Golden Girl(42)

“Of course,” Willa says. She isn’t sure she’ll be able to keep whatever this is from Rip, but she’ll try.

“I think Zach is having an affair,” Pamela says.

Willa feels a surge of what she can only describe as lurid excitement. Though she’s aghast too, of course.

“In fact, I’m sure he is,” Pamela says.





Vivi




“This is getting good,” Vivi says. She has pulled one of the peach silk soufflé chairs right up to the edge of the room. “We need popcorn.” She tilts her head. “Why isn’t there food up here? Why isn’t there wine?”

“Heavenly banquet,” Martha says. “Once you join the choir.”

“Only then?”

“Reward for all that singing.”

“Will there be truffle fries?” Vivi asks. “Tequila?”

“Vivian, please,” Martha says. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

The matter at hand: Pamela thinks Zach is having an affair. Vivi knows she should be more sympathetic toward Pamela. After all, Vivi has been in the exact same spot, except Vivi didn’t have to figure it out. JP had marched into the house one late-summer evening and told Vivi he’d “fallen” for Amy, sounding almost proud of himself.

But Pamela is an unsympathetic character in this story. If Vivi were still alive and Willa had confided Pamela’s suspicions about Zach to Vivi, Vivi might have said, Good for him.

Vivi is an absolutely wretched person. How did she end up ascending instead of descending?

Martha chuckles. She’s an unapologetic mind reader.

“Is there more?” Vivi asks.

Martha pulls the second soufflé chair up next to Vivi’s. “Oh, there’s more.”





Carson




The owner of the Oystercatcher gives her two weeks off after her mother dies, but then she has to make a decision: return to work or quit. It’s the Fourth of July weekend, the Oystercatcher is pumping, and they need their bartender. The owner, George, has been subbing in but if Carson doesn’t return for her weekend shifts, he’ll have no choice but to replace her.

She shows up on Saturday at three o’clock, right before buck-a-shuck. George puts his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this.” He sounds like he’s sending her out into the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

“I can totally do this.” Before Carson left her mother’s house, she made herself a double espresso and did a shot of her mother’s tequila, which Savannah had found in the laundry room. (“I figured your mom would hide it someplace you would never look,” Savannah said.)

Carson steps behind the bar and jumps right in: a dozen Island Creeks, a dozen cherrystones, four Whale’s Tale Pale Ale drafts, “Vodka soda, close it” for the Chad in the pink polo shirt, a dozen East Beach Blondes, two chardonnays, a planter’s punch. Carson fields the orders like they’re pop flies. She won’t think about her mother. She won’t check her phone. When she gets a second to breathe, she makes herself an espresso and takes an Ativan. She can do this.

The crowd thickens with every passing minute. It’s like eating a plate of spaghetti—you think you’re making headway but you can’t clean your plate. (Maybe that’s the Ativan talking?) No, there are people pouring in, drawn to the bar like iron shavings to a magnet. Sean Lee, the guitar player, starts singing and Carson curses herself because she meant to request “Stone in Love,” by Journey. Sean had sent her a text saying If there’s anything I can do, let me know, and Carson texted back and asked him to learn this song because, it turns out, this is the song that Vivi was listening to when she got hit.

Burning love comes once in a lifetime.

Carson could tell from looking at Vivi’s phone that she had gotten Carson’s last text. Sorry about the pan, Mama, and the tequila wasn’t me. I love you. The timing of the text was so close to what the police said was the point of impact that Carson wondered if Vivi had been reading her text instead of watching the road, and that Carson’s apology was the reason her mother was killed. You’ll be the death of me, Carson Marie. Savannah assured Carson that the place where the police found the phone indicated that the phone had not been held in front of Vivi’s face but rather at her side. Was Savannah making that up? It was possible but Carson clung to the maybe-a-lie like a lifebuoy. She couldn’t take another breath otherwise.



By seven o’clock, as the sun is starting to slant toward its descent, the Oystercatcher is at maximum capacity and all the customers are deliriously happy—eating, drinking, taking selfies, singing along with Sean, talking and laughing as though nothing bad could ever happen, as though they were all going to live forever.

Carson gets lots of tips but she can’t bring herself to ring the damn bell; it feels like a button that’s out of her reach, a bar she can’t clear. She asks the kiss-ass barback, Jamey (boy), to cover while she goes to the bathroom. She needs something. The Ativan took the edge off, but the downside is she’s in a fog. She has some coke but she isn’t sure how it will mix with her grief. Still, she’s back at work; she needs to be up, up, up. She’s only halfway through her shift.

She taps some out on her thumb, snorts. Ah, okay. Her eyes water; it’s bitter, sharp. She sits on the toilet waiting for the rush but it’s slow to come, so she bumps. She feels her heart kick-start. Great, she’s back in the game.