Chapter 3

Friday night, Eira beat me back to the hotel. She was in a better mood than she had been the last couple of days, and she wanted to go clubbing. I tried to convince her that this was wrong on so many levels, but she overruled my objections. She informed me that she wanted to have a truly Boston experience and was not going to accept my objections. Either she or one of her clothing and makeup assistants had gone the extra mile to purchase clothing from a used clothing store that would let Eira fit into the post-college night scene of Boston.

She went down to her hotel room to get ready. I didn’t see how she would be able to pull this off and waited patiently for her to finish. Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at my door. At first, I thought some woman had knocked on the wrong door when I answered.

There stood a tall, thin woman dressed in a Boston College hoodie and fashionably ripped, holey jeans. On her head, hiding her red hair, was a Boston Red Sox cap. On her feet, she wore a pair of well-maintained New Balance athletic shoes, definitely comfortable and fashionable at the same time. Her makeup was a bit overdone, but it transformed her look from a fashionable model to a sharp, blue-collar babe.

I was in awe of her transformation. Supper that night would be on the street, my choice. Eira wanted me to think of her as my girl, and we would eat and go where I wanted.

The only problem was that all my clothes at the hotel were business suits or business casual. They wouldn’t fit in with her look. We would look like a Nantucket trust-fund college boy slumming with a blue-collar chick picked up in a bar, definitely not the type Eira was looking for.

Eira let me know she would go with me back to my apartment so I could change for our night out on the town. She was another person that night, starting with the thirty-minute bus ride from the hotel to my place. Eira may have toned down her look with her transformation, but she was still getting stares from some sketchy-looking people on the way. We were both having second thoughts until I got the idea of calling some of my coworkers to join us. I didn’t say who I was bringing, only that I had a date and wanted to be part of a group for safety when I called them at home. That night, for Eira’s Boston night out, I managed to scrounge up a group of eight, a sufficient number to travel safely.

It was agreed that we would meet at an Irish pub a couple of blocks from my apartment. I quickly went to change into what I thought would be the perfect outfit to accessorize and complement Eira’s look. After being sent back to my bedroom to make the changes she insisted I make, we left my apartment to meet my friends and coworkers.

The six-block walk to the Irish pub, O’Shaughnessy’s, went without incident. Where I lived may have been a blue-collar neighborhood, but there was an understanding that there would be no attacks or criminal activity there. The Irish street gangs still ruled and didn’t tolerate any intrusions by other criminal elements on their home turf.

When we walked in, most of the crew was already there. Eira’s disguise lasted about fifteen seconds before one of the women at our table recognized her and let the cat out of the bag. All sorts of chaos broke loose. The women treated Eira like a rock star, and the guys at our table looked at me as if I were some sort of god.

Mike O’Shaughnessy had to come over to see what the disturbance was about. After all, this was a neighborhood Irish family bar, and he wanted to make sure it stayed that way. Being one of the leaders of the local Irish gang ensured that no one got out of line. Soon, the whole bar knew that there was an Irish celebrity—a lass from the Emerald Isle, a world-famous Irish fashion model—right there in their neighborhood bar.