“He fell asleep in front of the television,” said Savannah, and she stuck out her lower lip to convey Aww, isn’t that adorable? “I think he got a real fright when your mother was in hospital last week, so they both have some catching up to do.”
“Oh,” said Amy. Her father was a veteran snoozer. He always dozed in front of the television. He’d be awake any minute. “Well. I’ll still come in and—”
“Now is not such a good time,” said Savannah.
Now is not such a good time? Did she really just say that?
Amy felt many emotions on a given day: desire for inappropriate men, nostalgia for long-ago days that never actually happened, great rolling waves of happiness and sadness, bouts of high-level panic and low-level anxiety, but rage was an emotion with which she was not familiar, so it took her a moment to identify the feeling whooshing through her veins.
Was this girl really going to block her from entering her own childhood home?
“Hi there.” Simon leaned in front of Amy. “I’m Amy’s boyfriend. Sorry to be a pain, but could I come in and use the bathroom? I’ll be very quiet if everyone is asleep.”
He didn’t really think he was her boyfriend just because they’d slept together twice, did he? She gave him a look. He winked.
There was a beat. Of course Savannah knew Amy was single. She knew everything about Amy’s family although they knew virtually nothing about her. Savannah tapped a fingertip against her lower lip, almost as if in parody of Joy, who did the same thing to indicate skepticism.
If Savannah denied Amy’s “boyfriend” this valid, ordinary request, she would kick down the door.
“Come in.” Savannah opened the security chain with an upward flick of her finger, opened the door, and stood back, as if she lived there, which technically she did, but temporarily. Supposedly.
There was just nothing guestlike in her behavior.
Steffi, the traitorous hound, sat at Savannah’s feet as though she were Savannah’s beloved pet, and politely cocked her head at Amy like they were meeting for the first time.
Once again, Amy registered how the house felt perceptibly, but pleasantly, different, as it had on Father’s Day. It was like it had been styled by a clever real estate agent for inspection by potential buyers. There were flowers on the sideboard in a vase that Amy had never seen before. All the family photos on the wall were the same, but they’d been straightened, or dusted, or polished so that all those familiar shots of their childhood were suddenly thrown into sharp relief.
Simon held out his hand to Savannah.
“Hi there. I’m Simon Barrington,” he said in a loud, showy voice, completely unlike his own. “So pleased to meet you.”
She took his hand. “Hi. I’m Savannah.”
“Savannah…?” He kept holding her hand, waiting for her surname, like someone’s embarrassing uncle.
“The bathroom is this way,” said Savannah.
“I’ll show him the bathroom,” said Amy, and she knew she sounded thirteen. Then she said, “Well, but you know, what actually is your last name, Savannah?”
Because how were they going to secretly investigate her if they didn’t even know her last name? Did their parents even know it? They may never have even asked and had probably never bothered to google her, just blithely believing every word she had to say.
“It’s Pagonis,” said Savannah. “Savannah Pagonis.”
The cut above her eye had completely healed, and she was wearing just a touch of makeup, and there was a kind of creamy, settled confidence to her, as if she were wearing her own clothes in her own home and Amy and Simon were unwelcome guests who she would soon be sending on their way. Amy’s mother’s clothes didn’t look wrong on her. They looked exactly right. She was a younger version of Joy. She could be Joy’s daughter. Joy had probably dreamed of a pretty feminine little daughter like this. Amy and Brooke had talked about this over the years: how their mother sometimes made them feel huge, like big lolloping orangutans.
“Oh, that’s unusual. How do you spell that, Savannah?” asked Simon. It was like watching an accountant perform in an amateur community production. He was terrible, but so adorably committed.
“P-a-g-o-n-i-s,” answered Savannah, eyebrows arched.
“Huh,” said Simon. “Is that, let me guess, Greek?”
“Apparently,” said Savannah shortly.
“Savannah Pagonis,” repeated Simon. “I bet people never spell it correctly. I hope your middle name is something simple. Like Anne? Marie?”
Amy looked at him admiringly. His delivery remained forced and theatrical, but the strategy couldn’t be faulted.
“You guessed it, it’s Marie,” said Savannah. “Do you want me to spell that too?”