Chapter 21 #2
Ramona mmms under her breath as she steps inside.
“Sometimes I miss playing guitar,” she says as she plucks a string, and even Nick can tell it’s out of tune.
“But I think I’m just not ready yet.” She strums the other guitars, none of them sounding quite right.
“I know maybe it seemed like I was being too harsh with my mom yesterday,” she continues, and he wants to reassure her that he thought no such thing.
“But you have to understand…I can’t separate our working relationship from everything else.
Because she never could, either. My mom always wanted to be an actress, and it never happened for her.
She grew up pretty poor and thought that kind of quick-ticket fame would be enough to keep her out of the red for life.
And when my parents had me…I guess they had another chance. ”
Nick’s jaw clenches. He can’t imagine the kind of parent who wants that life for their child. But he can tell she has more to say, and so he lets her.
“I never wanted it,” Ramona says. “I mean, at first I liked making people laugh, and I loved the praise, the attention, especially because we were living just above the poverty line. My mom was more controlling than my dad, and he’d always thought she was kind of out of his league, so he just went along with it.
They pushed me to take singing lessons and guitar lessons so they could transition me into a music career like other child stars.
Pushed me to show off my body, but never too much, only just enough to tease people.
Maybe I would have wanted to pose that way, if I’d been given a choice…
sometimes I think part of me would have loved to own my sexuality.
But I never had much say.” A firm shake of her head as she motions toward a framed magazine cover.
WILDER CHILD, shouts the headline, with a late-teens Ramona lounging on a desk in an empty classroom, the photo accentuating her bare legs.
“Every time I told them I was tired or uncomfortable or sick of it, they told me to suck it up. To appreciate what I had, because anyone would kill to be in my position.”
“Why didn’t you fire them?”
“They were only part of the problem.”
Every time he learns something new, whether it’s how miserable she was performing or the diet she texted him about yesterday, he’s hit with fresh rage. “When your mom showed up…that was me being polite. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so furious with someone I don’t even know.”
“What she said about me—”
“I wouldn’t believe any of it. Not for a second,” he says, reaching out to clasp her shoulder, as though urging her not to glance away.
His thumb rubs slowly back and forth. “You went through hell. They were the ones who were supposed to be protecting you, and they fucking exploited you. Now you’re recovering from the trauma of a career they pushed you into, trying to make a life on your own terms, and all they want is to drag you back into it. ”
He drops his hand, but keeps his body tilted in her direction. He’s starting to think that’s his natural state.
“It took me a long, long time to realize that. Even when I supposedly had all this success, it felt like I was failing. My albums didn’t always do better than the previous one, and I had all my self-worth wrapped up in my work.
I just…looked around at my career, and all these people who worked for me, spent all their time with me, but didn’t know me, and I thought, This can’t be it. ”
“It wasn’t. It’s not. You can do fucking anything.” The words are hard-edged with how fiercely he believes them. “You’re this incredible, unstoppable force. You realized it was hurting you, and you got out. That’s the exact opposite of failure. I just—I hope you know how in awe of you I am.”
She presses her lips together, as though trying to hold back some emotion from escaping.
“I do now,” she says quietly. “We’re both living in the aftermath.
These massive events that completely changed the trajectories of our lives.
” When she stretches out her fingertips to graze his chest, he wishes he could replay it in slow motion.
“You can talk to me about the divorce, you know. If you want to.”
He never expected them to have something like this in common, but he guesses she’s right. More than that: he’s surprised to discover that he does want to talk about it.
“When we first split up, I went through a period of mourning—well, after the denial. Can’t disrespect Kübler-Ross.”
“Definitely not.”
“I threw out things that reminded me of her, deleted old photos and message threads. It took me a while to get used to the idea of no longer being married, but I don’t miss Kathryn anymore, which my therapist would say is progress.
” He shakes his head, dialing it all back.
Somehow it feels wrong, talking about this when they’re literally surrounded by proof of Ramona’s life happening on such a grander scale than his.
His problems must seem microscopic in comparison.
“You can’t really want to hear about all of this. ”
Ramona’s brows push together. “Yes. I just told you I do. You know you don’t have to force yourself to be happy all the time.
Obviously you put on a different persona in class, but I can see you slipping into that performance sometimes.
I can feel you holding back, like you’re trying to assure everyone that you’re okay. But you can feel your emotions.”
I am happy, Nick wants to say. Right here. With you.
“It’s possible,” he says after a long moment, “that I haven’t wanted to be a burden to anyone.”
“You aren’t a burden to me. I always want to know what you have to say, really and truly. And not just the good things.”
He has to swallow hard, unable to meet her gaze for a moment—the pure earnestness of it. He believes her wholeheartedly, and yet it’s still so damn hard, letting her see him. But if Ramona can be vulnerable, maybe so can he.
“I had this vision of my life as this very specific thing. The wife, the house, the job. Kids, probably. Someday. And when it all fell apart…I had to completely reevaluate what that would look like. I know plenty of people get divorced, but it feels like I failed, too. Like…like I was unlovable, or something.” He regrets the word as soon as it leaves his mouth.
Unlovable. It’s the truth, but not one he was ready to say out loud.
So he brushes it off, tries for a joke. “Or maybe I was the world’s worst husband.
I’m not sure they make a novelty mug for that. ”
Ramona moves closer. Runs her hand through his hair, shifting a wayward strand back into place. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
In the silence that follows, she clears her throat. “Being in here too long makes me itchy,” she declares.
They end the tour downstairs in her second living room, where she pauses at a glass cabinet full of salt and pepper shakers in more sizes and colors and shapes than he’s ever seen.
“Figured it would be more uplifting to end with this,” she says with a flourish of her arm. “My pride and joy.”
“Wow. I don’t know anyone under the age of seventy who has a collection like this.” Nick peers closer to inspect a pair shaped like tiny hippos with their giant mouths wide open. A saltshaker hot dog and a pepper bottle of mustard. Cowboy boots. Penguins. Mushrooms.
They look out of place in her pristine home, but somehow that makes him even more fascinated by them. “You said something about this on the first day of class, didn’t you?”