How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [113]
Maybe she should go down and ask Ramona for some help. Katie’s embarrassed, but it was okay this afternoon, and Ramona was really nice, showing her all about the whole business.
It is still hard to get used to, though, the feeling of something between her legs like that. Tears well up in her eyes, and she dashes them angrily away. All these emotions are so stupid! She feels like they’re something outside her, demons taking over her mind and body. She got so mad at Lily over dinner and she tried to hide it, the red tide rising through her so she was like a cartoon character with steam coming out of her ears.
It isn’t fair, though. Lily knew how much Katie was looking forward to the flower show, and it won’t be the same with Ramona, who doesn’t even like flowers that much! The loss of it makes more hot tears stream out of her eyes.
A wave of knuckles rolls through her belly, and she makes a noise and flings back the covers. Merlin trots over and they pad downstairs, but before she gets to the bottom, she hears voices. Ramona.
And a man.
In Ramona’s room.
Wrapping her arms around her middle, Katie turns and goes back upstairs and climbs into bed. She wishes for her mother.
Merlin appears at the side of her bed and woofs softly for permission to come up. Ryan told her never to let him on the bed, but sometimes he feels like her only friend. Tonight she’s so miserable she just doesn’t care about any stupid dog-training rules. She pats the bed beside her and says, “Come on, baby.”
Even though he jumped a fence, he always does a funny thing with his chin to jump up onto something like this. He does it on the couch, too—a tap with his chin to the surface of the bed, and then again, and then he readies himself and leaps. It’s so cute it makes her laugh even now. He turns in a circle on the bed, putting his spine to her and his head down on her pillow so she can put her arms around him. He’s warm and soft and smells of starlight. Katie presses her tummy into his back and strokes one velvety ear, trying not to think about her cramps.
When they got back from dinner, Katie had gone upstairs, feeling a tangle of completely unfamiliar and unpleasant emotions. Lily had just blown her off, and it stung, and although she got it—she wasn’t stupid!—she felt as if nobody ever put her first. Her dad always had the Army. Her mom always wanted her drugs. Ramona and Lily have Sofia and the new baby to worry about.
Hugging her dog, crying like a little kid, Katie wonders if anyone will ever put her first.
Ramona
Jonah and I lie entangled, talking, for hours. Few things in my life have ever been what I imagined, but this comes close. We talk, and talk, and talk. He tells me about his years of restless travel, through South America and the East, and the woman he thought he would marry in Argentina. He speaks fluent Spanish, and to my delight he murmurs it against my ear, whispering in that beautiful tongue. I tell him about running restaurants and the pleasure I find in bread, the earthy depth of it. Few things make me feel as joyful as the sight of a loaf of golden bread coming out of the oven, the smell filling the air with a peace unlike any other.
We also talk about little things. Like movies and how airplanes stay in the sky and whether toenails should be painted. After a while we make love again, moving more slowly this time, examining each other more closely. Just before we fall asleep in each other’s arms, he says, “This is serious, Ramona. You know that, don’t you?”
I think of us as old people on a porch. I reach for his hand, place it over my heart. “This makes me so happy it scares me to death.”
He kisses my forehead fiercely. “Maybe we could just be happy. Things are not always doomed, you know.”
I laugh softly. “I forget that sometimes.”
Nestling closer, I will myself to accept happiness. No drama, no disaster, no big fights, simply