PART ONE~Today
“And remember,” Sabrina Darling reminded her “besties” before signing off, “You are on your way to better best!” While patting her sweating face with a towel sporting the “Better Best” logo ($11.99 on Sabrina’s Better Best online store), Sabrina grinned into the camera.
Ignoring her older brother Padrick’s phantom comment, which never failed to put in an appearance: “What the hell does “better best” even mean?”
“It’s called branding, moron,” Sabrina--real name Maeve Mooney but Maeve Mooney was a ridiculous name for a fitness influencer-- muttered to an invisible Padrick. She, Sabrina/Maeve, turned off the camera and stumbled from her makeshift studio into her living room where she collapsed atop the white boucle surface of the sofa her interior designer had assured her was “tres chic.”
It was still uncomfortable.
“Gawd!” Maeve groaned. “Just kill me now.” She knew her breathing remained way too fast, though she no longer wore her fitness smartwatch (available with pink or purple bands, a steal at $49.95), which would have reminded her of how out of shape she’d gotten these past months.
The main reason she’d begun editing her videos to include more closeups of her face and various body parts rather than the entire package. Thank god for skinny apps. Besties were getting so mean, even questioning her credentials, as if her still-perfect guns weren’t credentials enough.
Regardless, she was no longer following the advice Sabrina Darling chirped out to her besties. “Eat healthy shit. Exercise until you have to fall asleep or crash into bed without taking your clothes off because you’re more than exhausted. You’re comatose.”
It had worked, hadn’t it? One million subscribers spread across various platforms, along with accompanying products and merch. By any measure Sabrina Darling, aka Maeve Mooney, was a success.
So why do I feel like Wile E. Coyote with an anvil about to be dropped atop my head?
“Beau,” Maeve breathed, as if the name of her soon-to-be-fiance would motivate her to do more than pant and sprawl on her sofa with all the grace of a pregnant warthog.
Warthog? Where did that come from? Do I even know what a warthog looks like? I think they have tusks. Or is that a rhinoceros?
“Beau Strank looks like Humpty Dumpty,” she imagined Padrick, who lived rent free far too often in her head, commenting. Yeah, because Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, with its many illustrations, was Padrick and Celia’s five-year-old Lily’s favorite book. Which meant it was pretty much the entire Mooney clan’s current frame of reference.
Except Beau did look like Humpty Dumpty--if Beau had been an egg who wore quaint clothing and perched on walls. Well, Beau Strank did kind of wear quaint clothing. Maeve had first glimpsed the scion of one of Colorado Springs’ oldest families in the lobby of the Broadmoor hotel, where he’d been dressed in a purple golf shirt and hideous yellow plaid bermudas and leaning on a 9-iron. So maybe more like a character from Clue, which Padrick and Maeve used to play before her brother had turned into such a butthead.
“I suspect Professor Plum in the lobby with a golf club.”
“Get it together, girlfriend,” she said to the empty room.
Maybe I should buy a cat or a hamster, so I don’t look like a crazy person talking to myself.
“Alexa, what time is it?” Maeve called out to her substitute human.
“Good morning, Sabrina Darling,” replied Alexa from its perch on a nearby coffee table. “The time is 9:55.”
Suppressing the urge to thank the computer, which possessed quite the pleasant female voice, Maeve muttered, “Shower.” She envisioned rising from her couch, staggering into the kitchen for a granola bar and maybe a Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwich. But then she would be reminded that she’d dropped sixty grand on a Tuscan kitchen remodel when everybody was suddenly painting their old cabinets and putting in hideous mirror upper cabinets or tearing them out and replacing them with open shelves while designers pontificated, “No more Tuscan kitchens. No! No! NO!”
Why were interior decorators so fickle?
Another thing Maeve didn’t like to think about: when she’d videoed her sister-in-law Celia making her famous sweet kale salad.
(Note to self at the time: Focus on Nana Grace’s antique china and Celia’s hands rather than outdated surroundings. Pretend I’m the creator, which I pretty much am, masterfully aided by my pitch-perfect voiceover.) She had quickly deleted the subsequent “bestie” comments asking rude questions like, “When did you start wearing a wedding ring?”
“Credit Celia!” Padrick had texted, followed by a middle finger emoji. Padrick Mooney had the crazy-making habit of perusing Maeve’s channels in order to leave nasty comments like “Way to go, Moonface,” which might not sound so horrible, but she’d outgrown that nickname twenty years ago.
Anyway, Maeve would not waste her Beautiful Mind on Padrick or the rest of her family who she dearly loved because they really, really were wonderful people, but the Mooney clan was also, let’s face it, embarrassingly “redneck.” When she’d hurled that particular epithet at her brother, he’d responded, “Since striking coal miners who wore red bandanas round their necks were called rednecks, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Followed by a shrug of broad shoulders. “Just my opinion.”
Unfortunately, thanks to all his reading and podcast-listening, Padrick was full of opinions. He knew way too much about subjects nobody cared about.
Padrick Mooney—named for Padrick Sean Mooney, who’d purchased the family’s Shamrock Ranch about a thousand years ago—had no conception of important things like branding or advertising or Instagram or anything other than climbing utility poles where he risked being incinerated by a billion volts of electricity. Who fancied himself some 21st century homesteader because he and Celia had constructed their own cabin on part of the ranch where they raised an Old McDonald’s assortment of farm animals and grew a massive garden and pickled or canned anything that vaguely resembled a fruit or vegetable. They even slaughtered, prepared and packaged their own meat.
Makes total sense when Safeway is forty minutes away and Cripple Creek is right down the mountain.
Sad, really: Padrick Mooney didn’t even realize he was an anachronism.
Maeve reminded herself she really must get up, even though every muscle in her body screamed, “Don’t ever move again!” But today was going to be very, VERY special. Today she and Beau Strank would attend Cripple Creek’s Donkey Derby days, though that wasn’t the special part. Today she would introduce Beau Strank to her family. While she’d known Beau from working at the Broadmoor’s Golden Bee and he’d helped her purchase her gorgeous though undeniably compact home in the ritzy part of Cheyenne Canyon, they’d only been dating four months.
And as down-home folksy as Donkey Days was, at least it provided a break from Beau Strank’s routine. When it came to dating, her pending fiancé really didn’t have much of an imagination. Being June, he would “suggest” dining on the Golden Bee’s terrace, not because of the atmosphere, but because the food was cheap for the Broadmoor and Maeve had worked there three years as the English-style pub’s piano player, which might not make it her preferred dining destination if you thought about it, which Beau obviously hadn’t because Beau Strank wasn’t much given to deep thinking, though he did have a shark’s instinct for making money and talking in platitudes which had served him well as a real estate investor, state senator, and potentially, next governor of the great state of Colorado. Beau fancied himself the Republican version of Will Rogers—whose Shrine of the Sun was nearly within spitting distance of the Golden Bee—and who’d said he’d never met a man he didn’t like. So, after finishing his fish and chips and yard of ale, Beau would lean across the table, pat her hand and say, “Excuse me, sug, gotta go press some flesh,” and make the rounds, backslapping golfing buddies and introducing himself to total strangers because he was always on the hunt for possible real estate commissions or future votes. Left alone, Maeve would pick at her spinach and pear salad while dreaming of Domino’s Chicken Taco Pizza plus a side order of Cheddar Bacon Loaded Tots.
Yep, Donkey Derby Days would be a definite improvement.
After Maeve stiff-walked her way into her also recently renovated bathroom, which she’d be paying off until the year 3000, she showered, washing herself with Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Foaming Shower Gel. It didn’t smell any better than her niece’s Softsoap Body Wash, but it cost a lot more. Meaning her unsophisticated nose must be missing something. Meaning she needed to pretend she could tell the difference.
“Eyes on the prize,” Maeve reminded herself. Thirtieth birthday in two months. Marriage proposal any day now.
Visualization: I will act so surprised when you propose. “Of course I’ll marry you,” I’ll say. “And I‘ll be the better bestest wife forever.” Which was kinda ironic because as soon as Maeve became Mrs. Beau Strank, she had no intention of ever working again.
Except as Colorado’s First Lady. The governor’s residence, aka Cheesman-Boettcher Mansion, was quite lovely. Maeve had googled it. Built in 1908. Late Georgian Revival style. Massive columns and curliqued-thingies. She particularly loved the semi-circular sunroom looking out onto a lovely park.
Every morning I’ll drink my coffee and read my newspaper there. Okay, well, more a smoothie, and nobody actually subscribed to newspapers anymore. Her smart phone then, where she would read all the local news, no matter how boring. Promise.
And so, Maeve Mooney dried her still incredibly toned body with the plush, organic bath towel she’d retrieved from a nearby towel warmer and readied to embrace her future.
When Maeve was small, her Nana Grace had been fond of saying, “You’re dreaming with the faieries half the time, Maeve Mooney. That’s the Irish in you.” As if the Mooney family had had just gotten off the boat rather than having emigrated during the Great Hunger. Maeve’s grandmother could have been described in a variety of ways, but “sweet little old lady” didn’t number among them. Nana Grace was tall and gaunt with white hair plaited in two severe braids she wrapped around her skull. While she sometimes referenced her fashion modeling days, Nana’s uniform of choice was a shapeless sack that skimmed the tops of her lace-up boots. A don’t-even-think-about-messing-with-me-attitude completed her ensemble. Nursing a nest of grievances she could express subtly, with so much charm you forgot the toxicity of whatever underlying message she peddled, or with a wrath that caused the most fearless to back off, hands up, crying “Sorry!” When contemplating Maeve’s penchant for singing and playing piano, reading anything she could get her hands on and scribbling bad poetry, Nana Grace had alternated between being pleased and irritated. Maeve never dared ask her grandmother to clarify her opinions lest she risk a thump on the head, which was Nana Grace’s favorite way of communicating.
Now that Maeve Mooney was nearing two milestones in her life—her thirtieth birthday and her engagement—she regarded her ten-year-old-self with embarrassment. In the summer you’d likely find young Maeve sprawled upon the grass near the mine shaft Nana Grace referred to as the “holy well” and Maeve insisted on calling the “White Rabbit,” since Lewis Carroll’s books were perennial favorites. Maeve was prone to cloud gazing and reading aloud to the occasional cow grazing in the middle distance while the family dog snored at her feet. That long ago Maeve likened words to gemstones. She’d been enchanted by their rhythm, texture, shape; their very arrangement on a page; the sounds they made when she repeated them using various voices and inflections. Once she’d polished and refined her gemstones to perfection, she’d carefully enter them in the leatherbound journal Padrick gifted her each Christmas.
“It’s all fine and dandy to have your head in the clouds,” Nana Grace would scold. “But you can’t eat clouds. Practical is the proper trait to be cultivating.”
In fairness, Maeve was practical. She had plans. She just had no idea how to implement them.
She blamed her parents.
“Dream your dreams, my baby,” Mama would say. Never adding a “but” such as… “Learn a trade like your brother,” or “Pull up those grades and apply to Harvard.” “You’re okay just as you are” turned out to be an extremely destructive message, leading Maeve to assume success’s stars would miraculously align themselves in her favor without any effort on her part.
Reality had smacked her in the face like a wet fish after Padrick had taken her to Ireland as a high school graduation present. Padrick had just completed his lineman apprenticeship and insisted the trip was a reward for them both. (This was when Padrick had still been her fun, sweet brother.) It was only during their excruciatingly long and uncomfortable flight home that Maeve had begun dissecting her conflicting emotions regarding their experience. Three weeks of breaktaking scenery, tours of everything from Blarney Castle to the Jameson Distillery, pub crawling and late-into-the-night conversations with new friends still left Maeve wondering why she wasn’t disappointed exactly, but discontented maybe? Confused? Uneasy?
When Maeve and Padrick had introduced themselves to some of the Mooney clan who’d settled in County Offaly, they’d been welcomed as long-lost relatives. The Mooneys were warm and generous, laughed easily and often and certainly lived up to the Irish’s fabled reputation as storytellers. “Blessed with the gift of gab,” as Nana Grace would have said.
Eventually though Maeve noticed that beneath the bucketloads of charm, their relatives seemed obsessed with grievances, suffering, tragedies, and death. While they could elevate the wounds of the past to poetry, a decidedly dark cast tainted most conversations. If Maeve complained of a headache, someone mentioned the ancestor whose head had been chopped off at the Battle of the Boyne. If she remarked on a particularly delicious dish, her hostess reminded her that during the Great Famine all of Ireland had been reduced to eating nettles, seaweed, turnips and cabbage leaves.
The Irish, it seemed, nursed their grievances as diligently as they nursed their pints.
The Troubles were a favorite subject, though Maeve never knew whether they referred to the 17th-century Wars of the Three Kingdoms or PBS documentaries like “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland.” The Emerald Isle was ever awash in Troubles. Its heroes were invariably some version of Michael Collins; the women Grace O'Malley, the pirate queen who refused to bow before Elizabeth I. Grand and glorious and doomed. If you could throw in a bit of treason and treachery, all the better.
When William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead; it’s not even past,” he could have been referring to the Irish.
America is about today, Maeve had decided during her and Padrick’s flight home. While her brother buried himself in a tome about the Easter Rebellion and its aftermath, her thoughts revolved around her future. America is where we can invent ourselves however we please; where we always look to the future and where we may build castles in the air, but that’s better than stumbling around in the rubble of the past.
Somewhere over the Atlantic Maeve had put aside childish things. She’d vowed to pursue success as ardently as her Irish relatives pursued their psychic injuries. They might lament they were helplessly buffeted by fate, but they had marinated in their victimhood so long they wouldn’t have chosen another outcome even if it had been offered.
Maeve Mooney would craft her own destiny.
And she pretty much had, or at least she was as far along as any twenty-nine year old could be. Though sometimes Maeve wondered whether maybe she was missing…something. When she felt restless and confused, she bought something or created another Better Best video and hawked some new vitamin or makeup wonder. That usually kept the doubts at bay. Still, Maeve wished she had someone, her own personal “bestie,” with whom she could share her darker moments. She didn’t actually have friends. As a prominent influencer, Maeve had learned too many people just wanted to bask in her reflected glory, produce hurtful and totally untrue vlogs criticizing her, or post Better Best comments she immediately deleted. She could probably dump on Padrick’s wife, who was level-headed and non-judgmental, but inevitably Celia’d blab to Padrick and he’d be on her like a tick on a hound. Mama and Daddy and Granda were always willing to listen, but their advice had nothing to do with real life, at least real life in the 21st century.
“Move back to the ranch,” Mama would say. “Relax. Take long walks. Reconnect.”
“Don’t marry any man with soft hands,” Daddy would say.
“Let me tell you about the time I nearly made a fortune panning for gold over near Fairplay,” Granda would say.
I’m on my own, Maeve thought, as the minutes ticked by until one, when Beau Strank would arrive.
Then they would drive up Ute Pass to Cripple Creek.
And she would inch several steps closer to the destiny she so deserved.