Golden Girl(111)

On the third Sunday in August—the summer is drawing to a close and Amy, for one, is relieved—she and Dennis are lying in bed. They’re at the part of the morning when they have just made love and Dennis has fallen back to sleep. Amy curls up against Dennis’s wide, warm back and kisses the tattoo of an American flag on his right shoulder blade. She can see bright sunshine trying to insinuate itself into the room around the edges of the room-darkening shades. Amy always wishes for a rainy Sunday, the gloomier the better, but she hasn’t been granted one all summer. The Sundays have been painfully beautiful. They’ll have to go to the beach later, she supposes. Or maybe she’ll suggest a late lunch at the Galley. She has found Dennis to be lavish when it comes to spending money on fun, which is another thing she likes about him, in addition to the sex and the sleeping.

They’re really very compatible, she thinks.

On this particular morning, Amy can’t fall back to sleep, probably because of the espresso martini she enjoyed last night at the Pearl. She isn’t quite ready to get out of bed—she spends so much time on her feet at work that it’s a luxury to lie down—so she resorts to looking at her phone.

The only news she actually enjoys is entertainment news. When she clicks on the People magazine site, she sees the following headline: “‘Golden Girl’ and Golden Girl Claim Number-One Spots.”

Keep scrolling, Amy tells herself. But she can’t. She’s lying in bed with Vivian Howe’s ex-boyfriend after a bad breakup with Vivian Howe’s ex-husband. Her adult life here on Nantucket has been shaped by Vivi, and even though Amy has vowed to change this, she clicks the link.

Golden Girl, the novel, is at number one. Amy saw the headline splashed across the front of the Nantucket Standard this past Thursday. Everyone on Nantucket was proud of Vivi because she had finally nabbed the top spot.

The article at People.com says that Brett Caspian, Vivi’s “high-school beau,” recorded the song “Golden Girl” with Apple Music shortly after his appearance on Great Morning USA. It shot straight up the iTunes chart to land at number one. It has twelve million downloads this week.

“Holy crow,” Amy says. She taps Dennis on the shoulder. “Dude, guess what?”

He murmurs unintelligibly. He’s asleep. She should let him be.

“Remember that guy I told you about on TV who wrote that song for Vivi in high school? The song ‘Golden Girl’?” Lorna had been convinced that Dennis watched the segment and was only feigning indifference, but Amy knows he’s given up on all Vivi-related things cold turkey in a way she can’t seem to do. She doesn’t want to bother him, but this is cool. This is rock-star stuff.

Dennis utters another soft mumble.

“The song ‘Golden Girl’ went to number one in iTunes,” Amy says. She clicks on the iTunes chart and there it is! “I think this guy works at a Holiday Inn or something, and now he’s famous. The song has a bajillion downloads this week.”

Dennis rolls over, grabs Amy’s phone, and sets it on the nightstand. He kisses her collarbone and nestles his face between her breasts. “Do you know who my golden girl is?” he asks. “Do you?”

“Me?” she says. She runs her fingers deep in his hair the way he likes her to.

“Yes, you,” he says. “You and only you.”





Vivi




Vivi swoops down to check the screen of Amy’s phone. (Quickly, quickly, the last place she wants to linger is Dennis’s bedroom!) Sure enough: “Golden Girl” by Brett Caspian is the number-one song in the country—thirty-four years after it was written.

“Martha!” Vivi calls out. “Martha!” But she doesn’t appear. She must be listening to the choir singing “Ruby Tuesday.”



When Vivi checks on Brett, she finds him at a party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Knoxville. It’s a farewell party. Vivi gathers from eavesdropping that Brett is moving to Nashville. He’s going to write and record an album.

Brett Caspian has a hit song at the age of fifty-one. Vivi thinks of the boy sitting two rows ahead and one seat to the left of her in his detention turning around and winking at her and how she felt he’d picked her, like an apple from a tree. She thinks about the back seat of the Buick Skylark, him kissing her as Steve Perry wailed on the car stereo: Stone in love!

She’s even more emotional now than she was when her book hit the top of the list. “Golden Girl” might have topped the charts long ago if only Vivi hadn’t lied about being pregnant. If only she had been blessed with a stronger sense of self. If only her father hadn’t killed himself. (Wasn’t Vivi worth staying alive for?) If only she’d had the maturity to understand that she and Brett had different dreams and that was okay.

Vivi didn’t lie about being pregnant because she was evil; she lied because she was young and she was still mourning her father. Vivi decides to cut her younger self some slack.

Martha appears. A red and gold scarf is tied around her midsection as a belt.

“Can I ask you a favor?” Vivi says.

Martha sighs. “Would you like me to use my powers of the Road Not Taken? Do you want me to tell you what would have happened if you hadn’t told Brett you were pregnant? If he hadn’t rushed back to Parma to be with you?”