Page 5 of Love Is a War Song

The sun beat down on me as we waited for the all clear from the driver to load onto the Greyhound bus. There was a queue, but I didn’t care to be at the front of the line. I was trying not to draw attention to myself, which was difficult considering I stuck out like a sore thumb.

“Here, I got you a muffin to snack on and put a little something in there to keep you entertained. Maybe help in your research.” Chelsea handed me a white paper bag. Intrigued, I spread out the handles and saw the tiny mass-market paperback book.

“What’s this?” I pulled it out. “ Savage Chief by Edie McNight. What the fuck is this, Chelsea?”

“Shhh! I don’t want your mom to hear.” She pushed the book back into the bag while my mother purchased my ticket. “It’s one of my guilty little pleasures. I stole this from my mom’s bathroom stack when I was fourteen and I love to read it when I need to feel a little swoony.”

“You read your mom’s western romance when you want to feel swoony? I don’t know how I feel about that…or that I am only just now learning about it.”

“Just trust me, this lady has a million of them and they are all about Native American men.”

“And you think this is how I’ll learn more about my heritage?” I gave her a sardonic look. How would an old-ass bodice ripper do that? This was the twenty-first century. These characters had never even heard of a phone before.

“I’m just trying to help. You have a long bus ride ahead of you. Beats scrolling online and seeing your face everywhere.”

“Touché.”

“All right, here is your ticket. You all set?” my mother asked, all business, counting my many bags.

“I guess.”

“Now boarding bus sixteen to Tulsa, Oklahoma.” The voice of a bored Greyhound employee boomed through the speakers of the station.

“You better get lined up.”

After they helped me load all my luggage, I hugged both my mother and Chelsea and said goodbye.

Their sendoff was rather unceremonious. I get that my mother decided it was safer to ride a bus than risk being seen at an airport and having someone catch wind of this wild plan to go to Oklahoma and win over the tribe.

But I felt like we could have done a little more planning to have me avoid sitting on a bus that smelled like stinky feet and old cheese.

I looked down at my bus ticket stub.

FROM: DALLAS, TX

TO: TULSA, OK

CONNECTION: OKLAHOMA CITY, OK

That line made my heart stop. A connection? That couldn’t be right. I shot up to ask the driver just as the bus started rolling, the momentum pushing me back in my seat.

“Um, excuse me! Sir?” I shouted to the bus driver.

Everyone was looking at me and not happily. I guess I broke some unwritten rule of silence. But I had to get off this thing. I had four suitcases under the bus. I couldn’t move all those by myself.

“Sir!” I called again, rushing to the front of the bus as the driver cruised down the street. He stopped at a red light.

“What?” he asked.

“I was unaware that this bus has a connection. I thought this was a straight shot to Tulsa.”

“Nope, only one nonstop and you missed it.”

The light turned green, and I grabbed the back of his seat to steady myself.

“Are there attendants to help transfer bags to the next bus?”

“Attendants?” He cackled. “Ma’am, this is the Greyhound. Attendants…” He laughed again. “G’won back and sit down now. Next stop, Oklahoma City.”

Using the tops of the headrests of the aisle seats to stabilize myself, I walked back to my seat, keeping my head down to avoid the snickers from the fellow passengers. My mother was right about one thing. No one recognized me or cared who I was here.

I wasn’t a famous pop singer and child star to them—I was just a nobody.

The poor excuse for a pocket barely fit my ticket as I shoved it in and took my satchel bag off over my head, putting it on the seat next to me along with the snack bag and book.

I took in everyone around me: a young mother with a baby, two old ladies traveling together, and a young guy who looked like he walked straight out of a Fall Out Boy music video circa 2006—flat-ironed bangs and all.

He flashed me a grin and I gave him the smallest smile I could muster back.

I didn’t want to be rude, but I also did not want to encourage conversation just in case I was recognized easily again like last night.

Closing my eyes, I counted my breaths to center myself.

The last few nights had been an emotional roller coaster where I got next to no sleep.

And last night I just kept thinking about my grandmother.

She was like this phantom presence in my life.

I’d never seen even a photo of her. As a kid I imagined she looked like Mrs. Claus, a jolly old lady who baked cookies.

But as I’ve gotten older, I understood that my mother would never have run away from a sweet old lady.

There was a lot of hurt in the past that my mother refused to tell me about.

What would this long-awaited reception be like?

The bus bumped along the highway as we went north.

Something smelled foul and I heard laughing from one of the older ladies and then the baby started screaming and crying.

This was so not first class.

I pulled my hood farther down my face and tried to meditate and block out my surroundings.

In my mind’s eye, I pictured myself in a cabana in Costa Rica, drinking a margarita and pushing all thoughts about my family away.

Before long, I’d convinced myself to relax and was startled awake when the bus stopped.

I wiped drool from my mouth and looked out the window.

The bus station sign read Oklahoma City .

I had slept for hours.

Great. Now I had to get all my stuff to the next bus. I filed in line to get out and stopped next to the driver, feeling my side for my purse to tip him, and my hand brushed air. I rubbed both hands all over my sides and looked for my purse, spinning in a circle.

Where. Was. My. Bag?!

I pushed past the people behind me to get back to my seat. It wasn’t there. I dropped to my knees and felt around the grimy floor to see if it had fallen.

My hands finally found something—it was the white paper bag. I ripped it open, and the muffin was gone but the lousy book remained. Someone swiped my purse and snack! Who would do that?

No, no, no. My money and my phone were in there. What would I do in a world without a phone? It was definitely an example of first-world problems, but I couldn’t help it. I cried. And it wasn’t the pretty dainty cry I learned to do at Disney. No, this was the full-on snotty hyperventilating cry.

Three pieces of my matched luggage were lined up outside the bus and the driver was wheeling the fourth to join the group. Shit. I sprinted to get them before someone else tried to take my possessions away from me. All that was in there were clothes, shoes, and makeup, but they were mine.

“Sleeping Beauty finally wakes up,” the bus driver said. His look was one of pure judgment as he crossed his arms and shook his head at me.

“Sorry.”

“Attendant,” he said under his breath, and walked away, without looking at me again.

One by one I wheeled my suitcases to bus eleven, where the new driver helped me load them under that bus. At least I had my ticket stub in my pocket. That was the only smart thing I did.

I chose a seat right in front this time, hoping being close to the driver would mean I was safer and less susceptible to theft, granted all I had on me was my sweater and this dumb book.

My stomach rumbled. I had no money for food and no phone to update my mother or Chelsea. I stared out the window and Fall Out Boy walked into the bus station with a black quilted Gucci crossbody bag. He had nice taste. I had a bag just like that.

“Wait!” I yelled. The driver, a friendly-looking older lady, clutched her chest.

“What, child?”

“That guy stole my purse!” I pointed out the window.

“What guy?” she asked.

I looked at her and said, “The one in super skinny plaid jeans.” I looked back out the window and he was gone.

No!

I cried for the first fifteen minutes of the drive. Then I sat in self-pity for the remainder of the journey to Tulsa, watching the flat scenery with dead, tired eyes, thinking to myself that I deserved this. This was my hell. I did that stupid photo shoot and now I was paying dearly.

Tulsa was a big city. So was Oklahoma City, but I hadn’t bothered to pay attention since it was a mad dash to load my stuff onto the next bus.

Now, sitting on my largest white Rimowa trunk by the curb waiting for my grandmother, I took it in.

There were lots of buses and cars. Some trees. Hundreds of strangers.

Where was my grandmother? I had no phone or watch, but I guessed I’d been sitting here for twenty minutes.

I started kicking a pebble between my feet like a super low-stakes foosball to pass the time. I needed food and water so bad, when I used the station bathroom—not an easy feat with all my luggage stacked in a stall—I cupped my hands and gulped down as much water from the faucet as I could.

As the day wore on, I was reduced lower and lower.

Now to add insult to injury, I was stood up.

I fished the book out of the paper bag and started reading.

What the hell was this? I turned back to the copyright page and it had been published in 2001.

How did Chelsea read this once, let alone dozens of times, and then proceed to read an entire series like this?

I was questioning her judgment big time.

With nothing else to do, I kept reading. Then the leading lady’s wagon got attacked by Native Americans and they stole her son. Wait, weren’t they the good people she was supposed to fall in love with?

I kept turning the pages. Oh, wait, a new Native warrior came to save the day. I needed a break. This plot was more complicated than my life and that was saying something.