Ashes of Fiery Weather (31 page)

Noelle responded with a phone call Maggie didn't return, and then, in an email:

If you sleep with him and break up, draw a line in chalk down the center and tell him you'll kill him if he puts a toe over it.

P.S. Stop being an ass.

Maggie laughed but had not taken her cousin's advice. She climbed in Rory's car that night, aware that he was going to make a pass at her, and that she would let him.

But Rory let her kiss him first, which she realized later was probably so he could say he did not start things, if he was ever asked. She began showing up late to her office hours to avoid Cillian, who retreated to a politeness so casual that Maggie decided she must have misread his attraction to the woman he thought she was. Later, though, she wondered if he was simply not interested in competing with Rory. She is not naïve enough to think the relationship is a secret.

She could easily see them, if they'd been schoolboys together: Rory assuming he was greatly and constantly envied; Cillian humoring him, aware without conceit that he had more depth, and that he would almost certainly win a fistfight as well.

Maggie has assumed from the first that the affair would come to its natural end when she graduated. But possibly she'd convinced Rory too well of her own maturity, and perhaps he thought she wouldn't care if he both dumped her and hired her.

“I hope you're still here if I get in,” Amy says.

“One thing to consider, Amy, is that it's never a bad idea to take some time after college before applying to grad school.”

“That's what you did?” Amy doesn't sound pleased.

“I was twenty-six when I applied.”

It's probably a typical age to head to grad school, and Maggie knows she is making it sound intentional, a timely college graduation followed by either an unsatisfying first career or a free-spirit stretch. She is not going to volunteer that she only got the last six credits for her BA so she could apply to Kilmaren.

“You didn't always want to be a college professor?”

“My grandmother was an elementary school teacher. When I started college, I thought that's what I'd do.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Dealing with my sister,” Maggie says.

Amy laughs.

“I am serious, in a way,” Maggie says. “As I got older, I realized there was more to teaching than getting to write on the blackboard. Keeping their attention is half the job. Those who can do it, like my grandmother, thank God for them.”

“What made you figure, hey, so I'll be a professor instead? For me, I've always liked to read, but only what I wanted to, not what I had to for school. Then I took your class, and you know so much, and you really seem to love it.”

Maggie knows Amy wants to hear something that resonates. She wants to believe her new career goal is real.

“Love of literature,” Maggie says. “I like discussing books, and thinking about the decisions the writer made, and discovering why he or she turned the story this way or that. The best books, the best stories, it doesn't matter if you already know the ending. No matter how many times I read ‘Eveline,' I always hope she gets away. She never will. But I always think, this time, she'll get on the boat. Why doesn't she?”

“Well, I think—”

Amy starts to speak but Maggie laughs.

“I'm not asking. This isn't a pop quiz.”

Maggie reaches into her desk and takes out a brochure advertising the program and hands it to Amy. She tells her to read it through and stop by or email if she has any questions.

After Amy leaves, Maggie returns to the window. She tugs on it, even though she knows it is painted shut.

Love of literature.

Hypocrite, Maggie tells herself. She knows that motives don't have to be so pure. You can want to be a college professor because it's a job you can do, but also because you like being on a college campus every day. You like the energy and restlessness and being around incarnations of yourself when you were at your own best.

Unlike the writing faculty, Maggie doesn't have access to the inner lives of her students. She knows that tragedy doesn't necessarily mark you. But her students are young enough to believe in their own lives. They are certain that mistakes, even the worst ones, can be undone, and that there is a thin boundary between their dreams for their lives and their lives as they will be lived.

“Mrs. O'Reilly?”

Maggie turns to see Mrs. Sheehan, the department secretary, filling the doorway, her arms crossed over her imposing chest.

Maggie presses her hand against the center pane of the window, trying to hide how startled she is. Mrs. Sheehan wears thick rubber-soled shoes, like a nun or a nurse. She has been the English Department's secretary for more than twenty years, though it's rumored she is an original inmate of the workhouse. Which closed in 1870.

Ms.
O'Reilly, Maggie almost snaps.

But Mrs. Sheehan would have been the one to process Maggie's application to the program, which had her date of birth on it. Maggie O'Reilly is twenty-eight; Maggie O'Reilly should be married.

She peers at Maggie over the top of her bifocals. “A girl came to see you this morning before you were in, and I didn't know what to tell her, about whether or not you'd be showing yourself today.”

Her tone suggests Maggie has missed an appointment with the Pope.

“Dr. McAlary was here, so I asked him to speak with her.”

Now Mrs. Sheehan sounds as though the maid didn't show up, forcing the Pope to mop the floor himself.

“She came back and I spoke with her,” Maggie says. “It's fine.”

“Dr. McAlary left for his class, but you can be sure and let him know when you see him. He was concerned that there might be some kind of problem.”

“I have no problems whatsoever.”

“You'll have to tell him then, at your four o'clock meeting.”

“That's been canceled, so he'll have to be concerned until tomorrow,” Maggie says.

“Again?” Mrs. Sheehan says.

“Dr. McAlary had to take one of his kids to something,” Maggie says. “New school year. New schedules. They're still working it out.”

This is probably exactly what he will say when he calls. Maggie tugs on the window again.

“That's been painted shut since the week after paint was invented,” Mrs. Sheehan says.

“I know that. I've called maintenance twice to come fix it. It's a fire hazard. This is the only window in the room. You're supposed to have two means of egress. If the door is ever blocked—”

Mrs. Sheehan almost certainly knows that at these weekly meetings, Dr. McAlary and Teaching Assistant O'Reilly don't wear their clothes. Yet Rory puts the meetings on his calendar, as if they will be discussing the progress she's making on her dissertation. It amazes Maggie how a man as intelligent as Rory can be so unaware of his own reputation.

She thinks that's why she started sleeping with him: to find out. She said as much to her cousin in an email. Noelle wrote back:

You're not the sort to go with a schmuck. His wife is the attraction. You don't want to be with anyone who might expect you to stick around.

After college, Noelle moved to New York to study acting. The joke in their family is how Maggie and Noelle have switched places. Maggie knows her aunt Aoife does not find anything amusing about her daughter living in New York. Ever since Noelle left, Aoife has believed she would tire of the apartment in Queens that she shares with two other Irish girls and return to Ballyineen. But Noelle now works as a fundraiser for a nonprofit theater in the city. It was her idea that Rose apply to a performing arts high school for her junior and senior years. She was the one who told Brendan to stop moaning about wanting to be an actor and do something about it. His little sister was already outpacing him. Guiltily, Maggie knew she'd probably have left him alone, bartending at Lehane's, hooking up with a different girl every weekend, playing ball in the bar league as he laughed at Aidan's attempts to get him to take the test for the fire department.

Maggie replied:

Since you're saying schmuck, do I have to start saying eejit?

Rory is not a schmuck. Either she'd described him badly or Noelle is misunderstanding the word. Rory is funny and charming and smart. He is a liar, but not a loser.

Maggie pushes at the window again. “I just want some goddamn fresh air.”

Mrs. Sheehan turns to go, then pauses. “You should know, Mrs. O'Reilly, that this is the time of year when Dr. McAlary starts canceling meetings. The new crop of postgrads coming in. The new teaching assistants to train. There's lots of extra work.”

It is about two o'clock when Maggie arrives back at Lysaght Hall. She'd taken her cell phone out of her bag to see if Rory left her a voicemail, and she'd forgotten it on her desk. She will grab it and go back to her apartment. This afternoon will be spent writing, not moping.

She hears Irish music and stops for a moment, dismayed. Cillian is at the window, chipping away with a screwdriver.

He turns when she comes in. “Mrs. Sheehan gave me the business. I tried to explain that I don't work in maintenance, but she seems to think I should have seen to this some time ago.”

Maggie sighs. “I was complaining about it earlier. It's not your problem. Really, just leave it.”

“She scares the snot out of me,” Cillian says. “Reminds me of my grandmother, tell you the truth. She said you deserved some fresh air. And I'm sure that's true.”

He goes back to chipping at the window. Maggie drops her eyes and scoops her phone off the desk.

“Well, I'm heading out.”

“Surely. It's Tuesday. We're at Derrane's tonight. You should come by.”

“Maybe. I'll see. I've vowed to spend all my spare time writing this semester.” Maggie smiles and shrugs to signal her regret.

The music cuts off so abruptly both she and Cillian look at the radio in confusion.

A grave voice explains that they have an update on the situation in New York.

“Situation?” Maggie says.

He shakes his head. “I'd just turned it on—”

Cillian leans closer on one side of the desk and Maggie leans in from the other.

The newscaster announces that it was indeed a plane that hit one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex and not an internal explosion. Eyewitness accounts from lower Manhattan report seeing it fly into the building. Continued updates as the situation unfolds.

The music comes back on.

“Jesus,” Maggie says, “the pilot must have been unconscious. Or maybe there's heavy fog? I wonder if it's on the news—the news here. Not that it matters, since I don't even have a television. My brother is going to be furious.”

“The one who's the fireman?”

“Aidan just got transferred to Brooklyn,” Maggie says. “He used to be in midtown, and his old company is probably responding. He's going to be pissed he's missing this.”

Maggie hopes Aidan's at least working today and is in some way involved. His goal is to join a rescue company. Rescue companies are responsible for getting to firemen in trouble at the scene. Elite units, they're officially called. Cowboys, unofficially. He needs more experience, more action, before he can try for it. He figured being in Brooklyn would help.

She flashed on her grandmother's anger when Eileen requested her transfer to the Glory Devlins. But Eileen had pointed out that having a brother and sister in the FDNY was rare enough. The odds of both of them dying out of the same firehouse had to be astronomical. Fucking astronomical, actually, was how she'd put it.

Maggie says goodbye again. She is about to leave when the music stops and the newscaster returns. His tone has lost its measured gravity. He is speaking rapidly, like a boy telling a story he is sure won't be believed.

Maggie steps closer to the radio. Cillian goes still, the screwdriver clutched in his hand.

A second plane has hit the other tower.

The newscaster says there is a tremendous emergency response under way in Manhattan. The number is impossible to know at this point, but loss of life is expected to be considerable, given that thousands of people work in the World Trade Center.

Maggie is not sure if she is the one who reached out to clutch Cillian's arm, or if Cillian grabbed hers. But it hurts, and it is what keeps her standing.

An hour and a half later, alone in Cillian's apartment, where she asked to go for the sake of his television, they have watched one tower and then the other fall.

Maggie has still not reached anyone in her family. She has spoken to her aunt Aoife, who was barely coherent as she said that Noelle had a meeting this week in one of the towers with a man who wanted to donate a lot of money to the theater. Aoife could not recall what day. Maggie tried to assure her that she can't reach Noelle because cell phone service is messed up. She has dialed Irish Dreams and gotten no answer. Her mother's house and her grandmother's. Aidan. Eileen. Even Nathaniel. If not for the pictures on the news, Maggie would think a nuclear bomb hit the city and that there was no one at all left in New York.

Maggie finally gets hold of Brendan, in California. He hasn't reached their mother either but thinks she must be trying to get to Rose. Maggie was about to ask Brendan if he knew whether Aidan or Eileen was working, but he cut her off. His friends decided to drive back to New York. Planes might not fly for weeks. He promises to call if he hears anything, and hangs up, leaving her shouting his name into the phone.

Maggie has not thought of Rose's high school in Manhattan. She can't recall where the school is exactly, except that Rose has a view of the Brooklyn Bridge.