Wildflower

by Alecia Whitaker

  “Well, did he say anything?” I press.

  “Nope,” Jacob replies. He’s a terrible liar.

  “Tell me.”

  He pauses. “Well, he asked me if you’re really going out with Jason Samuels.”

  I lunge forward. “What’d you say? What’d you tell him?”

  Jacob shrugs. “I told him, yeah, you went out with him,” he says, as if the answer is evident.

  A panic rises in my chest. No. No, no, no, no, no. This was not supposed to happen. It was just business!

  “I went out with him,” I say, “but I’m not going out with him. He knows that, right?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Is there a difference?”

  My brain nearly explodes. “Yes, there’s a difference!” I yell, squeezing my head with both hands. “God, Jacob! There’s a huge difference!”

  He throws his hands up, suddenly every bit as exasperated as I am. “Look, ‘Song Bird,’ it’s not my job to keep track of my little sister’s celebrity love life.”

  “Agh!” I shout, turning on my heel. I shut my door firmly and throw myself across my bed, physically and emotionally exhausted. The tabloid lies, the great songwriting session, the awesome live performance, the horrific scolding about said performance, trending on Twitter, and then blowing any chance I ever had with Adam. This was the best worst day of my life.

  And I think there might be a song there, but right now I don’t have it in me to write it.

  “SO NOT A word from Adam?” Stella asks me. “Nada?”

  “Nothing,” I say forlornly. “I texted him yesterday and haven’t heard back.”

  “Yeah, he’s mad,” she confirms as she browses the boots at this cute little shop over in East Nashville. “Do you like these?”

  “They’re okay,” I say distractedly.

  She looks at me as if I’ve hurt her soul.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper to her as we move away from the owner. “They look old. Worn down.”

  “They’re vintage,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  I glance at the turquoise low-cut boots she’s holding up, but it’s hard for me to focus on shopping right now. I missed Adam’s show, and then he played for Kayelee last night (and, as her website showed, he looked adorable). I blew it.

  Stella puts the boots down and turns her attention toward a rack of purses. “You know you’ve got to call him, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, checking my phone for the gazillionth time. Now I’m afraid to let it out of my sight. “We usually text.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve kissed,” she says, unsnapping a beaded clutch. “And after you kissed, you started flexting.”

  I look at her inquisitively.

  “Flirting over text,” she explains. “But then you went out with Jason Samuels—”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  She looks at me and says, “I know that. But he doesn’t. And then you missed his show. So for all he knows, you’re not interested anymore.”

  “What?” I whisper fiercely.

  “Well, I mean, those pictures were pretty cozy,” she says.

  “Don’t say ‘cozy,’ ” I warn her.

  She arches her eyebrows and backs away, perusing the handbags again. “So that’s why you need to call him,” she says simply, picking up a cute black clutch and posing with it in front of a full-length mirror. “I think I’m going to get this.”

  I nod absentmindedly and pull up his number on my phone as she pays, determined to call him and set everything straight. The minute our shoes hit the sidewalk, I push CALL.

  “What am I even supposed to say if he answers?” I ask Stella as it rings.

  “Just tell him what happened,” she says.

  “Right. I’ll just explain it. Anita set up the Jason thing. I should have told him about it, but it was just business and no big deal. And I should have texted him about his show, but I really did think I could make it. And work has to come first, right? And—”

  “Hey.” His voice comes over the line.

  “Adam! Hi!” I say, ecstatic that he answered. But then his voice drones on, and I realize that it’s his voice mail. I hate when people pause at the beginning of their messages. The beep comes before I know it, and unfortunately, I hadn’t prepared a monologue.

  “Adam, hey, it’s me. Um, Bird. Anyway, I’m so sorry I missed your show Thursday. I heard it was great. I mean, I was, um, working, and you won’t even believe how that whole thing got off track, but um, Jacob and Dylan said you were great, well, of course you were great, I mean, I love your music, and, you know, I really hate that I couldn’t be there. I should’ve texted you. I—”

  I feel like I’m drowning here. Nothing is coming out right. I look up at Stella for support, but her expression is pained and she shakes her head. So I plow on.

  “So, yeah. Call me back. Or text me. Or e-mail. Or whatever.” I want to explain everything, but the voice mail is not going great as it is, so I doubt I’ll be able to articulate what really happened, anyway. “So okay, cool. Talk to you later. Call me back. If you want. Okay, bye.”

  I pull the phone from my ear and push END. Then I stare at it, feeling a little queasy. “Did I just make things worse?”

  “No,” Stella lies. I bury my face in my hands, and she rubs my back as we walk toward her car. “But maybe you should stick to saying it in a song.”

  Dad says grace and then we load up our plates. This is the first Sunday in a while that I haven’t had to work. I went to church with my family and helped Mom make lunch when we got home. No recording, no publicity, just an almost eerie silence from Open Highway. I laid down the final track Friday, so now Dan is listening to the album and deciding with Anita what the best next step will be.

  Meanwhile, I get an honest-to-goodness real weekend with my family. Yesterday I slept in, hung out in the afternoon with Stella, and then caught up on a little homework, which almost made my mom pass out since it was my idea. I was so far ahead in my course work before being discovered, and now Jacob’s almost finished, leaving me in his dust. With all the attention I’ve gotten since the Jason Samuels gossip and the fund-raiser, it’s actually been pretty nice to have a normal weekend.

  “I was thinking we could all go down to the Station Inn tonight,” Dylan says.

  “I’m game,” I say. “I’ll bring Maybelle.”

  “Cool,” he says, twisting his napkin. “Um, also, I have something else to say. It’s sort of an announcement.” He pauses. “I’ve been applying to colleges. Real colleges, with campuses, not just the online thing.”

  I freeze, my glass halfway to my mouth. “What?” I look to my folks for their reaction, but it’s obvious that they already know about it and approve. “Where?”

  He shrugs. “Somewhere with a good music program. I’ve talked to a guy over at Belmont, but I’m also looking beyond Nashville. Maybe New York, Boston, I don’t know.”

  “Me too, actually,” Jacob adds, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He completely misses a smudge of sauce on his cheek. “I’m almost done with my high school courses, so I’ll enroll in the fall. Somewhere warm all year long. Probably Cali. I can’t stand winter.”

  “So, everyone’s just going to leave?” I ask quietly.

  “Well,” Dylan says, his eyes not unkind, “we can’t really wait around here. I mean, I’m pretty sure the Barrett Family Band is over.”

  I nod, knowing in my heart that he’s right. Maybe I’ve known it for a while. But now that it’s been said out loud, I feel a deep sadness, a loud thud as if a very important chapter of my life has just closed.

  And I know that it’s all because of me.

  My eyes blur a little, but I blink back my tears. My brothers have stood behind me for the past five months, putting their lives on hold and my schedule before their own, even though they would gladly change places with me in a heartbeat. They’ve never made me feel guilty and never treated me with resentment, so now that they want to follow their own p
aths, it’s only right that I support them, too.

  “Well, I know you’ll both get in wherever you apply,” I say with a small smile. “But what about this: Instead of the Station Inn tonight, we stay home. Dad can get the fireplace going later on, we’ll make s’mores in the living room, and we play, just us. Just the BFB.”

  Jacob nods and Dylan visibly relaxes. I know it helped them that I didn’t make it about me, so I act like everything is normal, but to be honest, I’m a little sad at the reality that nothing will ever be normal again. Or rather, that the Barrett family’s idea of “normal” has once again changed so much.

  Against Anita’s advice, I do a Web search of my name later. Nobody had heard of Bird Barrett a few months ago, but now the search returns pages of hits. Blog posts, my YouTube video, lyrics to “Notice Me,” bootlegs of the fund-raiser, and lots of images. I try to stay off my fan forum, but it’s impossible. And I know it’s ridiculous, but for every twenty nice things people write, there is a negative comment that will overshadow them all and totally bum me out. At the present, a fashion blogger has posted a picture of me next to Dakota Fanning and, apparently, the voters think she wore it best.

  “Some fans,” I grumble, clicking off the page.

  My cell phone rings, and I reach for it, expecting it to be Stella, but my heart skips a beat when Adam’s name appears.

  “Hello?” I say, answering immediately. I stand up and walk over to the mirror, running my hand through my hair as if he can see me.

  “Hey, Bird. It’s Adam, returning your call,” he says, a little too formally.

  “Yeah, I know. Hey,” I say, clutching my lucky rock pendant and plowing ahead with my apology. “Adam, I am so sorry that I missed your show the other night.”

  “Yeah,” he says, softening. “I missed you. But it looks like that fund-raiser was a big success.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “bigger than I’d expected actually. We raised lots of money for Stella’s school, but also, it was really great being onstage again, you know? I’ve been in the studio so long that I didn’t realize how much I missed an audience. It was amazing to share my music and actually see people enjoy it.”

  “I definitely get that,” Adam says. I can picture him nodding. “And that’s exactly where your focus should be: your music. The iron is hot, you know what I mean? You’ve got to take every opportunity and really make a name for yourself.”

  “Totally,” I say, relieved that he’s being so cool about it all. That’s what would be so wonderful about dating Adam: He’s a serious, talented musician who gets me, but he gets the business, too. “I think we’ve finally finished the album now, though, and I have to hear your new stuff. My brothers said it’s really good.”

  “Aw, that’s cool,” he says. “I’m going to upload a new song to my website today, so maybe you can check it out.”

  “Oh,” I say. Then I take a deep breath and go for it, flirting. “I was kind of hoping for a private performance.”

  “Bird,” he says softly. “I don’t think we—” He stops himself. “I’m in Austin, actually. I know a guy out here who wants to help me make a demo, so I left right after the gig with Kayelee.”

  “Really?” I ask, hollowly. “That’s great.”

  The line goes quiet. Adam and I have always been able to joke around, even when I was totally crushing on him. It was always easy. But as the seconds tick by in silence, it’s like we’re out of sync for the first time.

  “So you know that stuff with Jason Samuels?” I say quickly, the words spilling out on top of each other. I really need Adam to know the truth about that. “My publicist set that up. It was some crazy PR strategy to get my song in his movie. We’re just friends. I couldn’t believe how it got blown up like that, and I just wanted you to know.”

  “Oh yeah, I think I saw something about that,” Adam says nonchalantly. I wish he sounded a little more relieved. “I didn’t peg a guy like that as your type.”

  “Right,” I say, my stomach in knots. I feel like this conversation is going downhill fast, and I need Adam to know that I want to take this thing with him somewhere real. “Listen, about that day in the car… after the Pancake Pantry—”

  “Yeah,” Adam interrupts. He takes a deep breath. “About that…”

  I don’t like his tone. I want to tell him to stop right there, not to say anything more.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” he continues, his voice apologetic, regretful.

  “No!” I nearly shout. “I’m glad you did. Adam, I’m really glad you did.”

  The line goes quiet again. I can hear his breath; I hold mine. My pulse is racing, my mind, too. I feel like I’m teetering on a ledge. His next sentence will have the power to pull me back or push me over.

  “It’s just—” he starts in that same tone. He takes a big breath. “Okay, to be honest, Bird? You’re blowing up. You’re on the verge of something so major that it needs one hundred percent of your energy and your time and your commitment. You missed my show for work, not because you didn’t want to be there, and that was the right thing. You’d hate me if you looked back at it all one day and thought you missed out on something big because you put a guy ahead of yourself. I just think…”

  His voice trails off, and I feel myself start to fall. I know if I say anything, I might start to cry.

  “I mean, you’ve got this album you’re about to promote, you’ll be touring I’m sure, and it feels like, I don’t know, it was probably a bad time for—” He stops abruptly. “Hang on.”

  I hear him turn away and talk to somebody in the background about rehearsal.

  “Hey, sorry about that,” he says, finally coming back on the line. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Adam!” a girl’s voice calls in the background. I bolt upright on the bed, my spine like a lightning rod, her voice the jolt.

  “I’m coming!” he calls back. “Hey, I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay,” I manage to say. I’m sure he can hear my disappointment. I don’t know how anybody with an ear as good as his could miss it.

  He sighs. “Good luck on the album, Lady Bird,” he says quietly. “You know I’m a huge fan, right?”

  A lump the size of Texas forms in my throat, and the tears fall fat and fast so that I can barely eke out my reply. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Okay, then. Take care.”

  “Bye, Adam,” I finally say, my voice cracking.

  But no need to worry about my pride, because the line has already gone dead on his end.

  “Bird?” my dad calls a couple of hours later, knocking at my door.

  “Not now!” I yell back, lying sprawled out under my comforter, staring at my ceiling, exhausted and completely cried out.

  He cracks my door anyway. “I built the fire—” he starts, but then he sees my swollen, red face, and his own crumples. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says, walking over slowly and sitting awkwardly on the edge of my bed. “What’s wrong?”

  Right when I thought I’d finally gotten my emotions under control, my dad walks in and treats me like he did when I was a little girl, back when he could kiss the scrape on my knee and make it all better. My eyes well up again, and I pull the comforter over my head.

  “Hon,” he says softly. I feel the mattress dip as he reaches over me for the box of tissues that I’ve nearly emptied. He takes one and gently pulls the comforter down, handing it to me. I take a deep breath and sit up against my pillow, deciding that it might be quicker to hear him out than wait him out.

  “I know there was some part in all of us that wished we could go on forever as the Barrett Family Band,” he says tenderly. A small sob escapes. He has no idea why I’m really crying.

  “But, sweetie, there’s no going backward in life,” he says, smiling sadly. “Even if you hadn’t signed with Open Highway, the band would have run its course. It did its job.” He takes my hand and squeezes. “It brought us together in a way that honored Caleb. But, B
ird, if we stop being a band, it doesn’t mean that we’ll stop being a family. Right?”

  I blow my nose and nod. Sure, Dad.

  “I’m proud of you, Bird. It brings your mom and me so much joy, watching you spread your wings and fly.”

  My dad is doing his best here, so I fight the impulse to roll my eyes at the awful play on words.

  “Dad,” I say, looking at him through blurry eyes, “I love you, but I just want to be alone right now.”

  He nods sagely and kisses my forehead before heading into the living room, where I hear my family tuning their instruments. I know I promised them that I’d play tonight, but the BFB days only remind me of Adam, which makes me start crying all over again.

  “IT’S ME,” I say into the intercom outside Shannon’s building. Dan decided my album needed a “big-hit ballad,” so here we go again, back to the grind.

  Shannon buzzes me in, and I make my way across the lobby to the elevator, surprised when it opens and I see Stella, Ty, and Erie.

  “Oh, hey, y’all,” I say, wondering where they’re going and wishing I could go with. Stella came over for a while last night—she’s really been there for me with all of this Adam stuff—but seeing the sympathy on her face again now isn’t helping.

  “You okay?” she asks, stopping me.

  “No,” I answer honestly.

  She pulls me aside and gives me a giant hug. “Stop torturing yourself, Bird. This really will get better.”

  I don’t want to lose it in the lobby of her building, especially not with her friends watching, so I pull away and move toward the elevator.

  “And use it,” she says, pointing to my heart and then upstairs. “You need another song, so use it.”

  I wipe my nose and nod, waving to the group as they head out into the cold. I consider Stella’s advice. It’s not like Adam hasn’t been my muse before.

  But an hour later, after thumbing through my songwriting journal over and over, trying to piece together scraps of different songs while adding verses that don’t really fit, I throw up my hands in frustration. Everything I’ve come up with has been total crap.