3. Settling In
Settling In
Nora
Instead, she was stranded in what was essentially a roadside motel, sleeping on rough sheets that smelled like industrial detergent.
Her phone buzzed again. She fumbled for it without opening her eyes, muscle memory guiding her thumb to the notification. Instagram. Someone had tagged her in a story.
That got her eyes open.
It was @RedwoodHollowDaily, a local account with maybe three hundred followers, posting a blurry photo of her getting into the tow truck yesterday. The caption read: Local celeb NORA CARTER spotted with car trouble! Welcome home! #RedwoodHollow #LocalCelebrity #WelcomeHome
“Oh no,” she whispered to the water-stained ceiling.
The post had twelve likes and three comments. She tapped to read them, because apparently she enjoyed pain.
Omg she’s back??? My daughter LOVES her music!
didn’t she have that thing happen on stage? hope she’s okay!
Hope she plays at Bean There! With their new stage setup, it’d be awesome.
Her phone rang. Daniel’s contact photo filled the screen instead of the comments—the two of them at his college graduation, both grinning. She almost didn’t answer.
“Morning, sunshine,” he said when she picked up. “How’s exile treating you?”
“Stop calling it exile. It’s a… strategic retreat.”
“Ah yes, my mistake.” He chuckled. “How’s your strategic retreat treating you?”
Nora sat up, pushing her hair out of her face. The pink streaks looked awful in the morning light, more like cotton candy left out in the rain than anything intentional. “My car died yesterday.”
“So you said. I’m not surprised. That thing’s been held together with hope and duct tape since college. I don’t even know why you’ve still got it.”
“It’s getting fixed. A local mechanic is looking at it.”
“And you’re stuck there until it’s done?”
“I could leave if I wanted.” Though where she’d go, she didn’t know. LA felt impossible—too many people who’d seen the footage, too many pitying looks. And really, that was true for everywhere. Perhaps she should try to find a place without internet, if such a place still existed.
“Nora.” His tone shifted. Big brother mode, activated. “What are you doing?”
“I’m home to visit Mom and Dad.”
“Right, because you enjoy that,” he deadpanned.
“I love my—our—parents,” Nora said.
Outside, a family was loading into a minivan, kids arguing about front-seat privileges. Normal people problems. People who didn’t have their failures blown up on social media.
“I messed up, Danny,” she said. “The performance, the footage, Cam. All of it.”
“The panic attack wasn’t your fault—”
“Don’t.” She cut him off. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault.
I froze in front of two thousand people.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t finish, couldn’t do the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.
And someone filmed the whole thing backstage, and now it’s everywhere.
People making memes about me hyperventilating. That’s on me.”
Daniel was quiet for a moment. She could hear traffic in the background, the faint beat of someone playing loud music.
He was probably walking to his office, already dressed in his neat button-down, ready for a day that made sense.
“So what’s the plan? Hide in Redwood Hollow until everyone forgets? ”
“I don’t know. Regroup, maybe.”
“And the land? Have you talked to the lawyer yet?”
Her stomach dropped. The land. Gramps’ land. Another thing she’d been avoiding thinking about. “No.”
“Nora—”
“I said no, okay? I can’t… I can’t deal with that right now. Not with everything else.”
“You’re going to have to eventually. Dad’s already talking about how you should sell it, and if you don’t make a decision—”
“Dad can mind his own business.” The words came out sharper than she intended. “It’s not his land. Gramps left it to me.”
“I know. I’m just saying, the lawyer needs an answer. And being back there, you could at least go see it. The property, I mean.”
Go see it. Walk the land where Gramps had lived his whole life, where she’d spent summers learning chord progressions while the sun set.
“I can’t,” she said quietly.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Does it matter?”
Her phone buzzed against her ear. Call waiting. Unknown local number.
“Danny, I need to take this. It might be about my car.”
“Okay. But Nora? I love you. Always, okay?”
She switched calls, hoping her voice sounded steadier than she felt. “Hello?”
“This is Morgan from Livingston Auto. About your Honda.”
Nora blinked, surprised by the directness. No “good morning,” no “hope I’m not calling too early.” Just straight to business. “Oh. Hi. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so early. It’s Saturday.”
“So?”
“I just… most places aren’t open on weekends.”
“I’m open when there’s work to do.”
Of course she was. Nora could picture her already at the shop, probably wearing the same coveralls, tools organized with military precision. “Right. So what’s the verdict? Major surgery or just a band-aid?”
“Just the hose. Some coolant cleanup, but nothing serious. I can have it done by this afternoon.”
Relief flooded through her so quickly it made her dizzy. “That’s amazing. What do I owe you?”
“Two hundred and forty. Parts, labor, coolant replacement.”
“Great. That’s… much better than I expected.
” She meant it. She wasn’t exactly strapped for cash—her music had made her money, and so had the sponsor deals, but it didn’t look like she had much of an inflow from now on.
Streaming payouts, yes, but sponsors weren’t particularly impressed when their stars combusted live in front of thousands, and then millions more online.
“I’ll call when it’s ready.”
“Great. Thank you so much. Really, I—”
But Morgan had already hung up. Nora stared at her phone, caught between annoyance and something close to admiration. In LA, that conversation would have taken fifteen minutes and included three upsell attempts.
She took in her hotel room. Despite arriving only last night, clothes were already everywhere. Her guitar case stood propped against the wall like an accusation.
This was pathetic. She was pathetic. Running back to a town she’d spent years leaving behind, hiding in a hotel room like proximity to her childhood home would somehow fix her.
It wasn’t like she could outrun herself. The panic attacks followed. The footage followed. The shame followed. Geography didn’t solve anything.
She would have her car back this afternoon. Which meant… what? She could leave? To go where? Back to LA, where everyone had seen her break down? San Francisco, as had been the plan, where Cam was probably playing the venues Nora was supposed to play?
Her phone buzzed. Instagram notification. Then another. Then three more in rapid succession.
Against all reason, she opened the app.
Cam had posted a new story. A photo in a recording studio, headphones around her neck: New music coming soon! Can’t wait for you to hear what I’ve been working on <3
The knife twisted. Cam was moving forward, creating, building. While Nora was stuck in a hotel room, afraid to touch her guitar because what if she tried and nothing came out? What if the panic had taken that too?
Her thumb hovered over the heart icon on one of Cam’s posts. It would be so easy. That tiny signal that she was still paying attention, still cared, still existed.
Except… no.
She closed the app and threw her phone onto the bed.
The shower helped marginally. Hot water and hotel shampoo weren’t going to fix her life, but they made her feel slightly more human. She even put on mascara, though she wasn’t sure why.
By the time she was dressed—jeans that used to fit better when she still had an appetite, a vintage band t-shirt from her Silver Lake days—it was almost 10 a.m. Late enough that the morning rush should be over, early enough to avoid lunch prep.
Perfect timing for someone who wanted to be around people without actually interacting.
She grabbed her phone and wallet and paused at the door. Her guitar case sat in the corner. When was the last time she’d actually played? Really played, not just muscle-memory chord progressions, but tried to create something?
Too long.
The fear wasn’t really about playing itself; her fingers still remembered how to move. No, it was about the sound, that specific sound that had been hers since she was ten years old. She was afraid the panic attack might have taken it.
But today wasn’t the day to fix that.
She locked the door and headed for the elevator. In the lobby, two older men sat in the breakfast area, voices carrying across the linoleum.
“—heard that development company made another offer. Thompson’s place, over on Spruce.”
“Third property this month. They’re really pushing.”
“Development, they’re calling it. Progress.” The word dripped with skepticism. “We’ll see what kind of progress it brings.”
Outside, Redwood Hollow was waking up to another bright August morning, the air already warming, the light coming down hard and gold over the rooftops.
Maybe she’d write about that someday, when she remembered how to write about anything.
For now, coffee would have to be enough.