Family Album (19 page)

“I suppose you're living in Beverly Hills again?” There was a sharp edge to her voice that cut through him like a knife, just as she had intended it to. He had hurt her terribly when he left, and he was probably just coming back to torment her again. She instantly assumed the worst.

He turned to her quietly. “I'm not living in Beverly Hills, Faye. Do you really think I would leave all of you in a place like this and go back to Beverly Hills myself?” He looked horrified and Faye just stared at him. Somehow that was exactly what she had assumed.

“I don't know what you'd do, Ward.” She certainly hadn't noticed the checks rolling in from him, but they had been managing on the income from their small fund and her salary. Actually, she wondered what he'd been living on for the past few months, but she had no desire to ask.

And at that point, the children came running in, and Lionel stopped in the garden doorway, shocked to see him there, and then advanced slowly toward him with wide eyes. But when Greg saw his father, he thundered past Lionel and hurled himself into his arms. The twins followed suit, as Anne simply stood staring at him, with no idea who he was. She didn't remember him and she looked up at Faye and held her hands out to be picked up, as her mother obliged, watching the other four climb all over Ward, laughing and screeching as he tickled them. Only Lionel seemed more cautious than the other three, and he looked toward Faye again and again, as though needing to know what she thought of it. “It's all right, Lionel,” she said gently. “You can play with your Dad.” But he remained on the fringe, watching them. And at last, Ward talked them all into getting cleaned up, with the promise of taking them out to lunch for a hamburger and an ice-cream cone.

“Do you mind?” He asked her after the children had gone upstairs.

“No,” she looked at him cautiously. “I don't.” She looked nervous as she faced him now, but he seemed equally so. Four months was a long time. They were almost strangers again.

“I have a job, Faye.” He said it as though he expected trumpets to play and she resisted the urge to smile.

“Oh?”

“In a bank … it's not a very important job. I got it from one of my father's friends. I just sit at a desk all day and collect a check at the end of the week.” He looked surprised, as though he had expected it to be more painful than that, like surgery.

“Oh?”

“Well, aren't you going to say anything, dammit?” He was angry at her again. Suddenly, she was so hard to please, and she had never been like that. Maybe going back to work had taken its toll on her. He knew she didn't just sit at a desk all day waiting for her check on Friday afternoons. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Are you working these days?” He knew she couldn't be, or she wouldn't have been at home playing with the kids, at least it hadn't been that way when he was around.

“No, not for another month. I'll be doing my own picture this time.” She was instantly annoyed at herself for saying too much. It was none of his business anymore what she did, but it felt good telling him anyway. It had always felt good telling him everything.

“That's great.” He seemed to hop from one foot to the other, watching her, not sure what to say to her. “Any big stars in it?”

“A few.”

He lit a cigarette. He had never smoked before. “We haven't heard from your attorney yet.”

“I haven't had time to take care of it.” But that wasn't entirely true. She had been free for several months, not that he could know that. “You will.”

“Oh.”

And then the children came thundering down. He took all four of the older ones to lunch, offering to drive them in his new car. A 1949 Ford. It still looked practically new and Ward glanced apologetically at her. “A Duesenberg it's not, but it gets me back and forth to work.” She resisted the urge to tell him she still took the bus. The station wagon had finally died the month before, leaving them with no transportation at all. “Would you like to come to lunch with us, Faye?”

She started to say no, but the children begged her so loudly that it was easier just to give in and go, and part of her was curious about him, where he had been, what he had done, where he was living now. She wondered if he was still involved with Maisie Abernathie, but she told herself she didn't care anymore, and almost convinced herself until she saw the way the waitress looked at him and then she felt herself flush. He was still a very handsome young man, and women certainly seemed to notice him, more than men ever noticed her. But then, she still wore her wedding band, and everywhere she went, she dragged five children along.

“They're wonderful.” He praised her on the way home, as the four children pushed and shoved each other on the back seat of the dark blue Ford. “You've done a good job with them.”

“It isn't as if you've been gone for ten years, for heaven's sake, Ward.”

“It feels like it sometimes.” He was silent for a little while and then glanced at her when they paused at a red light. “I sure miss all of you.”

She wanted to blurt out “We miss you too,” but she forced herself to say nothing at all, and was surprised when she felt his hand on hers. “I've never stopped regretting what I did, if that counts at all.” His voice was so low the children couldn't hear, and they were making such a ruckus they wouldn't have heard anyway. “And I've never done it again. I haven't gone out with another woman since I walked out of our house.” “Our house,” strange words from him, referring to that awful place, and what he said touched her heart as her eyes filled with tears, and she turned to look at him. “I love you, Faye.” They were the words she had longed to hear for four months and instinctively she reached out her arms to him. They were at the house by then and the children tumbled out of the car. Ward told them to go inside, and he would be there momentarily. “Babe … I love you more than you'll ever know.”

“I love you too.” Suddenly she began to sob, and pulled away to look at him with ravaged eyes. “It's been so awful without you, Ward …”

“It was just as terrible for me. I thought I'd die without you and the kids. Suddenly, I realized all we had, even without our old life and a big house …”

“We don't need all that.” She sniffed and smiled. “But we do need you.”

“Not as much as I need you, Faye Thayer.” He looked at her hesitantly. “Or is it Faye Price again?”

She laughed through her tears. “Not a chance!” And at the same time noticed that he was still wearing his wedding band too. And at that exact moment, Greg was calling to him from the house.

“I'm coming, son! Just a minute.” He shouted back. There was so much left to say, but Faye slid slowly out of the car.

“Go ahead. They've missed you too.”

“Not half as much as I've missed them,” and then, with a look of desperation in his eyes, as he reached out and grabbed her arm, “Faye, please … can we try again? I'll do anything you want. I stopped drinking as soon as I left. I realized what a complete jerk I had been. I've got a lousy job, but at least it's something … Faye …” Tears filled his eyes and suddenly he couldn't contain his feelings for her anymore. He bowed his head and began to cry, and after a moment he looked at her honestly. “I didn't know what to do with myself when you went to work. I felt as though I wasn't a man anymore … as though I never had been … but, oh God, I don't want to lose you, Faye … please … oh babe, please …” He pulled her into his arms, and Faye felt as though her heart had found its home again. She had never really given up on him. She wasn't even sure she ever could. She put her head on his shoulder and the tears began to flow again.

“I hated you so much for a while … or at least I wanted to …”

“I wanted to hate you too, but I knew I was the one who was wrong.”

“Maybe I was too. Maybe going back to work wasn't the right thing, but I didn't know what else to do.”

He shook his head. “You were right,” and then he smiled at her through his own tears, “you and your crazy ideas about making me a producer one day …” He smiled tenderly at her. What a good woman she was, how lucky he was to have her back in his arms, even for an hour or two.

She was shaking her head at him. “That wasn't a crazy idea. It's possible, Ward. I could teach you everything you need to know. You could hang around the set on this next film.” She looked hopeful but this time he shook his head.

“Can't. I'm a working man now. Nine to five and all that.”

She laughed. “All right, but you could still be a producer one day, if that's what you want.”

He sighed and put an arm around his wife. “Sounds like pipe dreams to me, my friend.”

“Maybe not.” She looked up at him, wondering what life would bring. At least it had brought him home to her again.

He stood in the doorway to the ugly house in Monterey Park, looking at her. “Do we give it another try? … No … more correctly, will you give me another chance, Faye?” She looked at him long and hard, and slowly a small smile dawned in her eyes. It was a smile born of wisdom and disappointment and pain. She was no longer a young girl. Life was no longer the same as it had been a few years before. Her whole world had turned upside down, and she had survived. And now this man was asking her to walk along beside him again. He had hurt her, deserted her, cheated on her, betrayed her. And yet, deep inside, she still knew that he was her friend, that he loved her, and she him, and that she always would. He didn't have the same instincts that she had, and was not nearly as well equipped to survive. But perhaps, side by side, hand in hand … maybe … just maybe … in fact, she was sure of it. More important, she was sure of him again.

“I love you, Ward.” She smiled up at him, feeling suddenly young again. It had been an endless few months without him. She never wanted to live through that again. She could survive anything but that, even poverty.

He stood kissing her then, as the children looked on, and suddenly they all began to laugh, and Greg pointed at them, laughing the hardest of all, as Ward and Faye began laughing too. Life was sweet again, as it had been long before, only better now. They had both been through hell and back, not unlike Guadalcanal in some ways. But they had won the war. Finally. And now life could begin again. For all of them.

CHAPTER 10

Ward gave up his furnished room in West Hollywood, without ever staying there again, and he moved back into the ugly house he hated so much in Monterey Park, without ever noticing this time how dreary it was. It looked wonderful to him as he carried his bags up the stairs to their room.

They had three idyllic weeks before the children went back to school, and Faye began her new film. And when she did, he insisted that she take the car, while he took the bus to work, which saved her hours on the bus at 4 and 5
A.M.
, and she was grateful to him. He was nicer to her than he had ever been before. And if it was no longer emerald pendants and ruby pins, it was dinners he had prepared for her with his own hands, and then kept warm until she came home, little presents he bought when he got paid, like a book, or a radio, or a warm sweater for her to wear on the set. It was massages he gave her when she was so tired she wanted to cry, and the hot baths he ran with bath oil he had bought. He was so good to her, at times it almost made her cry. Month after month he proved to her how much he loved her, and she proved the same to him, and from the ashes of their old life emerged a stronger relationship than they had ever had before and the ugly months began to fade. Still they rarely allowed themselves to reminisce about the old days. It was too painful for both of them.

In many ways Faye enjoyed her new life. Her first job as director went very well, and she was given three pictures to do in 1954, all with major stars. Each of them was a major box-office hit. She had begun to make a name for herself in Hollywood again, not as a pretty face or a big star, but as a director with a fine mind, a great gift, and amazing power with her stars. She could get a heartrending performance out of a rock Abe Abramson said, and Dore Schary didn't disagree with him. They were both proud of her, and when the first offer of 1955 came in, Faye demanded what she had wanted from them for years. She had been grooming him ever since he came back, and she knew he was ready now. Her agent almost fell off his seat when she explained her conditions to him.

“And you want me to tell Dore that?” He looked shocked. The guy didn't know a damn thing about pictures and Faye was out of her goddamn mind as far as he was concerned. He had thought she was crazy when she took him back. It was the first time he had ever disagreed with her, but he never told her what he thought. Not then. But he did now. “You're nuts! They'll never buy a package like that. He has no background at all. The guy is thirty-eight years old, Faye, and he has no more idea how to be a producer than my dog.”

“That's a disgusting thing to say, and I don't give a damn what you think. He's learned something about finance in the last two years, he has a sharp mind, and he has some influential friends.” But more importantly than that, Ward had finally grown up, and Faye was enormously proud of him.

“Faye, I just can't sell a package like that.” Abe was sure of it.

“Then you can't sell me, Abe. Those are my terms.” She was as hard as rock, and Abe wanted to reach across his desk and strangle her.

“You're making a big mistake. You're going to blow everything. If you screw this up, no one will ever touch you again. You know damn well how hard it was to sell a woman director at first. And everyone is just waiting for you to fall on your face. No one else will give you the chance Dore gave you, not again….” He was running out of arguments, and she held up a hand, bare of rings except for her simple gold wedding band which she hadn't taken off since her wedding day. All the other jewelry Ward had given her had been sold long ago. She didn't even miss it anymore. It was part of another life, another time.

“I know all of that, Abe. And you know what I want.” She stood up and looked down at him. “You can do it if you try. It's up to you. But those are my terms.” He wanted to throw something at the door after she left.

But he was even more stunned when MGM accepted her terms.