Family Album

by Danielle Steel

  “It won't change anything.”

  She was suddenly frightened for him. What if he was right? Why had Bill never said that to her? She had to protect him now. She looked at her father desperately. “Do anything you want to me, but don't hurt him.” The words struck Faye like a blow, she cared enough about this man to sacrifice herself. It was frightening that she loved him so much, and what if they were wrong? But they couldn't be. He had obviously taken gross advantage of her. But Faye looked at Ward.

  “Why don't we talk to him first, and see what he says. If he promises never to see her again, maybe it would be simpler not to take any legal action against him.” Ward was difficult to convince, but eventually Faye got through to him. And they forced Anne to call, and demand that he come over immediately. She had to tell him why, and he could hear her crying on the phone.

  He entered the Thayer house, to find a kangaroo court waiting for him. Ward let him in and he had to control himself not to attack him then and there. And Lionel was standing by. Bill recognized all the players in the piece, especially Faye. He had come alone, and he faced Anne sobbing hysterically across the room. Instantly, he went to her, smoothed her hair, dried her cheeks, and then realized that they were all staring at him.

  He had no excuses to make. He admitted it all. He sympathized totally with Ward, and told him he had a daughter the same age, but he also tried to tell them some things about Anne, about how lonely she had been, how marked by giving up her child, how guilty over what had happened in the Haight-Ashbury. He explained how her earliest memories of their seeming indifference went back to when she was a tiny child, and she had felt rejected by all of them all her life. He made no excuses for himself, but he explained to them who Anne Thayer was, and her parents sat there, realizing what a stranger she had been to them. And this unknown child, who had come to reject them eventually too, had found Bill Stein, and sought everything from him, and in his own loneliness he had nurtured her. Perhaps it was wrong, he admitted with damp eyes, but it was sincere. He echoed exactly what Anne had said to them, though in a kindlier tone. In less than a year, he planned to marry her, with or without their consent, or even GaiI's, once she found out. He would have preferred everyone to wish them well, but this had gone on long enough, and if he could have married her sooner, he would. She could continue school, she could do anything she wanted to, but when her eighteenth birthday came, he would be waiting for her, whether they would continue to let him see her now or not.

  And as he quietly said the words, she sat there and beamed at him. He hadn't let her down, and he was willing to risk anything for her. He was exactly what she had always believed him to be, and the three other Thayers were shocked, most of all Ward, who stared at this unexciting-looking man and couldn't understand what his daughter saw in him. He wasn't beautiful or young, handsome or debonair. He was actually rather banal, and his looks were very plain. But he had offered something to their child that they had never been able to give her. And whether they wanted to see it or not, she was happy with him. She sat there now, blooming quietly in the sunlight of his love. They really didn't care what was done to them in the next year. Both were willing to wait, and after that it was clear what their plans were. And suddenly both Ward and Faye believed they would. One couldn't fight them at all, no matter how wrong it might be, or how great the age difference, or how big a fool they thought Anne was.

  After he left, and they had lectured Anne, Ward and Faye talked quietly in their room. They didn't know what to make of him, and they had told her they didn't know if there would be charges or not. Bill had gone home to make a clean breast of it with Gail, and would be happy to speak to them at any time. He wasn't really apologetic with them. After two years of loving her, he felt he had relatively little to apologize for. He hadn't hurt her or abandoned her, used her, or done anything terribly wrong. By now she was almost eighteen, and it didn't seem shocking to the lovers anymore. He suspected Gail would be stunned at first, but she would get over it too. And they had their lives to lead, Anne and Bill. Both had made that perfectly clear to everyone.

  “What do you think?” Faye sat in a chair and looked at Ward. He still couldn't see what she saw in the man, and she was only seventeen years old. It was mind boggling.

  “I think she's a damn fool.”

  Faye sighed. This was worse than some of the movies she'd done. “So do I, but that's our opinion, not hers.”

  “Apparently.” He sat down across from his wife, and took her hand. “How do they get themselves into these things? Lionel with his damn inclinations to something I don't understand. Val with her crazy career, Vanessa living with that boy in New York, and thinking we don't know about it.” Faye smiled, they had talked about it before. She thought she was so exotic and unusual, and it was so transparent, they all knew what was going on, and they didn't really mind. She was twenty years old and he was a nice boy. “And now Anne with this man…. Good God, Faye, he's thirty-three years older than she is.” It still wouldn't sink in.

  “I know. And he isn't even beautiful.” Faye smiled. “If it was someone who looked like you, I'd understand at least.” At fifty-two he was still as handsome as he had been twenty years before, though in a different way. But he was still long and lean and elegant, as was she. This man had none of that. It was difficult to see his appeal, except that he had kind eyes, and he seemed to care a great deal for her. She looked up at her husband then. “Do we have to agree to this, Ward?” She didn't mean legally, she meant practically for the next ten months.

  “I don't see why we should.”

  “Maybe we'd be smarter if we did. You can't fight City Hall.” They had learned that again and again, with Lionel, with Val … Vanessa … now Anne, They did what they wanted to … except poor Greg. And Ward looked at her now.

  “You mean agree to her having an affair with him openly?” He looked shocked. “She's only seventeen years old.” But they both knew that she was far older than that, in her soul, she had been through a lot, and it had weathered her.

  “She's been doing it for the last year or so anyway.”

  Ward narrowed his eyes at his wife. “What makes you so liberal suddenly?”

  She smiled tiredly at Ward. “Maybe I'm just getting old.”

  “And wise.” He kissed her again. “I love you, babe.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart.” They agreed to think about it for a few days, and that night they had dinner with Lionel. Anne stayed in her room and no one urged her to come down.

  There was enough strain on them as it was, and in the end, they decided to give in. They urged her to be discreet, to not become the talk of the town. Bill Stein was moderately well known in the entertainment industry. He was a respected attorney and had several well-known clients, and they were sure he wasn't anxious for the publicity either. The whole idea was to keep it as quiet as possible, and then marry, as they planned to, after the first of the year. He gave her an enormous engagement ring, which she only wore when she went out with him. A pear-shaped solitaire that she called her Easter Egg. It was ten and a half carats, and she had been embarrassed when she showed it to Gail. And Gail had been very decent to them. It had been a shock to her too at first, but she loved them both a great deal. She wished them well, and they both decided to go to summer school, so that they could graduate before the Christmas holidays. That way Anne wouldn't have to go to school, once she married Bill. And Gail thought she should leave them alone, at least for a while. Besides, it would be embarrassing to live with them at first. And she wanted to go to the Parsons School of Design in New York.

  Lionel was still angry at her when he left for Germany. He didn't approve of the man, no matter what anyone said.

  “You got off easy, if you ask me,” he told her the day he left, and she'd looked coldly at him. She would never forgive him for turning her in, she said.

  “You're a fine one to be making judgments about someone else.”

  “Being gay doesn't impair my mind
, Anne.”

  “No. But maybe your heart.”

  He almost wondered if she was right, as he left. He didn't feel the same way about anything anymore, ever since Vietnam. He had seen too many people die, lost too many people he cared about … and two he deeply loved … John and Greg. It was difficult to imagine loving anyone again. He had no desire to in fact, and wondered secretly if that was why he was so angry at her. He couldn't understand her happiness, because his was long gone, with John, and could never come again, and her life stretched ahead of her, with promise and excitement and as much sparkle as her enormous engagement ring.

  CHAPTER 38

  On January 18, 1970, Anne Thayer and Bill Stein stood at Temple Israel on Hollywood Boulevard, with their families and a handful of friends watching them. Anne hadn't even wanted to go that far, but Bill had urged her to anyway.

  “It'll be easier for your parents, sweetheart, if you let them plan a little something.” But Anne had no interest in it. For almost two years she had felt like his wife, and she needed no fanfare now. Gail thought it was silly of her. She was so unlike girls her age. She wanted no wedding dress, no veil.

  It looks so barren, Faye thought to herself, remembering the magnificence of her own wedding day. Anne wore a simple white wool dress with a high neck and long sleeves, simple pumps, her blond hair in a single braid with baby's breath in it, and she carried no bouquet. She came to him simple and stark, wearing no jewelry save the large diamond he had given her. And the wedding ring was a wide band of diamonds too. She looked so innocent and young that it looked almost incongruous on her hand. But she noticed none of that. She saw only Bill. It was all she had wanted since the day they met, and she came quietly to him now, on her father's arm, and then Ward stepped back, feeling again how little any of them had known her in the last eighteen years. It was as though she had slipped through their lives too quickly, too silently, living behind a locked door, always disappearing. Suddenly, it seemed as though his entire memory of her childhood was saying, “Where's Anne?”

  They had a small luncheon at the house, which was all Anne would allow them to do. There were flowers everywhere, and the champagne was very fine. And Faye looked quiet and restrained in a green silk suit that set off her eyes. But somehow she didn't feel like the mother of the bride. It all felt like a charade, as though they were playing games, and eventually Gail would go home with her Dad. But when they left in the gray Rolls that night, Anne went with them, and she turned to kiss Faye and Ward goodbye. Faye had an overwhelming urge to ask her if she was sure, and yet when she saw her daughter's eyes, there was no question there. She had given herself to the man she loved, and she was a woman now.

  Gail was more subdued than usual, but she was happy for them. They had both graduated a few weeks before, and they would fly to New York with her now. She was going to Parsons School of Design, and would live at the Barbizon as Vanessa once had. And after they dropped her off, Bill and Anne were flying on to San Juan, and then to St. Thomas and St. Martin's from there, ending up in St. Croix. They would be gone for several weeks, and were in no hurry to come back. But Bill wanted to take her shopping in New York first. There were several jewelers whose wares he wanted her to see, Harry Winston, David Webb, a few others he liked, and then there was other shopping too. “Bergdorf's, BendeI's, Bloomingdale's,” the two girls shouted in unison that night.

  '-You spoil me too much!” She smiled and kissed his neck, she wanted nothing more from him than his love, and he wanted to buy a few pretty things for Gail too.

  “Well, Mrs. Stein, how does it feel?” He smiled at her that night as they lay on his big bed, legally this time, for the first time in two years.

  “It feels wonderful.” She grinned like a little girl, still wearing her braid, and now a lacy nightgown that had been a wedding gift from Val, although it was clear she didn't approve of them. None of them did, but more than that they didn't understand. They never had … except Li … once upon a time. He hadn't been at the wedding though. He was still in Germany, waiting to be released in a few weeks. And Van had been back in New York, deep in her junior year. It didn't really matter to Anne, the only one she had wanted there was Bill, and she looked happily at him now, pondering the past. It was as though none of it had ever been real, only this. “I feel as though I've been married to you all my life.” And the funny thing was he felt that way too.

  “So do I.” His friends had all made comments of course. But eventually they pretended to understand. There were lots of hits on the shoulder, slaps on the back, surreptitious winks. “Cradle robbing, eh, old man?” They all envied him, and some of them said unkind things behind his back, but he didn't give a damn. He was going to take care of his little gem for the rest of his life, and as she looked up at him with trusting eyes, she knew he would.

  They slept locked in each other's arms that night, grateful again that they could do anything they wanted now. They had a lazy breakfast with Gail, and that afternoon they all packed, and flew to New York, as planned, that night. Anne thought briefly of calling Ward and Faye to say goodbye and then somehow she never got around to it. She had nothing to say to them anyway, she told Bill, as the plane took off.

  “You're awful hard on them, love. They did their best. They just never understood very well.” In her eyes, that was the understatement of the year. They had robbed her of her child, threatened to bring charges against Bill, they had passed her over, passed her by, they would have totally destroyed her life, if it hadn't been for him. She looked gratefully up at him again, as they sat in first-class, he with “his two girls” as he called them. Anne sat in the middle, and while Bill napped during the flight, she chatted with Gail. They were looking forward to the two days they would share in New York, before Gail moved into the Barbizon, and they flew on to their honeymoon. Meanwhile, they would share a suite at the Pierre.

  And for the next two days, they did nothing but shop. Anne had never seen so many beautiful things in her life, except in her mother's films. He bought Gail a beautiful little mink coat, in a sporty cut, with a matching hat. He told her she'd need it to keep warm, and a mountain of ski clothes, a new pair of skis, half a dozen dresses from BendeI's, six pairs of Gucci shoes, and a gold bracelet she'd been crazy about at Cartier's, with a little screwdriver to put it on, which the girls loved. Anne loved it so much, he surprised her with one too. But there were even more goodies for his young bride, a full-length mink coat for evening wear, a short one for day, dresses and suits and blouses and skirts, boxes and boxes of beautiful shoes, Italian boots, an emerald ring, a beautiful diamond pin, huge pearl earrings from Van Cleef that she loved, and two more gold bracelets she had admired, and on the last day of the trip, he gave her a splendid piece from David Webb, it was a lion embracing a lamb, all in a single massive hunk of gold, and it was so beautiful that one could only stare at it as it dangled from her arm.

  “What am I going to do with all this?” She pranced around their hotel room in her underwear, waving at the beautiful furs and clothes hanging everywhere, the shoe boxes, the handbags, the fur hats, and in her suitcase were half a dozen jewelry boxes. It was almost embarrassing, except that he enjoyed it all so much too. He bought a few things for himself too, like a fur-lined raincoat, and a new gold watch, but he was far more interested in shopping for her. Even Gail thought it was fun. She had so many pretty things he'd given her over the years that she begrudged Anne nothing now. They were almost sisters anyway, and her father would still have bought her anything she desired, perhaps even more so now. He was far too generous, both girls told him on their last night, but they enjoyed every minute of it, and Vanessa's eyes almost fell out of her head when she and Jason met them in the Oak Room for drinks, and Anne glided gracefully across the room in beautifully cut red slacks and a creamy silk shirt, a red alligator Hermes handbag to match, and a mink coat that people stopped and stared at, even in New York. And as she approached, the diamonds sparkled on her hands, you could see the Webb brac
elet in all its glory on her arm, and two small rubies in her ears. She looked so lovely and so poised that Vanessa barely recognized her as the same girl.

  “Anne?” Her jaw almost dropped as she stared at her. She was wearing her hair in a simple braid again, with soft wisps of blond fluff framing her face, her makeup was simple and in good taste, but everything she wore, from her jewelry to her boots looked like something out of Vogue, and Vanessa couldn't imagine her that way, as she laughed and sat down. Vanessa could see that Jason was impressed too.

  “We've been shopping an awful lot,” Anne's voice was as soft as it had always been, and she looked at Bill quickly with a shy glance, as he laughed. “He's been spoiling me too much.”

  “I can see that.”

  She ordered a Dubonnet, which was the only drink she liked, and Vanessa and Jason had already ordered scotch. Bill had a martini on the rocks, and Gail had white wine, and they all chatted amiably about nothing much. The young people reminisced about Lake Tahoe almost two years before, and Anne asked Jason about his job. He had timed it all perfectly. He received his Ph.D. weeks after he turned twenty-six. He had successfully evaded the draft for more than eight years, and now he had a job teaching literature at NYU. It didn't excite him very much, and he'd been doing it for the past year. He was still working on his play, but he was getting nowhere with it.

  “I keep trying to get Vanessa to collaborate on it with me, and she won't.”

  “I can hardly keep up with school,” she explained to Bill, whom she thought pleasant and fatherly. She still had another year to go at Barnard. It was all she could think of now. She wanted to finish and get a job herself. She seemed inclined to stay in New York, but Anne suspected it was because of him. They had been together for two and a half years, and she wondered if she'd ever marry him. Gail asked her the same thing after dinner that night and Anne shrugged pensively. She didn't quite understand the relationship they had, she had the feeling they were just moving along parallel tracks, pursuing their own lives. They had no desire for a permanent bond, more important than that, no need. And neither of them ever mentioned having kids. Ail they talked about was their work, their jobs, their writing, his play.