Savanah's Swan Song (Part 5A) (Patreon)

A few hours later, Savanah bounced along a dirt road in the back of a Cadillac SUV driven by a stone-faced Concurrent Technology employee. It wasn’t as large or luxurious as the limousines she usually rode in, but it was comfortable and, considering where they were going, far less conspicuous. Still, Savanah imagined an automobile like that spitting gravel and kicking up dust on a dirt road rarely occurred outside of commercials. One thing was for sure, it would need to be washed.

If that annoyed the olive-skinned driver, he gave no indication. He hadn’t seemed at all surprised by the journey’s distance or destination, and even now, as he navigated around a muddy dip in the road and a stubborn cow drinking from its trough, showed no emotion.

Perhaps he was one of Dr. Wagner’s replicants.

Despite that unnerving thought, Savanah appreciated the silence.  Most chauffeurs would fawn or make inane small talk, but this one’s taciturn demeanor, AI-directed or not, allowed her to relax and reflect on her situation.

She’d been given a tremendous gift. Not her replicant. That was merely a creepy means to an end. No, she finally had the one thing she’d desired for years but could never find: Time. Now she could decompress, rehearse for her movie, and maybe even write a few songs without all the obligations and distractions that came with being Savanah Georgia.

But no matter how much she tried to stay positive her mind kept circling back to how she’d been forced from her penthouse while her boyfriend galivanted across Europe with a robot.

Maybe some small talk wasn’t so bad.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Ravi.”

“Robby? As in, Robby the Robot?”

“No, RAVI. Like Ravi Shankar.”

“Who?”

“The famous sitar player.”

That seemed like an oxymoron to Savanah. Like ‘jumbo shrimp’ or ‘awfully good,’ which, incidentally, she couldn’t imagine a sitar sounding. Whenever she heard the instrument, it sounded like a banjo on a bender.

“He was friends with George Harrison,” Ravi continued. “Y’know, The Beatles?”

“I know The Beatles,” Savanah said sharply.

“Anyway, he helped introduce Eastern music to the West.”

“So, he’s the one to blame.”

A scowl formed on Ravi’s flustered face. Perhaps he wasn’t a robot after all.

Savanah leaned back in her seat. She spent the next twenty minutes identifying landmarks from her childhood as they flashed past her window like a slideshow. There was Mr. Doogle’s farm, which had housed the barn in which she’d lost her virginity and, uncoincidentally, his grandson Trenton, the only boy her age within miles. There was the communal mailbox that serviced 100 acres worth of homes and the one in which she’d placed her demo to Decca Records. There was the white-washed picket fence she used to climb on as a child until it broke under the weight of “too many flapjacks,” her mother had said with a playful poke of her swollen belly.

Each of those seminal events had taken mere seconds (especially her nervous roll in the hay with Trenton) but each had deeply affected her life. Some forever not for better, Savanah thought, the lyrics from an old Beatles tune worming their way into her brain.

Thanks, Ravi!

Finally, the SUV turned onto the long gravel driveway of a one-story ranch home. It was much smaller than Savanah remembered, but the middle-aged woman who barreled through the screen door to greet them was much larger. Adorned in a floral muumuu and curlers, the woman shuffled up the drive in slippered feet, kicking up a dust cloud that made her approach seem faster than it was.

“Hi, baby,” the rotund woman said, wrapping her meaty arms around the prodigal singer as she exited the vehicle. Teenaged Savanah would have recoiled, but thirty-year-old Savanah relished their warmth.

“Hi, momma.”

Savanah closed her eyes and breathed deeply—as deeply as she could while ensconced in her mother’s bingo-winged cocoon—and was flooded by familiar scents.  Mostly she smelled the sickly-sweet Chanel knock-off her mother had used every day since 1985, but there were faint whiffs of everything from Bengay to bacon grease. Of course, there were the usual farm malodors that made her turned-up nose twitch, but they didn’t bother her much today.

Their embrace was broken by the rev of the SUV’s engine as it backed up the drive, leaving Savanah’s bags in the dust.

Thanks again, Ravi!

“We should go inside,” Savanah said, gathering her belongings.

When Savanah first became famous, paparazzi staked out the family farm at all hours. The activity dwindled once an emancipated Savanah moved to the city, but that didn’t stop the occasional ambitious reporter from trying to solicit a scoop from her rural relatives. Her mother pretty much ended things after she greeted one with a shotgun and an unprintable epithet, but Savanah wasn’t in a position to take any chances.

Not when her position was supposed to be in Germany.

Savanah followed her mother’s floral-covered fanny as it waddled its way up the drive, onto the porch, and through the creaky screen door that led to the brightly lit kitchen.

“Lemme take your things,” her mother said, grabbing Savanah’s suitcase and duffel. Tucking one under each arm, she squeezed into the hall. Between Savanah’s bulky bags and her mother’s even bulkier butt, there wasn’t much clearance. “Make yourself at home,” she called as she disappeared.

That proved easy for Savanah. It seemed like yesterday the pop star was sitting at the table dyeing Easter eggs or standing at the stove baking brownies. The room’s unaltered aesthetics—the curtains, tablecloth, wallpaper, and appliances were all the same—enhanced her feelings of nostalgia.

The only noticeable difference was the ‘Wall of Fame,’ the family’s nickname for the refrigerator door.  The report cards and gap-toothed grade school photos of her and her sister had been replaced by articles trumpeting Savanah’s achievements. Fulton County Girl Cleans Up at Grammys read one faded article.  Georgia on our Minds: Local Singer Becomes Most Googled Celebrity, read another.

“You made good time.” Savanah’s stroll down memory lane was interrupted by her mother’s return. She huffed to the sink and dabbed her sweaty brow with a dish towel. “I was still puttin’ my face on.”

The otherwise static environment made her mother's physical changes plainer. She’d always been a bit plump—a Georgia family tradition—but now was at least 100 pounds heavier. Savanah was worried for her health but decided against saying anything. Now wasn’t the time. Not after ten years.

Of course, that didn’t keep her mother from assessing her figure.

“You’re thin as a rail,” her mother said, scouring her from head to toe. “All those millions and you can’t afford a decent meal?”

A snarky retort formed on Savanah’s lips, but—unlike most of the meals she’d been served lately—she choked it down, partly in deference to her mother and partly because she considered being called “thin as a rail” a compliment.

“I…I’ve been under a lot of stress,” she eventually uttered.

“So have I,” her mother sighed, drumming her fingers against her potbelly. The orange and yellow flowers covering it were stretched to full bloom. “It seems we deal with that differently.”

Before Savanah could inquire as to the stresses her mother had been under, the ruddy-faced woman quickly added, “I guess we’ll just have to put some meat on your bones while you’re here. Skeeter’s bringin’ barbeque.”

“You told Skeeter I was comin’?” Savanah shook her head. She wasn’t sure what concerned her more—her mother’s ballooning weight or the fact that her gabby little sister already knew about her supposedly top-secret visit…

Or that she’d been home for five minutes and was already clipping the G’s off the ends of words.