Chey could see where this was going and her understanding must have shown on her face, because Vivi looked up at her, then nodded.
“He was suddenly the darling of Broadway; then he got his first movie role, and the gap that had sprung up between us grew to a canyon seemingly overnight. He was given so much attention, with people literally throwing themselves at him, and not just women. Movie executives, Broadway producers, television people.” She set her spoon down, having stirred her coffee about to death. “To his credit, he honestly remained the same wonderfully thoughtful, charming, and down to earth man you see right now. It truly didn’t go to his head. But he was overwhelmed, certainly. It was a steep, fast learning curve. In the end, he didn’t think he could juggle everything and give our relationship the time it deserved. I never felt he thought less of me because his star was rising and mine was simply twinkling along where it had always been.”
“He was honest with you then,” Hannah said. “That speaks well of him.”
Vivi smiled and nodded. “He knew he needed to go live his life and experience what was coming at him, unencumbered, as it were. But even though I saw it coming, the breakup was awful, and my heart was utterly shattered. He had ended things about as well as he possibly could have. It was just that we wanted two very different outcomes for our love story, and it was hard for my heart to accept that, because we’d been so wonderful together.”
“How long did it take him to realize he’d screwed up the best thing that ever happened to him?” This from Chey.
“You see, darling, that’s just it. I don’t think he screwed up. I think what he did was the right thing. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but looking back, I know that to be true. If we’d stayed together at that time in our lives, we’d have become very different people to each other, and I doubt either one of us would have loved who we would have become. It was a thrilling time, just an incredibly demanding one. I had my own dreams, my own goals. Yes, I wanted to marry him. Yes, I wanted the white picket fence with him, but I didn’t want to be Mrs. Grant Harper in terms of my professional goals. Becoming his wife, at that point, in that day and age, would have ended my career, most assuredly.”
“That must have been a very hard decision to make,” Hannah said softly.
“I was so heartbroken, but I wasn’t mad at him.” She laughed. “It would have been easier if I were.” She picked up a scone, then put it back down. “We did stay in touch while he was still in New York. It made things harder on us both, but we couldn’t seem to help ourselves. We were just the best of friends.”
She looked at Chey then, and they shared a smile. Chey knew Vivi was thinking of Chey’s childhood with Wyatt. Some comparisons were inevitable.
“When he finally left New York for good, for Hollywood, and moved to California full time, we broke contact completely. Or, I guess I should say that I did. I knew I had to, for my own healing. There were no cell phones or social media and the like in those days. Calls were long distance and expensive. It was an easier time, compared to now, to cut things off. Though, admittedly, it felt horrifically lonely.” She smiled at them. “And then things did begin to take off for me. In my desperation for a distraction from my sadness and my loneliness, I think I was more daring than I might have otherwise been. I pushed harder to get noticed, and instead of waiting for things to happen, I worked to make them happen.” Her smile spread and that twinkle came out once again. “And they did.”
“Good for you,” Hannah said. “Sometimes the best love story is the love we discover for ourselves. Sometimes we have to put our own love story first, before we can love someone else.”
“That is absolutely the core of it,” Vivi said, “though it took years and two failed marriages to figure that out. Despite all of it, I’ve regretted that Grant and I met at the wrong time, but never that we parted at the time we did. It was the right thing to do then.”
“Did you ever think of contacting him later in your life?” Avery asked.
“Oh, many times,” Vivi said. “I married not long after he starred in his first movie. Absolutely a rebound situation, as you know. We’ve talked about it before, but losing Grant was the reason I ran off and did it. And why we ended that union before our second anniversary.” She waved her hand. “You know about both my marriages; we’ve covered this ground before, when I told you about Harold.”
Harold Wolff III had been the dominant love interest of Vivi’s life, or the one who’d been present in her life the longest, Chey thought now. Which wasn’t to say he’d been the love of her life, as Chey was beginning to suspect, though that’s what they’d always assumed. They also knew Vivi had divorced her second husband after a decade of marriage. That union had been more of a love story than the first, at least in the beginning. The marriage had long been strained, though, due to her inability to have children, and eventually fell apart completely when he’d abruptly announced he was expecting a child with another woman.
She’d been in her late thirties, maybe a half dozen years after her second divorce when she’d met Harold. He’d been one of the new benefactors of the chorus line production that Vivi had been headlining at the same Forty-Second Street theater for several years. Sort of a Rockettes kind of show. She had been doing some costume designing for the production as well and met Harold at one of the promotional functions put on by the theater.
They’d hit it off straightaway and he’d always made it a point to see her when he was in town. The thing was, in addition to being almost fifteen years her senior, Harold was also married. His wife had been put in a convalescent home after a car accident had left her comatose, with little to no chance of recovery. Harold took his vows seriously, and in all the years he and Vivi were close, he’d never once strayed across the line. Not so much as a peck on the cheek. Of course, according to Vivi, it was obvious to them and everyone around them that they were madly in love with each other.
Chey knew over the course of their close relationship Harold had often urged Vivi to go find someone else, fall in love and get married for good, but after her two failed attempts, she simply wasn’t interested in playing that field. Instead, she poured her frustrations and her passion into her career. Eventually she’d been forced out of the lead roles as she grew older and had turned to her design business full time. In the end, that career had become her true claim to fame, and she’d known great success.
Chey, Hannah, and Avery had poured over scrapbooks and albums filled with photos and articles and magazine layouts showcasing her work. She designed mostly for Broadway, but also for Hollywood on occasion. She professed that she’d been surprised when movie producers had sought her out, had noticed her designs for the stage.
Chey couldn’t help but wonder now if Grant had played a role in at least initiating those contacts. Having met him, seeing the way he looked at Vivi, with such admiration and respect, she would bet on it.
As to Vivi and Harold, their relationship ended in tragic circumstances, which she’d always maintained she’d deserved for pining after a married man.
Harold had flown from his home base in Chicago to New York to see the opening night of Vivi’s first major Broadway production as lead designer. That same night, Harold’s wife had suffered an aneurysm and died. Despite the fact that Harold could have done nothing to prevent what happened, or saved her had he been there, he couldn’t forgive himself for not being by her side, as he would have been if he hadn’t given in to his desire to share in Vivi’s big triumph and flown to New York to surprise her.