22. Savannah
Twenty Two
Savannah
The final show of the tour began with a radio interview in a room that smelled like dust, electrical equipment, and someone else’s lunch.
I had imagined the last day would feel ceremonial. There would be meaningful looks between band members, champagne waiting backstage, and a sense that we had reached the end of something enormous.
Instead, Rachel was arguing with a vending machine.
“It took the money,” she said.
A row of granola bars remained behind the glass, secured by metal coils and indifference.
“You chose a product with no structural integrity.”
“I chose lunch.”
“You chose compressed disappointment.”
Rachel pressed the return button three times. The machine remained unmoved.
Sophie sat on a folding chair beside the studio door, reading the interview notes on her tablet.
Since the meeting with Richard, she had developed a color-coded system.
Music questions were green, personal but manageable questions were yellow, and anything the host had agreed not to ask was marked red.
The page contained enough red to suggest a difficult autopsy.
“This is the last contracted interview,” Sophie said. “After this, you have sound check, the show, and forty-five minutes at the after-party. Then five days with no scheduled obligations.”
Rachel gave the vending machine one final look.
“I’m bringing tools next time.”
“There is no next time,” I said. “We are retiring from radio-station cuisine.”
“You are resting for five days.”
“That is practically a sabbatical.”
Sophie looked up.
“It will feel longer if you spend it sending me messages about whether flight attendants count as journalists.”
“She recognized me while controlling the beverage cart. The power dynamic was unclear.”
Rachel sat beside me.
“What are you doing with the five days?”
“Nothing.”
“You have said that for a week, and it has not become more convincing.”
“I intend to become highly accomplished at nothing.”
“Where?”
“I own a house.”
“You dislike your house.”
“I dislike that every room looks as though an interior designer expects to return and evaluate me.”
“You approved the furniture.”
“I was shown samples during a sound check. I may have approved an ottoman while someone tested pyrotechnics.”
Sophie returned to the notes.
“The host is Daniel Price. You have met before.”
“He asked whether I wrote Hard Winter about Luke Harper.”
“Half the country believed you were dating Luke Harper.”
“Half the country received assistance.”
Her gaze paused on the screen.
“Yes.”
The admission still sounded difficult for her.
It was difficult for me too. Taking responsibility had not changed the past. It had only removed the convenience of imagining I had been carried through it without participating.
A producer opened the door.
“Two minutes.”
Rachel stood and adjusted my jacket sleeve, although nothing was wrong with it.
“Do you want me inside?”
“Yes.”
She nodded as though I had asked something practical.
Sophie rose.
“If he moves into anything marked red, decline. You do not owe him an explanation for refusing.”
“I remember the policy.”
“You wrote the policy.”
“That explains the familiar tone.”
She gave me the look she reserved for moments when affection and professional exhaustion became indistinguishable.
The studio was smaller than the last one I had visited. Daniel sat behind a wide desk with headphones around his neck, smiling as though we were old friends who had not spoken since the last time he asked me an invasive question.
“Savannah Brooks,” he said. “Final night.”
“Unless the band has organized a quiet rebellion.”
“Have they?”
“They are waiting until after payroll.”
Daniel laughed. A red light appeared above the window, and his voice shifted into the warm confidence of a man speaking to several million people.
He introduced the tour, the expanded album, and the sold-out concert scheduled for that evening. The first ten minutes remained comfortably green.
We talked about the final set list, the songs that had changed most over nearly a year of performances, and the habits that developed after too much time on the road.
“I no longer trust a room without blackout curtains,” I said.
“Even at home?”
“Especially at home. Natural light has become suspicious.”
“What will you miss?”
“The band. The audience. That moment before the first song when thousands of people are waiting for the same thing.”
“And what will you not miss?”
“Eating dinner from a container while someone adjusts my hair.”
Behind the glass, Rachel lifted a granola bar she had somehow obtained.
I pointed at her.
“That is not dinner.”
Daniel looked through the window.
“Your manager appears to disagree.”
“My manager survived the tour by lowering her standards.”
The conversation moved toward the album. Daniel asked about Hard Winter, and I answered without measuring every word because music remained the easiest truth in my life.
I loved the song more now than when I had written it.
During the first tour, I had sung it as though surviving meant reaching the end of something.
After hundreds of performances, I understood that survival could be repetitive.
You woke up, did the work, and discovered much later that the season had changed while you were occupied with getting through it.
“That sounds almost optimistic,” Daniel said.
“Please do not damage my reputation.”
He smiled, then glanced at the notes in front of him.
Through the glass, Sophie straightened.
Yellow.
“I want to ask about something you said in the television interview last week.”
“You may ask.”
“You refused to describe someone in a way she had not approved. The response was enormous.”
“That is a polite description.”
“Did the scale surprise you?”
“No. Some of the details people invented did.”
“I read that you had secretly married in Florida.”
“I hope there was cake.”
“You still have not clarified the relationship.”
“No.”
“Do you plan to?”
“No.”
Daniel waited, likely expecting me to soften the answer.
I had become better at letting silence remain someone else’s responsibility.
He looked down again.
“There is a wider conversation happening around that interview. For years, the public narrative about your personal life has involved men, even though you almost never confirmed any of those stories.”
Sophie moved toward the studio door.
She did not enter, but her hand settled on the handle.
Daniel continued.
“Some fans believe the photographs from Florida revealed something you had deliberately concealed. Others argue that your private life should remain private. Is there anything you want people to understand?”
The question was not on the approved list.
Not in those words.
I looked through the window.
Sophie stood ready to intervene. Rachel was beside her, completely still.
I could refuse.
The new rules allowed me to refuse.
That would protect Ellie. It would also leave every old assumption in place and allow my silence to continue doing the same work it always had.
The answer did not have to include Ellie.
That was the distinction I had missed for years.
“Yes,” I said. “There is.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
Daniel leaned slightly toward the microphone.
“I am a woman who loves women.”
The room remained quiet except for the low hum of the equipment.
The sentence did not sound dramatic once it existed.
It sounded accurate.
“I have also allowed people to assume otherwise because correcting them felt complicated, and because those assumptions were useful to my career. Some rumors were encouraged. Others were simply left alone.”
Daniel’s expression changed from interviewer to listener.
“Are you identifying yourself as a lesbian?”
“Yes.”
The word came more easily than the sentence before it.
“I am.”
Through the glass, Rachel lowered her shoulders.
Sophie remained motionless.
Daniel set down his notes.
“Why say it now?”
There were several answers.
Because of Ellie.
Because of Claire.
Because a woman in a market had spoken the name Savannah Brooks and exposed the structure holding my life apart.
All of those answers belonged partly to someone else.
“Because I kept waiting until I could say it perfectly,” I said. “Eventually, perfection became another excuse.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Of your audience?”
“Of the audience, the industry, the people whose jobs depend on decisions connected to mine. Some fears were reasonable. I also used them to avoid making a choice.”
The honesty surprised me after it left.
Across the city, thousands of people were gathering for the concert. Some might be disappointed. Some had likely understood years ago. Most were probably occupied with parking, merchandise lines, and whether the person beside them had taken too much of the armrest.
Daniel’s voice softened.
“Does this mean you are confirming the relationship people have been discussing?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“She has not agreed to be part of this conversation. Speaking honestly about myself does not give me permission to speak for her.”
That sentence felt more important than the first.
Daniel nodded.
“Understood.”
He returned to the album after that. He asked one final question about the tour, thanked me for answering, and announced the concert details while I sat very still.
When the red light went dark, the studio became an ordinary room again.
Daniel removed his headphones.
“Thank you.”
“For which part?”
“The honest one.”
“That narrows it down less than you might think.”
He smiled.
Sophie entered before I had fully stood.
“That was not approved.”
“No.”
“You told me you remembered the policy.”
“I did.”
“The policy includes avoiding surprise declarations on live radio.”
“That rule was written to stop me from exposing someone else.”
“It was also written to protect you.”
I looked at her.
“I chose this.”
Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it.
Rachel entered behind her, still holding the granola bar.
“She did,” Rachel said.
“I am standing here,” Sophie replied. “You do not need to interpret.”
“You looked as though support might be useful.”