Golden Girl(24)

“I do. Ms. Howe knew him well. He’s friends with her son.”

Lisa gasps. “I hope you aren’t talking about Cruz? Vivi posted pictures of Cruz all the time. She called him her fourth child.”

The Chief nods.

Lisa sighs. “This is all very life-imitating-art here, Chief. I feel like I’m living in one of Vivian Howe’s novels.” She smiles wistfully. “They usually have happy endings.”

“Not today,” the Chief says. Falco seeing Cruz run the stop sign isn’t the only thing bothering the Chief. The other is Cruz claiming he was driving to the Howe residence from his house, which is nowhere near Hooper Farm. So one of them is either mistaken or lying. The Chief doesn’t like this one bit.

And, of course, no matter who did it, a woman is still dead. And three children are left without a mother.





Vivi




The green door opens and Martha enters Vivi’s boho-chic paradise with a different Hermès scarf wound through her hair and knotted at her neck in a way you couldn’t possibly get right unless you worked for Hermès or were the editor of French Vogue.

“I like what you did with the scarf” is what Vivi says instead of What are you doing here or Why are you always sneaking up on me?

“I come when you need me,” Martha says, because apparently Martha can read her mind.

“Do I need you now?”

“Yes. Today is your funeral, Vivian.”

“I know.” Vivi has been watching the preparations below. The police have closed Federal Street between India and Cambridge. They do that only when they’re expecting a very large crowd.

Vivi and Martha stand at the big window and peer down just as Rip’s Yukon is ushered through the crowd by the police. Vivi watches her children clamber out and onto the sidewalk in front of the church.

Vivi stifles a sob. She isn’t sure why she still has emotions and such strong, soul-searing pain. Isn’t that something you let go of when you die?

“Only once you join the choir,” Martha says. “While you’re watching from here, you remain hostage to your feelings.”

“Ugh,” Vivi says. “I can’t bear it.”

“We don’t have to watch,” Martha says. “Lots of people choose to pass on this part.”

“They do?” Vivi says. That seems absurd; she isn’t going to miss her own funeral. No way. It’s bad enough her body isn’t there. Her body has been sent to the Cape in the cargo hold of the Steamship (no dignity) for an autopsy, but the kids and Savannah decided to hold the memorial service today, Wednesday, which Vivi agrees is wise. To drag out holding a service would mean to drag out everyone’s grief and mourning. Vivi’s publisher, Midst and Hupa (which Vivi long ago nicknamed “Mr. Hooper,” an homage to the Sesame Street grocer of her childhood), has arranged for an online memorial service tomorrow.

Boom, boom, Vivi thinks. She’ll be old news by the end of the week.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Martha says. “Let’s stay in the moment, shall we, and appreciate the wonderful turnout.”

Rip and Leo are wearing navy blazers and khaki pants. Leo’s pants have a ketchup stain on the thigh. Vivi knows those pants were last worn during graduation; right after the ceremony, Leo and Cruz and a bunch of their other buddies went to Lola Burger. The pants have been sitting on the floor of Leo’s bedroom since then. Vivi sighs. She did her kids’ laundry (reluctantly), but only if the clothes made it into the hamper in the hallway. She didn’t go into Leo’s or Carson’s room looking for them (when Willa lived at home, she always did her own laundry). This seemed like a reasonable rule while Vivi was alive, but now she regrets not doing a better job. Already, Leo looks like a kid without a mother.

Willa is wearing some black linen Eileen Fisher frock that couldn’t be less flattering. It’s always been Willa’s style to hide her body rather than flaunt it. Carson is the flaunter. She has raided Vivi’s closet and chosen the most inappropriate black dress imaginable: a see-through lace Collette Dinnigan, vintage 2007, that Vivi splurged on after she sold the Hungarian rights to Five-Star Island. The dress is supposed to be worn with a strapless black slip but Carson is wearing it with a strapless nude slip so it appears, at first glance, that Carson is naked underneath. She’s also wearing Vivi’s black studded Christian Louboutin stilettos. Carson looks like she’s heading to an S and M club in East Berlin. She’s gorgeous, breathtaking, but wow—inappropriate. Why didn’t Savannah steer her toward something a little more subdued?

At that moment, Savannah steps out of the church. She’s in a navy sheath that has a block of happy yellow at the hem; when Vivi blinks, tears fall. Savannah only wears clothes that are black, white, beige, or denim blue (with gold and silver thrown in for evening), and Vivi recalls telling Savannah many times in late-night drunken conversations that when she died (in the vague and distant future), she wanted Savannah to wear color to her funeral.

Savannah remembered. And she’d done it. Because Savannah Hamilton is a best friend for the ages.

The expression on Savannah’s face when she sees Carson’s outfit tells Vivi that Savannah did suggest something more modest and Carson ignored her. Surprise, surprise.

Savannah beckons and the kids trudge up the steps. Willa and Carson are…holding hands? Has Vivi’s death brought them together? Was that what it took for them to realize they’re sisters? How many times had Vivi pulled her girls away from each other, their faces flushed, Willa with angry pink scratch marks down her cheeks, Carson’s green eyes flashing with fury and guilt? After one of their slapping-and-hair-pulling fights, she’d said to them, “I would have given anything in this world to have been blessed with a sister.”