The Way Back Home

by Alecia Whitaker

  I storm past him and speed walk through the passageways toward my bus. I don’t want to run into anybody, talk to anybody, or be around anybody. I want to fall into my bed and shut out the world and turn off my brain and cry myself to sleep… again.

  When I swing open my bus door, I race up the stairs and run smack-dab into Adam. “What are you doing in here?” I ask.

  “Bathroom on my bus is broken,” he replies.

  “Still?” I ask, squeezing past him. “God!”

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—you can’t just come over here anytime you want.”

  “Why not?” he asks from behind me. “I’m your boyfriend.”

  I spin around. “And I’m your boss!” I exclaim.

  Adam looks like he’s been slapped in the face. Immediately, I put my head in my hands and feel it pounding. This has been the worst night. “Adam,” I say, calmer. But before I can make it right, he turns on his heels and leaves me standing in the aisle alone, wondering how I got here.

  “Bonnie?” I say later when she answers the phone.

  “Honey, what’s the matter?” she asks, immediately hearing the sadness in my voice.

  A quick sob escapes. “Everything.”

  “Oh, Bird, I’ve been there, sweet pea,” she says, her voice soothing through the phone. It hits me how badly I miss her, how I miss life off the road, how I miss… myself.

  “I know what’s been eating you,” she finally says when I sit quiet on the phone, afraid to talk too loudly because I don’t want Stella or Dylan to overhear. “There’s not exactly a Bird Barrett lovefest going on in the media these days, is there?”

  “No,” I manage. I put down the phone and blow my nose before talking again. “And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to make it right.”

  “Listen, you can’t please all the people all the time,” she says.

  “I know, but now—” I try to catch my breath. “Now it’s like I’m becoming the person they say I am. I’ve been so sick and I don’t know if that’s why, but I was really rude to my best friend tonight, I had a fight with my brother, and for some reason, I just completely treated my boyfriend like the hired help. Who am I?”

  I sob again, crying hard into my pillow to keep the noise down, my chest heaving.

  “Come find out,” Bonnie gently suggests. “Take off a few days and come stay with me at the farm. Let me nurse you back to feeling better, and I don’t mean just getting over that cold. You need to walk barefoot in the grass or jump in a pile of leaves. We can ride horses, and I’ll make you sweet tea, and we’ll write a song. Just come home a little while, Bird.”

  “I can’t leave the tour right now,” I lament. “We’ve got two more shows this week, and my fans already hate me. Imagine if I cancel on them.”

  “Everybody needs a day off, Bird,” she says. “Exhaustion is a real thing. What will your fans think if you collapse on the stage? Or if your crew leaks it that you’ve become a prima donna?”

  I chew my lip.

  “Maybe before Thanksgiving,” I say.

  “You going to make it that long?”

  “It’s just a couple more weeks, and then we’ve got a break.”

  Bonnie sighs. “Well, you take care of yourself until then, girl,” she says. “And remember, the door’s always open.”

  Fresh tears fill my eyes. It seems like such a small thing, but it feels good to be worried about. “Thanks, Bonnie. I’ll see you soon.”

  We hang up the phone, and I close my eyes, lying back on my bed still fully clothed as I let the recent events of my life replay in my head. I have to get ahold of what’s happening to me and around me. I have to be better.

  My phone beeps, and I look down at a text from Adam:

  Dear Boss, thought you might want to know about this.

  Attached is a link to a story about Kayelee Ford setting up a special concert at the next Fort Worth rodeo, the theme of the article being about how she’s giving the fans what I couldn’t.

  “No!” I shout.

  Ignoring Adam, I text Bonnie a second later:

  Prepare the guest bed. I’ll be there tomorrow.

  23

  “WELCOME TO BELLE Holler Farm,” Bonnie says as her truck bounces along the gravel driveway. I’ve spent lots of time at her condo in LA, but this is the first time I’m visiting her Tennessee oasis.

  “That’s a pretty name,” I murmur.

  Her husband, Darryl, glances back at me in the rearview mirror and grins. “Named her that because my Bonnie has the prettiest holler I’ve ever heard.” Then he puts his finger in his ear and gives it a shake. “And let me tell you, I’ve heard it… a lot.”

  “Oh, hush,” Bonnie says, waving him off. “This is what I’ve had to put up with for twenty-five years, Bird.”

  “The best years of your life,” he teases.

  She nods. “Probably right there.”

  Bonnie and Darryl picked me up at the airport, swooping in like they were rescuing a damsel in distress. Darryl wouldn’t let me carry any of my own bags, and Bonnie handed me a pack of throat lozenges and a thermos of tea as soon as she saw me. Now I’m squeezed in the back of the extended cab, my luggage thrown in the truck bed, with the wind from Darryl’s open window blowing across my face and whipping my hair around. I’ve heard a lot about their farm, but I’ve never seen pictures and I am certainly impressed by what I see. There is so much land. We aren’t that far from Nashville, but I feel like I’m worlds away.

  “Down that path are the horses,” Bonnie says, pointing. “We can ride a little later if you’re up for it. Or tomorrow.”

  I shrug.

  “And over that way is the barn for the milk cows and chickens.”

  “Fresh eggs in the morning, Bird,” Darryl says. Then he leans over his steering wheel and slams on the brakes before yelling out his window, “Hah! Get on, Wilbur! Hah! Hah!” I’ve been like a zombie this whole ride, my forehead pressed against my window as I zone out, but now I lean forward and see a cute pink pig mosey out of the driveway and into the yard. “And if that dad-blamed pig keeps getting under my wheels, we’ll have fresh bacon, too.”

  “Looks like ‘Some Pig,’” I remark, quoting Charlotte’s Web.

  Bonnie laughs out loud, and even Darryl allows a small smile. “Yeah, he’s some pig all right.”

  When we pull up to the house, it’s exactly what I expected, if a little larger. It is a white two-story farmhouse with a gorgeous wraparound front porch and the quintessential swing. There are no fancy columns or anything, but it’s grand in that it’s nestled between giant trees that must be ten times as old as me. It’s picturesque, classically beautiful, and the perfect place to hide from the world.

  “Home at last,” Bonnie says, hefting herself out of the truck. “Here, Bird, grab my hand and don’t miss this step.”

  I climb out of the F-150 and stretch. Arms in the air, chest to the sky, I feel my hair fall down my back as I twist and breathe deep. Then I start coughing, and my head explodes in pain. Bonnie leads me to the front door. I feel like a weak, fragile old woman, but as the sun beats down on me, on the autumn-speckled leaves of the trees all around us, and on the small pond I see way on past the house, I think I’d much rather be miserable here than anywhere else.

  “Bird?” Bonnie says softly.

  I open my eyes and see her perched on the side of my bed, sunlight streaming in through the lace curtains. She passes me a cup of water, and I gulp it down. “What time is it?” I croak.

  “About ten,” she says. “You’ve been sleeping for a while now.”

  I push myself up to a sitting position and pile a bunch of pillows behind me. “Did you feed me chicken noodle soup in the middle of the night?” I ask, wondering if that was a dream.

  “I did,” she said. “You hadn’t had lunch and you slept through dinner, so I wanted to make sure you had something in your belly.”

  “Wow,” I say, pushing s
tringy, wet hair off my head. “I think my fever broke. I feel better.”

  “You look better,” she says. “You’ve been here less than twenty-four hours, but you’ve slept for about nineteen.”

  I grin at her. “You know my mom would’ve called nine-one-one by now.”

  “Well, mommas are supposed to be a little crazy when it comes to their babies,” she says. “You feel like taking a shower?”

  “I do,” I say, astounded. “Yesterday I felt like fresh roadkill, but today I feel like eighty bucks.”

  “Only eighty?” Bonnie says with a grin.

  “Still got a sore throat and a little congestion, but no more body aches. And oh! My head. This is the first day I haven’t had a headache since—” I feel my face fall, remembering the rodeo incident… and then the Rolling Stone article… and the fights with Stylan and Adam… and how angry Dan was when I left the tour, forcing him to cancel a week of shows—

  “Let’s tackle those other headaches one at a time,” Bonnie says. She stands up, turns off the humidifier, and brings me a couple of towels. “In the meantime, take a hot shower, and I’ll go make you some breakfast. If I don’t have you feeling like a hundred bucks by the time you go back to Nashville, then I haven’t done my job.”

  “I can’t believe this is your first time riding a horse,” Bonnie says as we ride a pair of her Tennessee Walkers away from the stables and across her land. It’s been a relaxing couple of days around the house, not doing much besides watching TV and exchanging short, tense texts with Adam, but my caregiver demanded that I have fresh air and talked me into coming along on a riding tour of her farm. Tomorrow I leave for a couple of days at my Nashville home, so it’s now or never.

  “You’re a natural, Bird!” Bonnie says encouragingly, although anyone with two eyes can see that I’m not.

  “I don’t think I’m actually riding him,” I say, gripping the reins firmly, my legs squeezed tight over the bulging tummy of my horse. “I’m pretty sure he’s in charge.”

  Bonnie chuckles. “Chico’s a gentle giant. He’s too fat and lazy to run off with you, so he’s a good starter horse. It’s Blackjack I have to keep my eyes on.” She leans forward and pats his neck, her horse’s impressive muscles as defined as an Olympic athlete’s. “He’s the high-spirited one.”

  “Why are they called Tennessee Walkers?” I ask.

  “Let me show you,” she says mischievously.

  We were going at an okay pace, a nice slow walk, but all it takes is Bonnie tsking twice for our horses to crank things up a notch, which completely throws me off guard.

  “Whoa!” I cry, instinctively clutching the reins tightly to my belly. Chico stops dead in his tracks, and I nearly dive over his head. Then I scream.

  Bonnie looks over her shoulder and laughs, bringing her horse quickly around to where Chico and I have stopped still. “Can’t go saying things like ‘whoa,’ unless you really mean it,” she says, as if she’s telling me a secret she doesn’t want our animals to hear. “Good boy,” she coos to Chico, leaning over and running her hands through his brown mane. “Good boy.”

  “Oh yeah, really good boy,” I say sarcastically. “You almost killed me, so fantastic.”

  Bonnie arches an eyebrow and says, “Bird, you’re in charge here. You gave him a command and he listened. If you didn’t mean what you said, you shouldn’t have said it. You understand?”

  I nod, feeling properly scolded. Her words strike a chord. She might be talking about my horse, but all I can think about right now is the tour and Adam, Stella, and Dylan.

  “All right now,” she says, turning her horse around. “We’re going to let them pace, then work them into a flat walk, and then a run-walk. The run-walk is what makes these guys special. A Tennessee Walker has the prettiest gait. They can pick up some good speed without making you feel like you’re going too fast.”

  I take a big breath and double-check that I’m in the saddle the way Bonnie showed me at the barn: feet in the stirrups, hands on the reins. “I felt like we were going pretty fast.”

  “Maybe eight or ten miles an hour.”

  “On. A. Beast,” I remind her with a grin.

  She chuckles. “Here we go,” she says, and tsks again.

  Later that night, using the flashlight on my iPhone, I make my way gingerly down the gorgeous wooden staircase toward the kitchen. I never thought I’d say this, but I think my body has actually gotten too much sleep. When I first got here, I was so flu ridden and exhausted that I shut my brain off and just gave in to its need for rest. But now that I’m feeling better, all I can think about is how royally I’ve screwed up lately and how impossible it seems to fix. I’ve tossed and turned ever since we all said good night, and at this point, I’m tired of fighting it. Plus, I’ve got my appetite back.

  I go straight for the fridge, knowing Bonnie put the leftover cobbler in there somewhere.

  “Well, I figured it was a raccoon or a prowler, but I’m glad it’s just you.”

  I scream as the lights are flipped on. “Bonnie!”

  “Sorry!” she says, laughing. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I was out on the porch swing and wanted to make myself known so I wouldn’t scare whoever was in here.”

  “Too late,” I say, fanning myself dramatically.

  She laughs harder, a sweet melodic laugh that’s almost like song. “Well, I reckon so. Here, take a seat. I was just about to heat up a piece of cobbler.”

  “Really?” I say, stepping aside. “I just happen to be in the market for a piece myself.”

  “Is that so?” She pats the bar top, indicating I sit, as she gets out the cobbler, a tub of ice cream, and two bowls. “What are you doing up anyway, missy? This is supposed to be your hideaway, R-and-R stay before you get back on tour.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Any particular reason for that?”

  I sigh. “It’s been so nice today, riding over the farm, skipping rocks on the pond, and just being away from it all. Even listening to Darryl’s take on how ESPN has no respect for the SEC was mind-numbing enough to be relaxing,” I say with a wry smile. Bonnie laughs. “But I don’t know. I never would’ve dreamed my life would be filled with this much drama.”

  “Is it that Kayelee girl again?” she asks.

  “Well, she’s not helping,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But it’s typical Kayelee Ford. She retweeted all the Rolling Stone stuff. She posted a pic of Adam playing in her band a couple of years ago at her debut release party, with the hashtags belikeme and shineourlighttour. And now she’s doing this big free concert at the same rodeo where I got that bad press. And I know it shouldn’t, but it eats at me a little.”

  “Hmmm,” Bonnie murmurs.

  I look over at my reflection in the French doors and realize my hair is wild, frizzy and sticking out every which way. I try to smooth it down and finally just take the ponytail holder from my wrist and pull it up in a loose bun on top of my head. It makes me think that’s kind of how my life is, like I think I look one way but the world sees me in another. I think about how easy today was and how different my life would be if I’d never been discovered in the first place. Nobody cared about anything I did a few years ago. Now it’s like every step I take is in the wrong direction.

  “At the end of the day,” I admit as I swallow a lump in my throat, “I guess I just feel like I’m letting everyone down.”

  Bonnie grabs two spoons and brings over our midnight snack.

  “In what way do you feel like you’re letting everyone down exactly?” she asks.

  I shrug. “I guess it’s like, I don’t know, maybe I’m living a lie.” I glance over at her, and she raises one eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. I take a bite and think about what I want to say as I chew. “Like my fans and my family and my friends—well, everybody—they all think I’m this charming, easygoing, sweet, perfect role model when in reality, sometimes I just want to cuss or spit my gum on the ground or flip off the paparazzi.
Sometimes I want to scream at reporters and tell everybody to mind their own business and get a life instead of constantly commenting on the way I live mine.”

  Bonnie nods as she eats.

  “And yes, the clothes are amazing, but I don’t love being constantly dolled up and paraded around. My shows are exhausting, so on my days off, I want to wear sweats and go a day without showering and watch a marathon of The Voice, which I can’t say in interviews because then the American Idol people would get mad. It’s all so bananas!”

  I start to take another bite, but my mind is racing now. “But no, I can’t say anything off script because my team is carefully curating my aura, my ever-important image, and God forbid I stray from the perfect Bird Barrett that my fans—no, my fans’ parents—want me to be.”

  I glance over at Bonnie, whose blue eyes are bright and crow’s-feet are deep. “Feel better?” she asks.

  I take a big bite of peach cobbler and grin. “Actually, I do.”

  “Oh, Bird, they all know you’re not perfect,” she says. “You’re human. You can’t be charming or sweet every minute of the day, because you’re a human being. Sometimes people forget that about celebrities, but we’re real people. They think we’re real when we’re putting on a show, and they think we’re fake when we do something real.”

  “Yes!”

  “No one, in reality, is the person they project, even and especially celebrities. But take the average Joe, too,” she says. “Everybody’s on Facebook writing things like, ‘Little Johnny ate all his organic vegetables!’ so they rack up all those likes and comments and such, but they aren’t posting, ‘Little Johnny still sleeps in my bed. And he’s nine!’”

  “True,” I say with a laugh.

  “Nobody’s putting it all out there, Bird.”

  “Yeah, but it’s one thing for my fans to not know the real me, but now I’m not even getting along with my family or closest friends. I have to be so many different versions of myself: boss, friend, sister, girlfriend. And when those things conflict, it all blows up in my face. Or rather, I seem to blow up, and it’s not pretty.”