“You just can't imagine how exciting it is, Jase.” Her eyes lit up as she saw people she knew, and again and again as the camera swept Val's face. And this year he felt it too. He had never really cared about the Academy Awards before, and before Vanessa came into his life, he had never even bothered to watch. But now, they were prepared to sit there all night. They sat through the boring ones, the special effects, the humanitarian awards, the sound effects, the screenplays, the songs.
Clint Eastwood was host for that portion, Charlton Heston having been delayed by a flat tire. The award to the best director went to a friend of Faye's this year, and although George was nominated, he didn't win, and neither did their film. But then Faye was introduced to give the next award. “The Best Actress,” she said, qualifying it, reeling off the names of those who had been nominated by the Academy. And as Van and Jason watched they saw each tense face, and then finally a composite on the screen of each of them, Val sitting stone still, clutching George's hand, as they both seemed to hold their breath, and Faye looked out at her.
“The winner is … Valerie Thayer for Miracle.” The screams in the SoHo loft could have been heard all the way to L.A. as Vanessa danced around, overwhelmed by the news. She screamed and cried, and Jason pounded the bed, tossing all the popcorn in the bowl onto the floor, and in Hollywood, Valerie was shrieking too. She ran headlong toward the stage with a last look over her shoulder at George, and a thousand cameras took her photograph as she looked at him, blew a kiss, and then joined her mother on stage. The Oscar was handed to her, and tears streamed unabashedly down Faye's face. She approached the microphone for an instant and said, “You'll never know how much this girl deserves this award. She had the meanest director in town,” and then, as everyone laughed, she stood back, and hugged Val, and Valerie cried copiously, and thanked everyone for all they had done for her, and then crying harder still, she attempted to thank Faye.
“A long time ago, she gave me life, and now she has given me even…” she could barely go on “… more than that. She's taught me how to work hard … to do my best … she gave me the biggest chance of my life. Thank you, Mom.” The entire audience smiled through their tears as she held the coveted Oscar aloft.” … and Daddy, for believing in me … and Lionel and Vanessa and Anne for putting up with me for all these years …” She choked hard, but forced herself to go on, “… and Greg … we love you too …” And then, triumphantly, she left the stage, and flew into George's arms. It was the last award and they all went out to celebrate after that. She called Vanessa and Jason, the first chance she got, and everyone talked to them, although no one made much sense. Everyone was hugging her and shouting, kissing George, squeezing Val, hugging Ward and Faye. Even Anne was beside herself with glee and at Chasen's afterwards, Lionel had his new friend join them. He was someone George had acted with once a few years before, and had liked, and he fit into the group easily. He was about George's own age, and he and Lionel appeared to know each other well. And Faye realized then that this was the man responsible for the look in Lionel's eyes these days. It was the first time she had seen that look since John and she was glad for him. She was glad for all of them … Val, of course … Anne with her baby … Li … Van … they were just fine. And that night she stunned Ward by suggesting something he hadn't heard from her in a few years.
“What do you say we retire one of these days, kid?” “That again?” He laughed. “I think I've figured it out. Every time you don't get an Academy Award, you want to retire. Is that it, my love?” She laughed at the thought and shook her head. She was so happy for Val, she didn't begrudge her anything. She had earned every bit of it.
“I wish it were as simple as that.” She sat down on the bed and unclasped her pearls. They were the first gift Ward had ever given her, and the only jewels she hadn't sold when they lost their fortune years before, and they were very dear to her, as he was, as their life together had been. But she was ready for a change now. She had known it for a long time. “I just think I've done everything I want to do, love. Professionally anyway.”
'That's terrible.” He looked upset. “How can you say something like that at your age?”
She laughed, and she was still so damn beautiful it amazed him sometimes. “I happen to be fifty-two years old, I've made fifty-six films, had five children, one grandchild,” she refused to count the other one, he was gone to them all and had been for more than five years, “have a husband I adore, have made lots of friends. In brief, that's it folks. I think I want to go and play now. All our kids are all right, they seem happy, we've done our best. This is when they write The End' across the screen, dear.” She smiled at him and for the first time in their life together he thought she was serious about it.
“What would you do if you retired?”
“I don't know … spend a year in the South of France maybe. Go play somewhere. We don't have anything in the works.” She hadn't liked anything she'd seen lately, and maybe this was what she had been waiting for, Val's Academy Award so she could leave. There was something sweet about ending with that film, the film that had begun Val's career in a big way, like a legacy she could leave her child, a special gift.
“You could write my memoirs,” Ward teased.
“You do that. I don't even want to write my own.”
“You should.” They had certainly had a full life. He looked at her quietly. It had been a long, exciting night, and she might not mean what she said, although he suspected that she did. “Why don't we think about this for a while, and see if you still feel that way in a month or two. Ill do anything you want.” He was almost fifty-six years old and he wouldn't have minded playing in the South of France. In fact, it sounded pretty good to him, like the old days almost, and they could afford it again now, although they no longer spent money as they once had. No one did anymore. “Let's think about this.”
And when they discussed it again, they decided to leave in June. They decided to make it a year off at first, to see how it felt. They rented a house in the South of France for four months, and after that they rented an apartment in Paris for six. And Faye made a point of seeing each of their children before they left. Her suspicions about Lionel had been correct, this new man in his life was one he cared about a great deal. It seemed to be a good match for him, and they were living quietly together in Beverly Hills. It was the man Faye had met the night of the Academy Awards, and Faye liked him very much.
Valerie was deeply engrossed in preparing for a new role, and she and George were talking about getting married sometime that year, after George finished his new film. And Faye made her promise to come to France for their honeymoon. Val insisted they wouldn't make a fuss and would just sneak away to tie the knot, but they'd come to France for their honeymoon afterwards, and probably bring Danny too. The visit with Anne was more difficult, Faye always found it so hard to talk to her, but she went to see her one afternoon, and found her happily taking care of little Max. Faye thought she didn't look terribly well, and wondered why and Anne confessed that she was pregnant again, which startled Faye.
“Isn't that awfully soon?”
Anne smiled at her. How soon they forget. “Li and Greg were only ten months apart.” And then suddenly Faye smiled. It was true. You wanted them to be different, to be happier, better, safer, and always wise, and instead they did half the things you did yourself and had forgotten about … Val's acting … Anne's passion for a big family … the others had struck out on different paths, but they took parts of their parents with them too. Greg would have been just like Ward as a young man, had he lived … and now here was Anne, repeating history too.
“You're right.” The two women's eyes met, differently than they had in a long, long time. It was as though Anne were facing her now, as though it had to be done, before Faye left. Perhaps they would never have quite this chance again. One could never be sure. “Anne … I …” She didn't know where to begin. There were twenty years to unfold … or maybe five … a lifetime of n
ever quite reaching a child that she loved, and she didn't want to miss her now. “I made a lot of mistakes with you. I don't suppose that's a secret to either of us, is it?”
Anne looked at her honestly, with her child in her arms, and there was no anger in her eyes now. “I don't think I ever made it easy for you … I never understood what you were all about.”
“Nor I you. My biggest mistake was that I never had time. If you had only been born a year or two before you were …” But who could have changed all that? It was history now. Along with everything else that had happened to her … the Haight … the pregnancy … the child she had given away. Their eyes met again, and Faye decided to say what was on her mind. She reached a hand out to Anne, and took the hand that wasn't holding Max in her own. “I'm sorry about the other baby, Anne … I was wrong … at the time, I really thought we were doing the right thing …” Both women's eyes filled with tears, as Max lay in Anne's arms. “I was wrong.”
Anne shook her head, the tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I don't think you were … I don't think I really had a choice then … I was fourteen years old …”
“But you never got over it.” Faye knew that now.
“I've accepted it. It was right at the time. Sometimes that's the best you can do.” And with that, she took her mother in her arms, and held her there with Max. It was like saying “I forgive you for what you did,” but more importantly, she had forgiven herself. And now she could go on. As she walked her to her car later on, she held her hand again. “I'm going to miss you, Mom.”
“I'm going to miss you too.” She was going to miss all of them, but she was hoping they would all come to France at one point. Once, none of them had been a part of her life after all. And she had to let them go now. They had accepted her, in the end, and she had accepted them. All of them.
On the way to France, she and Ward stopped in New York and saw Jason and Van, happy in their loft, he writing his play, she working at a publisher and writing her book at night. There was no talk of marriage there, but no hint of either of them going anywhere. And as Ward and Faye flew to France, she smiled over at him. “They're all quite something, aren't they?”
“So are you.” As always, he looked proud of her. He had been for thirty years … since the day they'd met on Guadalcanal … if only he'd known then what he knew now … what a full life he had lived with her. He said as much and she reminded him that it wasn't over yet, and he kissed her over the champagne the stewardess had just handed them, as a woman stared at her and whispered to the man she was with … she looks just like a big movie star I used to love thirty years ago … the man smiled at her. Everyone looked like someone to her. And Ward and Faye went on chatting quietly, planning their year in France, which slowly became ten.
They never quite understood how the time went so fast. The children came and wents. Valerie married George, and they finally had a child, a little girl they named Faye, after her. Anne had four more, and everyone teased her that she should have been as lazy as their mother and had twins. Vanessa published three books, and Jason was still working on his plays, he had moved to Off Broadway now, from Off Off Broadway, and Faye was impressed at how good his productions were when they saw one once in New York. Valerie had won the Academy Award again, and finally so had George.
Everyone was doing well, and after eleven years abroad, at the age of sixty-four, Faye quietly died in her sleep one night. They were in Cap Ferrat for the fall, in a beautiful villa they had bought there, which they wanted to leave to their children one day. It would make a perfect place for them to come, all of them.
And now she came home to them, with Ward looking stunned. He was sixty-seven, and she had been his whole life since he was twenty-five years old … forty-two years…. He brought her home to Hollywood, the place she had loved, which she had conquered so many times, as an actress, a director, a woman … as his wife … he remembered those desperate years when he had lost everything, when she had pulled them all together so valiantly, and started a new career, with all of them in tow, when she had helped him get back on his feet … and he remembered the years before … and the years long afterward, as they made film after film for MGM … and the big break she had given Val … what he could not remember anymore were the years without her. That wasn't possible. It couldn't be true … it hadn't been true … and yet it was true now. He was alone now, she was gone. Anne and Bill met him at the plane, and mercifully, they had left the children home. They watched the casket being lowered from the belly of the plane, as the wind whipped Anne's hair, and in the twilight she looked so much like Faye. She was thirty-one years old, and her mother was gone,. s. Her eyes rose toward Ward's, and she quietly took his hand. She and Bill had talked about it the night before, and they could at least offer him that. They had built a guesthouse behind their house in Beverly Hills, and it would be nice if he came to live there. Ward and Faye had long since sold their old house in Beverly Hills. They hadn't lived there in years. And Anne looked up at him now, as Bill watched.
“Come on, Daddy, let's go home.”
For the first time, he looked suddenly old. He couldn't believe she was gone. And Anne wanted him to rest. There was a lot they had to do, and the funeral would be in two days at the church where they'd been married, and then Forest Lawn. And everyone would be there of course … everyone who had ever been anyone … everyone except Faye Thayer … but her family would be there. All of them. And Ward … it was difficult to imagine a world without her. He couldn't imagine it at all, as tears slid quietly down his cheeks, as they drove into the night, with Faye in the hearse behind … he could imagine her everywhere, if he just closed his eyes … she was still there with him, as she would be with all of them … always, for the rest of time. Her movies would live on … the memories … the love and above all the family, each one of them, touched by her, a part of her, just as she had been a part of them.
a cognizant original v5 release october 14 2010
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Copyright © 1985 by Benitreto Publications, Ltd.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-56643-0
August 1989
v3.0
Family Album Page 45