Bella and Renée spend all day at the beach, in and out of the water, and eat boardwalk food for lunch. Then they head home. [Mom wants to know if you want to join us for dinner again. She's cooking; she's doing risotto. She's better at food than my dad but not as good as me.]
At six-thirty, there is risotto on the table, and also warmed up leftover pork medallions and some bag salad to make the table look a little fuller.
He changed his bikini back into a full set of clothes, somewhat reluctantly. Perhaps relatedly, said clothes include a long floral-patterned skirt.
Renée is a little more thrown by the skirt than by the name, but she doesn't say anything about it and welcomes him into the house. Bella waves from the dinner table, with the hand that isn't spooning mushrooms and rice onto her plate.
"Hi," he says cheerfully when Renée lets him in; and, "Hi, Bella," when he comes to sit down at the table.
"Hi!" she says aloud.
"Do anything cool today?"
[I'd say 'made out with you underwater', but I'm betting you don't want those awkward questions.]
"Where are you staying? Have you got family in the area?" Renée asks, serving Alice some risotto and a medallion and a generous bowlful of leaves.
"Nope," says Alice. "I don't have family much of anywhere, actually. Ooh, this looks tasty!"
"No?" Renée asks, tilting her head, deerlike in puzzlement. "Oh, thank you, risotto's one of a handful of things that I can sometimes turn out nicely..."
At least, he's pretty sure his mom still lives in Forks. She seemed very fond of that stupidly huge house last he checked. He'll find out when they go back, anyway.
[Yeah, I don't really know where my curiosity came from,] Bella remarks. "This is great, Mom, thanks."
"Oh, thank you, Bella."
[It's not really the same thing - spontaneous generation supposes that maggots just happen by themselves when meat is left around, and so on. People didn't catch flies laying eggs until later. Still, my curiosity has to have come from some combination of genetic and environmental factors - it's not like I have an immaterial soul or something.] Pause. [You don't believe in immaterial souls or anything, do you?]
[Right, but I mean, you have no personal interactions with the surface of Pluto either. Do you think it has pandas on it?]