My Husband's Sweethearts by Bridget Asher

Author:Bridget Asher [Bridgit Asher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781864715590
Publisher: Random House Australia

Chapter Nineteen

Where Should a Tour Begin? In the Heart

John is driving. He has the window down. The car is gusty with warm air. I told him to head into downtown Philly, so we're zipping along Route 30. Almost everything I have to say about Artie can be found downtown—his childhood on the Southside, the hotel where he first worked as a bellhop, U Penn, where he likes to say he went to school (he confessed to me early on that he really only took a few night classes there—one in art history, another in public speaking), and the places where we met and had our first date. I'm enjoying the ride, sitting back with my head on the headrest.

"I should start talking, shouldn't I?" I say. "I mean, I'm a tour guide. I should be saying, On your left, you'll see . . . and on your right, keep an eye out for . . . Well, there are a lot of things I don't know about Artie—that's what I realize now." I think about the leggy brunette's smirk, the blonde's nervous nodding.

"Stick to what you know, then."

"Okay. We met at a wake, actually, in an Irish bar called, cleverly enough, The Irish Pub."

"Really?" John says. "That's a little morbid."

"A man named O'Connor had died. Artie had known him from when he was a kid, and I knew his daughter from work. The wake was beautiful. People were laughing and crying and drinking and giving grand speeches. Artie told a story, a great story about the man losing his daughter's bunny somehow and how he and Artie spent one drunken afternoon and evening trying to catch it. Artie was so full of zing. Turn here.

"I was the one who approached him. I was loaded. I gave him my card. I told him that I wanted to book him for my wake. I said, 'You give a great eulogy.' He said he was expensive, but he'd be willing to give me a deal. Turn here. It should be right around the corner."

John pulls up across the street from the bar. It's typical, humble. It doesn't have a plaque out front that reads Lucy and Artie First Met Here.

"Do you want to go in?" John asks.

"It's an Irish bar. No. You get the picture."

"I've always thought that eulogies come too late," John says. "People should get eulogies while they're still alive. It should be mandatory."

I think about this a minute. "No casket. No lilies . . ."

"No embalming fluid," he adds.

"No funeral director with an assembly-line delivery."

"That can all come after. But everyone should hear the eulogies. Just the good stuff."

"You're right, I guess."

"Did they catch it?" John asks.

"Catch what?"

"The bunny."

"Oh, the bunny. Yes, they caught the bunny, and they were both so relieved and drunk that they cried. Both of them together, two grown men and this little white bunny, they just cried."

"I like that story." John pulls up to a red light. He looks in both directions. "Where to?"

Where to?

My first date with Artie: the heart.

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