Golden Girl(79)

When she gets back to Wee Bit, she forwards the video of Brett singing “Golden Girl” to her mother’s publicist, Flor; maybe Flor knows someone in the music business, maybe this can be the first step toward getting Brett an agent.

Then Willa watches the video again herself. Three more times.





Vivi




The only person who knows the truth is your mom, and sadly, she’s not here to tell us.

I’m here! Vivi thinks. Up here!

Your mom was a human being…just like the rest of us.

Brett! Vivi thinks. She’s not sure she deserves his kindness.



That night, while everyone sleeps, Vivi can’t help herself. She goes back to the summer of 1987.



Brett tells Vivi that his band, Escape from Ohio, has an actual paying gig, a bar mitzvah at the Holiday Inn in Independence.

“Six hundred bucks!” he says. “Two hundred apiece! For one night of work!”

“Can I come watch?” Vivi asks.

Brett looks uncomfortable. “You’d better not,” he says. “It’s a private function, they’re probably getting charged by the head…”

“I’m not going to eat anything!” Vivi says. “I just want to hear you.”

“I’ll meet you after,” he says. “We’ll drive to the lake, how about that?”

Vivi agrees, even though she feels shut out. She spends the hours when Brett is playing the bar mitzvah going through her drawers and closet. She leaves for Duke in six weeks. She and Brett haven’t talked about what will happen after Vivi leaves because it’s a topic that upsets them both. Vivi has been thinking of not going to Duke at all; she has been thinking of going to Denison, where she was offered a free ride as well. It’s a good school and it’s only two hours away. Brett could come every weekend. If she were assigned a single, he might be able to live in her dorm.

Brett is an hour late picking Vivi up after the gig, but instead of apologizing, he’s bursting with news. There was a guest at the bar mitzvah, the kid’s uncle, John Zubow, who’s a bigwig at Century Records and who likes their sound! He wants them to come to LA!

Vivi holds Brett’s hands and jumps up and down. She can feel her heart shattering into jagged pieces.



John Zubow buys Brett, Wayne, and Roy plane tickets to LA. Vivi and Brett’s summer together is being shortened by six weeks. Brett is leaving Ohio, and Vivi is staying behind. It was supposed to be the other way around.

Vivi drives Brett to the airport. She’s in shock. This all happened so fast; she isn’t ready, she doesn’t want Brett to leave, and if she were very honest, she would admit that she doesn’t want Brett to become a rock star. All Vivi can think of is Brett dripping with pretty girls the way that Zsa Zsa Gabor drips with diamonds. But she has to pretend to feel enthusiastic, optimistic.

“This is going to happen for you,” she says. “The song is terrific.”

“It’s your song,” Brett says.

“It’s your song,” Vivi says. She swallows against the sore, gumball-size lump in her throat. “Do you think you’ll be back before I leave?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, stroking her hand with his thumb. Vivi has a memory of him stroking her hand the same way at her father’s funeral. “I hope so.”

Vivi knows he’s lying—he hopes for the opposite. He hopes the band is a success and that they can start a life in Los Angeles.

“Maybe I should forget Duke,” she says, “and go to college in LA instead.”

“Vivi, no. You have a future.”

She starts to cry. “I don’t care about my future. I want to be with you.”

Very softly, Brett starts singing the song, and Vivi cries so hard that she has to pull over on 480 and let Brett take the wheel. Vivi chastises herself for falling so deeply in love. What if she had said No, thank you, when Brett asked if she wanted a ride home after his detention? What if she’d said, I’ll take the sports bus? What if she had stayed focused on her schoolwork? She might have heard that the band Escape from Ohio had been discovered by a record company and she would have thought, Oh, that’s cool, but she wouldn’t be left empty and aching.

Outside the departures terminal, Vivi and Brett kiss long and deep, and Vivi says, “You’re going to be great. I love you.”

Brett grins. Excitement is dancing all over his face. “I love you too.”

“Call me,” she says. “When you can.”

He pulls his duffel bag and his guitar out of the back seat. Wayne and Roy are waiting for him by the entrance. “Let’s go, Caspian!” Roy calls out.

Brett gives Vivi one more kiss but he misses her mouth. He’s already gone, she thinks. She watches as he hops the curb and strides over to Wayne and Roy. He disappears into the terminal without even turning around to wave. The automatic doors close behind him and Vivi thinks, I need to find a way to get him back.



She can’t keep food down. She can’t sleep. Her mother extends a rare offer of sympathy. “I’m sure it’s difficult, letting him go. But you know what they say, if it’s meant to be, he’ll come back to you.”

Vivi types out this saying, cribbed from Kahlil Gibran, and tapes it to her bathroom mirror, but reading it doesn’t help.