Page 63 of The Manor of Dreams

“Don’t lie to me. You thought I wouldn’t see you practically entangled with Gene Lyman?”

Her heart dropped. So he had seen her. She’d been foolish to assume otherwise. “It was nothing,” she said calmly. “I swear.”

“You werealonewith him.”

“Because you left me there!” Vivian cried. “Youleftme to go talk to someone else.”

Before she knew it, he had grabbed her by the hair and there was a sharp pain in her skull. Her right cheek slammed into the wall and his fingers clamped down on her arm, hard enough that she cried out.

“Don’t raise your voice at me,” her husband said quietly, in her ear. “Not when you’ve been whoring around some other man who’s about to divorce his wife. Whorejected youfor a movie.”

Vivian tried to stay still. The hand twisting her hair tightened and tears came to her eyes. Her mind scrambled, protectively, for rational thought. She could kick him and run. But then where would she go? She was all alone in the middle of France. “I’m sorry. He was the one who approached me. I didn’t want to offend him. He could give me a role in the future.”

“Oh yes, yournextmovie,” her husband said softly, letting her go. Vivian stumbled away. “Because it always has to be about the nextmovie, doesn’t it? Nothing is ever enough for my dear wife, not your Oscar, not even your husband. What will you do? Fuck your way through the Academy until you have another?”

“Fuck you,” Vivian spat, matching his vitriol. “The worst thing I ever did was marry you.”

Her husband’s eyes sparked with anger. For a moment she wondered how he would hurt her next. But then his hands fell limply to his sides. “So you want to leave me.”

Vivian said nothing.

“I’ve only ever loved you.” He sank into an armchair, tugging his tie loose. “I’m the most faithful husband you’ll ever meet. I love your children like my own, and you want to leave me.”

Suddenly Vivian blinked and there were tears. Before she knew it, she was closing the space between them. “No, no,” she said. “That’s not true. I didn’t mean it.”

“This isn’t the wife I know.”

“I’m sorry,” Vivian whispered. Her cheek throbbed and her eyes still smarted. She was going to bruise, but this was not the first time. Nor the second or third. Since that first night, though, her husband had been careful. And she covered for him even more carefully. A polite phone call to the front desk when they were staying in a New York hotel, to tell them that the plate accidentally dropped to the ground and cracked. Long sleeve options for every trip, and full-coverage foundation she had overheard a makeup artist recommend to another actress hoping to conceal a birthmark, for her face and neck. Yet now she reached for her husband, and he collapsed onto her shoulder.

“You know I love you more than anything,” her husband murmured into her ear. “It just hurts me so badly to think of you with someone else.”

“There’s no one else,” she sighed. “Let’s go to bed.”

“I’m going to kill Gene Lyman.”

“Please don’t. Let’s go to bed.”

She opened the windows to let in the light sea breeze. She glanced backward and when her husband didn’t object, she let the windows open a bit wider.

She lay in bed that night, feeling Richard’s breathing settle beside her, when a sudden pressure seized her chest. She started to lose feeling in her limbs. She clenched her fists. Maybe she was dying; maybe this is what dying felt like. Maybe she would let it happen and Richard would wake up next to a cooling body. A muffled whimper emerged through her gritted teeth, and her husband stirred. He sighed her name, and she clenched her fists again, tears streaming down her cheeks. He rolled over and held her as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Were you all right?” her husband asked that next morning.

“Yes,” Vivian said. “Sorry. Just a bad dream.”

“Don’t apologize,” her husband said. He stood and walked to the windows. “Come, look.”

She joined him. There was no screen. Soft, warm air floated in. It was the cusp of summer. From this point of view, the French Riviera spread out before them, the buildings with their terra-cotta tile roofs cascading upon the beaming sand and the turquoise sea. It was hard not to be besotted with the romance of this place. Vivian felt his arms around her and she let him hold her.

twenty-three

MAY 1990

VIVIANthought she deserved it, that first time he’d hurt her. That was what he made her believe. They’d gone out to dinner with a producer who was Richard’s new friend, Elliot Sargent. Vivian had just been interviewed over drinks that afternoon for a profile in a local paper. The journalist wanted to talk to her about her Academy Award, but then they had gotten to chatting, and she’d shown up to dinner a little tipsy. She had laughed loudly at Elliot’s jokes, and accidentally spilled a bit of red wine on the table. The producer waved her off good-naturedly. “So,” he’d said at one point with a small smile. “Congratulations. What’s next for our star actress?” She’d smiled at the tablecloth and told him that she just wanted to keep getting roles. “And try screenwriting, maybe.”

“Well, the first, I’d imagine you’d have no problem with. And as for the second, if you ever have something, I’d happily take a look.”

She’d nodded at the tablecloth again, unable to hide her smile. When she glanced over at her husband, he was nodding too. But she also noticed his hand was wrapped so tightly around his glass that she could see the white of his knuckles.

---