Waking Up to Love (13 page)

Because even though it was difficult for him to explain, he still loved Nessa. He was still married to her. And it would never be fair to Ramona until he made that perfectly clear.

Finally, Ramona spoke. “Debra, I think I'm going to head back to the house.
Our
house. I should probably leave you two alone for a little while.” Her words were directed at Debra, but her eyes never left Scott.

“That's a wonderful idea!” Debra said. “Well, it's half wonderful. Why don't you both head out? Have you checked out the new multiplex?”

“Mom, I don't know.” Scott couldn't think of any good excuse not to spend more time with his wife.

“Nonsense,” Debra said. “You can both come back later. I just don't want you two cooped up here when there's so much to do.”

Without any good reason why not, Scott glanced toward Ramona to see if she had anything to say.

“Sure,” she said. Then Ramona took his hand, and they left together.

The happy couple.

• • •

Ramona and Scott walked through the front door at the exact same time. They were talking at the same time, too. He tried to convince her that the movie they'd just seen was awful. She tried to convince him that he was being way too hard on it, especially after she saw him jump in his seat several times throughout.

They were arguing, but it was good arguing.

Debra had waited for them to come back.

“Mom,” Scott said. He'd expected her to still be up. He didn't expect her to be so—vigilant.

“Had fun?” she asked.

Ramona said, “Yes,” at the exactly same time that Scott said, “No … okay, yes.”

Debra smirked. That was a good sign. That meant she was feeling okay. It also meant she was still buying their act.

“I can't tell you how good it is to see you so happy together,” Debra said. “You know, you're no longer officially newlyweds. The bloom should be well off the rose by now.”

They exchanged glances.

“Uh, yeah,” Scott said.

“And where did you two go?” his mother asked.

“We took in a movie,” Ramona answered.

“Yeah, a really bad one,” Scott added.

“It wasn't bad.”

“Um, I could write a list.”

Debra clapped her hands together. She was more than pleased that they'd had a good time. She looked somehow—proud? Scott couldn't tell.

“There were two perfectly good action movies to choose from,” Scott explained. “One about cars. And one with time travel and robots.”

“He loves robots,” Ramona interjected.

“I've never liked robots. Anyway, I chose the genre, so she chose the movie. And we got stuck with the—”

“With the robots,” Ramona finished. “And it was good. I don't think you would've liked it, Debra, but we did.”

Debra said, “I hope you realize how happy I am to see you two together. I always knew you'd be a good fit.”

“Really?” Scott asked.

He remembered the look on Debra's face when he'd first told her that he was dating Nessa. It wasn't a happy look.

“Well, it sounds like you had an interesting evening,” Debra said. “I'll just be in the kitchen making us all some tea.”

Before Debra was completely out of the room, Ramona turned to him and whispered, “We need to tell her.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“I did. I was just hoping that my ears were clogged from all the laser sound effects.”

“We need to tell her,” Ramona insisted. “I can't keep doing this. She needs to know.”

Scott shook his head. “Did you see how happy she was? If she realized you weren't you, I mean …”

“Okay,” she said. Just like that.

Scott knew that she understood the situation. Why was she fighting it, especially when everything was coming along so well? He worried that she was having second thoughts about the charade. He thought she might just give up.

She looked disappointed, needlessly disappointed.

“Either way,” Scott said. “I had fun.”

“Me too.”

Scott wanted to get the last word, so he quickly added, “Robots are lame,” and then left the room before she could respond.

Ramona loved her day job. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, when she wasn't taking classes or helping at McInney Manor, she was in the back room of the county library. She'd always been a bookish kid—a little too spacey, a little too imaginative—so it was no surprise that she grew up to be a librarian. Also not surprisingly, the library was like a safe haven for her.

She stood on her tiptoes and tried to reshelf a few encyclopedia volumes. At times like these, she wished she were taller than five-foot-two. (
And a half
, she always added. Five-foot-two and a half.) Even with the stool underneath her feet, it was still a struggle to reach that high.

Ramona's coworker Nancy surprised her on the other side of the shelf. She stuck her face between two copies of the
Sonoran Desert Survival Guide
. “Earth to Ramona,” she whispered.

Ramona jumped back in shock. The encyclopedias flew out of her hands and slammed onto the carpet. Ramona steadied herself at the last minute; otherwise, she'd have joined the encyclopedias in a pile on the floor. “You scared me,” she said.

“I've been calling your name for the last two minutes,” Nancy said. “Well, whispering your name.”

“That explains it,” Ramona said. “I thought I was being haunted again.” She laughed at her own joke.

Nancy didn't. “There's someone here to see you,” she said. “It's a boy.” Even though Nancy was just a few months older than Ramona, she tended to treat her like a much younger sister. Usually that meant making fun of her outfits. Sometimes—like right now—it meant treating her like a little girl about to go on her first date.

“And what boy is it, exactly?” Ramona asked. She wanted to sound coy.

“Something McInney,” Nancy said. “I assume he's the boy you've been missing all your work for. He's waiting out front.” Then she spun around and disappeared behind a rack of periodicals.

Ramona didn't want her heart to race every time she heard the name McInney. She didn't want to feel like the little schoolgirl that Nancy pretended she was. Ramona was an adult now, pushing twenty-eight; she was beyond the age for stomach butterflies and schoolyard romance.

Yet—

Something McInney.

Her heart raced. Her stomach fluttered. And she walked toward the front entrance, toward the “husband” who was just a friend. At first, she saw his tall outline through the frosted glass of the front windows. He bounced from one foot to the other in a decidedly non-Scott manner. She could also see through the frosted glass that he wasn't wearing his typical BLM work clothes. Did he have a—suit and tie? That didn't seem right, unless he'd stopped by on the way to a funeral or a lounge singer gig.

Ramona opened the door and met Rob.

“Hey,” he said. He adjusted his tie.

“What are you doing here? Why aren't you in Chicago?” she asked. She probably should've said hello first. She was just so taken aback by his surprise visit.

“I just got back,” he said, as if that answered everything. He didn't say anything about his business meetings. Had he landed the deal? Saved his business? He didn't say.

Rob was taller than his brother. Skinnier, too. Normally he looked good in his suits, but today he looked a little crumpled.

“Well, thanks for visiting,” she said. “May I interest you in the latest Stephen King paperback?”

“I wanted to talk to you about Scott,” he said. No smile. All business, all the time.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“He thinks he is,” Rob answered cryptically.

Ramona leaned against the nearby newspaper rack. She wanted to brace herself for some more bad news. No matter what terrible things happened to her, there was always room for more. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“This is a little difficult to say,” he said, “but Jeffrey told me you and Scott had a lot of fun at dinner last night.”

“Yes?”

“He said you two were really flirty.”

“He did not!” Ramona protested. “He's seven. He doesn't even know that word.”

“He must've learned it off
Spongebob
,” Rob deadpanned, no humor in his voice. “I just wanted to make sure you understood how dangerous that could be.”

“Flirtation?”

“Yes, especially with Scott.”

Ramona didn't know what to say. She didn't want to tell Rob that she had feelings for his brother, and she
really
didn't want to say that he'd turned her down. But at the same time, it wasn't any of his business. How dare he act like some parental figure! He was barely two years older than she and Scott. He wasn't some wise relationship guru.

Still, she didn't feel right lashing out at him. He'd been through a lot, and it sounded like he was only looking out for his brother. So she said, “It was all an act. You know, for Debra. We were pretending to be newlyweds.”

For a second, she thought he was satisfied with that answer. Then he said, “It's not an act.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “You're not that good an actress.”

“You should've seen me as the Cowardly Lion in third grade,” Ramona joked. “Grown men wept!” She had hoped her comment would somehow lighten the mood, but Rob wasn't cooperating.

They stood directly next to the newspaper racks, which meant they were both surrounded by the headlines of the day: flash floods in Colorado, an armed robbery at a Phoenix grocery store, a political coup in central Africa. So many things were happening throughout the world, and they were so much more important than Ramona's little drama. But to her, this charade was quickly becoming her life. She knew it wasn't healthy, but she couldn't control herself.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

He looked her straight in the eyes. “For the sake of my mother,” he said, “I want you to stay away from our family.”

“I'm doing this for Debra,” Ramona argued, “not in spite of her. Do you really think I'd put myself through all th—”

“Yes,” he cut her off.

“Well, I wouldn't,” she said. “And I certainly wouldn't jeopardize your mother's health just so I could play dress-up for a week. You were there at the hospital. You know the decision Scott and I made. Why didn't you speak up then?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I worry. About Mom. About Scott.”

“Trust me,” Ramona said. “Scott made perfectly clear that—”

“Listen, I know what it's like to lose a wife. It's the worst feeling in the world. It's crushing. And it's embarrassing. Everyone feels sorry for you. And you think about all the stuff you could've done differently. I can't imagine what he's going through, pretending to be married, constantly seeing a woman who looks like his wife but isn't quite real.”

“I'm real,” she said.

“You know what I mean.” His whole tone was so unlike the Rob that Ramona had grown up with. He was always the big brother, always taking care of everybody, but he never seemed this forceful. There had to be a reason for the attitude.

“Listen,” she said, “I think you're just lashing out because your business thing didn't pan out. And I'm sorry for that. But—”

“I got the deal,” he said.

“What?”

“This has nothing to do with Chicago. I got the deal. Things are starting to look better for my family.”

“Then why are you—?”

“Because I think you two are crossing some line,” he explained. “And maybe because I'm no longer distracted by business stuff, I can finally look around me and see how messed up this fake marriage is.”

He waited for her to say something, but she didn't.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I know you're in an awkward position, but please stay away from my brother.” He turned around and walked away. He didn't say goodbye.

Ramona was left standing in front of the library, feeling her breath catch in her throat. Bad news in the papers surrounded her. The world was an ugly place; Ramona knew that now.

It was an ugly, ugly place.

• • •

Scott pulled into the library parking lot three minutes after Ramona's shift ended at five. He barely had time to park his old Ford before he saw Ramona make a beeline across the parking lot.

She still drove that old sky-blue station wagon that her grandmother had given her. It shook too much, and the upholstery was crumbling into nothing, but she'd always loved that car. Scott was glad to see that some things never changed.

“Hey!” he shouted at her.

At first, she pretended not to hear him. Then she slowly turned around and waved.

Scott ran over to reach her.

The first thing he noticed—aside from her impatient stance—was that she was actually wearing her glasses. Ramona never wore those glasses, not out of vanity, but because she always forgot them. But they looked good on her; they really did. The thick black frames perfectly circled her eyes. They certainly made her look more like a librarian.

The second thing he noticed was that her tan skin had a natural glow in the sunlight. Why hadn't he noticed that before? Unlike Nessa, who always wore a little too much makeup, Ramona kept her skin natural, and it showed. That was one thing she didn't change for Debra's benefit.

Before he knew it, Scott had spent a whole minute noticing all the little things about Ramona—the way she always stood straight and proud, the honey glow in her hair, the single freckle next to her eye. He noticed these things because they were beautiful, and they were what differentiated her from Nessa. He should've noticed all these things before. He wasn't sure why he did now.