December 31

RAMONA IN CHICAGO...

T HE INSIDE OF R AMONA’S CONDO SMELLED LIKE SAVORY GARLIC, onions, vinegar, and the earthy delights of collard greens and black-eyed peas cooking with smoked meat. The steam from the boiling pots filled up all thousand square feet of her home from the kitchen to the living room. It wafted all the way down the hallway, through the bedroom, and into the en suite where Ramona stood at the mirror and fiddled with her hair, deciding if it was worth a full wash day tomorrow or if she could get away with a high-placed poof until the next weekend. These were dreadful back-to-work decisions, when the New Year’s holiday didn’t fall on a Friday. Having just one day off would certainly not carry her far enough into the week, through what already promised to be a healthy measure of oh-hell-no-they-did-not bullshit waiting at the office. It was already evening enough, and it gave Ramona great comfort to pull her satin bonnet over her hair and head into her bedroom to put on her pajamas. It was the ultimate act of defiance, in fact, to practice for once the act of not caring—especially not about the fact that she wasn’t doing something photoworthy on #baecation or flaunting some kind of materialistic demonstration of love on social media. In fact, her best photo, the one that Jay took of her surfing, was already printed and framed, placed in her bag to take to the office.

It was New Year’s Eve, and the very best thing Ramona had in mind to do was practice her mother’s recipes from the foods she had every year, the customs of luck passed down across generations from the cooking mothers of Alabama and Mississippi and their iron kettles making alchemy, learning how to transform the food scraps they were given into literal magic in your mouth, the best thing you ever tasted. This was what Ramona had also resolved to do with her life. This new year would be a new start, a new attitude, something new and wonderful that she just believed was going to happen.

“I just cut out a picture of this sista on a surfboard from the fitness mag, who knew it was so good for the abs?” Ramona was comfortable in her pajamas now, on a video call with Latrice, who was sitting in her own bonnet, at her place, and also cutting through her own magazines for her vision board.

“I just cut out that new Tom Ford cashmere pullover,” Latrice said.

“Is that vision board worthy?”

“I can’t afford it on my current salary, so it is to me.”

“Ah, I get it. After that project that had you working through Christmas, shouldn’t you be up for a promotion?”

“Good point. On behalf of the Grinch, let me also clip this photo of the Burj Al Arab from the Robb Report , and I need to find the letters somewhere for P-R-O-M-O-T-I-O-N.”

“I’m looking for L-O-V-E.”

“Let me tell you, the—” Latrice’s voice continued, but Ramona didn’t hear her over the sound of her doorbell, definitely the sound of her doorbell, and she turned her head away from the phone. “Is that your doorbell? Did you order something?” Latrice said. The phone came back into focus for Ramona.

“I didn’t. Maybe it’s Carlos.” With some effort, Ramona stood up, untangling herself from the cross-legged pretzel she’d been seated in on the floor. The middle of her living room was a sea of magazines and paper scraps, a mess that her dog would exponentially multiply if left unattended. “C’mon, Wookiee.” She slapped twice against her leg and all of a sudden, a fluff of fur brushed against her calf. She walked over to the door with trepidation, a feeling of minor alarm building in her gut, quelled by her self-reassurance that it was probably Carlos, stopping by for a plate, knowing she was cooking and trying to eat now rather than waiting for tomorrow at her mother’s house.

“Oh right, Carlos has a super sense when it comes to the smell of cooking...”

“I know, ri—” Ramona never finished her sentence. She pulled open the door, and the first thing she saw was an orange box. A man holding an orange box. A man who looked like Jay, standing in her doorway, uncannily like Jay but who obviously couldn’t be him because for it to be him, well, that was impossible. So, she just stood there with her mouth open.

“Girl, are you okay? Do I need to come over there? You know what? I am over there. I am right downstairs, and I have my piece, you know what I mean! You need me to call someone?” By this point Latrice was yelling, her voice carrying up Ramona’s limp arm and drifting between Ramona and the Jay impersonator that she still wasn’t at all convinced could be the actual person because there was no way. On every level there was no way . What a man would have to do to go that far out of his way, Ramona didn’t believe a man would do for her . Or the speed with which the wish that left her lips that couldn’t have possibly been fulfilled by the universe, Ramona didn’t believe in that either, so for now, she just stood in the limbo of unbelieving despite what her eyes certainly were telling her was true.

And then the Jay impersonator was moving, lifting his arm up, holding out the box between them, in the doorway. And then he spoke. “I, um... I brought this for you.” And the Jay impersonator was using Jay’s voice, and it was such a strange delivery, and was it God’s sense of humor or someone else’s?

“Jay?” Ramona heard her own voice come out of her mouth now. It was full of shock, and surprise, and that high pitch at the end when you literally cannot fucking believe what is happening, like all of a sudden, you’ve turned into Minnie Riperton.

And then Jay’s voice came out of the Jay... well, came out of actual Jay, standing right in front of her. “Hi,” he said. And Ramona blinked as if blinking were some kind of Morse code, but nonsensical still, because she had no words.

“Ramona, girl, are you okay?” Latrice’s voice was coming out of the phone, evincing escalating concern, but Ramona could not lift her hand whatsoever, or think, really, because of the short-circuiting that was happening in her own brain. The cross of wires, the intersection of disbelief and what must be reality, and actual Jay who was standing before her and all that that would have to mean. So, still, Ramona’s mouth was just wide open, and the door was cracked open and she was standing there in her bonnet without the proper instructions to provide to her mouth or to the rest of her body because she had absolutely no idea what was happening and thus what she should do.

Ramona managed the simple task of returning the greeting. The greeting from actual Jay standing in front of her. The Jay who should be in Malibu or elsewhere. Jay with most certainly more important things to do. “Hi,” she said breathlessly.

“Look, I know this is weird.” Actual Jay started speaking again. “And I feel kind of ridiculous like I might have made a huge mistake, but I’m here. And for sure, there’s a different version of this moment, right? Where I didn’t get on the plane, you know? Where I told myself a million times how ridiculous this was, or maybe just one more time I let it play out in my mind how upset you’d be, or how crazy you’d think I was. There’s definitely a version too where maybe you’d call the cops or tell me that I’d gone too far, and you never wanted to see me again. Or, even worse, that you pretended just as long as you had to that this was a good idea and then as soon as you could, blocked me, deleted my number from your phone and me from your life, labeled me something that I could never overcome—”

“What is happeninnnng ?” Latrice’s voice was loud enough to shoot through the air with an energy of its own. It stopped Jay from his nervous babbling, and it snapped Ramona out of a hypnotic daze. She was listening now, to the words of this Jay, of actual Jay who got on a plane to see her . And she managed to pull her arm up, to bring her hand holding the phone to her face, and to see herself on the screen, still in a bonnet with eyes big and mouth agape, alongside Latrice, now with her coat on putting a large kitchen knife into her purse.

Ramona seemed to reanimate then and snatched the bonnet off. “Wait, wait, Latrice, stop. It’s Jay... from Malibu. He came...”

“Whhaaat in the...” Ramona watched the screen as Latrice stopped in her tracks. “Jaaayyyy? Are you telling me that you said... and then... the door... and now... whhhooaaa... I need to cut out some more pictures...” Latrice brought her free hand to her head and held the side of her palm to the fabric of her bonnet, as if that would somehow speed up the rate of her processing. “Girl, let me see.” Ramona complied and tapped the button to flip the camera view to the direction of Jay. “Well, damn ,” Latrice said. “I’m... I mean... y’all doin’ New Year’s Eve surprises and shit? Look, send mine to 111—”

Ramona quickly flipped the camera back to her. “I need to call you back... One sec—” And then she ended the call with Latrice because the air was too heavy here, and she still wasn’t quite sure it was real. “Sorry,” she said to Jay and hoped he would continue.

Jay shifted on his feet. He pulled up his arm to scratch the top of his head, leaving his hair a little messy in that place. He seemed to notice that and smoothed his palm slowly down his hairline, down his face, and covering his mouth for a second, but then released his hold on his jaw, to start again. “I was just saying... in all these other scenarios, I mean everything I ran through in my mind, every little reason not to come—the plane was delayed, and I couldn’t find my TSA number, and I mean the line was so long, long enough to think that I’m a complete idiot, especially taking off my shoes, but still—the worst consequence in every case, every scenario that I could imagine, was only that I’d never see you again, which is what I was most afraid of in the first place. So, I honestly just came to drop this off—” He lifted up the orange box to her again and held it out between them in the doorway. “That’s what I said I would do. I can hand you this box, and leave. I can go back to my very nice hotel, and order room service, and figure out why in the hell I didn’t think to pack a coat. Or—”

“Jay, you hungry?” Ramona looked at him and said the one thing that meant everything. Because food came from the heart and soul, and quite honestly, she already knew she’d put her foot in those greens.

From the moment that Ramona shut the door to Jay sitting at the table was fifteen minutes. From ending the call with Latrice to the time she stopped texting was twenty. From the table to the sofa for Ramona and Jay was another thirty. By the time an hour had passed, Ramona and Jay had made it past awkwardness and the shock of audacity to realize that this had, in fact, been a good thing to happen, however unlikely. And finally, they remembered that he had come this entire way purportedly to deliver a box, and that regardless of the fact that it was from Joan—Ramona had half a mind to throw it away, except that you do not throw away Hermès—she ought to open it. And so, she did open the square orange box with the horse atop. She undid the decorative brown ribbon and slid it away. She pulled off the slightly warped, thin cardboard cover. She lifted the transparent white tissue paper, delicately folded, layer by layer, like petals of a blooming flower. What was revealed was a beautiful scarf, folded at the bottom of the box, with a gorgeous pattern of understated jewel tone colors, in elegant combination, from what Ramona could see. But she couldn’t see all of it, because on top of the scarf sat a small white envelope with her name written on it.

Ramona lifted the envelope and looked at it. She put it next to the box and tapped the top of it with her fingers. She had half a mind not to open it. To take the scarf and wear it well. To keep it just because she liked it. It would be Joan that she’d give back. She would forget about Joan as best she could and erase what she needed to from the scars of the start of her trip to Malibu and the lies that came after. Because it wasn’t the scarf that would remind Ramona when and where others felt she didn’t belong. And it wouldn’t just end with Joan’s erasure. It would still be everywhere all the time—every day in the office, in restaurants, on other trips. Everywhere but home, she’d still be an other . So, she’d keep just what was good from Malibu—what she wanted to remember, what she loved, who she loved, and who loved her. And as she’d learned there, she’d have to carry home in her heart, to make peace for herself anywhere and always. Nobody could take that belonging away from her, not ever again.

Emboldened, she picked up the envelope and pulled the top out. She slid the folded notecard out and flipped it open. There in black ink were the long strokes of elegant handwriting, the careful cursive of considered thought and intentionally selected words.

Dearest Ramona,

For wonderful times, when the wind blows—for the chill, for car trips with the top down and dinner with friends. May it be part of fond memories.

From your Malibu neighbor,

Joan

Ramona read the written words out loud. And then she paused, deciding if she’d read the rest. The rest that was scribbled a little less carefully, in blue ink this time, obviously not even the same pen.

“That’s it?” Jay was looking now, waiting, clearly, on her.

Ramona decided to be honest. “No, that’s not it.”

“What’s the rest?”

“There’s this last part, I guess she added it before she gave it to you. It says, “I was wrong... about Jay.”

Jay’s eyebrows rose.

“Don’t even ask.” Ramona held her hand up. And then the two of them shared a laugh, as she moved the box aside, stood up, and walked over to drop the card and its envelope in the recycling bin.

At the stroke of midnight, a couple of hours later, in Ramona’s apartment, she stood with a glass of champagne looking out at the frozen lake. The fireworks show started at Navy Pier, and the sky lit up with explosions of color and smoke. The rim of her glass met the rim of Jay’s glass as they toasted to a new year of beginnings... and to their night together, whatever that would come to mean.