Chapter 14 - Love (And the Lack Thereof)

What Rhiannon hasn't told her kids is that she has this idea in her head, something that she thinks would be absolutely amazing on the big screen. The mere thought of it's been blowing her mind. She sees herself cast as the main heroine, of course, but as she begins trying to write the screenplay it comes across...incredibly clumsily. And so she decides that she needs to refine her writing skill as much as possible to prepare for it.

She does this for hours one weekend before her fingers begin to cramp and her brain wants to explode. Enough of that. A little websurfing would be nice instead.

She's more than shocked to hear that her former boss, Alan Stanley, has passed away. She has very few good memories tied to the man. Even the sex was pretty horrible due to his advanced age even at the time. But there's still that strange twinge of sadness as she realizes that from now on she really WILL have to work super hard for every single promotion that she receives.

She thinks of Glynnis for a moment. Well. At least ONE good thing came out of that entanglement.

Glynnis pays a visit later that evening, and the timing of it is so horrifying that Rhiannon is worried that somehow Glyn picked up on all of the rumors and figured out the truth about her paternity.

Glyn is immediately mobbed.

"Glynnie! Hi!"

Glynnis ruffles Naomi's hair with a faint smile illuminating her giant dimples. "Hey there, squirt. You look tired."

"No!" Naomi tries to hide her yawn. "I'm not! I can stay up for hours if you're gonna be here!"

But eventually Octavio, Naomi's future husband, must leave and the kids must go to bed to get ready for school in the morning, and Rhiannon and Glynnis are the only ones left awake.

"I know you didn't just come over here to celebrate my promotion. You look dead tired."

Glynnis collapses on the sofa and smooths her bangs out of her hair with a sigh. "Yeah...yeah, you're right." She crosses her legs at the ankles and remains silent for a long while. Rhi learned a long time ago that these moments of introspection often led to something important. She keeps her mouth shut.

Eventually Glynnis tilts her head back and looks up at her mom. "Did you read the entertainment gossip lately?"

Even as she feels her nerves kicking up, Rhiannon carefully nods. "Yeah. Why?"

"I mean, we lost an illustrious director a few days ago. I thought you might've known him. He did a lot of his work around here."

She knows. Rhiannon rubs at her forehead with a soft sigh. "Glynnis..."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" To her credit, she doesn't sound angry. She doesn't even sound put out. She just sounds...curious.

Rhiannon carefully perches on the couch beside her and smoths her skirt, staring at the flood. "It was a really...complicated thing. Alan Stanley's a private man. He wanted it all kept quiet and he never had any interest in you."

Glynnis snorts. "I find that hard to believe."

"Why?"

"You haven't seen my house, have you?"

Rhiannon remembers the stories that Tiara and Athena told her about the giant house just down the road from Matthew Hamming's. She distantly remembers the taxi driving her past one that matched its description. "...holy shit," Rhi whispers, rubbing at her eyes. "What did he do?"

"Left me enough money to live on comfortably for the rest of my life if I chose to live in a hole in the wall like this." She looks around the apartment, but the faint smile that comes to her lips is fond, not judging. Rhi's more than relieved by it. "But I...didn't want that. So I blew it all on a giant house that I'm never gonna be able to fill with furniture. I've got enough cash to pay my bills for a few weeks, but after that, it's all on my own."

It's a disquieting feeling when Rhiannon realizes that she'd never be able to do something like that. She'd hoard the money all to herself for as long as she could. She's the one who slept with her boss for a potential raise and who flirted with a movie star to try to use his fame to her advantage.

"Don't tell anyone, though, all right?" Glyn interrupts, glancing toward Rhi from the corner of her eye. "Nobody can know."

Glynnis agrees to stay the night, given the time.

Tiara has the habit of playing guitar right in the wrong place. Well. There goes any plans for mopping.

"What's that, Mom? Mom, I can't hear you! It must be this friggin' awesome guitar!"

After Glynnis breaks the computer and leaves in shame, Rhiannon decides that she and the girls need a little time out of the house to enjoy their Sunday.

There's a nice little retreat up where the celebrities all live, and Rhi decides to take complete advantage of it.

Tiara and Rhi enjoy the hot tub while Athena reads inside (silly Bookworm) and Naomi does laps in the pool.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yeah?" Rhi asks, flicking a few bubbles off her leg absently.

"Did you ever fall in love?"

Rhiannon freezes, images of Matthew Hamming dancing past her mind's eye before she can stop them. She's started ignoring his calls recently. Even if she doesn't want to admit it, she knows why. "Why do you ask?"

Tiara shrugs. "I just...don't really see the point of it, y'know? I mean, you raised four kids on your own without a man! That's so super cool!"

"It's a lifestyle choice." There's this weird stab at her heart when she realizes that those dreams she has of her daughters all dressed up in wedding attire aren't just flukes. They're desires. "It's not for everyone."

"I think it's for me."

Rhiannon looks away as Tiara leans back in the hot tub and closes her eyes, humming softly.

"I personally think boys are silly," Athena announces over foosball with Tiara later. "Books are far more interesting."

Tiara is silently judging her sister.

The foursome heads home late in the evening and goes to bed promptly.

The next morning is Naomi's birthday.

She is a perpetually happy teenager. It's sort of frightening.

Octavio Smyth-Bling (what a name) comes home with Naomi after school, more so because she dragged him to the apartment. It was his birthday today too.

The two are silly. They get along astoundingly well, though Naomi would suggest that it is because she trained Octavio so well when they were children. She doesn't even care that he looks incredibly silly and still has no fashion sense and that he cringes every time he sees that easel in the corner.

"Well," Naomi murmurs, looking down at the ground with a secret smile. "Let's try this again. Marriage. What do you think of it?"

"I think we're not even dating and that we just became teenagers and that you're STILL crazy."

She bats her eyelashes at him playfully. "But...?"

"...I mean, we can date. That's cool."

Naomi rewards him, and Octavio decides he's made a good decision.

And then Naomi makes him do homework before he can get more kissy-times and he just wants to cry.

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I need to give a shout-out to Cece for giving a suggestion that sparked the real reason that Glynnis has that super-mega beast of a house, haha. It works much better than Glyn's clumsily thrown together explanation last chapter. I like to pretend that Glynnis only said it because she reaaaaaally doesn't want her sisters knowing.