Songs of Willow Frost (34 page)

“Please tell me you want this as much as me,” he asked.

She looked at Colin, wondering where her hesitation had gone. “I do.”

I
F
C
OLIN WAS
nervous about seeing his father for the first time in nearly five years, Liu Song couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure if his optimism was a by-product of his uncanny acting ability or a reckless brand of fearlessness—the kind she suspected she would need to succeed in this business. Her mother had possessed that kind of courage, before illness stole her resolve, along with her husband, her dignity, and her dreams. Or was that courage all an act too? Liu Song wondered how flexible the truth must be to performers who were always pretending to be someone else.

She felt Colin’s arm around her as he bought two tickets for the
Puget Sound Electric Railway’s trolley to Tacoma. She felt warm and safe as she leaned into him. She reached up and straightened his tie, wondering how long it would be until he kissed her. She was certain that meeting Colin’s father was some sort of vetting process. But she also suspected that she was a buffer between the two men. They were meeting on location, in a public place, where the condemning eyes of a disappointed, angered father might be distracted by the grandiose spectacle of filmmaking, where his stern voice might be softened by Liu Song’s polite smile.
If all goes well
, Liu Song thought,
there will be nothing between Colin and me. And sweet William will have the father he deserves
.

As they traveled the southern spur of the interurban line, Liu Song counted the minutes and the miles, growing more anxious. She took deep breaths, exhaling slowly, relaxing her shoulders and calming her mind—the way her father had shown her once before he took the stage. She was so excited about being on the set of a major production, but still worried about meeting Colin’s father. She knew so little about the man, but she expected him to be a traditional Chinese father, more entrenched in old-world customs than her uncle Leo. She imagined Mr. Kwan as the opposite of her own father in every possible way, which left her perplexed as to how Colin could be so hopeful. Then again, she thought,
maybe Colin isn’t hoping for reconciliation—for acceptance
. Maybe this would be Colin’s last goodbye—a cutting of the cords, where he’d declare the two great loves of his life. Three if he counted William. She hoped. She indulged her imagination. She dreamt shamelessly.

She was still daydreaming as they stepped off the train at Tacoma’s Union Station. Colin led her across the busy street and around the corner, past ticket scalpers working the alley by the sparkling Pantages Theatre. Two blocks up the steep hill she saw a line of people outside the Rialto, waiting for the evening show. But by far the largest crowd had amassed in the street to the north.

“Most of the filming will take place at Weaver’s big studio near
Titlow Beach,” Colin said. “But tonight they’re shooting at the Grand Winthrop Hotel.”

Together they waded through the throng of people—hundreds of onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of Wanda Hawley. Liu Song recognized the starlet immediately. She was hard to miss as she stood on the front steps of the hotel, wearing an enormous fur coat, flanked by two stout policemen, who kept the horde of autograph seekers at bay. The uniformed officers had to shout to be heard over the thrumming of a generator truck parked in the alley. Long cables snaked up and through a pair of open second-story windows. Enormous movie lights stood like sentinels, illuminating the lobby of the hotel. Liu Song marveled at the elaborately constructed façade, which had transformed the stately hotel into the Golden Dragon—a palace of indulgence, a den of temptation, where they’d be performing alongside dozens of other actors and Chinese extras. The setting was daunting.

“Now I know why you told your father to meet you here,” Liu Song said as they showed their IDs to a production assistant who kept track of actors and scenes on a blackboard. The man directed them to where parts of the hotel had been repurposed as staging areas for crew members and makeup artists, and a storage pen for assorted props.

“My father is a rich man,” Colin said. “But still, how can he not be impressed by all of this? They hired the scene painters from the World’s Fair.” Colin paused as they saw the main set, where the hotel’s grand ballroom had been turned into a glittering Oriental nightclub, complete with fine linens, bamboo trees, hanging lanterns, and tuxedoed waiters. “Weaver’s studio is the third largest motion picture production stage in the United States. The other two are in Hollywood. This business is no trifle—no passing fancy. I’m not an opera singer traveling from town to town hoping for a free meal.” He smiled at Liu Song. “And how can he not be impressed by you?”

Liu Song tried not to take his words as a slight toward her father. She knew Colin was merely excited—lost in the moment. She wished she shared his confidence. And as a seamstress guided her to the ladies’ dressing room in the basement and Liu Song was fitted with an elaborate ball gown, she felt emboldened by the dress, by the part, by the memory of her parents. She thought about Mildred and William sitting at home—she wished they could see her now, but then she remembered that they’d be able to. One day she’d take them to the nearest movie house and she’d surprise them.

Liu Song studied her part as a makeup artist dusted her face, complimented her smooth skin, and outlined her eyes with thick, black eyeliner. Their scene was simple the way Colin had explained it on the ride down from Seattle. He was the dashing young proprietor of the club, and she was his wife. She’d flit about the scene, speaking with Colin and other guests before being sent away for her protection as the stars of the film made their grand entrance and Colin was subsequently arrested. Liu Song knew that her part was small, but she found comfort in that. She preferred to dip her toe into the tepid pool of cinema instead of plunging in headfirst.

Then the waiting began.

“This is all part of the process,” Colin said, as he looked at his wristwatch and glanced at the door. “We wait and wait and wait …”

Liu Song nodded. She’d learned to associate Colin with the virtue of patience. She watched as he was called to the set on three different occasions. Each time he took his scenes in stride. She stared spellbound as he reacted to the lights, the camera, even the other big-name stars like Tom Santschi and Violet Palmer, who seemed beyond the reach of the rest.
He fits in. He belongs here. He’s born for this. Surely his father will see this. Such talent is obvious
.

Then she heard her name called. She didn’t even recognize it at first.

“Willa Eng,” a man said. “Is there a Willa Eng on the set?”

“It’s Willow,” Liu Song called out, grimacing at the sound of her last name. She stepped into her heels and found her place beneath the lights. The last time she and Colin had done this it had been a silly affair—all in nonsensical fun, playacting, like charades. But now the cameras would roll on them.

“Are you ready?” she teased Colin as he slicked his hair back and buttoned his suit jacket. She noticed him looking nervous for the first time as he glanced at the clock.

“He’ll be here,” Liu Song said. “He’s probably here already, out in the crowd …”

“You don’t know my father,” Colin said. “He’d be early to his own funeral.”

Liu Song touched his arm as she looked into his eyes and then toward the camera, where she saw a strange, upside-down figure reflected in the lens. Then she noted that the director, the cinematographer, the bulk of the crew were all looking toward the entrance, wide-eyed. Liu Song glanced up at Colin and saw him grow pale. She turned around and saw a beautiful Chinese girl, not much older than herself. The girl wore a tight-fitting cheongsam made of shimmering red silk. She appeared nervous and strangely out of place. Liu Song presumed the girl to be an extra, lost in the confusion. Until she saw the way the girl looked at Colin—searching, recognizing. Her eyes were filled with something Liu Song knew all too well—longing.

“This is a closed set,” a producer snapped. “Miss, you can’t be here. Somebody get her out of frame. If we need more Chinese extras, honey, I’ll let you know.”

“Colin.” Liu Song looked up, not wanting to ask.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” he whispered. “I can’t believe he sent her.”

Liu Song felt a crushing weight on her heart as the director shouted, “Places!”

She stood before him, listening to the clatter and din of cast and crew.

“It was … an arranged … marriage,” Colin muttered, distant, as though he were speaking to himself, reminding his conscience of forgotten labors.

Liu Song felt her heart bend across the anvil of his words. The blows of the hammer kept coming, kept pounding.

“Arranged … by my father. I haven’t seen her since she was maybe fourteen years old—so long ago. I thought that she would be married by now—that my father would have released me from that obligation. That everyone had just moved on without me.”

Obligation
. Liu Song thought she knew the meaning of the word. She looked down, not wanting to see the girl, or the regret—the guilt in Colin’s eyes.

“She’s my … fiancée,” she heard him whisper. The words were ice.

Liu Song felt his hands on her shoulders. He was speaking, but she didn’t hear a word as his lips moved like an actor’s in a silent film. Then he let go and she watched the scene unfold from the inside out. She watched Colin walk toward the comely visitor as crew members threw up their hands in frustration. Liu Song blinked as he touched his fiancée’s hand, exchanged words, and then the girl left. By the look on Colin’s face as he returned, Liu Song knew that something terrible had happened, and not just to her.

Colin looked horrified, fearful—the way Liu Song felt. “My father is on his deathbed,” he said. “And my brother has become a drunk and a gambler. My mother sent my fiancée here to bring me back. I’m so sorry, Liu Song. I have to go home. I have to leave tomorrow. I’ll return if I can. I promise. This isn’t how I planned to …”

“Quiet on the set!” the director yelled. “We’ve got a movie to shoot.”

As the camera rolled, Liu Song looked at the stranger Colin had become beneath the halcyon lights. And in her place, Willow made her appearance. Her ears were numb, ringing, silencing his dialogue—his heartfelt gestures that he somehow managed to perform. Willow stared up at him, her eyes welling with hot tears, her lower lip trembling as she tried to patch the cracks in the emotional dam that was bursting with each of Colin’s gestures, with each silent soliloquy. She struggled with how she’d explain this to William. He was little, he would adjust, but he’d feel Colin’s absence. Perhaps more keenly, more completely than she’d feel the emptiness in her own heart as she cried helplessly for the first time in years.

Colin kissed the tears on her cheeks, then he touched his lips. He looked at the wetness on his fingertips as if the warm residue were blood from a weapon. Then he kissed her lips, gently, before exhaling, catching his breath, and walking out of the scene as Liu Song heard the director mumble something about keeping the camera rolling—that this was a golden moment. She heard the flickering of the shutter, the hum of the lights, and the silence punctuated by the sound of Colin’s footsteps, fading.

Lullaby

(1924)

Liu Song paid sixty cents for a return ticket and sat by herself in the back of the 525 Limited, bound for Seattle with short stops in Kent and Auburn. She didn’t wait for Colin, nor did she bother to look for him. She didn’t know if he had another scene or another unscheduled performance with his long-lost fiancée—she chose not to linger and find out. All she wanted now was her son and the comfort of her tiny home.

As she sat in the near-empty railcar, watching the gray-green blur of another train zoom past the arched windows, she tried to think of nothing but William, but she couldn’t forget the look on Colin’s face or the tears that finally caught up to her. She could have cried for hours. All of her pain and struggles and loneliness had overwhelmed her the way Colin’s fiancée—his past—had caught up to him, crashing his big night. Liu Song struggled to reconcile the secret he’d kept, the growing list of commitments he’d run away from—his father, his family’s business, the responsibilities of a firstborn son, and a betrothal. That was the worst. But the girl in the red cheongsam, his fiancée—none of this was her fault. He’d been unfair to that poor girl as well. She was merely an innocent bystander, but now Colin was standing by her, leaving with her, conscripted into marrying her.
Where does this leave me?
Liu Song anguished.
I’m alone at the bottom of a deep well of doubt
. And at the murky
bottom of that cold spring, Liu Song realized that it wasn’t just Colin who had misled her—she had betrayed herself. She’d followed her heart, her hopes, without questioning him. Now those hopes were tangled. She remembered learning about the Greeks back at Franklin High—about the Gordian knot. That was her heart, a thicket of longing, misgiving, rejection, and disbelief. There was no way to untie so many twists and coils. The only solution was to do what Alexander the Great had done, and cut through the mess, severing all ties—all but William.