Golden Girl(82)

They head out into the summer morning and buy a pregnancy test at a pharmacy in Middleburg Heights, not Parma, so they won’t see anyone they know. The pharmacy is near the Perkins, and Brett asks Vivi if she wants to go for breakfast.

Vivi is starving but she can’t bear to enter that Perkins or any other—she hasn’t been inside one since her father died—and she doesn’t want to risk seeing Cindy. She thinks about how disappointed her father and Cindy would be if they knew what she’d done. She was such a good kid, ordering French toast and hash browns and crispy bacon, drinking coffee, reading the movie reviews in the Plain Dealer, then checking her horoscope.

She remembers the hope with which she used to unfurl those tiny, tight scrolls and read what was in store for her as a Capricorn. Nothing in them ever led her to believe that she would create a tumultuous situation like this one.

“I just want to go home,” Vivi says. “Your home.”

Back at Brett’s, Vivi takes the test—negative.

Brett and Vivi climb back into Brett’s bed for a nap. Brett kisses the top of Vivi’s head and says, “We can still get married.”



The next few days are tense. Vivi wants Brett to fly back to LA—she even offers to pay for his ticket out of what she’s saved waiting tables—but Brett says he doesn’t want to leave until she’s “one hundred percent recovered.” She assures him she’s recovered.

“You need to go back,” Vivi says. “Wayne and Roy are waiting for you.”

“Come with me,” he says. “You’re my muse.” He runs his hands over her face like he’s trying to read Braille. “I can’t write songs without you. I tried and I can’t, Vivi.”

“But I have college,” she says.

“You said you might want to go to college in LA. There’s UCLA, USC.”

She did say that—and at the time, she’d meant it. She can’t believe how different she feels now; it’s like she and Brett have switched places. “I’m going to Duke.” She hugs him. “I’m sorry, I just think I should stick to my plan.”

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll go back to LA, then. And we’ll put off getting married.” He speaks the words like a threat, but the thing is, Vivi is relieved.

The following week, she takes Brett to the airport. “You’re going to do great,” she says. “I love you.”

Brett slouches toward the airport doors. He turns back to wave and then disappears inside.

This is the last time Vivi sees Brett Caspian. She calls him at the hotel the night before she leaves for Duke and breaks his heart.



“Martha?” Vivi whispers with her eyes closed. She’s lying on the green velvet chaise, still in a dream state. She raises her voice a little. “Martha?”

There’s a rustling. When Vivi opens her eyes, Martha is sitting on the white enamel bean-shaped coffee table, facing her. “Yes, Vivian, I’m here.” Martha’s scarf is wound around her wrist and forearm, looking like a cross between a cuff bracelet and a very chic bandage.

Vivi’s eyes flutter closed again. The phrase I’ll sleep when I’m dead drifts through her mind. “I want to use my second nudge,” Vivi murmurs. “I need to let Brett know that I’m sorry.”

“He knows you’re sorry,” Martha says. “It’s all right there in your book.”

“Will everything be okay, then?” Vivi says. “My secret won’t come out?”

There’s no answer. Vivi rouses herself and turns to see the tail end of Martha’s muumuu disappearing through the green door.

“It had better be okay!” Vivi calls after her, wide awake now. “You made an executive decision!”

Brett could still tell people. Vivi is number two on the bestseller list; his revelation might be newsworthy, if only because his story so perfectly mirrors the plot of the book. The internet might blow up. Vivi’s secret might come out and go viral. Aren’t readers always looking for the story behind the story? And what if Willa tells Carson, Leo, Savannah, JP? What will they think? Will they think she was just a human being like the rest of them? Or will they think something worse?

When Vivi wrote the book, she knew there was a slim possibility that Brett would find out about it and an even slimmer chance that he would read it. A surprising thought crosses her mind: Maybe a teensy part of her, lurking in the dark chamber where she’s been hiding this secret all of these years, wanted Brett to know the truth. Maybe she wanted to confess.

She stares up at the ceiling and runs her hand along the soft velvet of the chaise. She can’t deny it—she feels lighter, nearly unburdened.





Amy




JP takes Monday off so he and Amy can go to the beach together. Amy puts on the new black bikini she optimistically bought on January 8, a week into her new year’s diet, and studies herself from every angle. She has bulges of fat at her middle that are threatening to turn into actual rolls; she’ll have to be careful how she sits. Her backside has filled out, but Amy thinks maybe the world likes this look now. (Sometimes at work, Lorna will grab Amy’s ass and say, “Dummy thicc,” which is apparently a compliment.) Amy puts on a diaphanous white cover-up and applies her expensive sunscreen and wishes she’d gotten a pedicure—she works at a salon!—but JP announced his intention to take a day off only the night before. It’s a spontaneous decision to spend quality time with the woman he loves…but it might also be a chance for them to have the “talk” he mentioned, something Amy has been studiously avoiding.