Golden Girl(76)

“This was early in our relationship,” Brett says. “Your mom still has her headband. But then…” He flips to the next picture, where Vivi is wearing tight jeans, a pair of Chucks, and an REO Speedwagon T-shirt. Her eyes are rimmed with black eyeliner and she’s wearing a black lace choker. Brett is still in his jeans jacket. They’re on a bench at a mall; there’s an Orange Julius cup resting between them.

“Then the Christmas formal,” Brett says. The picture is the two of them posing together in front of a silk-screened winter wonderland. Vivi is wearing a black dress with thin straps, and Brett is in a gray pin-striped suit with a purple shirt and purple tie. His hair has been shaved at the sides to leave an impressive mullet.

What strikes Willa about her mother in all three pictures is how young she is, and how unknowable. This is Vivi before she was married, before she had kids, before she set foot on Nantucket or maybe even knew what Nantucket was. This Vivian Howe is real; it’s her mother, but she’s a stranger.

“Then the end of the school year came and we were graduating. Your mom had gotten into Duke with a scholarship. I didn’t have any firm plans but my band was starting to get some paying gigs. We were hired to play a bar mitzvah at the Holiday Inn in Independence.” He stops, nods. “That’s when everything happened.”

“What?” Willa says. “What happened?” What, she wonders, could possibly happen at a bar mitzvah at a Holiday Inn in Independence, Ohio?

“One of the guests at the bar mitzvah, the kid’s uncle, liked our sound. Turns out the uncle was John Zubow, vice president of Century Records in Los Angeles.”

“No way!” Willa says. “So you were discovered?”

“John asked if we had any original material. We had two songs. One was called ‘Parmatown Blues,’ written by our drummer, Roy. The other was ‘Golden Girl,’ which was a song I wrote for your mom after her father died. When Frank killed himself, she was…devastated.” Brett bows his head. “I guess you know exactly how she felt. That profound loss. The sense that nothing is ever going to be right again.”

“I do,” Willa whispers.

“I wanted to make her feel better. I would hold her while she cried and I supported her when she fought with her mom, but that wasn’t enough. So I asked myself, What do I know how to do? All I knew was music. And I wrote Vivi this song.”

“Gah!” Willa says. She can’t believe this!

Brett lifts his guitar out of its case. Willa knows nothing about guitars but she can tell this one is special. It’s dark wood with a mother-of-pearl pick guard, and the strap that goes over Brett’s head is embroidered. When he strums the first chord, Willa gets chills. She’s a person who has spent her entire life planning for some imaginary point in the future when she would achieve…perfect happiness. There’s a way in which Vivi’s death has freed her from this quest. Nothing will ever be perfect again because Vivi won’t be there to share it with her. Even if Willa lives to be a hundred and is surrounded by children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she will still miss her mother. So all she can hope for are unexpected moments of grace. Like now. Willa has met Vivi’s high-school boyfriend. She has seen pictures of her mother wearing liquid eyeliner and jeans that fit her like the skin on a grape.

Brett will now sing the song he wrote for Vivi.

“When we started going out, our song was ‘Stone in Love,’ by Journey,” Brett says. He pauses. “Have you ever heard of Journey?”

Willa takes a stab at it. “‘Don’t Stop Believin’’?”

“Yes. ‘Stone in Love’ is another song of theirs. We used to listen to it in the cassette deck of my Skylark, and Vivi would rewind it over and over again and we’d turn the stereo up and put the windows down and belt out the lyrics. That song came to define high school for me.” He strums another chord. “Do you have a song like that?”

“‘Castle on the Hill,’” Willa says. “By Ed Sheeran.” She feels like Brett might find Ed Sheeran silly, but his face lights up.

“Right, exactly, that’s another song about being a teenager in love, so it makes sense that it would appeal to teenagers in love.”

Yes; it’s one of Willa and Rip’s songs. They danced to it at their wedding.

“To be honest, Vivi and I were never exactly sure what ‘stone in love’ even meant. We thought it meant the purest, best kind of love a person could experience, and that’s your first love.”

Willa nods emphatically. She agrees. Rip, her one and only!

“There’s a line at the end of the song that goes ‘Golden girl, I’ll keep you forever.’ And that was the jumping-off point for my own song. Vivi was my golden girl. She was the one I would hold above all others.” He looks at Willa. “To this day, that’s true.”

“Will you play it?” Willa whispers.

Brett slaps the front of the guitar for rhythm, then launches into the song. It’s immediately catchy, a little bluesy, a little folksy, but with a rock beat. Brett’s voice is…sexy. This isn’t a word Willa wants to use, but it’s true. His voice has strength, tenderness, and a little bit of a rough edge. You’re my sunshine and my light, my treasure, my prize; you’re the fire in my eyes…my golden girl, my girl so bold, your path I’ll clear, your heart I’ll hold.