All of a sudden, Nick feels like absolute shit for judging her. Someone planning a comeback would not be hiding in the bathroom because they were mobbed by a group of fans.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ramona says. “You’re relieved I’m in therapy.”
It’s so unexpected that a laugh bursts from his chest. “I am too,” he says. “Along with eighty percent of LA, I’m guessing.”
She nods. “I really didn’t think you’d get the message. Or that you’d, you know…” Her gaze drops, nails scratching at the label on the bottle. “Come.”
“Your message sounded pretty intense.” They sit in silence for a while, Nick struck by her sudden vulnerability. The girl who called him out in his own office and sings about getting revenge on her exes. “You need a ride home?”
“If you don’t mind. But—I’m kind of afraid of going out there.”
Biting back a smile, he reaches for his messenger bag again. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but I had this in my trunk. My niece was inShrek the Musicalat school last year, and I thought, if you needed a disguise for a quick escape…”
She gapes at him as he pulls out a rubbery green ogre mask.
“Now I know why you’re in therapy,” she says, but she acceptsthe mask and stretches the band around her head. “Does this look as good as I think it does?”
“Even better. Careful,” he says as she attempts to lift herself to her feet, but she holds up an arm, indicating that she’s got it. Either that, or the way he touched her earlier was more intrusive than she wanted it to be. Well—noted.
They draw a few questionable looks as they head for the parking garage, but there are no cameras. No whispers. They’re incognito, ogre-Ramona falling in step with Nick, her long strides matching his while he does his best not to laugh.
As they approach his Prius and she pushes the mask to the top of her head, her eyes widen at the scratch along the passenger side.
Nick turns sheepish. “Oh, uh, haven’t had a chance to take it in yet. But don’t worry, your insurance is excellent.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I wanted to leave my number, but I didn’t have any paper. If it’s any consolation, I felt like shit about it. Especially when the whole class put me on trial.”
“The scrape-and-crawl.”
“It was a very pitiful crawl. Tail between my legs and everything.”
“Range Rovers can be pitiful?”
“Oh, anything can be if you hate yourself enough.”
Nick’s not sure how to respond to that. The idea of her hating herself makes him unreasonably sad. “You don’t—” he starts, and she rolls her eyes.
“I promise, I only have a normal amount of self-loathing. Working on it with my therapist.” She climbs inside. “Thank you,” she says before she shuts the door. “Really.”
He pictures her going home to some big empty house in theHills. The kind that echoes when you so much as exhale, surrounded by all kinds of expensive, soulless stuff.
She called him.
She could have called anyone, and she called him, the professor she can’t stand—and maybe that means she didn’t have anyone else.
So he tries to imagine what he might want if this situation were reversed, because maybe, just maybe, this is how they blank-slate the whole thing. “Are you hungry?”
—
His favorite taco truck isin a strip mall parking lot in Culver City. They’re in between rushes and the scattered tables are mostly empty, which he can tell Ramona is grateful for.
After he orders in Spanish, Ramona brandishes one of those heavy black Amex cards he’s never actually seen in real life, before the guy at the register points to the sign that saysCash Only.
“I owe you,” she says when Nick pays for them both, and he waves this off. Besides, he can’t imagine an occasion when she’d be able to pay him back. They’re not about to start getting lunch together.
They carry drinks and a basket of chips to a table while they wait for their burritos.
“Your Spanish is pretty much flawless,” Ramona says as she sips from her Topo Chico.
