Golden Girl(98)

At this point, Vivi thinks, the readers are her family.



A week later, Vivi steps off the elevator at the Drake Hotel in Chicago to see Savannah standing in the lobby. Savannah links her arm through Vivi’s and says, “I’m coming to your event and then we have a nine-thirty impossible-to-get reservation at Topolobampo. Mr. Celtics is friends with Rick Bayless.”



Vivi gets home on the fourteenth of October and moves directly into a tiny cottage on Lily Street. It has one closet-size bedroom for Leo and a loft where she sticks the girls. Vivi sleeps on a futon in the back TV room. They eat dinner around the coffee table in the living room. There’s one bathroom with a shower stall. They’re right on top of one another and Vivi loves it.

But…the kids are different. JP has been spinning a wild tale of Vivi’s “abandonment.” He refused to confirm the date that Vivi was coming back or even if she was coming back and the kids bought into this despite Vivi’s daily assurances that she would be back on Nantucket on October 14, long before Halloween. The kids alternately cling to her and mouth off (Carson), calling her an “absentee parent.”

She meets Amy for the first time at Leo’s football game at the Nantucket Boys and Girls Club. It’s the first week of November on a bright, crisp autumn day and Vivi is tucked in among her sports-parents friends in the bleachers like an apple in a barrel. She has regained her equilibrium; all the loneliness she suffered through on the road has been forgotten like the pain of childbirth.

Watching eight-and nine-year-olds play football is two steps forward, one step back. It’s easy to get distracted, and Candace Lopresti says brightly, “Hey, is that JP’s new girlfriend?”

Vivi turns to see JP, wearing his obnoxiously preppy Ralph Lauren green suede barn jacket, walking up the sidelines of the game. He’s holding hands with a blonde wearing a cute tartan miniskirt, navy tights, and navy ballet flats. JP must have misrepresented the peewee football game as something Amy needed to dress up for. Vivi sighs. Amy is as blandly pretty as Vivi expected; the inappropriate outfit choice serves to make her a tad more likable. Vivi climbs over Candace, Joe DeSantis, and her other friends to go introduce herself. She has always preferred the high road. Besides, she’s with her people and she knows she looks good. She’s wearing her best jeans, her cutest warm boots, a creamy sweater, a down vest, a pom-pom hat, cashmere fingerless gloves, and round Tom Ford sunglasses purchased for her by Savannah on the Miracle Mile.

“Hey, guys,” she says. She makes sure her voice is friendly and warm. She smiles and extends a hand. “You must be Amy. I’m Vivian Howe—it’s nice to meet you.”

Amy’s hand is cold and limp. She’s in a peacoat, no hat, no gloves.

“Hi,” she says. She’s studying Vivi behind the lenses of her aviators, that much is clear, and Vivi gets the feeling she was expecting someone else—someone bitchy and monstrous. Oh, well.

“Do you want to come sit, Amy? I can introduce you around.”

“No, thank you,” Amy says. She looks up at JP.

“We aren’t staying,” JP says. “We’re going out to lunch at the Brotherhood.”

Must be nice! Vivi thinks. “Well, it was kind of you to stop by.”

“I love football,” Amy says. “I graduated from Auburn, where game days were huge. The fraternity guys used to wear coats and ties, and some of the tailgates had crystal and china and candelabras.” She pauses, seemingly caught in a reverie. “Nobody does football like the SEC.”

“Yeah, our tailgating scene here is sadly lacking,” Vivi says. “No candelabras.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Though some of the moms put Kahlua in their coffee.”

JP clears his throat, his signal for That’s enough. “How’s Leo doing?”

“He’s carried the ball four times, fumbled three times,” Vivi says.

JP groans. “Are you serious?”

“He’s still Mr. Butterfingers,” Vivi says. “But at least he’s smiling.”

“Leo always smiles,” JP says. “He was smiling the day we brought him home from the hospital, remember?”

“That was gas, honey,” Vivi says and she and JP laugh. Amy stares at the field and then gives an exaggerated shiver. Or maybe she’s not exaggerating; it’s pretty chilly.

“I’m going to wait in the car,” she says, “while you two reminisce or whatever.” She heads for the parking lot.

“I tried,” Vivi says.

“She’s insecure,” JP says. “She was afraid to meet you.”

“She should have been afraid. She firebombed our family.”

“She did nothing of the sort.”

“Fine. You firebombed the family and she was complicit.” Vivi can feel the eyes of three dozen parents on her back. “But I don’t want to fight. She seems like a perfectly nice girl.”

“Thank you for being civil. I appreciate it.”

“I’m going to heaven,” Vivi says.

“I don’t know about all that,” JP says. He takes a quick peek over his shoulder at the parking lot. “But you were nice, so I’m not sure what her issue is.”

“Her issue is that we have eighteen years of history that doesn’t include her. She’s jealous.”