First Love Again. Kristina Knight
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Название: First Love Again
Автор: Kristina Knight
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Superromance
isbn: 9781474045520
isbn:
“Mom was afraid you’d run off to Hollywood to have an illicit affair with a star because she was on a game show?” His mother jealous of a woman Gibson would never meet because he’d never wanted to leave the island? Didn’t sound like the Mary Margaret that Emmett remembered. His mother was feisty. Single-minded, completely head over heels about Gibson, and confident he was crazy for her.
The tree line thinned as they neared the house. “Nah, Mary Margaret knew she was the only girl for me.” He was quiet for a moment and Emmett watched him carefully. A twinkle came into his eye. “It was because of the letter.”
“Letter?”
“I wanted to be a contestant so I wrote to the show.”
They stepped up onto the back porch. Emmett opened the drink refrigerator on the porch, pulling out two cold bottles of water. They sat on the old porch swing.
“Sure. I’d have taken any of the shows, but Password was my favorite. It would have been fun. I was always good with clues.” He chuckled. “Funny, my mind used to be sharp. I could remember anything.” He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Now, some days I wonder if I’ll remember who I am.”
“We’re getting you help, Dad. They have treatments.”
“They’ll work for a while, I know.” His dad’s voice was stoic. Resigned, maybe. “I remember today, and I’m not going to ruin that. Where was I? Right, the letter. So I wrote the show and made it through the first phase, and that meant a trip to LA for a screen test.”
“You guys never left Ohio.”
“Sure we did.”
“Not once. We might have crossed the lake to Detroit a time or two, but I can’t remember ever leaving the state when I was a kid.”
“Huh. There was the trip to Gatlinburg. No, that was before you were born. St. Louis. No, that was our honeymoon. We never did get that cruise we talked about. Maybe we didn’t travel much when you were younger. I’m sorry, son.”
Emmett swallowed some of his water. “It isn’t a big deal. I always thought the two of you, or at least one of you, was kind of afraid to travel.”
“Huh.” His father was quiet for a moment. “I never did tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Emmett’s mind reeled. His father had a whole life he knew nothing about. He’d wanted to be on game shows? And his mom had been jealous of Gibson’s crush on an actress?
“The screen test. I got it, but never taped the show because she got so mad on that trip. After the audition we went to the Santa Monica Pier and Betty was there. Your mom was busy buying souvenirs and I was watching Betty. Betty flirted with me I flirted with Betty, and Mary Margaret didn’t like that at all.”
Which Betty? Grable? Davis? White? Emmett was torn between trying to figure out his dad’s celebrity crush or chalking it all up to rambling. None of this sounded like the parents he knew. The devoted, loving people he’d grown up with. He checked Gibson’s eyes but they seemed clear and his hands weren’t doing that clench-and-unclench thing they did when he was upset or having one of his spells. “The thing I never told your mom is the Betty who flirted with me was a female impersonator. Just some street performer looking for a tip.”
Emmett choked on his water. “You flirted with a drag queen on the Santa Monica Pier?” His buttoned-up, tweed-wearing dad?
“When was I going to meet the real woman? I was a schoolteacher from a tiny island on Lake Erie that no one outside the state has ever heard of. And I was in LA, auditioning to be a contestant on my favorite show. It isn’t as if the impersonator was a hooker or anything. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night.”
“The hooker?” Emmett couldn’t keep it all straight. He checked Gibson’s eyes again but his gaze was unclouded.
“No, your mom.”
“Mom always had something to say.”
“Not that night. She wouldn’t say anything. By the next morning I knew better than to bring it up, even to explain, so I dropped the subject and we came home.”
“And you didn’t do the show.”
Gibson shook his head and then finished his water. “I think I’ll take a nap. Wake me in an hour and we’ll start on the porch.”
The screen door slapped shut behind him, leaving Emmett alone on the back porch wondering about the life his parents had had before he was born.
He wished he’d seen it.
They’d had him late in life. Gibson had been in his forties by the time Emmett was born. Although they’d never seemed old to him, they’d also never seemed young. They were his parents. Boring. Loving and attentive. But boring.
This peek into their life before him was odd. Made him wish he’d made more of an effort to get to know them as adults.
He pushed off the swing.
He was here now. It was too late to get to know his mom, but he still had time with Gibson. A very short window of time—and he wasn’t going to waste it.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to right things for Jaime, too.
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