In Dublin's Fair City by Rhys Bowen Read Free Book Online Page A

them in a hurry, is there? Did you never think of taking lemon juice to them when you were a girl?”
    “I never even noticed them until I came to New York,” I said, laughing. “Now I’m afraid I’m stuck with them.”
    “You’ll just have to use a lot of cold cream and powder,” she said. “You’re supposed to be ailing, remember. Here, let me do it for you.”
    Before I could protest she was rubbing cold cream into my face, patting cheeks, drawing arches onto my eyebrows and reddening my lips with a brush and palette, just like an artist. When she was done, a stranger looked back at me from the mirror.
    “All ashore who is going ashore,” was the cry from the hallway, along with raps on every cabin door.
    “I’ll leave you now,” she said. “We won’t meet again on the trip. First- and second-class passengers are not permitted to trespass upon each other's domains.”
    “So shall I wait for you here when we dock in Queenstown?” I asked. “Are you going ashore there or sailing on to Liverpool?”
    “Oh, Queenstown,” she said. “Definitely Queenstown.”
    Then she was gone. I stood there, still feeling a little stupified, looking around my new domain. Of all the strange things that had happened to me in my life, this was certainly one of the strangest. Am I never to cross the Atlantic as myself? I wondered. Then I looked in the mirror and started to smile. The smile turned into a laugh. A week in luxury, waited on by a maid and stewards—that wasn’t too bad anyway you looked at it.

Seven
    D own below there were shouts and cheers, the sounds of gangways clanking as they were withdrawn. A band was playing “Rule Britannia,” White Star being an English line. We were
    u nderway. I opened my porthole and watched the New York skyline slide past me, until all I could see was ocean. The great ship reacted as it met the first of the big waves and my stomach reacted equally—not with queasiness, since I had proved myself an excellent sailor on the previous crossing, but with a surge of excitement. I was about to start a great adventure, now made even more thrilling by my new role as Oona Sheehan. I was off alone to Ireland, leaving behind the complications of my life. I planned to enjoy every minute of it, especially my newfound first-class splendor.
    I was just settling down when there came a tapping at my door.
    “Come in,” I called, trying to sound like a famous actress with a bad case of sore throat.
    Instead of the steward a young girl came in, smiled shyly, and bobbed a curtsey.
    “I’m Rose, miss. Miss Sheehan said I’m to look after you well and give you whatever you need.”
    She was yet another Irish redhead, but round faced and sturdy.
    “I’m pleased to meet you, Rose. I’m—”
    She held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me your real name or ask me to call you by it, or I might slip up. The mistress said I’ve got to think ofyou as Oona Sheehan and that's what I’m trying to do. And it's not at all hard, with you looking like that. You’d be taken for her younger sister any day.”
    “Thank you, Rose,” I said, “but it's only because of her clothes, her wig, and her makeup, I’m afraid.”
    “Oh no, miss. I think you look lovely. Are you in the theater yourself?”
    “No, I’m not, I’m afraid.”
    “You should be glad, miss,” she said. “Terrible hard life in the theater. You should see what the mistress has to go through, with all those men following her around, calling her up on her telephone at all hours of the day and night, threatening to kill themselves if she won’t dine with them. My, but they’re a silly lot. Too many men with too much money and too much time on their hands, if you ask me.”
    I nodded agreement.
    “Is there something you’d like, miss?” she asked. “I think they’ve sounded the gong for the lunch sitting. Shall I have some lunch brought to you?”
    “Lunch would be a grand idea,” I said. “You can stay and have some with me,