Waking Savannah

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “I hid your cell in the towel drawer in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.”

  “I really do feel better now,” Savannah called after her. “Barely any headache at all.”

  The dull throbbing was so common, she hardly noticed it anymore. As a doctor, she knew that wasn’t good, and, as a doctor, she also understood if these headaches hadn’t killed her after all those years, they were not likely to. At least, after tests that would reveal nothing, she and Margit would have a nice day together, maybe go to the beach. And Pepe’s famous pizza on Wooster Street was an absolute must. Maybe she’d bring a pie back for Edgardo, Raul, and Ade.

  She couldn’t even think Adelmo anymore. Along with the abbreviated name came a warm and sexy tingling Savannah had no desire to quell. He had been so gentle with her, so kind. Edgardo and Raul deferred to him like careful schoolboys, ready to fetch and carry but not make any move unless directed by the younger man. Savannah found this curious, but not enough to bother about. It simply felt good being taken care of.

  “Were you able to get my prescription made?” she asked Margit after she returned with her phone.

  “The hospital docs were good enough to take my recommendation and prescribe it for you.” She pulled an amber vial from her pocket, shaking the contents. “This is better. Faster. Under your tongue, missy.”

  Savannah tilted her head up and did as she was asked. The bitter taste made her grimace.

  Margit capped the bottle and handed it to her. “You need a physician up here to prescribe it for you. You let it go too far and it went out of control. You’re a doctor, Savannah—”

  “Oh, now it’s Savannah, is it?”

  Margit ignored her. “You know it’s better to keep the pain under control than it is to try getting it under control.”

  “I told you. It went away.”

  “Sure it did.”

  “I’m not lying, Margit.”

  Shoulders slumped, her friend let out a long breath. “I love you, Savvy. You’re my oldest friend. I say this with all that love—I don’t believe you.”

  “Fine, don’t.” She lied to Margit enough in the past. She didn’t take offense now that she wasn’t. There was some sort of karma at work. She was fine with that too. Ade’s attentions, Margit’s visit, and the dull ache in her head already subsiding, Savannah tossed the blanket aside. “I’m tired of resting.”

  “Savannah Callowell, you get back onto that couch.”

  “Come on, Margit.” She danced out of the room, teasing her friend after her. “Let’s go up to the fallow field and see what treasures Ade has found.”

  * * * *

  The rash in the crooks of his elbows itched. A thorn embedded itself so deep into his palm that it was going to take more effort than prodding to get out. He also made an enthusiastic dive into a patch of what he thought might be some nearly-extinct variety of squash, and brushed against a patch of nettles. The sting still burned, hours later while he played cards with Tío and Taytay. And yet Ade would happily bump, bruise, and skewer himself in the wild bramble of Savannah’s upper field day after gratifying day without qualm.

  Late each afternoon, he returned to the creaky little house and his juvenile room to clean up. He, Taytay, and Tío made certain Savannah took her medication, ate, slept, and always had the TV remote and a book nearby. She seemed happy to see him, reluctant to see him go, but go he did. The anticipation of her smile when he walked in was worth more than anything else he could imagine.

  Once Margit arrived, he backed off caretaking. She was a doctor, Savannah’s doctor. And though they’d both protested, he gave up his room to her. He would sleep on the couch in the doublewide until Margit went home.

  “You’re just afraid we’ll keep you up all night, guffawing like a couple of college girls,” Margit had teased. “As if you actually need beauty sleep.”

  Ade pretended not to hear her.

  In another time, another place, he would have flirted back, ended up in her bed. His bed. They were kindred of a kind, he and this curvy, pixie of a doctor from Savannah’s past. People who knew how to play the game and enjoy it. Sex for a purpose, or done and forgotten before the week was out. This wasn’t another time, another place. It was a farm in Bitterly, Connecticut, and he was a new man.

  Wary as he had always been about feeling anything, let alone feeling so much so soon, Ade’s whole body thrummed with the excitement of this new sensation, this hope for love. The instant gratification of a one-night-fling couldn’t compare to the exquisite thrill of anticipation. Seduction had become a sacrilege he would not commit. He had only to glance at the countless and continuous texts on his phone to remind him of where the calculated wariness had gotten him.

  “Who is she?” Taytay demanded in the rural language they spoke at home, after yet another text interrupted their nightly game of cuarenta. “Tell her to go away.”

  “I’ve tried, Taytay.” Ade snapped his cards onto the table. “Limpia.”

  Edgardo scowled at the empty playing field. “You cheated.”

  “I did not. You’re not paying attention.”

  “It is difficult with your phone lighting up every five minutes. Turn it off.”

  “Savannah might need—”

  “Savvy has her doctor friend. Give it here.”

  Blowing a breath through his lips, Ade switched off his phone. He ignored the threats and exclamation points on the texts still glowing on his screen, and slid it into his shirt pocket. “Play with Tío,” he said. “I’m going to see about getting this thorn out of my hand. It’s starting to throb.”

  His father’s best treatment for any wound entailed washing it, bandaging it, and leaving the rest to his body to decide. There would be nothing helpful in his medicine cabinet. Ade crossed the dusk-lit field and went to Savvy’s for the calendula and comfrey salve he’d seen on the shelf there. The salve would help, though he wished for the sangre de drago Lita would have smeared on his wounds and rashes.

  Rummaging around the shelves, he found the right jar without switching on the lights. He left a note in the cash box, and went into the windowless bathroom in Savannah’s office. The overhead light—a bare bulb on a wire—gave off harsh but substantial light. In a well-stocked first-aid kit tucked under the sink, he found the tweezers necessary for extracting the thorn.

  Red. Angry-looking. He’d let it stay in too long. Digging at it now, he gasped and groaned. Sweat beaded his forehead, his upper lip. Ade gritted his teeth and dug deep. Pus oozed out, and with it, the thorn, instant relief, and a long exhale. He washed his hands.

  So small a thing, this alien invader, to cause such pain. He read the ingredients on the jar of salve—safflower oil, essential oils of calendula and comfrey, beeswax, and vitamin E. Simple. Effective. Expensive. Consumers bought a tube of antibiotic ointment for under a dollar. Few would consider paying seven bucks for the jar in his hand. They didn’t think about the petroleum jelly in the tube as a bi-product of the oil industry, its impact on the environment, or that the widespread use of antibiotics was creating stronger and stronger bacteria. Like it did for his father and uncle, expedience and cost outweighed the greater good. The science behind the thorn, the pus, the salve intrigued him no less now than it did when he was a child learning at his grandmother’s side. The thirst to know more drove him.

  And drove him.

  Right out of the life he had aspired to.

  Pocketing the jar of salve, Ade leaned against the sink. He pulled out his phone. Switched it back on. All the texts were largely the same. He deleted them. He found two that were not from the viper—one from his cell-phone provider about his data usage, and one from the wine-of-the-month club he belonged to, saying his subscription was about to expire. Ade deleted them too.

  The voicemail icon showed six messages waiting. Inhaling deeply, he touched the screen, and listened.

  “You think you can just leave me, but you can’t. You think you can hide, but yo
u can’t do that either. Not forever. Make it easier on yourself and call me. We can work this out. If you don’t piss me off any more than you already have.”

  Delete.

  All but one of the messages were much the same. That one set his heart racing, and not in the good way he’d been experiencing since arriving in Bitterly. He listened to it again.

  “Hey, Ade. It’s me. Carl. I don’t know where you’re at, and that’s probably a good thing. My job’s been threatened about a thousand times because Anita thinks you told me. All I said was I figured you’d gone home to Ecuador. If that’s where you are, stay put. I just thought you’d want to know—”

  Ade checked the display. The call hadn’t dropped. Carl’s voice came back, softer.

  “Sorry. Someone came in. I just want you to know that she’s making it look like you quit of your own free will. We both know no one’s buying it, but that’s how it works around here. A Durst says it’s so, it is. I wish I could say I got your back, buddy, but I need this job. I’m too old to find another position. Call me if you need to, but only if you need to. The less I know, the better.”

  Tempted as he was to return the call, Ade deleted the message. Carl didn’t need the drama. They’d only been friends in the broadest terms. Colleagues slightly friendlier than most. The kind that would warn him away from the Durst family, give him a heads up as to the goings on, but not stick his neck out any further. Ade harbored no ill will. He hadn’t earned the man’s loyalty. Carl was a history professor, not young, not old, no one of importance or influence. Ashamed as he was now to admit it, even within the silence of his own mind, garnering friendship for friendship’s sake had not been important enough to warrant the effort.

  He powered off the device, watched the screen blink out. Anita had bought it for him. She paid for his plan. Knowing she couldn’t suspend service without losing all contact with him completely gave Ade the foolhardy courage to keep using it. Contacts. Old messages. Pics and passwords and links stored within. His last and only link to Boston, to the life and people there.

  Cool air puffed at his neck. Ade turned to the door still mostly closed. No air-conditioning drone, only crickets see-see-sawing at the night. He slipped the phone into his pocket, put the first aid kit away. The cool air on his neck slithered down his arms, raised goosebumps on his skin. He stood silent, stood still. Waiting.

  Cricketsong hushed, leaving a lone insect chirping. The chirping elongated, became constant. A buzz, like a fly circling his head. Ade swiped at it, ducked, and the buzzing ceased. In his periphery, something in the mirror moved.

  Cold sweat beaded his skin. He moved first his eyes. Was it…could it be? A face beside his own. A girl’s face. He turned his head to look straight on, gasped, jumped back. And Ade laughed at himself, the sound banishing the goosebumps and chill. The face in the mirror was his own. The girl’s face was only a towel hanging on the hook behind him.

  “I need a good night’s sleep,” he told the mirror. Once he brought Savannah the flowers he’d picked for her that afternoon, her smile would send him into less troubled slumber. Long days, too many thoughts, his heart in constant turmoil, it was no wonder he was seeing things.

  * * * *

  That didn’t go very well. I guess I got a little carried away. Ricky Ricardo almost saw me. I really didn’t mean to scare him. Honest to Betsy. Even if it was sort of fun while it lasted. I was just trying to get his attention, to see if he was one of those people who could actually see me. If no one can see or hear the dead, why are there so many ghost stories, huh? But then I went and got sloppy and I don’t know if he actually saw me or just felt something creepy. Gosh. I’ve been at this haunting thing a while. You’d think I’d be better at it by now.

  But, oo-la-la! Ricky Ricardo is even dreamier up close. I thought his eyes were brown but they’re green, like a Christmas tree. I might be a little on the hook. For all the good that would do me, huh?

  Sometimes, I crack myself to bits.

  Chapter 9

  roses, red and amorous

  Savannah loved the hour between dusk and dark, when sunshine faded and cooled into evening. Not even July’s mosquitoes could keep her indoors. Armed with repellant, a citronella candle and a glass of sweet tea, she sat out on her front porch with Margit. Talking. Laughing. Even remembering the better times in Georgia, when they were young women in high school, college, med-school. The lingering headache infiltrated, but didn’t obliterate the happiness, the hope. Neither did it keep her heart from fluttering or her lips from smiling when she spotted Ade coming up the path carrying a bunch of wildflowers.

  “How is our patient, doctor?” he asked Margit.

  “She says she’s fine, but I don’t believe her.”

  “Dull ache,” Savannah confessed. “Nothing I’m not used to.”

  Ade handed her the flowers. Wild daisies and phlox, Queen Anne’s lace and clover. Perfectly simple, homespun and lovely.

  “Thank you, Ade.”

  “You thank a thief,” he said. “I robbed your field to get them.”

  “I told you, you’re welcome to whatever’s up there. I’m only sorry you haven’t found any of the heirloom varieties you were hoping for.”

  “I did spot another pumpkin patch. There is hope yet.”

  Margit took the flowers from Savannah. “Maybe the Great Pumpkin will choose it as the most sincere,” she said, winking over the top of the bouquet. “I’ll put these in water.”

  “Thank you.”

  Margit’s glance flicked from one of them to the other, eyebrow quirked.

  Repressing the urge to roll her eyes and groan behind her friend’s back, Savannah patted the spot beside her. “Sit, Ade. You must be tired. You’ve been keeping late hours up in the field.”

  “But Margit will be—”

  “She’s not coming back.” Savannah laughed softly. “Subtle and Margit are mutually exclusive terms.”

  Ade sat beside her, but on the edge of the couch. “I will not pretend the opportunity for a moment alone is not attractive.” He averted his gaze. “I’ve been very worried about you, Savannah.”

  “I’ve been getting these headaches for—”

  “That makes it even more worrisome.” He shook his head. “I was glad to hear you did not refuse the trip to Yale.”

  “They’re not going to find anything. It’s just to satisfy Margit.”

  Ade fidgeted, didn’t quite look her in the eye. “I do not mean to pry,” he said, “but the other night you mentioned something very bad happened to you, many years ago.”

  “I don’t talk about that.”

  Silence lingered a moment too long. “I would never ask you to. But you know you can, if ever you wish. Yes?”

  Savannah could almost bear the telling now, almost wanted share this secret she shared with no one. Because when she opened her eyes in the hospital, Ade’s had been the first face to materialize out of the blur. “Thank you, Ade. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He blew out a long breath, brought her fingers to his lips, lingered there. Footfalls on gravel turned his head. He dropped her hand still tingling.

  Benny waved, shifted the baby slung on her chest, and came up the front steps. “Hey, Savvy. Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. Irene refused to take her afternoon nap today and she still shows no signs of going to sleep. I hoped taking her out in the car would do the trick, but as you can see—” She showed them a wide-awake baby girl. “No dice.”

  “Maybe on the way home.”

  Benny crossed her fingers, gritting her teeth dramatically. Ade offered his pinky to the baby. Irene took it, looking as quizzically as only an infant could. She leaned toward him.

  “I don’t have much experience with babies,” he said, “but may I?”

  “Be my guest.” Benny untied the wrap. Irene went to Ade without so much as a glance her mother’s way. “That’s really strange. She never wants to go to anyone. Sometimes I even have
a hard time getting her to go to Dan.”

  “I’ll leave you ladies to talk.” Ade bounced the baby. He walked slightly down the path, stopping at a flowering bush. “These are hydrangea, little one. They are pink because Savannah likes pink, and because the soil is more alkaline. We could turn them blue, just like your eyes, if we raised the acidity level…”

  “Well, fiddle-dee-dee,” Benny teased the moment he was out of earshot.

  Savannah rolled her eyes. “You make a terrible Scarlet O’Hara.”

  “I was going for Savannah Callowell.” Benny shooed a bug, ducking a little. “You say that all the time.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do. And I won’t even torture you about Ade or how cozy you two looked on the couch when I got here.”

  Savannah shook her head but the denial didn’t make it past her lips.

  Benny swatted again. “What’s with the flies? I thought they left us alone after the mosquitoes came out.”

  “I don’t see any flies.”

  “So annoying. Can we go inside? I’m like a ripe peach out here.”

  “Sure.” Savannah glanced Ade’s way as she uncurled herself from her chair. Irene’s downy head rested against his chest. He crooned and swayed. Savannah sighed, and held the door open for Benny. “After you.”

  “Don’t let them in.”

  “Who? Oh, the flies. I still don’t see any.”

  “Well, I hear them. Scoot! Scoot!”

  Upstairs, Margit sang “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in the shower. Savannah led Benny to the kitchen where the list of instructions, earlier written, awaited. She handed Benny the notebook. “Thanks for doing this. You’re the only one I trust to run the store unsupervised.”

  Benny scanned the list of dos and don’ts. She turned the pages. “I can’t believe you’re still going into the clinic this week. You should call out.”

  “It was hard enough switching my day,” Savannah said. “If I don’t show up, all those women don’t get seen.”

  “Barbaric.”