I hope she does.
3.
KATE
‘What do you like best, babies or horses?’
Shannon’s little hand holds onto mine tightly as she skips along beside me, asking the usual ream of steady, never-ending, random questions that only a 6-year-old can conjure up. It follows a debate as to why we were born in the first place, do leprechauns really exist, and can lava melt a river? I wonder sometimes how my sister keeps up with this all on a daily basis, but at the same time I find it highly entertaining and very insightful to get a glimpse into her young, innocent mind.
‘I think I like horses better sometimes but then I saw my friend’s baby sister the other day and she looked really cute, but she cries all the time,’ she continues. ‘What do you think, Kate? Babies or horses? You can only pick one.’
The ice cream from just minutes ago has already been devoured, and after a quick swipe with some wet wipes around her mouth, her fingers and hands, and of coursealong the front of her T-shirt, any evidence of the hideous blue bubble-gum-flavoured dripping mess is gone.
She holds the red circular plastic weight attached to her precious Minnie Mouse balloon as tightly as a vice in her left hand, and its lengthy ribbon threatens to catch on the arm or shopping bag of every passer-by, meaning my concentration on her very important question is diluted, but I do my best to answer.
Babies or horses? Babies or horses?
‘Babies, for sure,’ I tell her eventually. ‘I mean, horses are lovely, but there’s nothing like a newborn baby, even if they do cry a lot. Babies are the nicest thing ever. That’s what I think anyhow.’
She seems pleased with my answer, but it triggers another question from her over-active mind of course.
‘Was I a very cute baby?’ she asks, her lilac sparkly trainers scuffing the pavement as she skips along beside me. I can’t believe how her head skims past my waist already, her limbs stretching and her face changing slightly every time I see her with every single weekend that passes by. ‘My mummy says I was the cutest baby in the whole country, but what do you think, Kate? Was I really?’
‘You weren’t just the cutest baby in thecountry. You were the cutestandthe best-behaved baby in the wholeworld, Shannon Mary Foley,’ I tell her, apologizing again to a stranger as the balloon catches their arm on their way past, ‘and don’t you ever forget it.’
‘Good. So, do you like hard chairs or soft chairs best?’ she asks next, and my eyes widen as my face breaks into the brightest smile.
‘Tell me which you like best first,’ I reply. We have one more shop to visit for some party poppers and party-bag treats and then we’re done, but I don’t want our day together to end just yet.
‘I think I like soft chairs best.’
‘Me too,’ I say to her, steering her out of the way of a passer-by, but stopping abruptly as the string of her balloon catches in the handle of a pushchair.
‘Which do you like best?’ she asks next. ‘Real babies or doll babies?’
‘Real babies,’ I answer this time straight away as I detangle the ribbon with the help of the very patient young mummy beside me. ‘Definitely real babies.’
‘Me too,’ says Shannon. ‘It’s my birthday today.’
‘Happy Birthday,’ says the lady with the pram. ‘I hope you have the best day ever.’
DAVID
The sandwich in my hand is disappearing as if I’m inhaling it and I don’t care that it’s limp and soggy at all. In fact, I didn’t realize how starving I was until I left the shop and hit the fresh air, but my hunger is averted momentarily bythe sight of the glistening, brand-new, azure-coloured Ludwig drum-kit in the window before us.
‘If I don’t go back to university after the summer holidays, my parents will just have to suck it up. I hate it, they know I do,’ I say to Aaron as I stare in the window, our reflection catching my eye beyond the powerhouse drum machine. Aaron, so tall and lanky, with shoulder-length auburn hair and a pale, pointed nose, sometimes reminds me of a bird, I realize. He is handsome though. He is a handsome bird, like a golden pheasant, not common like your everyday blackbird or crow. Aaron is exotic-looking. Yes, that’s the word. Exotic.
I’m bulky and muscular in comparison to his slender physique. I reach up to his shoulders, just about, andI’mskimming six one, making Aaron possibly the tallest person I know right now. My unruly dark hair is sticking up in a way I hadn’t noticed before I left the house this morning, but I’ll fix it later when I get back to work. No point worrying about such trivial things when the clock is already clicking on my thirty-minute break of my six-hour shift.
‘You know what I think, David?’ he asks me, and I reply even though I already know what he thinks.
‘What do you think? Tell me, oh wise one.’
‘I think that life is short, so if you’ve got the change in your pocket, buy the lotto ticket every time,’ he says, just as I predicted that he would. It’s Aaron’s answer to almostevery dilemma in life. ‘Yes, that’s my motto and I’m sticking to it. Take a chance and buy the lotto ticket, every time.’
‘I mean I’m twenty-one years old for crying out loud,’ I continue on my own wave of ranting while chewing the last mouthful of my soggy salad sandwich. ‘I’ve loads of time to decide what I want to do with myself, haven’t I? Why should I be pigeonholed into completing a course that makes my head spin? Why?’
Aaron, who has absolutely no interest in musical instruments and who is more interested in what boldness we can get up to tonight when we get to the pub, looks around him while crunching into an apple. There’s no one in this whole universe eats as loudly as Aaron Dempsey and I hit him a playful nudge in the arm when he doesn’t answer me.
