Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter
Twenty-One
They were taking a break between filming café scenes when Dylan heard a strange hush descend over the dining room.
The crew was still busy, but the Clover Lake locals who were playing extras and seated at the tables had gone eerily still, and when Dylan looked up from her place behind the counter, most of them were looking right at her.
“What did you do now?” Blair asked. She was sitting at the bar, scrolling through her phone in a white eyelet blouse and tailored denim shorts. Dylan, as usual for the Clover Moon scenes, was unkempt with straggly hair and a greasy apron.
“Nothing,” Dylan said. “Well, I took one of their own on a date last night, so I assume it’s about that.” She breathed through the unease in her gut, the knowing that there would be photos of her and Ramona on the internet and the guilt that came with it.
But she liked Ramona.
She’d had an amazing time with Ramona. She’d learned about mushrooms while also realizing she might have a touch of trypophobia, as the more porous fungi really freaked her out, but it was still one of the best nights she’d had in a long time.
Maybe ever.
And god, she’d wanted to kiss Ramona last night. She’d cursed the heavens when Mr. Riley interrupted their good night, but she’d smiled and all but skipped to her car afterward, because she was happy.
She was on fucking cloud nine.
And none of that had to do with the fact that she knew pictures of the two of them would be good for her career, or that the whole dating idea had come from her publicist for image reasons.
She was simply happy to know and be with Ramona Riley.
“Well, aren’t you the secret romantic,” Blair said, still looking down at her phone.
“What?” Dylan asked. She grabbed a towel and started wiping down the counter, a habit by this point.
“Not that I usually put much stock in these gossip sites, but this is a good story. If it’s true, of course,” Blair said.
“I can’t believe you read that shit,” Dylan said.
Blair laughed. “Like I said. I don’t, but my partner sent this to me. Thought it was interesting.”
Dylan put down her rag. “Wait. You have a partner?”
Blair gave her a look. “Yes.”
“How did I not know this?”
Blair went back to her phone. “Because I practice a little something called privacy.”
Dylan sighed. “Okay, fine. I give. What did your partner send you about me?”
“Their name is Harlow. They work in graphic design and we’re moving in together when I’m done here.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know,” Blair said softly, glancing back up at Dylan and tilting her head. “Just thought maybe you should.”
They stared at each other for a second, and for the life of her, Dylan did not get this person. Blair hated her, told her she was a piece of shit, then turned around and offered personal information both passive-aggressively and also in a way that seemed like Blair might have really wanted Dylan to ask about Harlow.
“That’s…a nice name,” Dylan said.
Blair smiled. “They chose it themself.”
Dylan nodded as Blair handed over her phone. Dylan took it carefully—the last thing she needed was to break Blair Emmanuel’s property during this fragile moment of peace. She looked down at the screen.
And blinked.
Then literally rubbed her eyes.
Because she couldn’t be seeing what she thought she was seeing. She’d breathed in some sort of mushroom spore last night, and it was causing hallucinations, surely, because the headline Childhood Sweethearts Reunite right above a picture of her and Ramona couldn’t be real.
Please, holy shit, let it not be real.
She refreshed the web page, but her stomach plummeted to her feet when she saw the screen was the same, headline and all. “Fuck,” she breathed out.
“So is it true?” Blair asked.
Dylan didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She scanned the article, short but devastating.
How?
Who?
Why?
A million questions jumbled around in her brain, like rocks in a tumbler.
Ramona?
No. Ramona would never share this memory with gossip sites. Dylan was pretty sure April knew the story too, as Ramona and April shared everything, but April didn’t seem like the type either. Maybe it was Olive, if she knew, or even her friend Marley. But Ramona’s whole circle seemed fiercely loyal to one another, the sort of relationships Dylan had never experienced herself. No, this had to have come from her own side. She combed through her tangled thoughts, trying to remember if she’d ever written this memory down or told someone or—
“Laurel,” she said. “God dammit .”
“You okay?” Blair asked.
Dylan shook her head. “No. Definitely not.” She handed Blair her phone, then plucked her own out of her back pocket to call Laurel, but of course, at that moment, Gia rallied everyone back together. Every curse word in existence kaleidoscoped through Dylan’s head, but there was nothing she could do about it.
She had to work.
She had to be professional.
No matter how much she wanted to scream that she had an emergency, do whatever she had to do to get out of here and figure this out, she knew she couldn’t. She was already on such thin ice.
She took a few deep breaths, then went back behind the counter. Blair watched her, brows furrowed, but Dylan didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to process the fact that this story about her and Ramona was—
Fuck.
Ramona .
She’ll see it.
She probably already had.
“All right, people,” Gia called out. “Let’s try to get this done in one take. My wife is coming into town, and I’d rather not bore her all night complaining about the incompetence of my actors.”
Dylan barely registered the dig—surely meant for her alone, despite the fact that there were four actors in this scene, when Mallory’s boat shoe–wearing brother wanders into the diner with his girlfriend.
“Inspiring as always,” Blair said.
Dylan managed a smile, her fingers still gripping her phone. She tapped on Ramona’s name in her messages.
I’m so sorry , she texted.
It was paltry, maybe not even worth sending, but she had to do something.
“Dylan,” Gia said. “Phone away. Let’s go.”
Dylan hit send, then tucked her phone out of sight so she could work.
Four hours later, Dylan all but ran out of Clover Moon, her phone pressed to her ear. Gia was pissed—they did not, in fact, get the scene done in one take, but seven—and Ramona hadn’t texted Dylan back, leaving her on read, which made Dylan’s stomach feel as though it were full of writhing snakes.
“Laurel, what the actual fuck?” Dylan asked when Laurel answered her phone.
“It wasn’t me,” Laurel said.
“Well, it sure as hell was someone.” Dylan crossed the street, stopping near the square and the gazebo. It was early evening, the sun just starting to dip into the lake, downtown’s lights spreading a golden glow over the twilit sidewalks. People filled the streets, heading to dinner or getting ice cream, shoulders bared to the warm air.
“Dylan, it’s a good story,” Laurel said.
“It’s my story,” Dylan said. “And Ramona’s. Not some publicity stunt, and I—”
“You’re in a publicity stunt, Dylan,” Laurel said. “The second you asked that woman out. In all my time with you, I’ve never seen more serene pictures of you on the internet. Never. You didn’t resist them. You didn’t put up a fight like you usually do. You didn’t tell them all to fuck off and get a life. You’re telling me you didn’t know cameras were on you at that museum?”
Dylan sent her hand through her hair, pulling at the strands until her scalp stung. She sank onto a bench, kept her face down as people passed by, her name whispered into the air.
“Is that what you’re telling me?” Laurel asked again.
“No,” Dylan said softly.
“I didn’t think so,” Laurel said just as softly.
Dylan exhaled. “Was it Rayna?”
A pause. “Probably.”
“But you told Rayna,” Dylan said. “Why the hell would you tell Rayna?”
“She called to check in about you and Ramona. I told her I didn’t think it would be a problem as you already had a romantic history.”
“Fuck, Laurel,” Dylan said, pressing her thumb and forefinger into her eyes. “We were thirteen. Thirteen-year-olds don’t have romantic histories!”
“You do now,” Laurel said. “And like I said. It’s a good story. It’s sweet and innocent, and let’s be honest, you could use a bit of both.”
Dylan shook her head, but she knew everything Laurel said was right—it was a good story. And of course Dylan knew cameras were on her and Ramona at the Earthstars Museum. Hell, she even waved at them, like she was on the fucking red carpet.
She checked her messages again—still nothing from Ramona.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, then ended the call before Laurel could use any of her usual tactics to calm Dylan down. Dylan didn’t want to calm down.
She just wanted to talk to Ramona.
She tapped on her name, but the call went straight to voicemail. She didn’t have April’s or Olive’s numbers, so she did the only thing she knew to do and went to Ramona’s house. It was close enough to walk, but Dylan wasn’t too proud at this moment to run, cameras be damned.
And she was sure they were on her. She heard her name through the breeze, Ramona’s name too, and the whole situation made her head and heart feel as though they’d switched places in her body.
You’re in a publicity stunt, Dylan .
Dylan slowed to a calm but brisk walk, which probably made her look even more ridiculous.
She could fix this.
She would fix this.
At the Rileys’ front door, she straightened her tee—an old Evenflow shirt she often wore to set, because she didn’t give a shit if it got lost or stolen or ruined. She knocked on the door, a green-leafed wreath circling the small glass window in the center. She held her breath, thought of what she could possibly say when she saw Ramona, but as the door latched open and Mr. Riley appeared, she still had nothing.
“Hey there, Dylan,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Riley.”
“She’s not here.”
Dylan’s mouth opened but closed again. Ramona’s dad stood in the doorway, wearing the most dad clothes Dylan could imagine—khaki pants and a short-sleeved navy button-up—and he held a cup of what smelled like Earl Grey tea, wore glasses on the end of his nose. It was all so normal , tears swelled into Dylan’s eyes.
Then they raced down her cheeks, not even bothering to ask Dylan’s permission. They simply ran , as though set free from captivity.
“Oh, Dylan,” Mr. Riley said. “Honey, it’s okay.”
The honey just made it all worse, a veritable flood, and Dylan could only stand there swiping furiously at her face.
“Come in,” Mr. Riley said, opening the door wider. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon. I’ll make you some tea.”
Dylan shook her head, sniffing snot back into her nose. If she went into that house now, she’d probably end up sobbing against Mr. Riley’s chest. “That’s okay, but thank you. I’m going to go try and find her.”
Of course she said all of this between hiccups, which just made her look all the more pathetic.
“Let me at least get you a tissue,” Mr. Riley said.
Dylan laughed, then nodded, and Mr. Riley disappeared for a few seconds before returning with a whole box of lotion-infused Kleenex.
“Thanks,” Dylan said, taking the gift without argument. She plucked a white tissue from the box, wiped at her face.
“No problem,” he said. “You know, Ramona usually likes to go to the lake when she wants to think. Ponder life, I guess.”
Dylan paused in her cleanup. “Yeah?”
He nodded, a small smile on his lips. “It’s a big lake, of course, and I’m not sure exactly where she is, but you know, if you needed some ideas.”
Dylan smiled back, then threw her arms around Mr. Riley in a quick hug. He patted her back, and, after a few more effusive thank-yous, Dylan took off down the street with her box of Kleenex.
She knew exactly where she would find Ramona Riley.