You Have a Match(37)

Maybe I’m not the only one with unresolved friend drama. Maybe Savvy and I really are more alike in the things that we can’t see than the big, obvious one that we can.

“Helps that you both have an eye for photography.”

“Well, Mickey’s mom is an artist—she has a shop where she makes all those temporary tattoo designs and sells her other work—and my parents are big into art, too. Making it, but also, like, collecting.”

“Ah, right. You didn’t mention your parents are like … Tony Stark levels of rich.”

Savvy doesn’t blush or try to downplay it. “Yeah. Well, we live in Medina,” she says, as if that explains the whole thing.

I freeze, realizing I accidentally walked into the topic of our parents like a bird flying into a glass window. But even I, the crown princess of putting things off, can’t justify avoiding it any longer. I steel myself, walking over and sitting on Rufus’s other side. He lolls his head over at me in acknowledgment, and Savvy watches me, expectant.

“The thing I can’t figure out is how our parents knew each other in the first place,” I say. “Like, they don’t seem like people whose paths would cross, let alone be friends.”

It isn’t lost on me that the same thing could be said for us, sitting here in the muddy grass, the Instagram star and the English class flunkie. Briefly I worry she might take it the wrong way, but if there is one thing I can appreciate about Savvy, it’s that she doesn’t waste time beating around the bush.

“I’ve been wondering that, too,” she says. “It seems to be the key. Like if we can just figure that part out, maybe the rest of it will make sense.”

“Maybe they were in some kind of secret society. Something mega embarrassing. It was the nineties, right? What was embarrassing in the nineties?”

“Uh. Everything?”

“Maybe they were in one of those competitive Pokémon card game leagues.”

So far I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard Savvy intentionally make a joke, so I almost don’t know what to make of it when she adds, “Underground Beanie Baby fight club?”

I try not to let a beat pass, before whatever this is wears off her. “Honestly, maybe they were part of an emotional support group for people who watched too many movies about dogs where the dog dies. Is it just me or is it anytime your parents are like, ‘Hey, let’s watch this old movie from the nineties,’ the dog totally bites it?”

“You know Mickey found a site that screens for that.” Savvy shakes her head with a rueful grin, as if to say, Only Mickey. “It’s legitimately called ‘doesthedogdie.com.’”

I snap my fingers. “That was it! Their life’s work. Their big contribution to society, and then…”

It’s about as far as the joke can go, because what’s on the other side of it isn’t one. What’s on the other side of it is Savvy and Abby, born one after the other but into entirely different worlds.

“And then,” Savvy echoes, with a sigh.

We settle back into the damp grass, Rufus splayed out on both of us now, his butt on my legs and his head in Savvy’s lap.

“Real talk, though. I went back down to our basement a few days ago, to look for photos,” I tell her. “I didn’t find any others of your parents.”

“Same,” says Savvy. “I even checked your parents’ Facebooks from my parents’ joint account. Not a single mutual friend. And my parents friend every breathing person they meet.”

“So something definitely happened.”

“You think so?” Savvy asks. “You don’t think it was … I don’t know. Something about the adoption? Like, the terms of it? Some birth parents aren’t supposed to have access to the kid.”

I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is that I doubt my parents would have given up a child to a friend of theirs if they weren’t planning on having access.

“Let’s go back. See if we can find something in common.” Even as I’m saying it, I know it might be a total dead end. I can list the things I have in common with Connie on one hand, and most of them are Leo. If someone tried to dissect our friendship it would only raise more questions than answers, and the deeper we dive into this the more their story seems the same. “Tell me about your parents.”

Savvy blows out a breath, leaning back to stare at the horizon. “They’re … normal.”

“How’d they meet?”

“Rich parents with rich kids who met each other at a rich people thing, I’m guessing.” She wrinkles her nose. “I’m making them sound like snobs. They’re not. They’re both kind of a little kooky, actually, which is probably how they found each other in rich people world.”

The more Savvy talks about them, the more weirdly fascinated I am. Savvy’s known about my parents her whole life, but to me, this is its own level of strange—seeing what happens when someone with my exact same DNA ends up raised by someone else. The fact that Connie looked them up on Spokeo and found out they live in the kind of waterfront mansion that’s basically porn for HGTV Dream Home nerds only adds fuel to my curiosity’s fire.

“When did they get married?”

“Eighty-seven.”