“Fifty-euro, Dad,” I tried to plead my case on Thursday evening, after school. “It’s for a good cause.”
“Since when is a new pair of shoes a good cause?”
I shrugged. “Would you prefer if I lied and told you that I would put the money in the poor box?”
“Aoife.”
“Please, Dad,” I begged. “I’ll never ask you for anything else ever again.”
“Until you need a skirt to go with the shoes? Like every other time you’ve asked me for money.”
“Okay, fair point,” I conceded, holding a hand up. “But you don’t understand how badly I need these shoes, Dad. They’re perfect for the costume I’m planning on wearing for Halloween.”
“What’s your mother saying about it?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know Mam.”
Dad frowned. “If your mother doesn’t think—“
“Come on, Dad,” I coaxed, and then pulled out my trump card. “Kev gets any computer game he asks for and never has to jump through hoops, either. It’s almost as if you guys don’t want me.”
A laugh erupted from beneath the car I was leaning against. I glared down at the culprit, who was sprawled out on a creeper, with only the lower half of his body available to kick.
“Aoife,” Dad sighed. “Of course we want you.”
“I’m only asking for a pair of shoes, Dad,” I wailed, tone forcefully soft and frail. “Please?”
“Jesus,” Dad muttered, wiping his hands on an oil rag. “Fine. I’ll get my wallet. It’s in the office.”
“You are the best. I swear that you will live with me forever and will never see the inside of a nursing home,” I crooned, throwing my arms around him with glee. “But yes, get your wallet,” I added, steering him in the direction of his office. “Because they’re the last pair on the shelves and I will die if Danielle Long beats me to the counter with them.”
Waiting until my father had disappeared inside his office, I turned my attention back to Joey.
With one leg on either side of his body, I reached down, fisted the front of his overalls and yanked hard, causing him to roll out from under the car, spanner in hand.
“Do you mind?” he drawled, looking up at me from his perch, with his baseball cap slung on backwards, and oil smeared on his cheek. “I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“Do you mind?” I shot back, hands on my hips, as I stood over him and glared. “You could have blown that for me with your snickering.”
“You’re a manipulative little witch, aren’t ya?” He laughed again. “Playing your old man like that?”
“Only when I have to,” I huffed, unwilling to feel bad about it. “You didn’t see the shoes.”
“Shoes,” he snorted, shaking his head. “And you wonder why we’re not compatible.”
“Oh, get you, mister I have no problem throwing my money away on weed,” I tossed back. “I guarantee if you saw me wearing those shoes, you’d understand.”
“If they look as good on you as that yellow thong you’re wearing, then I’m going to have to agree,” he replied, gesturing to the perfect view up my skirt that I had unintentionally given him.
“Close your eyes.”
“Close your legs.”
“No.” Heat flamed inside of me. “I’m not embarrassed.”
“Neither am I.”
“You’re looking up my skirt.”
“You’re flashing your pussy in my face.”
“Oh my god,” I choked out. “You did not just say that.”
Chuckling softly, he moved to roll back under the car.
“Wait.“ Stopping him from disappearing under the car by pressing my foot to his stomach, I wheeled him back out, unwilling to let him win this particular round of banter. “So, you like the color yellow?”
“It recently became my favorite.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s so, Molloy.”
“My favorite color is yellow, too.”
“It’s a good color on you.”
“I look even better when I take it off.” Feeling mischievous, I purred, “You’re so sure of us being incompatible, but I wonder if that might change if I sat on your lap? Hm? Do you think we’d find common ground there, Joe?”
“Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll find out.”
“Wh-what?” Thrown off kilter by his flirtatious attack, I frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?”
“You’re flirting with me.”
“You’re flirting with me.”
“So?” I huffed. “I always flirt with you.”
He grinned. “Well, maybe I’ve decided to change tactics.”
“By flirting?”
“Well.” He shrugged. “Being an asshole doesn’t seem to be working in my favor, does it?”
“But you’re so good at being an asshole.”
“Come closer and I’ll show you how good I can be in other ways.”
“Okay, now you’re freaking me out,” I choked out, springing away from him. “Stop this right now and give me back my asshole.”
Laughing, Joey wheeled himself back under the car. “You lost that round, Molloy.”
“I didn’t lose,” I huffed. “You changed the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he called out from under the car. “Go and buy your shoes, princess.”
MY COSTUME IS BETTER THAN HIS
OCTOBER 31ST 2001
JOEY
“One more street, Joe,” Ollie begged, hands clasped together, as he stared up at me with those big brown eyes that usually made me cave in and give him whatever he wanted.
Not tonight.
There was an underage disco happening at the GAA pavilion tonight to celebrate Halloween, and as soon I got these two fuckers home to bed, I had every intention of attending – and getting shitfaced.
It was the only thing that was keeping me going; knowing that there was a naggin of vodka, and a joint with my name on them, waiting for me across town.
“You’ve a carrier bag full of sweets, lad.” Leaning against someone randomer’s garden wall, I played another mindless round of snake on my phone, ignoring the hordes of trick or treaters running up and down the street. “You have plenty.”
“Tadhg gots more than me,” Ollie whined. “He gots a whole bag more than me – see, Joe!” He pointed at our brother, who was carting around an overflowing plastic bag of sweets in one arm, and an equally overflowing pillowcase thrown over his shoulder. “It’s not fair.”
“Give it a rest, ya big moaner,” Tadhg shot back with a snicker. “Maybe if you stopped trying to have a conversation with every old biddy that answers the door to ya, then you’d have gotten more houses done.”
“I was being nice,” Ollie shot back, tone hurt. “I was using my manners.”
“And I was using my brain,” Tadhg countered. “So quit complaining.”
“But he gots more than me,” Ollie complained again. “Look, Joe, look…”
“That just means that Tadhg’s going to be a whole lot fatter than you,” I replied, distracted, and then muttering a string of curses under my breath when I got killed in my game.
“Yeah, well, my costume is better than his,” Ollie grumbled, gesturing to the makeshift cape and mask that Shannon had made for him. “I’m Robin.”
“Don’t get carried away with yourself, Ols,” Tadhg shot back. “You’ve a black bin bag wrapped around your shoulders. You look more like a bag of shit someone dragged out of a wheely bin than Robin.”
“Tadhg,” I warned. “Pack it in. He’s only small.”
“Yeah, well, I look better than you,” Ollie huffed, folding his skinny arms across his equally skinny chest. “You’re a crappy Batman.”
“Maybe, I am,” Tadhg agreed. “But I still got more sweets than you.”
“Right,” I said, shoving my phone into my pocket. “Come on, lads, we’ve been out for almost two hours. Time to get ye home. I’ve things to do.”
“What things?” Tadhg demanded, eyeing me warily, as I herded them across the road, grabbing ahold of Ollie’s hand when he almost ran out in front of a car.
Smirking, I gave him a wink. “A Gard wouldn’t ask that question.”
“Uh-oh,” Ollie grumbled, plodding along beside me. “That sounds like trouble.”
You have no idea, kid.
“I already know where you’re going anyway,” Tadhg huffed. “That disco in the Pav.”
“Then why’d ya ask?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Is it fancy dress?” Ollie’s face lit up. “Do you gots a costume?”
“It’s got, not gots,” Tadhg sighed. “Learn how to speak, will you?”
“Tadhg,” I said in a warning tone before answering Ollie. “I don’t know, kid. I suppose some of the girls will dress up.”
“In scary costumes?”
More like as slutty angels and devils. “Some of them,” I offered instead, distracted at the possibility.
Without my brain’s permission, my imagination conjured up a fantastic fucking visual of Molloy; with her long legs on full display in red, fishnet stockings, and her tits pressed together in a skimpy white nurse’s dress with one of those little nurse’s hats perched on top of her long, blonde hair.