Chapter 13
The Variety news alert hits her phone like a missile halfway through her marine biology class.
Thirty minutes later, Ramona’s on her way to Petra’s office.
“Petra’s in a meeting right now,” says the receptionist, a well-groomed young guy whose entire forehead does not move.
“Could you let her know I’m waiting?” Ramona fingers the strap of her tote bag. Shifts her weight. Being here makes her itchy, a discomfort threaded beneath her skin. She knows she isn’t at the top of anyone’s list, and she’s still not used to feeling that way.
At least she put on the extra pair of underwear she keeps in her bag, a necessity ever since the Billboard Music Awards Incident of 2022. It probably says something about her priorities that she keeps underwear in her bag but no water bottle, pen, or scrap paper. She’ll have to work on that.
“If she has a break between her other clients, sure.” Maybe she’s imagining the emphasis on other. Maybe she isn’t.
So she resigns herself to the waiting room, this place where she used to feel safe, imagining Petra and her team had her very best interests at heart and were doing everything they could to keep her name untarnished. Now even the spiky-edged plants seem overly severe.
“Ramona?”
She turns as former indie darling turned mainstream pop star Arlie J waves to her from across the room. “Arlie? Holy shit.”
Arlie rushes forward to hug her, her patchouli and green tea scent offering immediate comfort. She has this Mother Earth, soft country vibe and a knack for crafting a truly cathartic bridge. The hug is more soothing than it has any right to be, given how anxious Ramona is just being here.
“Congrats on the VMAs,” Ramona says, meaning it.
Arlie brushes strawberry-blond hair curls off one shoulder in the kind of modest way Ramona’s never been able to accomplish. “Wasn’t the same without you there.”
Surely she’s just being nice. Arlie Jaroszewicz is only a year younger than she is, and during the Silhouettes Tour a couple years ago, for the album that had been a huge flop, they were virtually inseparable.
A younger, crunchier Kacey Musgraves, the trades called her at first, until her breakout album smashed all those records earlier this year and it was clear she needed no comparison.
“It’s been too long,” Arlie gushes, sounding genuine. “You look amazing.”
Post-orgasm glow? Ramona wonders as she thanks her, though she doesn’t want to bring thoughts of Nick into this office with her.
Not his perfect mouth or crooked glasses, and certainly not anything he did with his fingers.
No—that memory deserves to be kept somewhere safer, until she can unpack it later and obsess about what it means.
If it means anything at all.
“I hope you’re getting all the R and R you need,” Arlie continues. “Your schedule’s just been hellish the past few years. I can’t even imagine.”
“Your year hasn’t exactly been chill, either.”
Arlie waves this off, like it’s just part of the job. Ramona feels a twinge of jealousy at her ability to manage it better than she ever could. Or she just hasn’t gotten to the rough parts yet—something she instantly feels terrible for thinking, because she wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
But Arlie is smart. There are no family members on her team, and she’s somehow managed to avoid a lot of the overwhelming sexualization that plagued Ramona from an early age.
Though she’s relieved for her, she doesn’t understand it.
Arlie is objectively stunning, with her natural curls and penchant for curve-hugging denim.
From the beginning, Ramona’s narrative was about growing up from children’s TV, all Ramona Wilder isn’t a kid anymore and Are we legally allowed to call Ramona Wilder hot yet?
Arlie’s has mostly been about the music.
Sometimes she wonders if any of them would be this famous if they weren’t beautiful, if they weren’t selling their heartbreak and their appearance in the same aspirational package. Because if someone who looked like that could be heartbroken, then maybe life really is equally unfair to everyone.
“What have you been doing?” Arlie asks. “We’ve all been curious.”
“I’m in school, actually.”
“No shit? Good for you.” Arlie’s phone starts buzzing in her purse, and Ramona can’t even begin to wonder how many unread messages she has. “I have to run, but we should get lunch sometime. Catch up. I’ll call you.”
“Absolutely,” Ramona says as her stomach drops.
Lunch with the girl whose career is exploding just as hers is disintegrating, even when that’s what she wanted.
She wants to believe they have more in common than this industry, that they’d have more to talk about than music or touring or who’s sleeping with who.
She wants to believe Arlie will actually call her.
Another hug, another waft of patchouli before Arlie drinks her in for an extended moment. “You really do look great,” she affirms. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”
The interaction is almost enough for Ramona to forget why she’s really here, at least until the receptionist calls her name.
“Petra will see you now,” he says, and if he had the ability to control the skin between his brows, she imagines he’d look displeased.
On her walk back to Petra’s office, Ramona checks her phone. One missed call from her mother. She has zero doubt it’s about the Variety piece, and of all the things she doesn’t want to talk about with DeeAnn—most things, really—that’s near the top of the list.
She should probably block the number, but she’s not ready for that kind of finality.
“I have ten minutes before my next client,” Petra says instead of hello, and that’s fine. That’s all Ramona needs.
She wishes she had a physical paper to slam down, if only for the melodrama of it. “The Zander Parrish article,” she says. It’s the first time in years that she’s said his name out loud, and she hasn’t missed the feel of it between her teeth.
“Ah. Yes.” Petra gestures for Ramona to take a seat.
The office is all white and chrome, with giant windows that give the impression they’re towering over all of West LA.
Petra’s in a perfectly tailored suit, her sleek black hair chopped to her shoulders.
The first time Ramona met her, she was scared shitless.
That was how she knew she wanted her on her team.
If Petra could inspire that much fear in a client, she could only imagine what she could do for a client. “I was going to call you.”
Ramona opens it up on her phone. It probably only fed her the notification because she was googling him the other day.
Fucking spying on her. Zander Parrish Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Crew Member, the headline reads.
The article elaborates on the information Petra gave her: a costumer, remaining anonymous, says she was dressing Zander in his trailer when he forced himself on her.
The thought of it churns Ramona’s stomach.
Then there are the statements from past high-profile girlfriends, just like Petra predicted.
And in the third paragraph from the end:
Parrish’s romantic relationships first started gaining notoriety when he dated his former costar turned musician Ramona Wilder, who announced her retirement from music earlier this year.
The pair were together for three years before breaking it off in 2019.
A source close to Wilder says the two had a special connection from the beginning.
“They were attached at the hip back then,” the source says. “And he was always so sweet to her.”
“ ‘A source close to Wilder,’ ” Ramona reads. “Who the hell could that be? I told you, no comment.”
Petra levels her with an icy glance, clearly not thrilled by the accusation. “And that’s precisely what I told them, just like you wanted. Seems like maybe someone you know has loose lips?”
Ramona racks her brain. Betty wouldn’t talk to the press, and anyone else…The relationship was just so long ago, she can barely remember who was in her orbit back then.
The missed call from her mother.
She almost doesn’t want to believe it. Refuses to acknowledge that DeeAnn isn’t done hurting her.
But now there’s this article about a horrible crime her ex may have committed, and she’s in there next to a reference about some dreamy relationship they had.
Even if Ramona’s not the one who said it, the association is too close for comfort.
“This will blow over,” Petra says. “No one’s going to think you’re condoning—”
Ramona straightens her spine. “I pay you to keep my name out of the media.”
“And we’re doing our best.” Petra clasps her hands together.
“I’m sorry, Ramona, I can’t control every publication in this city, as much as I might try!
” She punctuates this with an airy laugh.
“Our best bet right now is to do nothing. Let it pass on its own. In the meantime, my suggestion is that you do some inventory of your inner circle.”
Inner circle. Herself, her cat, and her personal trainer? Sure. She’ll get right on that.
Ramona leaves the office on wobbly legs. She was all adrenaline when she blazed inside, but now Petra’s managed to flatten her in a way she never did when they were working together more closely.
Of course, Petra isn’t the real problem. Zander Parrish has been on her mind far too much lately, dragging forward memories she’s tried her best to forget.
Zander, being exactly the kind of guy who’s so sweet until no one else is around.
Zander, telling her he was sick of waiting. Giving her a suggestive lift of his eyebrows. No one thinks you’re a virgin, Ramona. Not after that Interview photo shoot.
Zander, urging her to relax. Promising, You’ll like it.
Her chest tightens in that too-familiar way.
Don’t panic, don’t panic. At least, not until she gets to the car. Think about happier things. Janet making biscuits on the duvet, wearing the little bandanna Betty got her that says Star Baker. A tangerine sunset at Ascot Hills after a hike.
Nick.
Nick, and the way he looked at her when she messed with his hair. When she untucked his shirt.
Ramona lets out a shaky breath, clings tight to that image. She waves goodbye to the receptionist, who gives her a blank look that she assumes is an eyebrow-lift of acknowledgment.
Nick, and the way he panicked at the knock on the door—her breathing quickens again.
But before that abrupt ending…it had been good.
She’d never had an orgasm with someone else before.
She steps inside the elevator, giving herself full permission to bask in the memory.
Maybe at first, she was doing what she usually does, trying to keep the power firmly on her side. But then…then he surprised her.
I’d like to touch you, he’d said, and her face warms. This almost doesn’t compute.
Sex has always been transactional for her, no matter how infatuated someone seems at the beginning.
There was Eli, the British actor she’d dated after Zander, who sent her all those charming DMs before they met in person.
Ryan, the metal drummer who seemed unable to believe she was giving him the time of day.
Thaniel, who was hypnotized every time she was onstage.
They’d touch her, of course, but either they didn’t really know what to do or they didn’t care, with their clumsy hands and tongues.
Then they’d push her head down or reach for a condom and she’d know her own pleasure was off the table.
Sometimes she’d enjoy it but most of the time she wouldn’t, and she always wondered if maybe she wasn’t meant to.
There wasn’t anyone she could talk to about it, not really—for how much all of their careers revolved around Ramona’s body, DeeAnn was skittish when it came to sex itself.
The most she did was leave a box of condoms in Ramona’s dressing room when Ramona told her she and Zander had started sleeping together.
So she started treating sex as another performance. She’d get herself off later, when he was asleep, or when she was back in her room.
But Nick—Nick wanted to touch her. Wanted to undo her, until she was panting on his desk with his hand between her thighs and her face in his shirt.
A purely physical release—that’s all it was. She’s not about to latch on to him just because he’s the first person to give her this kind of attention since her retirement. He cannot be the only man with magic fingers.
Even if it feels like a small crime that she didn’t get to watch him fall apart, too.
In the elevator, she bangs her head against the wall, just before it opens up and a gap-toothed tween she’s probably seen on TikTok steps inside with his parents.
And then she goes home and calls her therapist.