Family Album

by Danielle Steel

  “No, Dad.” He said it very gently, with kind eyes. “I haven't “changed my mind.'” Ward looked embarrassed and Lionel smiled. “It doesn't work that way. But there hasn't been anyone since John if that's what you meant.” His face sobered thinking of his lost love. It had been a year and a half, and he still missed him terribly. In some ways, it was easier being in Vietnam. He didn't have to see the places where they had once been. It was a whole new life. And Ward could see how painful it still was for him.

  They had a pleasant day and a half before the others began to arrive. First, Jason and Vanessa, from New York. They flew to Reno and rented a car, reaching the house in the late afternoon , and driving up to the house. Vanessa got out and stretched, and Jason looked around, surprised at how beautiful it was. And as Lionel came across the lawn to them, Jason was surprised. He spotted instantly what Van's brother was, and he wondered why she hadn't told him he was gay.

  “Hello.” He had warm eyes, and he looked a little bit like Van, “I'm Lionel Thayer.”

  “Jason Stuart.” The two men shook hands, commenting on how pretty the place was. There was a spectacular view of the lake, and a moment later, Faye and Ward came up from the beach in bathing suits. He with a fishing pole but not visible results and Faye teasing him all the way, in a black maillot that set off her still-beautiful shape. And now he could see where the real resemblance was. Lionel looked exactly like Faye. And although Jason wouldn't have admitted it to Van, it was impressive meeting her. She was beautiful and intelligent, and her eyes danced with a million ideas. She made everyone laugh, and she had a deep sexy voice. He thought she was one of the most interesting women he'd ever met, as they sat deep in conversation that night. She was quizzing him about his thesis, his plans, his ideas, and he suddenly realized how difficult it must have been to have grown up with her. She was so damn beautiful, and so bright, it would have been impossible to compete with her, and it explained to him now why Vanessa was so quiet and subdued and her twin sister so wild. Van had obviously chosen not to compete at all, but to lead her own quiet life, and Val was still fighting her every inch of the way, but in a way that assured she would never win. She was trying to be more spectacular, more beautiful, she was trying to beat her at her own game, and she could only lose at that. Lionel had gone into film, but in a totally different vein, and he was curious to meet the other two now. Greg arrived next, talking constantly of playing ball, drinking beer, chasing girls. It was almost exhausting to be in the same room with him, but whenever Jason watched Ward talk to him, he saw his eyes light up. This was his adored son, his hero, his jock. And he could only begin to imagine the pain it must have caused Lionel for most of his life. He attempted to talk to Greg once or twice, the day he arrived, but he had nothing much to say, and he always seemed to have something else on his mind.

  And then finally Val arrived with Anne. She had stayed in town as long as she could, and agreed to drive her sister up, although she wasn't in the mood to leave town just then. There was a new horror movie being cast, and she didn't want to get passed up. But she couldn't do everything, and she knew there would be another one being cast in two weeks. They were practically a specialty with her now, and she didn't care how much her friends made fun of her. She was working almost all the time, and she was making money regularly.

  “Come on,” everyone teased once they'd all arrived, as Lionel turned off the lights in the living room, “let us hear it, Val, the famous Valerie Thayer scream.” She had done dozens of them now, and everyone begged as she laughed, and then finally, standing up in the dark, near the fire, she began to clutch her throat, made a hideous face, and let out a long piercing scream. It was so convincing that they all watched her, horrified, thinking she was choking at first, and then realizing what she had done. She was doing it for them, and she seemed to go on for hours and then suddenly, collapsed in a heap. The audience was thrilled and they clapped and cheered, Jason loudest of all. He and Van had gone canoeing with her that afternoon, and she'd been funny as hell. He was rapidly becoming one of her most ardent fans. And to prove that it was mutual, she had calmly handed him a frog on the way back to the house. He had jumped, Van had screamed, and Val had accused them both of being ridiculous.

  “Hell, I worked with two hundred of them at once on the movie I did in Rome.” And then suddenly all three of them started to laugh, and they raced each other back to the house. It was like being kids again. And Lionel, Ward, and Greg had gone off fishing somewhere that day, and returned with several trout, which they tried to convince Faye to cook, but she told them it was their treat instead. Lionel thought that Greg was a little quiet, and he wondered if there was anything on his mind. But all in all, everyone was having fun. And Faye had spent a quiet afternoon, lying on the beach with Anne. She hadn't wanted to go canoeing with Jason and the twins, or fishing with the boys, and Faye wasn't even sure she wanted to lie on the beach with her. But she had nothing else to do, so she stuck around, and read a book. In the end, her friend Gail had decided not to come along. She didn't want to intrude on their family reunion, and had gone to San Francisco with her father instead, which left Anne feeling lonely again. She wrote a letter, and went quietly into the house at one point, and Faye had glimpsed her on the phone. Faye suspected that she was just at the age when she didn't want to leave her friends, and she wasn't thrilled about the trip, but it was doing them all good. By the second week, they were all relaxed and brown. Ward and Jason were great friends, the twins hadn't enjoyed each other as much in years, and Greg seemed to have relaxed finally. Even Anne was having fun, and she went on a long walk with Vanessa one day, when Jason had driven Faye into town. Vanessa glanced at her, thinking again how grown up she looked now. She was sixteen and a half, but her experiences seemed to have matured her far more than her years.

  “I like your friend.” She said it quietly, and Van was reminded of how withdrawn she had always been.

  “Jason? So do I. He's a nice guy.”

  “I think he likes you a lot too.” They both nodded, it was obvious that he did, and that he even enjoyed her family now. He had been so frightened of what they would all do to him. He had finally confessed that he thought it would be like being in a line-up, or being interrogated by each of them, and instead they all had foibles and weird traits of their own. And he liked them all, even shy little Anne, who was looking at her big sister curiously now. “Think you'll marry him?” Vanessa knew that everyone was wondering that, but she was only nineteen and she didn't want to think about that now. Not for several years.

  “We never talk about it.”

  “Why not?” Anne looked surprised.

  “I still have a lot to do. I want to finish school … do my own thing … try to write …”

  “That could all take years.”

  “I'm not in a rush.”

  “I'll bet he is though. He's a lot older than you. Does that bother you, Van?” She wondered what her sister would think of the thirty-three years between her and Bill. Their difference was nothing compared to that.

  “Sometimes. Why?”

  “Just curious.” They had sat down on a rock, and were dangling their feet in a stream. Anne was staring into the water, dreamy-eyed, and Vanessa saw something in her eyes that made her wonder what went on in the younger girl's head. They were only three years apart, but sometimes it felt more like ten, and it felt as though Anne were the older of the two, almost as if she had lived too much and felt too much pain. She turned to Vanessa then as though reading her thoughts. “I'd marry him if I were you, Van.” She looked old and wise and Vanessa smiled.

  “Why?”

  “Because you may not find one as nice as him again. A good man is worth anything.”

  “Is that what you think?” Vanessa looked at her, seeing something illegible in her eyes again, and she suddenly sensed that there was a man in her life, possibly an important one. It was hard to tell with Anne. She gave so little away, but there was something there that was more th
an any young girl knew, and she turned her face away, as though to keep Vanessa from seeing what was there. “What about you? Anyone special in your life?” She tried to keep her voice light and sound casual, but Anne instantly shrugged, almost too fast.

  “No, nothing much.”

  “No one at all?”

  “Nope.”

  Van knew she lied but there was nothing she could say, and eventually they put their sneakers back on and walked back, but one night she said something to Li. He knew her so well.

  “I think Anne is involved with someone.”

  “What makes you say that?” He wasn't in touch with her doings anymore. He had been in Vietnam for six months by then, and she didn't confide in him now.

  “Just a feeling … I can't tell you why … but she looks different….” She couldn't put her finger on it and her brother laughed, and looked into her eyes instead.

  “What about you, Sis? How serious is your attachment to this guy?” She wondered if they would all ask her before they left, and she grinned.

  “Relax. Anne asked me the same thing today. I told her it's just for now.” She was being mostly honest with him. How could she know now what the future would bring?

  “Too bad. I think he's nice.”

  She looked at him and grinned, teasing him for the first time in years. “You can't have him, he's mine.”

  He snapped his fingers and grinned. “Aww shit.”

  Greg came up behind them just then, and looked from Lionel to Van. “What's this all about?” But Vanessa didn't explain it to him. She just said something nonchalant, and went off to find her much-talked-about, apparently popular friend. And she found him with Val, who was teasing him mercilessly about how straight he was. Ward and Faye were sitting on the porch drinking wine, and Anne was somewhere, inside, on the phone, calling a friend again.

  “Probably Gail.” Her mother smiled at Ward, and he shrugged. All was well. There was no need to pry. They were seeing plenty of all of them, and he was happy to say he liked them all. Not all of them were turning out the way he'd planned. He'd had other hopes for Lionel, of course, and he would have liked to see Val going to school instead of learning to scream, but Anne was back on the right track, and Vanessa was certainly doing well, and Greg was their star of course. Although less than Ward thought, as he was admitting to Lionel at that particular point, down near the beach, as they sat on a log, watching the sun go down. Lionel had finally discovered what Greg had been worrying about ever since they'd arrived. It had spilled out like a hundred dollars' worth of groceries from a torn paper bag.

  “I just don't know what to tell Dad, Li … if I get kicked off the team….” He closed his eyes, unable to finish the thought, but Lionel's face looked grim. It would be a terrible disappointment to Ward, but there was more to it than that, as he knew only too well. He saw boys like Greg every day, lying dead on the ground, their guts spilling through bullet wounds as his camera whirred.

  “What the hell did you do a dumb thing like that for?” They had caught him smoking dope in the spring, and benched him, unbeknownst to Ward, who thought he'd hurt his foot. But his grades were so bad that there was a possibility they might not even let him back on the team.

  “Christ, they could even throw me out of school if they wanted to.” There were tears in his eyes, but it felt good to talk about it at last. It had been killing him for weeks.

  Without thinking, Lionel grabbed his arm and looked intensely in his eyes. “You can't let that happen. You've got to go back and work your ass off to get those grades up. Hire a tutor if you have to, do anything….” He knew whereof he spoke, and Greg had no idea of what was out there. But he was scared anyway.

  Greg looked at him in utter despair. “I may have to cheat.”

  Lionel groaned and shook his head. “No, you dumb ass.” It was like being kids again, and at least the confidence felt good now. They had never really been friends, not in years, not since they had begun to grow up and Lionel had sensed the difference in himself. And certainly not since Greg had known the truth about him. But funnily enough, Lionel had been the one he had come to now. He had wanted to talk to him for days. He didn't know Jason well enough, and he couldn't tell his Dad, and he had to tell someone what was happening to him. But Lionel was glaring at him furiously now. “If you cheat, you asshole, they'll throw you out for sure. You have to do everything by the books. Because if you don't, and they throw you out, they're going to grab you up so fast for Vietnam that your head will spin. You're exactly what they want. Young, healthy, strong, and dumb.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean that. And when I say dumb, I mean of lot of things. I mean you're not old enough to be out there in the jungle worrying about your wife and kids. You'll just watch your buddies die and want to go out there and kill Charlie Cong. And you're healthy and young.,…” Lionel's eyes filled with tears. “I watch kids like you die out there every day,” He hated to go back, but in a few weeks he would, and Greg looked at him now with new respect. He was surviving it somehow, and he had become a man, if you could call it that. He was still confused about why Lionel was the way he was, but he listened to him now. He knew he was right, and he was scared to death.

  “I've got to get back on that team.”

  “Just keep your grades up so they don't throw you out of school.”

  “I'll try, U. I swear.”

  “Good.” He ruffled his hair as he had when they were kids, and the two brothers smiled as the sun went down. Greg put an arm around Lionel's shoulders, and it reminded them of their days at camp.

  “But I hated you then,” Greg said and they both laughed at the memories. “And I really hated Val and Van.” He started to laugh then. “I guess I hated everyone. I was jealous of all of you. I wanted to be an only child.”

  “You were in some ways. You were always the closest to Dad.” Greg nodded, not denying it. “But I didn't realize it then.” It impressed Greg that Lionel was so philosophical about that. In recent years, that closeness to Ward sometimes embarrassed him, and he quickly changed the subject now. “At least I never hated Anne.”

  Lionel smiled. “None of us did. She was too little to hate.” But she wasn't little now. She was all grown up, or almost.

  And she had just hung up the phone from talking to Bill again. It was agony being without him, and she called him collect three or four times a day. Everyone had noticed it, but they all thought she was calling Gail. Only Vanessa continued to think Anne was involved with a man, but there was no way to find out, and she wasn't telling anyone.

  On the whole, they had all had a wonderful time, and on the last night, Valerie sat on the floor next to her door, lying in wait for Jason and Van. Every night, she had heard Vanessa scurrying down the hall to him, and tonight when she heard the patter of feet scampering past, she waited two minutes and then ran and knocked on Jason's door. She could hear a giggle, then a gasp, and then Jason's baritone said, “Come in.” She stepped inside, and advanced on him with an amorous air, and as he stared at her in surprise, she pounced on the bed, almost killing her twin, who screamed. And then suddenly, they knew she was teasing them, and everyone laughed, and they talked long into the night. Eventually, they went to find Lionel and Greg and everyone went downstairs to raid the ice box and drink beer. It was the perfect end to a perfect holiday and as they all went their separate ways the next day, they took with them the memory of what fun it had been.

  CHAPTER 36

  Much to her amazement, Vanessa was able to convince Jason to spend a few days in L.A., but having met her family already, and come to know them fairly well, he had nothing to fear from them, and he was curious to see the place he had maligned for so long. He only agreed to stay for two days, and Valerie saw to it that he had a wonderful time. She took him everywhere, to every studio, every party, every “in” restaurant, every set. Vanessa had never seen as much of Hollywood in her life as she did in those two days.

  Faye and Ward were already
back at work on the packaging of a new film, and Anne disappeared into her own life. Lionel flew back to Vietnam, via Hawaii and Guam. And after two days, Jason and Vanessa flew back to New York, and everyone picked up the threads of their real lives again.

  Vanessa went back to Barnard for her sophomore year, and Greg to Alabama for what should have been his senior year. But it didn't last long. As soon as he returned he knew he was off the team, and after staying drunk for a week to recover from the blow, he missed two important make-up exams he had left over from the previous term. And by October 15, he'd been called in to see the dean. He was being “invited to leave.” They were sorry to see it happen to such a fine boy. They suggested he go home and think about it for the rest of the school year, and if he was ready to settle down after that, they would be happy to see him come back. But six weeks after that, after coming home with his tail between his legs, and seeing the heartbreak in Ward's eyes, the army had a different invitation for him. He was being drafted, which was a sure invitation to Vietnam.

  He sat home, all one afternoon, stupefied, and was still sitting there when Anne came home. She came home later and later now, always going home after school with Gail to do homework at her house, and then Bill would drive her home when he got in from work. It gave them a few minutes alone, and was a routine she counted on. Generally, when she came back to the Thayer house at night, there was no one there except the maid anyway. But since Greg had come home, things had changed a bit.