Page 70 of Falls From Grace
Savannah fell asleep with the album cover beside her.
They played two more epic nights at Madison, performed on Good Morning America and did their press circuit, Savannah pretty much running on fumes. They took a long weekend off, and Savannah and Lane - along with the now requisite security again - took Tucker to Central Park to let him run wild. It was here that Lane’s phone lit up with a FaceTime request and they looked sideways at Savannah in askance.
“Go on.” Savannah walked away to let Tucker have his moment. She felt a familiar knot in her chest. It had only been a little more than a couple of weeks after she’d sent Brynn packing that Lane had come to her, admitting they’d called Brynn first, but now Brynn wanted Savannah’s express permission to be in phone contact with her son.
Her first instinct had been to refuse it. She was still so angry and anyway, what was the point of dragging things out for Tucker? But she knew how much her son adored Brynn and the amount of joy and fun she’d brought to him, and besides, she figured, one of them would tire of the contact soon enough and it would trail off, perhaps softening the blow of Brynn’s abrupt disappearance for him. She would never have believed that nearly ten months later, they were still chatting almost every day.
Lane swore blue that Brynn almost never asked about Savannah and that when she did it was only in broad strokes about her wellbeing. Savannah felt both relieved and confused by this. Brynn wasn’t using Tucker as an excuse to be in her life, which was good, and yet… and yet, what? Did she want Brynn to be chasing after her?
Over the last several months she’d caught tiny snatches of their chats on the tour bus, or when she walked in the door back home in Nashville and the sound of Brynn’s voice had always made her throat catch. She made sure never to linger long enough to listen, knowing nothing could make her crumble faster than hearing Brynn’s goofy tenderness with her child.
She sat on a park bench ten feet away and watched as Tucker’s face lit up and he spun in circles, showing off, Lane working hard to keep him upright, just barely. When the call ended, they took Tucker’s hand and shepherded him back to his mama, where he jumped into her arms, still hyped.
“Well?” she asked Lane, who shrugged annoyingly.
“She’s good,” they said. “Looks good, sounds good, probably is good.” There was a tone of mild exasperation in their voice and Savannah shot them a look. “You could always ask her yourself if you care so much?” they pointed out, eyebrows raised, playing their usual part in the ritual. Savannah, as always, ignored this suggestion.
By Monday, she felt almost rested and keen to get back on the road. There was a rhythm to tour life and after years away, she was finally hitting her stride.
Coral made it back to New York, just in time to board the bus to Philadelphia. Tucker was practicing his coloring in his designated play space near the back of the bus, Lane taking the role of chief crayon wrangler, trying to prevent his exuberant drawings marking everything and everyone in a five-foot radius. Coral slipped into the seat next to Savannah who was lounging halfway down the bus, and yawned.
“So?” asked Savannah.
“Good morning to you too,” replied Coral. “My flight was fine, thanks for asking.”
Savannah glanced out the window, gathering herself while trying not to worry about why her friend was stalling. Coral relented.
“She was amazing,” she told her with a slow, wondering shake of her head. “Absolutely killed it; the crowd couldn’t get enough of her.”
“And the after party?” Savannah got to the real point.
“Was a blast,” Coral grinned, “You’ll never guess who I spent the whole evening with -” she trailed out when she saw the anxious look on her friend’s face and answered the real question. “She wasn’t drinking, honey. I watched her like a hawk. She turned down about twelve offers of champagne without hesitation and necked nothing stronger than soda water all night.”
Savannah breathed a sigh of extreme relief, a weight she’d been carrying ever since she’d heard the news that Brynn had signed a record deal lifting ever so slightly. Success in the music industry could be a real mixed blessing and Savannah knew better than anyone the impact it could have when everyone around you treated you like you were special, as if the ordinary rules didn’t apply to you anymore. The free alcohol and drugs, the parties every night. Add that to any residual impact that might have lingered from the distress she’d seen in Brynn’s eyes the night she’d told her she never wanted to see her again, well… she’d been worried.
Of course, there was still plenty of time for it all to go to hell, but it felt like a good start hearing that so far Brynn was resisting temptation despite her recent lows and highs.
“There’s something else,” Coral told her, and her stomach clenched. She knew it was only a matter of time until Brynn moved on, and it was right, it was good, and it didn’t matter to her, but god she didn’t want to hear it. “I met her band.” She met Savannah’s eye. Oh great, Brynn had moved on with a sexy musician, how extremely perfect for her. “They’re all sober, too.”
“What?”She backtracked her racing thoughts.
“Yeah. I noticed they were all on the damn soda water, so I asked her drummer. Apparently, sobriety was a condition of joining the band and going on the road with her. I mean, aside from Noah, but he barely drinks anyway and he knows how important Brynn’s sobriety is to her.”
“Oh.”
Warmth flared in her chest. Brynn was not only smart about her sobriety, she was dead serious. Savannah smiled.
“Ugh, when you smile like that, I realize I probably shouldn’t tell you the next part.”
“What next part?” She turned to look at Coral who was shaking her head and looking… something.
“Well, then I cornered Brynn to congratulate her on her choices and she told me, and I quote: ‘I know it’s stupid because I’m not even a part of her orbit anymore but I feel like Savannah would somehow manage to find a way to blame herself if I fell off the wagon right now, so you know, just to be clear…. I won’t.’”
“Oh.”
For some inexplicable reason, this made her cheeks warm.
“Yeah, oh.”
