afternoon. They were leaving for Paris, Rome, and Switzerland, and instead of arguing, her eyes lit up.
“Are you serious?” She looked at him, amused, and put her arms around him.
“I am. And if you don't come willingly, I'll kidnap you. We're going to stay away for three weeks, and maybe four.” He had checked her production schedule secretly that afternoon and knew she could stay away for that long.
She followed him upstairs that night with a lighter step, and pirouetted in her nightgown as he teased her about Paris and Rome.
“It's been too long since we did something like that, Faye.” “I know.” She sat down quietly on the bed and looked at him. They had almost lost each other once or twice, they had almost lost two children … a daughter … and a son … they had given up a grandchild and their son's lover had died. It hadn't been an easy time for any of them. And if anyone had asked her a year before if her marriage could have been saved, she would have told them no. But now, as she looked at him, she knew she still loved the man, with all his faults, with his affairs, with the times he had failed her, even with the anguish he had inflicted on their son. She loved Ward Thayer. She had for years, and probably always would. She had few illusions about him after twenty-two years, but she loved the man he was. And that night, when they went to bed, they made love as they had years and years before.
CHAPTER 27
Paris was exquisite that spring, as they wandered along the Seine, went to Les Halles for onion soup, strolled down the Champs Élysées, went to Dior, and then lunch at Fouquet's and dinner at Maxim's and the Brasserie Lipp. They had drinks at the Cafe Flore and the Deux Magots and they laughed and cuddled and hugged and kissed over cheese and wine. It was just exactly what Ward had wanted it to be, a second honeymoon, a place to forget all the sorrows of the past year or two, the children, the films, the responsibilities, and when they reached Lausanne, Faye sat looking out at Lac Leman and smiled at him.
“You know, I'm glad I married you.” She said it matter-of-factly as she sipped her coffee and ate a croissant, and he laughed at her.
“I'm awfully glad to hear that. What made you decide that?”
“Well,” she mused, staring out at the lake, “you're a nice man. You make a mess of things sometimes, but you're smart enough and decent enough to go back and straighten things out.” She was thinking of Lionel, and she was relieved that he and the boy were friends again. And she was thinking of his affair too.
“I try hard. I'm not as smart as you are sometimes, Faye.”
“Bullshit.”
“You sound like Val.” He looked disapprovingly at her and she laughed.
“Well, I'm no smarter than you are. Just more stubborn sometimes.”
“I don't always have the guts to hang on the way you do. Sometimes I want to run away.” He had done it twice so far, but she had always taken him back and he was grateful for that. But he was surprised at what she said next.
“Sometimes I want to run away too, you know. But then I worry about what would happen if I did … who would keep an eye on Val … make sure Anne was all right … Vanessa … Greg … Li …” She smiled at him. “You. Somehow, I'm so damn egocentric that I figure none of it would run right if I disappeared, which isn't true, but it keeps me hanging in.”
“I'm glad.” He smiled at her and took her hand. They still had romance between them after all these years. “Because you're right. None of it would run right if you disappeared, and I'm glad you never have.”
“Maybe one day I will. I'll run off and have some wild affair with a grip on the set.” She laughed at the thought, and Ward did not look amused.
“I've worried about that a few times. There are some actors I'm not crazy about your working with.” It was the first time he had admitted that to her and she was touched.
“I always behave myself.”
“I know. That's why I keep such a good eye on you.”
“Oh it is, is it?” She tweaked his ear, and he kissed her, and a little while later they went