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.

Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13

Chapter Nine: Ramona Would Like To Be Distracted

Ramona woke up and rolled out of bed, as she did every morning, and headed for the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. It took her a moment to realize that Sheila was not alone at the kitchen table, and the memory of the previous night flooded back into her not-yet-caffeinated brain. “Gah,” she groaned, and sank down onto the counter.

“You okay?” Sheila asked, though she didn’t get up from the table, and neither did her alien friend.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ramona said, “Just waiting for the coffee.” She stretched her arms high in the air and brought them back down again. “So, uh, has he always come out for breakfast?” she asked, pointing a spoon at the alien.

“No, but now that you know about him, we figured it would be okay,” Sheila replied. The alien just ate from his bowl of cornflakes, but it was obvious to Ramona that he was avoiding making eye contact with her, which suited her just fine. She slunk back into her room for the moment and waited for her coffee to be ready. When it was done, she poured herself a mug, added cream and sugar, and then slunk into her room once more.

The night before, she hadn’t been able to figure out how she felt about finding out about the surprise extra roommate, but now that she had had a good night’s sleep, and the coffee was starting to work its wonders, she found her immediate thoughts on the alien had evened out to a uniform feeling of “why is this happening to me?” with traces of “why now?” While she understood why her roommate had wanted to let her in on the alien living in their apartment, she really would have preferred, given the choice, not to have found out at all. After all, the alien had been in the apartment for a while week, and she had been none the wiser, save for the vague feeling every now and then that something quite right. But those feelings weren’t the kind that made her want to investigate, more like the kind that made her think she needed to stop watching scary movies after a certain point in the day. Not even that, she thought, although she couldn’t really think of a better way to put it. But she stood by her earlier thought. Her life did not need the complication of an alien roommate. Her best bet, as she saw it, was to ignore him until he was gone, which was hopefully going to be soon.

As if to add insult to injury, it was a totally grey day, with drizzle predicted to start up before the morning was over and last all day, if not turning into outright rain. Ramona sighed as she left the apartment building. Even though she was going to be inside, just knowing the drizzle was out there was enough to bring her already pretty foul mood down even more. A day like this promised to be just as dull at work. The only bright spot she could see was that she was getting together with Conway after work. It wasn’t a very big spot, considering it had to get her past six hours of potentially boring boringness, and there really was little that could completely get her past that, but it was enough to keep her going, at least.

By the time the day was over, Ramona was all to ready to burst out of the store. She had thought to pick up a few things after work, but she put it off for another day and just drove home.

When she got back, Sheila was sitting in the living room eating a microwaved meal, but she sat up when she heard Ramona come in.

“Oh, hey, I was wondering, could I borrow your car real quick?” she asked, though Ramona hadn’t even changed yet.

“Well, I’m going out later, so I’ll need it back soon,” Ramona replied, tossing her stuff on the chair that they mostly used for holding things temporarily, and very rarely for sitting on.

“It’ll just take a few minutes, really,” Sheila said, and stood up, ready to get a move on. “Ten, fifteen minutes tops.”

Ramona didn’t particularly care about what her roommate was up to, as it probably related to that thing she was trying not to think about. Instead, she just went straight to her room to get online and decompress a little before getting ready for her date with Conway. The thought of it made her smile a little, but she was still in her work frame of mind, so she couldn’t get herself to do more than that at the moment.

After a suitable amount of time, Ramona got herself ready, and soon she was out the door. The rain had all but stopped by then, a small blessing that Ramona was thankful for as she made her way to her car, which was waiting in the parking lot for her, just as Sheila promised. She tucked her purse in the back and then buckled herself in, and then drove to the apartment complex where Conway lived. It was smaller than the one she lived in, mostly just one-room and studio apartments. She parked and got out of the car, but before she even closed the door, Conway came up to her.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a quick hug.

“Hey, yourself,” Ramona replied, returning the hug. “That was quick.”

“I missed you,” was all Conway said, and Ramona smiled at him broadly, trying to keep from giggling stupidly.

“I missed you, too,” she told him. And then they stood there in awkward silence for a few minutes.

“So how was work?” Conway asked, finally.

“Oh, don’t get me started,” Ramona groaned. Despite the rainy dreariness of the day, it had still been a Saturday, and therefore busy. Her father had always done his shopping on Saturdays, and it seemed that plenty of other people did, too. And yet it wasn’t quite busy enough to keep her from thinking about the things that had occurred the night before. But she was with Conway now, and it was time to focus on something else. “But, anyway, what do you want to do tonight? I need some serious distraction after today.”

“You said that yesterday,” Conway pointed out.

“It was true then, and it’s even more true today,” Ramona said, “It’s just been a whole string of days like that.” The last thing she wanted to think about at that moment was what her roommate had shown her the night before.

“Well, what’ll distract you?” Conway asked. “Is there a movie we could see?” He usually let her call the shots when it came to movies, since her tastes were more diverse than his.

Ramona thought for a moment, “There’s not really anything out that I want to see, and nothing I feel like seeing again.”

“Not even Ninja Chucks II?” Conway asked, slightly hopeful.

“Not even Ninja Chucks II,” Ramona replied. Not that she hadn’t enjoyed the action flick, but she knew that it wouldn’t be distracting enough, especially since they’d only seen it a couple of weeks ago.

“I bet I know what could distract you,” Conway said softly, and then took her in his arms and kissed her lightly on the lips. Ramona returned the kiss, and pushed it a little farther, and for a while they were lost in a deep embrace. Conway had been right, in that way he had of being right in the most obvious of situations, Ramona thought, when she had a spare moment to think.

They ended up going out to sing some karaoke, after all that. It wasn’t the first time they had gone out to sing, but they didn’t go as often as Ramona would have liked. Conway would usually beg off, saying he wasn’t that great a singer, and Ramona would assure him he sounded fine, but let him pick something else for them to do. Truth be told, she didn’t really care about how he sounded (and he really didn’t sound as bad as he apparently thought he did), since she was mostly there to sing her little ole heart out. And frankly, as far as she was concerned, there were few places where that kind of thing was looked upon kindly, karaoke parlors being one of them. And a real deal karaoke place was a good deal more fun than being back in his or her apartment, playing Karaoke Revolution (better song choices, for one thing). And so she had talked Conway into going to the closest Karaoke bar with her, and the two of them got down to some serious singing (mostly Ramona though).

Singing out her blues was one of her favorite ways to get past her problems, both petty and catastrophic (although she hadn’t actually had any problems that she would classify as catastrophic -- yet. But she knew the day would come, and she also knew that that day would end up with her here, singing “Evil Woman” in the vain hopes that some talent scout would scoop her up, solving whatever problem would be catastrophic. In most of her scenarios, the catastrophe was money-related, hence the salvation in becoming a big pop star). Usually she was stuck singing in the shower, ignoring whatever terrible song was actually on the radio in favor of whatever song the terrible song inspired her to sing in retaliation, or the rarer case where she actually liked the song and sang along with gusto. But now, singing here, with only Conway for an audience, she felt a special glow that probably had something to do with that lack of water threatening to enter her throat during a high note. One after another, song after song, whether a solo or dueting with Conway, Ramona felt everything but the two of them slip away. All the things that bugged her and niggled at her brain during the day were miles away, and it wasn’t until she was back in her apartment hours later that they started to creep back in, but by then, she was well on her way to falling asleep, completely satisfied with her renditions of “Stuck in the Middle” and “Viva La Vida.”

Chapter Ten: In Which I Have the Day Off and go on a Trip With Em

Due to the way things are scheduled at the library, I get every other Saturday off. And this was one of them. Nice for me, except I woke up at the regular time anyway, and was already eating breakfast before I realized it. I just rolled with it, since I was mostly awake by then anyway. Taking a gamble, I invited Em to eat breakfast with me.

“Cornflakes okay?” I suggested, as I wasn’t feeling like making anything more than complicated than cereal, and that was all we had for the time being. I had already written “cereal” on the grocery list, but I knew it would be another couple of days before Ramona did the shopping. She usually took care of picking up the groceries, since she worked at a grocery store after all. It was therefore easiest for her to just do the shopping after she got off work, and so I would just write down what I wanted her to get, or what we had run out of, on a list stuck on the fridge.

“Cornflakes?” Em repeated, staring at the cereal I was pouring into a bowl.

“Just try them,” I said, not really sure how to explain the concept of cornflakes, other than “flakes made of corn,” which probably wouldn’t have been very helpful.

Ramona came out of her room in the middle of this, but she didn’t stay out very long. I guess she still wasn’t used to the idea of having an alien in the house, and while I didn’t really blame her, I admit I had been hoping that the dawning of a new day would give her a better perspective on it. But unlike me, she had to go to work today.

I spent the morning being rather lackadaisical, lounging on the couch and reading a couple of magazines I’d been meaning to get to. I didn’t even bother to shower until it was already eleven o’clock. When I ready, though, I warned Em to be out of my room when I was done in the shower. It was definitely a good thing to have told Ramona about Em, as it meant I could have my room back when I needed it. Although since Ramona was going to be gone most of the day, it wasn’t that big a deal today.

When I was done in the shower, and done just lounging around naked on my bed (and had gotten dressed), I came out to see Em working on the sudoku in the paper. “So, how’s the hub doing?” I asked him, as I toweled off my hair. I’d need to brush it out and blowdry it soon, since it looked totally crappy when it aired dried, but I had a little time before I needed to get down to that.

“It’s finished, actually,” Em told me.

“So you’ll be going then, I guess,” I said. I felt a little disappointed that he was going so soon, but then, I knew it was only for a couple more days at most.

“Not exactly,” Em replied, “The ‘hub’ may be fixed, but it still needs more fuel in order to run properly, and without that, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh,” I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or disappointed. “So what about the fuel, then?”

“Well, I can get more here on Earth, thankfully,” Em said.

“Do you have to go out? Should I rig up a disguise for you?” I had actually been thinking about this possibility, and had picked up a couple of items of clothing. And with rain predicted for the whole day, I was certain that we could get away with hiding his appearance beneath a hoodie.

“I do have to leave,” Em said, “But I won’t technically be leaving the apartment.” He launched into a lengthy discussion about how he was going to be traveling to what sounded like an “extra dimension,” and had to pull out his tablet for parts of it. While he included a lot of technical jargon to explain how it was he could get there without leaving the apartment, I just didn’t really get it.

“Wait, so you’re going to be running in place, and that’s how you’ll get to where the fuel is?” From the way I described it, even I could tell I had the wrong idea about what was about to commence.

“No, that’s not it at all,” Em replied, pulling at one of his dreadlocks. Although I knew he had a right to be annoyed, seeing it displayed so plainly on his face made me feel annoyed right back.

“Well, we don’t really go traveling by extra dimensions around here,” I retorted, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“It’s not ‘extra dimensions,’ it’s-- Oh, why don’t I just show you?” Em said.

“Huh?” Did he say what I just thought he said?

Em took my hand, “Sheila, if you don’t have any objections, I would like to take you with me so you can see exactly what it is I’m about to do.”

“If I have no-” I yanked my hand out of his. “Wait, I do have objections! What if I don’t get there properly, or I can’t get back? Are you really making an atom-for-atom copy of me, so it’ll be me but not me when I get there and get back?”

“Were you even listening when I explained it?” Em asked, his annoyance once again openly on his face. “There’s nothing dangerous about the process at all. In fact, you won’t even notice anything happening.” He looked at me more gently now. “But if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. I just thought you might be interested.”

“Well, I… um, just give me a few minutes to think about it,” I said, “I need to use the bathroom anyway.” And so I went to relieve myself, leaving Em in the living room.

Sitting on the toilet, I had a book in my hand, but I wasn’t even going to try and read it. My mind was instead fixated on weighing the pros and cons of accepting Em’s offer. On the one hand, I wanted to go to this extra dimension or whatever, but on the other hand, I was worried that something would go wrong. What if I got stuck there? What if humans were affected differently than… whatever Em’s species was called (it occurred to me that I had never actually found that out yet)? But part of me knew that if I didn’t go and find out, I would never stop wondering what would have happened. Was that worth whatever catastrophe might arise? I certainly didn’t know. But I’d made up my mind. I flushed, washed my hands, and then strode right into the living room.

“All right, I’m going to come with you,” I told Em, who nodded at me.

“Okay, then just stand here,” he said, guiding me to a spot in the middle of the living room. Then he went back to get his tablet from the couch and joined me in the same spot. He hit a few spots on his tablet (from that angle, I couldn’t see anything on the screen), and, just as he’d said, I didn’t notice any change. But suddenly I could tell we were somewhere else, although all I could really tell about it was that it wasn’t the living room. In fact, wherever we were, it was the most nondescript place I had ever seen. It stretched out as far as the eye could see, but with no features to speak of, and the whole thing was an unappealing beige color.

“What is this place?” I asked out loud, not really rhetorically, but not expecting a real answer, either. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

“It looks the way you want it to look,” Em told me, and then he tapped a bit on his tablet, and headed off toward the nothingness. I followed after him.

“What do you mean?” I asked, for lack of anything better to say.

“If you don’t see anything, it’s because that’s what you expect to see,” Em explained, “The extra dimension,” except he didn’t exactly say ‘extra dimension,’ “is only loosely connected to your own, and thus you can shape it, in a sense.”

“So if I imagine something, it’ll show up here as reality?” I asked. Somehow, I couldn’t quite buy that. But I started picturing a couple of trees in the openness. And sure enough, almost immediately after, a few trees sprouted up and grew into elms and oaks and maple trees. “Whoa.” I kept thinking of a lush forest, replete with flowers and ferns, and any other fauna I could think of. In essence, I was making it look mostly like the path that was near my house when I was a kid. There was a swamp near my house, so nothing could really be built on it. But next to it there was a path that would take you straight from one end of the neighborhood to the other if you followed it all the way down. There was usually trash and glass around it, but not in my version here in the extra dimension. It was nicer, more lush and green. As I pictured it all into existence, I had a thought.

“So, wait, are you seeing what I’m imagining, or are you seeing something else that you’re imagining?” I asked Em.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re picturing, but I think it’s safe to say that, no, I’m not seeing the same thing,” Em replied. “Unless you’re somehow picturing my hometown,” he added.

“No, I think it’s safe to say that’s not what I’m picturing at all,” I said. “But how does that work? How can we both be walking in the same place, picturing different places?”

“Think about how much you’ve understood anything I’ve explained to you,” Em said, “And then think about how much you want to know the answer.”

“Good point,” I said, but it still bothered me. But I knew that I most likely wouldn’t understand the answer, so I left it at that. Em and I continued to wander around the area that I saw as a forest and he saw as his hometown for a while. A half hour at least passed (I forgot to put my watch on before we left, but even if I had, I didn’t know if time passed at the same rate in the extra dimension as it did back home, so I suppose it didn’t really matter).

But at last, Em said, “Aha!” and pulled something out from underneath a fern. I wondered what he was pulling it out of in his version of this place, but I forgot about that once I saw what he pulled out. It looked kind of like an egg, but rather large, and made of a shimmery, silvery material.

“What is that?” I asked Em, and was not surprised when he called it something I couldn’t pronounce. “It looks like a silver egg,” I told him, hoping I wouldn’t have to try and repeat what he had just said.

“Regardless of its looks,” Em replied, “This is the basis for the fuel for my ‘hub.’”

“Oh,” I said, although it occurred to me that I should have realized that without him telling me. “So that’s it, then? We can go home and you’ll be all set?”

“Not really, no,” he replied. “While this is a good start (note the shape of this [egg]), I will need at least five more in order to have the ‘hub’ back to working order.”

“Five more?” I was wondering how long that would take, if it took a half hour (approximately) to find just one. “Three hours here?”

“Well, I’m not going to find them all today,” Em told me, “I was actually going to bring you back to your apartment while I went looking for some more. Unless you’d rather stay here?”

“No, going back to the apartment sounds fine with me,” I said. As cool as it was to wander around a place that you could change to suit your whims, I had to admit, I didn’t want to do that for the rest of the day.

“All right,” Em said, and positioned me as he had earlier. Then he did a little something something with tablet, and just as suddenly as I had been in the extra dimension, I was back in the apartment again.

Chapter Eleven: In Which I Take a Little “Me Time”

It was kind of nice to have the apartment all to myself again: no roommate, no alien, just me. I didn’t really have any plans for the day, which was fine, since the drizzle of the morning having turned into rain by the time I was back in the apartment, and I didn’t particularly want to leave, especially since Ramona had her car. So I decided to do something I could only do when I had to apartment all to myself: watch really stupid stuff on TV.

Oh, sure, I could technically do that any time. I mean, Ramona usually stayed in her room when she was home (and I doubt Em would have cared about what I watched), but there was part of me that loved to watch reality TV shows that had no value other than shock and titillation, yet didn’t want anyone else to know about this love. So I only caught up with those shows when I knew that no one else was going to be around. And with Ramona at work all day, I only had to worry about being caught by Em, and as I said, I’m not as worried about him judging me based on my taste in TV shows.

And so I got myself settled in on the couch, with a drink (Sierra Mist), some snacks (a couple of cookies Ramona brought from her store’s bakery section -- good stuff -- plus a bag of cheese doodles), and a blanket (it’s always nicer to curl up on the couch with a blanket, especially on a grey, rainy day). With everything set, I turned on the TV and sought out the best (or rather, worst) reality TV I could find. And for a couple of hours, I was not disappointed. I found an America’s Next Top Model marathon on TBS, which was followed by I, Robot.

Once that was all over, I went to heat myself up some dinner, and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t turned my cellphone back on from vibrate since I came back from work yesterday, so I went to see if I had any calls. I didn’t really expect anything, but there was a missed call. I didn’t recognize the number, but they’d left a voicemail, so I listened, wondering who it would be. It turned out to be a message from Great Expectations Books, a bookstore I like to visit. I’d been looking for a particular book a little while ago, and they had special ordered it for me, and now it was in! I couldn’t believe they got it so quickly, but at the same time, I was loathe to go out in the rain. I sat down on the couch and finished my meal while I thought about the situation. It would take me about twenty minutes or so to walk to the bookstore, but if I drove, it would only take about five.

Just as I was thinking this, my roommate Ramona came back in the door. “Oh, hey!” What timing! “I was wondering, could I borrow your car real quick?” I asked Ramona, hoping she’d say yes.

Ramona put her stuff down on the green chair, which was mostly what we used it for. I don‘t think either of us has ever actually sat on it, come to think of it. “Well, I’m going out later, so I’ll need it back soon,” she said, which was good enough for me.

“It’ll just take a few minutes, really,” I told her, and went to put on my shoes and grab an umbrella. “Ten, fifteen minutes tops.” I assured her.

“Whatever,” was all Ramona said, and the she went into her room.

When I went out, I was slightly chagrined to find that the rain was mostly just a drizzle again. I could have walked there, really, but since I had Ramona’s car, I figured I might as well take advantage of it. I drove down to the bookstore and waited in line. Once I made it to the front register, I gave the clerk my name, and she went to get the book for me.

“Is this it?” she asked, and when I told her it was, she rang it up, and then I was out the door again. When I got back to the apartment, Sheila was still in her room, so I went into my room, too. While I checked my e-mail, I wondered what Em was up to. He’d been gone an awfully long time, after all. What if he didn’t come back? What would become of his hub thing then? I really didn’t know the answer to that question, so I decided not to worry about it. Em knew what he was doing, moreso than I did, anyway. He would come back when he was ready. And he did, eventually, with three more eggs to show for it.

Later, once Em and I were just hanging out in the living room, I had a thought. “How come you can’t just stay in the extra dimension to avoid detection or whatever?”

Em looked up from his tablet, which he had been tilting around in such a way that I figured he must have some kind of game set up in it. “One, it’s not ‘the extra dimension…’”

I cut him off. “Yeah, yeah, I know. And two?”

“Well, it’s not the kind of place where I could live,” he said simply.

“Why not? If you can make it whatever you want it to be, then…”

But Em just glared at me until I stopped talking, and then refused to talk about it any more that night, no matter how I tried to bring it up.

I dreamt that night of being in the extra dimension again. In my dream, I molded the world to my will, creating cities and empires. I stood above it all, a giant goddess overlooking her domain. But somewhere in the lush forests I created, I found Em, lying limp and helpless. Although I didn’t know exactly what happened, my dream logic told me that this was my doing, that my power came at the expense of his life force. I picked up his tiny body in my giant hands and found he was not yet extinguished, and I wondered what would become of me and my world when he was. My dream didn’t go into too much detail after that, or perhaps my mind moved to another kind of dream that I didn’t remember as clearly once I woke up. But it made me feel strange for the rest of the next day. Was there something in my dream that had to do with why Em wouldn’t talk about living in the extra dimension, or did I just dream about that because he wouldn’t talk about it. I also wondered if Ramona ever felt this way. Probably not. She didn’t seem like the type to let something as petty as a dream bother her, especially one she likely wouldn’t even remember the next day.

Chapter Twelve: Ramona’s Incidental Secret is Found Out Accidentally

Ramona woke up the next morning early, since she had to be the first CDH in, which meant seven. It also meant she was out by twelve thirty (or as she usually thought of it, noon thirty), which was almost made the fact that she was awake before the sun was up bearable. As she went through her morning routine, her mind once again turned to thoughts of the dream she had had the night before. There had been many parts to her dream, but the only one she could remember with any clarity was that she kept getting calls from work. Not where she worked now, but the place she worked when she was still in college. And for some reason, in her dream, her old supervisor, Rob, was on her contact list, so every time her phone rang and she looked to see who it was, her phone said Rob quite clearly. And she instantly cut the call off each time. Eventually someone did get her on the phone, but it wasn’t Rob. They asked if she could come in to work that evening, staying until midnight, and Ramona spent a good deal of dreamtime trying to figure out whether it would be too late for her to work, since she had to go to work early the next morning, although now that she was awake, she wasn’t sure if she had meant her work then or now, since here she was, getting ready to go to work first thing in the morning.

Being the first CDH in in the morning meant that there were all kinds of things that had to be done. Making sure the first cashier in had taken care of the newspapers, checking the schedule, handling any calls that came in, and anything else that came up among all the other first people there in each department. While it was true that there weren’t very many shoppers at seven when she came in, and even fewer at six when the store actually opened, there were still enough people coming in that early, especially on a Sunday, to make keep things busy. And Sundays were always the busiest day of the weekend. It was Ramona’s personal theory that the reason Sundays were so busy was because that was when everyone who didn’t come in on Friday or Saturday realized that they couldn’t put off their shopping any longer, and they all came flocking in. Things tended to cool down by six o’clock, but from about nine or ten in the morning up until then, the store would be packed with customers.

She and the other CDH, Brent (who came in at nine) were constantly in motion, solving problems. She left most of the ones that had to be handled at the customer service desk to Brent, since she hadn’t worked with the computers over there very much. This meant that she was the one that the cashiers came to for fixing overvoids (when the amount voided in an order was over fifteen dollars, a CDH had to approve it by using an actual metal key to unlock the register’s keyboard and typing in their PIN), taking care of the random quick check audits (always plenty of those on Sunday), and just answering various random questions. As with every Sunday, the end of her shift came before she knew it (but it was very welcome all the same), and soon she was clocked out and ready to go. A pouring rain had started up while she was working, so she decided to just head back to the apartment to relax for the rest of the day.

Sundays were busy for Conway, too, so Ramona knew better than to call him. She had just seen him the night before, anyway. But still she thought of him, especially every time an overly romantic song came up on her Pandora station. And since one of the seeding artists was Burt Bacharach, that was pretty frequently. But she had stayed up too late the night before, especially considering when she had to wake up, and her coffee was starting to wear off. When she noticed she was starting to fall asleep at her laptop, she didn‘t fight it, but rather, she figured she might as well just take a nap. So she curled up on her bed and set her cellphone on her nightstand, just in case someone called. She hoped no one would, though.

She was in the middle of a dream about a wedding taking place at a bookstore (and a call from Conway) when she heard a knock on her door. “Yeah?” she called out, not entirely awake yet. She sat up, and her roommate Sheila opened the door just a crack.

“There’s someone here to see you,” she said, while Ramona rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Some guy named Conway?”

Ramona heart just about stopped when she heard that. “Conway’s here? Now? What?” She had never invited Conway to the apartment, and wasn’t really planning to any time soon. And she had never intended for Sheila and Conway to meet, especially not without giving her roommate some sort of warning first.

“Yeah, he’s sitting on our couch. Should I tell him to leave?” Sheila asked.

“No, no, I’ll come out,” Ramona said, running her fingers through her hair quickly. “But could you give us a little-” she suddenly thought of something. She leaned in close to Sheila and whispered, “That thing isn’t out there, is it?”

“If you mean Em, don’t worry, he’s in my room right now,” Sheila whispered back, “And the door is shut.”

“Good, good,” Ramona leaned back again, “And, uh, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a little privacy…?”

“Oh, sure, right,” Sheila said. She left Ramona’s room and called down the (not that long) hall, “She’ll be right out. Nice to meet you, Conway.”

Ramona waited until she heard Sheila’s door click closed, and then, after making sure she was presentable enough, she went out to join Conway in the living room. “Conway, hi.” As confused as she was by his presence at her apartment, she couldn’t resist the urge to snuggle with him on the couch. She sat down next to him.

“How’re you doing?” Conway asked her, “You sounded a little weird on the phone.”

“On the phone?” Ramona thought back to the last time she had seen Conway, and it had definitely been last night. “What are you talking about? I didn’t call you.”

“You just did a little while ago,” Conway told her. “You said you wanted me to come over, and I thought that weird, ‘cause you never want me to come to your place.”

“That’s true,” Ramona wanted to say, but what she actually said was, “Are you sure?” She tried to think of any explanation that would make sense, but the only one that came to her was “Maybe it was a prank call or something,” although she couldn’t think of anyone who would want to prank her so specifically. How would anyone else have known she didn’t want to have Conway at her apartment, especially when her roommate was around?

“Nah, it had to be you,” Conway replied, “Because you showed up on my phone.”

“Your cellphone?” Ramona was starting to put something together. She didn’t entirely believe it, but it would at least make sense. “Wait just a second,” she told him, and went back into her room. She flipped open her cellphone and checked her dialed calls. Sure enough, she had apparently dialed Conway’s number while she was asleep.

“Well that’s just great!” She said, only realizing afterwards that she had actually said it out loud.

“Is everything okay?” Conway asked, but he stayed on the couch, waiting for Ramona.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ramona replied from her room. She took her cellphone with her and went back to the living room. “Apparently, I called you while I was asleep,” she told him, waving her phone in the air as if it were entirely responsible for these shenanigans.

“Really?” Conway asked, “Is that even possible?”

“Well, there’s sleepwalking,” Ramona pointed out, “And I know that sometimes people talk in their sleep, so it doesn’t seem like too far of a leap to think one could talk on a phone in their sleep, too.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Conway didn’t seem to like that answer, though.

“Aw,” Ramona thought Conway was too cute when he pouted, and she snuggled into him. He snuggled back, to her glee. “I thought you had to work today,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, I did, but there’s too much rain, and they didn’t really need me to do anything else, so I got to go home early,” he told her.

“Well, that was nice,” Ramona replied. “Heh, can you imagine if I’d left you a voicemail? I don’t even know what I said, but it was coherent enough for you to come over here, I guess.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Conway told her, but he didn’t mention what she had actually said. Ramona didn’t ask, either.

“So, now that you’re here, what should we do?” Ramona asked, “I mean, we probably shouldn’t stay here. Don’t want to keep my roommate locked up, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Conway said, looking toward the hall. “Your roommate… is she…”

“Hm?” Ramona looked at Conway, not sure what he was getting at.

“She seemed kind of… weird,” was the only way Conway could think to put it.

Ramona shrugged, “That’s just Sheila. She’s weird like that sometimes.” She had nothing against her roommate, but she did feel that was the best explanation for anything Sheila did. “Anyway, maybe we could go back to your place? There’s a really good movie coming on in a little bit, and then we could get something to eat afterwards?”

And that’s exactly what they did. Ramona knocked on Sheila’s door and told her what they were up to, and then they went back to Conway’s apartment.

With the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on TV, Ramona was thoroughly pleased to not have anything else to do that day but watch a movie while snuggling on the couch with her boyfriend. She remembered when it first came out, and she was still in college. Although she'd had a boyfriend then, she hadn't gone with him. She just went by herself as part of a treat for herself where she watched three movies in a row that day to celebrate getting through a particularly excruciating paper. But being where she was now trumped that day, every inch of it. That she knew for certain.

Chapter Thirteen: In Which I Discover Ramona Has a Boyfriend

Every Sunday makes me think of that song “Lazy Sunday,” even though I don’t usually wake up in the afternoon like in the song (or go see a movie, come to think of it), since I have church in the morning. I was kind of surprised to find Ramona was already out the door when I got up, but it wasn’t unheard of for her to go to work super-early, either. And she came back a little after I did, which I guess was a good trade off. So while she went back into her room, I took advantage of having the living room free, and got back into The Lovely Bones (which I was finding either fascinating or tedious, sometimes from page to page. Makes for harder reading, that’s all, but I was determined to finish, although really, I just wish they’d arrest that guy already). Em joined me in the living room, working with another one of his machines (it looked kind of like those toys that you can build and then plunk a bunch of marbles down to see which ones come out first, but smaller).

“You’re sure that’s not going to mess up the carpet?” I asked Em, watching as he dropped something down the tube at the top.

“Positively,” Em replied, watching the thing go down the tubes. According to him, this was how the silvery egg turned into manageable fuel for his hub thing. I watched a little at first, but then I went back to my book, and we sat there for some time, reading and… whatever you would call what Em was doing.

After a while, there was a knock on the door. I looked over at Em. “I wasn’t expecting anyone, and Ramona didn’t mention anything. (Plus I think she’s asleep),” I said, “So just stay in my room for the time being, ‘k?”

“You got it,” Em said, and I waited until he had taken his apparatus to my room and shut the door before I answered the front door. I wasn’t sure who it would be, and I hoped it wasn’t some sort of fundraiser, or a neighbor complaining about the noise. Although if the girls scouts were already out and about selling their cookies, I certainly wouldn’t say no. At any rate, I was definitely not expecting who I saw when I opened the door. It was a man, certainly, but huge (at least, that was my first impression), both in height and weight, with kind of tawny-blonde hair that needed a haircut. I was so surprised that I just stood there, staring at him, though I knew it was rude. I just couldn’t get my brain to move past what I was seeing and get to the part that was all about common courtesy.

“Is Ramona in?” the man asked, and that jumpstarted my brain onto the proper path.

“R-Ramona?! Yes, yes she is in, but I think- er, ah, I mean, please come in and I’ll get her for you…” I stepped aside to let him come in the apartment.

“You’re her roommate, right?” the man said as he came in.

“Yes, I am, her roommate Sheila,” I said, still acting mostly on instinct. Who was this strange man who knew Ramona, and why was he here without Ramona saying a word to me about it?

“I’m Conway,” the man introduced himself as I lead him into the living room. “You’ve probably heard about me, but we haven’t met yet.” He looked around the apartment briefly.

“No, we haven’t,” I said lamely, although my mind was really flitting around the first part of his sentence. ‘You’ve probably heard about me…’ I hadn’t heard, not a thing, not a word, not even the name “Conway” from Ramona. “What a strange name,“ I thought, and then was suddenly struck by the impulse to snort-laugh, which I was barely able to stifle by repeatedly thinking “Do not ask ‘what’s a conway?’” Instead, I asked him to wait there while I went to get Ramona.

I knocked on her door tentatively, and heard her say something that sounded kind of like “wha?” so I opened her door a crack and peeked in. She was on her bed, but sitting up, rubbing at her eye.

“There’s someone here to see here,” I said, “Some guy named Conway?”

At the sound of his name, Ramona started. “What?!”

“He’s sitting on the couch right now, do you want me to tell him to leave or something?” From Ramona’s flustered response, I figured she was as surprised as I was at our sudden visitor.

“No, no, I’ll go see him,” Ramona said, getting off the bed. She started toward the door, say, “But could you just-“ she stopped when she reached me, and then she leaned in close. “That thing isn’t out there, is it?” she whispered.

I was inclined to roll my eyes. If I’d known that Ramona was going to be acting this immature about Em, I would have taken my chances keeping him hidden. But I told her that I’d told Em to stay in my room, and when she asked me to stay in there, too, I didn’t argue. But I kept close to the door, just in case something fishy happened with this Conway guy. I was kind of inclined to think that he and her might have something going on, if you know what I mean, but the way she reacted when she heard he was here made me think a little differently. I kept the door shut to respect Ramona’s wishes, but I still did my best to hear what they were talking about.

Em started to say something when he saw me pressed up against the door, probably to ask what I was doing, but I motioned to my lips for him to be quiet. I could hear their voices, and the occasional word, but other than that, not too much. It didn’t sound like anything bad was going on, but then I heard Ramona walk past the door and into her room. And then, she said quite loudly (loud enough that I could hear her perfectly word for word), “Well that’s just great!”

I was almost ready to leap right out, but I held myself back and cracked my door open a little bit instead, just in case. I listened to Ramona and Conway talking, but everything seemed to be okay. From the way they were talking now, it was hard to believe how freaked Ramona had been when I first told her that guy was here. I couldn’t really fathom what was going on there, but I figured I could pump Ramona for info later on.

Just as I was thinking about that, I heard the strains of “I’m Alive” by the Electric Light Orchestra start coming out of my cellphone. I quickly closed the door, hoping that Ramona wouldn’t notice.

“I’m alive, and the world shines for me today. I’m alive, suddenly I am here today. Seems like forever-” played out of my phone before I grabbed it. With that ringtone, it could only be one person: Emily, a friend of mine who also worked at the library.

“Hey, girl, what’cha up to today?”

“Eh, not that much?” I sat down on my bed. “Just hanging out at my place ‘cause of the rain.”

“Yeah, this weather has been so weird lately. If it gets any colder, it’ll be snowing instead of raining,” Emily said, “How weird would that be?”

“Really weird,” I replied. I glanced over at Em, but he was back at work on his apparatus, and wasn’t paying any attention to me, as far as I could tell. “So, what’s up?”

“Just kinda bored. There’s nothing happening around here at all.”

“Yeah, same here.” I felt it was probably better to leave out this whole Conway surprise visit thing until I had more information.

We talked about a couple of things relating to work for a while, and then there was a knock on my door. “Hold on just a sec,” I told Emily, and went over to open the door a crack.

“Hey, Conway and I are going to be out for a little while, just so you know,” Ramona told me.

“That’s cool,” I replied, “Have fun.” That clinched it for me. Those two were for definite sure an item. But I still wanted to get the whole story from Ramona, and hopefully it would be easier to get a hold of her tonight than it was when I was trying to tell her about Em.

Emily and I talked about the TV shows we were watching for a while, and then she had to go, and I was free to muse on Ramona and Conway myself. I lay back on my bed and thought about what had just transpired. I simply could not believe it. Here Ramona had a serious boyfriend (or maybe not that serious. He seemed like a pretty laidback guy, for all that I had seen of him), and I hadn't caught on at all. Who knows how long she had been dating him without me being any the wiser. But then, was it really any of my business whether or not she was seeing anyone? And what was up with him not needing to work because of the rain? What kind of job was that?

I wondered what all they had talked about while I was on the phone with Emily, but again, it really wasn’t my place. I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, which is what it was, honestly, in hindsight, but how was I supposed to know this Conway was an okay guy? I just couldn’t get over how Ramona reacted when I told her he was here. What was that all about?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Em pointed out after a while.

“I’m just thinking about Ramona and Conway,” I replied. “I had no idea she was involved with anyone. And why him?” I was just thinking aloud here, and Em didn’t stop working with his tubes, so I kept on talking. “I mean, I didn’t really interact with him that much, but still, I don’t know…”

“He isn’t her type?” Em filled in for me. “That’s usually what they say on TV in these kinds of situations.”

“Well, I don’t really know what type he is,” I said. I wasn’t really sure how to put what I was feeling in words, or rather, I didn’t want to admit it. Maybe it was terribly shallow of me, and maybe Conway was a really nice guy or something, but I just couldn’t get past how large he was (and he needed a haircut). But I’d only really seen him for all of five minutes…

“You know, blood type compatibility isn’t really a good indicator of future happiness,” Em said.

“What?” I rolled over on the bed to look at Em straight on, “Wait, was that a joke?”

“Kind of,” Em replied, and went back to working on his apparatus.

“Well, it’s not that I don’t think they’re compatible, or maybe it is, but I just, ugh!” I still couldn’t stop thinking about Ramona’s reaction. It wasn’t just that he was here unexpectedly, there was something else to it. I sighed. I was probably just going to drive myself crazy if I kept thinking about it. But it was pouring down rain, and Ramona probably took the car (Did Conway have his own car? Did he drive over here or walk? I couldn’t remember whether or not he looked wet when he came in), so I didn’t want to go out and do something. I needed to distract myself for a little while.

“Hey, can you stay in here for a little while?” I asked Em.

“I might as well,” Em replied, “It’s not easy to move this thing, you know.”

“Yeah, I get that,” I said, and then I went to watch something on TV. I was surprised to find Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind playing, so I watched that. Then I ended up spending some time looking up everyone who was in that movie on the IMDB, and after that, just surfing around random websites.