Chapter 2
Birdie Pollock looked around the cabin in which she spent the last five days. It looked a lot better than it had when she arrived, when there had been dusty cobwebs everywhere, broken boards, and debris on the floor.
It didn’t exactly look like a home, yet. But she was working on it.
Which was a really nice way to keep her mind off the pressures of her job. She used to love to sing, but now, singing was just as much of a job to her as if she’d become an accountant like her parents wanted her to.
She still felt tired, exhausted, with the bone-deep exhaustion that felt like sleep couldn’t even touch. But with enough rest and relaxation, she was confident she could overcome it and be ready to go back to work by October.
The sound of a sports car came through the screen door, and she figured that either the neighbors had gotten a new car, or her gram had arrived.
She hadn’t counted on having neighbors. The cabin beside hers had not been shown in any of the pictures that she’d seen.
Regardless, they had left her alone, and as far as she knew, they just thought she was an ordinary citizen. Her haircut and color change had done the trick.
Of course, her roots would soon be growing out, and she would have to make the decision as to whether or not she was going to dye it again or take a chance of someone recognizing her .
She also was about ready to make a grocery run, and she needed to figure out whether she was going to change her name or continue to use Birdie. It wasn’t exactly a common name, but she knew several people who had it as a nickname.
Drying her hands off on a tea towel, she carefully set it over the handle of the oven, which, now that her grandma was here, would most certainly be in use, and stepped to the screen door.
Her gram hadn’t changed a bit. The car was parked crooked and at least five feet away from the end of the parking space.
She probably shouldn’t have rented a Ferrari for her, but...she couldn’t resist the temptation. She smiled, knowing that was the exact reason why she’d done it—it would be amusing. Both for Gram and for herself.
As her gram got out of the car and stood looking around at the cottage, Birdie pushed the screen door open and stepped out on the porch, careful not to allow it to slam behind her. How many times growing up had she heard her grandma say, “Birdie, don’t let that screen door slam!”
She’d even been made to come back and close it quietly. Now, thanks to her gram, it was habit to shut the door quietly every time.
“Birdie! You didn’t tell me you had neighbors. It’s a good thing I brought my pie fixins.”
She grinned, shaking her head. She’d been brought up in a small town in Arkansas with her dad and her gram. Her mom had died shortly after childbirth from a ruptured aneurysm, and in order to have his mom watch her, her dad had moved back in with his parents.
His dad passed away before she had any cognizant memories of him, but her gram colored her childhood with beautiful, happy, homelike memories. Pies were just one of the many things that she remembered her gram pulling out of the oven that smelled divine and made their house a home. Good food along with copious amounts of love and goodwill had made it so that most of the time she didn’t remember she didn’t have a mother. Her gram was a positive thinker before it became popular. In fact, it wouldn’t shock Birdie to find out she penned the word.
“I’m sorry.” Her gram was digging in the back for things to carry in, and Birdie stepped off the porch, walking to the car to give her a hand .
Her gram was not afraid to delegate, and stood up, unsurprised to see her granddaughter standing in front of her, and loaded her down with bags of flour, sugar, a bucket of blueberries she probably picked on her way here, pie plates, and a bag of ingredients that probably came from whatever box store Gram had passed. She certainly wouldn’t pay full price at a regular grocery store.
“My goodness, you look white as a ghost, and you’ve lost weight since I’ve seen you last.” Her gram straightened again, wrapping her arms around her, bags dangling from her hands as she encompassed Birdie and all the things that she’d given her to carry. “I’m here now, so I can get started taking care of you.”
“You know, Gram. I am an adult.”
“I know. And you’ve been an adult for ten or fifteen years now, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still take care of you.”
She had no idea where her gram got her energy. It seemed like there were boundless amounts that just flowed from her. Anytime there was a need, her gram was the first to jump in to help. She had no idea what her small Arkansas town was going to do without her for several months.
But this town, what was the name? Raspberry Ridge. That was it. She had a friend here, Olive, who had extolled its virtues—quiet, small, and beautiful. They were all true. Anyway, this town would definitely benefit from having her gram around, as would her neighbors.
“So, once we get settled, you’re going to have to introduce me to your neighbors. Let me make a pie first, so I can take it over—”
“I actually haven’t met the neighbors yet,” she said as they climbed the stairs. She happened to notice that the neighbors were both out on their porch, staring at the newcomers. Until her gram had waved excitedly, the way one might wave if one was starving in the desert dying of thirst and happened to see a freight train coming through.
Birdie closed her eyes. So many times during her childhood, her grandma had embarrassed her by her over-friendliness toward anyone, friends, family, coworkers, acquaintances, and complete strangers. Her grandma never met someone she didn’t consider an immediate friend.
Birdie wasn’t sure how she did it, but she had gone from enjoying it as a child, to being embarrassed by it as a teen, to admiring and appreciating it as an adult. Except, right now. She didn’ t really want visitors.
“Gram. I’m not really up to that right now. I’m here because I need to get away from everyone, not make new best friends.”
“Of course we’re not going to make best friends, honey, but friends are friends, and you can never have too many,”
She admired her gram, but she did disagree about that. She couldn’t keep track of too many friends. She preferred to have just three or four close friends and really dig deep, being the very best friend that she could and knowing that they would be there for her no matter what.
Her gram was the exact opposite, a lot of surface friends, and while Gram was always up for a deep discussion and a piece of pie, she had way too many friends to be able to do that with the time and depth Birdie would prefer.
She sometimes felt like Gram brushed her off, only giving her the perfunctory amount of time before running off to throw a piece of pie and some advice at someone else.
She knew that wasn’t true and that Gram did her best. Possibly it had taken her until the last few years to realize that it was just Gram’s personality and not a character flaw on either her part or her gram’s. They had different philosophies, different personalities, and different ways they viewed the world and lived in it. She liked to go quiet and deep. Gram liked to be loud and spread out. Both ways were okay. Because God had designed them both.
Some people said introvert and extrovert, which probably summed it up just as well.
Funny that a world-famous singer could be such a huge introvert. But that was probably why she was struggling so hard with her fame. She’d had a more demanding concert schedule this year than she had in the previous ten, and while it had been extremely profitable, it had almost broken her.
“You have a little bit of time, because it’s gonna take me a bit to bake a pie. Did you get the place cleaned up?” Gram asked as Birdie opened the door to hold it for her gram while she walked in. It was kind of hard to balance all of the things in her arms, but she used her foot to push it open and then caught it with her hip, balancing the top pie plate with her chin.
“I’ve done what I could. I haven’t wanted to go to town.”
“Why ever not, child? It’s obvious this place needs some curtains, some Windex, and paper towels? ”
Paper towels were a luxury that she hadn’t used when she was a child, but her grandma got addicted to them when she decided that they were biodegradable and hence good for the environment.
“No. I didn’t bring paper towels, I...thought the cabin was going to be in a little better shape.”
The problem was she was used to the luxury accommodations she normally had on tour. Her booking agent had not booked this place. She had done it herself. She actually had her booking agent book her a place in Switzerland, which was where the world was supposed to think she was.
She hadn’t checked any social media sites to see if there were any reports of any Birdie sightings in Switzerland or Europe.
“That’s okay. I’m here now, and you can just rest until your little soul is happy. I’ll have this place whipped up into shape in no time. Except... I am a terrible painter, and those walls need to be painted bad.” Her gram stood for a second, hand on her chin looking at the walls. They were bare wood and almost looked like they’d been made from driftwood. Perhaps they had. Regardless, they were a nasty brownish gray color, which was natural and perhaps even pleasing to some folks, but her gram liked blocks of color.
“Can we paint them pink and white? I think it would make it feel brighter in here if the colors on the walls weren’t so dark.”
“Or a nice creamy yellow would be cheerful. Like lemons.”
Lemons were better than apples. She couldn’t stand red. The entire house had been red when she had been a kid, and she had liked it okay, but it felt like an angry color, like blood and all of that. “Maybe a nice pleasing purple?” she asked, knowing that her gram absolutely hated purple.
“What about turquoise? Kind of goes with the seashore theme.”
“Can we do accents in turquoise?”
And then she wondered why in the world she was even arguing about this. She didn’t care what color Gram painted the cabin, or if she even painted it at all. She just knew that Gram would keep it clean, and she would definitely keep food on the table, which...might be a bit of a problem since her appetite still had not come back. She expected after five days that she would be mostly better, more energy, her thinking more clear with an appetite, but not yet .
“All right. Well, I’ll get started with the list, and then I’m gonna send you to town with it, and after that, you can sleep the rest of the day.” She held her hand up, apparently just in case Birdie was going to revert to her teenage years in protest. “And I will get started whipping this place into shape. I’m sure you’ve done a great job, but a lot of improvements remain to be made,” she said, looking over the glasses that perched on the end of her nose as she made another slow twirl around the room.
“What did you think of your car?” Birdie asked, knowing that a trip to town was inevitable. She wasn’t going to tell her gram no, although if she did, her gram would never make her go, would go for her. But even though she was supposed to be resting and recovering, this was still a two-way street, and she wasn’t just going to dump all the work on her gram.
“My goodness.” Her gram stopped and grinned. “I laughed when I saw it, because the lady at the counter said that you had left a note that I was to get a specific car.” Her gram rolled her eyes. “I thought it might have been a minivan, since you had never been able to get me into one of those crazy contraptions, but it was even worse.”
For as long as she’d known her gram, she’d driven as big of a car as she could get. She said they were safer. Which, technically she was correct, but her preference nowadays was a big SUV, which came in handy anytime the Ozarks got snow in the winter.
“I figured you’d get a laugh out of it, and I enjoyed seeing you pull up in it too.”
It had been fun, and as she thought, her gram thought it was funny as well. She hadn’t been able to get the model where the doors opened up, but still, just seeing her gram drive a sports car had been worth it.
“I just hope we’re not here come winter, because that thing is going to go like a sled in the snow.”
“It’s so flat here. It won’t go anywhere in the snow. It’ll just sit and spin.”
“Regardless, it will be worthless from about November to March.”
“It might even be longer than that here as far north as we are.”
“I can’t argue about that. But I did enjoy driving it from the airport. There just weren’t any fun corners to speed around.”
“If that were the case, I wouldn’t have rented it, because I figured you would be tempted along those lines.”
They laughed together. Her gram was known as a speed demon, even in the large SUVs she drove. Birdie had always been the more conscientious of the two of them .
“So what’s the church like here?” her gram asked as she carefully removed some things from the bag. Then, apparently thinking better of it, she grabbed a rag and started scrubbing the counters.
“I didn’t go on Sunday.”
“You didn’t go?” Her gram stopped scrubbing and turned around, giving her an all-too-familiar look over the top rim of her glasses.
“Gram, I’m supposed to be resting and recovering, not running around socializing.”
“Church is not a social organization. Sure, we have fellowship with believers, but it’s for more than that. You go to worship God, and you go to hear God’s word preached, because all of us need that shot in the arm at least once a week. Do they have a Wednesday night service?”
“They do.” Her words were cautious, because she could almost hear what was coming next.
“All right. Then let’s plan on going tomorrow evening.”
“All right. Let’s plan on going.” She wasn’t going to mention that Olive had told her there was a daily Bible study every morning except Sunday on somebody’s front porch right on Main Street. The second her gram knew about that, they’d be going with bells on. And taking enough food to feed an entire village when they did it. And unless her grandma lost her touch, they’d be dragging the neighbors along with them.
All Birdie knew about the neighbors was that they were two men. She hadn’t tried to look at them to see if she recognized them or even to do more than throw up a hand in a wave as she walked inside. She wanted to be friendly, but friendly as in waving a hand at the neighbors, not friendly as in actually talking to them. First of all, she didn’t want them to recognize her, and secondly, she wanted to be able to rest and recuperate and not be forced into a conversation every time she left her house.
Of course, not everyone viewed the idea of being forced into a conversation with as much loathing as what she did.
She put the groceries her grandma had brought away and was thinking about grabbing her notebook and going out to sit on the beach for a while. She wrote all of her own songs and typically tried to carry a notebook wherever she went, in case inspiration struck. Inspiration had been very sketchy lately, and she didn’t have a single song for her new album that was supposed to release just a few weeks before her tour started .
October was supposed to be spent in the recording booth, putting the new songs together for an album.
She wasn’t exactly pressed for time, but typically she had all of her songs written by now and had so many she was trying to weed out which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she wanted to go.
But she probably should focus on getting the things they needed before she allowed herself to sink into a creative state.
“If you can think of anything else you need, don’t be afraid to pick it up. This place is bare-bones, but we can fix that.”
“Okay,” she said, knowing it was pointless to argue. Plus, it was almost seven o’clock, and since the closest grocery store was Blueberry Beach, it would be at least nine o’clock before she got back. By then, she would be more than ready to head to bed.
“Gram?” Birdie stood in front of the screen door with the list in her hand, her eyes serious.
Gram saw her expression and paused from where she had found a piece of steel wool and was scrubbing at the stove. “What is it?”
“Please remember that I’m not anything here but just me.” Her gram had never been big on the big star popularity/everyone knew her name kind of thing, but she had gone to some of her concerts and traveled with her a bit and knew that she was a bit of a big deal, worldwide.
“I know. You don’t want people to know you, so the people who take all the pictures and have the cameras and try to spy on your every move won’t find out where you are and bother us.” She paused for a moment, then her eyes scrunched down and she looked at the windows. “But I think I can get some pretty nice curtains snapped together in a little bit of time, and they’ll never be able to—”
“Just... It would be better if they didn’t find out I was here to begin with.”
“If I get my pie made and taken over to the neighbors, I can guarantee you that I won’t say a word about you.” Her gram nodded her head, gave her a little smile, and then went back to scrubbing the stove. “Unless they ask, and then you know I can’t lie.”
Her grandma was a talker, and sometimes she did say things she shouldn’t, but Birdie knew that if she said she wasn’t going to mention that Birdie was a big singer, she wouldn’t. It wasn’t like her gram to brag anyway. She’d never heard her introduce her like that anywhere. In fact, she wasn’t even sure why she had worried about it. She just...wanted some peace and quiet. But she also didn’t want to have to cook for herself, so she definitely appreciated her gram coming.
“I’m going to borrow your car, Gram,” she said with a grin as she walked out the door.
“That’s fine. You just drive it like it’s yours,” Gram called after her.