Love & Luck(53)
Rowan pulled up alongside a line of trees. I crouched down near the hood, coming face-to-face with a small, steady trickle of liquid. I stuck my hand under, and a drop of green goo landed in my palm. “Great,” I muttered, wiping my hand on my shorts. The guys squatted down on either side of me.
Ian clenched his fists nervously. “What is it? What’s that green stuff?”
“It’s antifreeze. Max probably overfilled the radiator, which causes too much pressure, and then you end up with leaks and your engine can’t cool itself.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Rowan punched his fist into his hand. “And then I’m going to get my money back and kill him again.”
“So now what? We tie up the radiator with a hanger? Plug it with bubble gum?” Ian asked, tugging anxiously at the ends of his hair. “Because missing the interview is not an option. Miriam is a huge deal in the music world. The fact that she agreed to see me was a complete—”
“Ian, I get it,” I interrupted, trying to think up a quick solution. I’d once seen a car show host crack an egg into a steaming radiator, allowing the heat to cook the egg and plug up the hole. But we didn’t have any eggs, and it would probably gum up the engine anyway. “How far are we from Cobh?”
Rowan shielded his eyes to look up the road. “Maybe twenty kilometers?”
I jumped to my feet. It was never a good idea to drive on an overheating engine, but if we sat around waiting for a tow truck, we would definitely miss Ian’s appointment. Was it worth the risk?
I looked down at Ian’s still-clenched fists. It was either Clover or Ian. One of them was going to blow. I mentally flipped through the Auto Repair for Dummies book I kept on my nightstand. It was the only book that simultaneously stuck to my brain and made me feel calm. Something was clearly wrong with me.
“Ian, go turn on the heat. We’re going to idle for a few minutes. Rowan, I need you to pop the hood and find me some water. I’ll refill the radiator and we’ll watch the gauge the whole time. And, Ian, find us a mechanic shop in Cobh. We need to drive directly there.”
His smile filled up the entire road. “Done.”
Cobh
Cobh, pronounced COVE. Or as I like to call it, the town of LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE. NO, REALLY, LISTEN TO HIM.
Yes, there is a story, honey bun. But first, context.
Cobh is a good-bye kind of place. See that dock down by the water? It was the stepping-off point for 2.5 million Irish emigrants. It was also the site of one rather famous good-bye: the Titanic. You’ve heard of it? The Unsinkable Ship made its final stop in Cobh, adding and subtracting a few passengers before slipping off into the icy Atlantic and infamy. I’m going to tell you about one of the lucky passengers.
Francis Browne was a young Jesuit seminarian with an uncle who had a flair for gift giving. His uncle Robert (bishop of the spiky cathedral you see in the center of town) sent him a ticket for a two-day birthday cruise aboard the Titanic. The plan was to start in Southampton and end in Cobh, where he’d disembark, enjoy a slice of chocolate cake, and spend some quality time with good old Uncle Rob.
It was a great plan. And a thrilling ride. Along with snapping more than a thousand photographs, Francis did a good deal of schmoozing. One wealthy American family was so taken with him that they offered to pay his full voyage to America in exchange for his company at dinner. Hurray! Ever the dutiful nephew, Francis sent a message to his uncle asking for permission to stay aboard and received this rather terse reply: GET OFF THAT SHIP.
Francis and his iconic photographs got off that ship. Arguably, it was the most important decision he ever made.
All this in preparation for the rather terse and important message I have for you, my jaunty little sailor: GET OFF THAT SHIP.
What ship? You know what ship, love. It’s the one you built back before the water got cold and the sailing treacherous. The one you stocked full of optimism and excitement and look what’s up ahead—this is so thrilling! When hearts get involved, heads like to join in too, creating hypothetical futures full of sparkling water and favorable tides. And when those futures don’t work out? Well, those ships don’t just drift away on their own. We have to make a conscious effort to pull up anchor and let them go.
So get off the ship, dove, and send it out sea. Otherwise, you run the risk of allowing the thing that once carried you to become the thing that weighs you down. Solid land isn’t so bad. Promise.
HEARTACHE HOMEWORK: Find some reasonably sturdy paper and draw your ship, pet. The plans, the dreams, all of it. I don’t care how bad you are at drawing. Just get it all down. Now we’re going to have ourselves a little send-off party. Use the PAPER BOAT FOLDING 101 instructions at the end of the book to create a tiny vessel. Fold that future of yours into a boat, and then put it in the water. Let the water do the rest.
—Excerpt from Ireland for the Heartbroken: An Unconventional Guide to the Emerald Isle, third edition
WE PULLED INTO COBH A hot, sweaty mess. To draw heat from the engine, we’d had to keep the car’s heater on full blast, and by the time we made it to the auto shop, we were all dripping in sweat. And I only got hotter when the mechanic—a vaguely tuna-fish-smelling man named Connor—took one look at me and predecided that I couldn’t have any idea what I was talking about. “I’ll just have a look myself,” he said.