original fic : ramona was a waitress
Ramona was a waitress.
Well, not quite. But yes.
Ramona was a lot of things. This is one.
Ramona was a waitress at a drive-by diner in a drive-by town.
She arrived out of the blue; seventeen and not quite as wide-eyed as her contemporaries. She did not go to school. She did not hang with the usual rabble.
Instead, she kept the company of the old widows and shut-ins driven mad with loneliness.
From the start, Peter was hypnotised.
Ramona brings drinks with a silent smile. Girls babble on about prom dresses and guys talk about getting out of this town
No one talks to Ramona.
Peter’s mother is full of city ideas; talk to the girl, introduce her to your friends. Conversations in the grocery store with the girl; he falls in love with her from afar. The girl who rides her bike through town, the girl that reads in the park. The girl that posts dozens of letters every week, receiving none in return.
Peter was never brave. Peter never did anything out of the ordinary, against the grain.
Peter does not talk to Ramona. Nobody expected any less.
Then there’s Diana. Because someone always had to lose. Diana speaks sweetly and walks carefully and smiles brightly and has dreams bigger than anyone he’s ever known.
This is Ramona, she introduces the girl like they haven’t known her name from the start.
The waitress? Someone asks.
Ramona laughs.
Technically...
She flashes Peter a smile.
On the weekends, they to go the park. The boys play football and the girls talk about futures they’ll never have Ramona write letters and Peter watches with interest.
Who you writing too?
Ramona doesn’t answer. Over her shoulder, he catches a glimpse of the text.
“I am well and you are not. I am free and you are in a cage...”
No one. She grins, absolutely no one.
Ramona stares at the paper. Peter stares at Ramona.
Across the way, Diana stares at them both.
She does not win today.
Ramona dreams of ghosts with guitars and knives and beds that float through time and space with no destination. She dreams of the crushing weight of words and flying high high high and crashing the ground; never waking up before the impact. She dreams time running out; the last second, the climax, the crescendo and then nothing.
It always cuts to black.
High school girls are and will always be high school girls. Catty and mean; one too many teen movies, one too many episodes of Gossip Girl and they all want to be queen.
Ramona is their own personal antagonist. They laugh and sneer behind their DIY manicures and faux designer bags.
Diana does none of these things. Because Diana has no time for high school drama and soap opera scripts that should have never made it to print.
Peter feels a stabbing in his chest. He mistakes the nervous thump-thump for love.
That was his first mistake.
When Peter asks Ramona out, she says yes.
This was her twenty-third.
Trucks speed through town. Trains with loud horns that speeds through town and Peter thinks nothing of them.
Until Reagan.
Reagan is strong jaws and city lifestyles and it’s clear he should not be here, in this state, in this town and Ramona cannot stay away.
Small town niceties are lost on him; he marches into the diner all leather jackets and frown lines and eyes that reflect his youth.
Don’t act surprised, he does not smirk. A cigarette dangles from his lips and Ramona sighs.
Don’t ask me to come home.
Tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear, he presses his forehead to hers.
Come home, Ramona.
Reagan stays in town. Peter does not know where he stands.
Graduation looms. Diana makes plans to escape.
Ramona remains a waitress.
There are parties and there’s the usual crowd. And then there’s Reagan and Ramona. There is no intimacy. No affection and no labels. He flirts with girls and she smiles at Peter and a million other teen clichés from kids who are anything but.
Peter looks carefully. Reagan wears glasses and his teeth bear the resemblance of someone who wore braces and his regrowth is starting to show.
He comes to the conclusion that, once upon a time, they were just like him. Painfully normal.
Does she write you letters? Peter slurs and Reagan looks almost afraid.
Letters?
So many fucking letters. Did she ask you to save her from this town?
Reagan, for all intended appearances, is not tough. He sighs and stutters and his hands shake as he reaches for a cigarette.
Ramona doesn’t ask anyone for anything. She doesn’t need to be saved.
In another room, Diana cries.
Outside, Ramona writes furiously.
Peter feels like the world is spinning out of control.
It starts like this:
Father’s that make too many mistakes and mothers who don’t know better. Somewhere, a girl loses her virginity to a boy while her parents feel the sharp, sick edge of a knife.
There’s denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Acceptance.
There’s a man rotting in a jail cell. And then there’s letters.
For him, it always ends like this:
Bundles of letters from a bitter warden. Stands there while he reads them, punishment extracted with precision.
This is what you deserve. The old man snarls.
(Somewhere a girl writes furiously.)
This is what you deserve.
Diana dreams of maps and cities and leaving this town behind. She dreams that one day her heart will explode with everything she wants; Peter and freedom and the unknown. She dreams of pushpins, hundreds and hundreds of pushpins; marking all the places she’s been.
Diana wakes up disappointed.
Countdowns begin. Reagan still does not leave.
Peter has never been smart enough to even consider college an option. Guys like him; he’s only got one way out.
The day he enlists is the day two girls confess their love.
No one wins this round.
Diana understands in ways that Ramona does not.
(Perhaps she does win after all.)
There’s sad words and why, why, why and he looks at her like it should be obvious.
This is my ticket out.
He says this and feels nothing for her. Months gone by and he realises she is no different from anyone else.
Will you write me letters?
She bites her lip and nods.
There is prom and after parties on the outskirts of town. Peter kisses Diana in an orchard, hands resting gently on satin. She smiles against his lips and he pulls back, tears in her eyes.
I’m leaving after graduation.
He smiles a sad smile.
Me too.
Hands held between his, he whispers her name and has no regrets for the future safely in their sight.
Ramona leaves and Reagan stays. Peter is surprised.
Are you going after her?
Reagan shakes his head. Gone is the leather jacket and cigarettes. T-shirts and sneakers and he looks normal.
I’m going home, he shrugs, there’s nothing in this town for me.
Ramona?
He sighs, running his hand through his hair.
It’s for the best, Peter.
There’s something in his eyes he doesn’t understand.
The letters…
Reagan glances down. He slings his bag over his back, slipping on sunglasses.
Here’s my cell, he hands him a scrap of paper, I’m going to college in the fall. Focus on my music. Forget about Ramona and the letters. You’d be best to do that too.
Reagan leaves like he arrives. Hitches a ride out of town; eyes on the horizon, sun blurring everything in front of him.
(Despite that, his future is perfectly clear.)
Diana sends him post cards from places she spent years talking about. He reads them in his bunk, stores them in Army handbooks, her delicate handwriting standing out against the rigid procedures.
She your girl? His friends laugh and joke.
Peter smiles. One day. Maybe.
Somewhere, Reagan writes songs.
Ramona still writes letters.
Peter receives them sporadically
The towns are the same. The coffee pots are hot and the grease sticks to your skin. The widows are still sad and the teenagers can’t wait to get out.
He does not keep them long.
She listens as the envelopes flutter in the hollow mailbox.
Taking a breath, she smiles.
(Ramona was a waitress.)
End.
Well, not quite. But yes.
Ramona was a lot of things. This is one.
Ramona was a waitress at a drive-by diner in a drive-by town.
She arrived out of the blue; seventeen and not quite as wide-eyed as her contemporaries. She did not go to school. She did not hang with the usual rabble.
Instead, she kept the company of the old widows and shut-ins driven mad with loneliness.
From the start, Peter was hypnotised.
Ramona brings drinks with a silent smile. Girls babble on about prom dresses and guys talk about getting out of this town
No one talks to Ramona.
Peter’s mother is full of city ideas; talk to the girl, introduce her to your friends. Conversations in the grocery store with the girl; he falls in love with her from afar. The girl who rides her bike through town, the girl that reads in the park. The girl that posts dozens of letters every week, receiving none in return.
Peter was never brave. Peter never did anything out of the ordinary, against the grain.
Peter does not talk to Ramona. Nobody expected any less.
Then there’s Diana. Because someone always had to lose. Diana speaks sweetly and walks carefully and smiles brightly and has dreams bigger than anyone he’s ever known.
This is Ramona, she introduces the girl like they haven’t known her name from the start.
The waitress? Someone asks.
Ramona laughs.
Technically...
She flashes Peter a smile.
On the weekends, they to go the park. The boys play football and the girls talk about futures they’ll never have Ramona write letters and Peter watches with interest.
Who you writing too?
Ramona doesn’t answer. Over her shoulder, he catches a glimpse of the text.
“I am well and you are not. I am free and you are in a cage...”
No one. She grins, absolutely no one.
Ramona stares at the paper. Peter stares at Ramona.
Across the way, Diana stares at them both.
She does not win today.
Ramona dreams of ghosts with guitars and knives and beds that float through time and space with no destination. She dreams of the crushing weight of words and flying high high high and crashing the ground; never waking up before the impact. She dreams time running out; the last second, the climax, the crescendo and then nothing.
It always cuts to black.
High school girls are and will always be high school girls. Catty and mean; one too many teen movies, one too many episodes of Gossip Girl and they all want to be queen.
Ramona is their own personal antagonist. They laugh and sneer behind their DIY manicures and faux designer bags.
Diana does none of these things. Because Diana has no time for high school drama and soap opera scripts that should have never made it to print.
Peter feels a stabbing in his chest. He mistakes the nervous thump-thump for love.
That was his first mistake.
When Peter asks Ramona out, she says yes.
This was her twenty-third.
Trucks speed through town. Trains with loud horns that speeds through town and Peter thinks nothing of them.
Until Reagan.
Reagan is strong jaws and city lifestyles and it’s clear he should not be here, in this state, in this town and Ramona cannot stay away.
Small town niceties are lost on him; he marches into the diner all leather jackets and frown lines and eyes that reflect his youth.
Don’t act surprised, he does not smirk. A cigarette dangles from his lips and Ramona sighs.
Don’t ask me to come home.
Tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear, he presses his forehead to hers.
Come home, Ramona.
Reagan stays in town. Peter does not know where he stands.
Graduation looms. Diana makes plans to escape.
Ramona remains a waitress.
There are parties and there’s the usual crowd. And then there’s Reagan and Ramona. There is no intimacy. No affection and no labels. He flirts with girls and she smiles at Peter and a million other teen clichés from kids who are anything but.
Peter looks carefully. Reagan wears glasses and his teeth bear the resemblance of someone who wore braces and his regrowth is starting to show.
He comes to the conclusion that, once upon a time, they were just like him. Painfully normal.
Does she write you letters? Peter slurs and Reagan looks almost afraid.
Letters?
So many fucking letters. Did she ask you to save her from this town?
Reagan, for all intended appearances, is not tough. He sighs and stutters and his hands shake as he reaches for a cigarette.
Ramona doesn’t ask anyone for anything. She doesn’t need to be saved.
In another room, Diana cries.
Outside, Ramona writes furiously.
Peter feels like the world is spinning out of control.
It starts like this:
Father’s that make too many mistakes and mothers who don’t know better. Somewhere, a girl loses her virginity to a boy while her parents feel the sharp, sick edge of a knife.
There’s denial, anger, bargaining, depression. Acceptance.
There’s a man rotting in a jail cell. And then there’s letters.
For him, it always ends like this:
Bundles of letters from a bitter warden. Stands there while he reads them, punishment extracted with precision.
This is what you deserve. The old man snarls.
(Somewhere a girl writes furiously.)
This is what you deserve.
Diana dreams of maps and cities and leaving this town behind. She dreams that one day her heart will explode with everything she wants; Peter and freedom and the unknown. She dreams of pushpins, hundreds and hundreds of pushpins; marking all the places she’s been.
Diana wakes up disappointed.
Countdowns begin. Reagan still does not leave.
Peter has never been smart enough to even consider college an option. Guys like him; he’s only got one way out.
The day he enlists is the day two girls confess their love.
No one wins this round.
Diana understands in ways that Ramona does not.
(Perhaps she does win after all.)
There’s sad words and why, why, why and he looks at her like it should be obvious.
This is my ticket out.
He says this and feels nothing for her. Months gone by and he realises she is no different from anyone else.
Will you write me letters?
She bites her lip and nods.
There is prom and after parties on the outskirts of town. Peter kisses Diana in an orchard, hands resting gently on satin. She smiles against his lips and he pulls back, tears in her eyes.
I’m leaving after graduation.
He smiles a sad smile.
Me too.
Hands held between his, he whispers her name and has no regrets for the future safely in their sight.
Ramona leaves and Reagan stays. Peter is surprised.
Are you going after her?
Reagan shakes his head. Gone is the leather jacket and cigarettes. T-shirts and sneakers and he looks normal.
I’m going home, he shrugs, there’s nothing in this town for me.
Ramona?
He sighs, running his hand through his hair.
It’s for the best, Peter.
There’s something in his eyes he doesn’t understand.
The letters…
Reagan glances down. He slings his bag over his back, slipping on sunglasses.
Here’s my cell, he hands him a scrap of paper, I’m going to college in the fall. Focus on my music. Forget about Ramona and the letters. You’d be best to do that too.
Reagan leaves like he arrives. Hitches a ride out of town; eyes on the horizon, sun blurring everything in front of him.
(Despite that, his future is perfectly clear.)
Diana sends him post cards from places she spent years talking about. He reads them in his bunk, stores them in Army handbooks, her delicate handwriting standing out against the rigid procedures.
She your girl? His friends laugh and joke.
Peter smiles. One day. Maybe.
Somewhere, Reagan writes songs.
Ramona still writes letters.
Peter receives them sporadically
The towns are the same. The coffee pots are hot and the grease sticks to your skin. The widows are still sad and the teenagers can’t wait to get out.
He does not keep them long.
She listens as the envelopes flutter in the hollow mailbox.
Taking a breath, she smiles.
(Ramona was a waitress.)
End.