“Good, good,” Adam says awkwardly.
“Are you loving this after party?” she shouts, sliding one hand over his chest and tipping back a mixed drink with the other. The music is loud, but she’s clearly not aware of how much louder she is… or of the average personal space bubble.
“Yeah.” He nods, looking around. “It’s a lot of fun.”
“So, Bird, what’ve you been up to since I saw you last?” Jason asks, realizing as I do that we are being completely iced out of their conversation.
“Still on tour,” I say, turning my back to Kayelee. “My label added more dates, so it looks like I’ll be playing in Europe in May.”
“That’s spectacular,” he says. “You have to text me for suggestions. Jason Samuels knows Europe.”
“Not as well as Colton Holley knows Europe,” Colton Holley himself says, slinging an arm around Jason’s shoulders. I look around, wondering how and why all these people just keep popping up out of nowhere. It’s like I’m in some kind of weird horror movie. “Bird Barrett, you vixen. It’s always a pleasure to see you,” Colton says, his eyes shining as he grabs my hand and brings it to his lips. “You are as ravishing as ever.”
“Hello, Colton,” I say politely. I glance over my shoulder at Adam, who looks miserable as Kayelee blabs on and on about the direction of her next album, repeating herself a lot and having trouble keeping her balance. I don’t even think she realizes that she’s backed into me twice, because knowing Kayelee, she would revel in it much more if it were on purpose.
“Bird and I once had a very romantic evening in Las Vegas,” Colton tells Jason now, his voice suggestive and his eyes full of mischief.
Jason looks over at me, astonished. “Really?”
“Unfortunately,” Colton continues with a pout, “with Vegas being the cruel wench that she is, I did not get lucky.”
“Oh, ‘unfortunately’?” Kayelee repeats, spinning around and staring daggers into Colton’s face as she stumbles between us. “Well, ‘unfortunately,’ I just spilled my drink.” And taking everyone off guard, she slings her cocktail right into his face, splashing some on Jason and causing everyone nearby to gasp and stare.
“Bird, that’s our cue,” Adam says softly, tugging at my elbow. I don’t even say good-bye to Jason. Instead, I let Adam lead me right out of that drama and we don’t look back.
“That was insane!” I say once we’ve put some good distance between us.
“She’s completely blitzed,” Adam says, shaking his head. “She’s got so much talent, but she’s such a mess.”
“You still ready to go?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Definitely.”
We weave a path through the crowd toward the front entrance, where people are bottlenecking at the doors. I’d rather wait out the crowd than push my way through, so we hang back to the side in a quiet hallway and sit on a little ledge. “Was tonight what you expected?” I ask Adam as I lay my head on his shoulder.
“It was better,” he says, kissing my head. “You won two Grammys, Bird. How sick is that? How amazing is that?”
I smile. “I’m not the same girl you met a few years ago, that’s for sure.”
“All that’s changed is the wrapping,” Adam says. “Your hair is redder, you wear nicer clothes, you go to Cinderella balls with a studly Prince Charming…”
I laugh.
“But none of that has anything to do with who you are,” he says. He takes my hand in one of his and rubs circles on the back with his thumb. I feel him tilt his face down, and then his lips are at my hairline. “You’re still the girl I fell in love with at the Station Inn,” he murmurs. “And again at the Pancake Pantry. And again last Christmas Eve. And yet again during the food fight in Chicago.”
I blink, feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me as I look up at him.
“You are still the most amazing person I’ve ever known. Money or fame or press or bad days? None of that is going to change the way I feel about you.”
He stares at me, vulnerable, those eyes with brown-and-green-and-yellow flecks and lashes that go on for days searching mine. He stares at me and it’s like I feel him looking at my bare soul, as if he knows my heart and already feels the sensation that courses through my veins, bringing my love for him to every fiber of my being.
“I love you, too, Adam.” I say it with strength, with power, so he’ll know it’s not just a return-the-volley reply, but a truth that is as much a part of Bird Barrett as my blue eyes and beating heart.
When he kisses me, I feel my body go to jelly. Movie stars and rock stars buzz around us, but we are swept up in another realm, a different moment in time where I didn’t win two Grammys and he isn’t about to release his first album. We aren’t two celebrities, we’re just two people in love.
Adam pulls away and looks at me with a full smile. “You know I’m going to write a song about this,” he says.
I feel my own smile rival his. “Not if I write one first.”
“Hey, lovebirds,” Kayelee sneers behind us. Reluctantly, I turn around. Her makeup is smeared, it looks like she’s been crying, and she has ripped her couture gown. “Get a room. And not this room. Like a real—”
Kayelee pauses, looking like she might vomit.
“Are you all right?” I ask. “You look like you might be sick.”
“You make me sick!” she shouts.
A few people in the hallway turn around, and the last thing I want is an awards show after party video of us going viral, so I stand up and softly suggest, “Hey, Kayelee, let’s go into the bathroom. There’s one down this way with no lines. Maybe splash some cool water on your face?”
“How ’bout instead you go straight to—”
And then she slaps her hand over her mouth. She heaves but doesn’t puke.
“Come on,” I say, getting behind her and pushing her toward the bathroom. Adam grabs one of her arms and, amazingly, she doesn’t fight us. “Okay, in here,” I say as she dives into the door at the end of the hall. It’s not long before we hear her losing it and a partygoer flees the restroom with a look of disgust on her face. “Now this is a party!” I joke with Adam. “To think we almost left.”
“Whoa,” he says, looking a little pale. He has to step away when he hears Kayelee gagging again.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just—weak stomach.”
I look down the corridor and see a few people snickering, the gossip mill turning already, but nobody comes to Kayelee’s aid. “Where are her people?” I ask. Adam shrugs.
I start to pace, not knowing what to do. I don’t owe Kayelee Ford anything, but I don’t think it’s right to leave her in there by herself, either.
“Are you okay?” Adam asks, seeing the inner turmoil all over my face.
I pick at an already chipped nail and think it through. “I am okay because I have you. And Stella and my family and Dan, Troy, and Anita—and thank God for Bonnie. I have a lot of people, Adam. But Kayelee? I don’t think she has anybody. Not really.”
“Yeah.”
I walk to the end of the hallway and scan the crowd, hoping to catch sight of Randall or Colton or Devyn or somebody. “Who’d she even come with?” I ask Adam as I walk back toward the bathrooms.
He shrugs again.
I sigh mightily, knowing what I have to do. “I’m going to check on her.”
Adam’s eyebrows nearly jump off his face. “Really?”
I nod and walk toward the bathroom, but before I can open the door Adam is at my side. “See? Different on the outside, but the same sweet Bird on the inside.”
I smile. “All right, Romeo. Just go find somebody that’ll take her home.”
“Kayelee?”
I push open the handicapped stall and see my arch nemesis, Kayelee Ford, passed out in her own puke on a public restroom floor. I’m pretty sure I need to establish she’s breathing and wake her up, but I’m also pretty sure I don’t want her to ruin my cocktail dress. I
t’s Valentino, and it’s Valentine’s weekend, and of the three gowns I’ve worn tonight, it’s the only one I don’t have to give back. This is not how I imagined my night at the Grammys.
“Ugh,” she groans.
Good. She’s alive.
I step into the stall with her, and the stench is so disgusting that I worry I might get sick, too. I hold my breath and flush the vomit down, then I wipe the seat with toilet paper and flush that as well. I walk over to the sink to get some paper towels and catch my reflection in the mirror. I pause for a moment.
“Okay, Bird,” I say, giving myself a pep talk. “This is your moment. You’ve made some big mistakes yourself, right? You wanted people to forgive you, right? So practice what you preach. Do it. Now or never. Let’s go.”
I grab a bunch of paper towels and run water over them, then head back to the situation at hand. “Kayelee?” I say softly, wiping her cheek and chin. I formulate a plan as I clean her up. “Okay, you know what? First, let’s take off these Jimmy Choos. I couldn’t even walk in these sober. And we have to clean off your dress, okay? It’s disgusting. Kayelee? Can you hear me?”
She groans again but lets me pull her up to a sitting position and then starts mumbling some crazy stuff about dancing with dinosaur-sized unicorns. I remove a rubber band from one of my little braids and oh-so-carefully pull back Kayelee’s hair to get it off her face and neck. I ask her to tell me more about the giant unicorns, partly to keep her awake and partly so she won’t realize it’s me helping her. I have a feeling that the minute she sobers up a little, I’m the last person she’ll want seeing her like this.
Once she’s clean, I wash my hands with the meticulous devotion of a neurosurgeon.
I grab a few more wet paper towels and hold them to her forehead as she dozes, dabbing her hairline and wiping away some of the makeup smeared all over her cheeks and around her eyes. I don’t know what else to do.
Suddenly, her eyes flutter open, and I am face-to-face with a confused and very pathetic-looking Kayelee Ford. I flinch, worried she might go off on me. Instead, she slowly asks a simple question: “Why are you helping me?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have an answer. So I lead her to the sink and help her wash her hands. “Why don’t you come over and sit down?” I gently suggest as I lead her to a bench below an open window. She plops down like a puppet without a master, her limbs splayed out at ungraceful angles, her head heavy and hanging forward. “Here, lean against me,” I say, sitting next to her. She roughly tips her head onto my shoulder.
“Thank you,” she says after a minute, turning her face up to mine. “I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me, but thank you.”
I nod, not knowing what to say.
And then Kayelee starts sobbing. Not sniffling or fighting back tears, but full-on sobbing. “Kayelee,” I say, alarmed. Tears stream down her face, and her body shakes violently. I wrap my arms around her shoulders and try to hold her still, but she’s heaving and gasping for breath, a complete emotional release of anything she’s ever held inside. I’m a little freaked out, but I think about what my mom would do if she were here and I affect a soothing voice. “Kayelee,” I purr, trying to soothe her while keeping her upright as she bawls. “Kayelee, come on now. You’re okay. Adam went to get help, and you’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
She wipes her face with her bare arm and gasps for breath, trying to get control of herself. Finally, when she stops shaking, she looks at me, her eyes tortured, and says, “No, it won’t. I haven’t been okay in a long time.”
30
“THIS IS THE right thing,” Bonnie says as she parks her car at Cumberland Heights Alcohol and Drug Rehab outside Nashville.
I called her the day after the Grammys and told her all about the Kayelee drama. Later that day, TMZ leaked a terrible headline, FORD PULLS INTO REHAB, and that’s all everybody’s been talking about since. When I wanted another scandal to overshadow my own, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Taking care of Kayelee that night was scary. I wouldn’t wish her demons on my worst enemy.
The first thing Bonnie suggested I do was reach out to Kayelee, the same way Jolene Taylor did for her years ago. But I had to get back on tour, my schedule was slammed, and it wasn’t like I had Kayelee’s phone number. So a few weeks went by and I moved on, went to Europe, stopped thinking about it. Kayelee was getting help, rehab is a good thing, and none of it had anything to do with me.
But leave it to Bonnie to start blowing up my phone the minute I was back in Nashville for a special concert at the Ryman. Text after text of sage counsel like:
I thought Jolene Taylor was my worst enemy, but when I hit rock bottom, it turned out she was the only friend I had.
All she can do is tell you to go to hell, but I guarantee she thinks she’s already there.
You’re always talking about burying the hatchet and making things right. Well, there’s no Internet or press or spotlights in rehab. If there ever was a place and time, it’s here and now.
Adam-the-Saint thought it was a good idea, too, especially since Kayelee and I had “bonded” at the after party, but I quickly reminded him that she had been so drunk, she probably didn’t even remember it. Stella thought it made total sense that I didn’t want to go, but the fact that I was on the fence about it meant that I’d have regrets if I didn’t. And my folks, well, they just said they knew I’d do what was right.
So, reluctantly, I agreed to visit Kayelee in rehab if Bonnie would come with me. It took us about twenty-five minutes to get out here. It was a quiet, thoughtful ride. I’m sure Bonnie was reliving some rough memories, and I was going over in my head all the terrible outcomes that were likely to happen once Kayelee Ford saw my face.
“Don’t you think rehab is hard enough?” I ask nervously now as we walk toward the facility’s front door. “I mean, it was probably really hard to come here in the first place, and she has to know that everybody’s talking about it: the media, her fans, industry people. Then I come strolling in, and she thinks I’m all smug, and we already know she hates me, and—”
“Bird,” Bonnie interrupts as she opens the door. “All this visit does is show that we care. That at least two people on earth care.”
“I’m sure her family cares,” I say quietly as we enter.
“You never know,” she answers with a shake of the head. I think of Adam and his mother. “And remember, I had to have this visit approved with her therapist. If she didn’t want to see you, all she had to do was say no.”
“I can’t believe you’re here right now,” Kayelee says as we walk down the wide, tree-lined drive a few minutes later.
“Me neither, honestly,” I reply.
We keep our eyes focused ahead, one foot in front of the other, my hands in my coat pockets and hers in her jeans pockets. We haven’t made eye contact since she first came out to the lobby and asked me to go for a walk. Bonnie made herself comfortable in the waiting room with a magazine, and I was on my own.
“It’s really pretty out here,” I finally comment.
Kayelee looks up and breathes deeply. “Yeah. We moved to Tennessee when I was fifteen, but I feel like this is the first time I’m really seeing it. We don’t have cell phones or Internet or anything here, so all we can really do is, like, be present. Every day I take long walks on this big trail they’ve got, and I’m like, ‘When’s the last time I heard the wind blow through the trees? When’s the last time I noticed a little plant sprout through the dirt?’”
“It’s almost spring,” I say, thinking about the metaphor and how it could apply to her situation.
“Don’t even say it’s the perfect time of year for rebirth,” she warns.
I scoff, giving her my best as if expression while I secretly worry she’s telepathic.
Kayelee exhales and looks back down at her feet. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. They’re really driving that home in group therapy,” she explains.
I rack my brain fo
r something appropriate to say. Nothing comes to mind. We walk.
“I feel like I’ve been going so hard the past few years that I’ve missed real life,” she admits.
“I actually know what you mean there,” I say.
I see her nod in my peripheral vision. We keep walking slowly. The sun shines down brightly on the expansive acreage, and I can see why someone would come here for a break during a breakdown. It reminds me of my time at Bonnie’s.
“I really can’t believe that you’re here,” Kayelee says again, shaking her head.
I glance over at her, but then look away quickly.
“We’re in group sessions and individual therapy a lot during the day, and in the, um, twelve steps we have to acknowledge our wrongdoings and make amends with the people we’ve wronged. If it’s possible.” She takes a breath. We keep walking. “I knew I’d need to get to you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I had my mom deactivate my Twitter account. I’m sorry for… well, a lot.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Kayelee takes a deep breath, and then words start tumbling out of her mouth like water from a busted dam. “It was so weird when we were coming up together and everybody kept telling me that we looked alike and sounded alike, and I knew that Dan had poached you from Randall and I—” She kicks a rock from the path into the grass. “This is going to sound so stupid—” She stops walking. “I just wanted to prove to Randall and everybody that GAM didn’t get me as some kind of consolation prize. That I could be as good as you.”
I feel her staring at me, so I look over at her. “Oh.”
She starts walking again, and I match her pace. “My dad actually invested in GAM to encourage them to offer me a development deal,” she admits, embarrassed. “He’s always reminding me how much he’s sacrificed. And I don’t know if you know this, but my mom was Miss Florida, like, way back in the day, so she’s constantly on me to be her perfect, pretty girl and—” She shakes her head. “I know this is all so dumb. When I hear it, I feel so dumb. But it got to the point that I was always ‘on.’ All these people were constantly around me telling me to do this event or that, to sing this type of song when I wanted to do something different, or they were in my ear about where you were on the charts.”
The Way Back Home Page 21