CHAPTER 27




Paris was exquisite that spring, as they wandered along the Seine, went to Les Halles for onion soup, strolled down the Champs Élysées, went to Dior, and then lunch at Fouquet's and dinner at Maxim's and the Brasserie Lipp. They had drinks at the Cafe Flore and the Deux Magots and they laughed and cuddled and hugged and kissed over cheese and wine. It was just exactly what Ward had wanted it to be, a second honeymoon, a place to forget all the sorrows of the past year or two, the children, the films, the responsibilities, and when they reached Lausanne, Faye sat looking out at Lac Leman and smiled at him.

“You know, I'm glad I married you.” She said it matter-of-factly as she sipped her coffee and ate a croissant, and he laughed at her.

“I'm awfully glad to hear that. What made you decide that?”

“Well,” she mused, staring out at the lake, “you're a nice man. You make a mess of things sometimes, but you're smart enough and decent enough to go back and straighten things out.” She was thinking of Lionel, and she was relieved that he and the boy were friends again. And she was thinking of his affair too.

“I try hard. I'm not as smart as you are sometimes, Faye.”

“Bullshit.”

“You sound like Val.” He looked disapprovingly at her and she laughed.

“Well, I'm no smarter than you are. Just more stubborn sometimes.”

“I don't always have the guts to hang on the way you do. Sometimes I want to run away.” He had done it twice so far, but she had always taken him back and he was grateful for that. But he was surprised at what she said next.

“Sometimes I want to run away too, you know. But then I worry about what would happen if I did … who would keep an eye on Val … make sure Anne was all right … Vanessa … Greg … Li …” She smiled at him. “You. Somehow, I'm so damn egocentric that I figure none of it would run right if I disappeared, which isn't true, but it keeps me hanging in.”

“I'm glad.” He smiled at her and took her hand. They still had romance between them after all these years. “Because you're right. None of it would run right if you disappeared, and I'm glad you never have.”

“Maybe one day I will. I'll run off and have some wild affair with a grip on the set.” She laughed at the thought, and Ward did not look amused.

“I've worried about that a few times. There are some actors I'm not crazy about your working with.” It was the first time he had admitted that to her and she was touched.

“I always behave myself.”

“I know. That's why I keep such a good eye on you.”

“Oh it is, is it?” She tweaked his ear, and he kissed her, and a little while later they went inside, forgetting Lac Leman and the Alps, and their children and careers. They only thought of each other for their remaining days abroad, and they were both sorry when they boarded the plane to go home. “It was a beautiful vacation, wasn't it, love?”

“It was.” He smiled at her, and she slipped a hand into his arm, and leaned her head on him.

“I'd like to spend a lifetime doing that one day.”

“No, you wouldn't,” he laughed, “you'd go stark staring mad. By next week, you'll be knee deep in your new picture, and telling me how impossible everyone is, that none of the costumes fit, the scenery stinks, the locations are no good, no one knows their lines. You'll be tearing your beautiful blond hair out by the roots. And without that, you'd be so bored you couldn't stand it … could you?” She laughed at his accurate description of her business life.

“Well, maybe I'm not quite ready to retire yet, but one of these days …”

“Just let me know when.”

“I will.” And she looked as though she might.

But he was right. Two weeks later, life was just as he had described; she was going totally nuts, her biggest star was giving her a rough time, two others were on drugs, another drank on the set and showed up drunk every day after lunch, an entire set had burned to the ground, the unions were threatening to walk out. Life was back to normal again, but they were both revived after their trip. Lionel had the girls well in hand when they got back. Anne seemed to have settled back into school, the twins were behaving, more or less, the news from Greg was good, and a month later, Lionel moved out again, he had found a place of his own, and although Faye knew he would be lonely there without John, she thought it might do him good. He was doing the film for Fox, and he said it was going well when he called. The only problem they had was with Anne, who had wanted to move in with him. Lionel had discouraged her. He told her that she didn't belong with him now. That he had to live his own life, and so did she, that it had been right for a time, but no more. Now she had to make a life for herself in school again, make new friends, revive old friendships if she wished. But she belonged with Ward and Faye, he told her.

He moved out one Saturday afternoon, as Anne watched him in tears, and she spent the rest of the day in her room. But the next day, she went to the movies with one of her friends, and Faye decided there was hope for her. She hadn't mentioned the pregnancy in a long time, and she never mentioned the baby she had given up, and Faye prayed that she would forget it all if that was possible.

And Faye tried to forget it herself as she dove into her film, and stopped only for the Academy Awards, which were at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium that year. She convinced Lionel and the twins to come. She thought that Anne was too young, so she stayed home in lonely isolation, as usual, refusing to even watch the awards on TV.

Faye didn't think she'd win, and she kept telling Ward all that night as she got dressed that it was ridiculous to get worked up about it, they didn't mean anything anymore … not like when she was young … when she was acting … when it was the first time. “And after all,” she looked at him, as she fastened pearls around her neck, “I've already won two.”

“Show-off.” He teased her and she blushed.

“That's not what I meant.” She looked ravishing in a black velvet dress that showed off the still firm perfectly rounded breasts and he slipped a hand inside her dress now as she shooed him away. She wanted to look perfect tonight. Everyone would be so beautiful and young, and she was forty-seven now … forty-seven … how did it all happen so fast? It seemed like only last year when she was twenty-two … and twenty-five … and she was madly in love with Ward Thayer … and they were dancing at Mocambo's every night. She looked dreamily at Ward, remembering the distant past, and he kissed her gently on the neck.

“You look beautiful tonight, my love. And I think you're going to win.”

“Don't say that!” She didn't even want to think of it. But things had been wonderful between them ever since they got back from their trip. There was an aura of romance which shut out everyone else sometimes, but she didn't mind. She loved being alone with him, in spite of the children they loved so much. They needed just each other at times. And as they left the house that night with the twins, all dressed up in long gowns and the strings of pearls Faye had lent each of them, Faye saw Anne standing in her room and stopped in to kiss her goodnight. She looked like a lonely lost child and Faye was sorry they hadn't invited her too, but she was so young, just fifteen … and it was a Monday night after all, she had told Ward. Anne had school the next day. Yet, she reproached herself for not taking her. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” She kissed Anne's cheek nervously, and her youngest looked up at her, still with that puzzled air that always seemed to be asking her who she was. She had hoped that after she sat through childbirth with her, they would be friends, but it hadn't worked out that way. Secretly, Anne blamed her for causing her to give up the child, and as soon as she had come home from the hospital, the doors had closed again. There was no getting close to her. Except for Lionel, of course. He was both mother and father to her.

“Good luck, Mom.” She called it out carelessly as they left, and then helped herself to something to eat.

They picked up Lionel at his place on the way. He looked very handsome in an old tuxedo of Ward's, and he jabbered with the twins in the back seat of Faye's Jaguar, and Ward complained all the way that it wasn't driving well again, he didn't understand what she did to it. It was one of those nervous nights, when you pretend you're not thinking what you really are. Everyone was there, Richard Burton and Liz, both of them nominees for Virginia Woolf, and she wearing a diamond the size of a fist. The Redgrave sisters were there, both of them nominated as well … Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer. Faye was up against Antoine Lebouch, Mike Nichols, and more for best director. Anouk Aimee, Ida Kaminska, the Redgraves, and Liz Taylor were vying for best actress. Scofield, Arkin, Burton, Caine, and McQueen for best actor. Bob Hope kept everyone amused as emcee, and then suddenly it seemed they were calling Faye's name … she had won for best director again, and she flew toward the stage with tears in her eyes, still feeling Ward's kiss on her lips, and suddenly there she was, looking at all of them, the golden statue clutched in her hands, just as she had held him so long ago the first time she won for best actress in 1942 … a hundred years ago, it seemed and only last night … twenty-five years … and the thrill was still there for her.

“Thank you … all of you … my husband, my family, my co-workers, my friends … thank you.” She beamed and left the stage, and she could hardly remember what happened for the rest of the night.

They came home finally at 2 A.M., and she knew it was too late for the twins to be out, but it was a special night. They had called Anne from the Moulin Rouge but she hadn't answered the phone. Val had suggested that she was probably asleep, but Lionel knew better than that. It was her way of shutting them out, of getting back at them for not including her. And, like his mother, he knew they had made a mistake by not bringing her.

Long afterward, they dropped Lionel off on the way home, and he kissed his mother's cheek again. The twins were strangely silent for the rest of the drive home. Vanessa was half asleep, and Val hadn't said anything to Faye all night. She was seething with anger over her mother's award. Lionel and Vanessa were well aware of it, but Faye seemed not to realize how jealous Val was of her.

“Did you have a good time, girls?” Faye turned to look at them in the car, thinking of the Oscar she had won. They had taken it to be engraved, but she still felt its presence, as though she still held it in her hands. It was impossible to believe it had happened to her again. Now she had three. She beamed at Val, and was startled to see something chilly in her eyes, something she had never recognized quite that clearly before. It wasn't just anger this time, it was jealousy.

“It was all right. You must be pretty pleased with yourself.” They were unkind words, and no one else seemed to hear them quite the way Faye did, but they were aimed straight at her heart, and Val had hit her mark.

“It's very exciting, it always is, I guess.”

Val shrugged as she looked at her. “I hear they give them out of sympathy sometimes.” The comment was so outrageous that Faye laughed at her.

“I don't think I'm quite that over the hill yet, although you never know.” And of course it was true, sometimes they passed one up and then made it up the next year, although they denied that it worked that way, but everyone felt that it did. “Is that what you think this was, Val?” Her mother searched her eyes. “Sympathy?”

“Who knows?” She shrugged indifferently and looked out the window again as they drove up to the house. It irked her that Faye had won and she made no secret of it. She was the first to leave the car, to reach her room, to close the door, and she never mentioned the Oscar again, not even to Anne the next day. Or when her friends mentioned it in school, and congratulated her. That seemed strange, she had nothing to do with it after all and what did she care anyway? So she just shrugged and said, “Yeah, so what? Big deal.” And changed the subject to something that interested her like the Supremes. She was sick of hearing about Faye Thayer. She wasn't so hot. And one day, she would show all of them, she would be an actress who would make Faye Price Thayer look pale by comparison. She only had a few months left before she could get out there and show them her stuff, and she could hardly wait. She'd show them all. To hell with her Mom … three Oscars? So what anyway?