"Speaking of invites," Noreen says ominously, pointing her handful of spiderwebs at him. "Where's mine?"

Cal is engaged to Noreen's sister Lena, but not in the sense that either of them has any inclination to get married—they've both done that before, and feel once was plenty. The summer before last, Lena told Noreen they were engaged, for reasons that made good sense at the time, but what she hadn't taken into account was that once the reasons were gone, the engagement was still there. Neither of them was sure what to do about it. They couldn't call it off without people assuming they'd quarreled, which would not only have complicated their lives but could potentially have made Noreen quit stocking Cal's favorite cheddar. In the end they decided to leave it be, in the faint hope that people would give up on it, but that's not how Ardnakelty rolls. The engagement has taken on a life of its own. People keep introducing themselves as Cal's new relations and asking where the wedding reception is going to be; Angela Maguire, who has a reputation for cakes, wants to know whether they prefer fruit cake or chocolate biscuit cake or a layer of each, taking into account that the young people like chocolate but it doesn't agree with Lena's aunt's digestion. Enough people hassled Lena about her ring that in the end Cal drove to Galway and bought her one, not a diamond but a tiny sapphire, since she likes blue. When he gave it to her she started laughing, and then he did too, but she wears the ring.

"We're still picking out the lettering," he says. "I got my heart set on the fancy curly stuff, but Lena's more of a straight-up-and-down kinda gal. Maybe you could talk to her, try and bring her around to my point of view."

Noreen snorts. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I thought you'd more respect for me than that. Where would I be if I fell for that class of aul' rubbish, and me with four kids? Besides, you tried that one on me last winter."

"Gotta get that lettering right," Cal explains. "Something this important, I wouldn't want to make the wrong choice."

"You won't have any choices left if you don't set a date. Everywhere'll be booked out for years ahead. There's four townlands sharing Father Eamonn, and the poor man's still waiting on his knee replacement; he can't be standing up for two weddings in one day. And if you don't get the Breggan Court for the reception you'll be stuck with the Kilcarrow Arms up in town, and sure they gave half the county food poisoning at Georgia Healy's baba's christening. D'you want to spend your wedding night puking your guts up?"

"We were figuring on having the reception in Seán Óg's,"," Cal says. "All the toasted sandwiches people can eat."

"You," Noreen informs him, shaking a plastic vampire bat at him, "you're lucky I don't believe a word outa your mouth, or I'd be taking a heart attack right here. You can't be having your reception in a dirty aul' pub, like some wee teenager that's after getting his girlfriend up the pole."

"No one ever got food poisoning from a toastie," Cal points out. "Better safe than sorry."

Noreen, throwing the bat into a big plastic box labeled HALLOWEEN, tuts at him. "You didn't useta be this much of a messer. When you got here, you were well-behaved, so you were."

"Lena's a bad influence," Cal says.

"Put them pumpkins in that bin liner over there, they're going soggy already. All I'm saying is, you'd want to get a move on with the bookings. Once it gets to Christmas and New Year, there'll be people getting engaged right and left, and then where will you be?"

Cal is saved from answering this: the bell dings, the door flies open, and Tommy Moynihan strides into the shop like he's walking into a merger meeting. "There's her ladyship," he booms, rubbing his hands together. "How's the form?"

Tommy is some kind of big shot in the meat-processing plant over towards Kilhone, which makes him Mr. Big-Balls in this townland. This doesn't seem like much to get puffed up about, given that the townland would just about make a good-sized yard in backwoods North Carolina, where Cal comes from; Tommy, though, either hasn't noticed this or doesn't care as long as he's surrounded by the respect he deserves. He's got a farmer's solid bulk, a politician's frozen silver hair, a C-list cattle baron's ranch house, a Range Rover the size of a buffalo, and an annual family holiday to Mexico. Cal dislikes Tommy, although he acknowledges that this may be partly because Tommy's kid, Eugene, is a douche and Tommy's wife, Clodagh, looks at Trey like she's scanning for nits.