Ren opted to sleep in for the last hour before he had to pack and check out.
“We are telling everyone in Toronto that they need to get their picture taken by you,” Selassie announced as she and Rita stopped by Sarah’s breakfast table. “Once that photo goes on my wall, you are getting calls from all my book club friends.”
“I hope so,” Sarah said.
“You should join our book club,” Rita agreed. “We have a very strict policy where every month we go back and forth between something literary and intelligent and something fun and trashy.”
“That sounds amazing, actually. Send me an invitation.” Sarah felt touched that they actually considered her a friend. She needed more of those.
The Dangols came by after Rita and Selassie left and gave her a quick thank you.
“We will see you at another one of these workshops,” Tanjul said.
“Yes. We are coming back. Once Tanjul recovers from the lack of sleep. He is getting old. I am still young, but he can’t handle this very often.”
Tanjul smiled as if this was a well-worn joke between them.
She saw Kyle stepping out of his room with his gear as she was returning to her room to pack. “Flying out soon,” he said. “At this point, my bedtime is 11 a.m., so it’s easier for me to just stay awake until I get home.”
“Please take a nap if you need one. I don’t want you landing in the middle of the Atlantic.”
“My mind is zeroed in on the now,” he said decisively. “It helps that I’ve gone entirely off caffeine. I don’t have that crutch anymore and it sharpens my thinking.”
“Maybe I’ll try that sometime,” she said, thinking that it sounded dreadful.
“Maybe,” he said with a smile, “is my least favorite word.” He gave her a pointed look. “And maybe you, me, and Ren should get dinner sometime,” he added, “since apparently neither of you bothered to tell me that he’s in love with you.”
She looked down, embarrassed. “I didn’t know he was.”
Kyle nodded. “He’s so lucky with women,” he said. “I hate that son of a bitch sometimes. But he’s probably my best friend, so…” Kyle shrugged, smiled quickly and then turned and left. She watched him go, wondering what it would be like to be that successful and still need to turn everything into a competition…whether maybe that was what made him so successful.
She returned to the hotel room to pack up next to Ren, who was up but looking groggy; they would be on the same flight together to Toronto.
“Jandro is meeting me in Toronto,” he told her. “He and Paola are flying up today and will meet me at the airport. So I would love to spend time with you while I’m there, but I’m going to be taking the boy to visit some universities and whatever else he wants to do.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll see each other for the next workshop.”
“Galapagos is going to be incredible. But I do have to warn you that Kyle is coming.”
“Oh God.” She laughed. “Think he’ll go to bed at midnight this time?”
“Not a chance. I love the guy,” Ren said. “I just wish I had a tranquilizer gun for him.”
Before they left the hotel room, she kissed him one more time, just because she could.
She was seated farfrom him on the plane because of her last-minute flight change. It was just as well, Sarah realized. He fell fast asleep as soon as he was in his seat. Their time together was ending. And she wouldn’t see Ren for weeks.
But he loved her.
Helovedher.
Ren, of all people.
When they gotoff the plane in Toronto, Sarah saw that Paola and a teenaged Jandro were already standing to one side of the luggage area waiting for Ren. It was not the circumstance in which Sarah would have wished to run into Paola again: Sarah was tired and disheveled from lack of sleep and was hauling an awkward amount of gear and a sleeping bag. She waved at Ren and then prepared to walk away, leaving him to greet his ex-wife and son. Then she heard Paola’s voice.
“Sarah, right?”
“Hi Paola,” she said with a hint of embarrassment. She walked over. “Ren asked me to help out with this one.”
