In Boston St Valentine's Day Is an Irish Holiday
Chapter 6
I was visiting County Donegal, stopping at woolen mills, retail shops, and farms, introducing myself to managers to see if there was any interest in doing business with O’Shaughnessy Limited of Boston. Most of the people I spoke with were genuinely interested in exploring opportunities with us. The only ones who were opposed already had established relationships with other American retailers and specialty vendors.
O’Shaughnessy Limited of Boston had already made a name for itself through its whiskey distribution contracts with distillers across Ireland. Owners and managers were eager to learn more about our distribution plans and contract terms. I promised them a prompt response from our company and assured them that we would welcome their woolen goods into our ever-expanding product line.
I stopped in a small village along the Donegal coast to browse one of its woolen goods shops, looking for an example of the quality of locally produced items. The shop had a sweater in my size, and its quality made it a bargain at the asking price. When I returned to the States, I planned to have our buyers contact the factory that manufactured it to see if we could come to terms.
After I made my purchase, I started toward the door. As I stepped outside, a local woman was coming in. As we passed each other, a strong, familiar sensation washed over me. We made eye contact, and an unspoken sense of connection flared between us. I felt a sudden excitement simply being near her, and I sensed that she experienced it as well.
After we passed, I turned to look back. She was doing the same.
That was when I panicked, and everything came to a sudden halt. I had meant to go back inside and speak with the shop owner about the possibility of working with us. Instead, I bolted. I had to get away fast before an anxiety attack set in.
The woman could have passed as a double for Eira. They shared the same red hair, emerald green eyes, and fair complexion, right down to the freckles scattered across her nose. I turned away and hurried down the street toward my rental car. I had fallen once for Eira, and seeing her double spooked me to the point that I nearly lost control. I was convinced I was hallucinating.
That afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman I had seen at the woolen shop. She looked so much like Eira that I became distracted by my thoughts and almost caused a head-on collision with a tractor and wagon. The narrow country roads so common in this part of Ireland made the situation even more dangerous.
It shook me so much that I pulled into the next village, found an inn, and took a room for the night. I wasn’t safe on the road, and I knew it.
After an early dinner, I went up to my room and called it an early night. I slept fitfully, plagued by recurring dreams of what could have been.
The next morning, I realized I had never introduced myself to the shop owner. I needed to go back and do that. Those crazy Americans, he would think when I returned that morning after rushing off like I had the night before.
It was stupid of me to react that way. The woman I saw was a local. She wasn’t Eira, and I felt embarrassed by how I reacted.
Still, it hurt to be cast off without a reason.
It hurt to see her and Detoit featured in print articles, jet setting through the Far East and South Africa. There were photos of them on the beach, in Monaco entering a casino, and at a Formula One race, watching from his yacht anchored in the harbor with European royalty gathered around them.
The most disturbing thing was that not once did Eira call or even text me to let me know we were done. It reminded me of a time in college when my girlfriend became engaged while we were dating exclusively, or at least I thought we were. I had been crushed then, just as I was now by Eira’s betrayal.
Before the trip to Japan, Eira had said she was finished with modeling and wanted to settle down. I was the one she claimed, at the time, she had chosen to do that with. What had changed? What was it about life with Detoit that appealed to her, beyond the jet-setting and the wealth he possessed? Was Eira really that shallow? I could not answer that, I thought I knew her, but evidently I didn’t know her as well as I thought I had.
After I ate breakfast at the inn and checked out, I headed back to the store I had bolted from the previous afternoon. It was a twenty-minute drive to the village where the yarn shop was located. There was a parking space in front of the shop, and I parked my rental car there. I got out of the car and made my way to the shop’s door. I noticed the shop opened at ten a.m.; looking at my watch, I saw that I had ten minutes to wait. Not wanting to look like an idiot, I decided to walk around the village shops to see what else was in town.
While walking around that village in County Donegal, Ireland, I found myself wondering, “What is it about me that makes women want to end the relationship before we took it to the next level? Was I really that much of a loser that no one wanted to be with me once they got to know me, or was it something else?”
I walked along the street with my head down, not really paying attention to my surroundings. There were many things I passed that would have been interesting to stop and investigate, but I kept walking, lost in thought and preoccupied with my role in the failure of my relationship with Eira.
The village’s business district wasn’t so large that it took an overly long time to cover. There was a grocer, a butcher, a bakery, an auto mechanic, and a hardware store. Farther down the street, which also served as the road in and out of town, there was a gas station and a pub. The rest of the village’s buildings were homes and the school. Outside of town stood the local Catholic church, which looked so old that St. Patrick himself might have worshipped there.
I walked into the shop promptly at three minutes past the hour and introduced myself to the owner, Mr. Micheal Sweeney, was the man I had spoken to the afternoon before. He was friendly enough, smiling and offering me a cup of tea. When I accepted, he hollered to someone in the back to put the kettle on.
While we waited for our tea, I explained to Mr. Sweeney why I was there. In my opinion, the woolen goods in his shop were of exceptional quality, and I wanted his help in approaching the factory management about doing business with O’Shaughnessy Limited of Boston. I didn’t need much convincing, as he was one of the factory’s owners. The factory and its wool suppliers were local to the village, with the wool coming from sheep raised on surrounding farms. The shop owner promised to call the other owners and schedule a meeting for that afternoon.
It was then that a young woman brought out the tea. She was the redhead I had reacted to the previous afternoon. I tried to hide my discomfort, but I did not do a very good job of it. The shop owner noticed my reaction and asked, “Why does my assistant make you uncomfortable?” I was embarrassed by my reaction and reluctant to say anything, but with a business relationship at stake, I had to tell the truth.
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