running into her hair and he was yelling at the makeup man that it was the wrong consistency. And when he yelled “Cut” again, Faye tiptoed off the set. Valerie had never known she was there, and Faye was embarrassed for her. It was a pathetic little role, as she told Ward that afternoon. In fact, it was worse than that, it was embarrassing.
“I wish she'd do something decent with herself like go to school.”
“Maybe she'll make something of herself, Faye. You did.”
“That was almost thirty years ago for God's sake. Times have changed. She can't even act.”
“How can you tell in a role like that?” He was trying to be fair, and he thought Faye was being unduly harsh.
“Let's put it this way, she doesn't even walk across a stage well.”
“Would you, with paint pellets shoved up your nose, and into your ears? Personally, I think she's a hell of a good sport.”
“I think she's a damn fool.”
But she got another role like the first, as soon as she completed that, and she was thrilled although Faye was worried about it. She tried to ask her tactfully if she was happy doing films like that, but Valerie took it as a slur and there had been pure hatred in Val's eyes when she had answered her.
“You started with soap flakes and cereal, I'm starting with blood, but basically it's the same. And one day, if I want to, I can be right where you are.” It was an ambitious goal, and as he watched the two women spar, Ward was sorry for Val. She so desperately wanted to compete with Faye that she forgot to be herself sometimes. Unlike Anne, who seemed to have come into her own finally, in the last few months. She seemed quieter, more mature, and she seemed to love her new school. She had a new friend, whom she spent time with constantly, a child whose mother had died a few years before apparently, and the two girls went everywhere as a team. The father doted on his child, and seemed willing to chauffeur them everywhere, take them to every possible kind of show and game, drop them off, pick them up. It was a blessing for Ward and Faye. Since the last Academy Award, they had had no free time at all. They were grateful to Bill Stein for taking such good care of Anne. Ward knew vaguely who he was, their paths had crossed once or twice, but in a strictly friendly way. He seemed like a nice man, and if he spoiled his child, it was understandable, she was the only one he had, and he had no wife. He had no one else to spoil, except now Anne, and of course Gail.
He was always giving Anne nice things, a sweater when he bought one for Gail, a little red Gucci bag, a yellow umbrella from Giorgio's on a day when it was pouring rain, and he wanted nothing in return from her. He just had a sense of how lonely she was, and how little time Faye and Ward spent with her. It made him happy to do little things for her, just as he did for Gail.
“You're always so nice to me, Bill.” He let her call him that, in fact he wanted her to, he had said so several times, and she finally did, still feeling a little shy with him.
“Why shouldn't I be? You're a nice person, Anne. We enjoy your company.”
“I love you both too.” The words had poured out of her starved little soul, and his heart went out to her at times. He suspected that there was a sorrow there that no one knew, and he didn't know what it was, but it never left her eyes, no matter how much love you lavished on her. He knew she had run away to the Haight almost two years before, and he wondered if it was something that had happened there. He asked Gail about it once, but she didn't seem to know.
“She never talks about it, Dad. I don't know … I don't think her parents are real nice to her.”
“I suspected that too.” He had always been honest with Gail.
“It's not that they're mean to her or anything. They're just never there. No one is. Her brothers and sisters are all grown up and gone, and she's always alone there with the maid.” Most nights she even ate dinner alone, and she was