Ryan
“Do you like strawberries?” Mira asked, standing at the kitchen counter cutting up fruit for breakfast.
“Mm-hm,” I answered, reading the paper that was left on the table for us.
“I love strawberries, but I always wait until they’re in season to get them, otherwise they are tart,” she said. “I know an amazing recipe for a strawberry pie. I will make it one day while we’re here. If we can’t be at home, then why not take advantage of this insane kitchen and all the food they stocked the place with?”
I smiled at her and took a sip of my coffee, noticing how toned and sexy her legs were in her little jean shorts. She was incredibly chatty this morning, kind of like the night before until I ruined it by proposing we sleep together. I didn’t mind it though, I assumed that she was simply trying to get to know me better. We hadn’t been told anything about each other beforehand, so we were literally starting from scratch. Neither of us would be working normal jobs while we were there, so there was nothing much to do other than get to know each other. I figured it probably wouldn’t be a horrible idea since the foreseeable future would be spent side by side, experiencing this reality TV thing with only each other as support.
They had cameras set up everywhere and though the cameraman was there, he really blended in with the rest of the house. I barely noticed him at all. From what was explained to us, we would only have full filming when we were doing things together. The rest of the footage taken would be put into the show in bits and pieces as filler. I was prepared for that, but I wasn’t prepared to do so much talking. Mira probably thought I was freezing her out, but that wasn’t the case at all. I had always just been a pretty quiet guy.
My mother called me a ‘man of few words,’ and I was proud of that. I knew many people who just flew off every time they were around others, talking about so many different things it was hard to catch on to one topic before they were racing off to another. I thought the less I spoke the more that it meant. I truly believed in the adage that ‘actions speak louder than words.’ I showed people how I felt, and showed them what I was thinking, and in the end, there was never a question of my motives or intentions. Too many people talked your leg off, but when it came down to when it really mattered, they never stuck to what they said. I would rather you show me through actions over false promises any day.
Because of that I’d always been very careful of what I did and said. I always meant what I said because typically I thought it through before I spoke. If I did something, you knew I meant it. I never pulled back and barely ever acted on impulse, minus this whole adventure. I had blurted out agreement to participate before I took the time to think about it. I didn’t regret it though, it seemed to be going well for the moment, though it was only the second day.
“My mother and I used to go to the ocean and take picnics out there,” she said, sitting down and handing me a plate and setting a bowl of fruit between us. “She would always make this fresh fruit salad with just a bit of sugar on it for the tart fruits. I would always refuse to eat my sandwich and just gorge on the fruit salad. She thought it was funny, so she never pressured me to eat the other stuff. When I got older, I wondered why she even packed it in the first place.”
“Maybe she hoped you would eat it,” I smiled. “Does she make it still?”
“No.” She sighed and put some fruit on her plate. “She’s ill, and most of the time she’s too tired to do any cooking. I do the cooking in the house. In all honesty we haven’t really been able to afford all the fresh fruits and vegetables lately, not with the bills that have been piling up. I work as much as I can, but I have to take care of her, too. She had just got pushed up to four dialysis treatments a week before I came here.”
“Will she always do those?” I asked.
“Until she gets a kidney transplant,” she said, with a shrug. “She’s on the list for one, but sometimes it can be years before anything comes through. We thought for years that when I turned eighteen I would be able to give her one of mine. It was a no brainer, she’s my mother. It was devastating when we found out that I wasn’t a match. She was actually relieved, she’d never wanted me to go through the surgery, but for me, I felt like I’d failed her somehow. She had done so much for me, every day, and I couldn’t do this for her. It was more than I could handle at the time. So, I dug my heels in and started taking care of her fully. It gets worse every year, and now she is probably the weakest I’ve ever seen her. She was having a good day at the wedding, thank God. She was so worried about ruining things, she almost didn’t come, but I really needed her there. She is my rock, my eternal support system. I honestly don’t know what I would do without her. She’s been there my whole life, you know?”
She looked up at me and smiled shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I’m blabbering on about this like it matters to you. I tend to talk a lot when I get nervous.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s fine, really. I like to hear where you come from.”
Truthfully, I felt bad for her. It was obvious that her mother’s health had taken a huge toll on her. I hadn’t noticed it the day before under the lights and glamor of the entire day, but she looked tired, and not so much on the outside, but in her soul. I could see the exhaustion in those big brown eyes, even when she tried to hide it with a smile.
“What about your father?” I asked. “Is he in good health?”
“I don’t know,” Mira shrugged. “I’ve never known my father. He left before I was born, and my mother has busted her butt to take care of me all of these years.”
“I don’t know my father either,” I confessed. “He left when I was little as well. My mom, she raised me on her own until she met my stepfather.”
“Are you two friends?” she asked. “I always wondered what it would have been like to have a stepfather, but my mom didn’t want to bring a man into our lives.”
“We aren’t super close, but he is a good man,” I said. “He loved my mother very much and was really there for her. She passed away five years ago from cancer.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, actually sounding like she meant it. “I didn’t know.”
“I know,” I smiled. “We didn’t know anything about each other. She was a beautiful person and she died in his arms with me by her side. It was one of those moments I will remember forever. So, trust me when I say I do know how important a mother is.”
“Life is hard sometimes,” she said, after a deep exhale. “You gather all these memories and emotions for people and then one day they’re just gone.”
“But they aren’t,” I said. “They’re still there, they’re just different, I guess.”
“So, how about the future?” she asked. “You said last night you own a mechanic shop. Is that what you’re going to do, or is there something else on your mind?”
“Well,” I smiled. “Both, kind of. My dream is to have more than one shop. I want to have a bunch if I can, but I want to split my time, working at the different ones throughout the month. I don’t ever want to be a paper pusher, I guess you’d call it, and I never want to just be the checkbook. I like working on cars, and I’m good at it, which is why I opened the shop to begin with. I have a good relationship with the people in my town and they trust me to do quality honest work. The other guys, the corporate ones, you take your car in for a tire rotation and the next thing you know they’ve talked you into a bunch of stuff you don’t need, so you end up dropping a thousand dollars. I don’t do that. Every time I work on a car I make a list of all the things they should do to it, and I give them the time frame when each should get done. Sometimes immediately, but generally things are spread out over time to even five years away.”
“That’s really nice,” she said, listening intently. “An honest mechanic, that is refreshing. I’m the girl who struggled to add oil to the car or understand the theory of changing a tire, but pays for AAA just in case I get a flat because I know myself better than that. I’ve probably paid an absurd amount of money to mechanics in the past, replacing things that I had no clue what they even were — just because they used scare tactics with the words like ‘engine blowing up’ or ‘breakdowns’ in the sentence. I just paid to have it done and hoped for the best.”
We ended up sitting at that table through the whole morning, just talking about who we were, what we did and what our dreams were. By the time lunch rolled around we hadn’t even put the breakfast food away. I suggested we head out to a local deli to grab some lunch and she was more than happy to go along with it. There was something about her smile that made my heart flutter. Honestly, I couldn’t quite understand what was going on with me.
At lunch we continued talking, changing the subject to Los Angeles and what it was like to grow up there. She wasn’t the stereotypical California girl, or the typical wannabe actress either. She seemed just like a down-home girl, just a lot less country.
“Los Angeles has been my home, you know, all my life,” she said, taking a bite of her salad. “I’ve been other places, but I always want to come back home. I have to say though, San Diego definitely has its charms — a little less crime, and way more laid back than here. Still, I like it here, and California has everything. We have mountains, we have the dessert, we have the ocean and we have constant happy sunshine. It’s great.”
I sat and listened to her, sipping my drink and laughing at stories of her teen years growing up near the ocean. I knew that this whole thing had been set up by the production company, but what they couldn’t do was give us such a great lunch together. They couldn’t set up how absolutely genuine this girl seemed to be. We were getting to know each other, and it was a surprise, but one that I didn’t mind in the least.
But man, could she ever talk!