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.”
I frown. “I never meant that it’s not nice here—it is—I just don’t want this life, you know? I want to see my name on a grand marquee for doing something I love, not be stuck in the trailer park for the rest of my life.”
“And you will,” she assures me. “It’ll just be even better that I’ll be there with you to see it all happen.”
Willow Acres sits just outside the small village of Sarahsville, Ohio. The largest city around is Cambridge, and even that is a solid thirty-minute drive for us. We don’t have much here. Most stores are mom-and-pop-type places that are privately owned. It really is like stepping back in time.
Which is exactly why I had to get out of here.
Birdie pulls up along the curb to the only attorney in town, Mr. Stern, who Gran went to for all her legal needs. I grab the deed and open the door. “It shouldn’t take long. I’m just dropping this off.”
Mr. Stern’s office was once a private home. An old blue two story with a rickety, white picket fence and a small sign hanging from a wooden stake: William Stern, Attorney at Law.
I make my way up the sidewalk and into his office, where his plump