“Ace White, the face of the hottest up-and-coming band, Wicked White, seems to have the world at his feet. His band has just scored their fifth number-one single on the pop charts and is on track to being one of the biggest draws for concerts this year.
“Still, even with all of that, Ace White shocked the world when he gave his band the middle finger at the beginning of his sold-out show and walked off stage. No one has seen him since he disappeared from his hotel room following the funeral of the woman who raised him. He left no word with anyone who knew him. Not even his tour manager, Jane Ann Rogers, has heard from him, which has put everyone who works for Wicked White on edge. It’s a mystery as to why would he walk away from everything—one I’m determined to get to the bottom of and will be making it my personal mission to uncover. For Celebrity Pop Buzz Nightly, I’m Linda Bronson.”
IRIS
She’s dead.
No matter how many times those words roll through my brain, I still have a hard time believing it’s true. Gran has only been gone a little over a week now, but accepting that I’ll never see her walk through her front door again still cuts like a knife.
“Did you find it yet?” Birdie asks as she sits next to me on the living room floor of the trailer I grew up in while Gran raised me.
I shake my head as I continue to sift through the box of papers in front of me. “We’ll never find the deed to this place at this rate.”
Birdie shoves her blond hair out of her face as she continues to dig through the box in front of her. “No shit. Obviously Gee-Gee didn’t believe in a filing system. Are you sure it can’t be anywhere else?”
“No,” I reply. “All of Gran’s paperwork is in these two boxes. It has to be in here somewhere.”
I flip through a couple more papers, and then bingo! “Found it!”
“Thank God,” Birdie says as she shoves the box away and relief floods her dark brown eyes. “I was beginning to think it was a lost cause.”
I take the paper out and examine the deed closely. Willow Acres has been in my family for generations. It all started when my great-great-grandfather opened up part of his farm for his daughter and her husband to pull a trailer onto the property to live. Since then the trailer park has expanded to now hold fifteen trailers, with most of the tenants living here since I was a kid. My place isn’t glorious; it’s no mansion by any means, but this one-thousand-square-foot trailer has been home to me since my mother ran off when I was four and never came back.
“Good, now we can take it down to Mr. Stern so he can get everything switched over to your name, and we can grab lunch while we’re out.”
I sigh as I think about the near-negative balance in my checking account. It hasn’t been exactly easy since I returned here. I left almost two years ago to move to New York because I’d convinced myself that once I got there I’d be a big star on Broadway someday, but as of last week I was still just a server at a small restaurant in Brooklyn. Paying for my one-way ticket back home nearly broke the bank. If I stay here much longer, I’m going to need a job.
When Birdie takes in my silence, she wraps her slender arm around my shoulders. “Come on, Iris. It’ll be my treat. I know you’re starving. We’ve been digging through this junk all day.”
Almost as if on cue my stomach rumbles loud enough for Birdie to hear, and she raises her eyebrows at me to say told ya before she smacks my leg. “All right. Off your ass. We’re eating.”
I laugh at my best friend as she snaps to her feet and then pulls me up. Birdie and I go back, way back. We had that whole sandbox love thing going on. Her grandmother, Adele, lives next door to our place, which meant Birdie was my number-one playmate when she came here every weekend while her mom partied hard. As we grew up we stayed close, because after a while, her mother left her with her grandmother too. We understood each other.
I shove my hair away from my face as I straighten my black T-shirt.
“Girl, I love those cutoff shorts. Where did you get them?” Birdie asks.
“Oh.” I stare down at my too-short shorts, feeling embarrassed to be wearing something so skimpy, but they were the last clean bottoms I brought with me. “I made them. I cut off an old pair of jeans I found at a thrift store to make them.”
“Creative.” She fishes her keys from her purse. “Do you think we should stop at the library and see if you’ve gotten any responses for the ad we put on the Internet for the empty trailer?”
I nod as I follow her out the front door, locking it behind us. “Yeah. I could definitely use the rent money. Hopefully, someone responds.”
“It sucks that we don’t get any Internet out here,” Birdie says as she unlocks her Corolla and hops inside.
Once inside with her, I buckle my seat belt. “I know. I miss having the modern conveniences of the city. My cell service doesn’t even pick up the Internet out here. We’re so behind in the times.”
The car’s engine cranks alive and Birdie backs up and starts toward the road. “As soon as you get the deed swapped over into your name for the park and are ready to go back to New York, I want to go with you.”
“Really?” I can’t contain the excitement in my voice. “When did you decide this?”
She shrugs. “After hearing you talk about the city all week long and how much I’m missing out on by sticking around this little town. So, when you go back and get settled, let me know and I’ll hop a plane.”