Heeeeeey, bitches! Did you see the latest BiRo scuttlebutt? Well, if you haven’t, put on your detective hats and pull up a chair! For those of you who have been in a coma for the past few days, America’s favorite sweetheart who we now love to hate is on the hunt for an anonymous ex who still holds a torch for her.
Sound like something she scripted?
Yeah, we think so too. A little too on the nose for our taste, and as a few recent emails have revealed, BiRo is chillier than a Chicago winter, not the warm fuzzy who would be out there looking for love. More devious than sweet, that’s for SURE. We are totes #teamsebastian on this one.
But in the interest of playing along (and also, let’s be real, bitches, we wanna see who this dude IS), we’re taking a survey. Enter the poll below to who your best bet is for that sad sack ex who wants to come to BiRo’s rescue. (Let’s be clear here, if this is legit, we are all in, and are rooting for her happy ending. We’re not monsters.)
VOTE HERE:
1. Chef Ian Sands
2. Simon someone? (Wasn’t she bumping uglies up with a hotelier?)
3. Kai Carol (never confirmed but we’re going with it—what a twist that would be)
4. Random dude no one ever saw coming
5. She wrote this to herself, don’t be played
20
BIRDIE
Birdie still hadn’ttold Elliot about Kai, that he should probably be added to the list of possibilities of who wrote the letter. Kai, Sebastian’s brother. Kai, whom she hadn’t heard from in several years, since she permanently fled the city they were now barreling toward in this rickety RV. At the time, she told everyone that she couldn’t stay sane under the relentless sunshine, but really, she couldn’t stay sane when Kai lurked around every studio lot, every West Hollywood coffee spot, every street, every wine bar, every memory.
They were still a ways out from Los Angeles due to traffic, not mileage, and she could have sat on the freeway for hours rather than nose forward to the City of Angels. Her dread had very little to do with Carter. Rather, Los Angeles was complicated for Birdie, who had lived there off and on since her career took off. She only permanently settled in New York once she and Carter split three and a half years ago. So, since she’d been single. Stayed single.
Her phone buzzed again while the RV lurched a few feet forward in traffic every minute or so. Birdie was no mechanic, butshe didn’t think the engine was exactly purring. Elliot, who was scowling at the dashboard and occasionally smacked the front gauges with the butt of his hand, seemed to agree.
“Please just answer that,” Elliot said, pointing at her phone. “I honestly think your team is going to put out a warrant for my arrest if you don’t at least give them proof of life.”
In the five hours that they’d been on the road, one of Elliot’s neighbors had messaged a few times with updates: that one TV van had turned into two; that two had turned into four; that more than he could count on one hand now clogged the street, and their super was out there screaming at them about how this overstepped freedom of the press. Elliot had laughed at that because his super was, he said, an aging hippie who loved to stick it to the man, but mostly Elliot seemed relieved that no one had realized that they were a hundred and fifty miles down the highway by then. Or maybe Birdie was the one who was relieved. She had to deal with the hassle of photographers from time to time in New York, but mostly, people there, even when they noticed her—and they always did—left her alone. This recent frenzy made her feel a little hunted, made her feel a little out of control, and also, worst of all, made her think of Kai, since he was the one who had taught her how to dodge the cameras, how to manipulate them, how to bait and switch them.
Her phone buzzed again, and this time she answered.
“What was the one thing I asked you to do?” Imani shouted. “I told you tolie low.Do you consider lying low showing up at a James Beard winner’s restaurant and getting into a spat in front of dozens of diners?”
“Not dozens,” Birdie said. She pinched the bridge of her nose and wished she had the ability to unwind time so that she didn’t answer the call. Or so that she didn’t confront Ian. Or so that shehadn’t gotten into it with Sebastian. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut and not gotten into it with Sebastian? They’d be halfway through filming by now, and sure, he’d be leering at the extras and possibly groping a day player or two, butJesus fucking Christ, Imani was right, why couldn’t she justshut up? What was wrong with her that she simply couldn’t get out of her own way? She’d trained herself since leaving Barton: do better than everyone else, be better than everyone else. Somehow, she’d slipped backward into her childhood self who constantly caused Susana to press her lips into that thin, displeased line.
