The Way Back Home (14 page)

“Okay, so I don't know how to prepare you for this,” Adam says nervously. Truthfully, I think he's glad I'm here, but I can't imagine having this much anxiety about introducing anyone to either of my parents. His knuckles were tense and white on his knees the whole drive over, and his body is rigid, like he's turning to stone right in front of my eyes. As we get out of the car, he says, “Make sure you lock it.”

The apartment building looks like an old motel. The place is clearly run-down, paint chipped on the doors and a few windows boarded up. “Is this where you grew up?” I ask Adam quietly as I follow him across the parking lot.

“No,” he answers crisply.

And that's all I get.

We climb up some old metal stairs to the second floor, and he heads right for apartment number 6. Before pounding on the door, he takes a quick breath, and I watch him visibly steel himself. I wasn't worried when I asked to come along, but the guy standing in front of me is suddenly unfamiliar, and now I'm feeling pretty nervous, too.

“Mom!” he yells as he pounds on the door. “Angela, you in there?”

I hear movement, maybe a chair scraping against the floor or something, and I hear voices. Adam must, too, because he lowers his arm and takes a step back.

“It's not Roger,” I hear someone say in a very loud whisper… someone who can't judge their current volume level. “Oh hell, it's my son.” I know before she opens the door that Adam's mom has been drinking, and from the heartbreaking look of disappointment on his face, Adam knows it, too.

“Let's go,” he says, nudging me back down the hall while we hear her fiddle with the locks.

“Adam?” a woman's voice calls from a few feet behind us. “Adam, where you going?”

He stops. Takes a breath. Turns back around. “Hey, Mom,” he says, affecting a friendly demeanor that doesn't reach his eyes. “Just wanted to check on you. I thought you'd be at Aunt Lu's earlier, and I was worried when you didn't show up.”

She smacks her forehead. “Was that today? Oh hell, I completely forgot all about that.” Then she squints her eyes and takes a few shaky steps toward us. “Who's this pretty little thing you got with you?” she slurs.

But before either of us can answer, recognition registers on her face and she immediately stands up straighter. “Holy smokes, you're Bird Barrett.”

She stares at me, astonishment all over her face, and I nod. “I am.”

She hurriedly runs her hands through her hair and tucks in her wrinkled T-shirt. “It is such a pleasure to meet you. I'm a huge fan. Huge fan. You are just a superstar.”

I let her shake my hand until I worry it may fall off, then I manage to remove it from her clutch and grab Adam's arm. “Your son's something else, too. He's been an absolute godsend for my tour.”

“I didn't realize y'all were friends,” his mom says, shooting him a mean look like he should've warned her. “I figured you just let him play a few songs at your shows.”

“Oh no,” I say. “Adam has been an important part of my life for a long time.”

Her mouth opens in surprise. “A long time?”

“Yeah, way before I was famous, Adam was there.”

“Well, I'll be,” she says softly, glancing at her son accusatorially. I feel like I've said something wrong.

Adam's arm clenches in my hand, and he starts to back up. “Okay, Mom. Well, I'm glad everything's okay. Just wanted to check in.”

“Don't run off, now you're here,” she practically shouts, grabbing my arm and pulling me back toward her apartment. “I got to get you to sign something. And my friend Lacy loves your music, too. And Jeanne! Oh, Jeanne from down at number five has hair just like yours. From a bottle, but the color is close, I'm telling you, just like yours.”

I look at Adam for help, but he is clearly just as surprised as I am. She yells, “Lacy! You'll never believe who's out here. It's Bird Barrett! The real Bird Barrett from that song.
Just rise! And fly!
” she sings at the top of her lungs. Her breath is so skunked I have to turn away.

“Oh, we're flying all right,” a woman says, stepping out of unit 6 and cackling. She's holding a fifth of Jim Beam in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, it really is her.” But instead of introducing herself, she starts pounding on doors, shouting, “Bird Barrett is here! Y'all ain't gonna believe it!”

“Adam,” I say in a low, worried voice. People from the courtyard below look up at the commotion, and I suddenly wish I'd thought to bring a bodyguard.

“Mom, let go of her arm,” Adam says, stepping between us.

“Well, I just want her to come sign a few things for me,” his mom snaps. “Don't want Miss Bird to go
fly
away now.” She laughs hysterically at her own pun—wheezing, her voice rough like sandpaper—and waves us inside her dark apartment. We only step far enough inside the front door that I can get out of sight from her neighbors, but it's so dank and dirty that I can't believe someone actually lives here.

“Here's my CD from your first album,” she says, frantically looking around for a marker. She runs out to the hall and shouts, “Lacy! Bring a marker!” Then back inside she says, “And maybe you could sign a T-shirt for me. This one I'm wearing is fine. And what else, what else… a coffee mug maybe or this Doritos bag… you could sign anything really.”

The kitchen table is small and covered with packs of cigarettes, a couple of ashtrays, and at least five empty whiskey bottles. There are clothes strewn around the apartment, and the furniture looks like generic motel pieces, like the place was rented out this way. When she brings me a stack of completely random things to sign and a ballpoint pen, it hits me that she's going to sell it all—that she wants my signature to pay for the next round.

“Mom, we have to go,” Adam says, taking the pen from her and putting it on the table. “Bird's not feeling well, and I need to get her home.”

“Adam, something. Anything. She can sign just this piece of paper even, or maybe you can take a picture of us with your phone. Would that be all right?” she asks, throwing her arm around me.

Adam hesitates, but I want desperately to get out of here. “Sure,” I say, leaning down and quickly scrawling my
BB
on her scrap piece of paper.

Then when Adam lifts his phone she wraps her arm around my waist, pinning my arms, and yells, “Cheese!” like a little kid. Once he takes a few quick shots, she calms down a little bit. “You print and get me that, okay? Print me a few.”

“Okay, Mom,” Adam says, leading me back out to the hallway, where a crowd has started to gather. “You take care. Call Aunt Lu if you need something.”

“Can't I call you?” she asks, hanging back in the doorway. Then, in an awful attempt to whisper, she says, “You said you were going to help me out with rent this month.”

“I did, Mom,” he says. “You're covered for the next three months. I sent it to the office already 'cause I knew I'd be out of town.”

“You gave
my
money to that crook downstairs?” she cries. “He'll steal it! He'll throw me out!”

“I have a receipt, Mom,” Adam says. “You're good.”

“I'm not good!” she shouts. “I need that money! I need it! And you gave it away?” At this point a few people in the now-crowded outdoor hallway have asked for a picture or an autograph, and I'm smiling like a ceramic doll as they snap away, still in shock that this is how my day is ending as I sign whatever they pass me.

“I took care of your rent, Mom,” he fires back. “You're welcome.”

“Oh, I'm supposed to thank you?” she spits. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be nothing.”

“Yeah, you were my motivation all right,” he growls.

“Adam?” I say through a tight smile as I pose for a picture with Lacy's boyfriend. What he lacks in teeth he more than makes up for in facial hair, and he is way too close for comfort.

Adam exhales loudly. “We have to go,” he says as he backs away and throws one arm around my shoulders. He parts the crowd with the other. “I'm sorry, Mom.”

“
You're
sorry?” I whisper, incredulous. “Sorry for paying her rent?”

“Not now, Bird,” he scolds, pushing people to the side as we work our way to the stairs. By the time we're down to the parking lot, there is a little group of curious onlookers gathered near my car, too. The people upstairs wave from the balcony, and someone starts up an off-key, pub-style chorus of “Shine Our Light” that just makes me sad.

Once I'm behind the wheel, I lock my door and reach over to open Adam's. Out his window I see a toddler in a diaper standing in one of the first-floor doorways. It breaks my heart. It literally brings tears to my eyes.

“This is how you grew up?” I ask gently once we are safely out of the parking lot and back on the main road.

“It was a little better than that,” he says. We are quiet for a few blocks, both of us lighter with each stop sign we put between his mom's place and ourselves. “But not much,” he admits.

I look over at him, so clearly hurting but also so accustomed to a life that is unfathomable to me. I reach my right hand over and squeeze his knee, wanting to touch him and let him know that I am here—that I will take care of him—that I can be his family.

“You know, she went to college. She was a nurse. She helped a lot of people before my dad left,” he says, almost like he's defending her. He looks out his window and goes on. “But after that I guess she drank 'cause she was sad. And then she drank when she went out on dates and stuff. And then she drank on her long stretches of days off.”

“Do you ever see your dad?” I ask.

“Nah, when he left he left for good,” Adam says. “I guess that's one thing about my mom; she didn't abandon me. She might've disappeared a lot, but she always came back.”

I purse my lips together tightly, knowing what I want to say won't help:
seems like abandonment to me.

“I'm sorry you had to see that,” he says. “She's really not bad when she's sober.”

I nod, not sure what to say.

He swallows. “She's just hardly ever sober.”

Again, I'm not sure what to say. So I start to sing, softly. I want him to hear the tune of the song we just wrote together: “Broken People.” I want him to hear the chorus in his head as we drive:

“He said they'll try to knock you down, they'll break your heart in two.

But you can't let broken people break you.”

“A
RE YOU TRYING
to kill me?” I snap at Marco several days later when I run into the wings for my encore. Jordan passes me a hand towel and a bottle of water, but I feel like I could use a chair, too. The crowd is on their feet, begging for “Shine Our Light” as always, but ever since we left Nashville, the tour has been going nonstop and I'm exhausted.

“What do you mean?” he asks, eyes narrowed.

“Six shows this week?” I ask hoarsely. I guzzle some water and continue. “Six shows in seven days? That's insane.”

He matches his attitude to my own when he replies, “You were at the scheduling meetings, Bird. Remember how you wanted to ‘go hard'?
I
do.” He does a very effeminate impression of me. “‘More shows, Marco. I want to go hard.'”

I lean my head back and stare at the rigging overhead as a couple of people chuckle nearby. I do remember that. I also remember Marco telling me that by this point of the tour, most artists get into a funk and need a little downtime, although I don't really want to bring that up now. He knows he was right. The bags under my eyes ought to tell him as much.

“Okay,” I say, looking back at him. “But a, that's a horrible impression of me. And b, next time, you need to use your veto.”

He gives me a sassy grin. “I have one?”

“Bird, you ready to get back out there?” Jordan asks. The band is huddled around her podium, and when I nod, they walk back onstage to ecstatic fans.

I jump up and down in place, trying to reenergize myself. “Let's do this,” I say, exchanging my water and towel for a microphone.

“Go hard, now!” Marco shouts behind me.

I don't even turn around. I just slap my butt and take the stage to the sound of his uproarious laughter.

“Knock, knock!” Marco calls from the front of my bus later before we head out. “I come bearing gifts!”

I dry my face and reach for my moisturizer, rubbing it in as I go see what he's got. After the breakneck schedule we've been on, all I want to do is sleep for days.

“Yes! Thanks, buddy,” Dylan says, taking the box of pizza from Marco's hands. “I'm starving.”

“You're always starving,” Stella and I say at the same time, but my voice comes out raspy. I hope I'm not getting sick. I
cannot
get sick right now.

“And a couple of things for just you, Bird,” he says. “This packet from Anita. She FedExed it over today and said you should review it.”

I roll my eyes. “Probably talking points for the radio interviews in Texas.”

“
And
a little something from me,” he says, holding out a small white envelope. I take it hesitantly and look at him with a skeptical expression. “What?” he asks. “Can't a guy do something nice for his favorite artist?”

I tear open the envelope and gasp when I pull out the printed piece of paper inside. “A full spa treatment at the hotel?”

“Three o'clock,” he says. “I think your parents land in Fort Worth around noon, and your schedule is open the rest of the night, so relax. You've got another big week after this.”

I groan. “Don't remind me.”

He grins but also looks at me with real concern. “Listen, take it easy. Your schedule is brutal, so make time for rest. It's important.”

“Thank you, Marco,” I say.

He squeezes my arm. “You work hard. You deserve a break.”

I must really be exhausted because all of a sudden I feel like I could cry. I clutch my T-shirt at my chest and say, “Thank you so much. Really.”

“It's a spa package, not a Grammy,” Dylan teases through a mouthful of pizza.

But it's so much more than just getting a massage. Marco exits the bus and I walk back to my room, staring at the certificate. In the “for” line it says:

GOING HARD. BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS DO.

And it's not that I feel like I deserve a medal or anything—I mean, it's my tour; I
should
be giving one hundred percent every day—but it's nice that someone noticed.

“Bird,” my dad whispers, stirring me from my sleep.

After the tour pulled into Fort Worth, I spent the afternoon at the hotel spa getting the most heavenly facial, a luxurious pedicure, and then an absolute dream of a massage. Literally, I fell asleep and dreamed right through the massage. I don't think I've had that much alone time since the tour started, and it hit me that constantly being around people is almost as draining as performing for them. It was so blissful to be alone and just
be
.

After my afternoon of pampering, I went upstairs to shower and get ready for dinner but must have fallen asleep. “I hate to wake you,” my dad says now, “but I'm assuming you'd want me to get you up in time for dinner, right?”

“Huh?” I ask, looking over at the hotel clock. I napped for forty-five minutes, but rather than feeling refreshed, I feel like the victim of a cruel joke. “When's the reservation?”

“Seven thirty,” he says.

“Mmmmm.” I stretch and consider if I can squeeze in fifteen more minutes.

“Anita called me,” he goes on. “Said she thought she'd have heard from you by now.”

“About what?” I ask groggily.

“She said she sent you the images from your
Rolling Stone
photo shoot and wanted to know what you thought.”

“What?” I'm up in a flash, stumbling over to my bag for the manila envelope Marco gave me last night. “I thought these were notes for my radio interviews in the morning.”

“Oh, she mentioned that, too, but I think she said she e-mailed those.”

I sit back on the bed beside my dad and carefully peel open the top flap. When I pull out the thick, slick paper inside and see the contact sheet, I feel shaky. I knew this session was unlike any I'd done before, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off. As I peruse the thumbnails, scanning the different poses and outfits, I hardly recognize myself.

“May I?” my dad asks as I turn over the contact sheet and stare at an 8 x 10 with a Post-it from Anita.

“Yeah, sure,” I say absentmindedly.

“I made the cover,” I whisper.

“What?”

I look up at my dad, my eyes wide. “This is a cover mock-up. I made the cover of
Rolling Stone
magazine.”

“Oh, Bird, honey, that's fantastic!” he says, his joy mirroring my own.

We hear the hotel door slam and my dad shouts, “Aileen, that you?”

“We're back!” my mom shouts.

“You have to get in here and see this,” he says, taking the contact sheet into the living room portion of the suite. “Bird just got her
Rolling Stone
pictures. She's going to be on the cover!”

“You are going to be on the cover of
Rolling Stone
magazine?” Stella screams, racing into our bedroom. She jumps on the bed and tackles me with a giant hug. “Oh my God, that's so freaking crazy awesome amazing, I can't!”

I'm laughing and also fighting back tears. The shock, the honor, it's just overwhelming. I've been on covers before, but to be on the front of
Rolling Stone
? I can hardly breathe.

“Let me see those pictures,” my mom says, snatching the stack off the bed before I've even gotten a good look.

“I just texted Dylan,” Stella says. “They're on their way over. This is so exciting!”

As my mom goes through the pictures, she passes them to my dad, who passes them to me. Stella is right over my shoulder, checking out each image with narrowed eyes. When the guys come in, she passes them on to Dylan and then Adam.

“Who is that?” Dylan asks. He's not being mean. If I hadn't been at the shoot myself, I wouldn't recognize me right away, either. I've never seen myself look so
editorial
. They used extremely dramatic makeup, dark intense eyes, and metallic glitter powder over my face. My normally flowing red waves were pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and the way the light caught my face, it's as if there are curves and contours I've never seen before. And I knew the wardrobe was edgy—I mean, I wore it after all—but somehow in the photographs I look fierce, sexy even, in a way that I couldn't see in the mirror.

Stella mumbles as she studies the images, already talking to herself about which is her favorite, which styling choices she likes—and which she doesn't—as well as what each picture says.

“I'll tell you what they say.” My mom takes off her glasses and looks up at me, disappointment all over her face. “They say, ‘I am a pretty girl who looks ten years older in these pictures than she ought to.'”

“Mom!”

“I mean it, Bird,” she says. She picks up the cover image. “People are going to be walking through the grocery aisles and seeing this. You think they're going to buy it for their daughters?”

“I doubt
Rolling Stone
is sold in the express lane of the Piggly Wiggly, Mom,” Dylan says. “What do you think, Adam?”

He shrugs. “She got the cover. I think it's cool.”

“I didn't say it wasn't cool,” my mom says, clearly flustered. “I just think they could've made her look a little more like herself. She's a beautiful girl. Why slather all this makeup on her?”

“And would it have killed them to put some clothes on you?” My dad finally speaks up, standing and unable to meet my gaze.

“Dad, it's a bandage dress,” I say. “I'm wearing clothes.”

“A black-and-gray dress, leather or something a biker would wear, and so tight it looks like you were sewn into it.” He gestures around his chest, and while his dramatics are pretty embarrassing, even I have to admit I am surprised to see cleavage. “I knew better than to miss that shoot,” he grumbles. “I knew it.”

“Dad, the stylists had a specific vision,” I say, defending the images. They don't look at all how I'd expected, either, but I do like them. I think I do really like them.

I pick one up, looking closely at my stare, at how defiant it feels. I see the Bird my mom can't, the one who's headlining a national tour and who's in charge of her own career at eighteen, the one who is tired of everyone else telling her who she is.

A small smile settles onto my lips. It's surreal to hold these images in my hands, pictures that represent an enormous accomplishment in any musician's career. I still don't know what Jase will write, and I'm a little uneasy about the kind of story that will accompany photos like these, but I made the cover of
Rolling Stone
magazine.

My dad shakes his head. “I need to play a stronger role here,” he says to himself.

I roll my eyes at Dylan, who makes a face that lets me know he has my back.

“Congratulations on the cover, Bird. You deserve it,” my mom finally says, walking around the bed. “I just don't like seeing my baby this grown-up.” She kisses me on the forehead and says, “Judd? Take a walk?”