Page 21 of Tee’d Up For Trouble

“I don’t go ‘cause I need my beauty sleep.” Ronan had a bottle of Sherry in hand. “Dee, takin’ this, love, need it for the sponge cake.”

I looked at the blackboard where Dee had written the day’s offerings in her neat, precise handwriting, and my mouth watered. Roast lamb with Yorkshire puddings, roasted vegetables, and potatoes. Wheaten bread—whatever the hell that was. And a sherry-soaked sponge cake to top it all off. I was already stuffed from yesterday’s beef and Guinness pie and a lemon posset, which was a creamy citrus dessert that I couldn’t pass up. I needed to find a gym to lift weights and squeeze in a long run because my usual workout routine wouldn’t cut it, the way I was eating, and I wasn’t doing my usual in Ballybeg.

“Hey, Yank, your car parts came in yesterday.” A man thumped my shoulder, catching me off guard. When I turned, he extended a hand. “Connor Kelly, Ballybeg’s postmaster. I dropped off your bits from Porsche—straight from Germany, mind you—to Paddy last night.”

I shook Connor’s hand. “Thanks.”

He took a seat next to me at the bar. “Love, Dee, I’m in desperate need of a pint.”

Dee who had been working on the other side of the bar, going through her laptop computer, raised her head. “Connor, you know the rules. You can have a drink after five in the evening.”

Connor frowned. “But it’s Sunday.”

“And the rules don’t change. Sheila will have my arse if I serve you this early in the day.” Dee went back to her laptop.

Connor grumbled. “You married?”

I shook my head.

“Don’t do it. They give you no peace, these women folk. If they aren’t getting into your face about your eating, then it’s about your drinking, and if it ain’t that, it’s somethin’ else.” He dropped his voice and bid me to lean in closer, which I did. “And when you get older, they keep talkin’ about your prostate and not in the way you want them to, if you catch my drift.”

Before I could formulate an appropriate response for that, thankfully, Dee came up to us and poured Connor a cup of black coffee from the carafe. “It’s almost as good as a Guinness.”

“You’re a hard woman, Dee Gallagher, you are,” Connor retorted but picked up his cup.

Dee set the carafe and leaned forward. “I never ever want to restart your feckin’ heart again, Connor Kelly, so behave yourself.”

She swayed her hips extra hard when she went back to the other end of the bar, and I turned to Connor, my eyebrows raised.

He sighed. “She does CPR one time…one feckin’ time, and she thinks she’s all feckin’ that.”

I stared at him in shock, and it took a moment before I asked, “Youactuallyhad a heart attack?”

Mrs. Nolan, who’d just walked into the bar, slapped Connor on the back of his head. “He sure did, and Dee saved his life. You ask her for beer again, and I won’t just tell Sheila; I’ll tell your ma.”

Connor went pale. “Now, Eileen, you do no such thing. Ma finds out, and it’ll turn into the feckin’ Night of the Big Wind all over again!”

Mrs. Nolan sighed. “Dee, love, I’m going to be at my usual table. Mr. Nolan is going to join us today.”

“Saoirse, one full Irish for Mrs. Nolan and one without mushrooms for Mr. Nolan. I’ll draw you a pint in a second, Eileen,” Dee called out.

The older woman turned around and regally went to the table I always saw her at.

“She thinks she’s the mayor of the village or some such thing,” Connor grumbled. “Always in everyone’s business.”

“I can hear you, Connor,” Mrs. Nolan scolded him, and Dee said, “I think she can hear you.”

Connor finished his coffee, dropped a couple of euros on the bar, and walked out, still complaining about how no one was serving him what he wanted.

“You having the full Irish?” Dee asked me as she began to polish glasses after finishing whatever it was she’d been doing on her laptop.

“I’m still digesting last night’s pie,” I told her.

She laughed. “Are we fattening you up, Yank?”

“Speaking of which, is there…like a gym or a place I can work out, lift weights?”

Dee nodded. “Aye, there’s a spot. Just past the green, behind the old community center. It’s nothin’ fancy, mind you. There will be no towel service.”

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