“Yeah, he’s a great guy, Dylan,” I call. “But I doubt he’s in trouble with his publicist today.”
My brother slams the door, and I roll my eyes. Just another example of someone who has no idea what it’s like to answer to a million people.
Anita purses her lips. “Well, I won’t sugarcoat it. Your decision to have a night out on the town did a few things. One, there are now rumors about you and Adam turning the Shine Our Light Tour into a hook-up tour.”
“What?”
“Two, he’s getting amazing press,” Anita says pointedly.
“Okay, okay,” I say, my head pounding. “Is that all?”
“I wish,” she says, her fingers at her temples now. “The worst thing is that the local news interviewed some kids and their parents after the event last night, and frankly, it doesn’t look good.”
I blow my nose and sniffle. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show her the links, Anita,” Troy says. “We’ll talk it over after she sees the local segment—”
“Local?” Anita asks loudly. “We should be so lucky. Troy, this thing has gone national. I just saw Kathie Lee yapping about it on the Today Show. You two talk, then call me back. We need to get a grip on this thing.”
“Got it.”
“Bird, take a NyQuil and a nap,” she says. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks, Anita,” I say, rolling my eyes again.
“And make sure you’re perfection for the Houston crowd tonight,” she says.
“Perfection. Got it.”
“We’ll talk soon. Ciao.”
Anita hangs up and I stare at my iPad, amazed that one innocent night out could turn into this much drama. “Show me,” I tell Troy quietly.
My hands tremble as he pulls up a video from the Fort Worth local news last night. The reporter asks a group of kids if they were excited to be at the rodeo with me. “We were,” one kid answers, “but not after she didn’t want to be there with us.” Then they ask a mother about it, and she says she was shocked by my actions and would never buy another one of my albums. “I’m not even going to listen to her on the radio,” she goes on. “I’ll change the station before I support Bird Barrett again. Look, my little girl is still crying.”
“Oh no,” I whisper as they zoom in on the girl’s swollen face.
The reporter continues, “Barrett was attending the rodeo tonight with her brother, her best friend, and her tour partner, Adam Dean, when she was spotted in the stands and asked to give an impromptu performance. The general thought around here is that Barrett most definitely did not want to ‘Sing Anyway.’ Back to you.”
The clip stops, and I drop my head into my hands.
“Bird, she’s right,” Troy says delicately as he searches the Internet. “It’s gone national.”
I take my iPad from him and pull up my Twitter account. For once, it does not feel good to be trending. “Hashtag rodeorunner?” I ask hotly. “Seriously, that’s the best they could do?”
Troy’s phone rings. “Bird, don’t go too deep down the rabbit hole,” he warns as he stands up and walks toward the door. “The mob is angry, but we’re making a plan.”
While he’s on the phone, I check all my social media sites, and the more I read, the worse I feel:
Bird Barrett won’t be roped into singing for free.
Bird performs for ticket holders, not rodeo clowns.
No time for the little people. Bird Barrett is full of bull.
But the worst thing I read is an article already picked up by The Huffington Post, by a blogger who talks about how desperately her daughter wants to see my show—how she’s a young fiddler like I once was and how it’s her life’s mission to meet me—but how that dream will never come true because my concerts all sell out in two minutes, are too expensive, and single-income families should just be lucky they get to catch clips on YouTube. The entire premise of the post is that wealthy entertainers are willing to entertain only their fellow wealthy Americans, and if they do ever pander to their poor fans, they want to make sure there’s a camera there to promote it.
“That’s not true,” I whisper to the screen.
And there is a lot about Adam and me:
Is Bird Barrett shacking up with Adam Dean?
Adam Dean > Bird Barrett. #forthefans
Is Bird Barrett sporting a baby bump?
“What?” I shout when I read the last one. “I hate this! I hate this!”
And before I can stop myself, I fling my iPad across the room, knowing before it even hits the back wall of the bus that the screen will shatter. I start crying again, just like I did all night long, pulling tissues out of the box and shaking.
But when Troy boards the bus immediately after hearing me scream, the only thing I give him by way of explanation is, “I’m going to need a new iPad. And more tissues.”
Then I run back to my room, desperate for some alone time and a power nap before the show… which, of course, must go on.
“Fantastic performance,” Troy says a couple of nights later as I breeze into my Tulsa dressing room. I always feel this insane mixture of alive and dead tired after a show, my body completely at odds with itself. Makes me think about that traveling Pilates studio Jolene Taylor had on tour and how maybe that wasn’t such a diva move after all.
“Thanks, Troy,” I say, crashing on the little couch. Usually I head right for the chair at my vanity mirror and start taking off my jewelry, but tonight I’m just too tired. “Did I sound nasally?” I ask with my arm thrown over my eyes. I was hoping to beat this cold by now, but I was sweating like a beast through the entire performance, and even Sam commented on how pale I was when he did my makeup earlier. I really hope it’s not the flu.
“I think you sounded great,” he says.
“Mmmm. The fans were all in. I’m hoping some other celebrity scandal will overshadow the stupid rodeo thing, but at least my real fans are out there every night holding up sweet signs and singing along.” I yawn, so sleepy. “It makes me forget the haters for just a little while, you know?”
He clears his throat. “Yes, that’s… wonderful. Truly.”
I pause. “What’s going on, Troy?” I ask, looking up at him.
His face falls. “Oh, Bird, Anita always tells me to give it to you straight, but I have a hard time seeing you upset.”
With great effort, I pull myself to a seated position. “Why would I be upset?”
“Well,” he says, pulling at his shirt collar, “with all the brouhaha surrounding this rodeo fiasco, Rolling Stone rushed their cover story.” He holds up an open envelope, and I know before looking that it’s bad. “They FedExed our copies. It’ll be on stands everywhere tomorrow.”
“She provoked me,” I say softly, knowing Jase used our final interview in her article. He reluctantly hands me a copy, and I sit back against the couch cushions, staring at the cover in my lap as my pulse starts to pound in my ears.
The picture is provocative. My parents were right. I see it now. Especially since the headline reads:
BIRD BARRETT: AMERICA’S TOO-SWEET HEART?
Inside, it’s not any better. Jase paints me as a judgmental and hypocritical Goody Two-shoes who plays the part of the wholesome all-American girl but parties behind the scenes. And even though Adam and I barely even saw each other while she was with the tour, she must’ve climbed aboard the rodeo romance bandwagon, because she strongly insinuates that the real me—the one she “got to know” on tour—might secretly be dating my opener, who spends long hours on my bus and in my hotel room.
“She can’t say that,” I say to Troy. I am so angry that I’m shaking, but my voice comes out strained.
“Bird—” Troy starts.
“No, she can’t do this,” I say, so over all the crying but fighting tears yet again. “Call Dan. I want to talk to Dan.”
Troy never pushes me, never tries to talk me down, always guides me by letting me express what I need. In this case, I need to talk to the pres
ident of my label. In this case, I need to know how screwed I am. He immediately makes the call.
“Dan, it’s me,” I choke out. The tears are flowing freely. My stage makeup is streaming down my cheeks.
“It’s bad,” he says. “I know.”
“My first Rolling Stone cover,” I say in gasps, “is this load of bs?”
“Bird,” he says after a mighty exhale. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to read. It certainly took me off guard. Anita is spitting nails. We never should have let her on your bus. One of us should have been there.”
“No,” I say. “Don’t take any blame. This is all from the twisted soul of that jaded, miserable reporter who had a crappy life and is only happy if the rest of us do, too.” He doesn’t say anything. Troy brings me a box of tissues from the vanity and squeezes my shoulder. We sit there in silence for almost a full minute as I get myself together, blowing my nose and dabbing at my eyes. “Dan,” I finally say, my throat raw. “What can I do? How can I make this right?”
“Well, if songs like the one you just wrote with Adam come out of these tough times, then I’d say it can’t all be bad, right?”
“You liked ‘Broken People’?”
“We loved it. Makes me very optimistic about your third album, Bird.”
“Oh, but it was his song,” I say.
“So why did you send it to me?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a sniffle. “Just thought you’d want to hear it. I guess I should check and see if Adam’s going to use it.”
“Oh-kay,” Dan replies, sounding annoyed.
“But don’t we have more important things to worry about than credit for a song?” I ask as I hold up the magazine, clutching it tightly in my fist. “What about this stupid article? And the rodeo thing?”
Dan sighs heavily on his end. “Well, Bird, it’s tricky. Anita is trying to manage the Rolling Stone press, and I really wish you’d just sung at that rodeo—”
“I know!” I say, closing my eyes and leaning back against the couch. “You and everybody else in the world.”
“But what’s done is done.” Dan sounds defeated, which doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. Actually, his condescending attitude makes me mad. I think back to that night a couple of years ago when I gave a free, impromptu performance at Stella’s high school fund-raiser. I thought he and Anita were going to murder me. Yet now I’m supposed to sing whenever someone asks me to, like a doll with a pull string.
I sneeze, lean forward, and wipe my nose for the millionth time today. “Maybe I should take a little break,” I suggest. “I’m not feeling well at all. What if we reschedule the next few shows and give the media a chance to feed off someone else’s mistakes? Let it all die down a little, you know?”
“Reschedule?” Dan practically shouts through the phone. I hold it away from my ear, shocked. “You must be out of your mind. If anything, I’ll be speaking to Marco about extending the tour, adding more cities, maybe going abroad.”
I blink fast a few times, stunned by his reaction. “More dates?” I say quietly.
“Bird, you can’t afford to take a single wrong step right now,” he goes on, all brass tacks. “Don’t you see that? It’s you they’re feeding off of, you they’re still talking about, so it’s you that has to hold your chin high and prove everybody wrong. You think your fans are angry now? What do you think will happen if you go canceling the concert they’ve been looking forward to for months?”
My head pounds. I hear what he’s saying, but I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.
“Fansfirst,” Dan says, quoting a hashtag I use a lot on social media.
I steel myself for another rough patch and weakly reply, “Fansfirst.”
22
BY THE TIME we reach Tupelo, Mississippi, the next day, whatever crazy virus I’ve been fighting has finally taken hold of me. I slept the whole way in a NyQuil-induced haze, and now I’m halfway through the show, running on fumes, but determined to be perfect. I can’t give the media or these Southern fans even a moment of negativity to latch on to. Dan was right: After the rodeo and Rolling Stone fiascos, I cannot afford a misstep.
“Hey, are you feeling all right?” Stella asks during the quick change for “Before Music.” Dylan and I bring the whole show down for this special number, lights low and everything. We perform on stools at the very end of the T, almost in the center of the floor seats. It’s intimate and sweet, but I only have a short video promo to hold the crowd over for my quick change, so I always stress this part.
“Yeah,” I say as I dive into the dress she’s holding out for me. “But I flubbed a word in the second verse of the third song, and it’s been on my mind ever since.”
“Nobody noticed,” she says as she pulls the dress down and fluffs the skirt.
“I noticed,” I say, my throat on fire. “Jordan, can I have a drink?”
My stage manager hands me a bottle of water, and Stella stands back and looks at me, smiling. I return her gaze, wondering what the heck she’s doing. “You always look so pretty in this dress,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say, reaching a hand around my back. “Are you going to zip it up, or is it just as pretty hanging open?”
“Oh my God!” she says, running around me. “I totally flaked.”
“And the belt?” I ask as I hear the video wind down. I’m glad that I can stay in the same cowboy boots at least.
“Yes, it’s right here,” she says. But when she bends down to grab it off the floor, we both realize that it’s already connected. “Oh no,” she says, fumbling with the buckle as the lights start to lower.
“Bird,” Jordan says, taking the water from me. “You need to get out there.”
“I know my cues,” I snap. “I wish my wardrobe assistant did.”
I jerk the belt from Stella’s hands, looking away from her big hurt eyes to wrap it around my own waist, tucking it in as I walk forward, since there’s no time to buckle it. I hear Dylan start to play the opening melody and freak out. “I need my mic! Come on, come on!”
“Bird, I’m sorry about the belt,” Stella says as I grab the microphone from Jordan.
“Either hit your cues, or I’ll request Amanda from now on,” I reply angrily before heading toward the stage. I hear the harshness of my words the minute I say them, but there’s no time for apologies. The truth is that these days on this tour Bird Barrett has to be perfect.
The tension is thick in my dressing room after the show. Stella and Amanda work quietly as they take inventory of my wardrobe and pack it away for tomorrow’s show. I crank up the P!nk playlist on my iPhone and slam my jewelry on the vanity, still fuming about the flow of the show and how it was basically the worst one of the tour so far. “I feel like I ought to give those fans their money back,” I grumble.
“Adam had to take a call with his manager, so he went on out,” Dylan says as he lets himself into my dressing room. Oh no, Dylan. Please, whatever you do, don’t knock.
“Thanks,” I say. It’s not like I was going to get a Coke with him anyway. Ever since Fort Worth, I’ve headed right for the bus after my shows, pushing myself through these performances and running on empty. He’s apologized a thousand times about the rodeo thing, and he was supportive about the Rolling Stone article (although he used the dumb cliché that “all publicity is good publicity,” which really irked me), and for the past week, things between us have been super tense. He may have meant well, but the way he’s reacted to the chaos surrounding my life just magnifies the fact that he has no idea how different things are in the big leagues.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dylan asks.
Surprised and a little moved at my brother’s concern, I turn to face him. “Everything,” I say honestly. “I think this virus that I’ve been fighting has finally turned into a full-on flu, I’m under tremendous pressure, and I feel like I’m losing my mi—”
But I quickly realize that my brother isn’t talking to me. He has made his w
ay around the clothing rack, where my best friend is now crying in his arms, her shoulders shaking as he rubs her back. I feel a pang of guilt—I know I shouldn’t have snapped at her during the show—and suddenly I feel the kind of exhaustion that literally weighs me down, my chest constricting as if I were pinned under a boulder.
I spin back around in my seat and chug an entire bottle of water. Then I throw my things in my big purse and turn off my music before making my way to the door. I need to think of a way to apologize to Stella, I guess, but I really don’t have it in me right now.
“Who died and made you queen?” Dylan demands, cutting me off before I exit the room.
“Excuse me?”
“People make mistakes, Bird,” he says. “And that girl over there? The one you supposedly think of as your best friend? She’s completely torn up because you spoke to her like a piece of dirt during the show.”
Fire flames in my gut. I want to kill somebody. “Hey, I’m just taking the tour seriously like my big brother asked me to back in Vegas. Remember that? Remember when you went off on me in front of the whole band and crew during rehearsal? How all these people are counting on me for their jobs? I do. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go diva on everybody,” he says. “You can still show a little respect.”
“Respect?” I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, you’re right. Stella, I’m sorry I didn’t respect you enough when you messed up your cue and interrupted the flow of the show. Dylan, I’m sorry I don’t respect you enough when I let y’all shack up on my bus every night and pretend not to hear you making out.”
“You’re acting like a jerk,” Dylan says, his blue eyes steely.
I’m sure mine are the same as I step toward him. “You have no idea what it’s like to be me right now,” I say. “This is a big old fun adventure for everybody else on tour, but when one thing goes wrong—anything—it’s my name that gets dragged through the mud. Okay? It’s me that everybody hates. So you two hate me now, too? Fine. Join the club.”
The Way Back Home Page 15