She goes to Oxford, Mississippi; New Orleans; Houston; Dallas; San Antonio; Phoenix; Wichita; Edmond, Oklahoma; and the legendary Tattered Cover in Denver.
She misses the kids’ first day of school. It has been a Quinboro tradition to take a picture of all three kids on the back deck. When Vivi asks JP to send the picture, she gets no response. She later sees the picture posted on Facebook, because for some reason Vivi and JP are still Facebook friends. Vivi copies the picture and makes it her screen saver, which she shows to any reader who asks. In the picture, Carson is wearing a sweater with a hole in the shoulder seam. Leo has a cowlick. Willa’s scowl seems to be an indictment of Vivi’s absence.
This isn’t my fault! Vivi wants to tell the kids. But Brie has been crystal clear that this isn’t allowed—and apparently, it is partially her fault.
Turnout at Vivi’s events varies from place to place. Sometimes there are sixty people in attendance, sometimes six. But Vivi’s readers are always enthusiastic. One woman packed up her two little kids and a baby she was still breastfeeding and drove three and a half hours from Kansas City to Wichita. Another woman took the day off work and drove from New Mexico to see Vivi at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale.
Vivi calls the kids every night. They cry. Carson, especially, is having a hard time. She wants to know if Vivi will be home in time for her eleventh birthday. The answer is no; Vivi will be in San Francisco doing a signing at Book Passage.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Vivi says. “I’m sending presents.” What Vivi does not say is that she was the one who ordered the cake from the Juice Bar and she texted JP the contact info for the parents of Carson’s friends so he could send out the invites for the sleepover.
By the time Vivi gets to California, she understands why rock stars are so often drug addicts. Life on the road is brutal. Vivi’s agent, Jodi, has negotiated the best tour package possible—Vivi has car service wherever she goes and stays at hotels with twenty-four-hour room service, and Mr. Hooper picks up the tab. When Vivi started out, there was wonder, relief, and excitement in dialing a number and soon after having a club sandwich, French fries, coleslaw, chicken noodle soup, vanilla crème br?lée, and a bottle of wine appear on a tray at the door, and then an hour later having that tray whisked away and replaced in the morning by freshly percolated coffee and a pitcher of real cream. Vivi’s suitcase grows fat with pilfered bars of soap, tiny bottles of shampoo and body lotion, notepads with the hotel’s name and logo at the top （perfect for grocery lists）， pens, and individually wrapped artisanal chocolates.
But there are just as many （too many） trips to Hudson News for a Coke Zero and a prepackaged sandwich （Vivi chose tuna once and only once）。 There are days she has to fly early and misses her run; there’s the never-ending quest for a place to charge her phone. There is a yawning loneliness and too much time for reflection. What breaks Vivi’s heart is the memory of JP sitting on the edge of the tub holding out the ring, asking her to be his wife, and of how much she loved him in that moment and how lucky, how truly and incredibly blessed she felt to be marrying Edward William Quinboro. At that time, she thought he was better than her. But Vivi has learned that where a person comes from means far less than what she makes of herself.
In Seattle, Vivi gets on the elevator, and although she knows she’s staying on the fifth floor, she can’t recall her room number. There have been so many: 1246, 818, 323. She has her key, but that’s no help; the cardboard sheath with the number written on it is sitting on the bureau in front of the TV in the room. Vivi heads back down to the front desk and while she’s waiting in line, she checks the Facebook app on her iPhone, and there, in JP’s feed, are pictures of Carson’s birthday party.
Vivi waits until she’s back up in her room （547） to cry. When she’s finished sobbing but still hiccup-y, she calls Savannah.
Savannah is home in Boston for most of the fall （she’s dating a part owner of the Celtics and things are getting serious） but she understands how soul-shredding traveling for work can be. Savannah spends weeks, sometimes months, in places like Mali, Paraguay, and Bangalore, but Vivi thinks traveling might be easier for Savannah because Savannah doesn’t have children.
“Where do you go next?” Savannah asks. “Cleveland?”
Vivi shivers. She isn’t going to Cleveland. If she ends up going on tour every year from now until she retires, she will not go to Cleveland. That’s where the ghosts are.