Family Album (23 page)

“Yeah. So what? Big deal.”

“It sure is.” He stared at it in awe, and then reached a hand out to touch it so he could tell his Dad when he picked him up. “Whose is it? Your Mom's or your Dad's?”

It seemed to cost her something to admit it to him. “My Mom's. You want a beer, Joey?” And then he almost fainted. There was another one. They had two!

“My God! She's got two of them! What for?”

“Oh for chrissake. I don't remember. Now do you want a beer or not?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” But he was much more interested in hearing what her mother had won the Oscars for. His Dad would ask him later, and so would his Mom, but Val didn't seem to want to talk about them. “She used to be an actress, didn't she?” He knew she was a director now. Everyone knew that. And her Dad was a big producer at MGM. But Valerie sure didn't talk about it much. She was more interested in booze and boys. At least that was the reputation she had, and he could almost see up her white leather skirt when she sat down. But actually all he glimpsed was a long expanse of inner thigh.

“Did you ever smoke dope?” He hadn't but he didn't want to admit it to her. He was fifteen and a half years old, and he had met her in school that year, but he'd never taken her out. He hadn't had the guts. She was beautiful, and terrifyingly mature.

“Yeah. Once.” And then he couldn't help himself. He had to ask again. “Let's talk about your Mom.”

That was it. She jumped to her feet, her eyes blazing with rage. “No, let's not!”

“Don't be so uptight for chrissake. I'm just curious, that's all.”

Val looked at him with contempt as she strode to the doorway and looked back. “Then ask her, you creep.” And with a flash of her red mane, she was gone, and he stared at the empty doorway in despair and whispered to himself.

“Shit.”

“Oh?” Greg stuck his head in to see who was there, and the boy blushed and jumped to his feet.

“Sorry … I was just relaxing in here … I'll go back outside.”

“That's okay. I do that here all the time. No sweat.” He grinned and disappeared, in hot pursuit of some dark-haired girl, and Joey went back outside. And eventually they all wound up in the pool late that night, in clothes, in bathing suits, in suits, in dresses, in sneakers and bare feet and shoes. They had a wonderful time and it was 3
A.M.
before the last guest went home, and when they were all gone, Lionel walked upstairs with Ward and Faye, and all three of them yawned sleepily as Faye laughed.

“We're a lively bunch … good party though, wasn't it?”

“The best.” Lionel smiled, and kissed his mother goodnight, and when he sat down on his bed in the terry robe he had put on to cover his bathing suit, he sat and stared at the wall for a minute thinking of the day … the diploma … the white gown … the car,… the friends … and the music … and funnily enough, he found himself thinking of John, and what a nice kid he was. He liked him even better than some of his own friends.

CHAPTER 13

The day after the graduation party dawned like any other working day for Faye and Ward. The kids could sleep it off until noon, but they had to be at the studio by nine. Their next movie would be starting soon and the two of them had mountains of work on their desks. It always seemed to require so much discipline to go on, to work, no matter how tired they were, especially when Faye was actually directing the film. Then she was always at the studio before six o'clock, often before the actors were there. But she had to be there, to breathe the air, to get the feel of it. In fact, while they were shooting, it was always difficult to force herself to go home, and sometimes she did not. Sometimes she slept in a dressing room, eating, sleeping, and thinking the script, making it become almost a part of her, until she knew every character as though she had been born in their skin in another life. It was what made her so demanding of the actors who worked for her, but she taught them a kind of discipline they never forgot, and most of the actors in Hollywood talked of Faye Thayer with awe. Her kind of talent was a gift, and she was so much happier than when she had been acting herself. This was the fulfillment she had been looking for, and Ward loved seeing that light in her eye, that light that came only when she was thinking of her work. It made him a little jealous sometimes because he liked what he did, but not with the same determination, the same fire, as what she seemed to feel. She breathed her very soul into her work. And he was thinking of that now. In a few weeks he was going to lose her to their new film, but they both thought it was the best one they had ever done. They were both extremely excited about it, and more than once Faye had said how sorry she was that Abe Abramson was no longer alive. He would have loved this film. But he had died years before. He had lived long enough to see their success, to see her win the second Oscar of her life, this one for directing. But he had died after that, and she still missed him sometimes, as she did now. And she lay back against the seat, looking at Ward and thinking of the night before.

“I'm glad the kids had a good time.”

“So did I.” He smiled at her, but he was painfully hung over, and these days that was rare. He often wondered how he used to drink as much as he did. He couldn't take it anymore, without paying a tremendous price for it. Youth … he smiled to himself … a lot of things changed when you added a few years and gray hair … and other things did not. In spite of the hangover, he and Faye had made love that morning after he got out of the shower. That always got his day off to a good start, and he gently put a hand on her thigh now. “You still drive me wild, you know …”

She blushed faintly and looked pleased. She was still in love with him. Had been for nineteen years, longer if you counted the time they had met in Guadalcanal in '43 … that would make it twenty-one…. “It's mutual, you know.”

“That's good.” He looked pensive as he pulled into the MGM parking lot. The guard at the gate had smiled and waved them in. You could set your clocks by those two, he thought to himself … nice people … with nice kids … and they worked hard. You had to hand it to them. “Maybe we should put a communicating door between our offices, and a lock on my door.”

“Sounds good to me,” she whispered in his ear, and then playfully nipped his neck before sliding out. “What have you got going today, love?”

“Not a hell of a lot. I think almost everything is squared away. What about you?”

“I'm meeting with three of the stars,” she told him who, “I feel like I need to do a lot of talking to all of them before we start, so that everyone's prepared. So that they all know where we're going with this thing.” It was the most challenging movie she'd done. It was about four soldiers during the second world war, and it wasn't a pretty film in that sense. It was brutal and painful and tore your guts out, and most studio heads would have assigned a male director to it, but Dore Schary still trusted her, and she wasn't going to let him down. Or Ward. It hadn't been easy for Ward to raise the money for this film, in spite of their names. But people were afraid that no one would want to see a depressing film. After the assassination of John Kennedy the year before, everybody wanted comic relief, not serious film, but both Ward and Faye had agreed from the start, when they read the script, this was it. It was a brilliant film, the screenplay was magnificent, as the original book had been, and Faye was determined to do right by it. Ward knew she would, but he also knew how nervous she was.

“It's going to be okay, you know.” He smiled at her just outside her office door. They both knew it would be, but he also knew that she needed reassurance from him, and he knew that even more certainly as she answered him.

“I'm scared to death.”

“I know you are. Just relax and enjoy yourself.” But she didn't do that until they started the film, and then she plunged into it even more totally than she usually did. She never got home before midnight or one, was gone again by five
A.M.
, and often didn't come home at all. Ward knew it would go on for months that way, and he had promised her he would keep an eye on the children for her, and he tried. She had always worked that way, when she was directing a movie she was totally involved, and when she was finished she spent her life folding shirts, doing laundry, driving car pools. She took special pride in it, but right now, even the children were far, far from her mind.

Ward came back to the studio to pick her up late one night, he didn't trust her to drive when she was that tired, or that wrapped up in her work. He was afraid she'd wind up in a tree off the freeway somewhere, so he came to pick her up, and she collapsed on the front seat of his car like a little rag doll as he leaned over and kissed her cheek. She opened one eye sleepily and smiled at him. “I may not survive this one….” Her voice was deep and hoarse. She had drunk gallons of coffee all day long, and talked endlessly, urging them on, begging for more from them, and her actors hadn't disappointed her. She looked at Ward and he smiled.

“It's going to be great, babe. I've been watching the dailies all week.”

“What do you think?” She had seen them herself, and she kept seeing what was wrong and never what was right, but in the last two days she had seen a ray of hope. The actors were really working hard, as hard as she was, to give it their all. “Think it'll fly?” She looked terrified as she asked. His judgment was better than anyone else she knew and she trusted him implicitly, but he was smiling at her.

“It'll fly right over the moon, love. And that Oscar is going to fly right into your hands again.”

“Never mind that. I just want it to be good. I want us to be proud of it.”

“We will.” He was sure of that, and he was always proud of her, just as she was of him. He had come so far, for a man who had started out never working a day in his life until he turned thirty-five. It was miraculous what he had done with himself, and she never lost sight of that. She was always proud of him, more so than he knew. Much, much more.

She lay her head back on the seat again. “How are the kids?”

“They're okay.” She didn't need the petty aggravations now. The cleaning woman was threatening to quit, Anne and Val had had a major fight, and Greg had put a dent in the car, but they were all minor problems he could handle himself. Still, he was always grateful when she finished work and went back to running the house. He often wondered how she stood the daily irritation of it all. It always drove him nuts, though he didn't tell her that. “They're all busy. The twins have been baby-sitting every day, Greg leaves for the ranch next week.” He didn't add aloud, Thank God. At least it would be quieter without the phone ringing, and doors slamming, and half a dozen of Greg's buddies playing catch with a favorite vase. “We hardly see Lionel now that he has a job.”

“Does he like it?” She opened her eyes. She would have asked him herself but she hadn't seen him in weeks.

“I think so. He hasn't complained anyway.”

“That doesn't say much. Li never complains.” And then she thought of something else. “I should have lined something up for Anne. I just didn't think we'd get going so soon.” But the money had come in, the set had been free. Everything had fallen into place, and instead of late September, they had started in June. That was unusual, and Faye didn't want to make trouble by saying that she wasn't free to start, but it meant deserting her kids for the summer, which was complicated, and Anne had steadfastly refused to go to camp. “What's she doing all day?”

“She's all right. Mrs. Johnson is there till I come home. She has friends over and they hang around the pool. I told them I'd take them to Disneyland next week.”

“You're a saint.” She yawned and smiled at him at the same time, and she leaned heavily on him as they walked into the house. The girls were still awake. Val's hair was set on giant curlers, and she was wearing a bikini that would have made Faye gasp if she had had the strength. She made a mental note to say something to her the next day, if she had time, and saw the child. They were listening to music in the den, and Vanessa was in a nightgown and talking to a friend on the phone, oblivious to the noise that Valerie was making.

“Where's Anne?” Faye asked Val and she shrugged, mouthing the words to the song. She had to ask again before Valerie answered her.

“Upstairs I guess.”

“Is she asleep?”

“Probably.” But Vanessa shook her head. She had the uncanny knack of listening to several conversations at once and often did. Faye went upstairs to kiss her youngest child goodnight. She already knew that Greg was out with friends, and Lionel was having dinner with some people from work a note in the kitchen had said, which accounted for everyone. She liked knowing where all her children were, and she often worried about that on the set. Ward was more relaxed than she was about letting them do what they wanted, and she wanted him to keep a tight rein on them, but he never did. He would have gone mad if he had, that and run the house.

She gently opened the door, and as she came up the stairs, she could have sworn she saw a light, but the room was dark now, Anne was curled up in her bed, her back to the door, and Faye stood there for a long moment, and then walked to her, and gently touched the soft halo of hair. “Goodnight, little one,” she whispered and then bent to kiss her cheek. She closed the door again and walked on to her own room with Ward, telling him about the film again and sinking into a hot bath before going to bed. And a few minutes later she heard the girls come upstairs, they pounded on her door and yelled goodnight, and she didn't see Vanessa go to her younger sister's room. The light was on again, and Anne was reading
Gone
with the Wind.

“Did you see Mom?” Vanessa searched her face and saw something strange in her eyes, something hidden and distant that was almost always there, except with Li. Anne shook her head. “How come?” She didn't want to admit that she had turned off the light and pretended to be asleep, but Vanessa guessed. “You played possum, didn't you?” There was a long hesitation again and the girl shrugged. “Why?”