Bree
The day of the music festival, I peek through the front blinds of Colby’s house and notice more than half the paps are missing. Pulling out my phone, I send a message to Benny.
Freedom at last??? Most of them are gone!
Benny
They’re probably staking out the festival. I bet they’ll all be gone in an hour or so.
Relief floods my body. It’ll be nice to ride in a car without laying under a blanket. In the week since we cleaned Nancy’s house for her bunco night, we’ve spent most of our time in this house or sneaking to the beach in wigs and sunglasses. So far, no one has spotted us out and about.
Peter has been around quite a bit, though. I’m certain he respects Zoey’s status as an engaged woman, but the man is a flirt and she is definitely his target. Part of me wonders if it’s a game to him—if he chose her because she’s unavailable.
Olive comes out of the spare bathroom in my wig of collarbone length copper hair. Her eyes have too much dark makeup on them, and she added so many light-colored freckles, she doesn’t even look like the same person.
“Do you have a dark lip color?” she asks.
“Yeah, check my bag on the bathroom sink.”
She flits away, and I go into the kitchen to put ice water in a refillable bottle.
“Nice. I love the blonde on you,” Zoey says. She’s taken the short, white-blonde wig I wore in the airport. It’s chic, which is a good cut against her sharp jawline. “It’s been a while since I went out like this.”
I give her a side-hug, feeling a surge of affection for her support. “You didn’t need to stay.”
“I wanted to. Now we can all go home together.”
My stomach falls. I step back, framing her shoulders in my hands. Nancy’s words from last week ring in my head. “What if I don’t want to go home?”
Zoey blinks, her heavily lined eyes narrowing. “Explain.”
“I mean, if I choose to stay with Benny.”
She nods slowly. “What did Mom say?”
My hands fall to my sides. “You know I haven’t talked to her yet. It’s a better conversation to have in person.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s only going to get harder the longer you put it off.”
“Well, I need to go home and pick up Peanut, so I can see her then.”
“Bree, you’re still running from your problems. At some point, you need to face them.”
Her words ram into me like a volley of rocks to the gut. “I’m not…”
The words don’t even come, because she’s right. I’m avoiding my mom and dealing with the fallout of that entire situation. Does that mean I’m still running? I’m not facing it, that’s for sure.
“Don’t spiral,” Zoey says, pulling me into a hug. “This will all work out. Mom understands some of your reasons. She just wants to talk to you. If anything, she’s hurt, so I’d be prepared to smooth things over.”
“I can’t really blame her, I guess,” I say into Zoey’s shoulder.
She leans back and looks at me. “You ready?”
“I guess.”
The fields are buzzing with crowds of people in front of the large stage.
It’s all set in an open space across the highway from the beach, so the ocean glimmers in the background.
Food trucks line the parking lot, and cars are parked row after row.
Peter’s on stage at the microphone, announcing each financial milestone the BBB hits and thanking the sponsors between presenting each new band.
The entire day has been fantastic. The paps are all over like vermin, crawling around with their cameras and snapping pictures of Benny periodically, but none of them have seemed to catch on to our disguises.
At least the event is going to have a lot of great publicity if they post their pictures anywhere. Either way, Colby is around here somewhere getting good shots of everything.
The downside is that we can’t even so much as hold hands or we might give ourselves away.
“I liked that last one,” Olive says, no longer needing to shout now that we’re in another Peter monologue. “You could use them for a wedding band, Zo.”
Zoey nods her head consideringly, but her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. “Tag’s mother mentioned a string quartet she likes in town. I think we might go that direction.”
“For the reception, too?” Olive doesn’t hide her judgment. “That’s not very you.”
“It’s not just my wedding. I’m taking on a partner, so I get half of a say in everything.”
“That’s…healthy.” It’s clear that Olive thinks something else, but she’s trying not to push buttons, maybe?
I try to step in. “You need to advocate, too, Zoey.”
“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s advocating,” she says, laughing. Her neck cranes as she searches the crowd.
“You looking for someone?” Benny asks, leaning against me enough that I feel his warmth.
“Peter maybe,” I say, then regret it.
Zoey scowls.
“Give it up for the Half-Pennies!” Peter says, before a band comes on the stage and starts playing an indie rock song.
We sip our drinks and enjoy the music until Peter finds us, throwing an arm over Zoey’s shoulder. “How have I been? And don’t hold back. I can take the professional criticism.”
She shrugs his arm off. “The bands are excellent. Emcee could use some work.”
He grins. “So she’s listening. We call that progress, people.”
“Let it go, Pete.” Benny shakes his head.
“A man does not have his dream woman fall in his lap and then do nothing.”
“He does when she’s engaged,” Olive quips.
I shake my head, but I’m laughing. “Anyway, should we—”
“There you are!”
The voice is so familiar, my veins run cold. I know it. I know who’s standing directly behind me. I look directly at Zoey, and she has such a guilty expression on her face that I want to scream. Did she tell my mom where to find me?
I spin to face the interloper, and I’m right. Mom is flanked by Lucy, my makeup and hair artist, Andrew, her favorite PR guru, and a handful of what are very obviously bodyguards.
They might as well be carrying around a big sign with flashing lights and a bright arrow pointing at us. Look here! Look here!
“Mom,” I say. “What are you doing here?”
“You wouldn’t answer my calls.” She looks perfect, not a highlighted hair out of place despite the bay breeze ruffling everyone else. She’s in a white powersuit and flawless makeup. Kris Jenner has nothing on Nancy Belacourt. “I was worried.”
That’s a fair sentiment. I’m wholly unprepared for this conversation. Benny’s hand comes to rest on my back in a silent show of support, and I siphon all the strength from him I can.
“This isn’t really a good place to talk.”
“We can go somewhere quiet,” she says, waiting.
I’ve seen this tactic in boardrooms and arguments against my dad, and she always gets her way.
She’s firm and immovable. She waits long enough and always gets what she sets out to.
I can see why, too. It’s easier to have the conversation than try to argue or reason my way out of it.
“Fine. This way.” I turn away from her and start walking back toward the bathrooms, then pivot away from anywhere we might have a crowd. By the time I reach the outskirts of the festival, there are only a handful of people around, and I turn back to face my mom, anxiety running through my body.
The whole group didn’t follow us, which I’m grateful for, but Benny’s at my side, and some of the security team she brought is with us. The others must have stayed with my sisters.
“Why did you bring my stylist?”
“So she could help you look ready to perform.”
“I’m not performing. I’m watching today.”
Mom doesn’t say anything. She looks at Benny. “How are you, Ben? It’s been a long time.”
“I’ve been well, thank you.”
She gives a nod. When her body shifts to face me, I can practically feel Benny’s dismissal.
I want to scream.
Mom’s brow raises a bit. “Well, now I see why you disappeared.”
“This whole thing was a total coincidence. Kind of. I knew his grandma lived here, but I didn’t actually think…
you know what? That’s not important.” I’m going to ramble and sound unintelligent if I don’t stop while I’m ahead.
“I needed to get away. No one would stop the song release, and I couldn’t handle the fallout. ”
“If you’d asked for support, Bree, we could have come up with a plan. I brought Andrew with me so we can all sit down together and map out a crisis-management strategy.”
“I’ve managed the crisis, Mom.”
She smiles indulgently. “You mean the song you put out last week? It was sweet, Bree, but an apology like that is only a small Band-Aid for something like this.”
“Which is why we should have stopped the diss track,” I say through my teeth.
She waves her hand once to swipe my words from the record. “You can’t help it now. You couldn’t have known the public would react the way they did.”
I gape at her. “I did know, though, which is why I ran away.”
How can she sit there and act like she wasn’t in full possession of all these facts?
Benny looks at his phone before sliding it back in his pocket.
He stays at my side through all of this, despite how rudely my mom tried to dismiss him.
I step closer to his side, wishing he could protect me from needing to have this conversation at all, but I know it needs to be done, and I’m glad he’ll be here to support me.
“You could take all the control back right now, Bree. There’s a stage and a couple hundred phones pointed right at it. Take the mic and talk about Jaida. You can fix this right now.”
“That’s the last thing I want to do. I’ve handled it already. Jaida got her pity, my apology was put out into the world. I can’t do more than that.”
“You can talk about it.”
“I don’t want to. It would only drag it out and make it worse.”
Mom sighs. “Why don’t you leave the decisions to the—to those of us with more experience?”
I’d bet my Pomeranian she wanted to end that sentence with the adults. Which, evidently, is my final straw. “We’re finished with this. I’ve made my decision.”
“You might change your mind when you see what Jaida’s team has planned. The label got a hold of it and sent it to me as a courtesy, but we’re on our own here. You don’t have anyone backing you anymore. If you don’t find a way to fix this, no label is going to want to touch you.”
“What is it?”
Mom turns her phone around, and I take it, reading the caption to whatever overly dramatic picture Jaida is preparing. I’ll put ten bucks on it being posted in black and white.
Sometimes it’s too little too late. Not everyone understands that words cut deep, and once they’re out, they can’t be unsaid. I’ve remained on the high road through everything, and no matter what happens, that’s where I’ll stay. But no, we can never be friends again. Forgive and FORGET.
Okay, twenty bucks says she plans to post this with a sad photo, like she’s mourning the loss of the friendship that never was. This is absolutely nothing more than Jaida squeezing every last drop of sympathy that she can.
I hand Mom her phone back. “She’s milking it, but none of that has any foundation. We weren’t really friends, and I did nothing more than write a song about how she betrayed me. It’s a dramatization of the situation.”
“So correct her, Bree. You can’t let her ruin your reputation.”
“If anyone hurt my reputation, it was me.” I want to push the blame on her for convincing me that releasing the song was a good idea, but that won’t get us anywhere.
At the end of the day, humility is accepting that I made a stupid decision and owning my mistake. That’s when I’ll be able to move on.
“It’s freeing to choose not to be bothered anymore, Mom. I’m vindicated now. I can’t control Jaida’s choices, but I can control how I respond, and I’ve learned that it’s better to walk away.”
“You’ll be walking away from your career,” she says, a lock of brown hair fluttering in the wind.
“I can’t do it anymore,” I say.
“Sing?”
“No…I plan to sing. But I don’t want to go back to any of the people who used to represent me.” I swallow. This is harder than I thought it was going to be, and I knew it would be difficult. “I’m taking my music in a different direction, and I don’t need a manager anymore.”
She blinks. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t know exactly what’s next, but I know I can’t mix family and business anymore. I love you, and I don’t want to resent you because we don’t see eye-to-eye on some of these important decisions. It’s just business, and I need to take it elsewhere.”
Silence falls, making the pounding of my pulse loud in my ears. My hands are shaky, and I’m glad Benny stays at my side through all of this—that he sees firsthand how serious I am.
Mom inhales. “We can talk about this when you’ve had some time—”
“I’ve had a month here, which was plenty of time to take a hard look at my life and get my priorities straight. I won’t be changing my mind. I’m moving on to other things.”
“You’re being ungrateful, is what you are, Bree. I’ve given up so much for you. The team has sacrificed so much.” She widens her eyes briefly. “I’d hoped the paps…” She seems to rethink whatever she was going to say.
“What?” My heart is racing. I don’t know if I want to hear the rest of this, but I need to. “Don’t tell me you’re the reason they’re all camped out in front of Benny’s house.”
She purses her lips, her gaze darting to Benny before coming back to me. “I thought a few public images showing how happy you are would help your image.’
“How did you find me?”
“Once Zoey and Olive chartered the plane, it wasn’t hard. You can’t hide forever.”
“So you thought you’d smoke me out?” My teeth clench hard.
“I can’t believe you’d even suggest such a thing.”
Her pretend outrage is proof. She’s upset with me now, but eventually she’ll have to accept this.
If anything, she’s confirmed why I need to stop working with her.
Our relationship will suffer if I do. Closing my eyes, I breathe deeply and let out all the irritation for every time she’s acted in opposition to what I wanted.
At the end of the day, my mom is trying to help my career, and I can recognize that her heart is in a good place.
Even if I want her to be thinking of me, not my public status, I understand her on a deep level and can accept her for who she is. “I love you, Mom.”
Benny gets another call. He looks at it, then puts his phone away. It’s giving me flashbacks to hanging out on Bay Hill Road with the cows and Colby calling to tell us that Zoey got engaged.
“You should answer that,” I say.
“Next time they call.”
“If I can give you some advice?” Mom says acidly.
“Yeah?”
“Remember that no one will ever have your best interests in mind as much as your mother does.”
“I know, Mom.” I smile to soften things. “That’s why I’ll be representing myself.”