Page 142 of Reel Love

Cam peeks out the stairway door, gives me the all clear and we part ways. I ditch the reporters, and head to my home, where, thankfully no paparazzi are hanging out. Not yet, they aren’t. I won’t be surprised if they do end up coming here sometime in the near future. I smile. Not because I want reporters swarming my home, but because Alana’s worth it. She’s so worth it. I only hope she decides to give us a chance.

I change out of my tour clothes and hop onto my bicycle. On a bike, I can maneuver the back roads between my house and the North Shore more easily instead of taking the streets closer to thebeach. I make my way to my childhood home, hoping my mother hasn’t heard the news about me and Alana before I have the chance to tell her.

I walk in the open front door. “Mom? Are you home?”

My mom walks around the corner through the living room toward the entryway of our home.

“Ren! What a sweet surprise. Come in. I’m having an exciting day purging my Tupperware.”

I follow my mom through the house to the kitchen where nearly every surface is covered in plastic storage containers of all sizes and shapes.

“Where were you hiding all this?”

“You’d be surprised. They stack. And apparently multiply like rabbits in those cupboards. I’m giving most of these away. Your dad and I don’t need to keep all this. It’s just the two of us now.”

“Mom?”

She looks up from sorting piles of containers. “What is it, Ren? Are you okay?”

“I am. I … uh … I have a girlfriend.”

She claps her hands together and squeals. “Well, isn’t that the shizzle!”

I chuckle.

“Ren. A girlfriend. This is wonderful. Who is she? Where did you meet? How long have you been dating? Here. Here. Come sit.”

She clears a space in front of a chair at the kitchen table. It’s a round table where I ate breakfasts and many lunches growing up. Chairs are tucked in on one side of the table and a bench against the bay window sits on the other side. The view looks out over rooftops toward the beaches on the North Shore, including the beach where I played with Alana on so many Saturdays.

“Do you want iced tea? Lemonade? Arnold Palmer? Tell me everything.”

Mom’s giddy and she doesn’t even know the biggest piece of my news.

“Tea’s fine. I can get it. You keep cleaning.”

“Oh, I couldn’t clean right now. Not when you come bearing news like this. Can you bring her to family supper? Or is it too soon? I promise to behave.”

“I want to bring her to supper. We met online.”

“Ooooh. Really. Have you met in person? Where in the world is she? I’m very open minded, you know. Lots of people say you still shouldn’t talk to strangers on the net. I agree if you’re under eighteen. But you’re thirty. I say cast that net far and wide. So, where is she?”

At this rate, I’ll never get to say.

“She and I played a word game for about six months or so. Then we discovered we’re both here on Marbella.”

“Well, would you look at that? What are the odds? Of course you could probably figure those odds out to the decimal. But I know they’re slim. She’s here? On the island?”

“Yes. She lives here part time. She actually was someone I knew years ago.” I pause and look at my mom, willing her to maintain her sanity. “Saturday girl.”

“Oh! Gwendolyn. I loved that girl. It was so sad when she left. I think she was taking a crack at show business. She always had some sort of lesson going on—singing, dancing, acrobatics, what have you. That girl was like a trick pony.”

“Do you remember the day you took me to paint in the cove?” Maybe if I ease her into this she won’t have an actual heart attack.

“Of course, but let’s talk about that later. I want to hear all about this girlfriend first. Is she Gwendolyn?”

“She is, actually.”

“Well, my word. That’s the bomb dot com. Who would imagine. All these years later.”

---