Savanah's Swan Song (Chapter 32) (Patreon)

"Savanah!”

Savanah whipped her head around, looking for whoever had acknowledged her.  Maybe things weren't as bad as she feared.  Sure, she'd put on weight since the last time she'd been out in public—a lot of weight—but she was still Savanah Fucking Georgia. 

They couldn't take that away.  No matter how hard they tried.

Tired of feeling sorry for herself, Savanah had snuck from her apartment to join the VIP line at Rick’s.  She hadn’t set foot in the trendy honkytonk in almost a year.  Not since the fateful night Chad announced he’d commissioned “Savanah Mark II” for her 30th birthday. 

Still, it was the closest thing the superstar had to a home away from home.  She’d performed there dozens of times during her rise to fame and, before her custom humanoid was created, frequented it nearly every weekend she wasn’t on tour or making promotional appearances, sipping cocktails with Chad in their private booth and listening to The Dixies, the house band she occasionally sat in with.  It was her Cheers.  A place where she was always welcome and where everyone knew her name...as evidenced by whoever was calling it now.   

Just like Norm, Savanah frowned, remembering the oft-cried name of the sitcom's portly barfly.

The plump singer pushed the thought from her head.  She was going to stay positive. She would smile and sign whatever the adoring fan requested.  She might even pose for a picture.

"Savanah!  Savanah!"

Savanah tugged at the hem of her minidress.  Twisting and turning in search of her unseen admirer had caused it to slide higher on her dimpled thighs.  Any further and she risked indecent exposure.  With one hand securing the outgrown outfit, Savanah raised her other to the crowd gathered across the street, half in a wave and half to shield the blinding camera flashes that popped incessantly amidst the muddied mass of humanity. 

“Savanah!  Savanah!”

Then she saw them.  Not the overzealous fan calling her name.  Who they were calling.

Savanah Mark II. 

The leather-clad synthetic strutted past the queue to the club, straight to the doorman amidst a fervor of boisterous adulation.  “I love you all!” it shouted, addressing the frenzied crowd with a smile and a wave, before disappearing inside. 

“Wait!” Savanah screamed, her voice dying amidst the din of adoring sycophants.  She pushed through the line, bouncing off the shadowy shapes like a pinball, until she reached the front.  “Let me in!”

“I’m sorry, but we’re at capacity,” the hulking doorman said.  “Somebody has to leave before I can let you in.”  He looked her up and down.  “Maybe a couple of somebodies.”

“You just let her in!” Savanah protested.

“That was Savanah Georgia,” the doorman said matter-of-factly.

“I’M Savanah Georgia!”

At that moment, Guss Davidson, the club's maître d', emerged from the club’s shadowy entrance.  “Is there a problem?”

“Guss,” Savanah pleaded. “Please tell this talking tree stump who I am.”

“And who are you?”

“Savanah,” the singer answered softly, almost as if she didn’t quite believe it herself anymore.  “Savanah Georgia.”

The debonaire man laughed, stroking his pencil-thin mustache with his thumb and index finger.  It was an affectation Savanah had seen a thousand times.  “Oh, dear.  I’m afraid someone may be impersonating you.” 

The guitar strains of "Unbroken," Savanah’s seminal hit, emanated from the club’s interior, followed by the raspy, whiskey-tinged vocals for which she was famous. 

“And they’re doing an excellent job,” Guss continued.

“But I’m the real Savanah!”

Guss and the doorman stared at the portly blonde with a mix of bemusement and pity. 

“I've just...gained weight for a movie role!”

“And who will you be playing?” Guss queried with another brush of his ‘stache. “Mama Cass?”

The music was getting louder.  It was almost as if Savanah were standing by the speakers.  What were the club’s walls made of?  Balsa?   

“Turn it down,” Savanah moaned, covering her ears.

“Excuse me?”  Guss asked, the tone of his voice as piteous as his gaze.

“TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!”

Savanah bolted up in bed, awoken by her own scream, swimming in sweat and empty pizza boxes.  On the nightstand, the clock radio blared “Unbroken.” She vaguely remembered setting the alarm before passing out in a food coma—a wake-up call for her to get her life together.

The sleepy singer fumbled for the snooze button, accidentally knocking the device from its pedestal in the process.  It clattered to the floor before settling silently beneath her bed.

Savanah fell back into her damp pillow.  Not unbroken anymore, she thought, a wry smile joining a smudge of tomato sauce on her puffy face.     

With a quick sweep of her arm, the pizza boxes joined her broken radio on the floor.  She didn’t want to look at them. Then she yanked the covers over the belly budging beneath her nightshirt.  She didn’t want to look at that either.

The one thing she did want rested on a pillow beside her like the head of a smiling lover--a bottle of Jim Beam with a few healthy swallows left.    

Savanah grabbed the bottle and tilted it to her lips.  She gulped aggressively, but some still slipped from the corners of her mouth, running down her cheeks and neck, and into her sweat-soaked hair and pillow.

“Ahhhh,” Savanah said, discarding the empty bottle on the mattress beside her.  Her voice wasn’t just whiskey-tinged, it was whiskey-soaked.  She sounded like an old lady settling into a rocker.

But the caramel-colored spirit didn’t bring the sweet relief of sleep.   Instead, Savanah stewed in her own juices, her nightmare unwilling to fade into sweeter dreams.

Eventually, she tossed back the covers, kicked through the cardboard containers, and stumbled to the kitchen, where her laptop sat open on the counter.  It was frozen on a picture she’d found scrolling on X the previous evening, of her replicant standing outside Rick’s.

All the feelings she’d felt came roaring back, but rather than drowning them in pizza and alcohol, she used them as fuel to find the tools she’d need to take her life back.  Thirty minutes later, she clicked the ‘order’ button on her browser, cleared the computer’s cache, and closed the cover.    

Then she waited.