Golden Girl(74)

“I would have known you anywhere,” Brett says. “You’re Vivi’s spitting image.”

Willa’s eyes well with tears. There are no words he could have said that would have endeared him to her more. It was commonly acknowledged in the family that Carson looked like JP and Willa and Leo looked like Vivi. However, Vivi’s two most striking features were her pixie cut and her red lipstick. Willa wears her hair long, parted down the middle, and she doesn’t wear any makeup, which Carson says is a result of her dating the same person her whole life.

“Thank you,” Willa says. “You brought your guitar?”

“Thought I might sing for you,” he says.

Willa feels embarrassed—whether for herself or for him, she can’t tell. “I’m parked in the lot,” she says, and she leads the man from her mother’s past to her car.



She’s nervous. She wants to jump right in and say, Tell me everything. Tell me about my mom. But she needs to get Brett out to the house on Smith’s Point. They can sit on the back deck. Willa has the fixings for BLTs.

Her car bounces up the cobblestones and Willa slips into tour-guide mode. She points out the most impressive homes as they approach the top of Main Street. “These are the Three Bricks,” she says, pointing to the trio of nearly identical mansions on the right. “Built by whaling merchant Joseph Starbuck for his three sons. Starbuck famously told his two daughters that their husbands would provide for them…which they did.” Willa points next to the white mansions on the left, evocative of Greek temples, one with Ionic columns, one with Corinthian. “The sisters and their very successful husbands moved in across the street. All five homes were a shock, and an affront, to the Nantucket Quaker community. Starbuck built the mansions to keep up with Jared Coffin, who was building a grand red-brick home on Broad Street, and the husbands, Hadwen and Barney, built the Greek revivals to keep up with their father-in-law.” Brett nods along, but Willa can see she has gone too deep into history mode.

Brett says, “So when did your mom move here?”

“After college,” Willa says. “She came to visit her roommate’s family and she liked it so much, she stayed.”

“So that was…in ’91?”

“Around then, I think.”

“And she ended up graduating from Duke? She stayed all four years?”

“Yes.”

Brett laughs. “I didn’t even know what Duke was until your mom applied there. We were from small-town Ohio.”

“My mom never talked about high school or growing up or her parents or Ohio.”

Brett leans his head back against the seat. “Well,” he says. “No surprise there.”



Willa gives Brett the rundown on their family as they wind their way along the twenty-seven curves of the Madaket Road. Vivi married JP Quinboro, who was a summer resident. Then they decided to stay year-round. Willa’s paternal grandmother, Lucinda Quinboro, is still a summer resident.

“She lives in a big house that fronts the harbor,” Willa says. “You passed it on the ferry.”

“So your grandmother is rich,” Brett says. “Is your dad rich?”

His use of the word rich throws Willa off. Does anyone use that term anymore? “My grandmother’s property is worth a lot,” Willa says, though Lucinda is the kind of person who despises ostentation and never carries one red cent on her person. Does she even have a credit card? Willa has never actually seen her grandmother pay for anything; she just signs for things—she has an account at the dry cleaner’s and at the Field and Oar Club and at the farm and at the bookstore. “My father…” Willa wants to be careful when discussing the family finances, obviously. It has occurred to Willa that maybe Brett’s interest in Vivi’s life on Nantucket is financial rather than nostalgic—nostalgia doesn’t pay the bills—though Willa dearly hopes not. She has told herself that if any woman is worth driving through seven states for, it’s Vivi.

Was Vivi.

Brett says, “It’s none of my business. I’m sorry I asked. Vivi never cared about money when I knew her.”

Willa feels the tension in her neck ease a little, but now she urgently has to use the bathroom.

Brett whistles as they cross the bridge over Madaket Harbor. “Pretty out here.”

“I should probably warn you that my house is extremely small,” Willa says.

“My apartment in Knoxville is small,” Brett says. “Only four hundred and fifty square feet, but it’s just me. It does have a view of the river, though, so I can’t complain.”

Willa is now uncomfortable because Wee Bit is only her summer house.

When they pull up to the split-rail fence and Brett sees Wee Bit, he laughs. “That is small! I think that’s one of the smallest houses I’ve ever seen.”

“We have a deck out back with a view of the ocean,” Willa says. “Why don’t you go around the side? I just have to use the bathroom.”



When Willa comes out onto the deck, Brett is gazing over the dunes at the water.

“I like thinking your mom ended up somewhere so beautiful,” he says. “Your mom was special.”

“Tell me about when you knew her.”

Brett is a good storyteller, maybe as good as Vivi. He tells Willa that he and Vivi met while he was in detention and she was making up a quiz in calculus.