Golden Girl(118)

Vivi watches Leo’s conversation with Cruz from a greater distance than she normally does—she wants to afford them some privacy. The conversation takes place on the back deck of Cruz’s house the very same afternoon that Marissa speaks to the police. Vivi can’t hear a word, but she can observe their body language—Leo contrite and Cruz, initially defiant, then softening into forgiveness. The boys end up in silence, sitting side by side, both bent over their knees with their heads in their hands. When Leo stands to go, it’s unclear if they can still be friends.

Leo heads for the side yard—it looks like he’s leaving—and Cruz says something that makes him turn. Cruz opens his arms and Leo walks back to him. The two boys hug for a moment. When they separate, they do a complicated handshake that they’d once tried, unsuccessfully, to teach Vivi. “You two are Frick and Frack,” she had said at the time. “I’m just the mom.”



Vivi listens in on Willa and Carson later that day when they meet in Vivi’s kitchen over glasses of iced tea. They seem to share the same opinion for once: they’re both furious. Marissa Lopresti had been her usual careless, thoughtless, irresponsible, entitled, needy self and had picked up her phone instead of watching the road. She had become so absorbed in her own drama that she had hit Vivi. Killed her. Murdered her. It’s absolutely reprehensible. She will never be forgiven.

Vivi takes a deep breath. A part of her agrees that Marissa deserves little in the way of mercy. She robbed Vivi of the chance to watch her children grow up, meet her grandchildren, write more books, swim in the ocean, eat a tomato sandwich on perfectly toasted Portuguese bread, to meet a new man, make love to that man, maybe break up, maybe get married again. Vivi would never again clink her wineglass against Savannah’s at the end of a long week, she would never again fall asleep while reading or take an outdoor shower or laugh at a commercial during the Super Bowl or marvel at a sunset.

“And as if that weren’t egregious enough!” Willa says. “She drove off! She plowed her Jeep into the Bathtub and lied to my husband in an attempt to cover her tracks. Then she tried to pin it on Cruz!”

“She hung out at our house all summer long as though nothing was wrong,” Carson says. “She made a Bakewell tart like she was Mary freaking Berry come to the rescue! She’s…a complete sociopath!”

“She sat with us at Grammy’s birthday dinner and none of us were any the wiser,” Willa says. “The murderer was at our table.”

“It was also Peter Bridgeman’s fault,” Carson says. “Sending out that picture of Leo and Cruz. Girl, who does that? Who cares? It’s 2021!”

“I’m going to choose to believe that Marissa hadn’t seen the photograph when she hit Mom. She was driving too fast because she wanted to get to the house to talk to Leo and she checked the text because she thought it was from Leo. It could have been from her mother or her sister or Verizon. I don’t think we can pin this on Peter.”

“But what if Peter knew about me and Zach?” Carson says. “What if that’s why he was trying to gotcha Leo? Because he held a grudge against me. Against our family.”

“Marissa said Peter has had a crush on her since elementary school,” Willa says. “I’m sure he wanted to show Marissa the picture because he wanted her for himself. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

Carson gnaws her bottom lip. “I want her to go to prison.”

“Oh, me too,” Willa says. “But I can’t help thinking…”

“What?”

“That after all is said and done, Mom would forgive her,” Carson says.

They both sit quietly for a second.

“It was an accident,” Willa says. “I mean, she didn’t drive over to the house intending to kill Mom. And I’ve definitely checked my phone while driving.”

“I’ve done worse,” Carson says.

“I’m sure you have.”

“It’s by the grace of God I’ve never killed anyone,” Carson says.

“Would you have run, though?” Willa asks. “Either one of us could have gotten distracted while driving and hit someone and killed her. But the test of our character, our morals, is whether we stay and admit to it or run away. Marissa ran away. And she pushed the theory that Cruz did it. She wagered that people would suspect Cruz before they’d suspect her. Which is heinous for so many reasons.”

Carson says, “I would have been tempted to run. I’m not saying that’s what I would have done, but I do understand the instinct.”

Willa sighs. “So…we don’t press charges?”

“She’s being charged by the state,” Carson says.

“But we could offer a statement of mercy,” Willa says. “It might help.”

“I just feel like we aren’t honoring Mom unless we ask for the maximum sentence,” Carson says.

“As usual, you have things backward,” Willa says. “We honor Mom by offering forgiveness. You know how she treats the characters in her books? She gives them flaws, she portrays them doing horrible things—but the reader loves them anyway. Because Mom loves them. Because they’re human.”

“Like Alison in Golden Girl,” Carson says.

Willa is resting her hand on her belly. She takes another look at Carson. “Wait—have you been reading Mom’s books?”