Golden Girl(15)

He’d been stunned two years later when Willa tearfully told him that her parents were getting a divorce. For a few weeks, it seemed like the earth had cracked open and the whole family would be sucked down into the crevasse. Carson had gone to see a counselor; Willa spent every waking second she could at Rip’s, even though his parents’ house was as cold as a museum; and Leo, at eight years old, had taken to riding his bike all over the island with Cruz DeSantis committing minor crimes, like stealing lollipops from the bowl at the dry cleaner’s.

JP clears his throat. “Where are my children?” His voice is aggressive, like maybe Rip is holding them hostage.

“They’re here at the house.”

“Can I speak to them?”

“Um…they’re pretty upset right now.”

“Why are you the one who called me?” JP asks. “Why didn’t one of them…”—his voice cracks—“call me?”

“They’re a mess, JP,” Rip says. He rolls his shoulders back and remembers that he’s not twelve years old anymore. He’s a grown man. At the insurance office, Rip handles claims. It’s a job he’s suited for because not much rattles him. Your pipes froze and burst with the thaw and so much water flooded the second floor of your house that it collapsed onto the first? Lightning struck your roof? You totaled your new Range Rover on the way home from the dealership? You drove your boat up onto the jetty and now there’s a three-foot hole in the hull?

No problem, let’s file a claim, Rip says all day every day. We’ll get this fixed.

“They were too upset to call you. The three of them are in shock and so Willa asked me to let you know.”

“Yes, well,” JP says. “Thank you.” He hangs up.





Amy




It’s a Saturday in June at the salon, and Amy arrives early because they have fifteen weddings. “You heard that right,” she said to JP that morning. “Fifteen on the books, and we turned away at least fifteen more.” It’s an all-hands-on-deck day; the energy is high and it is happy. Champagne is popped with the first clients and the music is cranked up—Luke Combs—and Amy can’t complain. She grew up in Alabama and was a Phi Mu at Auburn—LIOB! War Eagle!—so she loves not only country music but also the feel of a sorority house on the day of a big game.

She’s on her fourth client at ten thirty, a mother of the bride, when the receptionist, Brandi, stands discreetly behind Amy’s shoulder and whispers, “JP is on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”

Amy turns a fraction of an inch toward Brandi. “On the phone here? He called the salon?”

“He says he’s been trying your cell.”

“Tell him I’m busy, please. I’ll call when I take a break for lunch.” Her lunch today will be a cheddar scone from Born and Bread stuffed into her mouth in about ten minutes. Amy has been fighting to get rid of fifteen extra pounds since she moved in with JP, and though she’s tried bringing her own salad in a Tupperware for lunch, she keeps losing the battle of wills against the carbs and fat—the bagel boards, the bakery boxes, the cake because it’s always someone’s birthday—that are constantly under her nose here at the salon.

“He sounded…I really think you’d better…”

Amy shakes her head. She does not have time to talk to JP; right now, she feels what Santa Claus must feel on Christmas Eve. The client in Amy’s chair, Mrs. Scaliti, is already upset because Amy started their interaction by calling her by her first name. Now she’s giving Amy a baleful stare while her hair hangs in damp strands around her face. She needs to be at St. Paul’s Episcopal by noon.

“I’ll call him when I take a break for lunch,” Amy repeats, and Brandi throws her hands up.



There isn’t a break, not even a minute to think or sit down. Amy’s lower back starts talking to her and she needs to pee. The flower girl is allergic to the lilies of the valley that Amy weaves into her French braid crown; the girl’s neck splotches with hives. Amy tosses the flowers and sends the girl’s mother to Dan’s Pharmacy to buy Benadryl.

She’s standing at the sinks washing the hair of a bridesmaid for the big Wauwinet hotel wedding—rumor has it, the whole do cost well over a million bucks—when her best friend at the salon, Lorna (a recent arrival from Ireland), says, “God bless you, Pigeon, I can’t believe you’re still here.”

Amy laughs. “Where else would I be?”

“You haven’t heard, then? Did JP not ring you?”

“He called, yes, but I haven’t spoken to him.” Amy makes an ill-advised quarter turn toward Lorna and accidentally sprays the bridesmaid in the face as she’s rinsing; the girl sputters. She’s very nice about it, but Amy is flustered. She doesn’t have time for gossip! “Whatever it is can wait.”

“Oh, Pigeon,” Lorna says in the maternal voice she normally reserves for her Weimaraner, Cupid. “Promise me you’ll ring him back as soon as you’re finished here. Promise me.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll try, I promise I’ll try,” Amy says. She leads the bridesmaid—her name sifted in with the Chelseas and Madisons that Amy has seen already today—to her chair. She catches Brandi watching her. Jarred, working at the next chair, glances over at her. And Amy sees Molly the manicurist staring at her through the interior glass door of the nail sanctuary. Out of the blue, a woman two chairs down who is being blown out by Toni gasps and says, “Vivian Howe? The writer?”