Golden Girl(25)

Martha pipes up. “Sisters can be a mixed bag.” She gives a weary laugh. “Having a sister doesn’t always mean an automatic best friend.”

“Did something happen between you and Maribeth?” Vivi asks.

“Story for another day,” Martha says.

Savannah shepherds the kids inside and the doors close behind them, leaving everyone else to bake out on the street.

Dennis arrives; he’s wearing his gray suit even though Vivi told him at Willa’s wedding that the pants were a bit tight in the seat and the gray a little too corporate for Nantucket. Despite the grown-up attire, Dennis looks as lost and sad as a little boy. The only person Vivi confided to about her split from Dennis (I need space, the book is coming out, away on tour, think it would be best if you stopped spending the night, you might want to start dating someone else and if you do, I totally understand) was Savannah. Savannah felt Vivi needed to pull out the hatchet and make a swift, clean break. “It will feel cruel in the moment,” Savannah said. “But it’s kinder in the long run.”

I’m sorry, Dennis, Vivi thinks. If she had known she was going to die, she might have spared him the indignity of the breakup. She wishes she could set Dennis up with one of the single women from her barre class.

“You can make that happen,” Martha says. “But you’ll have to use one of your nudges.”

No, no, Vivi thinks. She isn’t going to squander one of her nudges on Dennis’s future romantic happiness. He’ll have to find someone on his own.

Vivi sees Marissa Lopresti show up. Her dress gives the Collette Dinnigan a run for its money—it’s a backless black minidress with a plunging neckline and cutouts at the sides. It’s the same dress Marissa wore to Money Pit for Christmas dinner last year. Vivi had raised her eyebrows then and offered Marissa a sweater, and Marissa had given Vivi an incredulous look, as if to say that a sweater would completely negate the point of the dress.

Marissa is attended by her sister, Alexis, five years older, and her mother, Candace, who, thanks to a lot of Botox, looks only five years older than Alexis. Candace Lopresti is a consultant for the luxury-hotel industry. She travels all the time for work—to the Oberoi in Mumbai, to the Mandarin Oriental in Canouan. While the girls were in middle school and high school, respectively, she left them at home with her mother, who was quite elderly (and senile). This arrangement had the appearance of propriety, of checking the box of “girls, chaperoned,” but Vivi happens to know that Alexis, at least, had run wild. It is oh so ironic that Alexis now works at the police station, because Alexis Lopresti was a very bad teenager.

“You shouldn’t judge,” Martha says.

True, Vivi thinks. Carson wasn’t much better.

Once Leo and Marissa started dating, Marissa handled her mother’s absences by basically living at Money Pit, often staying an entire weekend. “My mom’s away,” she would say on Friday afternoon when she showed up with her Louis Vuitton Keepall, an exorbitantly expensive piece of luggage that her mother had given her in place of love, manners, and a sense of responsibility. (Wow, Vivi really is judgy today!)

Alexis and Marissa let their mother lead them into the church. Vivi wonders why Marissa didn’t come with Leo.

And where is Cruz?

Vivi sees JP ascending the stairs. Vivi wonders if he’ll start slapping backs and chatting people up. But no—he slips into the church without so much as a wave to anyone.

Where is Amy? Vivi wonders. Did JP leave her to the tedious business of parking the car, or did she (wisely) decide not to come?

Martha clears her throat.

“She’s not coming?” Vivi says.

Martha ever so slightly shakes her head and Vivi feels relief. Maybe she is an evil and vengeful person, but she is happy that the woman who stole her husband isn’t going to sit in church, up front with her children, and pretend to mourn.

The doors to the church open and people file inside.

There are a few late arrivals.

Vivi notices Cruz and Joe DeSantis marching down India Street. Joe has a firm hand on Cruz’s back and is pushing him along.

Cruz! Vivi thinks. She’d expected him to be inside already, sitting with her kids.

Cruz says, “I’ll wait out here.”

Joe says, “After all that woman did for you, after all the meals she fed you, all the books she lent you, that beautiful letter of recommendation she wrote, the genuine love she showed you day in and day out since you’ve been in short pants? You’re coming inside, son.”

“No,” Cruz says. He squares his shoulders and locks his arms across his chest.

Vivi can hardly believe her eyes. Cruz never defies his father, and for good reason. Joe DeSantis is as tall and unyielding as a brick wall and he has a deep, commanding voice. He’s not scary, exactly, or intimidating, but the man has a distinguished presence. Cruz usually respects—and obeys—him.

“I never thought the day would come that I would say this, but I’m disappointed in you.” Joe opens the church door, dips his fingers in the holy water, and genuflects, then the door closes.

Cruz takes a shuddering breath. Something is wrong, Vivi thinks. Something is really wrong. He looks skyward, squinting behind his glasses.

Does he see me? Vivi wonders.

“No,” Martha says. “We’ve been over this.”