Page 27 of The Manor of Dreams

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. Whowantedto.

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 sharppricks 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 familyhome 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—hisplace. 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.

eleven

JULY 1975

VIVIANand Richard got married in the backyard of one of Richard’s friends, who owned a beautiful Spanish-style house in Simi Valley with red-tiled roofs and a backyard that sloped into a vineyard. Everything around them burst with vivid, sun-drenched green. It was a cloudless day in late July and Vivian stood in front of a white trellis arch, looking up at her husband.

Her hands shook a little as she unfolded the piece of paper with her vows. She’d crafted them painstakingly in the month leading up to the wedding. Daisy had helped her. She’d helped Vivian pick out her dress, too, teaching her to discern between designer names Vivian had never heard of. Together they had settled on ivory chiffon, with cap sleeves and a lace bodice dotted with iridescent pearls leading up to a high neck, like a qipao clasp. The lace trailed like fallen leaves down her skirt, and the chiffon fanned out on the grass around her as her tulle veil fluttered in the breeze.

She was keenly aware of over a hundred guests in attendance: former directors, Richard’s friends, mostly, the cast ofSong of Lovers, her family and new in-laws. Her hair was tucked up with beaded pins her aunt had given her, family heirlooms. A jade pendant settled on her sternum.

She’d spotted her aunt and uncle in the audience, along with her small group of friends, Chinatown actors who’d driven down for the occasion. Bà had flown in from Hong Kong. It had been nearly five years since Vivian had seen him, and he felt frailer in her arms than sheremembered. His hair had grayed. The jade pendant was a gift from him. It was carved with?, which meant “double happiness,” the symbol of a joyful marriage. May you have a good union for a hundred years,” he’d said to her in Cantonese, then Mandarin when he fastened it around her neck that morning. “May your hearts be bound forever.”

Ma had refused to come. She’d expected Vivian to return to Hong Kong eventually. To not only refuse to do so, but to marry a white American actor was seen as an intentional betrayal. It hurt Vivian to hear that her mother couldn’t understand that she had made a life here.

The guests were quiet as she carefully enunciated her vows. Somewhere in the crowd, someone blew their nose and it sounded like a duck. Vivian smiled. She knew it was Daisy, welling up with emotion and as incapable of subtlety as ever. When she was finished, she looked to Richard in front of her, his smile wide enough to reveal crinkles around his brilliant hazel eyes. The words of his vows floated over her; she could only look on in awe at her prince.

This wasn’t a small wedding, like her first, which had just been a meal in the back of a restaurant. This was an American wedding, and he was saying these words in front of everyone he knew. He was hers. And with it, his family, his good fortune—she was a part of it now, their legacies intertwined. They kissed, the guests cheered, and the live orchestra swelled with music. He held her hand tightly as they walked down an aisle lined with rose petals.

The sun dipped behind the mountains and painted everything in a golden glow. The drinks flowed and Vivian drifted away to talk to her family on the dance floor. She saw her father with her twins for the first time, and Lucille looked at Vivian with so much adoration that her heart filled almost to bursting.

Richard joined her then. He talked to her aunt and uncle, who each held one of the girls. They toasted to her and marveled at the splendor of the wedding. And as the live music kicked up, Richard led her to his family. “This is Vivian,” he exhaled happily to the line of extended family members waiting to meet her. They hugged her and fawned over her, telling her what a beautiful bride she was, what a vision she was in that dress. Some looked at her puzzlingly, as though even at her wedding,they had yet to decide whether she belonged. Richard’s mother, whom Vivian had met twice before, stepped forward and kissed her cheek.

“What are the lovely newlywed’s plans?” A man that Vivian dimly remembered as Richard’s uncle asked.

“We’re going to France for the honeymoon,” Richard said smoothly, looking over at Vivian. “And then we’re renovating the house.”

“A house?”

“That’s right. The one in Altadena. The one that used to be our family’s.”

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