Golden Girl(81)

Her father has been dead for exactly six months but Vivi can’t mention this to her mother. Vivi doesn’t ask if there will be a Mass said in her father’s name. She knows the answer is no—because killing yourself is a sin. Vivi has lost her father’s love; it vanished when he died. Brett tried to make up for that loss. He tried to love Vivi enough for two people. She can’t lose him.

She picks up the phone and dials; she has the number memorized by now.

Two rings in, Brett answers. “Hello?”

Vivi is so overcome by hearing his voice that she starts to cry.

“Vivi?” he says. “Vivi, is that you? Why are you crying?”

“I’m pregnant,” she says.



Brett flies home at the end of the week, and on Saturday night, they’re in the back seat of his Buick Skylark, making love. Vivi is simultaneously ecstatic and devastated. She has told a…monstrous lie, and now she has to deal with the consequences.

Brett wants to keep the baby. His parents had him when they were just out of high school and they’re still together, still happy.

Still in Parma, Vivi thinks. In a bowling league with Mr. Emery, the calculus teacher. Somehow the idea of staying in Parma, which she gladly would have accepted as her fate when she was dropping Brett off at the airport, has lost its luster.

“What about your big chance?” Vivi says. “The record deal?”

“It’s not a sure thing, Viv.” Brett has told Vivi what his time in LA was like. They recorded the song, they played for the owners of some clubs, they were told the next step was to write enough songs for an album. But, Brett says, the songs weren’t flowing. He squeezed her and said, “My inspiration was missing.”

Vivi says she doesn’t know what she wants to do about the baby. She needs time to think.

Vivi is caught in a vipers’ nest of lies. She pretends to feel sick; she pretends to feel dizzy. She rests her hand on her belly and agrees when Brett says they should call the baby “Bubby” for now.

They have sex often, without protection. Vivi can’t exactly ask Brett to wear a condom or even pull out when she’s already “pregnant.” The result, she’s sure, is that she will end up pregnant, which is the most devastating karma she can imagine.

She’ll pretend to lose the baby. She goes to Kmart in search of fake blood, but the salesclerk says they don’t put out the Halloween merchandise until after Labor Day. Vivi decides she’ll do it without fake blood. She has a sense that Brett—and maybe men in general—don’t understand how a woman’s body works.

She waits another week because she likes the way things are between them. Brett is extra-loving, gentle, solicitous. She has become his queen; she’s the mother of his unborn child.

During that week, two things happen. The first is that Wayne and Roy call and ask Brett when he’s coming back to LA.

“What did you tell them?” Vivi asks. She has tried to ignore that she is messing with more than just Brett’s fate. Wayne and Roy have been left to twist in the wind.

Brett grins. “I told them I was looking at rings.”

These words don’t produce the kind of elation Vivi would have predicted.

The second thing that happens is a packet from Duke arrives in the mail. Inside is Vivi’s class schedule, a timeline for freshman orientation, and her dorm assignment: Craven Quad on West Campus. Her move-in date is August 31. Suddenly, Vivi can see the future like a bright doorway in front of her. All she has to do is step through. But first, she has to fix things. She can’t believe how impetuous, how shortsighted, and, most of all, how selfish it was to lie. Her mother brought a self-help book home from the Cuyahoga Library called When Good People Do Bad Things. Vivi knows her mother is still struggling with her father’s suicide, but the title of the book speaks to Vivi. She is the good person who has done a bad thing. It’s her.



The next morning at seven thirty, Vivi heads over to Brett’s house because she knows that Brett’s parents leave for work at a quarter to seven. She also knows Brett is asleep, so she sneaks inside the house, creeps up the stairs, climbs into bed with him, and presses her face between his shoulder blades. He’s so warm and he smells like himself. Vivi loves him in a way she knows she’ll never love anyone else.

“Brett,” she whispers.

He startles awake and flips over, and when he understands that it’s her, he gathers her up in his arms. “What are you doing here, Viv? Did my parents leave for work?”

“Yes,” she says, and she starts to cry. “I lost the baby.”

“What?” Brett says. He sits up and clutches his head. “What? No! No, Vivi, no!” His torso starts to shake; it’s awful to witness. He is really upset, as upset as she’s ever seen him, all because she was insecure and foolish and cruel. This makes Vivi cry harder. Her guilt is so overwhelming that she almost comes clean. But no, that will make things worse.

She says, “I’m sorry, Brett. I feel like I failed. I feel like this is all my fault.”

He asks if she’s sure the baby is gone; he thinks they should see a doctor. She says yes, she’s sure. She also says she can’t afford a doctor, and she can’t see a doctor using her family’s insurance. He asks if she should take a pregnancy test. With a deep sigh, she says yes.