Golden Girl(28)

She stays after school to make up a quiz in calculus; it’s the first quiz of the year, on derivatives. Vivi’s calculus teacher, Mr. Emery, also happens to have detention duty—and the only kid in detention that day is Brett Caspian.

Brett is sitting two rows ahead and one seat to Vivi’s left, lounging like he’s at the beach, his feet up on the chair in front of him. He has his binder on the desk and a pen with a chewed cap in his hand but he makes no move to do any homework. Instead, he taps the pen in a complicated drum rhythm, staring at the ceiling first and then at Mr. Emery, who is completely immersed in grading papers. Vivi does her best to ignore Brett Caspian, though the tapping is distracting. She looks up and starts to ask him to please stop, but as soon as she takes a breath, he turns and winks at her.

Is it fair to say this wink changes Vivi’s life?

Her whole body flushes and she can no longer concentrate on derivatives. It must have been a sarcastic wink because, in high school in 1986, Vivian Howe isn’t someone who gets winked at. She’s wearing a khaki A-line skirt and a petal-pink polo and a pair of off-brand boat shoes that she begged her mother for at Higbee’s. She’s a devotee of The Official Preppy Handbook and tries to create the looks on a budget. The looks are not sexy or inviting.

Mrs. Shepherd from the office buzzes through on the intercom. “Dave, you have a phone call.”

Mr. Emery’s head pops up. He looks disoriented, like he’s been asleep or underwater. He blinks at Vivi and Brett as though he has no idea who they are or what they’re doing in his classroom.

He stands up. “Be right back. Vivi, when you’re finished, leave the quiz on my desk, please.”

Brett says, “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to tell her all the answers?”

Mr. Emery surprises them both by laughing, then leaves the room.

Now they’re alone. Vivi tries to concentrate on the numbers and letters. The derivative of x2 is 2x. The derivative of 2x is 2. She finishes the quiz, no problem. Ten minutes has passed and Mr. Emery still isn’t back. Vivi finds herself reluctant to leave. She double-checks then triple-checks her answers. Finally, she can dawdle no longer. She drops her quiz on Mr. Emery’s desk.

She knows that Brett Caspian is watching her. He’s cute, she decides. She never realized this before because he’s a druggie and therefore not her type, not even her species.

When she collects her books, he says, “Well, I’m not hanging out here any longer.”

Vivi says, “You’re going to leave detention? Aren’t you afraid they’ll double-down if you do that?”

“Nah,” Brett says. “Dave will let me slide.”

“Dave?”

“He’s friends with my parents,” Brett says. “They bowl together at Maple Lanes.”

Vivi is astonished to hear this. She doesn’t think of someone like Brett Caspian as even having parents, never mind parents who bowl with a teacher.

“Anyway, if you don’t want to wait for the sports bus, I can drive you home,” Brett says.

Vivi practically has to pick herself up off the floor. “Okay?” she says.

They’re like Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald from The Breakfast Club. Or close enough. They become a couple. By October, Vivi has traded in her A-line skirts for Jordache jeans and her boat shoes for Chuck Taylors. Brett picks her up on Friday nights and they go together to Byers Field to watch the football games, though neither of them is the rah-rah type, and then they head to Antonio’s for pizza. On Saturdays, they do a few laps around the Parmatown Mall, one of Brett’s hands possessively in the back pocket of Vivi’s new jeans and his other hand holding a cigarette. Sometimes they go to a movie at the mall; sometimes Vivi goes to the high-school parties where Brett’s band is playing. Afterward, they drive around Parma and Seven Hills in Brett’s Buick Skylark playing 100.7 WMMS (the greatest rock station in America, right there in Cleveland) so loud that the soles of Vivi’s shoes vibrate against the dashboard as the crisp Ohio air rushes in through the open windows. They park on State Road Hill or the Canal Road over in Independence and make out. They go to second base; they go to third base. They say, I love you, I love you too, I love you more, I am so in love with you. The feeling is so fresh out of the box, so wondrous, that they believe they are the first people ever to experience this kind of love. They believe they invented it.

Vivi goes with Brett to band practice, which is held in his buddy Wayne Curtis’s garage. Wayne Curtis plays bass, and Roy, who has already graduated, plays the drums. Vivi knows Roy; he has a smart sister in the grade below Vivi.

Wayne and Roy don’t act one way or another when Vivi comes to practice. They mostly ignore her, though once, Roy asks where she’s applying to college, and when she tells him—Duke, UNC, UVA—he whistles.

“Anywhere is fine as long as it’s not here,” Vivi says.

“I hear ya,” Roy says. The band’s name, after all, is Escape from Ohio.



The secret truth is that after Vivi falls in love with Brett, she falls in love with Ohio. With only her guidance counselor’s knowledge, she applies to Denison, Kenyon, Oberlin. She and Brett talk about getting married when they’re in their twenties and moving downtown into a condo with a view of the lake; then, when they have children, they’ll buy a house in Shaker Heights. Their kids will have the same sensible Midwestern upbringing that they’ve had.