Most of the time, she stays silent in class. Doesn’t raise her hand, doesn’t draw attention to herself. Especially in psychology, where Professor Nick remains more animated about lobes of the brain than anyone should be.
It’s not exactly thrilling, this new life, but surely that’ll change. It has to.
Ramona’s driving a rental car home from campus—the Range Rover needed to be taken in for a new coat of paint, and at this point she might as well just open a tab at the dealership—when she gets a call on Bluetooth from her publicist. Car maintenance is another thing she would have outsourced before her retirement, but despite her certainty the dealership is overcharging her, she feels weirdly independent, doing this on her own. The bar is low, but she’ll take the tiny wins where she can get them.
Petra is one of the only people she’s kept on payroll, because she needed someone to quash rumors about a potential comeback. And so far, she’s been more than worth the expense.
“Ramona, hi,” Petra says. She has this clipped way of speaking that sounds like she’s always in a hurry, eager to get on to the next meeting, even if she’s the one initiating contact. “Is this a good time?”
“I’m just stuck on the 405, so sure. Entertain me.” Ramona fiddles with the AC, tucks rebellious strands back into her ponytail. “Is this about school? Those pictures seemed pretty harmless. I don’t think we have to do anything about them.”
“I’m afraid it’s a little more serious.” Petra goes quiet for a few moments—uncharacteristic of her. “It’s about Zander Parrish.”
The car behind her honks when she doesn’t move forward a literal inch to keep up with traffic, and Ramona throws them a middle finger they can’t see through the tinted windows.
“Oh. Okay?”
Zander Parrish. Her first boyfriend, first…just about everything. They costarred onGreta Life!, where he played Greta’s troublemaker older brother. With the big dimples and even bigger ego, topped off with the requisite Disney Channel–era floppy hair, the boy oozed charisma. Falling for him had been inevitable.
Fans pored over every detail of the relationship, trying to decode how many songs on her first album were about him. (Three.) That public nature of their relationship was what ended things, Zander unable to cope with strangers dissecting whether his hand on her shoulder instead of her back in a photo meant they were on the rocks. And Ramona was sick of it too, the constant scrutiny. They were twenty and nineteen, still so young, and they’d been together for three years. Long enough that she felt like a kid when they started dating and an adult when they broke up.
Since then, he’s transitioned from children’s TV into a career as an Emmy-nominated—and, more importantly to Ramona, Emmy-losing—star, now about to lead some high-profile video game adaptation premiering soon. She’s seen the billboards all around the city: a dirtied-up Zander with a bow and arrow slung around one shoulder, gazing moodily into an abandoned cityscape.
Zander. Thaniel.
With her luck, her next boyfriend will probably be nicknamed Enjamin or Mothy.
“He has that new show coming out,Calamityville,” Petra continues. “Someone in the costume department has come forward accusing him of sexual assault. The press is almost certainly going to comb through his dating history, so we wanted to get ahead of it and see if you had a statement.”
Her ears fill with static.
Ramona doesn’t even flip off the car behind her when they honk again. Zander Parrish, accused of sexual assault. Her first image of him is that goofy guy with a secret heart of gold he played on the show, and not the confident, sometimes brooding roles he goes for now.
“What kind of statement?” she asks, trying to keep her tone businesslike.
“Oh, you know. ‘Never aggressive, wouldn’t hurt a puppy, yadda yadda.’ That kind of thing. We can send over a few wording options if you want to pick one?”
“No, no.” Maybe later, she’ll wonder why Petra doesn’t suggest the opposite: a statement that would paint him in any kind of light that isn’t positive. “We—we haven’t been in contact for years.”
“I figured as much.”
“But he was only a perfect gentleman when we were together.”Except for when he wasn’t.She bites down on the inside of her cheek. Hard. Her chest tightens, her heart picking up speed until it thumps against her rib cage like it’s trying to escape.
Another honk.
“Jesus Christ, have some fucking patience,” Ramona mutters. “We’re going three miles an hour here.”
“ ‘Perfect…gentleman.’ ” Ramona hears the clack of keys on Petra’s end, and she suddenly feels as though she’s said something very, very wrong.
“No—I mean, that’s off-the-record. Just me to you. I…I don’t think I have a statement.”
A sigh on the other end of the phone that’s half-distorted through her Bluetooth. “I really don’t want them to come bothering you, sweetheart. That’s why you have me, isn’t it?”
Of course. Right. Petra only has Ramona’s best interests at heart.
The pressure building in her chest is making it hard to breathe. Something is crushing her lungs, her hands trembling on the wheel. She needs to get the fuck off the road.Now.
“Petra? I’ll call you back,” Ramona says, punching the button to end the call. Now she can’t catch her breath, pressing a hand to her heart as she gasps for air.
