Bree
On the way here, Colby mentioned that he and Benny had given Sierra a heads up we were coming, but judging by her chalky white face, he hadn’t actually given her the important details.
I can only imagine what shock factor three Belacourt sisters might have on an unsuspecting person. Especially a self-proclaimed fan.
“Anne?” she repeats, blinking at me like she’s trying to find the similarities.
Sierra nods slowly, her gaze flicking to my sisters, then back. “And you want to film an apology music video in my flowers?”
“The paparazzi found her, so we need to stay far away from public places for a while,” Benny says. “Colby thinks your flowers will have a good aesthetic.”
Sierra continues to nod numbly. “Yeah. Of course. My house is your house. Mi casa es tu casa.”
“Hurry inside before she busts out French,” Colby says, giving her a quick side hug as he passes into the house.
Everyone files in, Nancy leaning in to kiss her cheek, leaving me last. Benny glances back at me but must sense I want a moment with Sierra, because he heads inside.
“I’m sorry for lying,” I tell her.
“Hey, I get…okay, I don’t actually get it, but I can understand why you did it. You didn’t know who you could trust. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.” She narrows her eyes slightly, some of her shell shock abating with Zoey and Olive’s departure. “Your voice was disguised too, right?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Bree Belacourt,” she says, her cheeks coloring. “And you let me say all those things about Jaida.”
“I couldn’t really stop you. A heavy defense might’ve given me away.”
“I have a million questions, but I don’t want to hold Colby up.” She looks over her shoulder, as if searching for the guy. Ben had mentioned something about their weird relationship, hadn’t he?
“Thanks for being so understanding.” I pass her, going into the house, where she has flowers cut all over the kitchen table like she was in the middle of making arrangements.
Colby stands at the kitchen counter, setting up his video camera. “Do you have a wedding?”
“Yeah, at the community center tomorrow.”
“These are beautiful,” Zoey says, leaning down to smell the blooms.
“Congrats on your engagement.” Sierra looks at me, eyes wide. “Am I allowed to say that?”
“They aren’t royals,” Benny says, laughing. “No one’s going to send you to the guillotine for a misstep.”
“Handle hair and makeup touch ups now,” Colby says. “We head out in five.”
Olive pushes me gently into a kitchen chair and immediately pulls out brushes and mascara. She’s a force, and she’s also fantastic at this kind of thing, so I’m glad she’s here to make sure my eyes pop the right kind of way.
When we go out back, we’re immediately transported into what I imagine an English garden must look like. There’s a fountain lined with shrubbery and roses of every color. To the right of that is an open greenhouse-looking structure with no roof and vines climbing each of the thick posts.
The magic really arrives when we follow the path to the field beyond.
Row upon row of flowers in every color bloom in a veritable floral field.
It’s stunning, some of the stalks rising to mid-calf while others are closer to the ground.
The base color is green, which will be great against my brown eyes, and the cacophony of color—though there are a lot of shades of pink—means my white dress will be perfect here.
“Colby, you brilliant man,” I breathe, inhaling the fragrant air.
He sends me a smile. “How do you want to handle the music?”
“I recorded the guitar last night so we can use it to keep time,” Benny says, pulling out his phone.
“I’ll sing. It helps me keep on track. Then you can dub the final audio over it once we have it, right?”
“Yep.” Colby films something, then messes with the buttons on his camera. “If we can pull it off, I thought the bench swing in my backyard would be a good foil to this place, too.”
“Great idea,” Benny says.
“But no Birds schoolhouse,” I say, sighing.
“What?” Olive asks.
Nancy cackles. “They filmed The Birds here back in the sixties and Bree is obsessed with it now.”
“I wouldn’t say obsessed.”
“I’ve seen that. The Hitchcock one?” Zoey asks.
“When?” I ask.
“Years ago. It’s a classic, B. You know how much Dad always liked old scary movies.”
I roll my eyes. Product of being the youngest. By the time I was old enough for things like that, my dad was mostly absent. I was raised on Zoey’s wisdom and after school specials.
“Did you warm up?” Benny asks.
“Earlier, yeah.” I hum, making my way into the fields and careful not to step on a single plant. When I sing the first few lines, they come smoothly. I feel the words wash through my body, like the forgiveness is actually cleansing me one note at a time.
It’s strange, because I don’t feel like I owe Jaida anything beyond a basic apology. I still feel like she’s the one who owes me, and we both know that. This is me playing the game, doing what I need to to show my fans I’m not as heartless as I look right now.
Maybe I am, though. Because as I sing the apology, I don’t really mean it, not toward Jaida. Benny is the person I think of as the words leave my mouth over and over again while Colby catches different angles.
“’Cause sorry sounds so small, standing in the wreckage of it all. Like a match in the dark, like a prayer I don’t deserve yet…”
“Now run toward me,” Colby commands. “Like a bird. Arms out.”
I see his vision, and I do it. “I’m not asking you to stay, just to hear the truth. I hate the girl I was when I hurt you.”
“Let’s go again.”
We film a few more times until he feels like he got the shot, then a smile breaks over his face. “Want to spin in the flowers?”
“Sure.”
Nancy took Zoey, Olive, and Sierra inside a half-hour ago, so I don’t have an audience when I spin in the flowers, or later when he leads me to the climbing vines and I lean against a pillar and sing parts of the chorus.
“I think we have plenty of different angles,” Colby says, checking the footage and nodding to himself. “This is great, Bree. It’s going to come together really well.”
“Did you want to get some of Benny strumming?”
Colby’s smile spreads wide. “What do you say, Ben? I can get creative with the angle so we don’t see your face.”
Benny shrugs. “I didn’t bring my guitar.”
“True. We’ll have to do that one back at the house.”
“Play music in the backyard? That’ll never give us away,” he says sarcastically.
Colby laughs, but he heads back toward Sierra’s house. Benny offers me his hand, and I lift the hem of my dress out of the dirt to follow him. “You don’t need to be in it. We can record tonight and call it good.”
He checks the time on his phone. “Speaking of that, we’d better get going. I thought we could pick up dinner in Sebastopol too. Are your sisters coming?”
“Probably.”
“Hey, listen,” he says, pulling me to stop outside of the English garden. This place is more than a flower farm—it’s an absolute oasis. “You’re doing really well. I think you’ll be pleased with the video once Colby’s finished mashing everything together.”
“I sure hope so.”
“Are you planning to call your mom before the song is released?”
I stare at him, wondering where that came from. “Why?”
“Isn’t she your manager?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you want her to help manage the situation?”
It’s hard to explain my feelings even to myself, so I don’t know how to adequately put them into words, but I don’t want my mom to have anything to do with this project.
I want to surprise her along with the rest of the world.
But I can’t even bring myself to admit that to Benny, so how am I going to actually pull it off?
My relationship with my parents has been business-oriented from the beginning, especially with our reality show filming all through high school, and the spinoff I did with my sisters the few years before my music career took off.
Mom hasn’t been someone I can go to with my heartache or concerns or personal trials.
I learned early on that she has a one-track mind, and it’s centered on work.
When Lonnie left me for that stylist, I couldn’t go to my mom.
I couldn’t go to anyone, really. I shoved those feelings aside, decided they didn’t matter, and moved on.
It’s how I handle most things, which I recognize is maybe not the best. But it’s how it is. So now, on the cusp of the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, a mistake my mom should have looked at through motherly glasses and decided was the wrong move, I’m determined to fix it on my own.
Maybe I’m worried she’ll push me into a decision I’ll later regret. Maybe I think she’ll talk me out of it. Maybe I can sense she’s chomping at the bit to get me on any interview show that’ll take me right now, and she won’t think this song will cut it.
I let out a sigh, wondering how to condense that into something a good person would admit about their own mother. “I don’t want her help, no,” I finally say. “She…we…I don’t think we see eye to eye anymore.”
Making the admission out loud to another person is liberating. Benny waits, comfortable in the silence. His eyes track my face.
I love my mom, but that doesn’t mean I think our relationship needs to continue in this capacity.
Maybe if we stop working together, we’ll feel more like a family again.
The truth is that I don’t want her having a say in any part of this, either.
“She’ll want to control everything, and she’ll possibly squash the whole song or try to sell it to my old label. ”
“Which you don’t want?” he guesses.
“I’m finished with them. If I put out any more music, it’s going to be the country album I’ve been wanting to make, and it’s going to be on my terms.”
Benny pushes a lock of hair out of my face. It wasn’t obstructing my vision, so it feels more like an excuse to touch me, but I don’t mind. His smile is sweet but sure. “It’s your career.”
Those simple words empower me. I feel taller, lighter, like I have a weight relieved already, from talking to him.
“Is that how you broke away?” I whisper, veering into territory I know he doesn’t like to talk about. But when it comes to social ladder-climbing parents, his were almost worse than mine.
Who knows? If he stayed in the industry, maybe they would be worse by now.
“Yeah. I didn’t have to fire my parents the way you’d have to fire your mom to get a clean break, but I was really lucky.
My agent, Justin, was supportive of me stepping away.
He saw what it was doing to me, and he probably knew he couldn’t change my mind anyway. Either way, he supported my decisions.”
“Unlike I did.”
“You were hurt,” he says. “I broke up with you. We didn’t need to keep talking after that.”
“Maybe.” Though I don’t think I was equipped as a teenager to handle a breakup gracefully and remain friends with him, even if I had understood his reasons better at the time. “I couldn’t fathom needing privacy back then. Now, I think you’re an utter genius.”
He laughs, running his hands up and down my arms. “I never stopped caring about you, Bree.”
I lean forward until he’s supporting me. “Apparently, neither have I.”
His grin is nearly blinding.
Sierra’s back door opens. “Hey, we leaving soon or what?” Colby shouts. “We’re going to drop Grandma off at home on the way.”
Benny lets out an audible sigh, then leans forward and presses a kiss to my temple. “Coming.”