Chapter 5
“Heels down. Relax your neck. Perfect, just like that.”
In a studio in Glendale, Ramona grits her teeth as Betty spots her on the squat rack.
A few days of unseasonably gray weather have pushed them back into the gym; Ramona felt so exposed on the UCLA campus that she’s grateful for the privacy.
A couple sneaky candids of her made it to social media: sipping coffee on her way to class, a Boomerang of her picking up a dropped pencil that looks like she’s stuck on loop doing it forever.
Every snarky caption seemed to wonder the same thing: Is Ramona Wilder… smart?
“Fuck you,” she grunts affectionately, lifting the bar above her head and then slowly lowering it back down.
Betty smirks. “Love you too.”
Next up is shoulder press. Probably the best thing about these sessions, aside from Betty’s friendship, is that they make her feel strong.
It feels good, moving her body like this at the end of the first week of school, and not because she has a goal that involves a tiny outfit and a spotlight illuminating the parts of her skin that are now softer, rounder.
Society can act as though size doesn’t matter, that everyone is evolved and body positive, but Ramona can count on one hand the number of pop stars who aren’t thin.
Her first tour, she couldn’t look at any photos of herself without hearing her mother’s warnings about which side was her best—her left, according to DeeAnn—or wondering, if she just dropped another size, would her fans love her more?
She’s still trying to get used to wanting her body to look a certain way for herself, not for anyone else.
“You like your classes, buttercup?” Betty asks. “I don’t have to beat anyone up for being mean to you?”
“Just Trevor.”
“Trevor is dead to us. What about your professors?”
Ramona meets Betty’s eyes in the mirror as she lifts dumbbells.
Up, and then back down, keeping her elbows straight.
Breathing in and out. This kind of centering is good for her.
That temper she had on the first day flares up sometimes, the result of spending so many years forced into a box that didn’t fit her.
She knows she can be abrasive—her therapist would call it a defense mechanism.
“Marine biology and philosophy were decent. My psych professor seems to think I’m a vapid moron only doing this for publicity, but I guess it could have been worse.”
“Well. You’ll show him when you ace all his tests.” Betty taps her bicep. “Twenty reps this time. Let’s go.”
Fumiko Hayashi, her marine biology professor, had wanted to speak with her after class too. She was sweet and understanding, encouraged Ramona to ask if she needed any help.
Meanwhile, the meeting with Nick lingers like a sore muscle.
She sets her jaw—eighteen, nineteen, twenty—and a whoosh of an exhale.
Even the insistence that his students call him by his first name irritates her.
Too try-hard. Desperate to be liked. Especially when he’s the one who called her Ms. Wilder.
She hadn’t meant to be that…aggressive. But he’d been so suspicious when he didn’t know a goddamn thing about her.
And fine, maybe he had a right to be. She never exactly got onstage and declared a desire to study the inner workings of people’s brains. She’d be suspicious of herself if she weren’t so stubborn about the whole thing.
It had taken her a few minutes longer than she would have liked to collect herself after sparring in his office. She’d gotten too worked up, her cheeks pink and heart pounding. He had too, with the way he’d rolled up his sleeves and stumbled over his words.
But dropping the class simply isn’t an option.
This is the first decision she’s made truly on her own in years, and she’s not going to let it be a mistake.
Even if she couldn’t figure out how to log on to the online psychology portal last night, spending an hour in front of her laptop before cursing it out and slamming it shut so hard, it spooked Janet.
“Please tell me there’s something more interesting going on in your life,” Ramona says after relaying all of this. “I’m already drowning in homework and have a feeling I’m about to become very boring.”
Betty’s eyes turn mischievous. “Remember the guy I met at the opening of that new aerial fitness gym in Silver Lake? We were texting late last night, and let’s just say he has a very creative vocabulary.
” She lifts her eyebrows suggestively. “He wants to wrap me up in one of those silks. Can you even imagine?”
Ramona lets out a squeal. “Weren’t you just talking to that barista from Blue Bottle?”
“Yeah, but I think he must have learned how to sext from a 1950s romance novel, because he told me he wanted to ‘fondle my sensitive petals.’ ”
“Hard pass.”
“I can fondle my own sensitive petals, thanks.”
Betty tends to carry out these roller-coaster relationships entirely over text, drawing them out until there’s no way the person won’t disappoint her when they meet in real life.
A bad breakup brought her out to LA from the East Coast in the first place, and ever since, she’s guarded her heart like a Swiss bank account. Ramona can’t blame her.
“How many lives could you ruin with that thing?” she asks, gesturing to Betty’s phone.
Betty holds up a few fingers. “One, two—”
Ramona snorts as she smacks Betty with her towel, then dabs her own forehead. “That was a hypothetical, but I love that you’re actually counting.”
Maybe she and Betty aren’t too different when it comes to dating, because Ramona has no earthly idea what that looks like at this stage of her life—or if she’s even ready to get to know someone when she’s still learning this version of herself.
She supposes she could try an app like Raya, but every time she pictures herself across the table from a handsome stranger, her mind stutters over the image.
She doesn’t love the idea of seeing someone famous, doesn’t want to be dragged back into that world, but she’s also not sure if someone outside of it would understand.
Every relationship she’s had has been painstakingly documented by the internet, aside from a few clandestine hookups that never made it to the press.
Now she has a whole drawer of USB-charged devices to ensure she doesn’t get tempted by anyone with good hands and soulful eyes.
The closest she gets is acknowledging someone is attractive.
She just hates that the last person this happened with was the professor whose gaze burned hers from behind those little circular glasses—right as he told her she was a distraction.
—
The next week of school is an adjustment.
Ramona had been so determined to be a great student, but now that the first-day gleam has worn off, in its place is…
a lot of homework. And reading. And the stupid class portal she still can’t figure out.
She even calls her internet provider to get the connection checked, something an assistant would have handled before Ramona even knew there was a problem, and she’s embarrassed by how long it takes her to track down the company name and all her passwords.
The verdict: everything’s working just fine.
Most of the time, she stays silent in class. Doesn’t raise her hand, doesn’t draw attention to herself. Especially in psychology, where Professor Nick remains more animated about lobes of the brain than anyone should be.
It’s not exactly thrilling, this new life, but surely that’ll change. It has to.
Ramona’s driving a rental car home from campus—the Range Rover needed to be taken in for a new coat of paint, and at this point she might as well just open a tab at the dealership—when she gets a call on Bluetooth from her publicist. Car maintenance is another thing she would have outsourced before her retirement, but despite her certainty the dealership is overcharging her, she feels weirdly independent, doing this on her own.
The bar is low, but she’ll take the tiny wins where she can get them.
Petra is one of the only people she’s kept on payroll, because she needed someone to quash rumors about a potential comeback. And so far, she’s been more than worth the expense.
“Ramona, hi,” Petra says. She has this clipped way of speaking that sounds like she’s always in a hurry, eager to get on to the next meeting, even if she’s the one initiating contact. “Is this a good time?”
“I’m just stuck on the 405, so sure. Entertain me.” Ramona fiddles with the AC, tucks rebellious strands back into her ponytail. “Is this about school? Those pictures seemed pretty harmless. I don’t think we have to do anything about them.”
“I’m afraid it’s a little more serious.” Petra goes quiet for a few moments—uncharacteristic of her. “It’s about Zander Parrish.”
The car behind her honks when she doesn’t move forward a literal inch to keep up with traffic, and Ramona throws them a middle finger they can’t see through the tinted windows.
“Oh. Okay?”
Zander Parrish. Her first boyfriend, first…
just about everything. They costarred on Greta Life!
, where he played Greta’s troublemaker older brother.
With the big dimples and even bigger ego, topped off with the requisite Disney Channel–era floppy hair, the boy oozed charisma. Falling for him had been inevitable.
Fans pored over every detail of the relationship, trying to decode how many songs on her first album were about him.
(Three.) That public nature of their relationship was what ended things, Zander unable to cope with strangers dissecting whether his hand on her shoulder instead of her back in a photo meant they were on the rocks.
And Ramona was sick of it too, the constant scrutiny.
They were twenty and nineteen, still so young, and they’d been together for three years.
Long enough that she felt like a kid when they started dating and an adult when they broke up.
Since then, he’s transitioned from children’s TV into a career as an Emmy-nominated—and, more importantly to Ramona, Emmy-losing—star, now about to lead some high-profile video game adaptation premiering soon.
She’s seen the billboards all around the city: a dirtied-up Zander with a bow and arrow slung around one shoulder, gazing moodily into an abandoned cityscape.
Zander. Thaniel.
With her luck, her next boyfriend will probably be nicknamed Enjamin or Mothy.
“He has that new show coming out, Calamityville,” Petra continues. “Someone in the costume department has come forward accusing him of sexual assault. The press is almost certainly going to comb through his dating history, so we wanted to get ahead of it and see if you had a statement.”
Her ears fill with static.
Ramona doesn’t even flip off the car behind her when they honk again. Zander Parrish, accused of sexual assault. Her first image of him is that goofy guy with a secret heart of gold he played on the show, and not the confident, sometimes brooding roles he goes for now.
“What kind of statement?” she asks, trying to keep her tone businesslike.
“Oh, you know. ‘Never aggressive, wouldn’t hurt a puppy, yadda yadda.’ That kind of thing. We can send over a few wording options if you want to pick one?”
“No, no.” Maybe later, she’ll wonder why Petra doesn’t suggest the opposite: a statement that would paint him in any kind of light that isn’t positive. “We—we haven’t been in contact for years.”
“I figured as much.”
“But he was only a perfect gentleman when we were together.” Except for when he wasn’t. She bites down on the inside of her cheek. Hard. Her chest tightens, her heart picking up speed until it thumps against her rib cage like it’s trying to escape.
Another honk.
“Jesus Christ, have some fucking patience,” Ramona mutters. “We’re going three miles an hour here.”
“ ‘Perfect…gentleman.’ ” Ramona hears the clack of keys on Petra’s end, and she suddenly feels as though she’s said something very, very wrong.
“No—I mean, that’s off-the-record. Just me to you. I…I don’t think I have a statement.”
A sigh on the other end of the phone that’s half-distorted through her Bluetooth. “I really don’t want them to come bothering you, sweetheart. That’s why you have me, isn’t it?”
Of course. Right. Petra only has Ramona’s best interests at heart.
The pressure building in her chest is making it hard to breathe. Something is crushing her lungs, her hands trembling on the wheel. She needs to get the fuck off the road. Now.
“Petra? I’ll call you back,” Ramona says, punching the button to end the call. Now she can’t catch her breath, pressing a hand to her heart as she gasps for air.
shouldhavesaidsomething
stupidbadidiot
alwaysgonnafeellikethis
With a gnash of her teeth, she gropes to turn on her hazards and veers off to the shoulder. Five things she can see—cars, desert, more cars. Shaky inhales. Blurred vision.
A panic attack.
The first one she’s had since Milwaukee.