Golden Girl(80)

The Parma Tavern, where Vivi is waiting tables that summer, has a beer-sticky floor and smells like buffalo wings. It’s subject to erratic strobe lighting cast by the pinball machines. The soundtrack is Van Halen, Howard Jones, Run-DMC. After Brett leaves, Vivi goes on autopilot. She takes orders without listening. She has to remind herself to smile—her tips depend on a smile—and she tries to flirt with the men who come in after their company softball game, but it all feels fake and dirty.

A week passes with no word from Brett. Vivi knows he’s at a hotel; she realizes he can’t call her long distance from the room. She checks the mailbox. Has he written like he said he would? How long would it take a letter to get from California to Parma?

She loses three pounds. Her mother says she’s “skin and bones” and actually brings home treats—bratwursts, pierogis, a box of Jack Frost doughnuts. Vivi doesn’t want any of it.

On July 20, Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band is playing at the Blossom, and Vivi and Brett had gotten tickets. Brett left them with Vivi, telling her she should take someone else, but who else would Vivi go with? She gives the tickets to a girl at work named Tami. Tami says, “Are you sure?” When Vivi nods, Tami gives her a one-armed neck hug. This is the only person to touch Vivi since Brett left.

A postcard comes in the mail the next day. On the front is a picture of the Hollywood sign. The back says: We’re staying at the Marriott in Burbank, room 331. Call if you can. We are recording a demo of “GG.” I miss you! Love, Brett

I miss you! Love, Brett. Vivi reads this fourteen times, willing it to say, I love you. Why didn’t he write I love you?

She has the phone number now. She can call him.

That night at the Parma Tavern, one beautiful couple stands out—they’re young and fresh and look as though they’ve been clipped out of a magazine. They’re wearing the same shade of light blue. They take an interest in Vivi, ask how long she’s lived in Parma. She says, “My whole life,” but adds that she’s leaving for college at the end of August.

The woman, who is blond and wearing a seersucker sundress with a matching headband, asks where Vivi is going to school.

“Duke University,” she says.

The man, in a light blue polo, says Vivi must be smart. Duke is a great school!

The woman orders the cabbage and noodles. “I’ve had the strangest cravings since I got pregnant,” she says.

Vivi blinks. “You’re pregnant?” The woman is slim; Vivi never would have known.

“Just twelve weeks,” she says. “My morning sickness was really bad, and then as soon as I could keep food down, all I wanted were the weirdest combinations.”

“Like cabbage and noodles!” the man says.



When Vivi gets home from work, she calls the hotel room in Burbank. There’s no answer. It’s nine thirty in Parma, six thirty on the West Coast. Brett must be at dinner. Vivi wonders if he and Wayne and Roy eat at McDonald’s every night or if John Zubow has been taking them to Spago and the Ivy and other restaurants that you read about in magazines. Vivi calls again two hours later, after her mother has gone to bed. She tiptoes down to the kitchen and whispers when she asks the front-desk clerk for room 331.

There’s no answer in the room.

It’s only eight thirty in LA, she reasons. Lots of times this summer, Brett would pick Vivi up at eight thirty.

She goes back to bed and dreams of the woman in the blue sundress with the matching headband. That couple will have a little boy; she can feel it.

Vivi wakes up again at a quarter to four. It’s a quarter to one in LA. Brett will definitely be home. Vivi slips back downstairs to use the phone.

The desk clerk connects her to room 331. There’s no answer.

He’s not home at a quarter to one. He’s out…partying? Vivi thinks about what she knows of Los Angeles: Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Mulholland Drive, Malibu. He’s at a party with record-company people, which means models with teased hair and sparkly purple eyeshadow wearing tight leather skirts and high heels. Vivi has watched thousands of hours of MTV; she knows about life backstage.

She sits in the dark kitchen and realizes why Brett didn’t say he loved her on the postcard. He’s outgrown her; he’s moving on.

She calls the hotel again. No answer. Her mother is going to hyperventilate when she gets the phone bill. Every time someone answers in California, there will be a separate charge.

Things were better when Vivi didn’t have Brett’s number because then she didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t home at one in the morning.

She falls asleep at the kitchen table and wakes up with the pearly-pink light of dawn and the neighbor’s dog barking. It’s twenty past five, two twenty in California. Vivi looks at the phone.

Don’t call, she thinks. It’s better not to know. She should wait until right before she leaves for work at eleven thirty. She might wake Brett up but at least he’ll be home. If she calls now and he’s not home, her world will collapse. She’s delirious from lack of sleep as it is.

Don’t call, she tells herself. Maybe she should wait until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. He can wonder what she’s up to.

Yes, this is what Vivi should do. Wait.

But…she’s consumed with love and rage and panic. She feels like Brett has dropped down into a hole. What if something happened to him? What if he’s in the hospital or in jail?