17. Savannah
Seventeen
Savannah
Sophie had prepared six acceptable answers to the same question.
They were printed on cream paper, clipped inside a navy folder, and arranged from warm but private to firm but gracious.
None sounded like a person.
I sat in the back of a black SUV outside a television studio in New York, reading the first one aloud.
“‘Savannah was enjoying a well-earned break with friends and appreciates everyone respecting her privacy.’”
Rachel looked up from her tablet.
“You sound like a hotel website.”
“I feel like a hotel website.”
Sophie sat across from us with one phone in her hand and another beside her thigh.
“It is neutral.”
“It contains nothing.”
“That is the purpose of neutral.”
I turned to the second answer.
“‘The woman photographed with Savannah is a local acquaintance, and speculation regarding their relationship is unfounded.’”
“No.”
“We already removed that one,” Rachel said.
“I restored it as an emergency option,” Sophie replied.
“It calls Ellie an acquaintance.”
“You knew her for four days.”
“That doesn’t make it accurate.”
Sophie studied me.
“What would you call her?”
I closed the folder.
“Not on television.”
“Then we need language that closes the question.”
“I’m not closing it by lying.”
“Local acquaintance is technically defensible.”
“That sentence should require legal representation.”
Rachel held out her hand for the folder.
“There are four more,” I said.
“You rejected the first two.”
“I want to know how strange this becomes.”
The third described Ellie as a valued member of the local community.
The fourth claimed the photographs had been misinterpreted.
The fifth encouraged viewers to focus on the tour.
The sixth simply read:
My private life is private.
I held it up.
“This one is almost human.”
“It is the firmest option,” Sophie said.
“It is also five words.”
“Which limits opportunities for improvisation.”
“I feel targeted.”
“You once answered a question about your favorite vacation by discussing a motel ice machine for eleven minutes.”
“It produced hollow cubes.”
Rachel sighed.
“She still talks about them.”
“They melt differently. It matters.”
Sophie took the page from me.
“Today’s interview is supposed to promote the final tour dates and the expanded album edition. Nina Cole will ask about Florida.”
“She said she wouldn’t.”
“She said she wouldn’t lead with it.”
“That is not the same promise.”
“No.”
“Did you know that when you booked this?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Sophie looked at Rachel.
Rachel found something fascinating on her tablet.
“I’m surrounded by open communication.”
“You knew the photographs would come up,” Sophie said. “Everyone knows they will.”
“The problem is not the question. It’s what answer you think I should give.”
“I think you should give one that stops people digging.”
“They found Johnson & Calder. They looked for her parents. Someone tried to identify Molly.”
Sophie’s expression shifted.
“We stopped that story.”
“For now.”
“Yes.”
Outside the tinted window, fans crowded behind metal barriers. Some held album covers. One held a sign with a turtle wearing a tie.
The joke had traveled farther than I had.
“I’m not calling Ellie an acquaintance because it is convenient.”
“My job is not the enemy.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You looked directly at me when you said convenient.”
“That was normal eye contact.”
Rachel put down her tablet.
“What happens if Savannah refuses to answer?”
Sophie checked her phone.
“More headlines. More speculation. More attempts to identify previous relationships.”
Claire.
The name entered the car without anyone saying it.
I looked at the green bracelet around my wrist.
“Richard believes a friendly denial would make most of this go away,” Sophie added.
“Richard believes repetition becomes truth if he invoices it correctly.”
“He is not going to enjoy that sentence.”
“He isn’t here.”
“He has television.”
The studio assistant knocked on the window.
“Five minutes.”
Sophie held out the page.
“Use the private-life answer.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“That means you won’t.”
“It means I respect the cardstock.”
Rachel opened the door.
The noise rushed in.
Fans called my name. Cameras started firing before both feet reached the pavement.
The smile came automatically.
This time, I noticed it arriving.
I signed two album covers, posed for photographs, and accepted a stuffed turtle from a woman in a tour shirt.
“This is Mayor Shelldon,” she said.
The turtle wore a tiny sash.
“That is a strong name.”
“He supports your right to privacy.”
“I appreciate his service.”
Behind me, Sophie inhaled through her nose.
Rachel took the turtle.
“No comments from elected officials,” she murmured.
“He approached me.”
“Keep walking.”
Inside, the studio was aggressively bright.
A production assistant led us down corridors lined with framed photographs of people who looked much more comfortable being interviewed than I felt.
My dressing room contained fruit, bottled water, coffee, and a bowl of granola bars.
Rachel picked one up.
“Lunch.”
“Don’t.”
Sophie stood beside the mirror while Dani repaired the makeup I had applied myself and therefore applied incorrectly.
“You are not confirming a relationship,” Sophie said.
“I’m aware.”
“Do not discuss Ellie’s job.”
“I’m aware.”
“Do not mention Claire.”
“I had no intention of mentioning Claire.”
“Do not criticize the label.”
“That depends on whether they earn it.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
Dani leaned toward me with a makeup brush.
“Could you avoid making her cry until I finish?”
“I’m not crying,” Sophie said.
“You have the posture.”
Rachel sat on the sofa with Mayor Shelldon in her lap.
The turtle appeared calmer than the rest of us.
The interview would be live.
That had been Nina Cole’s condition.
Her nationally syndicated afternoon show was built around intimate celebrity conversations performed in front of two hundred strangers.
Nina was good.
Warm, funny, and skilled at making dangerous questions sound like invitations.
I had appeared on the show three times.
Once for my second album.
Once after an awards season.
Once during a holiday special where I had decorated cookies while discussing heartbreak.
The cookies had suffered.
A producer appeared at the door.
“Two minutes.”
Sophie handed me the final page again.
My private life is private.
“Five words,” she said.
“I remember.”
“Use them.”
I folded the page and slipped it into my back pocket.
Rachel stood and adjusted the collar of my jacket.
“You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to answer.”
“Sophie says silence looks defensive.”
“Sophie is paid to worry about appearances.”
“What are you paid to worry about?”
“You.”
The answer came without humor.
I looked at her.
Rachel smoothed the front of my jacket.
“Do not confuse being honest with giving everyone access.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t call Richard an emotional parasite on live television.”
“I have never called him that.”
“You wrote it in a song draft.”
“It didn’t rhyme.”
“That is the only reason we’re safe.”
The stage manager called my name.
Music began.
The audience applauded as I walked through the curtain.
Nina stood to greet me in a green suit and silver earrings. She wore the expression of a woman who already knew how the next twelve minutes would go.
I hugged her.
“You look rested,” she said.
“That is the nicest inaccurate thing anyone has said to me today.”
The audience laughed.
We sat in cream chairs angled toward each other. Behind us, a screen displayed the cover of the expanded edition.
Nina began safely.
The final tour dates.
The acoustic tracks.
How the songs had changed after almost a year of performing them.
I relaxed enough to talk about music without inspecting every word before it left.
“You’ve been touring for eleven months,” Nina said. “What still surprises you?”
“How quickly every hotel room becomes the same hotel room.”
“Even the expensive ones?”
“Especially those. They all have one gray chair no one sits in.”
“There is always a chair no one sits in.”
“It knows what it did.”
We talked about the band.
A fan who had brought a hand-painted sign to twelve concerts.
The night the stage lift had stalled halfway, leaving me to emerge from the floor at the speed of a cautious groundhog.
Then Nina smiled differently.
The change was small.
I felt it anyway.
“You did manage to get away briefly,” she said.
There it was.
“For a few days.”
“In Florida.”
“Yes.”
The screen behind us changed to an aerial shot of the Keys.
Not the market photograph.
Sophie had negotiated something.
Nina crossed one leg.
“I understand why someone might need sunshine after eleven months on the road.”
“I recommend it.”
“But the trip became less private than you expected.”
“I learned that golf hats offer limited protection.”
“So it was a disguise?”
“It was an error in judgment.”
The audience laughed.
“You were photographed with someone who has since become the most famous dive instructor in America.”
I did not laugh.
Nina noticed.
Her expression softened.
“I’m not going to ask you to identify her.”
“You just did.”
A small sound moved through the audience.
Nina inclined her head.
“Fair.”
The interview could still move on.
I could give Sophie her five words.
Nina looked at her cards.
“There has been considerable speculation about the nature of that relationship. Is there anything you want to correct?”
“My private life is private.”
Five words.
Somewhere backstage, Sophie briefly experienced peace.
Nina nodded.
“That is completely fair.”
The audience applauded.
It could have ended there.
Then Nina glanced down again.
“What about reports describing the woman as a local friend who happened to be showing you around?”
The sentence sounded harmless.
Richard’s preferred answer was hiding inside it.
“I wouldn’t describe her that way,” I said.
Nina’s attention sharpened.
“How would you describe her?”
“I’m not going to.”
“Because she asked you not to?”
“Because she didn’t agree to be part of this interview.”
The audience went quiet.
Nina lowered her cards.
“Some people might argue that refusing to clarify encourages more speculation.”
“They may be right.”