Chapter 17
Two years ago on the Silhouettes Tour, Ramona was still trying to convince herself this career may not actually destroy her after all.
She’d just stabilized on her antidepressants and broken up with a mediocre boyfriend, making her feel free and unattached.
DeeAnn was fresh off a stem cell facial and peppier than ever.
Her opener was a young country-pop singer with a four-octave vocal range. And for a while, despite her mother’s warnings not to get too close to anyone, their friendship made it bearable.
Now Arlie J sits across from her at an outdoor table at a hip café in Venice, arguably on the verge of becoming more famous than Ramona ever was.
“Can you believe they wanted me to sprawl in the grass with all those goats?” Arlie gives a dismayed shake of her head, her strawberry waves catching the sunlight as she talks about the music video she just finished shooting.
“There was shit everywhere. I’m all for a little sacrifice in the name of art, but I have to draw the line somewhere. ”
“So what did you do?”
“My team talked them out of it, thank god. Now I’m just holding a baby goat instead.”
Ramona pushes around the edamame, hemp seeds, lentils, and hard-boiled eggs in her $28 protein bowl. It needs more dressing. And honestly, less protein.
They’re both wearing sunglasses, Arlie in a wide-brimmed hat that might actually make her look more conspicuous, not less.
Dining outside like this, without anyone on her former security team nearby, isn’t something Ramona ever would have done before her retirement.
But Arlie has this giving-zero-fucks attitude about it that’s a little contagious.
She hadn’t expected Arlie to follow through on the offer to get lunch sometime, but when she texted right after Halloween, Ramona was eager for a distraction and suggested the next day.
In hindsight, the schoolgirl costume was a little on the nose. But she’d been planning it long before she invited Nick to the party, and she liked the way she felt in it. And if Nick had a reaction to it? That was just an added benefit.
Maybe they’d gotten too close. Maybe that was mostly probably nearly 100 percent Ramona’s fault. But she can’t help it. She’s allowed to have fun, she reasons, and Nick Navarro is fun in a way she never anticipated.
And it was very, very fun, the way he blushed and turned speechless when she told him he’d been her first orgasm.
She doesn’t get nervous around boys, but this is not a boy.
This is a thirty-six-year-old man, and though she’s dated older guys, she’s never been with anyone who seems this solidly adult.
Not that she’s with him, of course. They’ve made that clear.
But for nearly ten years, guys have seemed interested in only one piece of her, like she was a giant trout they’d caught on a fishing trip and could pose with in pictures.
They wanted her as a prize, but then made it clear she was not long-term-girlfriend material.
Maybe they couldn’t see beyond the risqué photo shoots and videos—if the media treated her like a sex object, everyone else did, too.
It stuck in her head, convinced her she didn’t want anything long-term, either.
So why does she have a feeling Nick couldn’t give less of a fuck about her status?
The way they danced together makes it impossible for her not to imagine what he’d be like in bed.
Their struggle for power in the classroom—maybe she’d let him win.
His body over hers, lips trailing across her skin.
You didn’t turn in the homework, he might say.
Naughty, naughty. He could tie her up. Spank her.
Fuck her on his desk again, with his pants at his feet and fingertips pressed into her hips.
And all of this is exactly why she needed to get out of the house. Go straight to horny jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
There’s a lull in the conversation, both women sipping house-made kombucha.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” Arlie says after a moment. “You know I won’t tell anyone. But you can’t really be done, can you? Like, are you working on some kind of comeback?”
Ramona’s almost thrown by her directness, but Arlie’s always been open, rarely hiding how she really feels.
Funny, how the media loves her honesty but called Ramona too angry when she dared speak out about anything.
As though they were pressed into certain molds back before the world christened them pop stars.
She remembers a time she was groped by a fan after a show and posted a rant about boundaries, about how she deserved to be treated like a human being, and an article declared RAMONA WILDER HATES HER FANS. DeeAnn made her film an apology.
“I just can’t imagine getting up onstage and performing again,” Ramona says. “I had the worst panic attacks before every show on my last tour. None of it’s worth that.”
Arlie nods vigorously, reaching across the table to give Ramona’s hand a squeeze. “Your mental health has to come first. You could always pivot to fashion, or beauty, or something like that. We’re working on a line of sustainable lip tints right now.”
“Arlie J Cosmetics does have a nice ring to it.”
“I thought so too! Anyway, we’re doing a lot of testing because we want it to be cruelty-free, vegan, all of that good stuff, but I’ll let you know before we launch. We’ll send you some samples.”
“Sure,” Ramona says, wondering why it feels like there’s chalk in her throat. “I’d love that.”
Everything about this lunch is slightly surreal. Arlie must be doing it out of some sick fascination, mentally taking notes to avoid becoming just like her. Step right up, watch the girl who torpedoed her own career.
And yet Ramona can’t deny that there’s a yearning, deep down, for this to be something more.
In her early twenties, she replaced her desire for friendship with the attention she got from her fans.
She spent hours scrolling through her accounts, loving the way they freaked out when she liked one of their replies or reposted a picture.
Got addicted to it, almost. But that kind of parasocial relationship was ultimately hollow—it could only go one way.
She could love her fans the way they claimed to love her, but she couldn’t call them up when someone broke her heart.
She couldn’t ask their advice or send them memes or make plans to get lunch.
At this point in her life, she’s certain her mother was wrong about most things. But now she wonders if having fewer attachments made it easier to cut herself free.
She’s missed a half dozen calls from DeeAnn over the past week, plus an email asking if they could talk, which she sent right to her lawyer.
Sometimes—and she hates to admit this—sometimes she has to fight the urge to answer the phone.
She wonders what it might be like to spill all the chaos in her head, even when DeeAnn is one of the root causes.
It’s almost laughable, the idea of telling her about Nick, imagining the judgment and scolding DeeAnn might have for her—but even that would come with a certain kind of confidence.
DeeAnn loved when Ramona came to her for advice.
Ramona was the one with the name, the face, but she still needed her mother.
Because even when DeeAnn was overscheduling her or undervaluing her…
at least she was there. She can say a lot of awful things about DeeAnn, and most of them would be true, but she’ll never be able to say that her mother wasn’t there.
A girl asking her mother for advice—sometimes that’s all she wants to be.
“Well, I’m proud of you for knowing your limits,” Arlie says. “Whether it’s a break, or if it’s permanent.”
“Thanks. And yeah, I don’t know,” Ramona says, fiddling with a strand of hair. “Right now I’m really into this whole school thing.”
The energy between them is so different from how it used to be. Arlie used to look up to Ramona, eager for praise when she played her a new song.
Now…it’s not even that they’re equals. Arlie’s career is on a massive upswing, and Ramona’s career is…frozen. Stagnant.
There’s nothing wrong with Arlie; she’s not vapid or arrogant, the way some people might imagine celebrities to be. It’s that she’s still so in it, and Ramona’s spent eight months trying to escape it.
Suddenly Arlie slaps the table. “Holy shit, I almost forgot to ask you,” she says, and Ramona’s very aware that despite the way their friendship began, Arlie’s now the one steering the conversation. “Have you been hearing about Zander Parrish?”
Ramona nods slowly. “Unfortunately.”
“Of course, they’re trying to bury the story in advance of his new show. He’s framing the whole thing as a ‘misunderstanding.’ ”
“He—what?” She grapples for her phone. She’s purposefully avoided googling him since that Variety piece, worried about what she might find.
She hadn’t realized Zander had issued a statement—and yet there it is, some publicist-curated shlock denying the accusation, with numerous friends backing him up.
And the requisite think pieces painting the costumer as someone hungry for fame.
One person’s word against another’s, and the horrible truth of it is that his word means more than hers.
“Really fucked-up,” Ramona says, shutting off her phone and continuing to poke at her protein bowl, trying to remain calm. When she ordered, they asked if she wanted a slice of flax bread with it, and she said no. She wonders if it’s too late to go back and get it.
“I’d love to go a single week where one person isn’t accused of being a scummy lowlife, but…sadly not the society we live in.” Arlie takes a sip of kombucha. “You two dated, right? You were on that show together?”
Ramona nods, the discomfort swirling low in her stomach. No, she probably wouldn’t be able to handle any flax bread right now. “Ages ago,” she says weakly. “We haven’t been in touch in years.”
“There’s a special place in hell for men who use their power to make other people feel small. He even had the nerve to show up at an awards show last week with a Time’s Up pin. No one’s worn those in like, five years.”
Ramona tries to breathe against the crushing weight in her chest. She really doesn’t want to be talking about this. “Wow, you really got deep with it.”
Arlie lets out a brittle laugh. “I hate this town sometimes,” she says. “I mean, sure, I can play the games, but at the end of the day…I just want to make my music, you know? I just want to play my songs.”
She wishes she’d loved the music enough to do that.
“Right. Right.”
And suddenly, it’s not just Zander, or the ghost of her career, or her mother—it’s all of it, all at once, and it’s so goddamn loud.
fuckingpathetic
uselessworthless
“Will you excuse me for a sec?” she says, pushing out her chair and nearly tripping over her own feet on her way to the bathroom.
When she bangs on the door, there’s no response, but it’s locked with a keypad. Of course it is.
“The code is on your receipt!” chirps the cashier, and she must flash him a look of extreme distress, because he cowers a little and mumbles, “Um, 3-2-2-9.”
Once she punches it in and locks herself inside, she stares down her reflection. Grips the cold porcelain sink. Fuck, why does she always end up breaking down in a public restroom?
Her hands are shaking and she can’t get a full breath.
Men who use their power.
The first time she and Zander had sex, Ramona had been uncertain.
DeeAnn told her over and over how her virginity was a precious gift, and though she wasn’t sure if she believed that, there was something deeply confusing about those words combined with her music videos, her photo shoots, her public appearances.
Everything about her image held a fragile kind of sexuality back then.
A sheet strategically draped over her body for Rolling Stone.
A glossy strawberry pout. Brazen, confident poses that made her look like she was in complete control, when there were always so many other people gripping the strings.
Zander had told her he loved her, and Ramona had said it back.
So when he hired a private chef for their second anniversary, which happened to fall right after her eighteenth birthday, she knew he had expectations.
I don’t know if I’m ready, she said, and he promised he’d help get her there.
It was okay that he was the one encouraging her to just please let him, just a little, wasn’t it, because she only needed a tiny nudge.
It was okay that she cried from the pain of it, because her body wasn’t ready when he pushed into her. Surely plenty of girls cried during their first times.
And when she told him to stop, palms pressed to his shoulders, wishing she could shove harder—maybe he just hadn’t heard her. That time, or a handful of times after that.
Because they were together. And he loved her.
So she didn’t tell anyone. Just accepted she wasn’t meant to enjoy sex. Eventually she started making up excuses, most of which turned him bitter and withdrawn. With the guys she dated afterward, she’d bask in that initial feeling of power, try to hold on to it as long as she could.
It always faded—but what didn’t, in her life? Every single thing she’s touched has been temporary. Her parents, her partners, her stardom. Nothing fucking lasts.
Which means these feelings have to eventually go away, too.
When Ramona heads back outside after splashing some water on her face, she asks Arlie more about her lip tints, and fortunately Arlie’s happy to gab about them while she remains lost in thought.
Maybe she didn’t have the language back then for what happened with Zander. God, so many years have passed and it’s all so blurry—what if she’s wrong? Maybe she’s only picturing it differently because of the articles, the accusation.
What would it change about her, if she acknowledged what really—maybe—happened? Does she become a wholly different kind of person? Does it make her a victim?
She’s not sure she has any of the answers.
Then she hears the unmistakable sound of a shutter.
On instinct, Ramona whirls around, finds an embarrassed guy at the table behind them, hastening to turn off the sound of his camera.
“Seriously?” Arlie says, rolling her eyes as she dabs her mouth with a napkin. “They can’t just let us live, huh.”
A few people at nearby tables have started to notice, and while most of them are remaining calm, Ramona notices a couple sneakily try to take photos.
She readjusts her Clippers hat. “Should we leave?”
“Nah, I hate letting them win. We could pantomime a fight and really give them something to talk about?”
Ramona laughs—right before she realizes that the attention, the whispers, the cameras…none of them are aimed at her.
They’re here for Arlie J.
And that makes sense, doesn’t it? Ramona never wanted the intrusion in the first place.
Still, it’s with a strange lump in her throat that she returns to her protein bowl, unsure why she suddenly feels left behind.
Like someone who used to be important.