My Worst Best Friend (20 page)

Disappointment tended to make me petty. “I thought love didn’t have a watch.”

Savanna cackled happily. “But it does have a calendar.”

You should never have invited her,
whined a disloyal voice in my head.
You should have invited Cooper. At least you know he’d dig the music. And not leave in the middle to do something better.

“But it’s Remember the Wampanoag Day,” I bleated.

Savanna went back to her unpacking. “I haven’t forgotten them, have I, Gray? I’ve been here helping you all afternoon. Remember? And I know the party’s going to be, like, mega-great and everything, and I’m reallyreally sorry I have to miss even the teensiest bit of it. But I’m going to be here for most of it. And anyway, what can I do? I’m like a prawn of Fate.”

“
Pawn
.” I couldn’t tell any more where the door ended and my back began.

“Right.” Savanna took her make-up bag from the backpack and laid it on the bed. “He’s picking me up at seven.”

“
Here
?” That wasn’t possible. The house would be filled with tons of people. And my father. It would be especially filled with my father.

She shook out a pale green shirt with a scoop neck and wide sleeves. “Of course not here. I’m not stupid, Gracie. I’m meeting him in town. It only takes, like, five minutes to get there from your house.”

I couldn’t see how this eliminated the basic problem. You know, that she was supposed to be in our living room eating succotash and cornbread, not sitting in a car exchanging saliva with Morgan Scheck. “But what about my dad?”

Savanna sighed. “Well, that’s why I’m meeting Morgan in town, isn’t it?” She laid a short black skirt on the bed. “I mean, Morgan can’t exactly knock on the door and ask for me, can he? The Professor would want to know who he is.”

“But he’s going to notice that you’re missing.”

“No, he won’t.” She took out her toilet bag. “That’s why I came early, Gray. So he knows I’m here. I mean, later he’s going to be, like, über busy with his guests and hooting the nanny and everything, isn’t he?”

“
Hootenanny
. And it’s not really a—”

“Whatever. He’s going to be occupied. That’s the important thing. He’ll never notice that I’m not around. If he doesn’t see me in one place, he’ll just think I’m somewhere else.”

Maybe she really was crazy. Not just flamboyant and confident and daring – all of which can be attractive and positive qualities – but certifiably insane.

“Are you totally nuts? It’s not going to work, Savanna. My dad teaches classes with dozens of kids in them. He always knows when someone’s absent.”

“But not if he
knows
they’re there, Gray. If he knows they’re there, he doesn’t think about them again unless one of them starts snoring. Don’t you get it? Your dad
knows
I’m in the house! And I’ll be mingling downstairs with everybody when they first get here – and then I’ll just slip out of the back door for a little while. So if, like, later your dad thinks,
Gloriosky, where’s Savanna Zindle?
he’ll figure I’m in the bathroom or something and forget about me again.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” It was bad enough lying to my dad without him finding out that I was lying. The guilt would kill me. “What if he decides to look for you?”

“Oh, please…” Savanna waved this aside as if it was a gnat. “He’s not going to look for me. He’ll be playing the banjo.”

“Guitar.” There was a stain I hadn’t noticed before on my bedspread. It looked like a heart. Slightly torn. “And he’s not going to be playing it all the time, Sav. He’s going to be hanging out with his friends. Circulating … Making sure everybody’s having a good time … Being the host…”

“Which will keep him really busy, won’t it?”

“Savanna…” I’d passed disappointment and gone straight to world-class worry. There was the little matter of us being caught. “Savanna—”

“Oh, please, Gracie, you have to help me. I promisepromisepromise, I’ll be back by ten thirty. He’ll never even know I was gone.”

It was like looking into the pleading eyes of an orphaned baby chameleon. A really beautiful baby chameleon with intricate markings and its skin flashing shades of metallic blue. The chameleon was lost and frightened and shivering from cold. All it wanted was to find someplace safe where it would be fed and loved.
It’s only for a couple of hours…
I heard myself thinking.
It means a lot to her… It’s not like you’re really doing anything wrong…

“Nine-thirty, Savanna.” I might be the girl who wanted to take six cats, ten dogs, an iguana, two rabbits and a chicken home from the rescue centre when I was ten, but I did have some limits. “I mean it. You have to be back in this house by nine-thirty.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gracie! I knew I could count on you. You are the truest, bestest friend there ever was.” She threw her arms around me. “I’ll be back by nine-thirty. Swear on a bear. I don’t want you turned into a pepper.”

“
Pumpkin
.” I hugged her back.

If
they gave out awards for mingling with people you never met before, Savanna would have won every one. No contest. She was never the kind of person to wait for people to talk to her, but today she was in über gregarious mode. She was right behind my dad when the first guests arrived so he had to introduce her. She took coats and got drinks. She passed around the nuts and chips. She chatted away about the weather and the holidays and what she saw as the failings of the Crow’s Point educational system. As more people started arriving, she answered the door herself. “Hi, I’m Gracie’s best friend, Savanna. Who are you?” Every time one of the band members arrived, she made a big fuss. “I can’t wait to hear you play. I mean, Gracie says you’re, like, totally great.” When it was time to put the food out, she was standing by as the oven door opened. “Oh, wow, Professor Mooney, that looks sooo good. My dad thinks cooking is opening a can.” She helped carry out the dishes to the buffet table in the dining room. She went back to the kitchen for more serving spoons. She went back to the kitchen for more napkins. She went back to the kitchen for another jug of cider. And then, as everyone started piling food on their plates, she slipped into the kitchen and didn’t come back.

The kids who had come with their parents were all younger than I was and had gone down to the basement, where there was a ping-pong table and board games and no adults asking them about school and stuff like that, so I went into the living room and started to do some mingling of my own.
How’re things going…? Still obsessed with iguanas…? I hear you’re doing some teaching, Gracie… Are you still planning to go to Costa Rica in the summer…?
Since I’d been answering adults’ questions for sixteen years I managed that part OK –
Fine… Yes… Right… You bet… –
I even managed to ask some questions of my own, but I was way too stressed out to actually eat. All I could see was the space where Savanna should have been. It was enormous. It was like looking into the open mouth of a whale. And now that I wasn’t staring into Savanna’s big brown imploring eyes, worry had stalked back into my mind.
What was my problem? Why was I so easily persuaded? Was it actually a miracle I was alive?
(You know, because no one I cared about ever told me to jump off a cliff.) It was all I could do to push food from one side of my plate to the other. When I did manage to get some into my mouth, it tasted like ashes. The ashes of someone who’s gone down in flames. Ms Salter, who taught yoga and played the fiddle, was worried that I was coming down with something. Only guilt. I said that I was just too excited to eat. I got rid of my plate and got myself some cider. I spilled it on my
500 years of genocide
T-shirt and Mr McKlintock’s shoes. I laughed too loudly whenever someone made a joke. I called Fergal, the banjo player, Fergus even though I’d known him since I was ten. “You’ll be forgetting your own name next,” he joked. I said that seemed pretty likely. And all the time I was mingling and wreaking havoc, I kept watching my dad. I was waiting for him to look over at me and shout, “Where’s Savanna disappeared to, Gracie?” But he didn’t. It began to look as if Savanna was right. He was too busy talking to his friends and giving out his cornbread recipe to pay much attention to the exact location of Savanna Zindle. When he did walk by me to fill up his plate again he whispered in my ear, “I think it’s going well, don’t you, Gracie? Even better than last year.”

I said that I thought it was going super well. “Everybody’s having a really good time.”

I wouldn’t say it was the kind of evening that made me think I was always happy, but as it wore on, hope finally put in an appearance. My breathing started to return to something close to normal and my palms stopped sweating. I promised every god in the universe and the ghosts of the Wampanoags that if they got me through this in one piece, I would never ever lie to my father again. Not even if it was for his own good.

At nine o’clock, the band started playing. As far as I was concerned, it was like the all-clear after an air raid. You can come out now. You’re not going to get a bomb through your living room tonight. I began to relax and enjoy myself. My foot tapped. My head bobbed.
Call him drunken Ira Hayes
, I sang with the others.
He can’t hear you any more…
We were home free. My dad gets really absorbed when he’s playing; he wouldn’t notice if half his guests went home until he stopped. And by the time he did stop, Savanna would be back in the house and standing right beside me, shaking her hair and swinging her earrings and clapping along with everybody else.

At 9.45, I stopped tapping my foot and bobbing my head and slipped into my dad’s study, to see if the clock there had the same time as my watch.

A little after ten, the band took a break. I stared at the kitchen door. It was opening. Slowly. My heart threw itself against my ribcage. Professor Reich, the Head of the history department, stepped into the dining room with several bottles of beer in his hands. He gave me a wink.

At 10.15, I went to the kitchen for some more cider. I looked out the side window. I went into the little glassed-in porch off the kitchen and squinted into the darkness that was the backyard. I stuck my head through the door. “Savanna?” I whispered. “Savanna, are you there?” A bat flew past. I turned off the light by the door and went back inside. I stayed close to the dining room. You know, so I’d be right there when Savanna finally slipped in from the kitchen.

At 10.25, the phone rang. I was too far away to get it without shoving Mr Shiloh, the Wobblies’ other guitarist, out of the way and jumping over the back of the couch. I caught my breath instead.

My father was only a foot or two from the phone. “Now, who could that be?” he laughed. “I thought everybody was here!” He put down his beer and went over and picked up the receiver.

I told myself not to panic. It
is
a big country. Vast. There were a lot of people who could have been calling our house right then – my grandmother in Florida, my aunt in San Francisco, someone offering my dad a timeshare in the South of France, a wrong number. The options were pretty endless. It was Mrs Zindle.

I knew it was Mrs Zindle because my dad shouted, “Who? Oh, Zelda. How are you? No, of course you’re not disturbing us. Yeah … yeah … we’re having a great time.”

I moved a little further away from the living room, studying the desserts on the table as if I was having a hard time deciding what to have.

“Savanna? Yeah, sure she’s here. Just a sec. I’ll get her for you.” From where I was, I couldn’t see him looking around for me, but I could feel it. “Gracie!”

I acted like I hadn’t heard him.
Should I have a pecan brownie? Should I have a slice of pie? Oh boy, that cranberry cake sure looks good…

“Gracie!”

Several people who were hanging out in the dining room joined in. “Gracie, your dad wants you.” Sara Nickerman, specialist field medieval history, leaned over and gave me a poke.

I turned around. At about the speed of a slow loris.

Robert Mooney, PhD in American history and single parent, was standing right behind me. He was looking really tall.

“Gracie, where’s Savanna? It’s her mother. She’s been calling her, but her cell phone’s switched off.”

“Savanna?” I shrugged. “Isn’t she in the living room?”

My dad laughed. “Do you hear her?” And then he frowned. I could tell he was thinking. And I knew what about. He was thinking about how he hadn’t heard Savanna shrieking or honking for a long time. He was thinking about how he hadn’t seen her talking or eating. How he hadn’t seen her leaning against me or heard her singing the wrong words while we listened to the music. He moved his head down towards me. “Gracie, Savanna
is
here, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, of course she’s here.” I laughed as if you couldn’t get more ridiculous than thinking that Savanna wasn’t in the house. “I was just talking to her.”

“Really?” He was doing that thing where he pushes his tongue against his cheek as if it helps him think.

“Yeah. Just a little while ago.” I smiled. Like someone who’s telling the truth. “I don’t know where she’s gone – you know Savanna – but she’s around here somewhere.” I made myself look right in his eyes. Where else would she be?

“Well … I don’t remember seeing her for a while now. Not with you, and not with any one else.” Unlike me, Robert Mooney still wasn’t smiling. He was watching me with the same serious expression he had when he read the newspaper. He never trusted anything he read in the papers; he was always looking for the parts of the story that had been left out. “You know, I wouldn’t want to find myself inadvertently lying to Mrs Zindle, Gracie. If Savanna isn’t here, I think you should tell me. If anything happens to her, I’m the one who’s responsible, you know.”

My stomach pretty much cemented itself into a ball. This was something I hadn’t thought of – that my dad would end up lying for Savanna, too. It wasn’t bad enough that I was lying to
him
, now I’d made him an accessory to my deceit. That was the thanks he got for all the sacrifices he’d made raising me by himself.