was a writer.” He smiles ruefully. “I don’t read much.”
“And then you heard she’d passed away.”
“Yes, through the sister of a friend,” Brett says. “I read her new book and I saw bits of myself in it, so I reached out to her family.”
“If you could tell Vivian Howe something now,” Tanya says, “what would it be?”
“Well, Tanya, you never forget your first love. It’s a feeling like no other. So I guess I would tell Vivi: You always were and forever will be…my golden girl.”
Tanya holds out showcase hands. “Brett Caspian, thank you for joining us!”
The broadcast cuts to a commercial.
JP and Savannah stare at the television.
“You swear she never told you about this guy?” JP asks.
“No!” Savannah says. “But he’s telling the truth. Could you believe those pictures? The eyeliner! She’d abandoned the Wednesday Addams look by the time she got to Duke, thank goodness.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that she never told either of us about Brett Caspian?” JP says.
“Maybe he broke her heart and she didn’t want to think about it after she left Parma,” Savannah says.
“Or maybe she broke his,” JP says.
Amy claims she doesn’t want to watch the segment but it’s Lorna’s apartment and there’s no way Lorna is going to miss it. They don’t have to be at the salon until ten. There’s plenty of time to pour coffee, settle down on the sofa with Lorna’s Weimaraner, Cupid, at their feet, and watch Great Morning USA.
Amy is pretending like she needs extra time in the bathroom but Lorna isn’t buying it.
“Just come out and watch, Pigeon. You know you want to.”
Amy slinks around the corner, arms locked across her chest. She has a big purple hickey on her neck that she got from Dennis and she has done an inadequate job of covering it with foundation.
“I don’t need another morning of my life to be about Vivian Howe,” Amy says.
“Is Dennis watching, do you think?” Lorna asks.
“No,” Amy says. “He’s at work.”
As Lorna rubs Cupid between the ears, she predicts Dennis is sitting in his van, watching on his phone.
When Brett Caspian sings, Lorna says, “Damn, but he’s hot. Why did Vivi get all the hot guys?”
“Do you expect me to answer that?”
Lorna turns up the volume and sings along. “You’re the fire in my eyes!” Cupid barks.
Amy disappears—back into the bathroom, Lorna supposes, to do something more about the hickey. “Use concealer!” she calls out.
Vivi
She’s overcome.
She’s so overcome that Martha appears. Her scarf is twisted into a tight rope and secured around her neck in a way that looks painful.
“It’s not,” Martha says. “I’m fine.”
“Did you see Brett?” Vivi asks. “Did you hear what he said?”
“I heard what he didn’t say.” Martha clears her throat. “Brett kept your secret. Nobody knows what happened between you two, and nobody knows how much of your book is true. So, you see…there was no need to use a nudge.”
Martha is right; Vivi’s secret is safe. Willa hasn’t told anyone, not even Rip—and Vivi suspects she won’t.
Thank you, Willie, Vivi thinks. I love you and please forgive me.
Martha says, “Have you checked your ranking on Amazon?”
“No,” Vivi says. “Should I?”
Martha shrugs.
Vivi swoops down to the Manhattan offices of Mr. Hooper, where Flor and her assistant, Jenny, are jumping up and down in front of Flor’s computer.
Golden Girl is number one on Amazon! Number one!
Flor clicks on BN.com. Golden Girl is at number one!
“I just checked Twitter,” Jenny says. “People are clamoring for Brett Caspian’s ‘Golden Girl’ to be released as a single on iTunes. The YouTube video has seven hundred thousand views so far.”
“This is the kind of publicity I’ve waited my entire career for,” Flor says. She raises her eyes to the office ceiling. “We’re going to do it, Vivi. We’re going to get you to number one!”
“I’m not getting my hopes up,” Vivi says.
Martha starts humming; this is something new. Vivi listens closely. She’s humming “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” by the Rolling Stones.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Not really,” Martha says. “I was just at choir practice and the song got stuck in my head.”
“The choir of angels sings the Stones?” Vivi says.
Martha laughs. “Oh, Vivian!”
Oh, Vivian—what? she thinks.
“‘If you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need,’” Martha says.
Vivi isn’t sure she needs anything other than for her children to be healthy and happy, but at five p.m. on Wednesday, August 11, when the New York Times bestseller list is announced, D. K. Bolt’s Satan’s Weekend is at