first time."

Tom started to wonder again whether he had not, in fact, conjured her up.

He sneaked another glance at her as she gazed out the window, elbow leaning against it, chin on hand. It occurred to him how very young she looked just then.

"How old are you—if you don't mind my asking?"

"Twenty-four. Why?"

"You don't look old enough to have read that much Joyce your lifetime. Ulysses twice. Portrait three times. I won't even ask about the poetry."

"Four for Portrait. Other than Ulysees, everything else just once." She shrugged, embarrassed. "I suppose I don't have much of a life."

"Sounds like a perfectly good one to me. But then, I'm a working class lad, so I don't have patience for most other people's preferred frivolities." He smiled and she looked to the window again, a serene look settling over her features.

After a moment, she said, "I have two older sisters, so while I enjoyed watching their antics as they got used to grown-up life, I also got a chance to see very early on that I would have little interest in the typical travails of womanhood."

She continued, never taking her eyes from the window, "My grandmother Martha told me once that she had no time for people who had no time to read because the worlds they lived in were so very small. She was my hero growing up, so I started reading as much as I could to make my world as big as humanly possible. I don't suppose that's made me a very interesting person, but it made me feel like no matter how much I rebelled against the world I did live in, there was always some place else for me to go. That's why I like Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so much—because it brought me here."

She turned to him suddenly, blushing, as if realizing for the first time perhaps that she was speaking aloud and to a total stranger. "I suppose that doesn't make much sense."

With his eyes firmly on the road, he said quietly, to himself as much as to her, "It makes perfect sense."

They remained in companionable silence for a time. As they neared Matthew's flat, though, Tom spoke up, hopeful that the conversation wouldn't have to stop when they got there.

"So what do want to do while you're in Dublin?"

"Well, you probably think this is awful and touristy, but there are tours that you can do, of Joyce's Dublin." She reached for her handbag, sitting at her feet, and started rummaging through it, pulling out a small book. "I bought a self-guided one."

"Let's have a look." He reached over to take it from her hand and promptly tossed into the back seat.

"What did you do that for?" She asked with a puzzled look.

He gave her a mischievous smile. "That book is a waste of your time."

"Read it, have you?"

"Well, no, but if you really want to experience Joyce's Dublin, you need to do it with a true Dubliner, preferably one who knows Joyce as well as you seem to. Luckily for you, I meet that criteria and I have the evening off." They stopped at a traffic light, and he looked over at her with his best smile, raising his eyebrows in invitation. She seemed momentarily wary and he suddenly wondered if he'd overstepped his bounds. "If you want to that is."

She held his gaze for a beat, then responded. "Well, if you're the expert, I guess I must. But I'll have you know you've just set the bar very high." She turned back to the window dramatically, nose in the air and with a flair that made her hair sway against her shoulder. Was she flirting with him? "I'll expect a tour that's well rehearsed, informative and witty."

He would have prayed for God to save him, except he was already too far gone.