Chapter Thirteen #2
April could only stare as she saw Ramona standing at the desk, her back to April as she seemed to be signing a receipt. She wore a black-and-white blouse covered in starlings and tucked into a pair of high-waisted jeans, which hugged her thick thighs.
“Mona?” April finally managed to say.
Ramona turned and her eyes found April’s, a smile spreading over her freckled face. “There she is!” She jogged toward April and scooped her into a hug, lifting her off the ground a little. April’s arms felt dead at her sides.
“What are you doing here?” April asked when Ramona put her down. Dylan walked over to join them, and she and April hugged too.
“We both have a break for the rest of the summer, can you believe it?” Ramona said.
April smiled without her teeth, because no, she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know anything about either of their work lives lately, only that Dylan was filming that Marlene Dietrich biopic, and Ramona was…she didn’t even know, honestly. Designing costumes as a costume designer.
“That’s great,” April said.
“We thought we’d get some R & R at Cloverwild,” Dylan said. “Of course, we have our house in town, but we wanted to get the full treatment.”
“You’re staying here?” April asked.
Ramona grinned and held up a key card. “Just for the weekend. Lucky cabin thirteen!”
April grinned too. God, she’d missed Ramona so much.
“Are you surprised?” Ramona asked. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Totally surprised,” April said, pulling Ramona into a hug again. She breathed in her best friend of almost twenty-five years and felt herself relax.
“Can you come to our cabin with us?” Ramona asked, pulling back to look at her.
“I have a one o’clock class,” she said. “But I can—”
“Oh, can I sit in on it?” Ramona said quickly. “I’m dying to see you in action. You don’t mind, do you, babe?”
Dylan waved a hand, then grabbed both suitcases by their handles. “I’m so butch, I’ll take care of both of these.”
“So butch, you needed a sleeping seat on our flight,” Ramona said.
Dylan shrugged. “So I’m a tired butch.”
Ramona laughed. “Speaking of nonbutch queers—”
“I am offended,” Dylan said, but she kissed Ramona on the cheek, then sauntered off, pulling the eyes of everyone in the lobby as she went.
“I can’t wait to meet Daphne,” Ramona said, not missing a beat. “How’s everything going with you two?”
April opened her mouth but closed it again. She had no idea how to answer that question. It had been over a week since Ramona and April had spoken on the phone, and Ramona had advised April to give Daphne the benefit of the doubt.
Which April most definitely had not done and then realized she most definitely should have.
April hated when she was wrong.
But what she hated even more was this feeling of embarrassment around Ramona about being wrong, about her entire life right now.
They didn’t get embarrassed around each other.
Never had. They’d seen each other through the most humiliating moments in life, including the time April had peed her pants a little from laughing so hard the first time Ramona pulled out Llama Face on the way back from a field trip to Bristol Farm.
April had been terrified of the llamas—they looked fucking freaky, plain and simple—and Ramona had impersonated a llama by hooking her fingers under her lips and pulling them out as far as they’d go, sticking out her tongue, and making the funniest sound April had ever heard.
There was also the time Ramona had her wisdom teeth taken out when they were seventeen and was so doped up on painkillers she pretty much recited a romantic ode to Gillian Anderson.
Which, yes, everyone of every gender was in love with Gillian Anderson, but Ramona spun a truly epic tale of marriage and kids and a big farmhouse in Scotland where they raised baby goats and made their own soap, and April had recorded every moment of it on her phone.
She still had the recording, in fact.
So this strange shyness April felt right now was weird. It was weird and uncomfortable, and April had no idea how to make it go away.
“Uh,” April said brilliantly. “It’s going okay.”
“Is she still with Elena?” Ramona asked, lowering her voice and stepping closer to April. “Does she know who you are? How’s teaching with her?”
April’s head spun. She sent a hand through her hair as she tried to think which question to answer first.
“Teaching is fine,” she said. Simplest to most complicated, she decided. “And…yeah, she knows—”
“Oh my god, is that her?” Ramona said, cutting April off and grabbing her arm, gaze focused over April’s shoulder.
April turned to see Daphne and Sasha leaving the dining room and heading straight for them. She braced herself, body locking up at the prospect of Daphne Love’s impending collision with Ramona.
“That’s her,” April said softly.
“She’s so pretty,” Ramona said just as quietly, then louder as Daphne reached them—not only louder, but to Daphne herself. “You’re so pretty.”
Daphne’s eyes widened, her hands in her pockets as she looked around for whoever Ramona might be talking to.
“Me?” she finally asked.
“You,” Ramona said, then stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Ramona.”
Daphne smiled broadly, lighting up as she took Ramona’s hand. “You’re April’s best friend! I’m Daphne.”
“Oh, I know,” Ramona said, laughing lightly, and April truly wished the earth’s maw would open and swallow her into hell.
“And this is Sasha,” April said, clearing her throat.
“Hey there,” Sasha said to Ramona, tapping her forehead with one finger, suave as ever. “You staying here?”
“She’s taken,” April said before Ramona could respond, then clapped her hands together. “And now that everyone’s met everyone, I’m going to give Ramona a tour before our class.”
“You both can come if you’d like,” Ramona said.
“No, they can’t,” April said, hooking an arm around Ramona’s waist and pulling her toward the back of the lodge.
This entire dynamic was just weird. She needed a minute to think, and she couldn’t think with Daphne around, looking doe-eyed and cute with that paint still smeared across her cheek, grinning at Ramona like they were best friends too.
And Sasha, affectionately, was nothing but trouble.
“What’s the rush?” Ramona said as April whisked her away from Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
“Oh, hey, April,” Daphne called to their backs. April froze and turned to look at her. “Is your laptop in our cabin? I didn’t see it in the studio.”
April blinked, her stomach sinking. But dammit, yes, the laptop was in their cabin, and they needed it for class as April had been working on new slides last night.
“Yeah. Can you grab it?” she asked.
Daphne nodded, and then April was off again, hurtling Ramona toward the back patio so fast, Ramona nearly tripped on her own feet.
“I thought we were going on a tour?” Ramona said as April pushed open one of the back French doors and they spilled out onto the expansive deck.
“Tour is boring,” April said, walking them to the railing that overlooked the woods and sucking in a lungful of warm June air. “We eat in the dining room, swim in the lake, et cetera.”
Ramona leaned her forearms on the wooden railing. She was quiet, and for a second, April hoped Ramona’s attention hadn’t snagged on certain pronouns Daphne had used, that she hadn’t paid close enough attention to realize that—
“What did Daphne mean by our cabin?” Ramona asked.
April closed her eyes for a beat, then focused on the green of the forest. Between the trees, near Moon Lovers Trail, she could see some resort employees setting up tables and chairs for Mia’s summer solstice party tonight.
April had been looking forward to the soiree, complete with a bonfire in the woods under the full moon, flower crowns, special cocktails, and tarot readings.
“Apes?” Ramona pressed.
April sighed. “Daphne said that because we’re cabinmates.”
Ramona let that settle for a second. “What do you mean, you’re cabinmates? As in…you’re staying here?”
April knew there was no way around it, no way to spin it that wasn’t outright deceit.
Plus, she’d never lied to Ramona. Not so blatantly at least. Withheld, absolutely.
It often took April a while to sift through her own emotions before she understood how to put them into words, and that was true even with Ramona.
She was a riot of feelings, and that didn’t always translate well to spoken language.
But right now, the truth was clear and simple.
“I rented out my house for the summer,” she said.
“You what?”
“And I closed Wonderlust Ink.”
“You…you what?”
Ramona had turned to face her, but April kept her eyes on the trees, the way the leaves flickered from green to silver in the breeze.
“April, what the hell?”
“I closed Wonderlust Ink,” April said again.
“Yes, I heard you the first time. That’s not what I meant by what the hell.”
“It’d been struggling for a while.” April shrugged. “It was time.”
“It was…it was time?” Ramona asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
April turned to face her now. “And when would I have done that?” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended, and Ramona flinched.
“Apes.”
“No, really, Mona,” April said. “When should I have told you? At Thanksgiving when I was pretty sure that’s where the shop was headed, and you were with your family and Dylan’s family, and I saw you once when we met for brunch at Clover Moon, and the whole town couldn’t calm the hell down over seeing you and Dylan again? ”
Ramona’s shoulders lowered, her frown deepening.