Ramona makes herself look innocent, takes a sip of nonalcoholic wine. “Oh, is that not how I should be promoting your services to prospective clients?”
She sprawls back on Arlie’s couch, wondering how she spent so many years without this kind of camaraderie. She’s determined to make up for as much of them as she can.
Arlie turns to Ramona. “And not that there’s an elegant segue for this…but I read about Zander’s show inDeadline.”
Ramona holds her glass steady. Doesn’t tremble. When she gave her statement last week, she told the detectives everything she remembered about the first time she had sex with Zander Parrish. How she’d told him to stop, and all the times afterward when she hadn’t given explicit consent. When she emerged from the room after two hours, Nick was still there, telling her once again how proud he was.
The headlines alone would have been reason enough for her to lie low, hibernate a little. Instead she decided that whatever anyone posted about her was their problem, not hers.
She knows she’s not done talking about it. That this is only the beginning, when it was supposed to be an ending.
“Canceled before the first season finished airing,” Ramona says with a shake of her head. “Brutal.”
Betty squeezes her shoulder. “You did an important thing. A hard thing, but an important thing.”
What’s most surprising about it all is that a few days after her accusation hit the news, she got an email from her father, confirming DeeAnn was the anonymous source who gushed about Ramona’s relationship with Zander in thatVarietypiece, which could have sparked a whole new level of fury.
Instead, she finally blocked her mother’s number. She should have done it ages ago.
She’s getting better at looking at herself in the mirror and not hearing her mother’s voice. Seeing herself in photos and not imagining DeeAnn zeroing in on her stomach or her thighs. Because in nearly every shot, she looks so radiantly happy—especially the ones with Nick in them, too.
Every day since her retirement has been an exercise in letting go. She’s had to grieve someone who’s still alive, graduallyaccepting that her mother will not, cannot, be the person she wants her to be.
Your mother and I are taking some time apart, Beck wrote in his email.I know you have no reason to say yes to this, but if you ever want to sit down and have some coffee, just say the word.
For most of Ramona’s life, Beck Wilder has been content letting DeeAnn hold the reins. Evidently, not anymore.
She hasn’t said the word yet. She’s not sure she will, but the fact that there’s an opening makes her feel more at peace than she thought it would.
“All of it’s made me wish I could do…more, I guess.” Ramona motions to Arlie. “I think about the girls like you and me who grew up in the spotlight, and how distorted my own body image was for so long. I didn’t have any of the right language to talk about sex.”
Arlie gives her a grim look. “Yeah, pretty sure I learned what it was by overhearing the guys in my band talk about their own sex lives.”
“When you’re not in regular school, you’re most likely not getting any sex ed in the on-set classroom,” Ramona continues. “And maybe not through homeschooling, either. So I just started taking business classes, and I’ve been thinking of trying to start some kind of sex ed for kids in the entertainment industry.”
“That soundsamazing,” Betty says, and Ramona’s relieved when Arlie echoes her enthusiasm. “You’d be so good at it, too. Kids respect you.”
The idea is still just an early spark, but if she really thinks about it, this topic has underscored so much of her life. She doesn’t know yet what it’ll look like, or if she even has the skills to coordinate it.
But fuck it—she wants to use her privilege for somethinggood.
When Betty slips away to use the bathroom, Ramona pulls her legs on the couch and turns to Arlie.
“You’ve been really lovely to me,” she says. “Ever since we ran into each other at the office of former publicist name redacted.”
“I’m…sorry?” Arlie says with a laugh. “Why are you saying that like an accusation?”
Now it’s Ramona’s turn to laugh. “No, no. I guess…I haven’t known why you want to spend time with me. And it’s not that I’m not enjoying it, because I am. But I’m not an idiot. I know we’re in pretty different places from when we first met. I’m not exactly helping your career anymore.”
Arlie takes a few moments to process this. “Is there a rule that I can only spend time with people who further my career?” She places her hands on Ramona’s shoulders, stares her straight in the eyes. “Ramona. I say this with love: you being famous is the least interesting thing about you.”
And after all of this, she supposes it is.
—
That evening, Ramona tiptoes intoher memorabilia room for the first time since she gave Nick that tour of her house.
The lacquered bodies of her guitars seem to mock her as she sits down on the floor, starting a pile of things to donate. Not everything—she wants to remember the good parts, because of course there were good parts. Parts she’s grateful for and parts she still can’t believe and parts that made her the person she is today.
