Chapter Six
Chapter
Six
Eighteen Years Ago
Baby Olive was still screaming when Ramona closed the door of her house behind her, the July night thick and sweet around her, but she hardly noticed it.
She just needed out.
Guilt tightened in her chest as Olive’s cries crew fainter, Ramona’s feet hurrying down the sidewalk in the dark, tears already starting to race down her cheeks. She’d held them in all day—well, for the last two weeks, really, except for at night when she was finally in her room alone and her dad wouldn’t see her cry. Her dad, who’d been walking around like a ghost, wandering from room to room with Olive in his arms since Ramona’s mom left, as though looking for something he’d misplaced.
Go , he’d told her tonight.
He’d taken the last thirteen days off work—vacation time to try to put his family back together—but he’d had to return today, as his landscaping business didn’t make money unless he finished projects. Which meant Ramona had been with Olive all day, the normally docile six-month-old now inconsolable, a tiny, wailing litmus test measuring the stress in the house.
Go , Dad had said after they had dinner. Ramona had made boxed mac and cheese again and ate very little of it, as though her appetite had left with her mother. When Olive started crying in her highchair and slung her tiny bowl of mashed carrots onto the floor, splattering orange all over the hardwoods and nearby wall, Ramona had made a mistake—she’d shoved her hands into her own hair, fingers closing tightly and pulling at her scalp.
And her dad had seen it.
Go , he’d said.
Ramona had shaken her head. At thirteen, she didn’t think she’d ever go anywhere ever again.
But her dad had reached across the table and taken her hand, his brown eyes red from lack of sleep. Baby, go. Go find some fun.
And so she had, though fun wasn’t really on her agenda. She knew exactly where she was heading the moment she stepped out of her house. She knew her friends would be at the main beach, grilling hot dogs and getting ready for fireworks, but April was on a trip with her parents in Maine—they took one every July—and Ramona couldn’t handle everyone else’s sad glances and whispers.
Her mom just left.
Can you believe it?
Do you think they saw it coming?
No, Ramona was just fine being alone tonight. Quiet, that’s what she really wanted. Space to cry, maybe even scream a little.
She speed walked down the sidewalk toward downtown, but right when the lights started to glow in front of her, she veered left, through the Abernathys’ yard and into the woods. She used a tiny flashlight on her keys to guide her way, though she could’ve navigated Moon Lovers Trail with her eyes closed.
Soon, she headed off the trail and into an unmarked section of the woods, dodging bushes and fallen limbs, the earth sloping downward now until it spilled her out onto a tiny slice of beach.
A cove, surrounded by trees.
Mirror Cove, the locals called it, as the water here was usually very still and clear, reflecting the sky. Hardly anyone ever came here to swim or hang out, because the lake floor was rocky, and the beach wasn’t the easiest to get to. Ramona wasn’t surprised to find she was the only one here.
She tumbled onto the beach, her limbs immediately relieved of stress and purpose. She plopped onto the sand, tucked her knees to her chest, and waited for the tears to release. They took a while to come out of hiding, her body slow to realize it was safe. But they finally flowed, warm and salty, almost a comfort, as though her heart was setting down a burden.
After a few minutes of this, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a piece of notebook paper, crudely torn from one of her school spirals. She’d been carrying it around for weeks now, so the paper was soft as a blanket, creased and wrinkled from how many times she’d folded and unfolded it, eyes scanning the few words inside for anything new.
Anything that made sense.
I’m sorry, Ramona. Take care of them for me.
That was it. That was all her own mother had written to her, set on her daughter’s neatly made bed the day she’d left. She’d packed everything—her entire closet, her jewelry, even some kitchenware she liked, a few candles from the living room—then taken off during the day while Ramona was at school and Steven was at work. She’d asked their neighbor Sally Ryerson, who worked from home as an editor, to watch Olive.
She had an emergency, she’d said to Sally.
She’d left behind every single framed family photo.
More tears spilled over as Ramona remembered coming home from school to an empty house, a few odd things missing, then finding this note on her bed. She’d rushed to her parents’ bedroom, some part of her already knowing what she’d find when she flung open their closet door.
One side empty, nothing but swaying hangers where all her mother’s beautiful clothes used to be, drifting like fashionable ghosts.
She folded up the letter now, put it back in her pocket, only to fish it out five minutes later, starting the whole process again. She wondered, not for the first time, if her dad had gotten a letter. If she’d left one for Olive. Ramona didn’t dare ask him—she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer either way.
She stuffed the letter into her pocket for the fourth time, hugged her knees tighter to her chest, and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, the moon not quite full, the stars bright and hopeful. Fireworks would be starting soon, she knew, shot off from a boat near the main beach’s shoreline. She’d have a good view here, not that she was really in the mood for—
“Oh wow, this place is pretty.”
A voice.
Another person.
Ramona looked to the right, dread filling her chest, and spotted a shadow emerging from the path that circled the lake toward the main beach.
A girl.
Around her age, she thought, though she’d never seen her before. A summer person, then, the vacationers who all but took over the town from May to September every year.
“Hi,” the girl said. She was skinny—too skinny even, like she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a while—and wore cutoff jean shorts and a black tank top with the word Halcyon printed on the front in turquoise text. She sucked on a lollipop, her lips shiny with sugar in the moonlight.
“Um. Hi,” Ramona said as the girl came closer and then plopped down in the sand next to Ramona, as though they were old friends.
Ramona scowled.
The girl sucked on her lollipop and smiled.
“Are you lost?” Ramona asked.
The girl shrugged. “Maybe. Probably.”
Ramona had no clue what to do with that.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked, then grabbed Ramona’s arm before she could answer. “Wait, don’t tell me. Let’s make up names for each other. You can be…” Her eyes roamed Ramona’s face, then slid down to her shirt. “Cherry.” She grinned.
Ramona stared at her for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to play this. She just wanted to be alone. Just wanted to cry and feel sorry for herself before she had to go back home and pretty much be a mom to her baby sister.
But as the girl smiled at her, Ramona caught sight of her eyes in the moonlight—the lightest green, like the pictures she’d seen of those icebergs in the Arctic. Her hair was short, cut to her shoulders, and a milk chocolate color.
Her eyes though…it wasn’t just the color, but the look underneath them too.
Dark circles.
Her cheeks a bit hollowed out.
The girl looked haunted, her ghosts trailing behind her even, but she smiled and sucked on that lollipop—Ramona got a whiff of the sour apple flavor—and suddenly Ramona smiled too.
The first smile she’d managed in two weeks. The first real one, at least.
She even laughed, unbidden and surprising, the sound like a rusty gate opening for the first time in years.
“Okay,” she said. “You can be Lollipop.”
“Lolli,” the girl said.
“Perfect.”
The girl—Lolli—nudged her shoulder with her own, and Ramona felt a tiny swoop through her belly. She felt a lot of things all at once, actually—there was the smiling, of course, but there was also a sort of relief, because Lolli seemed just as hungry as Ramona. Not for food, but for… something .
Understanding, maybe.
Camaraderie.
Someone who got it.
And with that haunted look in Lolli’s eyes, Ramona knew Lolli got it. She didn’t have to explain it. She didn’t have to tell her sob story about her mother, and she didn’t need to hear Lolli’s.
They just got to be , right here, right now, under the moon and the stars, with their fake names and laughter and that lollipop.
Ramona didn’t realize how much she was craving that until this moment—just being . Since her mother left, even April, who could turn any situation into some sort of party, watched her with wary eyes, as though she was always waiting for Ramona to fall apart.
Lolli smiled at her, her shoulder still pressed to Ramona’s, and Ramona felt another feeling right then too. She’d been thinking about it a lot before her mother left, for over a year maybe, but in the last two weeks, she hadn’t had any room to process it, this…wondering.
About girls.
About how back in the fall, she couldn’t stop thinking about Nala Young. They’d done an English project together on Emily Dickinson, and it was all fine and they’d gotten an A, but afterward, Ramona kept daydreaming about Nala’s curly black hair and the little freckle above her top lip, the way her jeans fit on a certain day or the curve of her shoulder in a tank top.
It was exciting and confusing, because maybe Ramona wished her own thighs looked like that in a pair of jeans or that her hair had a little more curl to it…but the butterflies in her belly every time Nala said hey or sat down between Ramona and April in the cafeteria said otherwise.
They said Ramona had a crush.
She knew the signs, had felt them for Wesley Branson in seventh grade, and Ashton Lee in sixth. Nala was the first girl though, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with all those feelings.
So she did nothing
Didn’t even tell April.
Didn’t tell her mom.
She just waited, letting herself think through it, feel through it, see if it passed.
Nala moved away this past spring, back to her mom’s hometown in Georgia, and Ramona waited for the thoughts and wonderings to go away too.
But they didn’t. She still thought . Still wondered .
And now, here was Lolli, a girl with ice-green eyes and a hungry heart, just like Ramona’s, and those butterflies were suddenly in full flight again.
Ramona looked away from Lolli, out at the moon sprinkling silver over the lake. She tried to breathe through those silly butterflies, get them to go to sleep.
“You visiting here too?” Lolli asked.
Ramona opened her mouth to say the truth, but “yeah” came out instead. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she just didn’t want to live in her real life tonight—she’d come here to cry, but found a kindred spirit instead, and she just wanted to be Cherry tonight.
Lolli nodded. “It’s nice in this town. Wish I lived here all the time.” She tucked her knees to her chest, rested her chin on top, looked out at the water too.
Ramona wanted to ask her why. Ask where she lived during the year, but she had a feeling Lolli didn’t want to answer those questions any more than Ramona did.
They sat there in silence for a bit. It wasn’t even awkward, their shoulders still touching, like they’d known each other for years and years.
“Do you ever wish you could be someone else?” Lolli asked.
“Like Lolli?” Ramona asked.
Lolli smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes. “Yeah. Like Lolli. Or…I don’t know. Molly. Polly.” She started to laugh then.
“Holly,” Ramona said.
“Dolly.”
“ Hello, Dolly ,” Ramona sang. The high school had just done the musical, and Ramona had designed a set of costumes for the show. Of course, no one knew about them—they were hidden away in her sketchbook.
“You sing pretty,” Lolli said.
Ramona laughed. “I don’t.”
“You do!” Lolli said, then got to her feet, crunched her lollipop, and then stuck the bare stick into her pocket before taking Ramona’s hands and pulling her up too. “Let’s be someone else tonight.”
“Aren’t we already?” Ramona asked. Lolli’s hands were warm in hers, but soft. Gentle.
Lolli nodded. “Anyone we want. Keep singing.”
“What?” Ramona said, laughing.
“You’re a singer tonight. A famous Broadway actor.”
Ramona shook her head, but she couldn’t stop smiling. She liked singing and could carry a tune, but nothing close to a future Broadway star. Still, Lolli’s excitement was contagious, infecting her bones and blood and heart, and she loved it. She never wanted a remedy for this.
“What should I sing?”
“Keep singing what you were. That funny song.”
Lolli spread their arms out, fingers still laced, then held them like that, staring at Ramona with those eyes until she started singing.
Ramona laughed again, her face ablaze, but she cleared her throat and sang the classic Louis Armstrong tune.
Hello, Dolly.
Well, hello, Dolly.
It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.
As Ramona sang, Lolli lit up. She grinned and danced, as though she were Dolly herself, swinging Ramona around in a circle on the sand as she moved, always holding on to at least one of her hands. When Ramona came around to You’re still glowin’, you’re still crowin’ , Lolli put one hand behind her head, prancing and really hamming it up to the point that Ramona could barely sing anymore she was laughing so hard.
“I think you really are Dolly,” Ramona said.
“I think I might be,” Lolli said, then grinned before slowing down to look at Ramona. “And who are you?”
“I’m Cherry,” Ramona said, plucking at her shirt with her free hand.
“Who are you really, though?”
Ramona blinked, a myriad of words spilling into her brain.
Sister. Friend. Daughter. Artist.
Motherless.
Queer…?
She’d heard the word before, of course had heard gay and lesbian and even bisexual , though she’d had to go hunting for that one on the internet.
“I don’t think I really know yet,” she finally said.
Lolli nodded. “Yeah. Me neither.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds, interrupted only when a flurry of color erupted into the sky.
“Oh my god,” Lolli said, her mouth dropping open at the sight. She kept hold of Ramona’s hand but turned to face the display. When she spoke, her voice was dreamy. “I’ve never seen these, you know.”
“You’ve never seen fireworks?”
Lolli just shook her head, and Ramona could swear her eyes were a little watery.
Ramona squeezed her hand.
Lolli squeezed back.
Another explosion rocketed into the sky, this one silver and gold and sprinkling down like a willow tree.
“When my best friend and I see fireworks that look like that,” Ramona said, pointing to the drizzling color against the black night, “we yell out, ‘ Willow! ’?”
Lolli laughed. “Willow?”
“For the willow tree shape it makes.”
Lolli turned back toward the show, watching as more colors lit the sky. When that willow tree silhouette appeared again, she glanced at Ramona.
Ramona smiled.
“Willow!” they both yelled, holding out the ow sound. They did this over and over again, just like Ramona and April always did, until they were dancing around in the sand, screaming, “ Willow!” into the night like a battle cry. It was silly and perfect and it seemed to light Lolli up from the inside. Maybe Ramona imagined it, but she didn’t look quite as lost as before.
And Ramona didn’t feel quite as alone.
Soon, the finale burst into the air, one blast of color after another, the pop-pop-pop echoing in their ears. They stood side by side holding hands, and when it was done, Lolli laughed and turned toward Ramona.
“That was amazing,” she said.
Ramona nodded. “It was.”
They kept looking at each other, and Ramona felt it again—that swoop in her belly, a wave cresting. She would’ve looked away by now with anyone else, but with Lolli…there was a freedom with her. A rightness.
A knowing .
“You’re…you’re really pretty,” Ramona said, her voice so quiet she barely heard herself.
But Lolli heard her. She smiled softly, lashes dropping to her cheeks for a second before lifting back, her eyes searching Ramona’s.
“Really?” she asked.
Ramona nodded.
“You are too,” Lolli said.
Ramona didn’t know if that was actually true, but it felt true right then. She believed Lolli believed it, and it made her feel light and airy, a gauzy curtain blowing in a summer breeze.
The two of them moved closer, and Lolli put a hand on Ramona’s waist…then another. Ramona’s hands were drifting free then, but she wanted to touch Lolli’s face—that too-thin, lovely face that had smiled so much tonight.
So she did.
Her hand shook as she moved it to Lolli’s cheek, but she didn’t stop, because Lolli smiled again and leaned into her palm. Ramona brought her other hand up, thumbs swiping gently at Lolli’s cheekbones.
They were so close.
Then closer.
And then their lips touched.
Gentle and sweet, like a whisper.
Ramona felt her whole body light up, like glitter, like a firework, like happiness. They bumped noses, and laughed, and then kept kissing, figuring each other out, and it was weird and wonderful and awkward and perfect. When they finally pulled away, they laughed again, then kissed again, and it went like that for a few minutes, a dreamy cycle Ramona couldn’t believe was really happening.
But it was.
And it was everything she’d dreamed her first kiss would be like. No, it was better. She knew not everyone got to say that. April’s was with Jared Lassiter at the high school’s homecoming football game this past fall, and he had pizza breath and tried to take out her eye with his tongue, in April’s own words.
This was nothing like pizza breath and a tongue sword.
This was sour apple sugar and sparklers and summer.
“So that’s what all the fuss is about,” Lolli said, lacing her fingers with Ramona’s and holding their hands out wide.
Ramona’s breath caught for the millionth time that night. “That was your first time too?”
Lolli laughed. “I haven’t even seen fireworks before. You think I just go around kissing cute girls all the time?”
Ramona laughed too, shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem cool enough that you might’ve.”
Lolli shook her head. “First time.”
Ramona grinned. “First time.”
“Dolly’s still crowin’, I guess,” Lolli said as she pressed her finger into the single dimple on Ramona’s left cheek.
Ramona smiled, then laughed so hard she knew her muscles would be sore tomorrow. Lolli laughed too and spun them around and around in a circle, the stars twirling above them, their giggles joining in with the gentle sound of the lake lapping at the shore, the cicadas in the woods behind them.
“Dylan?”
The word—the name —cut through the night, their dancing and laughter.
“Dylan, where are you?”
Lolli stopped spinning, her head turning toward the voice. A woman emerged from the trail. She was tall and curvy, had long brown hair down to her waist, and wore a sundress that hit at her knees.
“Good lord, there you are,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest. She wore several gold chains of different lengths, and they shimmered in the moonlight. “Why did you disappear like that? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”
“Sorry, Aunt Hallie,” Lolli said.
Aunt Hallie shook her head, took a deep breath. “It’s okay. But, baby girl, there are rules with me. You know that.”
“I know,” Lolli said. She was still holding one of Ramona’s hands, fingers all tangled up together.
“And who is this?” Aunt Hallie asked, walking a bit closer to get a better look at Ramona. Her eyes were careworn but gentle, her voice soft but firm.
Ramona opened her mouth, her name on the tip of her tongue because Aunt Hallie did not seem like an adult who would put up with any kind of fake name, but Lolli spoke first.
“That’s Cherry,” she said. “She’s visiting Clover Lake too.”
Aunt Hallie nodded, slid her eyes down to their joined hands. Ramona waited for Lolli to pull away, but she didn’t. She even squeezed tighter.
And Aunt Hallie’s gaze softened.
“I see,” she said. “I’m glad you met a friend, honey, but we have to go. We’re leaving tomorrow and we haven’t even started packing. Your room’s a disaster. And I’m sure Cherry needs to get back to her family too. It’s late.”
Family .
The word cut through Ramona’s heart, fast like a flash of lightning.
She had no idea how long she’d even been out here. Her dad was probably wondering where she was, the fireworks long over.
But her mom wasn’t. Her mom didn’t care at all.
Her throat knotted up, tears threatening, but then Lolli turned back toward her, and she felt herself relax. It was short-lived though, because this was it. Lolli was leaving tomorrow, and Ramona didn’t even know when she’d be back, where she lived, what her real name was.
Dylan.
That’s what her aunt had said, but Ramona didn’t dare use it. Lolli hadn’t wanted her to know it.
They were Lolli and Cherry.
“Well,” Lolli said. “I guess I’ve got to go.”
Ramona nodded, looking down at their entwined hands. “Yeah.”
“I’ll let you two say goodbye,” Aunt Hallie said. “I’ll be right over here.” She motioned toward the path back to the main beach, then disappeared into the shadows of the tree-thick trail.
“This was…” Lolli said, but trailed off, her voice wobbling right before she kissed Ramona one more time, her mouth hard and trembling.
Then, before Ramona could get a word out, kiss her back, or even hug her, Lolli pulled away and pressed her finger into Ramona’s dimple again, then turned and ran toward the shadows, and was gone.