“The song ‘Golden Girl’ went to number one in iTunes,” Amy says. She clicks on the iTunes chart and there it is! “I think this guy works at a Holiday Inn or something, and now he’s famous. The song has a bajillion downloads this week.”
Dennis rolls over, grabs Amy’s phone, and sets it on the nightstand. He kisses her collarbone and nestles his face between her breasts. “Do you know who my golden girl is?” he asks. “Do you?”
“Me?” she says. She runs her fingers deep in his hair the way he likes her to.
“Yes, you,” he says. “You and only you.”
Vivi
Vivi swoops down to check the screen of Amy’s phone. （Quickly, quickly, the last place she wants to linger is Dennis’s bedroom!） Sure enough: “Golden Girl” by Brett Caspian is the number-one song in the country—thirty-four years after it was written.
“Martha!” Vivi calls out. “Martha!” But she doesn’t appear. She must be listening to the choir singing “Ruby Tuesday.”
When Vivi checks on Brett, she finds him at a party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Knoxville. It’s a farewell party. Vivi gathers from eavesdropping that Brett is moving to Nashville. He’s going to write and record an album.
Brett Caspian has a hit song at the age of fifty-one. Vivi thinks of the boy sitting two rows ahead and one seat to the left of her in his detention turning around and winking at her and how she felt he’d picked her, like an apple from a tree. She thinks about the back seat of the Buick Skylark, him kissing her as Steve Perry wailed on the car stereo: Stone in love!
She’s even more emotional now than she was when her book hit the top of the list. “Golden Girl” might have topped the charts long ago if only Vivi hadn’t lied about being pregnant. If only she had been blessed with a stronger sense of self. If only her father hadn’t killed himself. （Wasn’t Vivi worth staying alive for?） If only she’d had the maturity to understand that she and Brett had different dreams and that was okay.
Vivi didn’t lie about being pregnant because she was evil; she lied because she was young and she was still mourning her father. Vivi decides to cut her younger self some slack.
Martha appears. A red and gold scarf is tied around her midsection as a belt.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Vivi says.
Martha sighs. “Would you like me to use my powers of the Road Not Taken? Do you want me to tell you what would have happened if you hadn’t told Brett you were pregnant? If he hadn’t rushed back to Parma to be with you?”
“Yes, please,” Vivi says. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Define too much trouble,” Martha says. She chuckles. “Just kidding. But I have to concentrate.”
Martha settles in one of the peach silk soufflé chairs, props her feet on the leather pouf ottoman, and closes her eyes. “Brett is in Los Angeles. He does a demo of ‘Golden Girl’—”
“I know that already,” Vivi says.
Martha opens one eye. “Would you like me to do this or not?”
“Sorry.”
Martha resumes her concentrating. “Brett writes a second song called ‘Miss My Baby,’ and he records a cover of ‘Carolina on My Mind,’ and the record company grudgingly accepts ‘Parmatown Blues.’ But that isn’t enough. Wayne gets arrested for buying cocaine on Sunset Boulevard. Roy’s mother is diagnosed with brain cancer. The band breaks up. Brett keeps the rights to the two songs he wrote and finds a different record exec, one somewhat less reputable than John Zubow, who agrees to release ‘Golden Girl’ as a single with ‘Miss My Baby’ as a B-side. It has…modest success. ‘Golden Girl’ hits number thirty-seven on the top forty in February of 1988 for one week.”
“That’s it?” Vivi says. “Number thirty-seven for one week?”
“Kid Leo plays it on WMMS as a favor to his brother-in-law, who works with Brett’s father. Brett’s a local kid, Cleveland is a rock-and-roll town, Kid Leo genuinely likes the song, but even playing it as often as he does, the song doesn’t gain much national traction, so it never gets any higher than thirty-seven.”
“Then what happens?” Vivi asks.
“Brett moves to Las Vegas,” Martha says. “He plays on the Strip, sings ‘Golden Girl’ and some cover tunes. He develops a gambling problem.”
“Seriously?” Vivi says.
“He marries a blackjack dealer named Sonja. They have two kids, they get divorced, there’s an ugly custody battle, Sonja takes the kids to New Jersey. Atlantic City. She’s still a blackjack dealer.” Martha opens her eyes. “And Brett stays in Vegas. If you hadn’t told the lie about being pregnant, he would be living there still.”