Chapter Twenty-Eight
twenty-eight
JULY 1990
SOPHIE nearly had a heart attack when she found Vivian, surrounded by a cluster of potted flowers, in the middle of the night. The actress had a wild look in her eyes; her hands were covered in soil.
“ā Yí?” On instinct, Sophie moved to hide the flowers she’d plucked, and fixed her hands behind her back.
Her mother had told Sophie that Vivian had been acting erratic recently. And now, finding Vivian out here pawing through the soil in her satin pajamas and some leather gloves, surrounded by pots of flowers Sophie had never seen before, it seemed like Mā was right.
Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing out here this late?”
Sophie cleared her throat. “Um. I was just taking a walk. Couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Vivian said softly. She stared around her as if she were trying to get a sense of her bearings. “I thought I’d… plant some new flowers.”
“What flowers?”
Vivian’s gaze shifted down. “What are you holding in your hands?”
Shit. Sophie hesitated. “I…”
“Go on, show me.”
She could do nothing but hold out the flowers she had cut at the height of their bloom. Their petals were still fresh. She tried to rush an excuse. “I didn’t mean to take your flowers, ā Yí. I just saw that some of them needed pruning. Since Bà is away.” She didn’t dare look up.
“Are these the flowers I see pressed in my books?”
Vivian saw them? Sophie’s mind raced. “No, they—”
“I see your notes in those books,” Vivian said. “Are those for my daughter?”
The petals dropped to the ground. Sophie was trapped. They weren’t careful enough, and now Vivian knew. And she’d tell Bà and Mā and then they’d drag her to church and force her to pray for forgiveness.
Vivian could have her thrown out.
But when she looked up, the actress’s eyes were kind. “You can tell me.”
She couldn’t.
“There’s something between you and Ada, isn’t there?”
Sophie needed to calm down. She had to talk herself out of this.
“You can trust me,” Vivian said. “I think it’s sweet.”
Sophie stopped still. “You do?”
Vivian nodded. “My daughter is lovely. I’m not surprised you think so too.”
“Please don’t tell my parents,” Sophie whispered. “They can’t know.”
Vivian lowered her voice. “Then your secret is safe with me. And don’t leave these on my account.” She gestured at the petals on the ground between them.
Warmth flooded Sophie’s chest. Suddenly she was glad that of all the people, she’d told Vivian. All this time, whenever Sophie wasn’t with Ada, she felt wrong and monstrous for the way Ada made her feel. She knew her parents would never understand, but she could see now that Vivian, too, had made a path of her own. She knew what it was like to be different. It made sense that she would be accepting. Now the actress smiled at her and there were no more secrets between them.
For a fleeting second, Sophie allowed herself to imagine being with Ada for real. Telling the truth to her parents. Maybe— maybe , Vivian could even help.
Sophie tucked her cut flowers into her pockets and surveyed Vivian’s work. She cupped the flowers, which had clustered around the stalk, each bud delicately shaped like a butterfly wing. They were a brilliant, deep shade of purple. “I haven’t seen these in the garden before. What are they?”
“I don’t know. I just found them at the store. I liked the color and I thought gardening might be good for me.” Vivian shrugged. “But to be honest, I could use your help. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Vivian offered Sophie her leather driving gloves, which made Sophie laugh. “We’ll have to get you some real gardening gloves,” she said as she retrieved Bà’s pair from the terrace steps and came back to kneel down next to Vivian. No one had requested new flowers to be put in the garden for years. Bà had always been in charge of it. “Let’s move these over there. The soil is better.” She and Bà had taken care of the claylike soil so it could drain well, padding it with layers of compost in the spring.
Sophie and Vivian hauled the plants over, past the roses that ringed the fountain, past the section of poppies, to the hydrangeas, and gently loosened the soil around their roots. Sophie showed Vivian how to slowly tip the plants into the ground and take care to set them upright and then pack in the dirt around the roots again. When they were done, she leaned back and examined their handiwork. The flowers blended in well against the pale hydrangeas. “There. We’ll water these every few days and check on them. Make sure it’s properly draining.”
Vivian appraised the flowers, too. “You’re right. They’re beautiful here.” Her knees were stained from the dirt, but she looked calmer than Sophie had seen her in weeks. She turned to Sophie. “You’re good at this. You have your bà’s gift.”
Vivian stared at her for a second more, as if she wanted to say something, but then she simply headed for the house. Vivian’s robe billowed out behind her as she climbed the stairs to the terrace. Sophie followed. Her pockets bulged with flowers. Her head buzzed with Vivian’s praise.
Before they entered the house Vivian stopped. “One last thing. We’ll keep this a secret between us. Just between you and me.”
Sophie nodded. “Of course, ā Yí.”
“All of this. Not even with Ada. I want her to tell me about you two herself. Promise me you’ll let her do that?”
“I promise,” Sophie said. Vivian seemed serious, and she was too. Ada deserved to tell her own mother in her own time. A secret for a secret. “I won’t say a thing.”
Sophie helped tend to the new flowers throughout the week. She watered them close to their roots at night, after she came home from the library, and then checked on them in the early morning. They seemed happiest in the partial shade, so Sophie made sure to arrange the hydrangeas so that they shielded the new flowers from most of the sun. In the early mornings the flowers were still sparkling with dew, as if candied. Toward midday, the cone-like stems stretched proudly toward the sky, complementing perfectly the hydrangeas that opened in the honey-like sunlight, almost drooping under the weight of their buds, the geraniums, the Spanish lavender. The beginning of the summer had been dry, but with constant watering and mulching, the plants were finally wilting a bit less. The particular jasmine was even back into steady bloom.
Vivian trusted Sophie with this task, and she wanted to prove herself. Bà would be proud of her when he came back. He just had a few more things to work out with Sophie’s grandfather’s will. Soon, everyone would be back. It would once again be a full house.
Everything was the same and different. Her sister called home. Already Elaine was making a life for herself in Berkeley. She chose to stay in the Bay for the summer. She would phone home every once in a while, talking excitedly about handing out flyers, organizing a protest on Telegraph Avenue, attending events for tenant rights, helping phone bank for a local progressive city council candidate. She talked about being a city council member one day, maybe state representative. Her sister was bursting full of newfound aspirations. She’d always hung out with an odd, nerdy crowd at school, but now she’d finally found her place. “Oh, by the way, I got my first tattoo last weekend. Don’t tell Mā yet.” She paused, then said, in hushed, exhilarated tones, “Just wait until you go to college.” Car horns sounded in the distance.
During the day Sophie drove around with Lucille and Ada. They got ice cream. Her and Ada’s hands brushed in the parking lot. She went to her shifts at the library and stood under the blast of the air conditioner, punching numbers into the catalog cards. At night, after she’d carefully washed the dirt from her fingers, she’d hear a knock and Ada would slip in. She loved that Ada reached for her before the door had even finished closing.
Days dripped by. One night in late June, when Sophie was working alone in the garden, she found herself entranced by Vivian’s small flowers. Thinking of which books she could press them into for Ada, she caught a bud that was detaching from the stalk. She cupped the flower in her hands and observed it closely, rubbing the petals between her fingers. The flower had no distinct perfume; it only emitted the bitter, damp scent of the earth.
Suddenly she imagined something so clear that it startled her. She was looking out over a haphazard and rugged garden, filled with lettuce and tomatoes and rhubarb and wild dandelions, lined with moss and rich compost. She knew somehow that it was her garden. There was a house, too. The windows were open and she was painting the shutters. Ada was stepping out of the back door in a tank top and shorts. The light was warm on her skin, and she shaded her eyes against the sun.
Sophie tumbled forward and suddenly she was back in the dirt of Vivian Yin’s garden. But the vision had been so vivid and the joy so visceral that she ached with the hope of it.
She looked up at the house. Yin Manor, Mr. Lowell called it. This house was dedicated to ā Yí. This was the garden that Bà had helped build for her. Sophie tore off her gloves and dug her fingers into the dirt, until they touched root. At this she radiated again with the memory of her own garden. Was it in her mind or could she now feel the flower vines threading under the dirt with their own pulse, the roots all reaching to intertwine? She drew her fingers back and giddily plucked some of the purple buds and tucked them into her pocket.
In what seemed for a moment like a mirror of her vision, she saw Vivian come out onto the terrace. Sophie expected Vivian to appraise the flowers, but she barely looked at them. Instead, she came straight for Sophie.
“He’s coming home tomorrow,” Vivian ā Yí said. “My husband.” She paused. “You should probably take the flowers out of the books.”
“Oh.” Right. Vivian wanted to protect them. “Okay. I will.”
Sophie brushed the dirt off her pants and walked back to the house. In the library she pulled out all the books she or Ada had pressed flowers into and removed them. Then she erased the penciled notes she’d written. Back in her room, she put the now-dried flowers in her drawer. The violet butterfly-shaped flowers she tucked under her pillow.
She looked over at the empty twin bed where her sister used to sleep. It was strange, having had this room to herself for the past year. She missed her sister. Elaine had rarely visited the last year. She seemed happy there and reluctant to come back. She’d only come back when dormitories were closed down for winter break. She dressed differently now, with plaid shirts and baggy jackets and jeans. Her hair had been chopped short, too, unevenly, as if she cut it herself. She brought tattered books to the dinner table and stirred things up until Bà took her aside and quieted her, and she seemed sullen for the rest of break until she got to go back to Berkeley again. Sophie wondered if Elaine would ever return to this house, or if she’d put it all behind her and Sophie was now on her own.
The next day when she went into the garden, Vivian’s flowers were gone. What remained were only gaping, clotted holes in the dirt, as if they’d been ripped out.
“They didn’t look right,” Vivian said when Sophie asked about them. “I changed my mind.”
Sophie felt slightly hurt. She’d tended to them so carefully and had been looking forward to showing their progress to her bà. Now the only evidence left was in her room.
That night, after she came back from Ada’s room, her head rushing and her cheeks flushed, she reached under her pillow. She cupped the petals, hoping to bring back that vision, that faintness, the elation, that happiness. Her heartbeat stuttered as if in response. She fell asleep with the flowers curled in her hand.