She Would Have Hated It #2
Ramona patted his arm, but she was looking at Sam. “I wanted to meet you. It might be that I discover I have a question or two for you.” She lifted her brows, famously shaped nearly like elegant question marks lying on their sides. “Or you have one or two for me.”
“If you’re up to it,” Sam said. “If it were me, I’d take what the doctor gave me and sleep for days.”
“I probably should. I promised my mom I would, but I’m pretty attached to consciousness at the moment.
I’ll crash before long, I just wanted to see you two first. Macie said I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.
” She smiled at Bex and gave her a winsome shrug.
“You know, I’ve never wanted to meet you.
I was too much in love with Cora Banks to give her up for whatever you turned out to be like in reality.
Or Henri, for that matter.” She gestured at Sam.
“Isn’t life strange? I would never have thought my favorite TV detectives would be the ones to save me after Sloan shot me and Chad pushed me off a cliff. ”
Bex inhaled sharply, but Sam liked that Ramona went right at the thing. “We’re mutual fans, then,” Sam said. “With the difference that I’d always hoped to meet you someday.”
Ramona shifted in her chair. “I understand you’ve talked to a lot of people about me.
Archie and Jasmine filled me in. I got a letter from Christian, if you can believe that.
Never thought I’d hear from him again. It made me think he’s been listening to me a lot more than I thought over the years.
He said he would visit soon, after he came back from the rehab center he’s checked himself into in Oregon. Even Tom Kessler sent flowers.”
“Your friends care about you,” Bex said.
Ramona looked away, watching a dove hop up on a higher branch of an avocado tree.
When she turned back, her expression was wistful.
“My mom and dad had to go home this morning. It’s always strange for me to say goodbye to them.
When I first came to L.A., my mom lived here with me full-time for a couple of years, and my dad was back and forth from Wisconsin whenever he could make it work.
They wanted me to have what I wanted, but they didn’t want me to get hurt.
No one did that for Juliette. I think even before she came to L.A.
, no one had ever done that for her. And there wasn’t anybody on Tom’s sets who was worried about a single thing other than giving Tom what he wanted.
” She looked at Bex. “You have little sisters, I remember. Teenagers now?”
“Not anymore, but it wasn’t so long ago. Vic is friends with Piper Redwood.”
Ramona nodded. “Teenagers are so fucking pure. They’re just raw creativity, constantly making things, trying to connect and share who they are inside with the rest of the world.
The older I am, the more I love working with them.
Piper is a revelation. Rachael, in our supporting cast, is seventeen.
She goes to school on set, and her mom picks her up early on Fridays so she can go to 4-H.
When Juliette was sixteen, she got cast opposite Stephan Chasez in a raunchy summer camp comedy.
He was twenty-seven years old. That was her first kiss.
They filmed her braless, soaking wet. There were posters of her for sale at the mall.
She was legally emancipated from her family, making her own decisions.
She told me she’d had no idea Stephan would put his tongue in her mouth, and it was disgusting. ”
Sam had to remind herself to relax her hands in her lap. “Everyone we spoke to told us what a good friend you were to Juliette.”
Ramona’s smile was pained. “She just wanted to be loved. Her death was so stupid. She would have hated it. I do. I hate that she’s gone, and it’s because of these two men with no ideas, no beauty, just a pit of grasping, soulless need.
It’s why I couldn’t be part of propping up the careers of Chad or Sloan with my silence anymore.
I used to be afraid of them, but it got to be that I was more afraid they would win. ”
“You’ve tried so hard to get people to hear the truth,” Sam said.
Ramona took a long sip of tea. “The good thing about the truth is that it doesn’t go away, right?
Someone in the LAPD showed me my original statement about that night on the boat.
They wanted me to confirm it. Ha! The truth roots out every single person and entity that ever denied it.
I think Juliette will get her comeback. She’ll have her day in court, everyone will watch her movies and remember what a gorgeous, glowing light she was, and I will look forward to starting a hard conversation about what it is we protect and don’t protect in this town. ”
“Call us when you want backup,” Sam said. “I like a good fight.”
“I will.” Ramona smiled at Bex. “I think you want to ask me something.”
Bex leaned forward in her seat, her knees as far apart as they would go in her leather shorts. “We worked out that you told Chad and Sloan what you were going to do with the documentary. That’s what set them off. Is that right?”
“Yes. I told them. Did I tell anyone else I had told them? No, and that was my mistake. The problem with the truth is that it tends to make one feel a little invincible sometimes.”
“No one should have to have the forethought to prevent their coworkers from attempting to murder them,” Bex said sharply. “My God. Rehearsal, boundaries, and a breath mint for a kissing scene should be sufficient advance planning for comfort on set.”
Ramona started laughing, then pressed her good hand against her side.
“Oh, shit, I can’t. My ribs are not healed enough to laugh that hard.
Phew. And you are so right. I did tell them, though.
And, if I could jump ahead, the day on the mountain was actually pretty okay.
I felt like they understood why I wanted the documentary.
I had no doubt they already had lawyers involved, and I was prepared for the defamation and libel suits, but I was clear, and I thought they were clear.
I wasn’t afraid of anything. Chad asked me to take a look at a view he’d spotted, so I followed him off the trail.
It was lovely. I thought it was, you know, a peace overture, and we would talk for a few minutes.
When I looked back, Sloan had a gun on me. ”
Sam pressed a hand against her stomach.
“As soon as I saw it, I remembered everything I’d learned about survival.
I told myself that I knew what I needed to know to live, and if I didn’t make it, it wasn’t because of something I did or failed to do.
I tried to talk them out of it. When I couldn’t, I fought.
When I understood they wouldn’t let me leave, I tried to run away.
The bullet hit, and I kept running, but Chad was closer than I thought, and he pushed me off that cliff.
After that, my memory is blank until I wake up and realize I can still hear the engines of the trucks.
I’m not dead. Survival kicks back in. Survival mode is where I stayed until a very hot woman in a climbing helmet and a bright yellow jumpsuit tenderly eased me onto a gurney and told me she’d take care of me.
And she did, but she hasn’t called me.” Ramona smiled. “Yet.”
Sam laughed, and then Ramona started asking questions of her own.
The conversation flowed, as easy as Sam could have wished and twice as interesting.
But she couldn’t help but wonder how much more of the world Ramona might have sparkled for if she hadn’t been forced to concentrate so much on survival.
If, instead, she could have only been Ramona.
Sam had to admit, however, that every single bit of Ramona’s success, the love she’d found in friends, her wisdom, and her joy were things she had gotten from the light she shined on herself. No one else’s.
It gave her a lot of ideas about how to be Sam.