him; in many ways, JP had been her finishing school.
When they finally pulled apart, JP said, his voice husky, “I want you to stay here. With me.”
It wasn’t just lip service, and apparently it wasn’t the Cristal talking either. JP was serious. He wanted Amy to stay on Nantucket; he wanted to be with her. The very next day, JP told Vivi that he had fallen for Amy Van Pelt, his employee.
It sometimes felt to Amy like JP was determined to change his life with a snap of his fingers. Vivi moved out; the wine store went belly-up; Amy commuted to cosmetology school on the Cape and rented a modest year-round apartment out by Nantucket Memorial Airport. When she graduated, she got a bottom-rung job at RJ Miller, sweeping up and washing hair. She also became the Hester Prynne of Nantucket; everyone knew she was the one who had broken up the Quinboro marriage. (It wasn’t like that! Amy wanted to shout, but no one would have listened.) Because she was young and naive, Amy had hoped that, with time, she and Vivi could become friends, or if not friends, then friendly, or if not friendly, then civil. Amy had tried reading one of Vivi’s books, The Angle of Light—JP kept first editions of all Vivi’s books in chronological order on a shelf in the den—but she couldn’t get into it. She wasn’t much of a reader, and she made the mistake of telling Willa, then a freshman in college, that the book hadn’t held her interest. Willa went home and told Vivi.
At some point, Amy began to suspect that JP hadn’t meant to leave Vivi at all, that he had simply wanted her attention, because everywhere Amy looked, Vivi was present. Why did JP keep her books on such a prominent shelf? Why did he reach for the Book Review first when they spent Sunday mornings reading the New York Times? Why did he bring Vivi’s name up in conversation whenever possible? Three years ago, when Amy moved in with JP (he’d made the offer only when Amy lost her year-round housing), Amy found two of Vivi’s coats hanging in the closet. One was a pink wool belted driving coat, and the other was a flared white raincoat with three silver buckles that was lined with pale blue jacquard silk. Amy loved both coats so much that, if she’d had no pride, she might have worn them herself. She went through the pockets and found the stub of a movie ticket (Eat, Pray, Love) in one and a strawberry hard candy in another. Amy wondered if Vivi and JP had gone to see Eat, Pray, Love together or if Vivi had gone with her best friend, Savannah. Amy wondered where Vivi had picked up the hard candy as she unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth (she couldn’t resist a strawberry hard candy, with its soft middle, or any candy, no matter how old and forlorn). Amy had asked JP about the coats and he said, “Yeah, sorry, she must have left them behind. Vivi has always been careless with her things.” Amy gave the coats to Willa to take over to Vivi’s house, but Willa brought them back, saying, “Mom doesn’t want them.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with them?” Amy said. “They’re her coats.”
“She says you can have them.” Willa had looked at Amy frankly then. “If they fit?”
Amy made a big show of stuffing both the coats into the kitchen trash as Willa looked on with cool eyes. No doubt Amy’s adolescent behavior would be reported back to Vivi, and Amy thought, Good! She doesn’t care about her stupid (beautiful, stylish) coats and neither do I. That evening when JP discovered the coats in the trash, covered with coffee grounds and eggshells, he’d cried out as though Amy had stuffed Vivi herself in the can.
In the divorce, Vivi was required to pay JP both child support and alimony. A lot of alimony. (She earned circles around him.) JP had left Vivi, and in the ensuing divorce, Vivi would be paying him? This seemed unfair, even to Amy.
Vivi’s money has always been the elephant in the room. It only makes it worse that Vivi never complains about paying JP even though he has his own business and a wealthy mother, and she’s never late with payments, or short. She never nickel-and-dimes him when she ends up paying for Leo’s lacrosse equipment or Carson’s car insurance.