Chapter Seventeen
seventeen
MARCH 1986
VIVIAN wore a Valentino dress of sweeping red silk and organza for the Academy Awards. Richard loved it. He always said that red was her color, and Vivian always teased him that it was just because she was wearing red the first time they met. He leaned in and told her that the moment he had seen her in that red dress, he had known he wanted her to be his. Vivian loved it when he said that. She let herself imagine him slipping the dress off her later.
Red was the color of luck. She was sure luck would grace them tonight. Richard was nominated for Best Actor, she for Best Supporting Actress. With his handsome aquiline features and classical drama training, Richard had been a perfect English prince, summoning every bit of his Shakespearean upbringing for his thunderous monologues. Vivian had poured herself into the role of Jia-Yee in Fortune’s Eye . She didn’t just memorize her lines; she plunged into the mind of a desperate woman fending for herself in the Wild West with a keen, vicious will to survive. She’d spent grueling hours training in the searing, late-summer heat, her hands caked with dust, her mouth dry, her feet blistering and sweating in her boots. She still had a faint scar of a large scrape on her side from one of her stunts where she’d landed wrong. But she’d loved it. For the first time she had a significant speaking role. She did choreographed fight scenes. She even cried on-screen. Sometimes, late at night on set, she’d lean against the open door of her trailer and smoke a cigarette. Looking up at the sweep of stars above, she would feel, in her weariness, that she had become Jia-Yee that day. This was the acting she was meant to do.
That her husband would win was all but assured. But Vivian alone believed they would both be walking out with trophies in their hands.
She had seen a vision in her vanity mirror a year after they’d moved into the house. It didn’t matter if it was a hallucination or a trick of the eyes. After a long day of auditions, she had sat down one night to take off her makeup and her reflection had changed. The woman in the mirror wasn’t tired and haggard. Her skin was smooth. Her shoulders were bare and pale in the beam of spotlights. She was wearing a red dress and pearl drop earrings.
And her hands clutched a gold trophy.
Vivian had stood suddenly, knocking into her vanity and rattling the perfume bottles, and then she sat down again, hard. When she lifted her eyes to the mirror, it was her again, in the bathrobe. Makeup smeared around her eyes.
She had hung on to that brief vision ever since, and now it had turned into a premonition, like lucky tiles racked up. She had poured every bit of herself into every role. The day she was nominated for an Academy Award, she had leapt into her husband’s arms. She knew what she was going to say if—
If she won.
After all, she had had years to prepare.
Now the limo pulled up to the curb. Camera flashes blinded her as she linked arms with her husband and let him lead her in. They stopped for cameras and journalists, but it all barely registered. The crowds swelled and dissolved around them as they made their way to their designated chairs. Vivian fixated only on the stage.
The lights dimmed. She felt anxious, such that her limbs began to numb as the music played and the awards ceremony began. Could this be her moment? What if the mirror had been nothing but a delusion? Somehow the sickness of anticipation was worse than thinking she didn’t stand a chance. But she scarcely had the time to collect her thoughts when she heard the presenter’s voice.
“And the award for Best Supporting Actress goes to—”
She sucked in a breath, her head dizzy.
“Vivian Yin for Fortune’s Eye .”
Her husband looked at her, and she remembered, years later, that his first expression had been shock. Then it melted into adoration. He cupped her face and kissed her and pulled her into his arms, and Vivian let herself be held for a moment. She locked eyes with her co-star, Ernie MacDowell, who’d received a Best Actor nomination, and he gave her a beaming grin. She gathered her sweeping red skirts and walked carefully into the dazzling beam of spotlights. She looked directly at the presenter when he handed her the award and said, “Congratulations, Vivian.” She mouthed a breathless thanks, and then there she was. On the stage, holding the delicate statue in her hands. It was lighter than she had imagined.
“Thank you to…” These were the words she’d spent years practicing. “The Academy, and my director, Sheldon, my co-stars, Will and Ernie and Anita and Yuen… those who have helped me in my career, to…” She looked over at the crowd and her gaze landed on the man she loved.
Except his eyes were gone. The sockets were dark pits, filled with crumbling dirt. His lips were gone too. Mottled shreds of flesh hung off his cheekbones over a grotesque smile. He was smiling at her. No, he wasn’t moving.
Those were the worms, writhing, crawling where his teeth should have been.
Vivian’s words dropped away.
There was only silence now. The presenter, who had been serenely looking out over the crowd, now turned to her. But she couldn’t stop staring at the corpse sitting in the place of her husband.
She felt sick. She tore her eyes away and her gaze trailed over the crowd again. Her fingers trembled so much she was scared the award would drop. “To…” She took a deep breath. “To my f-family and community, for supporting me, and to Chinese actors, this…” She steadied her shaking voice. “This is for all of you. Thank you.” And with those last words she was free. She stumbled for the stairs at the edge of the stage. She was dimly aware of the applause that greeted her and the smiles that beamed at her. She didn’t want to be in the auditorium anymore. She wanted to bolt for the doors. But she forced herself to walk toward her seat as she took very shallow breaths.
She dared to glance up. The gruesome vision was gone. Her husband’s face was once more his.
Her staggering relief gave way to the slow realization that she had forgotten his name in her speech.
As she moved closer, she saw the effort in his placid smile. His eyes were leeched of all warmth. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and Vivian thought of the corpse again and felt faint. The lights panned away from them and she dropped the award in her lap. But Richard didn’t reach for her. He faced forward. Vivian kept her eyes wide-open as they ran through the rest of awards. She knew that the moment she closed them she would see the image of her husband’s skull filled with earth and maggots. She winced at how each winner joyfully thanked their spouses and loved ones by name. She had wanted to thank Richard, truly.
The night dragged on. She was relieved when they got to the Best Actor category, because she knew that only this could salvage what had happened. The names of the Best Actor nominees were called, and Vivian reached over and squeezed her husband’s hand tightly.
“And the award for Best Actor goes to…”
She waited. For his name, for the roar of applause that would follow.
It never came. She didn’t realize that Ernie’s name had been called until heads started turning.
Stunned, she gaped toward the stairs, where her co-star loped gracefully toward the award that belonged to her husband. She half rose from her seat in indignation, and then sank back down.
She looked back toward Richard, but he wouldn’t look at her. His gaze was fixed on some point on the stage.
Soon they were swept into a limo to an after-party, where Vivian was swarmed with her co-stars’ excitement. Ernie swept her up in a hug, and their director congratulated them both. All eyes were on her. It was just like she had pictured all those years ago. And yet everything about it felt wrong. Her husband stood stiffly to the side. She’d upstaged him. She’d gotten what he had coveted all his life. Vivian drank champagne and laughed, but the guilt settled sourly in her stomach.
The ride home was quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Vivian said, trying to be diplomatic. “It’s late. We should have gone home earlier.”
Her husband didn’t respond at first.
She said, haltingly, drunkenly: “I’m—sorry. I’m so ashamed.”
When he finally spoke, his voice was perfectly even. “Of what, sweetheart?”
“I—” Vivian faltered. The award felt like ice in her hands. What could she say? That she had seen his decomposing face in the crowd and forgotten his name? She shook her head. “I meant to say your name, I promise, it’s just that my mind—I blanked out on the stage.”
Her husband said coldly, “Was this everything you dreamed of?”
Her neck felt like it was on fire. “I—of course. But you deserved an award too, I swear, it was all yours—”
“Will you shut the fuck up and just enjoy your night?”
Vivian shrank back from the tone of his voice. He didn’t look at her. It wasn’t that he had never raised his voice at her before. But she had never seen this kind of wrath.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered a third time, with tears in her eyes.
Vivian watched Richard stalk off to bed the moment they entered the house. She stood alone in the foyer, clutching her heels in one hand, the award in the other. A headache was setting in. She padded toward the kitchen and wiped her tears away with her fingertips.
The kitchen light was on. Vivian peeked around the corner.
“Congratulations!”
Edith and Josiah stood behind a cake on the kitchen island. Edith rushed forward and embraced Vivian. “You were brilliant,” she gushed in Mandarin. “The dress, the speech— wah , you looked beautiful.”
Vivian hugged her tightly in relief. She set the statue on the table, and Josiah’s normally stoic expression had become one of admiration. “May I…?”
She nodded and smiled toward it. “Please.”
Edith and Josiah held it in their hands and marveled at it from all angles. Vivian let herself sink into a chair. “Are the girls—?”
“I finally got them all to bed.” Edith’s eyes shone. “I couldn’t pull them away from the television. The little one couldn’t stop jumping when they called your name.” She clutched Vivian’s hand. “You should have seen them. We’re so proud of you, Lian-er.” She looked closer at Vivian’s expression. “What’s wrong? Where’s Richard?”
Vivian let her voice drop to a whisper. “I forgot his name in my speech.”
Josiah frowned. “But you thanked your family.”
“But I was supposed to thank him . And I—I didn’t.”
“It’s all right,” Edith said. “He knows. It’s your night!”
How could she tell them about his anger, the way she tumbled from joy into shame? How to describe the strange, horrific face that had flashed in front of her? How eerily that face had looked like the one she had seen in the mirror, so many years ago. She looked at the trophy. “He didn’t get an award. This was supposed to be his .”
Her friends looked at her with a mix of pity and disbelief.
“No, Lian-er,” Josiah insisted, the first time he had used her nickname. His eyes were earnest. “It is yours. You earned it. We’re proud of you. You hear me?”
She met his gaze and nodded.
“Come, have some cake,” Edith said.
Vivian finally let herself smile. “ 谢谢 . You’re so kind.”
“Of course we had to get you something. We had it delivered from your favorite place.”
They ate the cake, huddled in the kitchen. Edith mimicked Renata leaping in front of the TV with her nose pressed up against the screen. “She kept asking when she would be ‘inside the screen’ like 妈妈 ,” Josiah said, shaking his head and smiling. Finally, Vivian allowed herself to laugh. She had come to this country alone, and now here she was, a household name, wearing a designer silk dress and eating a heaping slice of cake with the people she considered family. Happiness seeped back into her and didn’t dissipate until the early hours of the morning when they all cleaned up and went to bed.
Vivian ascended the stairs alone, the award clutched in her hand. She couldn’t bring it into their bedroom. It would be almost disrespectful. So she crept into her youngest daughter’s room. She looked at her Meng-Meng curled in her blankets, cheeks flushed, sleeping peacefully at last. Yin Zi-Meng, she’d named Renata at birth. Dreamer. Richard chose her English name, Vivian her Chinese name. She wanted to sweep her up and hug her to her chest. But instead, she carefully placed the Oscar on the nightstand.
She looked back at her daughter before she closed the door, her entire being flooded with joy at this sweet image. She knew her youngest would love it.
She walked to her bedroom with a cool resolve.
Her husband was asleep, but making jolting, sudden movements beneath the sheets. A whimper escaped his lips. He was having one of his nightmares again. How could it be? His bottle of sleeping pills was open on the nightstand. Maybe he didn’t take enough. She took an aspirin in the bathroom for the headache, stepped out of her heavy dress, put on her night slip, and went to bed.
She wanted to reach for her husband and pull him out of whatever nightmare he was in, but instead she stared dazedly at him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him in the audience, decaying before her eyes. It reminded her of her disturbing dreams of Amos Dalby. These dreams made sense; since she’d learned about Amos, she’d sometimes think about the horrors that had helped build her husband’s family fortune. But what could explain these waking, grotesque visions? Was it something about this place? Could the ghost of the old house and what had happened here find its way into her mind? The foundation of the old house, with its rot and rust, making itself felt in the new?
She told herself to stop. This was her problem. She had brought this evil here by thinking about it all the time. Her husband had planned to erase it. She’d only mentioned Amos Dalby once to him, when she called from the set of Fortune’s Eye . She hadn’t mentioned his name, but she’d asked if Richard could tell her more about his family member who’d worked in railroads. It was clear from her husband’s response that he didn’t know a thing about trains or railroad tycoons. He’d only said that the person lost his entire family, and it was all too tragic and morbid.
Maybe he was right. But every time he woke from a nightmare shivering and complaining that he couldn’t feel his fingers, or gulping for air and saying he had dreamed of being buried alive, Vivian couldn’t help but think of the stories 苏伯伯 had told her, of the Chinese workers who had experienced just that.
She tried to banish the thoughts from her mind, like Edith and Josiah had advised. Tonight was about success, fortune, and happiness. She reached over and took a sleeping pill from Richard’s bottle. She swallowed it without water and felt it force its way down her throat.
The next morning she sat in front of her vanity as she unhooked her earrings and rubbed the red from her lips. She felt better. Clearer.
Everything she had seen in the mirror years ago had come true. She was Vivian Yin, an actress who had just won an Academy Award. Years ago, she imagined that this moment would be the beginning, something that would define a long and illustrious career. But now she sat in front of the mirror and could think only about the screenplay she’d just started writing on the side.
This was just the beginning. She would write a screenplay and Richard could help her. They would make their movie and be back on that stage, together, next time. She would do anything in the world to make it happen.