Chapter Eight
Chapter
Eight
“Hey, you,” Ramona said when she came out of the diner’s kitchen to see her sister sitting at the bar.
At this time of day, it wasn’t unusual to find Olive and her best friend, Marley, at Clover Moon hunting free pie. Today was Decades Day for Grad Week, and Olive wore a black flapper dress, complete with fringe and sparkles, beaded straps curving over her toned shoulders. Ramona had designed and made it herself, as well as the band of bedazzled silk tied around Olive’s head. They’d pinned her long hair underneath to create a faux bob, and her bright red lipstick was still firmly in place.
“Hey,” Olive said, her attention on her phone, thumbs flying.
“Hey, Ramona,” Marley said. Her short, dark blond hair was styled high and dyed a dark blue at the tips, and she had on a muscle tee and acid-washed jeans, and huge clomping combat boots. Ramona wasn’t sure what decade she was supposed to be from—she was a baby butch every day of the year, so she didn’t really look all that different aside from the blue hair flair.
“Pie?” Ramona said, setting two waters in front of them.
“What do you have?” Marley asked. Meaning what was Owen going to toss when they closed because it was already a day old.
Ramona surveyed the pie case. “Looks like peach and strawberry rhubarb.”
“No honey whiskey?” Olive asked, not glancing up from her phone.
“You know we run through that like water,” Ramona said. She grabbed a slice of each flavor and two forks, knowing the girls would share anyway. “Who are you talking to so furiously?” she asked Olive.
Olive’s fingers froze, and Marley became very interested in a slice of peach that had fallen out of the pie and onto her plate.
“No one,” Olive said.
Which meant someone, as everyone who spent any time with teenagers knew, and a major someone.
“A boy, huh?” Ramona said, and grinned.
“No,” Olive said, hiding her phone in her lap.
“As long as it’s not Jameson Reece,” Ramona said. “That guy has frat boy written all over him. Am I right, Marley?”
“What?” Marley asked, blinking at Ramona like a baby dear. “Oh. Yeah. Sure.” She went back to staring at her pie.
“It’s not Jameson,” Olive said.
“Henry?” Ramona said, still watching Marley as she shoveled pie into her mouth.
“Which one?” Marion asked as she passed behind them with three plates in her hands.
“Henry G.,” Ramona said, laughing. “Henry W. is dating Elizabeth Ng.”
“How do you know all this?” Olive asked. “I didn’t even know that.”
Ramona waved her hands at the dining room. “Behold, the gossip hall.”
“You need a life,” Olive deadpanned. “Desperately. How’s that whole thing going?” She dug into the strawberry rhubarb pie, and Ramona decided to let her evade the possible boy conversation for the moment.
“What thing?” Ramona asked.
Olive gave her a look. “The whole ‘get a life’ thing. Movies? Costumes?”
“Oh, are you trying to design for the movie?” Marley asked, finally coming to life.
“No,” Ramona said, which was the truth.
“She’s trying to not be such a sad sack,” Olive said.
Ramona frowned, a little stung. “I’m not a sad sack.” Though she realized knowing the dating lives of teenagers before her teenage sister in a small town was a wee bit sad.
“What’s the designer’s name?” Olive asked. “Noelle?”
“Shh,” Ramona said, flapping her hands at her sister. “Gossip hall, remember?”
“April said you found a way in,” Olive said, chewing and completely unfazed by all the buzzing townsfolk around her. “What is it?”
Ramona opened her mouth. Closed it. She was going to tattoo April in her sleep. Something awful like Tweety Bird or Mr. Burns from The Simpsons , right on her ass. And it would be awful because Ramona had no idea how to wield a tattoo gun.
“I didn’t find a way—”
But before she could finish her sentence, the door flew open, bells jingling, and her way in walked into Clover Moon looking like she’d just barely escaped a pack of wild dogs. The cacophony of the dining room dimmed—not completely vanishing, but the volume definitely went down, all eyes taking in the woman in the doorway.
Dylan Monroe looked around, her shoulders clinging to her ears, but they dropped as soon as she spotted Ramona.
Ramona’s stomach flipped and flopped, and she pressed a hand to her diaphragm, as though the pressure could force it to calm down.
“Hey, good, you’re here,” Dylan said, approaching the counter. Her hair was in a messy fishtail braid, flyaways all over her face, and she wore a food-splattered apron Ramona would never have allowed into a dining room, along with a sweet pink top. Ramona assumed this was part of Dylan’s costuming, and she had to admit, the star looked pretty cute all harried and, well, small town–ish.
“Hi,” Ramona said. The conversation around them finally started up again, though Olive and Marley stared at Dylan unabashedly, their mouths hanging open. “How’d your first day go?”
Dylan groaned. “I need coffee. And chocolate. Preferably at the same time. Through an IV if you’ve got it.”
Ramona laughed. “I can take care of the first two.”
“That’ll have to do, I guess,” Dylan said, climbing onto a stool next to Olive, who was still gaping like a fish along with Marley.
Dylan turned her head slowly to look at them. “Hello. Nice costumes.”
“Holy shit,” Marley said.
Dylan pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh. “Well…holy shit to you too.”
Ramona grinned. “Olive, Marley, this is—”
“Dylan Monroe,” Olive said.
Dylan pointed two finger guns at her, and Olive’s cheeks bloomed red.
“Dylan, this is my sister, Olive, and her best friend, Marley.”
Marley stuck out her hand. “I’m gay.”
“Smooth,” Ramona said.
But Dylan just laughed and shook Marley’s hand. “Hi, gay, I’m bisexual.”
“I’ve never been so disappointed to be straight,” Olive said dreamily, shaking Dylan’s hand too.
Dylan tilted her head. “That sentiment might be a sign you’re not.”
Olive’s eyes went wide, and she glanced at Ramona, who just winked at her as she dished up some pie for Dylan. While Clover Lake was small and packed with heteros, Olive’s circle was overwhelmingly queer—Marley, Ramona, April, and her softball coach Jasmine and her wife, Sarah, who was also Olive’s AP English teacher. Olive had never expressed much interest in any gender other than boys, but this kind of stuff was fluid, Ramona knew full well. She just wanted Olive to be happy, to know herself and be proud of who she was, no matter who that turned out to be.
“Things to ponder,” Marley said softly, nudging Olive’s shoulder, her eyes cast down as she did so, cheeks a little pink.
“Hmm,” Dylan said, looking between the two teens. “Indeed.” Then she took a deep breath and dived into the thick slice of mocha silk pie Ramona had set in front of her. “Anyway, today sucked, and I’d like to forget my own name, thanks.”
“Not much chance of that,” Ramona said.
Dylan groaned again. “Maybe not, but oh my god, this pie.”
“Right?” Marley said. “Owen makes the best pie.”
“I made that one,” Ramona said.
“Did you?” Dylan asked.
Ramona nodded, her cheeks warming, her own eyes locked on Dylan’s. Looking at Dylan was like looking at art—those Pointillism paintings made up of a million tiny dots, so intricate, you could spend hours just staring, getting lost, trying to make sense of how it all came together so perfectly.
She shook her head. Looked away.
“Can you teach me?” Dylan asked.
Ramona looked back at her—dammit, it was hard not to look at someone when they were speaking to you. “Really?”
“I need all the small-town waitress help I can get.”
Ramona felt something in her plummet. She knew Dylan didn’t mean for it to sound so derogatory, but that’s how it hit the center of Ramona’s chest.
Just a waitress.
A sad sack.
“Yeah, sure,” Ramona said, grabbing a towel and wiping down the counter for something to do. “I’ll add it to our list.”
“List?” Olive asked.
“Oh,” Ramona said. “It’s noth—”
“Your sister is helping me be a normal human being,” Dylan said around a mouthful of pie.
Ramona pressed her eyes closed. The last thing she needed was Olive all tangled up in whatever she was doing with Dylan.
“Normal is overrated,” Marley said.
“True,” Dylan said, “but I’d still like to go bowling without attracting every paparazzo on the East Coast just waiting for me to, I don’t know, throw my bowling ball into the vending machine or something.”
Ramona just laughed, but Olive looked suddenly pensive, even tapping her fingers to her lips like she did when she was thinking hard.
Then her eyes went wide.
“No,” Ramona said.
“What?” Olive said. “I didn’t even speak yet.”
“I know that look. Whatever it is, no.”
“It’s a good idea,” Olive said.
“You’ve been hanging around April too much,” Ramona said.
“Two words. Costume. Bowling,” Olive said, flourishing her hand down her 1920s garb, then sat back and folded her arms triumphantly.
“Yes,” Marley said, clapping once. “I’m in.”
“Olive,” Ramona said.
“You have a ton of costumes,” Olive said, then waved her hand at Dylan. “Dress her up. Change her name like she wants!”
“Oh, I’m intrigued,” Dylan said, then tilted her head at Ramona. “Costumes?”
“Clothes,” Ramona said quickly, that guilty prick in her chest jabbing at her again. Still, they were clothes. “From when I was at RISD.”
“Oh, yeah, apparel design,” Dylan said, nodding.
Olive lifted her brow at Ramona but said nothing.
“What kinds of clothes?” Dylan asked. “The kind where I could go by, I don’t know, Dolly , and have platinum blonde hair?”
Ramona’s mouth dropped open, adrenaline flooding her system like someone just popped up from behind the counter and yelled boo .
Dolly.
That night flashed back to her for the millionth time in the last thirty-six hours, the two of them young and hungry and dancing under the stars.
She got her breath back, watched Dylan for a second for any sign of recognition, but Dylan just smiled at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for Ramona to say something.
And she realized Dylan would never find Cherry in Ramona’s face or voice or eyes. She wouldn’t recognize anything about her, because Dylan probably didn’t remember Dolly or Lolli or Cherry anyway, and Ramona had known that from the second Dylan walked through the door yesterday morning.
Why would she?
Why should she?
And now, eighteen years later, why shouldn’t present-day Ramona take this opportunity in front of her? Grab it with both hands, fingers curled tight, and run with it all the way to Noelle Yang.
There was no reason. April was right. Dylan was Dylan Monroe , and she was a celebrity, child of icons, the topic of conversation wherever she went. At the end of the summer, she’d leave, never come back, and forget Ramona all over again.
But Ramona…Ramona would still be here, waiting tables at Clover Moon. And as much as she loved Clover Lake, she wanted more. Or different. She wanted both—her home and her dream. She wanted both so damn much. Hadn’t realized how much until this very second, everything suddenly so clear—Olive leaving her soon, her father with his own life.
She needed her own life too. No matter how terrifying it was, no matter what she had to do to get it. Noelle fucking Yang was in her town. Here. In Clover Lake. Probably no more than a mile or two away at this very moment.
“You know what?” she said, tossing her towel onto the counter and literally sticking out her chest a little. “Let’s go costume bowling.”
Dylan Monroe was in Ramona’s room.
It was strange, even more strange than walking with the famous child of rock icons through the woods or helping her brew coffee. This was Ramona’s space, the place where she’d even dreamed about Dylan—well, of Lolli —too many times to count. Now, as the sun set behind the trees in Ramona’s backyard, gold and pink filtering through the window, Dylan made the room she’d slept in all her life feel small, as though Dylan were a too-bright lamp switched on in a dark room.
She was also just…Dylan.
A person wandering around a bedroom and looking at photographs and prints hanging on the wall.
“Olive plays softball?” she asked, picking up a photo of Olive and Ramona at the state championship two years ago, Olive still in braces, her freckles pronounced after the season.
“Yeah,” Ramona said as she arranged the costumes— clothes —she’d grabbed from her workroom on her bed. No way she could take Dylan in there, not with the illustrated prints of iconic movie costumes she’d gotten for Christmas her senior year of high school all over the walls. Single costumes on bright backgrounds, like Mary Poppins’s coat and hat and umbrella, Dorothy’s blue dress and ruby slippers, Vivian’s red opera dress from Pretty Woman .
“She’s going to Vanderbilt on a scholarship this fall,” Ramona said.
“How queer of her,” Dylan said.
Ramona laughed. “I think you definitely gave her something to think about today. Not that she didn’t have enough to ponder already with me and April and Marley around.”
Dylan glanced at her, lifted a brow. Set the photo back on Ramona’s dresser slowly. “So…you’re queer?”
Ramona swallowed, focused on the 1950s-esque dress she was holding, kelly green with different-colored hands printed all over it giving the middle finger, complete with a turquoise belt and a mint green tulle petticoat.
“Um,” she said brilliantly. “Yeah. I’m bi.” She said it fast, then immediately changed the subject. “I think this will fit you.”
She held out the dress, the tulle rustling.
Dylan’s eyes locked on hers for a split second before sliding down to the dress, then widened.
“Wow, that’s…gorgeous.” She came closer, hand reaching out to touch the material. Her fingers were gentle on the skirt, almost reverent. “Very…Donna Reed meets Miley Cyrus.”
Ramona laughed. She’d made this her freshman year at RISD—her only year—for a unit called the Subversive Past in one of her foundation classes. “Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a very good thing,” Dylan said. “And that’s for me?
Ramona grinned. “Well, it won’t fit me, so yes.” She looked back at the assortment of fabric and accessories on her bed, grabbed a Marilyn Monroe–style lace-front wig. “And platinum hair, as requested.”
Dylan’s smile was so big. “Oh my god.”
“And,” Ramona said, “while you’ll have to change into bowling shoes, I’ve got some combat boots that will complete the look.”
“Combat boots.”
Ramona nodded, then held out the dress and wig.
Dylan took the clothes but then tilted her head. She had a way of doing that, this little inquisitive glance that made Ramona feel as though she could read all Ramona’s secrets.
“What are you wearing?” Dylan asked. “You’re dressing up too, right?”
Ramona just smiled. “You’ll see.”