Family Album (20 page)

“They're even crazier than you are, Faye.”

“They said yes?” She was in shock as she clutched the phone.

“You two start next month. At least he does. He starts first and then you come into it once the film gets under way. Producer, director, with your own offices at MGM.” He still couldn't get over it, and he sat at his desk shaking his head. “Good luck … and listen, you'd both better get your asses in here and sign the contracts right away before they come to their senses and change their minds.”

“We'll come in this afternoon.”

“Damn right,” he growled. And when they did go in Faye was proud of Ward again.

It was a terrible thing to say, but the hard times had been good for him. There was an air of quiet maturity about him now, and intelligence. Abe began to think he might just pull it off after all, and he knew she'd do everything to help. He wound up shaking hands with both of them and kissing Faye's cheek, wishing them luck, and shaking his head once they had left. You never knew … it was possible … just possible….

The movie was a huge box-office hit, and their career took off after that, producing and directing two to three films a year. In 1956 they were finally able to leave the house Ward had hated so much, although now neither of them had time to notice it. They rented another house for two years. And in 1957, five years after they had left, they were in Beverly Hills again. Not in the grandiose splendor they once had known, but in a pretty, well-kept house with a garden front and back, five bedrooms, which gave them an office at home, and a modest swimming pool. The children were enchanted with it, and Abe Abramson was happy for them. But not as happy as Ward and Faye Thayer were. They had made it back. It was like returning from the war all over again, and they clung to their careers for dear life, appreciating every moment of it.

CHAPTER 11

His office at MGM looked out at nothing in particular, and he glanced out without much interest, while giving dictation. When Faye walked in, she looked across the room at her husband's profile, and smiled to herself. At forty-seven years of age, he was as handsome as he had been twenty years before. More so perhaps, his hair had turned white and his eyes were the same wonderful deep blue. His face was lined, but his body was still long and lean and sinewy, and he was holding a pencil as he measured his words. It was about their next film, slated to go into production in three weeks, and almost on schedule this time. He was fearsome about that. Ward Thayer Productions went out on time, and were expected to come in on time too. And God help those who didn't cooperate with him. They never worked for him again. He had learned a lot in the last ten years. Faye had been right. He was a genius at producing films, more so than anyone had suspected at first. He learned to budget everything well in advance, and came in with investment money from sources that boggled everyone. He tapped the resources of his friends at first, but after that he became ingenious at going out to corporations for funds, conglomerates looking to diversify. As Abe Abramson had said about Ward, “He could charm the birds off trees,” and he had again and again. He and Faye had worked long into the night for months, figuring it all out together for the first few years. But after the first half-dozen films, Ward was really on his own. She stuck to her directing. He put the packages together long before she got involved in the directing and together they produced hit after hit. They were often called Hollywood's Golden Team. And although they had their flops, most of the time they could do no wrong.

Faye was so damn proud of Ward. She had been for a long time. The drinking had stopped, there had been no other women in his life since that distant interlude when they had been separated in 1953. He had worked hard, done well, and she was happy with him. Happier even than they had been in those early fairy-tale years. Those years no longer seemed real to her, and Ward seldom mentioned them anymore. She knew he still missed that life, the easy life, the trips, the estate, dozens of servants … the Duesenbergs … but they had a good life now. Who could complain? They enjoyed their work, and the kids were almost grown up.

She smiled quietly at Ward now, and glanced at her watch. She would have to interrupt him soon. And as though he had sensed her in the room, he turned and smiled at her, their eyes met and held, in the way that people still envied them after all these years. There was something very special about Ward and Faye Thayer, a love which still burned brightly and was the envy of all their friends. Their life hadn't been without pain. But there had been rich rewards too.

“Thanks, Angela, we can finish the rest this afternoon.” He stood up and came around the desk to kiss his wife. “Time to go?” He pecked Faye on the cheek and she smiled up at him. He still wore the same after-shave after all these years, and it was always like an announcement that Ward had been in the room. If she closed her eyes, it still conjured up the same romantic images of long before, but there was no time for that today. Lionel was graduating from Beverly Hills High. They had to be there in half an hour, and the other children were waiting to be picked up at home.

Faye glanced at the handsome sapphire and gold Piaget watch he had given her the year before. “I think we should go, sweetheart. The troops are probably hysterical by now.”

“No,” he grinned at her, as he grabbed his jacket and followed her out, “only Valerie.” They both laughed. They knew the children well, or thought they did. Valerie was by far the most high strung, ebullient, excitable, with the worst temper coupled with the most strident demands. She lived up to her red hair, most of the time, in sharp contrast to her subdued twin. And Greg had lots of energy too, but he used it differently, all he thought about were sports, and lately girls. And then there was Anne, their “invisible child,” as Faye referred to her sometimes. She spent most of her time in her room, reading, or writing poetry. She always seemed separate from the rest. She always had. And it was only when she was with Lionel that a different side of her came out, that she laughed and joked and teased, but if the others pushed her too hard, she would retreat again. It seemed to Faye that she was always saying to the others “Where's Anne?” and sometimes they even forgot to ask. It was difficult to know the child, and she was never quite sure she did, which seemed an odd thing to say about one's own child, but it truly seemed to apply to Anne.

Ward and Faye waited for the elevator at MGM. They had their own complex of offices now, handsomely decorated all in white and bright blue and chrome. Faye had redone it all herself two years before, when Thayer Productions Inc. officially established permanent offices at MGM. In the early days they had had temporary offices there, and then they had set up shop halfway across town, and as a result, spent half their life in cars driving to meetings with the MGM staff. But now they were both independent and at the same time part of MGM, subcontracting to them for two years at a time, working on their own projects as well as those they undertook for MGM. It was an ideal position to be in, and Ward was satisfied with the way things had worked out, although he privately thought it was all because of Faye. He told himself that, and once confessed it to her, although she disagreed violently with him, insisting that he didn't appreciate his own worth. And he didn't of course. She had always been so much more the star, so much more in control of everything. She had known everyone in the industry for years and they respected her. But they respected him too now, whether he admitted it to himself or not, and Faye wished he would. It was difficult to convince him of how important he was. Somehow he was never quite sure. But in another way, that was part of his charm, the boyish ingenuousness that had followed him into middle age, and still gave him the appearance and the sweetness of youth.

Their car was parked in the parking lot, a black convertible Cadillac they'd had for two years. They kept a huge station wagon at home for when they went out with the kids, and Faye had a small bottle-green Jaguar she loved to drive. But somehow, even at that, they never seemed to have enough cars. Now that both Lionel and Greg could drive, they were always fighting over the station wagon, a situation which was about to end, unknown to Lionel, that afternoon. As a combination graduation and birthday gift, they were giving him one of the new little Mustangs that had just come out. It was bright red, convertible, with white sidewalls and red upholstery. Faye had been even more excited than Ward when they picked it up the night before, and they had snuck it into their neighbors' garage. They could hardly wait to give it to the boy that afternoon, after they all went to lunch at the Polo Lounge to celebrate, and there was to be a party for him at the house that night.

“It seems incredible, doesn't it?” Faye looked over at Ward as they drove home and she smiled nostalgically. “He's going to be eighteen … and graduating from high school … it seems like yesterday doesn't it, when he was just a little thing learning to walk?” Her words conjured up images of the old days, and Ward was thoughtful as they drove along. All of that had changed forever twelve years before, and it still saddened him sometimes when he thought of it. That had been such a good life, but so was this, and that didn't even seem real anymore. It was a lost world, and he glanced at Faye now.

“You haven't changed a bit since then, you know.” He smiled appreciatively at her. She was still beautiful, her hair was still almost the same peachy blond, and she colored the gray so it didn't show. At forty-four, her figure was still good, her skin clear and smooth, and the green eyes still danced with emerald fire. He looked older than she did now, by quite a bit, but it was because of his white hair. His blond hair had turned early, but it suited him. It was in sharp contrast to the youthful face, and she often thought that she liked him better like this. He looked more mature. She leaned over to kiss his neck as he drove.

“You lie beautifully, my love. I look older every year, but you're still pretty dashing, you know.”

He chuckled with a look of embarrassment and pulled her closer to him. “You're going to be cute thirty years from now, you know that? Necking with me as we drive along … pulled over maybe … catching a quickie in the back seat …” She laughed at the thought, and he noticed the long, graceful neck he had always loved, amazingly still free of lines. He often thought that she should have stayed in films herself. She would still have been beautiful, and she knew so much about the art. He was reminded of it every time he saw her direct, but she was so damn good at that too. There was very little Faye Thayer couldn't do. The realization of that used to bother him, but he was proud of her now. She was just one of those people who could do many things well. But the odd thing was that he was too, although he didn't recognize it, and would have argued, and often did, when Faye told him that. He didn't have the self-confidence she had, even now, or the drive, or the assurance that let her cast herself at anything, sure that she could accomplish it.

She glanced at the Piaget watch again now. “Are we late?” Ward frowned as he looked at her. He didn't want to let Lionel down. He wasn't as close to him as he was to Greg, but Li was his oldest son after all, and this was his big day, and when he saw the car … Ward smiled again.

“We're not late yet, and what are you smiling at?” Faye looked at him curiously.

“I was just thinking of Li's face when he sees the car.”

“God, he's going to die!” She giggled to herself again, and Ward smiled. She was so crazy about that boy, always had been, almost too much so, he thought sometimes, and too protective of him. She was never willing to let him take the physical risks Greg took, or be exposed to as many things. He didn't have Greg's physical strength, she always said, or his ability to take hard knocks, emotionally or otherwise, but Ward was never as sure. Maybe he would have been tougher, if Faye had given him a chance. And in other ways he was so much like her, he was as quietly stubborn as Faye herself had always been, as determined about what he wanted to do, at all costs, as certain. He even looked like her, if you squinted they could almost have been twins, and spiritually, they were, to the exclusion of everyone else sometimes. If Ward had been honest about it, he would have been jealous of the boy sometimes. She was so close to him as he grew up, they confided in each other so much, it left everyone else out, especially Ward, who resented it. Lionel was always polite to him, pleasant, but he never went out of his way to seek him out, to go anywhere with him … not like Greg, who bounded up to Ward the moment he came home, every night for the last sixteen years, or ever since he could walk anyway. Sometimes Ward even found him asleep on his side of the big double bed when he got home at night. Greg would have some urgent adventure to relate to him and wanted to be sure he woke up when they got home. The sun rose and set on his Dad, and Ward had to admit that that kind of passionate approval was hard to beat, and it made Lionel's shy aloofness seem even more difficult to penetrate. Why even try when you had a child like Gregory panting at your feet? But he knew he owed something to his oldest son. He had just never been quite sure what.