Golden Girl(122)

“You’re very welcome,” Vivi says.

“Second, I have a book recommendation for you. Have you read Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell?”

“It’s on my pile!” Vivi says. “I have one for you too.” Vivi sips her tequila and—ahhhhhh—instantly feels better. “Sea Wife, by Amity Gaige. It’s told in split points of view, the wife and the journal entries of the husband—”

They’re interrupted by Pamela, who is looking a bit severe in a high-concept black dress with an asymmetrical neckline and hemline. Frankly, it looks like a kindergartner took scissors to her dress.

“Trying to steal my date?” Pamela says. “You’d better keep your eye on your own.”

“Wait,” Vivi says. “What?” She peers into the ballroom to see Dennis standing with his wineglass aloft. He’s giving a toast. Vivi can’t quite hear him but his wild arm gestures are alarming. Vivi sees Gordy Hastings, who is sitting at Lucinda’s table, bow his head and frown at the napkin in his lap. Gordy Hastings, Vivi knows, is the person responsible for not letting Vivi back into the club after her divorce.

She supposes he is now congratulating himself on that decision.

Dennis, sit down! she thinks. She hurries up the back stairs to the secret second-floor bathroom. Vivi had instructed Dennis to relax and have fun. There was nothing to be gained from going head to head with JP in the father-figure department. What would make him think it was remotely appropriate to give a toast? She notices he waited until Vivi was away from the table. That can hardly be accidental.

Vivi feels tears gather and she tries to calm herself—today is Willa’s day, not hers, and Willa might have been touched by Dennis’s toast; who knows? Vivi plucks a tissue from the box by the sinks and is carefully dabbing at the corners of her eyes—her makeup!—when Marissa emerges from one of the stalls. Marissa is wearing a white lace dress that is vaguely bridal-looking.

“Are you okay, Vivi?” she asks. She gives Vivi a concerned look in the mirror.

“Overcome,” Vivi says. “I’m just so happy.”



It’s time for the first dances. Willa and Rip dance to Ed Sheeran’s “Castle on the Hill,” and then the bandleader invites “the parents of the bride and groom” to join the happy couple. Vivi knew this was coming but she still finds she’s unprepared. She has been giving Dennis the cold shoulder since getting back from the ladies’ room and she has no idea where he is now. She supposes she’ll have to go find him; Tink and Chas Bonham are already rising from their seats.

Before Vivi can turn around to search the room for Dennis, JP approaches her with his arm outstretched.

Plot twist! Vivi thinks. She had assumed JP would dance with Amy and that she would dance with Dennis. But this is better. This is…correct. She and JP are Willa’s parents.

Vivi takes JP’s hand, and once the two of them are on the floor, the band segues into “Stay Together,” by Al Green—which is oh so ironic—and Vivi and JP fall into the familiar rhythm of their married dancing past.

“Thank you, Vivi,” JP says. “This wedding is top-notch, everyone has been commenting, and I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Or at all, Vivi thinks. But she just says, “You’re welcome. I’m happy for Willie and Rip.”

“Do you remember when we picked them up from the Boys and Girls Club after they went to the Valentine’s Day dance together?”

“They were holding hands,” Vivi says. “I thought you were going to drop-kick Rip out to the street.”

“Before he got out of the car that night, he kissed her,” JP says. “Their first kiss, and we were sitting right up front.”

“Do you remember what she said on the way home?” Vivi asks.

“She said she wanted to marry him,” JP says. He takes a breath. “And here we are—what, twelve years later? At their wedding.”

“We’ve been through a lot in those twelve years,” Vivi says.

“You wrote six more books,” JP says. “And I blew through two businesses before the Cone.”

Yes, first the yacht-concierge business failed, then the wineshop—exactly as Vivi had warned him they would. Who had suggested an ice cream shop? Vivi. There were so many times Vivi felt she was the only engine moving the family forward. She dealt with the girls fighting, she took Leo off-island to lacrosse camp and fielded the call when he was homesick, she attended the parent-teacher conferences and read all the books the kids had been assigned for English class. When the family hamster, Mr. Busy, died, JP had been on a wine-buying trip, sipping cabernets in Napa. And then you fell in love with your employee and you broke up our family, Vivi thinks. But she won’t mention any of this because she prefers life on the high road.

Al Green croons, Loving you whether, whether, times are good or bad, happy or sad…

Better memories swirl around Vivi then. JP sitting on the side of the bathtub holding out the ring box. JP in scrubs and a shower cap while Willa was being born. And then Carson. And then Leo. JP standing on a ladder outside the house in Surfside, stringing up the Christmas lights. JP and Vivi fretting when Leo spiked a 104 degree fever from a double ear infection. JP and Vivi sitting at the bar at 21 Federal the night that Savannah insisted on having all three kids to the house on Union Street for a sleepover (she only made that mistake once) and then getting so drunk that they stumbled over to the Rose and Crown to sing karaoke. JP and Vivi watching the Patriots and high-fiving every time Danny Woodhead scored a touchdown. Sailing on Arabesque, watching fireworks from Lucinda’s front yard, grilling on the beach at Fortieth Pole, attending God knows how many cocktail parties where they would spiral away from each other to socialize then spiral back to check in until one of them whispered, “Beat feet,” their code for Let’s get out of here. They would always stop at Stubby’s on the way home for fried chicken sliders and waffle fries; whatever dress Vivi was wearing would inevitably get stuffed into the dry-cleaning bag stained with ketchup.