darks'. Ward drove the car almost up to the pool, honking frantically as Faye laughed, sitting on a towel in the front seat, in her wet bathing suit, as the kids stared, not understanding any of it at first, except that obviously their parents had gone berserk. And then Ward hopped out, walked over to his son, and handed him the keys as tears filled the boy's eyes, and he threw his arms around his father's neck, crying and laughing all at once.
“You mean it's mine?”
“Happy graduation, son.” There were tears in Ward's eyes too. He was touched by the boy's delight, it was a special moment that would never come again. With a shriek, Lionel hugged him again, while from the sidelines Anne watched him and beamed.
He invited everyone to pile into it, and Ward and Faye stood back as the children did, sitting on each other, on the seats, on the back of the car with the top down. “Take it easy, Li,” Faye admonished him, and Ward took her hand and led her a few steps back.
“Let him be, love. They're all right.”
And for an instant, just an instant, before he started the car and drove away, he paused, and met his father's eyes, perhaps in just that way for the first time, and the two men exchanged a smile. There was no need for any more thanks than that. And as they drove away, Ward felt as though he had just made contact with his son for the first time, finally.
CHAPTER 12
That night, there were a hundred people, most of them kids, invited to celebrate Lionel's graduation with a barbecue. And Ward and Faye had arranged for a rock band to play under a tent in the backyard. It was the biggest party they'd given in years, and the whole family was excited about it. Greg was wearing a wrinkled striped tee shirt and Jeans. His blond hair looked uncombed, and his feet were bare. Faye was about to send him back upstairs but he escaped, and when she said something to Ward, he said what he always did, “Let him be, babe, he's all right.”
His wife looked at him disapprovingly. “For a man who used to spend his time changing shirts three times a day and wearing white linen suits, you certainly don't seem to expect much of your son.”
“Maybe that's why. That was twenty years ago. People don't live like that anymore, Faye, and it was outdated then. We were practically dinosaurs, albeit lucky ones. Greg has more important things on his mind.”
“Like what? Football? Girls? The beach?” She expected more of Greg, like the kind of things Lionel did. But Ward seemed happier with their jock than with their more intellectual child. It didn't make sense to her, and it always seemed unfair that he expected so much less of Greg, and never appreciated Lionel's outstanding accomplishments, but the matter couldn't be resolved in one night. It was a difference they had always had, sometimes more vociferously, but this was a special day and she didn't want to fight with him. It was funny, they actually fought very seldom, but occasionally about the children they disagreed violently and exchanged harsh words … particularly about Lionel … but not tonight … please not tonight she thought to herself, and decided to give in about Greg.
“All right … never mind …”
“Let him have a good time tonight. It doesn't matter what he wears.”
“I hope you feel the same way about Val.” But it was a real challenge to both of them not to say anything to her. She was wearing a skintight white leather minidress with a fringed skirt with matching boots that she had apparently borrowed from a friend.
Ward leaned over and whispered to Faye as he poured her a drink at the bar, “What corner does her friend work on? Did she say?” Faye laughed and shook her head. It seemed to her that she had had teenagers for so long that almost nothing surprised her anymore. It prepared her well to deal with the actors at MGM. None of them could be more impossible, more difficult, more unpredictable, more argumentative than any teenaged kid, although many of them tried.
“I think poor Vanessa tries to counteract Vial's effect,” Ward said to Faye. She had worn a pink and white party dress that looked more suitable for a ten-year-old, and pink ballet shoes, with her hair done Alice in Wonderland style again. The two