“Alice,” I hiss. “Are you fucking serious? Savannah?”
“You said you wanted to talk to a woman of color!”
I stare at her in response. Alice shakes her head, making a face that says, What were you expecting? I honestly don’t know what I was expecting. Alice has been spending time with so many of the interns during this entire trip; I didn’t think it would be one I knew. I didn’t think it would be Savannah. I guess we aren’t exactly friends, but this feels personal, closer to me than talking to the other women did.
“Josie?” Savannah says. “Are you still there?”
“Oh God, yes,” I say, clearing my throat. “Savannah, thank you so much for talking to me. You really don’t have to if you don’t want to. I don’t know if—”
“I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t want to,” she says. “But I have a condition.”
“Of course.” I sit up straighter. “What is it?”
“I need you to change my name.”
“Oh, that’s totally fine.” I chew my lip. “But are you okay being on the record?”
There’s a long pause. I feel like I can’t breathe, like all the air has been sucked out of the room, while I wait for her answer.
Alice glances over.
“I’ll have to call you back.”
“Wait,” I say, but she’s already hung up. Shit. She was my best chance so far. It seems like this is the day everything goes wrong for me.
I toss myself on the bed next to Alice. She looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was gonna be her?”
“I don’t know,” she says, looking down at her phone. “I didn’t want you to be weird about it.”
“I wasn’t weird.”
“You were, a little.”
“I don’t know how to act when it’s someone I actually know,” I say, resting my head on her shoulder. She usually moves when I make displays of affection like this. Surprisingly, she lets me stay. “I keep wondering if I’m doing the wrong thing. Like, Penny is into it and I care about her and I don’t want to let her down. But what if I’m not doing it the right way?”
“What’s the right way?”
“I don’t know.” I groan again. “I know this is going to be something big, something we might not be able to handle once it’s out, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“It sounds like a big story,” Alice says, muting the TV. “But you’ve been working really, really hard on it. If the people in your story trust you, then I think you’re okay. And it’ll probably get better once you have an editor behind you.”
I don’t have the chance to reply, because Alice’s phone rings. I recognize the number from a few minutes ago.
“Okay,” Savannah says when I pick up. Her voice is fast. It reminds me of someone from an Aaron Sorkin movie. “I’ll be on the record, but we can’t talk on the phone. I’ll send you my address and we’ll talk here. Okay?”
I’m already putting my coat on.
Most of what I’ve seen of New York has been from movies—Times Square and the Plaza and Union Square, Christmas decorations, Central Park. The address Savannah gave me is in a completely different area. We could take the subway, like Marius says he does, but I would get lost. For once, I’m actually glad Alice comes with me.
The longer we drive, the more things change. I already know this isn’t a white neighborhood. There aren’t doormen standing outside buildings or fancy cupcake shops or clothing stores. It’s almost like our neighborhood at home: people with brown skin walking on sidewalks, more brown than I’ve seen since we’ve been in New York, with only a handful of white people scattered around.
“It used to be a lot different when I lived up here,” our driver says when Alice brings it up. “Look, over there, you see that white lady with her baby? You never would’ve seen that up here when I was here. Probably why I can’t afford it anymore.”
Alice nods like she’s had the same issue and completely understands. I guess she’s putting that psychology major to use.
Savannah’s apartment is on the fifth floor. I have my recorder and my notebook in my bag, but it feels intrusive to be meeting Savannah in her home, a place that tells me so much before she’s even said a word.
It’s not a bad building, but I know it’s not as expensive as where Marius lives. There’s no doorman, and the chipped beige paint looks like it hasn’t been touched up in at least twenty years. It just looks like a place to live. And it’s filled with comforting sounds: someone speaking Spanish, little kids talking loudly, a TV playing Judge Judy, and one lady who sounds so much like Mom that Alice and I have to bite our lips to keep from laughing.
I knock on the door, even though I want Alice to, because I have to fight the anxiety somehow. I force myself to breathe. In and out.
The door swings open to reveal an older woman with tan skin and dark hair pulled up in a bun. She’s wearing a pair of scrubs, which I definitely didn’t expect. Before I can say anything, she turns her head and starts speaking Spanish to someone inside. I see people move past—a kid around my age wearing a hoodie, two little kids who duck at the sight of strangers, and finally a younger woman.
Immediately, Alice wraps her in a hug. Savannah grips her hard. I bite my lip.
“Come on,” Savannah finally says, nodding at me. “We’ll talk in my room.”
Inside is cozy with bursts of color everywhere, almost like Marius’s apartment, except with more people. Three of them sit on the couch in front of the TV. While we walk past, the little kids stare at us, but only when they think we aren’t looking. The older woman watches us for a moment
