Page 90 of Golden Girl
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 forThat’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.”
“Shedid 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.”
JP sighs. “Off to do damage control.”
“Have fun at lunch,” Vivi says. “I’ll just stay here and watch our son fumble like the absentee parent that I am.”
JP laughs and Vivi would like to kick him in the nuts. But as she watches him walk away, she has to admit, she feels sorry for him. He made a large mistake in leaving her, but he will realize this only with time.
The holidays are dismal. Vivi “has” the kids for Thanksgiving, but she doesn’t have enough space in her cottage to do a proper dinner so they go to Savannah’s and eat with the elder Hamiltons. Savannah has bought everything premade from Whole Foods and transported it from Boston; the only exceptions are the corn pudding, which Vivi brings, and the pies, which come from the Nantucket Bake Shop. Mary Catherine has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She gets confused and starts weeping halfway through dinner about her brother Patrick (he of the blended family, brood of six) who was killed in a car accident on New Year’s Eve 1999. Bob Hamilton is at a loss for what to do about Mary Catherine so he ignores her crying and pretends everything is just fine. He asks Vivi’s kids about school but then he’s too distracted by his wife to listen to their answers.
The kids are antsy and impatient to leave, and Vivi suspects Savannah would just as soon have them gone so she can tend to her mother and stop playing hostess. It pains Vivi to have the day end prematurely—the kids have informed Vivi that JP and Amy are having a romantic dinner for two at the Ships Inn because Lucinda went to Boca to spend Thanksgiving with Penny Rosen—but she can see no alternative, so she packs up four pieces of pie to go.
In the car on the way home, Willa says, “I should have eaten with the Bonhams.”
