“I’m sure,” Paola said pointedly.
Ren walked up and kissed Paola on the cheek. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for bringing me the boy.”
“I’m going to leave him with you while I visit some friends,” Paola said crisply. “My flight home leaves tomorrow morning and I’m staying with Eugenia. Jandro has homework to do for his tutor, so make sure he gets that done in the middle of having fun.”
Sarah took a moment to take in Alejandro. He was an awkward thirteen, his face dotted with acne, tangled dark hair in his eyes. He might grow up to be as gorgeous as his parents, but now he just looked wary and hunched as he stared at the floor.
“This is my friend Sarah,” Ren said to Jandro.
Jandro looked up at her, and Sarah decided not to announce that she’d met him as a baby; that tended to make kids uncomfortable.
“Hey,” Sarah said. “I’m a friend of your dad’s from university.”
“That’s one of the goals for this trip, remember,” Paola said to Jandro. “You’re going to visit some schools. And hopefully that will inspire you to put a little more care into your schoolwork.”
Jandro shrugged and looked down. “Okay.”
“I’ll let you two talk,” Sarah said. “Nice to see you, Paola.”
“No, you stay. I have to get going. Call me if anything comes up.” She gave Jandro a kiss on the cheek and walked briskly away, rolling her wheeled luggage with the authority of someone who knew exactly where she was going.
“She’s been like that nonstop,” Jandro groaned.
“She just wants you to stop procrastinating,” Ren said gently.
“Unlike your dad who stayed up for thirty hours to finish all his papers,” Sarah said with a grin.
Jandro stared at her. “He did what?”
“Sorry,” Sarah said. “I’m not helping. Have fun in Toronto. Nice to meet you, Jandro.”
Ren gave her an affectionate glance. “I’ll call you soon.”
“Take care.” She smiled and left him there with his son.
18
SUNDAY
Sarah crashed earlywhen she got home on Saturday, still catching up from lost sleep.
This meant she woke before dawn on Sunday. She immediately logged onto her computer and checked her email. There was an email confirming that Ren had sent her the money he had promised for the workshop. Then there was an email from the human resources manager at her job, sent late on Friday, informing her that Owen had not gone through the proper channels to fire her and asking her to come in for a meeting on Monday. It sounded like Owen was in a bit of trouble, which delighted Sarah. She didn’t want the job anymore, but she might get some severance pay out of this, so she decided to go and see what happened.
She spent a couple of hours doing photo editing on her software, assembling the composite images of Grisha and the Dangols, and working on the color processing for the remaining shots. When she was satisfied with her portraits, she sent them to the group via email (leaving out the shot of a beautiful, naked Rita under the stars, which she only sent to Rita).
An hour later, in the late morning, she received an email from Ren. It had no text; it was just the photo he had shot of the two of them at Western Brook Pond: Sarah and Ren with the fjord and the stars and the pink and green haze in the sky behind them. They looked ridiculously happy.
There was also an email from Kristie inviting her to a party, which made her realize she hadn’t told her friends what had happened this week. She hadn’t even mentioned the workshop, afraid they would try to talk her out of it. Now she was excited to share the news. It occurred to her, as she considered an appropriate text to Kristie and Anya, that both of them had already slept with Ren. And now she had to tell them that Ren was in love with her. Maybe that was better explained in person.
She started making a list of props she would need for her ‘My Divorce’ series. She felt consumed with the old, familiar urgency, the sense of not wanting to do anything except this one task, not wanting to think about anything but her photography. She had a new series to shoot!
A little after lunch, there was a knock on the door as she was sorting through her refrigerator figuring out what food was still edible after her unexpected week away from home. When she opened the door, to her surprise, Ren and Jandro were standing there, both looking equally abashed. She knew Ren had her home address from the employment paperwork that she had filled out for him, but she had never expected him to come see her.
“Sorry to pop in,” Ren began. “I was showing Jandro around The University of Toronto campus near here and he asked for more stories of dumb things that I did as a student, and I wasn’t coming up with good ones. He suggested we try to drag you out with us for coffee.”
Jandro shrugged, looking at her with a half-smile through his hair, and Sarah grinned. It made sense that this particular kid might need to hear that his parents weren’t perfect.
“So I have your permission?” Sarah asked Ren. “To tell him stories?”
