Chapters 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18

Chapter Fourteen: In Which Ramona and I Have An Argument

It was hours later when Ramona finally came back. I tried to get to her before she went straight into her room, as I assumed she would. “Hey, Ramona.”

“Yeah?” Ramona was putting her coat into the designated ‘coat and other junk’ closet. Good, I got her.

“So, what was that all about this afternoon?” I didn’t see any point in beating around the bush, not with all the thinking about it I’d already done this afternoon.

“Not too much,” Ramona said, shutting the closet door and leaning on it to make it close all the way. “I accidentally called him in my sleep. Weird, huh?” she tried to laugh it off, but her laugh didn’t come out quite right.

“That’s not what I mean,” I said, “I mean, what’s up with you and that guy, anyway? Is he your boyfriend or what?”

I saw Ramona straighten up while still leaning against the door. “So what if he is?” she asked defiantly.

“Oh, nothing really, I just didn’t know you were seeing anyone, that’s all,” I said. That wasn’t all, really, but I was waiting to see what she’d say.

Ramona shrugged, “It never came up. It’s not a big deal.”

“Maybe not,” I said, trying very hard not to narrow my eyes at her, “But what was up with your reaction when I told you he was here?” As I said, I was not in the mood to beat around the bush.

“I was surprised, duh. What’d you think?”

Her attitude left me feeling annoyed, and I reacted in kind. “I don’t know, but I was kind of worried for you,” I blurted out.

Ramona pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything. Then she sucked in a breath of air, exhaled, and spoke. “When you saw Conway, what did you think of him?”

Her question threw me off guard. “Huh? Well, I guess, he seemed…okay, y’know?” I wasn’t going to tell her what actually happened when I first opened the door and saw him there.

“Then why were you worried?” Ramona said, coolly.

“Well, you know…” I couldn’t put it into words. Not to her face.

“No, I don’t,” Ramona replied, “So tell me what you really thought.”

“You know, you’re right, it’s not that big a deal,” I said, and started back to my room.

“Oh no you don’t,” Ramona said, “I want to finish this here and now. Do you really want to know why I ‘reacted the way I did?’”

I did, but I didn’t say so. I stayed in the hall, though, and Ramona kept talking.

“It’s because I never intended for you and Conway to meet up, ever. Because I knew how you’d react to him.”

“What do you mean, ‘how I’d react to him?’” Now I was getting annoyed all over again. I tried to defend myself against whatever it was she was thinking about me. “There’s nothing wrong with having a boyfriend, even one that…” I trailed off, realizing what I was about to say, and who I was about to say it to.

“That what? That looks like that? That isn’t a perfect paragon of, of whatever?” Ramona shot at me. “I knew that’s what this would come down to, Sheila! You can never look beyond the physical, and that’s why-”

I cut her off, not wanting to hear what she was about to say, “How do you know that’s what I was going to say? How do you know what I’m thinking and how I feel? I saw the guy for less than five minutes, so what else am I supposed to say?”

“I guess that’s true,” Ramona said, blowing out a puff of air. “I just don’t want you to judge Conway by the way he looks, that’s all, and I, well, I think that’s kind of hard for you.”

“Whaaat?” I could not believe what I was hearing. “Do you really think I’m that shallow?”

“Sometimes I do,” Ramona replied bluntly. “You’re always making comments on the characters when we watch TV, and I’ve seen the guys you go after, for serious.”

I honestly did not have a good rebuttal for that. Still, I denied it. “Oh, that’s not true,” was all I could push out. It seemed like Ramona had got me right down in the metaphorical nuts. I couldn’t help feeling that she was right, maybe I was indeed that shallow. But I was not going to admit it in front of her, at least not right at that moment.

Ramona just shrugged again. “I’m just saying.”

“Look, if you really like that guy, then great, I’m happy for you, really,” I said. “I just think I should have known you were dating someone, okay?”

“Fair enough,” Ramona said, “I’ll do my best to be more forthright in the future. But if you don’t mind, it’s getting late, and I’d like to get a couple of things taken care of before I have to go to bed.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, and she walked past me into her room. I followed suit by going into my own room.

“Was that what was supposed to happen?” Em asked, after I slumped down on my bed.

“I honestly have no idea what just happened,” I replied. It was probably in my best interests to call it a night.

Chapter Fifteen: Ramona Works Hard and Has a Revelation

Ramona dreamt of snow covering the city that night and of all the people trying to make their way through it, despite the plows being AWOL apparently. So when she woke up the next morning and found that it was actually snowing, despite not being the right time for snow at all, her first thought was to wonder if her dreams were somehow prophetic. She certainly hoped not. She’d rather not find out that people judged her based on her taste in movies, or that people from college were trying to contact her again. Well, except for Natalie. That would be kind of cool.

Snow, and even just predictions of snow, always brought people to the supermarket in droves. Ramona knew this from experience. The rush of people trying to make sure they had everything they would need in case they got snowed in meant lots of bread sales. For some reason, once they heard that snow was on the way, everyone suddenly wanted to make sure they had plenty of bread. But there had been no warning about this snow. In fact, the weather report, which Ramona checked before she went to bed the night before, had said it was going to be clear. So when Ramona left for work, she had no idea whether it would be busy or not. There were arguments for either one: people wanted to stock up, but on the other hand, people liked to keep off the roads when it snowed (although it really wasn’t that bad, as far as Ramona was concerned. She had driven in worse and lived).

To her surprise, the store parking lot was overflowing. Granted, some of the cars belonged to employees, but still, she’d never seen it so full, not even on the day before Thanksgiving. She was barely able to find a spot for herself. Inside the store it was even worse, as many people had apparently carpooled. “How could this be?” she wondered. Were there even this many people in the city?

“Ramona, thank goodness!” Angie said when she saw Ramona come in, “It’s been absolutely crazy!”

“I just bet it has,” Ramona replied, making her way to the CDH podium. “I know that we get a surge of customers with the snow, but this is simply ridiculous.”

“It’s not just the snow, I think,” Angie replied, “It’s this whole crazy weather we’ve been having. Nobody knows what‘s going to happen next, so they‘re stocking up now.”

“I know it’s been raining a lot, but that’s not so crazy. Even snow this time of year isn’t unheard of,” Ramona pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” Angie agreed, “But I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the weather reports have been way off every single day for the past week and a half. It was supposed to rain on those really nice, sunny days, and-” the phone in the podium rang, “Hold on, I’ll get that.”

While Angie was on the phone, a cashier called Ramona over for some coupon clarification. “This coupon is only for the 8 to 10 ounce package, but she said we don’t have any of those,” the cashier explained. “Can I put it in anyway?”

“Go for it,” Ramona replied. Substitutions in that case were generally okay, and as far as she knew, they didn’t ever carry the larger package, although she really didn’t see why not. But that wasn’t her department’s decision. She wasn’t even sure whose decision it really would be. Mr. Donegan? Somebody at corporate? The grocery department head who held a red card but whose name she never remembered for some reason?

For a while it was just one thing after another. Fixing an overvoid, saving orders for folks who forgot their credit/debit cards at home, bringing those orders up again later. And there were plenty of times where Ramona just opened up as a cashier to help out with the lines. Angie was calling in everyone who was off, to see if they could help, but not too many were coming in, and really, Ramona didn’t blame them. Didn’t stop Angie from complaining, though.

Schedule Dan came in after a while, but he was scheduled, so it wasn’t as big a deal as when Marron and Gerry came in.

“We salute you for sacrificing your time off,” Ramona and Angie said together (Dan was off doing things only a true head of customer service could do, and which Ramona was not privy to), and they did indeed salute the two cashiers.

“Not a problem,” Marron said, but Gerry just shrugged.

“Okay, Marron, can you open on fifteen? Gerry, just bag for right now. You’ll probably open later,” Ramona told them.

And so the rest of the shift passed with a sense of great craziness, as things slowed down for a short time, only to pick up again not too long after. While this made the day pass more quickly for everyone involved, it was kind of stressful. But things did finally slow down for good about a half hour before Ramona’s shift came to an end.

“Ugh,” she groaned, as things were now too slow. With nothing better to do, decided to take care of refilling the plastic bags under the registers. As she did, she passed by the other members of the front end, most of them trying to find someway to fill the suddenly not-busy time.

“Have you seen those Ovaltine commercials?” cashier Anthony asked her. He was taking advantage of the slow period to work on the returns, which had admittedly piled up something horrible, and he was holding a tin of Ovaltine.

“Which ones?” Ramona asked, though she didn’t really remember seeing any ads for Ovaltine ever.

“Any of them,” Anthony replied, “You know, the ones where the mom is making Ovaltine, and suddenly the whole town is showing up for some, like they’re brainwashed by the Ovaltine. Really creepy.”

“Huh. I was always a Quik girl, personally,” Ramona pointed out. She moved on to the next register, and listened in on the conversations around her.

“It’s totally crazy,” Marron said to her bagger, Jeremy.

“I know. I couldn’t believe it, but my mom had to drive me in it, so that kind of clinched it.”

Marron smirked, but just for a second. “Do you think there’ll be more tomorrow?” she asked him.

“Probably,” Jeremy replied.

“There’ll definitely be more snow tomorrow,” Gerry added. He was collecting the hand baskets that customers left under the registers, but he stopped to join in Marron and Jeremy’s conversation. “There’s been a pattern, have you noticed that?”

“No,” Marron replied, bluntly.

“Well, first it was nice for a few days, right? But did you notice that it was progressively nicer each day? It was almost like summer on that last day before it got cold and rainy.”

“I think you’re just over thinking this,” Marron said.

“Yeah,” Jeremy replied.

“Well, what about the rainy days? First it was just gloomy, then drizzly, and then plain rain, and then downpours.”

“By your theory, there should have been thunderstorms to finish it off before we got to snow,” Marron pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s kind of weird,” Gerry said, and then he finally went on his way to continue taking care of the hand baskets.

Ramona thought about what they had said. It was true that the weather had been a bit odd for the past few days, but was there really a pattern, like Gerry had said? The more she thought about it, the more a thought stood out in her mind. The weird weather had started early last week. Right around the same time Sheila had brought an alien into their apartment…

Chapter Sixteen: Ramona and Sheila Discuss The Alien

When Ramona got home, Sheila was still at work. So she pondered, should she wait, or should she just talk to the alien herself? She didn’t particularly want to do that (partly because she was still trying to convince herself that the less she had to do with it, the better), but she didn’t know if she could stand not knowing whether her hunch was right on or just plain wrong. Plus, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to talk to Sheila after what happened last night. So, she sucked it up and went to knock on Sheila’s door, as she assumed that’s where the alien would be, since he wasn‘t in the living room or the kitchen. When there wasn’t any answer, she went ahead and opened the door a crack. She looked inside, but didn’t see anyone there. “That’s strange,” she thought. But then, she didn’t know whether or not the alien was even still in the apartment. After all, Sheila had said it would only be there for a couple more days, and that had been a couple of days ago, right? And if that was the case, then it meant her theory that the weird weather and the alien were connected was wrong by default (probably). But then she spotted a strange looking apparatus in the corner of the room. It didn’t look like anything she had ever seen, so she guessed it must belong to the alien, meaning that it was still there, just not in the apartment at the moment. And so her theory might still be correct. She wasn’t really sure whether she wanted to be right or not.

And so she was forced to wait regardless. As she closed the door to Sheila’s room and went into her own to chill out on the internet, she checked her cellphone and found a missed call from Conway. “I wonder what that was about,” she thought, but Conway had left a voicemail, so she just punched her password into her voice mail box, and listened to hear what he had to say.

“Hey, Mona, there’s this thing I have to do, and it might take a while…. I really don’t know how long it’ll take…. I guess I’ll call you when I get back, but it might be a while. ‘k, bye.”

“What in the world was that all about?” Ramona wondered. A thing? What kind of thing? And how long was a while? A couple of hours? A couple of days? She wondered why Conway was being so vague, and decided to try calling him to ask for clarification. But she was not entirely surprised when her call went straight to his voicemail. She didn’t bother leaving a message. “I’ll try again later,” she reasoned, and settled down to some serious internet business.

Around the time that Sheila got done from work, Ramona’s cellphone went off. It was the generic ring, so she checked before answering. It was Sheila.

“Hi, Ramona?” Sheila said.

“What’s up?” Ramona answered.

“You’re not working, right?”

“Yeah, I got off already.”

“I was wondering, can you come pick me up? The snow is really coming down, and I’m not sure I’m going to make it.” Sheila sounded a little overdramatic, so Ramona rolled her eyes, even though she knew Sheila couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, I’ll be right over,” Ramona told her. As she grabbed her coat and keys, she realized that this would be a good chance to ask Sheila about her theory on the alien and the weather being related. And so she drove carefully down to the library. Sheila was right, the snow really was coming down, even more than it had been when she had driven home earlier that day.

Sheila was standing by the door when Ramona pulled up. She hurried out of the library and into Ramona’s car. “Ah,” she sighed as she sat down in the preheated car and buckled her seatbelt.

“So was it busy?” Ramona asked, figuring she’d start off slow. The drive would take a little longer, thanks to the snow, so she had time to build up to what she really wanted to talk about.

“Oh no, not at all,” Sheila said. “There was hardly anyone in at all, ‘cause of the snow.”

“Huh,” Ramona said, thinking of how busy it had been at where she worked. “It was packed at the store.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sheila said. They drove in silence for a little bit.

“Y’know, I was thinking,” Ramona started, unable to think of a way to ease into it, “the weather has been pretty weird lately.”

“That’s for sure,” Sheila replied, “What’s with this snow?”

“Well, even before the snow,” Ramona continued, “It was really, really nice for a couple of days, and then all that rain, even though it was supposed to be sunny.” She paused and then launched into the heart of her theory. “The weird weather started up around the same time that, you know, that alien starting hanging out in our apartment. Do you think that the weather and him are connected somehow?”

By then they had reached the apartment complex. Ramona parked and turned off the car, but the two girls did not get out right away.

“I never thought about that,” Sheila said quietly.

“I don’t know if I’m right, but you have to admit, it’s a heck of a coincidence,” Ramona said. “I wanted to ask the alien about it, but he wasn’t around. Does he usually leave the apartment?”

“No, not really,” Sheila said. She seemed distracted. But she snapped out of it. “Oh, wait, he said he was going to the extra dimension again today.”

“Extra dimension?” Ramona unbuckled. She was getting tired of sitting in the car, but wanted Sheila to finish before they went in.

“It’s this really strange place that changes to whatever you think it should look like,” Sheila explained, “And that’s where Em gets the stuff he needs to make the fuel for his equipment. It runs parallel to our apartment, or something like that, so he can go there without needing to put on a disguise or anything.”

“O…kay,” Ramona said, and she opened the car door. “Come on, let’s get inside before we get snowed out.”

“Yeah, that’d good,” Sheila said, and they went back to their apartment. The alien still wasn’t back, though.

“How long do you think he’ll be gone?” Ramona asked Sheila, after they had determined that the alien was not anywhere in their apartment.

“No idea,” Sheila replied. “That last time he was there, he was gone for hours. I guess it depends on how long it takes him to find the eggs.”

“Eggs?” Ramona was wondering if their conversation was going to consist entirely of Sheila throwing out terms that sounded like they should make sense, but didn’t.

“Well, they’re not really eggs, per se,” Sheila explained, “But they look kind of like eggs made of this silvery stuff. And he uses them to make his fuel, see?”

Ramona didn’t really see, but she said she did, anyway. And then she decided to watch TV while they waited for the alien to get back. Sheila went into her room to check her e-mail, but she was out in the living room again soon enough, although she just sat and read. She didn’t appear to be watching the episode of Family Guy that Ramona had chosen to watch, but she looked up every now and then, Ramona noticed.

Chapter Seventeen: In Which We Determine Whether or Not Em is Responsible for the Weather

I couldn’t believe it, simply couldn’t believe it. But the way Ramona explained it made sense. But still, I hoped it wasn’t true. Was the strange weather we’d been having and Em’s coming to our apartment really related? And I couldn’t help but think that if he and the weather were related, it was my fault for breaking the hub in the first place. And what then? Would fixing the hub be enough to fix the weather? I wished Em would just get back from the extra dimension already and tell us whether or not he had anything to do with it, and if so, what to do about it.

Ramona wasn’t the only one who was getting suspicious about the weather. All day long at work, the reference librarian had been answering the same questions about similar weather phenomena in the past, as I heard while working on changing the record files for older “new” books into ones for the regular collection. This also involved scraping off the “new” sticker from the spine of each book, which I would enjoy more if the solvent we used didn’t have a tendency to drip down and get everywhere. Usually this was done by a volunteer, but she called out due to the snow, and there was so little going on that I practically leaped at the chance to do it, solvent or no solvent.

While waiting for Em, I tried doing something online to distract myself, but that didn’t really work. And I tried reading, but I couldn’t concentrate, although that probably had more to do with Ramona watching Family Guy at the same time. But I didn’t want to be alone right then, for a reason that I couldn’t quite figure out. As the episode’s credits rolled, I sighed.

“So, when do you think he’ll be back?” Ramona asked.

“It could be any time,” I said, “But hopefully it won’t be too long. I mean, he’s probably been gone all day. And he wouldn’t want to stay too long, right?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Ramona replied, then grimaced as another episode came on. “Eh, I’ve seen this one a million times.” And for a time we were quiet, her trying to find something else to watch, and me trying to read And Then We Came to the End. But like I said, I just couldn’t concentrate. I did, however, manage to fall asleep in the chair I was sitting in. I dreamt I was eating lobster at a restaurant with my mom, until Ramona started poking me.

“Wake up, he’s back,” she said. I opened my eyes, and sure enough, Em was standing in the living room.

“Okay, she’s up, now we have to talk to you,” Ramona told him.

“About what?” Em said, “Can it wait just a minute? I’d like to put these away first,” he held up a silvery egg in each hand.

“Oh, sure, go right ahead,” I told him.

“But hurry up about it,” Ramona added.

“It should only take him a minute,” I told her while Em hurried off to my room.

“Mm,” was all Ramona said until Em came back a few minutes later. “Okay, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” she said to him, “But we certainly have. Wait, that sounded dumb. Sheila, you take it.”

“What, me? It was your observation, not mine,” I pointed out.

“Well, you talk to him more than I do,” She countered.

“Is this going to be very long?” Em asked, and I didn’t blame him.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, and started over, “Em, Ramona thinks that the weather being weird lately is related to you coming to our apartment. Did…the hub thing breaking have something to do with it?”

“What’s wrong with the weather?” Em asked. He looked innocent enough to me.

“Well, it definitely shouldn’t be snowing…” I said, starting to feel a little silly about all this. I turned to Ramona, “This can’t be connected. The weather was just a coincidence, right?” I directed the last line to Em. “I mean, just because it was nicer than it should have been, and rained when it was supposed to be sunny… and it’s not unprecedented to have snow this time of year, I think…”

“I can assure you,” Em told us, “My presence, here or otherwise, has absolutely no affect on the weather.”

“Hm,” Ramona didn’t seem convinced. But she conceded, “Maybe it is just a coincidence.” With that settled, we went our separate ways. Ramona stayed in the living room and watched a movie that came in the mail for her, I decided to just go ahead and go to bed, and Em stayed up to work on changing the eggs he got today into more fuel.

Despite being tired, I couldn’t really sleep, partly because of Em working, but mostly because I couldn’t stop thinking about the weather. Even if it wasn’t due to Em, Ramona was right, it was really weird. And what if it snowed again tomorrow? What if it never stopped snowing? I’d never be able to go anywhere unless Ramona let me borrow her car (I hate walking in the snow so much). I rolled over in my bed and opened my eyes. The apparatus that Em used to distill the eggs into fuel glowed a little, which was how he could keep working even when I was supposedly falling asleep.

“Hey, Em,” I said.

“Hm?” Em was faintly lit by the apparatus, so I could see that he looked up from what he was doing.

“What is going on with this weather?” I asked him, although I didn’t expect him to have an answer.

“I certainly can’t tell you that,” Em replied, as I thought he would, “For all I knew, there was nothing wrong with the weather at all.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, and rolled over onto my back. I usually slept best on my side, but so far that wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t worth dwelling on at the moment. It’s not like there was anything I could do about it. Still, I fell asleep hoping that the day’s snow had just been a fluke, and I would wake up to more seasonal weather.

Chapter Eighteen: Ramona Spends the Day at Home Until…

With the dawning of the next morning, it was once again clear that the weather had no intentions of doing what it was supposed to do, as all the snow that had fallen the previous day was still around. There wasn’t even the slightest hint that any of it had melted, although as the sky was clear and the sun was out, most of the weather reporters were predicting most of it would be gone by the end of that day (and the audience hoped they were right).

All of this was lost on Ramona, who had the day off and was determined to sleep in, having stayed up later than usual to finish watching her movie (and get it in the mail the next morning). But her plan was foiled by a knock on the door.

“Yeah?” Ramona called out, sleepily.

“Are you working today?” It was Sheila, who opened the door a crack.

“No, not today,” Ramona replied, wondering if Sheila was actually waking her up just to ask that. Fortunately for Sheila, that was only part of the reason.

“Can I take your car to work, then?” she asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Ramona said, mostly so she could go back to sleep.

“Thanks!” Sheila said, and closed the door again.

Ramona promptly fell back asleep and didn’t wake up for another few hours. Once she did, though, she saw the snow still on the ground outside and glared at it. It couldn’t be just a fluke, but she didn’t know what it was, since it also didn’t seem to be the alien’s doing, either.

Since she didn’t have a car, and didn’t really have any big plans for the day, anyway, she spent the morning in a most leisurely fashion, even going so far as to use some of her special crème brulee flavored coffee and lounging around in her bathrobe. She enjoyed having the apartment to herself, even if she usually did in the morning, even on days when she worked, since Sheila tended to go into work before she did, especially if she wasn’t working until the afternoon. As for the alien, it was apparently either in Sheila’s room (she wasn’t going to check) or off in that other dimension Sheila had mentioned the day before, so she really, truly had the apartment all to herself.

By the time she decided to shower (as fun as it was to lounge around in a bathrobe all day, she didn’t really want to do that), the Artist’s Spotlight was just getting started on the radio (one of the reasons she had decided on that station). That day’s featured artist was Duran Duran, and so she sang along as the band sang “Rio”

“Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand, just like the river twisting through the dusty land. And when she shines she really shows you what she can. Oh, Rio, Rio, dance upon the Rio Grande.”

The next song was one she didn’t know as well, although she recognized the chorus of “Why don’t you use it, try not to bruise it,” which made her think it was about sex, although she didn’t know for sure. When the song was over, the DJ announced that the song was “The Reflex,” and that the next song was probably Duran Duran’s best, “Ordinary World.” Ramona wasn’t sure she agreed with that assessment, but she was done showering by then and figured it was a good enough song to dry off to.

From lunch onward she camped out on the couch to watch whatever movies were showing on TV (she and Sheila were paying for cable, so she might as well take advantage of it), with her laptop on hand for checking out anything she felt needed checking out. In the middle of the first Ghostbusters movie, the alien came out of Sheila’s room and sat down on the green chair. Ramona shot him a look that she felt clearly communicated “So, you’re here after all, are you?” but didn’t say anything. The alien didn’t say anything either, and the two of them watched the rest of the movie together. “I guess aliens need a break, too,” Ramona thought, although she didn’t make this known to her surprise movie-watching companion.

After a while, she remembered Conway’s vague voicemail from the previous day, and she decided to try calling him again. She left the TV on for the alien, and took her cellphone into her room, and made sure to close the door, just in case. She sat down on her bed, pulled up Conway’s info from her contacts page on her phone, and hit send. She counted the rings as she waited, so she knew when it was about to go to voicemail. One more and… and then Conway picked up.

“Hey?” There was something in Conway’s voice that she couldn’t quite place.

“Oh, hi, Conway, I got your message yesterday, and I was kind of wondering what that was all about?”

“Sorry, but I can’t really talk right now,” Conway said. He sounded strange. Or maybe it was that noise in the background that was throwing Ramona off. “There’s something going on right now, and I have to-”

She cut him off, “If you can’t tell me what it is, that’s fine, but just let me know when I can call you.” It was a blatant lie. She wanted desperately to know what it was he was up to, but she figured she could get it out of him later, when whatever it was he was doing blew over and he was back home.

“Thing is, I don’t really know how long this is going to- uh oh.” And then there was nothing.

“Conway? Are you there? Conway?!” Ramona felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, the terrible realization that something must have happened to Conway while they were talking, maybe even because they were talking. What in the world had he gotten himself into? Hoping against hope, she called him again, but his phone went straight to voicemail. As the friendly, female voice announced that Conway was unavailable, Ramona wondered whether or not to leave a message. To not felt like admitting something terrible had happened to him, but if she did leave a message, what would she say? What if it ended up being the last thing he ever heard? As the beep sounded, Ramona decided to leave a message after all. “Conway, if you get this message, please, please let me know. No matter what, no matter when, just call me.” She felt that she ought to say something more, but she was starting to choke up, so she just closed her phone, ending the call.

Feeling limp, she lay down on her bed, unsure of whether to cry or not. She couldn’t really think of anything else to do. It wasn’t like she could just go and pull off some sort of daring rescue, especially when she didn’t have any idea of where Conway was, or what he was up to. But as she lay on her bed, a thought hit her and she instantly sat up. She back to the living room and grabbed her laptop. She set it back up on her desk in her room and plugged it in for maximum power. With everything she had in her, she researched how to trace a location using a cellphone. It was surprisingly easy, as there was a Google application for tracking cellphones, which she was glad to find in this circumstance. Finding out about it any other way, though, would probably have left her cold.

She typed in Conway’s cellphone number into the application and waited. She suddenly realized she had to use the bathroom, and went to take care of her business before figuring out her next step. By the time she got back, she had a pinpointed location for Conway (or his phone, at least) that was only a couple of hours away. By car. She frowned, remembering that Sheila had her car at the moment. But she was just at the library, and that wasn’t that far to walk, especially if… she checked out the window, and it seemed that the snow was mostly melted by then.

She started to formulate a plan: she would walk to the library, get her car, drive to these coordinates, and find out what was going on. Once she was there, she wasn’t sure what she would do, since she really didn’t have any idea of what Conway was doing. She was secretly hoping that this would all turn out to be some kind of big misunderstanding, but her phonecall with Conway didn’t give her a very strong hope. She put together a bag of all the things she could think of possibly needing, and got ready to leave.