Chapter Fifteen
Chapter
Fifteen
The next day, Ramona had to be at the diner earlier than usual. The first café scene was being filmed later in the afternoon, and Owen had asked for help getting things set up—or rather, clearing away all the stuff he didn’t want the movie people to mess with. He’d insisted on serving breakfast as normal too, so there would be plenty to clean and arrange.
Also, it was Saturday, so Olive and Marley had begged Ramona to let them come along and help, excited to get a glimpse of a real movie set. Ramona wasn’t sure how much actual help they would be, but she agreed, as long as they got out of the way when told.
Ramona stepped out of her room around seven, her stomach already in flight. She wasn’t sure why—she didn’t expect she’d get to be on set while they filmed, and while she hoped for an actual introduction to Noelle Yang sometime soon, she couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday with Dylan.
Nothing about the two of them had shown up online so far. Ramona had checked sites like TMZ and the Hollywood Reporter every ten minutes last night. She had no idea how she felt about any of it. She certainly didn’t want to end up in the papers or websites or Instagram Reels, but…
Are you two dating?
She couldn’t get the question out of her mind. It was just so…preposterous. Silly. Impossible and ridiculous and…
Well, wasn’t it?
She shook her head, focused on the day ahead. Smoothed her hands down her light-wash jeans, straightened the multicolored floral blouse she had tied at her waist. She headed down the hall to make sure Olive was awake, knocked on her door before turning the knob carefully.
“Hey, baby girl, are you—”
“Ramona, Jesus,” Olive said. She sat on her bed with a bright orange shoebox in her lap, her hands holding what looked like a photograph, though Ramona couldn’t tell what it was of before Olive dropped it back into the box and stuffed the lid on top.
“Sorry,” Ramona said, frowning.
“Most people wait for a ‘come in’ when they knock.”
“I didn’t think you were awake.”
Olive didn’t say anything, just stood up and slid the shoebox under her bed, then headed to her dresser to put on a silver necklace, the pendant featuring tiny spotted mushrooms, a gift from Ramona for her fourteenth birthday.
“You okay?” Ramona asked.
“I’m fine,” Olive said. “Just…you know. Last summer and all.”
Ramona all but melted. “Yeah. It’s a lot.”
Olive nodded. “Good a lot. But a lot.”
Ramona walked over to her, took the delicate chain Olive was struggling with, and fastened it around her neck. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”
Olive rolled her eyes but smiled.
“Amazing and wondrous,” Ramona said.
“Oh, here we go.”
“Wondrous and incredible. Astonishing. Staggering and stunning. Confounding. Breathtaking.”
“Okay, okay, can we pick a new word already?”
Ramona laughed, ran her hands through Olive’s straight brown hair. This was a game they’d played since Olive was little. One of them would lock on a word and then rattle off as many synonyms as they could think of. It was a teaching strategy their dad brought home from a seminar he’d been taking when Olive was around four, and Ramona had to admit, it certainly helped develop her own vocabulary along with Olive’s.
She turned Olive around, set her hands on her shoulders. “I’m just proud of you,” she said. “Don’t forget that, yeah?”
Olive’s expression dipped a little, but she nodded, looking down as she swallowed. Ramona started to ask what was wrong, but Olive’s phone buzzed on her desk, and she slipped out of Ramona’s hands to grab it.
“Wait, what?” Olive said, frowning at her phone.
“What is it?” Ramona said.
Olive didn’t say anything, just flew out of her room and bounded down the stairs.
“Olive, hang on,” Ramona said, following her.
“Marley says there are a ton of—”
But she didn’t finish as she flung open the front door to a flurry of flashes and shouts.
“Ramona!” the voices called, at least a dozen people gathered on the Rileys’ lawn. “Hey, Ramona, can we get a quote? When did you and Dylan start dating? Is it serious?”
Olive blinked, open-mouthed, Ramona right behind her, completely agog. It took her a good five seconds—which felt like an eternity with all the noise and clatter and clicking—to realize she should close the door.
She slammed it shut. Locked it.
Olive and Ramona stood in the foyer, breathing heavily, Ramona’s back pressed to the door.
Finally, Olive broke the silence. “You’re dating Dylan?”
“What?” Ramona said. “No.”
Olive clicked around on her phone. “But you’re all over the internet.”
“I’m what?” Ramona dug her phone out of her back pocket, checked the same sites that were quiet last night.
They weren’t so quiet anymore.
Pictures of her and Dylan at Dickie’s were everywhere, particularly the one where Dylan was holding Ramona’s hand to pull her away, but in this shot, it just looked like they were holding hands period.
“Oh my god,” Ramona said. Her heart felt huge, as though it had left its spot in her chest and was zooming through her whole body.
“Ramona,” her father said, ambling from the kitchen into the foyer. He was looking down at his phone. “Why am I getting texts from fellow teachers that my eldest is dating Dylan Monroe.” He glanced up finally, eyes wide. “As in Jack Monroe’s daughter?”
“Jesus,” Ramona said, closing her eyes, but then her own phone buzzed.
And buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed.
April: RA
April: MONAAAAAA
April: WHAT THE FRESH HELLLLL???
April: YOU WENT ON A DATE???
April: AND DIDN’T TELL ME???
“Okay, jerks,” Olive said, still reading on her phone. “This article says you’re not Dylan’s normal type and that she must be slumming it.”
“Oh, for god’s sake!” Ramona said, then pushed off the door and took off down the hall, closing herself in the powder room. She sat down on the toilet lid, muted April’s still-buzzing texts. She just needed a second to think. To breathe. To get her head around this.
She knew this kind of thing happened to celebrities all the time—people wanted in to their lives, thought they were entitled to them even, but she never expected herself to be swimming in this fishbowl too. It was dizzying and overwhelming and, honestly, a little terrifying.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. She opened one of the articles on her phone, eyes scanning the words.
Dylan Monroe is summering in a tiny hamlet called Clover Lake (yeah, we’ve never heard of it either), and it looks like she’s spending her time doing more than just filming her first rom-com (you heard that right—bad girl Killin’ Dylan is playing America’s sweetheart). Local girl Ramona Riley (she makes pie, everyone, and drives a very practical Honda)…
“I do not drive a fucking Honda,” Ramona said. She had no idea how they got her name, but she knew it wouldn’t be hard around there. Those photographers could’ve asked literally anyone in town—shaggy bangs, freckles for days, handmade clothes around curvy thighs. Ramona pressed her fingers to her temple, kept reading against her better judgment.
…looks more the part of America’s sweetheart, and even has the hips to prove it.
Ramona gritted her teeth. She was happy with her body—happy, or didn’t think about it at all, honestly—but she knew the wider world didn’t always look kindly upon curves and fat, despite the body positive and body neutrality movements flourishing throughout society. And Hollywood certainly wasn’t regular society.
After Dylan’s explosive breakup with Jocelyn Gareth a few months ago (helicopters were involved, enough said), it’s no surprise to find Dylan holding the hand of someone who is one hundred percent not her normal type. Maybe slumming it in New Hampshire will calm Jack and Carrie’s wildling down a little. Good luck, Ramona Riley, and Godspeed.
Ramona swiped out of her browser, clicked her phone to dark, stuck it back in her pocket. She was tempted to toss it into the toilet and be done with the whole thing, but that felt extreme. Still, she couldn’t read another word, and didn’t want the temptation. Infuriating tears swelled into her eyes. She knew it was silly—these were gossip sites, for crying out loud. They weren’t factual, and everyone knew it.
Still, despite this knowledge, everyone read them and oohed and aahed and believed every single word.
She took a few deep breaths, but the tears kept coming—she wasn’t even sure why she was crying. She wasn’t Dylan’s normal type, and that was fine. She wasn’t even actually dating Dylan Monroe, for Christ’s sake. But she couldn’t help this feeling of being invaded. And even more than that, she felt silly, filled with an embarrassment she couldn’t seem to shake, which led to embarrassment over feeling embarrassed, a ridiculous cycle that pulled more tears from her eyes.
She swiped furiously at her face, willed herself to get herself together. She still had to be at Clover Moon in half an hour and had no idea how she was going to get out of her house. She pictured herself walking boldly through the journalists, acting as though they weren’t even there, chin held high…Yeah no, she’d never pull it off. She’d lose her shit for sure, all that noise and clicking and yelling, and then they’d report on how she’d had a panic attack while getting in her car.
She dropped her head in her hands, tried to think. She’d just decided to duck out the back door and cut through the woods to walk to Clover Moon, when her phone buzzed again.
“God, what now?” she whisper-yelled, but fished it out of her pocket anyway.
Dylan flashed across the screen.
She sucked in a breath. She and Dylan had shared numbers that first day they’d met—or remet, more accurately—sitting on the couch in April’s office, but neither of them had used that information yet.
She slid her finger across the screen. “H-h-hi.”
“Ramona?”
She cleared her throat. “Yeah, hey.”
“God, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” she asked stupidly.
“Oh, you haven’t seen? Thank god, don’t go on the internet, or—”
“No, I saw,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just processing.”
A beat of silence. “Right. I knew this might happen. I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
Dylan sighed. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine, okay? I’ve got so many eyes on me since everything with Jocelyn, and everyone is just waiting for me to fuck up this movie. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. It was selfish and stupid.”
Ramona nodded, even though Dylan couldn’t see her. The lump in her throat was ballooning—Dylan’s words should be comforting, but somehow, they just made her feel worse. She closed her eyes, swallowed about seven thousand times until her throat felt normal again.
“Ramona?” Dylan asked softly.
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said. Coughed. “Um, listen, there are…well, a lot of photographers outside my door.”
“What?”
“And I need to get to the café.”
“Holy shit. I’m so, so sorry.”
“It’s fine. I just…I think I need to cut out the back maybe?”
“Goddammit. Fucking vultures. Hold on. Don’t move. I’m on my way over.”
“Dylan, no, that’ll just make it—”
But Dylan ended the call, and Ramona couldn’t help the fresh wave of tears that spilled down her cheeks.