Chapter Ten
ten
APRIL 1975
VIVIAN and Richard were having dinner later that spring in a red booth at a dimly lit restaurant. She had come to that dinner with a speech prepared. She wore a plain suede jacket over her jeans. She was going to order the cheapest entrée on the menu and offer to split the bill. She was going to walk away. This would be the end.
The last two months had been an enchanting fever dream. What started out as a mid-afternoon wine at the Beverly Hills Hotel lasted into the cool twilight hours, which Vivian finally ended by saying that she had to get home to prepare for an audition the next day, coincidentally for one of his friends. Richard told her that he would like to see her again. She went to the audition and got the part. Only later would she wonder if Richard had spoken to the director, or if she got the role herself. Either way, she didn’t question it.
She went back to Los Angeles a week later for table reads, leaving the twins in the care of her aunt and uncle. Vivian both adored and feared the city. She felt so small in the face of the billboards, the wide swaths of highway, the landscape itself. Daisy generously offered to let her stay at her place on the corner of Fountain and Sunset, a little one-bedroom apartment up three flights of stairs that teemed with color inside, full of mismatched furniture that had either sentimental value or was pulled off the street. Daisy had painted the walls herself and splotches of lilac and deep-blue paint spilled from one corner to another, but it was all charming to Vivian. And it was very characteristic of her friend, who dressed in sequins and bright geometric prints and big earrings and uneven sleeves, who tried to pull her out to dance at night.
The one time Vivian relented, they went out to West Hollywood. Daisy kept pointing out famous musicians and actors who drifted down the street, talking about the parties in their homes that she’d gone to. How as a teenager, she’d snuck into one of their mansions in Beverly Hills and spent the night wandering around on magic mushrooms and getting lost in all the mirrors. Vivian kept her head clear and refused every pill that was offered to her. But still, even standing in the line outside a bar in a loose chiffon collared blouse, wide-leg jeans, and heels, with her blown-out hair fanning around her, with billboards and posters that dripped down from over two stories, she felt an electric, youthful rush. It was like she was being reinvented out here, born anew into this cosmic current of excitement and chatter, music and chaos, where she was only herself, untethered to anyone. At the end of the night, though, with her eyes aching and the music pounding in her head and her heels rubbed raw, she was pulled back into her old life, her real life. She missed her daughters. The next morning, when she looked through Daisy’s bare fridge and found nothing but bits of food in take-out boxes and bread rolls, she yearned for braised pork in a thick congee.
During free days when filming, Richard drove her in his convertible over canyons and hills, to Malibu, to the ocean. He told her about how he’d worked with Roger Corman–like directors who would steal onto film sets without permits and let anyone take a shot at cutting and editing. He’d gone everywhere: charmed shipping magnates and princes on a boat in southern Italy, accidentally entered a rodeo and broken up a gunfight in Wyoming. He’d booked one of the top managers in the industry by walking into his office and telling the secretary that he had a meeting scheduled, didn’t she remember his call? He told Vivian all of this with a sheepish dip of his head, as if even he couldn’t quite believe his own nerve, but Vivian could; who wouldn’t be charmed by that easy, hopeful smile? But for every story he told, he asked her even more questions, about her childhood, her hometown, her parents. She found herself telling him everything, down to what she would do after school and the fruits she’d eat on the way home. Everything except her marriage and children. She often looked into his eyes and was so enthralled by his sincerity, his abundant and unending curiosity, that she found herself launching into one story, one detail after another.
She told him she wanted to drive someday. He promised to teach her. He’d drop her off afterward at Daisy’s place, and on the way up the stairs to Daisy’s apartment, clutching her friend’s spare key, she’d still be laughing. She and Daisy would perch on Daisy’s little balcony, smoking cigarettes, while Vivian recounted Richard’s stories secondhand, although never with his charm. She’d catch her grin in the reflection of the window and be entranced by her own joy. Daisy teased her, saying that she was in deep, that soon enough she would be moving down here, that she couldn’t wait to meet Vivian’s daughters.
Could Vivian see a future here? How could she raise her daughters here and chase her wild dream at the same time? That would be impossible to do by herself, and she couldn’t afford a nanny. Would she leave them in San Francisco, then? With her aunt?
She thought about it when she returned to San Francisco. She finally told her aunt and uncle that she had met an actor, an American one. They asked her what she wanted with him, and Vivian didn’t know. Was this someone to alter her life for? She went back to Los Angeles to film the movie. On days when she wasn’t needed on set, she was with Richard. He took her to shows and to restaurants with delectable, intricately plated dishes. Wherever they went people stared, and Vivian could feel their gaze on her. It was strange. For so long she had been ignored, if even registered at all, and now there was a kind of indignant, awestruck incredulity to the stares. She felt most comfortable in the moments they were alone but learned to revel in this new public attention.
Directors started giving her a second look. Vivian had known she possessed a certain type of beauty, with her rounded, searching eyes set upon sharpened cheekbones and her full lips. There was a reason she had gotten the role of Lin Daiyu back in the day. One of the casting directors had called her a “precious China jewel” at the auditions for Song of Lovers , in a tone that made Vivian glow in the moment, only to make her skin crawl when she thought about it later.
But Richard never said any of that. On long drives with her he only continued his questions, asking her about her day, about what she thought about the movie, about her co-stars, the costuming. At night as the stars swept the sky, he leaned in and kissed her, slowly. She kissed him back, tasting his cigarettes, which she’d eventually come to enjoy, in spite of herself.
She knew this would have to end someday. She was only on set in Los Angeles for a few weeks, and then this would all be over; this rapturous and eternal joy that seemed to beam from the billboards and thread through the streets, the fixed attention of this man that Vivian had only known for months but suddenly didn’t want to be away from for even a full day. Still, she didn’t tell him. Knowing him was good for her job, Vivian thought, and that excuse held for a while. But now that he had started talking about introducing her to his family and bringing her to Paris with him to an awards show there, she couldn’t ignore it. She couldn’t make a life here in Los Angeles. The more she thought about it the clearer it became. She’d been abandoned once. She couldn’t do the same to her children. She couldn’t continue this.
“So,” he said now at this dinner over appetizers— appetizers , a luxury Vivian only came to know with Richard. “I was wondering what your thoughts were on the Paris trip.”
Vivian took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something first.”
Richard looked up. Vivian could hardly make herself meet his eyes, his clear gaze.
“I…,” Vivian said. “I don’t know what I can be to you.”
“Vivian,” he said plainly. “You know I’m in love with you, right?”
Everything around her seemed to still.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, wanting to retract it as soon as she’d said it because she knew it was true. His eyes softened. She steeled herself. “I do. But I need to tell you something. I was married before.”
She watched his lips part in shock.
“I had a husband. Back in San Francisco. But he left me.” Vivian took a breath. Her eyes smarted. “And my daughters.”
“Oh,” Richard said.
Vivian waited for him to take in this new information. “My children are in San Francisco with my family. But I miss them, and I want to bring them here. I want to be here with them.”
Surely he would withdraw from her. She must look like a ruined woman to him, she thought. Or foolish, scorned. A Chinese divorcée with children. She waited for him to leave. She stared at the tablecloth.
“I love you, Richard,” she said softly. “But I don’t think you should love me. Because then you will have to love everything. My children, too.”
He said nothing.
She stood up. “I will always think about you,” she breathed through trembling lips. And what could have been. “I’m sorry. I really am.” She then ran back toward the entrance of the restaurant. She could barely see through her tears to hail a taxi. She wept into her palms the whole way home, furious with herself for flirting with the impossible. She ran inside her hotel, wanting only to bury her face in the pillow. But she had to tell him the truth. She needed to be with her children. The dream had to end.
Vivian slept fitfully that night. The next morning the hotel concierge called her and told her that someone was downstairs to see her. Vivian dressed shakily and headed down. Richard Lowell was in the lobby, and he didn’t look angry. His eyes were gentle as he reached out a hand and asked her if she would like to go for a drive. He took her to the top of a mountain road overlooking trees and meadows. He parked the car and turned to her.
“I thought about what you told me.”
She swallowed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be dishonest.”
“You weren’t.” There was a pause. “I don’t think you gave me time to respond, though. That wasn’t fair.”
Her stomach twisted in on itself.
“I’m almost thirty,” he said. “And I’ve been alone for most of my life. I just bought a house with some land and I’ve been thinking about the life I want to build for myself. The family I’d have.”
She looked up and his fingers brushed her cheek. “I want it all with you, Vivian.”
Her heart swelled. A trick, a flash of fate. But Richard was in front of her. His hands were holding hers.
“I knew it was you after our first conversation,” he professed breathlessly, his voice tender and deep. “I’ll never forget the sight of you in that red dress. I knew you would fascinate me for the rest of my life.”
Vivian blinked. Tears rose to her eyes as shock and happiness surged through her.
“And I didn’t… I don’t have a ring, or anything, not yet. I didn’t quite plan to have this conversation right now. And I know this is soon, but I know I’ll never meet anyone else like you. So. I am yours, if you’ll have me. I’ll love your daughters like my own, and we can make our own family.”
His, theirs, together. Vivian didn’t realize she was weeping until things started to look blurry again. “Richard, I—I’m a divorced Chinese woman. Are you sure?”
Richard nodded. “I know that’s a part of your history. And I love the whole of you. But you know you’re so much more than those things, too, don’t you?”
Vivian tipped forward and kissed him, and he kissed her back, his fingers lacing through her hair. She kissed him like they did in the American movies, with her tongue tracing his. Against her lips he inquired, “So, about that Paris trip.”
“Yes,” she said, giddy. “Yes, yes, of course. And then I’ll return to my family.”
“And I can meet them,” Richard said. “If I may?”
Wordlessly, Vivian nodded, laughing a little and swiping at her eyes with the hem of her sleeve. Was this really happening? She had resigned herself to the things her aunt’s neighbors said: that she and her daughters would always be an abandoned family. But now here was a man who was willing to love them and take care of them. Who wanted to.
She took a moment to compose herself. “And you said you were building a house?”
Richard grinned. “My family used to have an estate that’s fallen into disrepair. I’ve always wanted to buy it back and fix it up.”
A house , Vivian thought. She dug her nails into her palm; this dream had taken a surreal twist, but it was time to wake up before reality became unbearable in comparison. Instead, she focused on the sharp pricks of pain in her hand until she realized Richard was waiting for her to say something. “Really?” was all she could manage.
He nodded. “You’re going to love it. We’ll renovate it together. It’s going to be the perfect house for us,” he said, looking in her eyes. “For our family.”
Vivian learned that the house and its lot of four acres was nestled near the San Gabriel Mountains, among cresting hills draped with olive and citrus trees. The five-thousand-square-foot estate had been in Richard’s family for decades. But he’d told her that he’d dreamed of buying the property back for years. And now, finally, he would have a family to live there with.
It sounded almost mythic to Vivian: he was the prince, and this his fated kingdom. His mother had lived in that house before she moved out East. She had inherited it when her father passed, then sold it to a family who lived there for less than a decade. They’d foreclosed on it eventually, and the house fell into ruin.
Richard resented his mother for selling it. Her family had been Californians ever since the gold rush. He’d attended boarding schools with rolling lawns and stiff shirts in New England, and yet he dreamed about going West. He wanted to be a movie star and had finally made his way to Hollywood the spring after he graduated college. He participated in war protests and narrowly avoided the draft. One meeting with his Yale drama connections buoyed him to the next. The old guard took him under their wing. Richard described learning film in a new age in Hollywood, defined by a renegade recklessness and the dazzling advent of new ideas. Anyone could become a filmmaker, he’d said. Anyone could cut tape, and anyone could act. He charmed his way into parties and smoked on lush lawns with actresses he grew up admiring. He was becoming a self-made man.
It took him a while to find the old family home, he told Vivian. But in the summer of 1974 he drove up the cracked driveway and saw the pillars for the first time. He took in the moss-covered walls, the grounds crawling with undergrowth, and the floorboards that were splintered with rot and mold. This is what his grand abandoned family home had been reduced to. But—and this he described to Vivian in incredible detail—he’d looked upon the house again, and a vision had come to him. He saw, clear as day, how the walls could be restored with new brickwork, how the marble foyer could be polished, and his grandfather’s ballroom could be renovated into an elegant library. The fountain behind the house could rush again. He saw the house filled to the brim with people, gathering and laughing under the benediction of a southern California sunset. He saw that vision and was irrevocably altered by it.
Something magical lingered in this place— his place. To him it was prophetic. It was as if this land had been waiting for his arrival, to offer itself up for him to build his future. And at last, he was ready. He would claim what was his. He had bought back the house, he told Vivian. And whatever its history, he would remake it new.