Page 78 of Golden Girl
Hedoesn’tdeserve that. He deserves sand kicked in his face. He deserves to call an Uber to get home, and if he has no cell signal, too bad, he can walk. Amy puts on her cover-up and strides off the beach, thinking that although the pain is fresh and she’s likely in some kind of emotional shock that will wear off and she will realize that her heart has been exposed bare, she will survive this. She will grow from it. Relationships end all the time, every single day. Amy isn’t special.
She considers texting Dennis and telling him she’s now a free woman, that JP has given her the boot, but she figures he’ll find out soon enough through the Nantucket grapevine. Some people, no doubt, will say that Amy got what was coming to her. However, other people might feel sorry for Amy and decide that they judged her too harshly and should maybe give her a second chance.
And Amy will beso therefor it!
Vivi
“Good for Amy,” Vivi says—to no one. Martha isn’t around. Vivi must not need her.
Vivi checks on JP on the beach. This couldn’t have been easy for him, ending a ten-year relationship.
JP has fallen asleep.
That night, Vivi goes back.
It is, once again, her first summer on Nantucket. She has left the Hamilton house on Union Street. After three nights of sleeping in the hostel out in Surfside, she found a room for rent in a house on Fairgrounds Road and she scores a job working the front desk at Fair Isle Dry Cleaning.
The dry-cleaning job pays nicely but it’shot. There’s no air-conditioning and even though there’s a cross breeze from leaving the side door and front door open, sweat drips down Vivi’s temples, between her breasts, and down her back throughout her shift. (She once goes so far as to blot her forehead with a cotton dress she pulls out of a drop-off bag.) Her long dark hair feels like a furry animal, a raccoon or a mink, that’s gone to sleep on her head. After her first week, she goes to RJMiller and tells the stylist to cut it all off.
“Give me a pixie cut,” she says. “Like Demi Moore inGhost.”Then let me meet my Patrick Swayze,she thinks.
JP comes in to pick up clothes for his mother, Lucinda Quinboro. He’s wearing athletic shorts, a Chicken Box T-shirt, and flip-flops. His hair is a mess. He looks like he just woke up. Vivi checks the clock—it’s half past twelve.
Vivi has gone back over the details of their meeting thousands of times in recent years as a way of chastising herself. Why did she not see the warning signs? He had just woken up in the middle of the day, he was picking up dry cleaning for his mother. What about this made Vivi think,I want to marry this guy and have kids?
Well, Vivi isn’t thinking in the long term when she meets JP. She’s thinking:Ninety-nine percent of the people who walk through that door are either housewives or household staff. Here, finally, is a cute guy my age.
She flexes her flirting muscles, which she’s been toning when she goes out to the Muse and the Chicken Box at night with Savannah. Vivi has met boys and even kissed a few, but she has not yet embarked on a summer romance.
“Here you go, Lucinda,” Vivi says, handing JP a clutch of dresses and blouses sheathed in plastic.
“I’m Lucinda’s errand boy,” he says, laughing. “JP Quinboro.”
“I’m Vivian Howe—everyone calls me Vivi. So, what does JP stand for? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” She assesses him. He’s WASPy; he will have the name of a British monarch. “James Peter.”
“Nope. Want to try again?”
“John Paul?”
“You got Peter and Paul right, but you forgot Mary.”
“Excuse me?”
“My real name is Edward William Quinboro,” JP says and Vivi nearly laughs out loud because she was so right about the British monarch. “But my mother is a big fan of Peter, Paul, and Mary and her favorite song is ‘Puff the Magic Dragon,’ so she called me Jackie Paper growing up. Shortened to JP.”
Vivi loves this story so much she considers ripping up the ticket and giving him the clothes free of charge. “That issocute.”
“It’s the only cute thing about my mother,” JP says. “Trust me. You’ll put these on her account?”
“I will.” Vivi winks at him. “See you later, Jackie Paper.”
JP walks out and Vivi watches him lay the clothes across the back seat of a convertible Chevy Blazer. The clothes will slide to the floor of the car the second he reverses. His mother should find another errand boy.
Instead of driving off, JP comes strolling back into the dry cleaner’s. “Want to go out sometime?” he asks. “When’s your next day off?”
“Sunday,” she says.
“Beach on Sunday?” JP says. “I’ll take care of everything.”
