Wildflower

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Hi,” I reply, totally awkward.

  “So you don’t know her?” he asks. The woman shakes her head. “Oh, well, Bird is visiting Nashville from her native country of Russia, where she is an enormous success,” Jason says seriously. “You’ve heard of Cher? Bird is the Cher of Russia.”

  The lady’s eyes widen and she gasps. I turn toward nutcase Jason Samuels, worried that he might be losing his mind right here in front of me, but when I see the mischief in his no-longer-sleepy eyes, I realize he’s just having a little fun with this lady. I’m so stunned that I nearly laugh out loud.

  “Bird,” he says, raising his voice and overenunciating each word as if I’m deaf, “how are you lik-ing A-mer-i-ca?”

  I certainly did not peg Jason Samuels as a jokester, but looking at him now, I consider him with new eyes. Slowly, I turn toward his fan, happy to play along. “Rrrrreally verrrry much,” I say, nodding energetically.

  In my peripheral vision, I see Jason swallow what would’ve been a hearty laugh, and I can barely keep a straight face myself. He hands me her cup, and I sign my name next to his, hoping the giggle that escapes won’t blow my cover.

  “It was really nice meeting you,” Jason says as he hands the coffee cup back to her, quite clearly concluding our interaction. She nods and gives him her biggest smile one last time before walking to the front door, where her husband and teenage sons wait.

  “Nice accent,” Jason says as we move forward a little more in line.

  “You’re crazy,” I say, finally able to let out a good laugh. “But you probably just made her entire vacation.”

  Jason shrugs. “What can I say? Cougars love me.”

  I nearly lose it.

  We get our food (a burger and a triple-shot soy latte for him and a jasmine tea and coconut muffin for me) and find seats. Now that the ice has been broken, we actually settle into a surprisingly comfortable conversation. Considering what a weirdo he was on set the other day, I was completely convinced that we’d have absolutely nothing to talk about, so Stella and I had role-played questions before I came, although every scenario ended with her asking if she could be the mother of my children. But even though all the characters Jason plays in movies make him seem like just a pretty face, now that we’re two regular people hanging out in a coffee shop, I realize there’s a little more depth to him than I’d figured. He’s really a nice, if slightly quirky, guy.

  My phone beeps in my pocket.

  “That better be my publicist,” I say. Jason shakes his head, and as I check the text from Anita—Something came up. Can’t make it. Call me after.—I get the sinking feeling that he was right all along. “She can’t make it,” I say sheepishly.

  He grins. “Shocker,” he says, before taking another big bite of his burger.

  I feel so stupid, so naive. I thought this whole thing was about getting one of my songs in a blockbuster movie, but apparently Anita had a secret agenda. This woman expects me to trust her and then does something shady like this. I’m fuming.

  “You okay?” Jason asks.

  “Oh, yeah,” I lie. I take a deep breath and force a small smile. After all, it’s not Jason’s fault, and in all honesty, I’m having an okay time.

  As we eat, it becomes obvious that everyone in the entire building knows Jason Samuels is here. I thought he would be the kind of guy to milk all the attention he could get, but he chose to sit facing the wall and keeps his eyes on our table, even though there are more than a few people who would like to get his autograph or take a picture with him. I’m about to ask him how he got into acting when two tweens walk by our table, singing my song and breaking into a fit of giggles the minute they are past us.

  “So,” Jason says, leaning in low and jerking his head back toward them, “how are you handling all the fame?”

  I consider it. “Well, it’s really new, you know? My song’s only been out for a few weeks. I’m not at the level you are or anything, so it’s fine.”

  “You will be,” he says confidently, taking a small sip of his latte. “And listen, the spotlight can be so strong, it blinds. You almost become, like, two people. The famous version of yourself and then the one only your friends and family know.”

  I nod vigorously. “Oh my gosh, you’re totally right. I mean, I’ve already felt that a little.”

  “You’ll find a balance,” he says, “but it’s tough at first. The best advice I can give you is to carve out a little space each week for Me Time.”

  “I wish,” I say. “I practically live in the studio.”

  “You’ll burn out,” he says, shaking his head. “Trust me. That’s why I kite surf every weekend. I love the beach, even if not much else about LA.”

  “You don’t like Los Angeles?”

  Jason shrugs. “I like it okay, I guess. It’s just that the business can beat you down. Hollywood is so fake.”

  I take another drink, not really sure what to say. Only a half hour ago I thought Jason Samuels was the phoniest guy I’d ever met, so I just nod.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I found out yesterday that I got passed over for this action movie, and honestly, I really wanted it.”

  “But you play a general in this movie,” I say. “So there must be some fierce war scenes or something.”

  He grins ruefully. “Nah, the whole thing takes place after I’ve been injured. It’s more a love story between a wounded soldier and an unhappily married nurse, but I’m sick of doing chick flick after chick flick. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “I want to drive a getaway car or blow up a prison or do something totally badass.” He sighs, picking up his burger again. “But hey, it’s work. At least this time we get to shoot on location. Nashville is a great town.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I agree. “I love it.”

  We finish up our food and I feel myself relax as we get to know each other. When he tells me that he took his grandmother as his date to his first awards show, I realize that there’s a heart of gold under all those muscles. I’m completely astonished, but I feel like Jason Samuels is someone I could actually be friends with.

  “Should we go?”

  “Yeah,” I say, standing up and slipping on my coat.

  “Oh, you’ve got an eyelash,” Jason says, shocking me by leaning in close. His thumb is an inch from my eyeball before I even register what’s happening, so I close my eyes instinctively. His thumb brushes under my lashes and then the touch is gone.

  “Make a wish.” He grins, holding up a lash thickly coated in mascara.

  “I wish there was more time in the day.” I sigh.

  “Amen, sister,” he says, offering a high five. We walk through the coffee shop, him smiling and nodding to the people he catches ogling him on the way out but walking with purpose to minimize the chances of getting stopped.

  “You need a ride?” he asks at the glass doors.

  “My folks are waiting,” I admit self-consciously. “My dad wasn’t happy about me getting brunch with an older guy, especially one who happens to have been voted Sexiest Man Alive.”

  Jason smiles, holding the door open for me. “You worry about bringing guys home to your dad. I worry about bringing girls home to my publicist.”

  I laugh.

  “Sad but true,” he says, and I can tell he really means it.

  When we step out onto the sidewalk, though, my happy-shiny feeling disappears. From out of nowhere, flashbulbs go off, and three men with big cameras start shouting my name. “Bird! Over here! Jason, is this your new girlfriend? Bird! Bird!”

  Unfazed, Jason puts on his sunglasses and pulls up his hood. The flashes keep going off, and without even realizing it, I’ve got my arm up shielding my eyes. Jason takes charge, slipping a strong arm around my waist and leading me toward a black SUV with tinted windows parked nearby. I just want to get out of here, so when Jason holds the passenger door open for me, I get in.

  “What the heck?” I ask when he gets behind the wheel after pushing past so
me guys taking my picture through the windshield. “How’d they know you were here?”

  “We,” Jason corrects.

  The three paparazzi are standing outside the car, still snapping away when Jason starts to slowly pull out of his parking space. I’m on edge, worried we might run over someone, but Jason is totally calm. Like dogs who bark at cars, the photographers manage to walk away in one piece.

  “I’ll go around the block,” he says, glancing over at me. “We’ll circle back, if you want to tell your parents.”

  “Thanks,” I say, pulling out my phone and texting them. “This is insane.” I shake my head and put on my seat belt, totally flustered, while Jason is the picture of peace. “I still don’t get how they just showed up like that,” I say.

  “Bird,” he replies patiently, “I’m sure your publicist called them. Or mine. Who knows?”

  “Anita?” I say, surprised. “I don’t think she would do that.”

  He looks amused. “She’s the one who set up the meeting in the first place.”

  I gawk at him. The first thought that comes to my mind is her saying that Jason was “taken” with me. Fuming, I feel my face burn. I can’t believe she lied to me. I can’t believe I believed her.

  “Classic setup,” he says. “But don’t sweat it. I’m glad she did. That was a pretty good burger… and the company was okay.”

  “Ha-ha,” I say dryly.

  He pulls up in front of a bookstore and double-parks behind my parents, switching on his emergency lights. “It was nice to meet you, Bird Barrett,” Jason says, offering his hand and shaking mine exaggeratedly.

  I grin. “Eet woz rrrreally my plez-ure,” I reply in my bad Russian accent.

  He laughs pretty hard as I open my door. When I step out, he calls, “Hey, I really do hope we use your song in the movie.”

  I lean down before closing the door. “Me too. See ya later, alligator.”

  “Oh,” he says, wincing. “Now I know I have met the real Bird Barrett. After a while, crocodile,” he says mockingly.

  I stick my tongue out and slam the door. Within seconds, hip-hop music booms from his pimped-out ride and he joins the flow of traffic on Twenty-First Avenue. Hurrying the few steps to where my parents wait, I get in the backseat, grateful for the warmth and for the normalcy of Gramma’s old sedan.

  “How was it?” my mom asks, turning around in her seat as I buckle up.

  I catch my dad’s eye in the rearview mirror and know better than to tell the truth. My beef is with Anita, and I can handle it myself.

  “Fine,” I say, plastering on a smile for them both. “It was just fine.”

  “BIRD!” STELLA CALLS, pounding on my bedroom door.

  The beating is intense, as is the high-pitched tone of her voice, so I throw off the covers and fly out of bed, terrified. “What is it?” I say, swinging open my bedroom door. “What’s wrong?”

  “OMG, have you read the new Us Weekly?” she asks, holding up a copy of the gossip magazine as she barges into my room.

  My pulse slows down a little and I rub the sleep from my eyes, but I’m still confused. I look over at the clock on my bookshelf; it reads 9:00 AM. “Um, no.” She throws her lavender messenger bag onto my bed and opens it with purpose. “It’s Thursday. Shouldn’t you be at school?” I ask.

  “I was there,” she says hurriedly, pulling out her phone and a bunch of other magazines before sitting down and facing me. She looks really anxious. “But then I found out about all of this and ditched.”

  “Found out about what?” I ask slowly, an inexplicable feeling of dread coming over me.

  “Have you been online?”

  “No, but—”

  She holds up her cell phone and explains: “TMZ says Jason Samuels is your ‘muse’ and that you guys are a hot and heavy couple who’ve secretly been involved this whole month. You met him at a party over the holidays in Nashville and have been, quote, ‘the song in his heart’ while he shoots his new drama.”

  “Oh my God!” I exclaim, shutting the door quickly and grabbing my laptop off my desk.

  “So you haven’t read Star,” she guesses correctly. “Or InTouch or OK!?”

  “No,” I say, feeling queasy. “I just woke up.”

  I climb onto my bed and grab a magazine, completely mortified.

  “ ‘Jason Samuels gets cozy with his new Song Bird’?” I read, my voice getting higher with each word. Under the headline is a blurry shot of Jason with his arm around me on the sidewalk in front of Fido.

  “We weren’t ‘getting cozy,’ ” I snap at the magazine. I hold it up to Stella. “These idiots were waiting for us outside, and Jason was just leading me through. When all those cameras got up in my face and the paparazzi were yelling, I froze.”

  She bites her lip. “You do look cozy,” she concedes, fanning out all the articles and pointing to a pic in another magazine.

  I feel sick. According to Us Weekly, I’ve been into Jason for a long time and now that my single is number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, I’m over the moon that he’s “Noticed Me.” There are a couple of pictures of Jason touching me, once when he put his hand on my shoulder at the beginning of our “date” and once when he brushed away that eyelash. And in Star, there is a picture of us laughing at our table in Fido with a headline asking, WILL JASON MOVE TO NASHVILLE FOR LOVE? And then, to top it all off, OK! magazine has eyewitness statements of how we were sharing a burger and making out in his car, complete with a series of photos of him ushering me into the front seat.

  “This is completely made-up!” I shriek, trying to remain calm and failing miserably. I look at her, my eyes a little wet. “What if Adam sees this stuff?”

  She bites her lip.

  “Stella?”

  She exhales loudly. “Yeah. I think that would be bad.”

  I throw myself back against my pillows and bury my head under my comforter. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, kicking off her shoes and moving up on the bed to where I’m hiding.

  “This isn’t happening,” I moan.

  “You could text him,” Stella suggests.

  I pull the covers off my face. “And say what? ‘Oh, hey, Adam. I know we’re not technically dating and I don’t know what that kiss was or if we’ll ever kiss again or if you even want to since it’s been, like, two weeks, anyway, but just in case you do—’cause I really do—I’m definitely not dating Jason Samuels even though it totally looks like it, okay?’ ” I look at Stella and she twists her mouth, thinking. “And then what if he says, ‘What are you talking about? You went out with Jason Samuels?’ Like, he may not even know. He doesn’t read this stuff.” Even as I say it, I can hear how pathetic that hope is.

  “Okay, so it’s presumptuous to text Adam since y’all aren’t technically a thing, but I definitely think you need to talk to Anita,” Stella says. She leafs through one of the magazines again. “She obviously set you up. You need to ask her WTF.”

  I groan. “I already called her when I was really ticked off the day I met Jason, but she turned it back on me. She got mad, saying that she was hurt I’d question her motives and that she couldn’t really remember whose people called whose. But then she called again yesterday and said my song is definitely being used in the movie now, so it was ‘all for the best.’ I don’t see the point in calling her again. I mean, it’s done.”

  Stella frowns. “In other words, ‘all publicity is good publicity’?”

  I sigh, looking down at a small picture of Jason and me laughing in the corner of the cover of InTouch.

  “I wonder what your fans think,” Stella ponders aloud. She grabs my laptop and types in the URL to my fan forum. “Oh no,” she says.

  “What?” I ask, sitting up and tilting the screen my way. To my horror, there are two thumbnails side by side, one of Adam and me at the Pancake Pantry and one of Jason and me at Fido. The article is all about comparing my body language in each picture and what it says about my interest
in each of the guys… that I’m dating.

  “This is a nightmare,” I grumble, shutting the laptop firmly.

  “You want to see a nightmare?” Stella asks. She picks up a tabloid and flips through the pages expertly. “Then look at the bedazzled midriff-baring shirt Kim Kardashian is sporting on page twenty-two of Us Weekly. Stars are so not like us.”

  And despite everything, I smile.

  “I really think we’ve got it,” Shannon says, setting down her guitar after what’s already been a long day.

  “You’re sure?” I ask, looking at the lyrics in front of me. “We hardly changed anything on this one.”

  Shannon smiles warmly at me. “Sometimes it happens that way. The hook is catchy, the lyrics are smart, and now that we’ve upped the tempo, I think it will really complement the rest of the songs on your album.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure,” she says. “Let’s take a break and then lay down the demo. I’ll e-mail it over to Dan later tonight, but I’m positive he’s going to green-light it. This actually might be one of my favorites.”

  I smile, feeling the same way. After the crappy “personal life” morning I had, it was nice to have a productive workday. I set down my own guitar and stretch my arms up over my head as her phone rings.

  “This is Shannon,” she answers brightly.

  But then she bolts up, standing still as a statue, her face suddenly tense with worry.

  I feel my own stomach twist. “Is it Stella?” I ask.

  Shannon glances over at me and curtly shakes her head before leaving the room. I get that it’s totally uncool to spy, but I walk closer to the kitchen, anyway. I’ve never seen Shannon so freaked out and I’m concerned.

  “Tell me you’re joking,” I hear her say.

  I take a breath and waltz into the kitchen as nonchalantly as I can, my hand to my throat to exhibit the pretense that I am suddenly so parched that I can’t possibly wait another second for a glass of water. Shannon barely takes notice. She is sitting on a bar stool at the counter going through pages in an open binder and talking to the person on the other end of the line about “filling a hole.” From the bits and pieces I overhear, I start to relax. Nobody’s sick. Nobody’s hurt. It’s just something to do with a show.