Macklemore is a budding musician who, in the book, writes a song for Alison called ‘Golden Girl.’ Turns out, Vivian Howe enjoyed her own high-school romance with our next guest, Brett Caspian. He wrote a real song entitled ‘Golden Girl’ over thirty years ago. He’s here to play it for us now.”
The spotlight shifts to the stage, where Brett Caspian sits on a high stool in front of a microphone. Some of us are nervous—who is this guy? Is he talented enough to play for a national audience or will he make a fool of himself?—but when he starts to sing, we are instantly mesmerized. The song is a love ballad with a rock beat. You’re the fire in my eyes. Brett Caspian looks like someone who might have been a heartthrob in the 1980s. Pamela Bonham Bridgeman, who is watching the segment on the office computer with her brother, Rip, thinks Brett’s attire—a white T-shirt and jeans—is meant to be reminiscent of a Bryan Adams album cover. Brett has longish dark but graying hair that flops in his eyes and a soulful, yearning voice with a bit of a rough edge. It’s safe to say that every straight woman on Nantucket—maybe even across the country—instantly develops a crush on him.
When the song is over, many of us applaud in our own kitchens, our own living rooms. Woo-hoo! He did it! What a tribute to Vivi!
Brett strides across the stage to sit down with Tanya Price.
“That was incredible.” Tanya Price is beaming. She looks pretty smitten herself. “So that’s a song you wrote thirty-four years ago for your girlfriend at the time, Vivian Howe. And Vivian made this song central in her novel Golden Girl.” Tanya leans in. “Is the character of Stott Macklemore based on you, Brett? Did Vivian Howe borrow more than just the title of the song from her real-life experience?”
Brett smiles shyly. “The character in the book and I have a lot in common, but it’s not me. I think what Vivi did in this novel was to take the emotions she felt while we were together and use them in the story. We were together our entire senior year of high school and there were a lot of intense feelings. We were growing up in small-town Middle America. It’s the stuff rock and roll is made of—so many classic rock anthems use the tumultuous teenage years as their emotional touchstone.”
On the screen behind Tanya and Brett is a photograph of a young Brett and a young Vivi on a bench at the mall sharing an Orange Julius. Those of us who knew Vivian Howe on Nantucket gasp. It’s undeniably her but she looks so different. Her hair is so long, her makeup so heavy; she looks like a young Joan Jett.
“In the novel, the character of Stott Macklemore is discovered by a record executive, and ‘Golden Girl’ becomes a big hit.” Tanya pauses. “What happened in your case?”
“My band, Escape from Ohio, had a record company interested in us. They flew us to LA. They really liked the song ‘Golden Girl.’” Brett smiles directly into the camera. “But that was before the age of iTunes and online music. If you wanted to make it big back then, you had to have an album in you.” He shrugs. “And we didn’t.”
On the screen now is a photograph of Vivian Howe in cutoff jeans eating an ice cream cone while sitting on the hood of a silver 1976 Buick Skylark. She looks for all the world like a character plucked from a Bruce Springsteen song. Who knew that this was how Vivian Howe grew up? She always seemed like the quintessential mermaid to us—raised by the ocean, sun on her face, salt in her hair, sand between her toes.
There’s a beat of silence. Tanya Price is the queen of the grand finale, so we all move a little closer to the screen and turn up the volume.
“When was the last time you saw Vivian Howe?” she asks.
“August 1987,” Brett says.
On the screen is a picture of Vivi and Brett standing side by side in their caps and gowns outside Parma High School. Brett holds two fingers up in a V over Vivi’s shoulder. V for victory because he managed to graduate? V for Vivi? Or peace out—was that a thing in the eighties?
“And you weren’t in touch all these years?”
Brett shakes his head. “I figured she had a happy life somewhere else. I didn’t even know she