Family album

Paul was honest with him. “Not yet.”

“But soon?”

“I don't know. And that's not the point.” Paul got up and walked around the room. “I just know I need to be free for a while.” He turned back to look at Lionel. “It's not like the other world, Li. People don't fall in love and get married and live happily ever after with thirteen kids. It's a lot harder for our kind. It's pretty rare for people to stay together for a long time. It happens, sure, but most of the time it's a one-night stand, or a couple of days, or even a week, or if you're lucky six months like us … and then, there's nowhere to go, and that's it.”

“That's not good enough.” Lionel looked upset. “I want more than that.”

Paul smiled. He was wise to his way of life. “Good luck. You may find it, but most of the time you won't.”

“Why not?”

Paul shrugged. “Not our style maybe. We're all too interested in good looks, beautiful bodies, a tight little ass, a body as young as yours … and all of us know we won't be young anymore one day.” He was already starting to feel like that. He was envious of Lionel sometimes, which made him bitchy with him. But this older man made him feel beautiful and young, as Lionel was to him.

“What do you want to do now?”

“I don't know. Travel for a while maybe.”

Lionel nodded. “Can I still see you sometimes?”

“Of course …” And then he looked up at the boy. “It's been wonderful for me, Lionel … I hope you know that

But Lionel looked far more intensely at him. “Ill never forget you, Paul … never … for the rest of my life …” He went to him, and they kissed. And Lionel stayed there that night. But the next day Paul drove him home, and without being told, Lionel knew that he wouldn't be seeing him again. Not for a long, long time anyway.

CHAPTER 18

In June of 1965, the entire Thayer family found itself sitting in the same row of the auditorium of Beverly Hills High as it had the year before. But it was Greg graduating this time, and it characteristically lacked the solemnity of Lionel's graduation the year before. Faye didn't cry this time, although both she and Ward looked deeply moved, and Lionel was there looking very grown up in another new suit. He was going into his sophomore year at UCLA and loving it. And the twins looked far more grown up than they had at fifteen. Vanessa had given up looking like Little Bo Peep. She was wearing a red miniskirt and Louis heels with a red and white blouse Faye had bought for her in New York, a little red patent-leather shoulder bag, and she looked young and fresh, with her hair hanging down her back in a sheet of gold. Only Valerie had made a negative comment on what she wore, but she always did, grumbling that she looked great, if you didn't mind looking like a peppermint stick. She had chosen to look more subdued, she felt, and was also wearing a mini-skirt, but hers was black, and her sweater was too tight once again this year. There remained about her a look of startling maturity. The lush figure, the makeup more subtly done now, the red hair in a breathtaking mane that eclipsed all else but her dress. She actually looked very pretty, or would have for cocktails in Beverly Hills. She was just somewhat overdressed for a high school auditorium at 9 A.M., but they were all used to that by now. Faye was just grateful she hadn't chosen to wear something with a plunging décolletage, and the miniskirt was, remarkably, one of her most modest ones. “Thank God for small favors,” she had whispered to Ward as they got in the car, and he had grinned. They were quite a bunch, and they were all growing up. Even Anne had matured. She had grown breasts and softly rounded hips, was thirteen now, and mercifully hadn't gotten lost this year before they had to leave for the ceremony. But Greg's graduation gift had been no surprise. He had badgered them so badly for it, that Ward had given in and presented it with a flourish the week before. It was a yellow Corvette Stingray convertible, and he was even more excited than Lionel had been about his, if that was possible. It was actually a fancier car than Lionel's little red Mustang but that had been Ward's idea. And Greg roared up and down their street, and then vanished to pick up all his friends for a ride. Ward had been certain that he would either crash or be arrested within the hour, but somehow they had all survived, and nine of his closest friends had arrived whooping and screeching as they careened down the street, burning rubber as they turned into the drive, and then all of them had leapt out of the car outside the house and headed for the pool, as Ward wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake. He certainly didn't have Lionel's calm ways, and Ward just prayed that Greg would drive sensibly when he got to the University of Alabama. He had won a football scholarship, and he could hardly wait to leave. He was going back to the ranch in Montana to work for a month again. But then he was going to the university on August first to begin football practice with the team and their famous coach “Bear.” And Ward could hardly wait to fly down and see him in his first game. Faye knew she was going to be doing a lot of that this year, but she didn't mind. She had promised to go whenever she could, although they'd be winding up a film in the fall, and starting another after the first of the year, but she'd do what she could.

They watched Greg receive his diploma, as Lionel had last year, but Greg merely grinned sheepishly unlike his more poised brother. He waved to his family and friends, and then took his seat again, his broad shoulders almost knocking his friends off their seats as he sat down again. He was the big hero in school for getting a football scholarship, and Ward was so proud he could hardly see. He had told everyone he knew, and he had looked at Lionel almost reproachfully when he heard the news. Lionel was currently doing an experimental film on ballet and the dance, and there were times when Ward wondered what went through the boy's mind. He was certainly different from their youngest son, but at least he was doing well in school. And Faye seemed to see a lot of him for lunch. He hadn't had much time himself. He'd been putting together the package for another big film deal, and he had a lot on his mind. But the boy looked all right. At least none of their brood had gone haywire with this flower child nonsense, and none of them were into drugs, although he frequently warned Faye to keep an eye on Val. That child was too damn seductive by far, and she seemed to have a knack for hanging out with older boys. She had turned up with some character in May who admitted to being twenty-four, and he had squashed that romance fast enough. But there was no denying she was hard to control. There was one in every brood, he'd been told, and Val was theirs. But so far, despite the wild garb, the makeup, and the older boys, she seemed to have stayed within the bounds of some kind of propriety.

The party they gave Greg that night differed radically from Lionel's the year before. By midnight everyone was not only drunk on beer, but most of them were naked in the pool. Faye wanted to have them all thrown out, but Ward prevailed and told her to let them have their fun. He wanted her to send Anne and the twins to bed, and Faye said that was impossible. You either had to close the whole show down or let them be, but the police made the decision for them shortly after two o'clock. They told them to turn the music off and tone it down. Every neighbor on their street had complained, especially the couple next door, when a chorus line of twelve hefty young men had appeared on the front lawn, and mooned them before leaping into their pool. Ward had thought the whole thing in good fun, but he was amused by almost everything Greg did. Faye was slightly less amused. There had been no complaints at all over Lionel's party the previous year. By the time the police came, Greg was sprawled out on a chaise longue, a towel wrapped around his naked waist, and an arm draped across his date, both of them drunk on beer and sound asleep. Neither of them woke up when the rest of the guests left, talking about what a great party it had been. Faye was just grateful that none of them had come into the house. Only one couple had wandered in and had been necking heavily in Greg's room, but Faye had seen them tiptoeing in and had asked them to go outside immediately. Sheepishly they had, and they had left early with a few others, who wanted to do some serious groping before going home. But for the most part they were more interested in pushing each other into the pool and consuming as much beer as they could before they had to leave.

And when the last guest left, Lionel and John Wells were still sitting a little distance from the pool, in a comfortable old double swing, under a tree. They were talking about UCLA, and Lionel was telling him which classes he liked best, and about his projects in film. John had gotten his desire of years, and he had been accepted there too.

The swing moved slowly back and forth as they watched the revelers beyond. Lionel had escaped quite a while before, and John had found him sitting in the swing. “I've been thinking about fine arts a lot,” John said. He was still Greg's best friend, officially, but in the last year they seemed to spend less and less time together. John was still on the football team too, but he didn't care about it as much as Greg did, and he was relieved to be free of it now. He never wanted to play football again, no matter how well suited to it he was. Greg had told him he was nuts. He had been offered a football scholarship at Georgia Tech, and had actually turned it down. And oddly enough, the friendship hadn't been as close after that. Greg just couldn't understand his giving up an opportunity like that. He had stared at his childhood friend in disgust and disbelief, and every time they met now, John felt as though he had to explain it again, as though he had committed an unpardonable sin. And in Greg's eyes he had. But Lionel didn't seem to care. And he had always been fond of John.

'They have a good fine arts department. And a great drama department of course.” Lionel knew he hadn't chosen his major yet.

“I don't think that's my style.” John smiled shyly at the older boy. He had always admired him.

“Are you living on campus next year?”

John looked hesitant. “I'm not sure. My Mom thinks I should live in the dorm, which doesn't appeal to me much. I think I'd rather live at home.”

Lionel looked pensive for a time as they moved gently on the swing. “I think one of my roommates is moving out.” He looked thoughtfully at John, wondering how he would fit in. He was still very young, but he was a decent kid. He didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't seem to raise too much hell, certainly nothing like Greg. He was a lot like Li's roommates, most of whom Lionel liked. Occasionally, they got rowdy on Saturday nights, but they weren't completely wild, and unlike a lot of other freshmen and sophomores, they didn't choose to live like pigs. They kept the apartment fairly clean, two of them had girlfriends who slept there a lot, but they didn't bother anyone, and Lionel came and went as he pleased. No one asked him a lot of questions anymore. Sometimes he wondered if they knew, but no one said anything, and no one asked. It was a good group, and John Wells might just make a good fifth. “Would you be interested, John? The rent is pretty cheap.” He looked at him. “How would your parents feel about your living off campus first year? Actually, it's just across the street, but it's not the dorms.” He grinned, and looked just like Faye as he did. He had grown from boyhood into manhood that year, and he was a beautiful young man. People often stared at him in the street with his graceful build, long limbs, big green eyes, and golden hair. And he wore quiet clothes that set off his good looks in a casual way. He could have been in films if he'd wanted to, but that end of the camera had never appealed to him. He looked at John now, and the younger boy felt something stir in him. “What do you think?”

His eyes lit up with quiet excitement as he glanced up at Lionel. “Boy, I'd love to find a place like that. I'll ask them tomorrow, first thing.”

Lionel smiled. “No rush. I'll just tell the others I know someone who's interested. I don't think anyone is worried about it yet.”

“How much is it? My Dad'U want to know.” John's parents were comfortable, but careful. He was the oldest child of five, and they were going to have four in college in the next four years, not unlike the Thayers, although Lionel's Dad worried less than John's. But Ward had two or three successful films under his belt every year, and John's did not. He was a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, and his Mom did a little decorating for her friends when she had time. She looked great though. She had had her eyes done the year before, her nose bobbed several years before that, and that summer she was going to have implants done in her breasts. Besides, she looked great in a bathing suit. And his sisters were pretty nice-looking too, he always thought. Greg had gone out with two of them, and one of them had had an eye on Lionel for years. But he had never seemed interested, and John had never wondered why.

“Divided by five, the rent only comes to sixty-six dollars a month, John. It's a five-bedroom house in Westwood, and the landlady is pretty good about staying off our backs. There's no pool, and there's only room for two cars in the garage. You'd have a good-sized bedroom, looking out on the front, and you share a bath with two other guys. The room comes with a bed and a desk. You'd have to supply the rest yourself, unless Thompson wants to sell his junk. He's going East to Yale for the next two years.”

“Wow!” John's eyes were all alight with excitement. “Wait till I tell my Dad!”

Lionel smiled. “Want to come by tomorrow and have a look at it? There are only going to be two of us there this summer, which will make the rent pretty steep. But it's too much trouble to move back in here,” he shrugged and looked vague, “and I don't know … it's easier, once you move out, I think it would be hard to come home again.” Especially in his case, there would be so many questions asked that he didn't have to contend with now. And he liked the freedom he had. And with only one other boy there that summer, it would almost be like his own place. He was looking forward to it.

“Yeah, I know … can I come and see it tomorrow?” It was Saturday and Lionel didn't have any plans. All he was going to do was sleep late and do some laundry. And he had been invited to a party that night, but he was free all day.

“Sure.”

“Nine o'clock?”

John looked like a five-year-old kid waiting for Santa Claus to come, and Lionel laughed. “How about noon?”

“Great.” They abandoned the swing then, and Lionel gave John a ride home. And after he dropped him off at the miniature French mansion where he lived in Bel-Air, with the regulation Cadillac and Mercedes parked outside in plain view, he drove slowly home, thinking about John. He felt something he couldn't deny, but he didn't know if it was appropriate in this case. He suspected not, and he had no intention of taking advantage of him. The offer of the room in his house was sincere. He wasn't setting John up, but he had to admit, having him so close could be difficult, or … and as his thoughts whirled around as he pulled up in front of the house he shared with the four other boys, he suddenly wondered if Paul had felt that way about him. There was an odd kind of responsibility to reaching out to someone like John … especially if it was the first time … and Lionel suspected it would be…. He almost shook himself then. What was he thinking of? What if John didn't feel that way at all? He'd be crazy to make a pass at him. He reminded himself of that several times as he brushed his teeth and went to bed. He was crazy to even consider it, he told himself as he lay in the dark, trying not to think of him. But John's innocent young face kept coming to mind again and again … the powerful legs … broad shoulders … narrow hips … he could feel himself becoming aroused, just thinking of him…. “No!” He said it aloud in the dark, and turned over, instinctively stroking himself, as he tried to force John out of his mind, but it was impossible, and his whole body shuddered with desire, as he thought of John diving into the pool earlier that night … and all that night, as he slept, Lionel dreamt of him … running on a beach … swimming in a deep tropical sea … kissing him … lying at his side…. He awoke with a dull ache that refused to go away, and he took his bike out and went for a long ride before anyone else got up, anxiously waiting for noon, and promising himself that he was going to tell John the room had been rented to someone else. That was the only way out. He could have called, but he didn't want to. He would tell him when he came to the house at noon … he would … that was the best way … tell him to his face … that was the only way.

CHAPTER 19

When Greg woke up the morning after his graduation bash, he had the worst hangover of his life, and he had already had quite a few. His head throbbed, his stomach was upset. He had woken up twice during the night and thrown up, once on his bathroom floor, and he thought he would die when he tried to stand up at eleven o'clock the next day. But his father saw him staggering downstairs, and handed him a cup of black coffee, a piece of toast, and a glass of tomato juice with a raw egg in it. Just looking at it all made him feel sick again, but his father insisted that he force it down.

“Make an effort, son. It'll do you good.” He seemed to speak from experience, and Greg trusted him, so he did his best, and was amazed when he felt a little better afterwards. Ward handed him two aspirins for his head and he gulped them down, and he felt almost human by noon, as he stretched out in the sun at the pool. He glanced over at Val, her lush figure poured into a bikini Faye didn't like her to wear when there was anyone else around, but with family it was all right. It was barely more than a piece of string, but Greg had to admit it looked great on her.

“Great party, wasn't it, Sis?”

“Yeah.” She opened an eye and looked at him. “You sure got drunk enough.”

He looked unconcerned. “Were Mom and Dad mad?”

“I think Mom would have been, but Dad kept telling her it was your graduation night.” She grinned. She had had quite a few beers too, and the music had been good. They had all danced a lot, before passing out.

“Just wait till it's your turn. You'll probably go nuts.”

“It's my turn next.” Except that she would have to share it with Van. That was the one thing she hated about being twins, you always had to share everything with someone else. And Faye had never understood that she wanted to be separate, to do things by herself, to have her own friends. She always treated them as though they were one, and Valerie had spent her whole life fighting that, making a point of how different they were, at all costs. And still nobody understood. It ruined everything. But not for much longer. Only two more years at home, and then she was moving out. Vanessa said she was going to college in the East, but she knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to take classes at acting school. Not UCLA drama school, the real thing, the kind working actors went to between jobs, and she was going to start looking for work. She'd get her own apartment. She wasn't going to waste her time going to college. Who needed that? She was going to be an actress, and a bigger one than her mother had ever been. She had set that goal for herself years before, and she had never swerved from that desire.

“What are you looking so uptight about?” Greg had been watching her as she thought, and she was wearing an ominous frown. She usually looked like that when she was plotting against some poor slob she had the hots for. But she only shook the long red hair back now, and shrugged. She hadn't told anyone what she was going to do. They would just give her a hard time. Greg would try and talk her into being a physical therapist, or an acrobat, or getting a dumb athletic scholarship somewhere, Vanessa would try and talk her into going to school in the East with her, Lionel would have some other dumb idea, like going to UCLA because he did. Mom would make speeches about education, Dad would tell her how bad makeup was for her skin, and Anne would look at her as though she were a freak. She knew all of them too well after sixteen years of living with them.

“I was just thinking about last night.” She lied and he lay back in the hot sun again.

“Yeah … it was the best.” It occurred to him then to ask what had happened to his date.

“Dad took her home. She almost threw up in his car.” Val grinned and he laughed.

“Christ, he didn't say a word.”

“Lucky it wasn't one of us, he'd have had a fit.” They both laughed and Anne wandered by on her way to the swing with a book.

Where you going, squirt?” Greg squinted at her in the sun, noticing what a trim figure she was getting in a bathing suit. Her waist seemed to be shrinking by the hour and he could have gotten both hands around it, and her breasts were almost as big as Val's. Their little sister was getting all grown up, but she wasn't the kind of kid you could say something about it to. She was the most restrained of all of them, and she never gave him the impression that she liked any of them much, except Lionel of course. It seemed to Greg that they had barely heard her speak since their older brother moved out. “Where you going, kid?” He repeated the question as she walked past them expressionlessly. She never had anything much to say to Greg. She had never liked sports and she always thought his girlfriends were dumb. And she had her worst fights with Val, who glared at her ominously now. She thought Anne's bathing suit looked suspiciously like one of her own, but she wasn't quite sure, and Anne could feel her eyes examining her.

“Nowhere.” She walked past them without saying another word, holding tight to her book, as Greg whispered to Val once she was past:

“She's a weird kid, isn't she, Val?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Val wasn't interested. She had just figured out that the bathing suit wasn't hers. Hers didn't have a yellow stripe down the sides.

“Growing up a lot though. Did you see those tits?” He laughed. “They're almost as big as yours.”

“Yeah? So what?” Val sucked in her already flat stomach as she stood up and pushed out her breasts. “She's got short legs anyway.” And she didn't look like any of them. Her looks had never been as striking as the other four. But Val looked at her own legs now, trying to decide if she had taken enough sun for one day. If she took too much, she'd burn, although she had more tolerance than most redheads. She noticed that Greg was already starting to fry. “You better watch out. You're turning red.”

“I'll go inside in a little while. John said he'd come by, and I want to go downtown to get extra floor mats for my car.”

“What about Joan?” She had been the little blonde her father had had to escort home the night before. She had the biggest boobs Val thought she'd ever seen. They were almost gross, and everyone in school said she was an easy lay. And that seemed to suit Greg perfectly.

“I'm seeing her tonight.” He had been sleeping with her for the last two months, ever since they'd heard about his football scholarship to the University of Alabama.

“Are you doubling with John?” She knew he had no special girlfriend, and she was always hoping to be asked to be his date, but Greg had never suggested it, and neither had John.

“No. He said he had other plans.” He glanced at Val. “Why? You got the hots for him, little Sis?” He was the worst tease of all, and in years past they had had some almost lethal fights. He loved to bait her, and she always went for it, as she was about to now.

“Hell, no. I just wondered. I've got a date.” She lied again.

“With who?” He knew her better than that.

“None of your business.”

“That's what I thought.” He lay back with a grin and she wanted to strangle him, as Anne watched them silently from her distant hiding place in the old swing. “You don't have a date with anyone, smartass.”

“The hell I don't. I have a date with Jack Barnes.”

“Bullshit. He's going steady with Linda Hall.”

“Well,” her face was bright red and not from the sun, and from the distance, Anne could tell she had just told a lie … she knew them all so well, better than they knew her, “maybe he's cheating on her.”

Greg sat up and stared at his sister carefully. “Not unless you're putting out the way she is, Sis. Which brings up a question I've been meaning to ask … are you?”

Val's face looked like it was on fire. “Screw you.” She wheeled on her heel and flounced into the house, and he laughed again as he lay down in the sun. She was a hot number, his little Sis, he had heard it from a couple of his friends whose younger brothers had gone out with her. But supposedly she would do anything except the real thing. He knew she was still a virgin, at least he thought she was, and he also knew she had lied about Jack Barnes. He suspected too that she had always had the hots for John Wells, but John had never seemed interested in her, and he was just as glad. That was a little close to home for his taste, and she wasn't John's type. He went for quieter, less showy girls. He was still pretty shy, and Greg was almost sure he hadn't done it yet either. Poor kid. He'd better hurry up. He was probably the last guy in their class who hadn't gotten into someone's pants yet, at least that was what they said. And it was getting embarrassing for Greg to have a friend like that. Hell, people would start to think John was queer, and worse yet, if they hung out together, they would say it about him. But he smiled to himself then. With what he'd been up to with Joan, there was no chance of that.

“Boy, this is a nice place.” John was looking around the house in Westwood rapturously, as though it were Versailles, or a Hollywood set, instead of a shabby student house across from UCLA. “My Dad thought the rent was cheap. And Mom was a little nervous about my not living in the dorm, but Dad said that as long as you were here, you could keep an eye on me.” He blushed, feeling stupid for what he had just said. “I mean …”

“That's okay.” Lionel was fighting to repress his dreams of the night before, and he had the oddest feeling of reliving a movie he had seen once before, only this time he was cast as Paul. It was like a variation of déjà vu, and he couldn't seem to escape his thoughts as he showed John around. Lionel's own room would be across the hall from John's, but he was sure that if he was willing to give up the only room in the house with its own shower, he could have the room adjoining John's. The other guys would have killed to have his room, and he would have been willing to give it up if … he pushed the thought out of his head, and forced himself to concentrate on John, and the tour of the house he was giving him. “There's a washing machine in the garage. No one uses it for weeks, and then everyone wants to use it all in one night.” Lionel smiled.

“My mom said I could bring my laundry home.” Lionel couldn't help thinking how unlike Greg he was, it was most odd that they were friends, except that they had gone to school together for thirteen years, and he suspected that it was habit more than anything else, and had he thought about it, John would have admitted he was right. He and Greg hadn't had much in common for the last couple of years, especially in the last few months. They seemed to disagree about everything, from the football scholarship to the class whore Greg was sleeping with. John couldn't stand being around her, and as a result he had been seeing less and less of Greg. He had been spending more time alone, and it was almost a relief to be talking to Lionel, someone sensible, who even went to the same school he'd be going to. “I really love this place, Li. It's great.” It could have been a barn and he would have fallen in love with it. It was all so grown up, so collegiate, and so cool, and it was comforting knowing Lionel would be there. He felt shy about starting out in a new school, and he had hated the idea of the dorm, after living at home with four sisters for eighteen years. It was all going to be so foreign to him, but not now, not with Lionel, not here.

“Would you want to stay here this summer, John? Or move in in the fall before school starts?” Lionel could feel his heart pound and he hated himself. What difference did it make when the kid moved in? Leave him alone, he wanted to shriek, and he was suddenly sorry he had suggested it at all. It was just going to make things difficult for him. It had been a stupid idea, but he couldn't back out now, and he had told two of the boys that morning before John arrived, and they were pleased he had found someone. It saved them the trouble of placing an ad, or calling friends.

“Could I move in next week?”

Lionel was momentarily shocked. “So soon?”

“Oh no …” John blushed nervously “… not if that's inconvenient for you. I just thought that since Tuesday is the first, it would be easier from the standpoint of the rent … and I have a summer job at Robinson's. I could live here while I work.” It was a department store, and Lionel was faintly reminded of his job the year before at Van Cleef & Arpels. He had enjoyed that and was sorry he couldn't do it again, but he wanted to work in film this year. It made more sense for him, and if he was lucky he would get credit from UCLA for the work, if the project turned out well.

“No, no … you're right, John. I hadn't thought of that. And the room is free. I just thought you'd want to think about it for a while….” It was too late, he had offered the room to John and now he wanted it. He would have to live with what he'd done, no matter what the cost to himself.

“I don't need to think about it, Li. I think the room is great.” Shit. Lionel stared at the tall dark-haired boy, with the exquisite body that had tormented him the night before, and there was nothing left to say.

“Fine. I'll tell the other guys. They'll be thrilled. It saves them a lot of headaches.” And then, in an attempt to make the best of it, “Do you want help moving in?”

“I don't want to bother you…. I thought I'd borrow Dad's car and move some stuff in tomorrow.”

“Ill come pick you up.” John's face lit up like a child's again.

“I really appreciate it, Li. You're sure it's not too much trouble?”

“Not at all.”

“Mom said she had a bedspread and some lamps and some other stuff.”

“Great.” Lionel could feel his heart sink, as he wondered what he had gotten himself into as John looked up admiringly at him.

“Can I take you to dinner tonight, Li, to thank you for all this?”

Suddenly Lionel was embarrassed by the boy's sincerity, and he was touched. “That's all right, John. You don't have to do anything like that. I'm glad it worked out.” But he wasn't. He was scared. What if he lost control? If he did something dumb? If John found out he was gay? But suddenly he felt John's hand on his arm and a chill ran down his spine. He wanted to tell John not to touch him again, but he'd think he was nuts.

“I can't thank you enough, Li. It's like a whole new life.” He was so relieved to get away from the kids at Beverly Hills High. He just didn't feel like them anymore. He hadn't in years, and he had hidden it for so long. Now he could start a new life somewhere else. He wouldn't have to try as hard, or listen to the jocks, or run away from the girls, or pretend to get drunk on Saturday nights … even the locker room had become a nightmare for him … all those boys … all those jocks … even Greg … especially him … and he knew he was different than they were. And yet with Lionel he didn't feel as though there were something wrong with him. He was so quiet and understanding, and he felt so comfortable with him. Even if he never saw him at the new house, it was nice to know that he'd be there once in a while, that their paths would cross, that he could talk to him sometimes. He looked into his eyes now and he wanted to cry with relief. “I've hated school so much, Li. I can't wait to get out.”

Lionel was surprised. “I thought you liked it, John. You're a big football star.” They wandered into the kitchen, and Lionel handed him a Coke, which he took gratefully. He was even more grateful it wasn't a beer. It would have been if it had been Greg.

“I've hated that for the last year. I'm just sick of all that shit.” He took a sip of the Coke, and sighed with relief. It really was a whole new life. “I hated every moment I spent on that damn football team.”

Lionel was stunned. “Why?”

“I don't know. I just never gave a damn about it. I was good at it, I guess, but I didn't really care. You know they actually used to cry in the locker room when they lost a game. Sometimes the coach cried too. As though it really mattered that much. All it is is a bunch of big guys beating each other up on a field. It just never turned me on.”

“Then why did you play?”

“It meant a lot to my Dad. He played in college before he went to med school. And he always used to kid me that if they smashed up my face, he'd fix it for me, for free.” John looked disgusted at the thought. “That didn't increase the appeal much.” He smiled slowly at Lionel. “Being here is going to be like a dream.”

Lionel smiled at him. “I'm glad you like the room. It'll be nice having you around, although I'm not here much. But if there's anything I can do …”

“You've done enough, Li.”

And true to his word, Lionel went to pick him up the next day, put the top down on the little red Mustang, and made three trips to help him move in his stuff. He seemed to have mountains of it, but he made miracles and Lionel hardly recognized the room by Sunday night. He stopped in the doorway and stared.

“My God, what did you do?” He had stapled fabric to one wall, hung plants, put up simple curtains and a handsome painting over the bed. Two lamps provided warm light, there were posters on the other wall. It looked like an apartment in a magazine, and there was a small white flokati rug on the floor. “Did your Mom do this for you?” Lionel knew she was a decorator and he couldn't imagine John doing all that in a matter of hours. There were even orange crates with the same fabric stapled on them, with magazines in baskets, and cushions giving the impression of a window seat. It was a small haven, and Lionel was impressed beyond words and it showed.

“I did it myself.” He looked pleased at the effect on Lionel. Everyone said he had a talent for interior design, he had always been able to take a room and change it in a matter of hours, using whatever materials were at hand. Even his mother said he should do something with his innate ability, he was better than she was, she claimed. It took her months to achieve the effects she struggled for. “I love doing stuff like that.”

“Maybe one of these days, you can wave a magic wand over my room. It still looks like a jail cell, and I've lived here for a year.”

John laughed. “Anytime.” He glanced around. “Actually, I had two extra plants, and I was going to ask you if you wanted them.”

Lionel smiled at him. “Sure. But they'll probably die the first time I walk into the room. I don't exactly have a knack with anything green.”

“I'll take care of them for you. I'll water them when I do mine.” The, two young men exchanged a smile and Lionel looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock.

“Want to go out for a hamburger?” The very words had a ring of déjà vu again, and he was reminded of Paul. It was even more eerie when John agreed and suggested they go to the very place he had gone with Paul the first time. It made Lionel silent and moody for the first part of the meal. He was thinking of that first night when he had gone to Malibu with Paul. He hadn't heard from him in months, and he had seen him drive past once, on Rodeo Drive, in the passenger seat of a beige and brown Rolls with a handsome, older man at the wheel. And they had been talking animatedly as Lionel watched, they were smiling at each other, and Paul had laughed at something the other man said. And now here he was again, with John … his younger brother's best friend. It felt odd. Even more so when they went back to the house they now shared. The other two living there just then were both staying at their girlfriends7 that night, and the others had already moved out at the end of the school year.

“Thanks for dinner.” John smiled at him as they sprawled comfortably in the living room and Lionel put a record on. Two of the bulbs were burned out in the room's main lamp, and the light was unintentionally dim. John lit a candle on the coffee table and glanced around. “This room could use a little help too.”

Lionel laughed. “You're going to have this place in shape in no time, but I think the other guys will discourage you a little bit. When they're here, this place always looks like someone just threw a bomb into the room.”

John laughed too. “My sisters keep their rooms like that.” His face grew more serious. “I've never lived with men before, except my Dad of course. I'm so used to having girls around all the time, this is going to be weird at first.” And then he smiled. “That must sound crazy to you.”

“No, it doesn't. I've got three sisters.”

“But you've had Greg around too. I've always been so close to my Mom and the girls. Ill bet I miss them for a while.”

“It's good training for when you get married, to have that many women around.” Lionel smiled again and wondered to himself if he was testing him. And he told himself that wasn't fair. John was just a kid … but he was the same age he had been when he met Paul … but Paul was so much more experienced … and he was the experienced one now. Not as much as Paul had been, but more so than this boy. But where did you start? How did you ask someone something like that? He tried to remember what Paul had said to him, but the words escaped him now … he remembered that they had gone for a long walk on the beach … and Paul had asked him something about being confused. But there was no beach here, and John didn't look confused to him. He was a trifle shy, and he was far less rowdy than Greg, but he was a happy, pleasant, young man … yet Lionel could never remember seeing him seriously involved with a girl.

They chatted on for a while, and finally Lionel got up and said he was going to take a shower. John said he'd do the same. And it was ten minutes later, when John knocked on the bathroom door and apologized, shouting into the shower where Lionel stood trying not to think of him, as rivulets of hot water purified his mind and his flesh.

“I'm sorry, Li … do you have any shampoo? I forgot mine.”

“What?” Lionel pulled aside the curtain so he could hear and saw John standing there, naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist. He felt his body stir, and pulled the shower curtain closed again so John couldn't see.

“I said, do you have any shampoo?”

“Sure.” He had already used it and his hair was wet and clean. “Here.” He handed it to John, who disappeared with a thanks and a smile, and he returned with it in a little while, wearing his towel again, his hair wet and dark, his body rippling with the muscles football had built for him, and Lionel was wandering naked around his room, putting things away and humming to himself. He had the radio on, and Lennon and McCartney were singing “Yesterday,” as John handed the shampoo back to him.

“Thanks.” He seemed to linger in the door, and Lionel turned away, wishing he would go. He didn't want to start anything, and he didn't want anyone to get hurt. His way of life was his own and he wasn't looking to drag anyone else into it, when suddenly he felt John's hand on his back, and it was as though his whole body was electrified. It was going to be agonizing having the boy around and hiding his secret from him. Without turning, he grabbed a white terry-cloth robe from a nail on the wall, struggled into it, and turned around, but he had never seen a more beautiful face than John's, there was sorrow and pain and honesty there. And their faces were only inches apart, as John looked at him. “I have to tell you something, Li. I should have told you before.” There was anguish in the boy's eyes, and Lionel ached for him, wondering what it was.

“Something wrong?”

The younger boy nodded and sank down slowly on the edge of the bed, looking sadly up at him. “I know I should have told you before I moved in, but I was scared you wouldn't … you'd be pissed.” He looked up at him, frightened, but honest. He came right to the point. “I think you should know I'm gay.” He looked as though he had just admitted he had just killed his best friend, and Lionel's jaw almost dropped he looked so stunned. How simple it all was. How brave he was to speak up, not knowing what Lionel would do or say. His heart went out to the boy and he sat down on the bed next to him and started to laugh. He laughed until tears came to his eyes, and John looked at him nervously. Maybe he was hysterical, or maybe he just thought it was so disgusting it was ridiculous. It was a relief when he finally stopped laughing long enough to speak, and he was stunned when Lionel put his hands on his shoulders as he did.

“If you only knew the things I've been telling myself since you moved in … I've been torturing myself….” It was clear that John didn't understand. “Baby, so am I.”

“You're gay?” John looked appalled and Lionel started laughing again. “You are? But I never thought …” And yet that wasn't true, there had been a faint, hesitant current between them for the last year and yet neither could accept the possibility that the other understood. They talked about it for the next two hours, lying on Lionel's bed, friends at last. Lionel told him about Paul. And John confessed to two brief, terrible affairs. There had been no love in either of them for him, just terrible, anguished, tortured, guilt-ridden sexual release, one with a teacher from his school, who had threatened to kill him if he talked, the other with a stranger, an older man, who had picked him up on the street. And the only purpose the two affairs had served was to show him what he was. He had suspected it for a long time, but he had always thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. People like Greg Thayer would never have talked to him again. But Lionel was so different, he understood it all, and he looked at the younger man sympathetically now, from his vantage point of nineteen. And John was curious about one thing.

“Does Greg know?”

Lionel was quick to shake his head. “Only my Mom. She found out last year.” He told John how, and it still hurt thinking of how shocked she had been, but she had been wonderful to him since then, understanding, compassionate, she accepted him as he was. “Everyone should be lucky enough to have a mother like her.” She had far exceeded his hopes and dreams.

“I don't think my Mom could accept it … and my Dad …” He almost cringed at the thought. “He always wanted me to be such a jock. I played football for him, and I kept thinking, I'm going to get my teeth kicked out doing this, and I hate it, I hate it.” His eyes filled with tears as he looked at Li. “I did it for him.”

“I wasn't as good as you were. But my Dad had Greg to pin his hopes on. I always let him carry the ball, so to speak.” He smiled gently at the new friend that he had known for years. “It took the heat off me in some ways, but I paid a price I guess. My father has never approved of me. And if he knew … he'd die.” They had so much guilt for so many years, for what they were not, for what they could never be, and in the past year, for what they had done. It was almost too much to bear at times. And Lionel thought of it now as he looked into John's eyes. “Did you know about me?”

John shook his head. “I don't think I did. I wished a lot though sometimes.” He smiled honestly up at Li and they both grinned, as Lionel tousled the damp black hair that framed his face.

“You little shit. Why didn't you say something?”

“And have you knock my teeth down my throat, or call the cops, or worse yet … tell Greg?” He shuddered at the thought, and then thought of something else. “Are all the guys in this house gay?”

Lionel was quick to shake his head. “None of them, and I'm pretty sure of that. You get a feel for that when you live with people. And they all have girls stay here pretty regularly,”

“Do they know about you?”

Lionel looked at him pointedly. “I'm careful that they don't suspect, and you'd better do the same, or they'll throw us both out.”

“I'll be careful. I swear.”

Lionel found himself thinking again of changing rooms to the one that shared the bathroom with John, but he forgot the room and looked up at John instead, lying across his bed, and suddenly he felt relief and desire wash over him, and he remembered his dreams of the night before. He reached out to touch John, as he lay back on the bed, waiting for Li's lips and his hands and his touch, his youthful flesh rippling with excitement and begging for him, and Lionel found him with his mouth, and his tongue danced hot fire up John's thighs, as he groaned, and discovered something at Lionel's hands that he had never had before. This time there was nothing clandestine, nothing frightening, nothing embarrassing about the love that Lionel lavished on him for the next several hours, until satisfied and peaceful, they lay in each other's arms and slept. They had each found something that they had been looking for, for a long time, without even knowing it.

CHAPTER 20

School began in the fall without event. Lionel and John had never been happier, and no one at the house knew. Lionel changed rooms before the others came back from their summer plans, and the arrangement worked out perfectly. John and Lionel both locked their doors at night, and no one had any idea who spent the night in whose bed, as they tiptoed back and forth stealthily, whispering late at night, and keeping their moans of ecstasy dimmed. It was only on the rare nights when no one was there at all, sleeping at girls' houses, or going skiing over a long weekend, that they allowed themselves a little more liberty. But they were cautious that no one should know, and for once Lionel didn't even say anything to Faye. He just said that school was going well. He didn't offer any romantic news, and she didn't want to pry, although she suspected there was someone in his life from the happy look in his eyes. She just hoped it was someone decent who wouldn't make him unhappy eventually. From what she knew of the homosexual world, there seemed to be so much unhappiness and promiscuity and infidelity, it wasn't a life she wanted her oldest child condemned to. But she knew that there was no alternative for him, and she accepted that. And in November, she invited him to the premiere of their latest film. He accepted with delight, and she wasn't surprised to see John Wells with him at the premiere. She knew that John was renting a room in the same house as Lionel, and going to UCLA as well, but at the end of the evening when they went to Chasen's for supper and champagne with the twins and a number of business associates and friends, she suddenly wondered if she didn't see something special pass between their eyes. She wasn't quite sure of it, but she sensed something, and she thought John looked much more mature than he had in June, as though he had grown up a lot in the last few months. She suspected something, but she said nothing to anyone, of course, and she was startled when Ward questioned her as they got undressed that night. She was talking to him animatedly about the film, the audience response, the favorable reviews they hoped to get, and she was stunned when he interrupted her with a worried frown, standing in his trousers with a bare chest.

“Do you think John Wells is queer?”

“John?” She looked amazed, but in her heart she knew she was stalling for time. “My God, Ward, what a thing to say … of course not, why?”

“I don't know. He looks different to me suddenly. Didn't you notice something about him tonight?”

“No,” she lied.

“I don't know …” He walked slowly to his closet and hung up his jacket, still wearing the same frown. “I just get a funny feeling about him.” Faye felt her whole body grow cold. She wondered if he had the same suspicions about their son. And like Lionel, she wasn't at all sure he could survive knowing the truth, although maybe he would have to one day. In the meantime, she was dedicated to keeping the truth from him. “Maybe I should say something to Lionel. Warn him … he may think I'm nuts, but if I'm right, he may thank me someday. Greg thought there was something wrong with him when he turned down that scholarship at Georgia Tech. Maybe he was right.” It was their ultimate criterion, much to Faye's chagrin.

Faye looked suddenly annoyed. “Just because he doesn't want to play football doesn't mean he's gay for chrissake. Maybe he's interested in other things.”

“You never see him with girls.” They didn't see Lionel with girls either, but Faye didn't point that out to him. And she knew Ward just assumed that Lionel kept his love life to himself . He did not assume he was carrying on with men, just because he didn't see the girls. But she didn't point that out to him.

“I think you're being unfair. It's like a witch hunt, for God's sake.”

“I just don't want Lionel living with some damn queer, and not realizing it.”

“I'm sure he's old enough to figure it out for himself. If that's the case.”

“Maybe not. He's so wrapped up in those crazy films of his. Sometimes I think he's completely lost in his own world.” Well, he had noticed that much about his oldest son at least, she told herself.

“He's a remarkably creative boy.” She was anxious to get Ward off the subject of John. And she had to admit, there had been something different about him tonight. But instinctively, she felt a need to protect him. She suspected that he was involved with John. Only Lionel still didn't look like what he was, and John was beginning to, and he had talked a lot about decorating and interior design. Maybe it was time she said something to Lionel about him. “Have you seen Li's last film, sweetheart? It's beautiful.”

Ward sighed and sat down on their bed in his shorts. He was still a beautiful man, and at forty-eight he was as well built as his sons. “Just between us, Faye, I have to tell you it's not my cup of tea.”

“It's a whole new wave, sweetheart.”

“It still isn't something I understand.”

She smiled at him. He was so good at what he did, but he was rarely open to new ideas. He put packages together for her films, but he was interested in none of the new and more exotic trends in films. He had hated the Cannes film festival that year. But he loved the Academy Awards and had been disappointed when she hadn't won another one. He had bought her a beautiful emerald ring to make up for it, and it reminded her of the old days before 1952 when everything changed for them. “You ought to give Li's films a chance, love. One of these days he's going to surprise the hell out of you and win an award for one of those odd little films.” She was convinced of it, but Ward didn't look impressed.

“Good for him. Did you hear from Greg today? He said he'd call about the weekend he wants us to come down.”

“No he didn't call, and I'm not sure I can. I've got meetings with the new script writer every day for the next three weeks.”

“Are you sure?”

“More or less. Why don't you ask Lionel to go with you?” Ward didn't look sure, but in the end he did, and it gave him the perfect opening to ask him about John when he extended the invitation to him.

“You don't think he's a fag, do you, Li?”

Lionel forced himself to keep a blank look in his eyes. He hated that word, and it took every ounce of restraint not to lash out in defense of his friend. “For heaven's sake, what makes you say a thing like that?”

Ward smiled. “You look just like your mother when you say that.” But then his face sobered rapidly. “I don't know. He looks different to me suddenly and he talks about decorating all the time.”

“That's ridiculous. That doesn't make him gay.”

“No, but chasing men would. Watch out he doesn't go after you. And if you sense anything weird about him, throw him out of that house. You don't owe him a thing.” For the first time in his life, Lionel had to fight the urge to punch his father out, but he managed to appear calm until he left his parents' house, and he drove all the way back at eighty miles an hour, wanting to kill somebody, mainly his Dad. When he reached the house, he slammed the front door, and a moment later, slammed the door to his room and locked the door. It was one of the rare times his roommates had ever seen him out of control, and everyone looked shocked. And a while later, John wandered into his own room and locked his door as well. He walked quickly through the bathroom that joined the two rooms.

“What's wrong, love?” Lionel looked up at John with fire in his eyes, and he had to admit to himself that John was beginning to look gay. In spite of the well-muscled physique, there was something smooth and pure about his face, he was wearing his hair differently, and his clothes were almost too perfect, too stylish, too neat, but he loved the boy, loved his talent, his warm heart, his giving ways, his body, his soul, he loved everything about him, and if he were a girl, they would already have been engaged and no one would have been surprised. But he was not, so everyone called him queer. “What's wrong?” He sat down quietly in a chair and waited for Lionel to unload.

“Nothing. I don't want to talk about it.”

John looked at the ceiling quietly and then back at his friend. “That's a dumb way to handle it. Why not get it off your chest?” And then, suddenly he suspected that it had to do with him. “Did I do something to upset you, Li?” He looked so worried and hurt, that Lionel walked over to him and gently touched his cheek.

“No … it has nothing to do with you….” But it did, and he didn't know how to explain it to him. “It's nothing. My father just pissed me off.”

“Did he say something about us?” He had correctly sensed that Ward had been staring at him the other night. “Does he suspect?”

Lionel wanted to be vague, but John was too sharp. “He might. I think he's just feeling around.”

“What did you say?” John looked concerned. What if he said something to the Wells? They had so much to hide. What if they had him arrested, or sent away, or … it was terrifying thinking of it all, but Lionel kissed his neck and spoke to him soothingly. He knew how worried he got.

“Relax. He's just talking off the top of his head. He doesn't know anything.”

John had tears in his eyes. “Do you want me to move out?”

“No!” Lionel almost shouted the word. “Not unless I go too. But we don't have to do that.”

“Do you think hell say something to my Dad?”

“Stop being so paranoid. He just made some cracks and he pissed me off, that's all. It's not the end of the world.” But to pacify Ward, Lionel went to Alabama with him, to watch Greg play ball, and it was the most boring weekend he had ever spent in his life. He hated football almost as much as John, and he had nothing to say to Greg. Worse yet, there were endless painful silences with his Dad, who went berserk as he watched the game when one of their star players suffered an injury and the coach put Greg in his place, just in time for Greg to score a touchdown in the last two and a half seconds of the game and win for his team. Lionel tried to feign the same excitement as Ward felt but it just wasn't there, and he was desperately relieved on the flight home, as he talked film to him, and tried to explain what he was working on. But as he had felt that he might as well have been on the moon as he watched Greg play, his father looked at him as he described his latest avant-garde film.

“Do you really think you can make money with something like that one day?” Lionel looked at him, stupefied, it was a goal that had never entered his mind. They were trying out new techniques, stretching the language of film to its utmost. Who gave a damn about making money on it? This was much more important than that, and the two men stared at each other in confused disbelief, each convinced that the other was a fool, yet feeling the burden of pretending that they respected the other's views. It was a terrible strain for both of them, and they both looked relieved to see Faye waiting for them at the gate. Ward talked endlessly about Greg's extraordinary touchdown, crushed that she hadn't watched it on TV, and Lionel looked at her as though he couldn't have stood a moment more. She laughed to herself, knowing them both so well and how different they were, yet she loved them both, just as she loved her other son, and the girls. They were just all very different people, who needed different things from her.

She dropped Ward off at home first, and then said that she would run Lionel home, and come back in time for a drink with Ward. It gave her a few minutes to talk to her oldest son, and commiserate over the boring weekend he had had.

“Was it terrible, love?” She smiled at the look on his face, and he groaned as he leaned his head back against the seat after they dropped his father off at home. He had never felt as exhausted in his entire life.

“Worse. It was like going to another planet and trying to talk their language all weekend long.” She wondered if it was just the boredom of the sport, or the strain of pretending to be straight, but she didn't ask.

“Poor thing. How was Greg?”

“The same.” He didn't need to say more to her. She knew how little they had in common. Sometimes it was hard to believe that they were both her sons. And then she asked him what she had worried about all weekend long.

“Did your father ask about John?”

Lionel's face went tense and he sat up again. “No. Why? Has he said anything else to you?” He sought her eyes, he still hadn't admitted anything to her, but he knew that she knew without being told, and he wasn't sure what she thought. He had a feeling that she thought it was too close to home, and in some ways she was right.

“I think you ought to be careful, li.”

“I am, Mom.” He sounded very young and her heart went out to him.

“Are you in love with him?” It was the first time she had asked, and he nodded with serious eyes.

“Yes.”

“Then be careful, for both your sakes. Do the Wells know about John?”

Lionel shook his head, and Faye felt a ripple of fear course up her spine as she drove home alone again. One day it would all come out, and someone would get hurt … maybe a lot of people would … John, Lionel … the Wells … Ward … she didn't care so much about John and his family, although she was fond of them … but she was terrified about what it would do to Ward … and Lionel…. She thought that Lionel could probably weather the storm. He was growing up, unconsciously preparing himself to face that one day, not just from his father, but from everyone. Lionel wasn't the kind of man to hide for the rest of his life. But Faye wasn't sure how Ward would survive the shock. It would destroy a part of him, she knew that, and it terrified her. But there was nothing she could do. Lionel had promised to be discreet. And at that moment, he had just locked his bedroom door, and was quietly kissing John, and then sighed as he told him how lonely the weekend had been.

CHAPTER 21

On Christmas Day, Lionel joined his family for their traditional Christmas dinner. Greg was home for a few days, although he had to go back early to play another game, and Ward was going with him. And after that, they were flying to the Super Bowl. Ward wanted Lionel to come too, but he insisted that he had other plans, and Ward looked annoyed, but Faye distracted them all with an enormous turkey, and champagne for all. Valerie drank a little too much, and everyone teased Van. She looked absolutely beautiful in a new hairdo and a new dress. She was in love for the first time, with a boy she had met at a school dance several weeks before, and she looked suddenly grown up. Even Anne had changed remarkably this year. In the past few months, she had sprouted up, and she was as tall as the twins, though she hadn't come into her own yet, but she was getting there. Lionel reminded them all as he toasted her, and she blushed, that she would be fourteen in a few weeks. And after dinner, Lionel and Anne sat by the fire and talked. He saw her less than he would have liked to these days, not so much because he was living out of the house, but because of his work on the film, but it was clear that he still adored her, and it was mutual. And then she surprised him by asking for John, and there was an odd look in her eyes when she did, as though she had a crush on him, and he was surprised that he hadn't realized it before. But everything about her was so hidden and so clandestine, it wasn't surprising that he hadn't noticed it.

“He's fine. I guess he's doing all right in school. I don't see him very much.”

“He's still living at your house though, isn't he? I saw Sally Wells the other day, and she said he loved it there.” Sally Wells was Anne's age, but she was far more mature, and he prayed that Sally hadn't figured things out and told Anne, but it didn't look as though she had. Anne still had that light of innocence and hope in her eyes.

“Yes, he's still there.”

“I haven't seen him in a long time.” She looked at Lionel wistfully and he wanted to laugh she looked so sweet, but he didn't say anything.

“I'll tell him you said hello.” She nodded and the others came in. Ward lit a fire, and they were all pleased with their gifts, and Ward and Faye looked over each other's heads and smiled. It had been a good year all around.

Lionel was the first to leave, as was John at the Wells' home. The other boys were all gone for the holidays. They had the whole house to themselves, so they didn't have to hide and lock their bedroom doors. It was wonderful being able to relax and be themselves. It was a strain being careful all the time, especially for John, who seemed to be growing more obviously effeminate day by day. Now he could fill the house with flowers, and spend long hours in bed with Lionel every afternoon, who was taking a break from his film over the holidays. The two boys took long walks, and talked a lot, and came home to cook and drink hot toddies or white wine by the fire.

It was almost like being grown up, John teased, so much so that they didn't even bother to lock the front door, and never heard Lionel's father walk in the day after Christmas Day. He had stopped in to see if he could talk Lionel into flying South with him after all, and watching Greg play, before all three of them went to the Super Bowl. But the thought went right out of his head, as he walked quietly in after no one had answered his knock, and he found the two boys lying near the fire, fully dressed, but with John's head nestled in Lionel's lap, Li's head bent low, saying something endearing to him. Ward stopped and uttered an almost animal groan, as the two boys jumped and looked up, and Lionel's face went white. They both scrambled to their feet, and without thinking, Ward advanced toward John angrily, and took a vicious swing at him, making his nose bleed at once, and then he swung at Lionel, but Li grabbed his arm and stopped the blow before it reached his face. There were tears in his eyes, and his father was crying with rage, screaming obscenities at both of them.

“You little sonofabitch … you whore … !” The words were meant for John, but he was shouting them at his son, too, his eyes blinded by fury and tears. He couldn't believe what he had just seen. He wanted them to take it back, to tell him it wasn't true, but it was, and there was no hiding from it now. Lionel felt physically sick as he held his father away from him, and John had begun to cry. It was a nightmarish scene and Lionel was attempting to keep calm. He felt as if his whole life was in question now, and he had to explain it to him. Maybe he would understand … he had to try desperately to explain how different he had always been from Greg … from all of them … how he had felt … he didn't even feel the tears pouring down his cheeks, or the blow when his father finally freed his hands and slapped his face.

“Dad, please … I want to talk to you … I… “

“I don't want to hear any of it!” He was trembling from head to foot and Lionel was suddenly terrified he would have a heart attack. “I never want to see you again! You two fag bitches!” He looked at them both. “You scum!” And then at Lionel. “You're not my son anymore, you little queen. I never want to see you in my house again. I won't pay another dime for your support. You are out of my life from now on, is that clear? And stay away from my family!” He was sobbing and shouting and he advanced menacingly on John again. All his dreams had been shattered at once. His oldest son was queer. It was more than he could bear, more than losing his fortune years before or the threat of his losing his wife shortly after that … in his eyes, this was even worse than a death. It was a loss he would never understand, and in some ways a loss he was inflicting on himself, but he didn't realize that. “You're through! Is that clear?” Lionel nodded his head numbly, and staggering toward the door he had come in only moments before, Ward almost fell blindly down the stairs as he left. The shock was too much for him. He went straight to the nearest bar, had four scotches straight up, and at eight o'clock Faye called Lionel with a worried voice. She hated to bother him, but it didn't make sense. They had been expecting guests at six o'clock and Ward hadn't come home. They said he had left the studio early that afternoon, and she couldn't imagine where he'd gone.

“Darling, did your father call you today?” Lionel was still numb. John had been sobbing on the couch for hours, aghast at what had been said, the end result, and the fear that Ward would tell his parents too. Lionel had tried to calm him and had forced him to put an ice pack on his swollen cheek and nose, and he felt an anguish in his own heart that no one could soothe now. His voice was still trembling when he answered the phone, and he couldn't answer her at first. And then suddenly, with an icy chill, she realized something was wrong. “Li … sweetheart, are you all right?”

“I … yuh … I…” The words were unintelligible, and suddenly he began to sob too, as John sat up and stared at him. He had been so calm, so strong, and suddenly he was falling apart. “Mom … I … can't …”

“Oh my God …” Something terrible had happened to him … maybe Ward had gotten hurt and they had called Lionel. She felt panic rise in her throat. “Calm down. Now come on … tell me what happened …”

“Dad came … by…” There were great terrible gulping sobs locked in his chest and they were begging to come out. “He … I …” And then suddenly she knew.

“Did he find you and John?” She imagined the worst, that he had found them in bed and she felt faint at the thought. She herself wouldn't have enjoyed that scene no matter how tolerant she was of her son. And Lionel was beyond being able to reassure her as to what his father had seen.

He could only force out a single word before collapsing totally on the phone. “Yes …” It was moments before he could speak again. “He said he never wanted to see me again … that I wasn't his son …”

“Oh my God … darling, calm down. You know none of that is true, and he'll come to his senses eventually.” She talked to him for over an hour, their guests having gone home after several cocktails some time before. She offered to go over and talk to them, but he wanted to be alone with John, and she was just as glad. She wanted to be home when Ward returned.

When he did, she was horrified by the condition he was in. He had stopped at several bars after the first one, and he was drunk and staggering, but he still remembered having seen Lionel and John and what he now knew of them and he looked at Faye with hatred and despair. He had turned on her too.

“You knew, didn't you?”

She didn't want to lie to him, but she didn't want him to feel there had been a conspiracy to keep it from him for years. “I suspected about John.”

“Fuck that little sonofabitch …” He reeled toward her and she saw that there was blood on his shirt. He had fallen and cut his hand on the way out of the last bar, but he wouldn't let her come to him. “I mean you knew about our son … or should I call him our daughter now?” He reeked of booze and she fell back as he approached and grabbed her arm. “That's what he is, did you know that? Did you know?”

“Ward, he's still our child, no matter what he does. He's a decent human being and a good boy … it's not his fault if that's the way he is.”

“Whose fault is it then? Mine?” That's what he was really worried about. Why had Lionel turned out that way? He had tortured himself over it from one bar to the next, and he didn't like any of the answers that came to mind … he had let Faye have too much of a hand with him … he hadn't spent enough time with him himself … he had frightened him … he hadn't loved him enough … he had always favored Greg … the reproaches were legion, but they all amounted to the same thing. His son was queer. Where had he learned? How had it happened? How could it happen to him? It was a personal affront to his own manhood … his son was a fag … the words burned through him like fire, and he looked into Faye's eyes with tears in his own eyes again.

“Stop blaming yourself, Ward.” She slipped her arms around him and led him to their bed, where they sat side by side, as he leaned heavily against her.

“It's not my fault.” It was the whine of a frightened child, and she felt sorry for him. She had asked herself the same questions too the year before, but maybe it was harder for him. She had always known it would be. He wasn't as strong as she was, as sure of herself, or what she had given their kids.

“It's not anyone's fault, not yours, not mine, or his, or even John's. It's just the way he is. We owe it to him to accept that.” But as she said it, he pushed her away from him and stood up unsteadily, grabbing her arm until she winced.

“I will never accept it. Never! Do you understand? That's what I told him. He's not my son anymore.”

“Oh yes, he is!” Now she was furious too and she wrenched her arm away from him. “He is our son, whether he is crippled or maimed or impaired, or deaf or dumb, or mentally ill, or a murderer, or whatever he is … and thank God, all he is is a homosexual for chrissake. He is my son until my dying day or his, and he is your son until then too, whether you like it or not, or whether you approve of him or not,” she was crying now too, and Ward was shocked at her words and the vehemence with which she spoke to him. “You can't banish him from your life or mine. He is not going anywhere. He is our son, and you'd damn well better accept him as he is, or you can go to hell, Ward Thayer. I'm not going to let you put that boy through any more misery than he's already been through. It's hard enough on him as it is.”

Ward's eyes blazed into hers. “That's why he's the way he is. Because you've protected him all his life. You make excuses for him, you let him hide in your skirts.” He sat down in a chair and began to cry again, as he looked up at her. “And now he's wearing your skirts, damn you. We're lucky he isn't walking around in a dress for chrissakes.” The way he spoke of their son tore at her heart so terribly that she reached out and slapped him hard across the face, and he didn't move from where he sat. He just looked at her with eyes so cold and hard that they frightened her. “I never want to see him in this house again. And if he comes here, I will throw him out myself. I told him, and I'm telling you, and I will tell everyone else, and if any of you disagree, you're welcome to leave too.

Lionel Thayer no longer exists. Is that clear?” She was speechless with rage, and she would have liked to kill him with her bare hands. For the first time in her life, even with all that had happened to them before now, for the first time she was sorry that she had married him and she told him so, before slamming out of the room.

She slept in Lionel's room that night, and the next morning at breakfast, Ward broke her heart again. He looked as though he had aged ten years overnight, and she remembered now what she had said to Lionel before. She had been afraid then that the truth would kill Ward, and it looked now as though it might, but by the time she was finished, she wished it would. He drank a cup of coffee in silence, stared at the paper without picking it up, and then spoke up in a numbed, flat voice to all of them. Oddly enough, it was one of the few times that they had all had breakfast together in months. But Greg was home for another day before going back for his big game, the twins were both up, which was miraculous, and Anne had come downstairs only moments after them, and they all sat there now staring at Ward, as he told them that, in his eyes, Lionel would no longer exist from that day forth, that he was a homosexual and having an affair with John Wells. The girls sat and stared at him in open horror and Vanessa began to cry, but Greg looked as though he might throw up. He jumped to his feet, shouting at his Dad as Faye gripped her chair.

“That's a lie!” He said it more in defense of his old friend than his brother, who was, in some ways, a stranger to him. “That's not true.” His father looked as though he might hit him and pointed at his chair.

“Sit down and shut up. It is true. I walked in on them yesterday.” Anne's face turned to ash, and Faye felt as though her entire family, her whole life, were being destroyed. And she hated Ward for it, for what he was doing to all of them, and most of all their firstborn. “Lionel is no longer welcome in this house. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist. Is that clear? You are all forbidden to see him again and if I find out you have, you're welcome to leave too. I will not support him, or see him, or speak to him ever again. Does everyone understand?” They all nodded woodenly, and all eyes were damp, and a moment later he was gone. He got in his car, and drove to Bob and Mary Wells, as Faye sat at the breakfast table staring at them all, and they stared back at her. Greg was fighting back tears, and he kept thinking of what his friends would say when they found out. It was the worst thing he could think of, and he wanted to die. Most of all he wanted to kill John Wells, the phony little shit … he should have known when he wouldn't take the scholarship to Georgia Tech … fucking fruit … he clenched his fists and looked at them all helplessly as Vanessa searched Faye's eyes.

“Is that how you feel, Mom?” Vanessa asked. There was no point asking if it was true, no matter how unbelievable it was. Their father had said he had walked in on them, and none of them could imagine anything worse. It sounded mysterious and frightening and terrible, and they all imagined obscene acts going on before his eyes, instead of two boys in front of a fire, with one's head in the other's lap. But it had all been very clear, and there was no argument now.

Faye looked at them all and then Vanessa again. She spoke in a measured, quiet voice, and she thought she had never known such pain. He had destroyed everything she had built for almost twenty years. What would happen to these children now? What would they think of Lionel? Themselves? Their father for banishing their oldest brother from their lives, their mother for letting him do it? … She had to speak up. To hell with Ward. “No. That is not how I feel. I love Lionel, just as I always have, and if that is how he feels, and what he is, and he is a decent upstanding man, no matter what his sexual preferences are,” it was time to be honest with them, “I will always stand by him. And I want you all to know that right now. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever mistakes you make, and whatever you become, whether it be good or bad, or something I approve of or not, I will always be your mother and your friend. You can always come to me. I will always have a place in my heart and my life and my home for you.” She went then and kissed each of them as they cried, all four of them, for the brother they had just lost at their father's hands, for the disappointment they felt, the shock of the secret revealed. It was all a little beyond their ken, but their mother's message was clear.

“Do you think Daddy will change his mind?” Val's voice was subdued, and no one had noticed Anne slip away a moment before.

“I don't know. I'll talk to him. And I suppose in time, he'll come to his senses, but he just can't understand it right now.”

“Well, neither can I.” Greg slammed a fist into the table and stood up. “I think it's the most disgusting thing I ever heard.”

“How you feel about it, Greg, is up to you. I don't give a damn what they did. As long as they don't hurt anyone, as long as that's the way they are, I accept them as they are.” She looked her son in the eye and saw the distance between them now. He was too much like Ward. His mind was closed, and now so was his heart. He ran upstairs and slammed the door, and once he had left, Faye noticed that Anne was gone. She knew what a blow it would be to her, and she resolved to go upstairs and talk to her, but when she did, the child's door was locked and she wouldn't answer her. The twins went to their rooms too, and the entire family acted as though someone had died. Faye called Lionel a little while later, and he and John knew by then that Ward had gone to the Wells.

They were all hysterical and Bob and Mary Wells had called. There had been rivers of tears, and after the phone call, John had gone to the bathroom and thrown up. But for all the shouting and screaming and reproaches they made of both boys, they wanted John to know that he was still their son, that they did not share Ward Thayer's view, that they still loved him, and they accepted Lionel as well. It brought tears to Faye's eyes when she heard, and she was secretly pleased when Lionel told her that Bob Wells had thrown Ward out of their house.

And Faye went to see both boys that afternoon. She wanted Lionel to know again how strongly she supported him, and mother and son stood holding each other for a long time, and then she turned and hugged John. It wasn't easy to accept, and it wouldn't have been her choice for him, but it was what he was. And she also wanted him to know that he would always be welcome in their home, that he was still part of the family no matter what his father said, and that from now on, she would be supporting both his school career and his living expenses. If his father wanted to cut him off, that was up to him, but Faye would always be there for him. She would take the responsibility on now, and Lionel cried as she told him, and promised to get a job to help support himself. And John did too. His parents had already told him earlier that they would continue to support him as long as he was in school, that nothing was going to change for him.

But Ward stuck to the same party line, when he returned that night. He had disappeared all day, and Faye could tell from the way he looked when he got home that he had been drinking all day. He reminded everyone at dinner that night that Lionel was no longer welcome in his house, that he was dead as far as he was concerned, and as he said the words, Anne rose and stared at him with hatred in her eyes.

“Sit down!” It was the first time he had ever spoken harshly to her, and she stood up to him, much to everyone's surprise. It was a time in their family that no one would forget soon.

“I won't. You make me sick.”

He walked around the table and grabbed her arm, forcing her into her seat, but she wouldn't touch her food, and then with measured tones she stood up at the end of the meal and glared at him.

“He's better than you are.”

“Then get out of my house.”

“I will!” She threw her napkin into her plate, on which nothing had been touched during the entire meal, and disappeared into her room a moment later. They heard Greg's car roar away moments after that. He was having trouble coping with it all, and Vanessa and Valerie looked at each other with concern. They were both frightened for Anne, and what this would do to her.

And that night she slipped out of the house, and hitched a ride to Lionel's house. She rang the bell, and knocked on the door, and she could see lights upstairs, but they wouldn't answer her and when she went to the corner and called on the pay phone there, no one answered the phone. They had heard it ring, and they were sitting quietly in the living room. But it had been such a nightmarish twenty-four hours for them that they couldn't take any more. John thought that maybe they should answer the door. But Lionel disagreed.

“If it's one of the guys coming home early, they've all got the key. It's probably my father drunk again.” They'd been through enough. They both agreed about that. They didn't even look out the window to see who it was. And downstairs she fished a pencil out of her coat pocket, and tore a piece of newspaper off the garbage can, scribbling a note to Lionel. “I love you, Li. I always will, A.” Tears filled her eyes. She had wanted to see him again before she left, but maybe it didn't matter now … she slipped the piece of paper into the mailbox. That was all he needed to know. She didn't want him to think she had turned on him too. He had to know she never would. But she couldn't stand it anymore. It had been unbearable ever since he moved out, and now it would be worse. She would never see him. She had only one choice, and she was surprised at how relieved she felt.

That night as they all slept, she quietly packed a small duffle bag, and slipped out her bedroom window, as she had done when she had gone to see Li. There were easy footholds all the way down the side of the house. She had used them before, plenty of times. And she slipped quietly down now, wearing sneakers and jeans, her hair in a long blond braid, a warm parka on. She knew it would be cold up there. And she had everything she cared about in the one small bag. She didn't even look back as she left the house. She didn't give a damn about any of them, any more than they did about her. She stealthily crept down the road, and walked all the way into L.A., and there she hitched a ride on the freeway heading north. She was surprised at how easy it was. And she told the first driver that she went to Berkeley and had to get back after the Christmas holiday. He didn't ask her anything else, and drove her all the way to Bakersfield before dropping her off.

And by then, Faye had found her note. She had left the door unlocked, and the note on her bed.

“That makes two of us you're rid of now, Dad. Goodbye, Anne.” No word to anyone else. Nothing to Faye. Her heart almost stopped when she found the piece of paper left on Anne's bed, and they called the police immediately. She called Lionel too, and he had found the scrap of newspaper by then. It was the worst time in her life Faye could ever recall, and she wondered if she'd live through it, as she waited for the police to arrive. Ward was sitting, stunned, in a chair in the den, the note still in his hand.

“She couldn't have gone very far. She's probably at a friend's.”

But Valerie took care of that hope. “She doesn't have any friends.” It was a sad statement about Anne, but they all knew it was true. Her only friend had been Lionel, and her father had banished him. Faye sat watching him with unspoken rage, as the bell rang. The police had come. She just prayed they would find Anne before something happened to her. There was no telling where she had gone, and she had already been gone for hours.

CHAPTER 22

After the first driver who picked her up left her in Bakersfield, it took Anne several hours to catch another ride, but this one took her straight up to Fremont, and she caught another ride easily from there. It took her a total of nineteen hours to get to San Francisco, but on the whole she was surprised at how easy it was, and all of them had been nice to her. They thought she was just another college kid, “a flower child” two of them had teased. None of them would have guessed that she was a few weeks shy of being fourteen years old. And when she reached San Francisco, she walked down Haight Street, feeling as though the streets were paved with gold. There were young people everywhere, in bright, homemade clothes. There were Hare Krishnas in soft orange robes with shaved heads, boys with hair to their waists in jeans, girls with flowers braided into their hair. Everyone looked happy and pleased with life. There were people sharing food on the streets, and someone offered her an acid tab for free, but she smiled shyly and refused.

“What's your name?” someone asked, and she whispered softly, “Anne.” This was the place she had longed to be for years, free of the strangers she had been related to and hated for so long. She was glad, in a way, that it had come to this. Lionel had John now, and maybe soon she would have someone too. Lionel would know that she loved him no matter what, and as for the others … she didn't care. She hoped she'd never see them again. On the way north, she had thought seriously about changing her name, but once on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury, she realized that no one would care. There were others who looked even younger than she, and no one would suspect she'd come here. She had said nothing to anyone. And a girl named Anne was as anonymous as anyone could be. Her looks were plain, her hair an ordinary blond, unlike Vanessa's pale golden hair, or Val's, which looked like flame. The twins couldn't have gotten away with this, even if they wanted to. But she knew she could. She could fade into any crowd. She had been doing it right at home for years. No one knew when she was there, when she was not, when she arrived, or when she disappeared, and she was so used to everyone asking “Where's Anne?” that she knew that she could easily do the same thing here.

“Hungry, Sister?” She looked up to see a girl in what looked like a white bedsheet wrapped around her spare frame, with a tattered purple parka over it. The girl was smiling at her and held out a piece of carrot cake. Anne suspected it might be laced with acid or some other drug, and the girl in the parka saw her hesitate. “It's clean. You just look like you're new here.”

“I am.”

The girl with the carrot cake was sixteen and she'd been here for seven months, having come from Philadelphia in late May. Her parents hadn't found her yet, although she'd seen their ads in the “Personals,” but she had no inclination to respond. There was a priest who roamed the streets, offering advice, and to make contact with their parents if they wished. But not too many did, and Daphne wasn't one of them. “My name is Daff. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

Hesitantly, Anne shook her head. “Not yet.”

“There's a place on Waller. You can stay for as long as you like. All you have to do is help keep it clean, and help cook the food on the days they assign.” They had also had two outbreaks of hepatitis recently, but Daphne didn't tell her that. Outwardly everything was beautiful and loving here. The rats, the lice, the kids who died from overdose were not something one discussed with a neophyte. And no matter, those things happened everywhere, didn't they? This was a special time in history. A time of peace and love and joy. A wave of love to counteract the useless deaths in Vietnam. Time had stopped for all of them and all that mattered was the here and now, and love and peace, and friends like this. Daphne gently kissed her cheeks and took her hand, leading her to the house on Waller Street.

There were roughly thirty or forty people living there, mostly in Indian garb of rainbow hues, although there were some in patched jeans too, and outfits with feathers and sequins sewn on. Anne felt like a plain little bird in her jeans and an old brown turtleneck she'd worn on the trip, but a girl who met her at the door offered to lend her a dress, and she found herself suddenly wearing a costume in faded pink silk. It had come from a thrift shop on Divisadero Street, and she slipped her feet into rubber thongs, unbraided her hair, and wove two flowers into it, and by that afternoon she felt and looked like one of them. They ate an Indian dish, and someone had baked bread, she took a few hits on someone's joint, and she lay back on a sleeping bag feeling full and warm and content, looking around at her new friends, feeling a warmth and acceptance she had never felt before. And she knew she would be happy here. It was a lifetime away from the house in Beverly Hills, her father's angry edicts about Lionel … the perfidies of the people she knew … the stupidity of Gregory … the selfishness of the twins … the woman who called herself her mother that she had never understood … this was where she belonged now. Here on Waller Street, with her new friends.

And when they initiated her three days after she arrived, it seemed suitable and right and loving. It was a supreme act of love in a room filled with incense, as a fire blazed warmly in the hearth, and the hallucination carried her from heaven to hell and back again. She knew she would be a different person when she woke up again. They told her that before she ate the mushrooms, followed by the tiny tab of LSD absorbed into a sugar cube. It took a little while for it to take hold on her mind, but when it did, there were friendly spirits there, and a room full of people she knew. Later, there were spiders and bats and terrifying things, but they held her hands while she howled and screamed, and when she felt her body racked with pain, they sang her songs, and cradled her as her mother never had … even Lionel had done nothing like this for her … she crossed a desert on her hands and knees, and then at last she came to an enchanted forest, filled with elves, and she felt their hands on her, and felt the spirits singing to her again. And now the faces that had hovered over her all night, and waited for her to be free of the evil of her past life, came forward toward her. Already, she felt purified, and knew that she was one of them. The evil spirits had been killed, they had left her, and now she was pure … now they could complete the ritual with her. Gently, they peeled away her clothes, and washed her with oils, each one gently massaging her tender flesh … she had come far that night, and parts of her were sore, but the'women gently massaged her, getting her ready now, reaching slowly into her, and stretching her as she screamed. She fought them at first, but they whispered so gently to her, and she could hear the music now. They had her drink something warm, and poured more oil on her, as her two guardians tenderly massaged her most secret place and she writhed beneath their hands, howling with agony and joy, and then her new brothers came, the spirits who would belong to her now, to replace the others she had left behind, and each of them knelt beside her as the sisters crooned, and one by one the brothers entered her, as the music grew louder, and birds flew high overhead … there were sharp arrows of pain at times, and waves of ecstasy, and again and again they came into her, and held her there, and left again, until the sisters returned, kissing her now and reaching far far into her until she could feel no more, and heard no sound. The music had stopped. The room was dark. Her past life was gone. She stirred, wondering if it had all been a dream but when she sat up and looked around, she saw them there, waiting for her. She had been gone for a long, long time, and she was so surprised at how many there were. But she recognized each one of them, and crying, she held out her arms and they came to her, embracing her. Her womanhood was complete, her sisterhood was sure. They gave her another acid tab as a reward, and this time she soared with them as one of the flock, dressed in a gown of white, and when the brothers and sisters came to her again, she was one of them this time, kissing them too … touching the sisters as they had touched her. This was her privilege now, they explained, and this was an expression of her love for them and theirs for her. She was to participate often in the ritual in the next few weeks, and when a new face arrived in the house on Waller Street, it was Sunflower who greeted them, with her blond hair woven with flowers and her gentle smile … Sunflower who had once been Anne … she lived mostly on LSD, and she had never been as happy in her life. And three months after she had come to them, one of the brothers took her as his own. His name was Moon, and he was tall and thin and beautiful, with silver hair and gentle eyes. He took her to bed with him every night, and cradled her, and in some ways he reminded her of Lionel. She went everywhere with him, and often he would turn to her with his mystic smile.

“Sunflower … come to me….” She knew the magic of what pleased him now, knew best how to warm the herb potions he drank, when to bring him drugs, when to touch his flesh. And now, when a newcomer arrived, and they performed the ritual, it was Sunflower who went to the sisters first, gently pouring the warm oil over them, welcoming them to their tribe, and letting her swift ringers prepare them for the rest of the tribe. Moon was always very proud of her, and gave her extra acid tabs because of it. It was strange how different life was now from what it had once been. It was filled with bright colors and people that she loved, people who loved her too. There was nothing left of the lonely ugliness of her life. She had forgotten all of them. And when, in the spring, Moon felt her belly and told her she was with child, and could no longer participate in the ritual, she cried.

“Don't cry, little love … you must prepare for a much greater ritual than that. We will all be there with you when this tiny moonbeam pierces the skies and comes to you, but until then …” He cut down on her acid tabs, although he let her smoke as much marijuana as she wished. And he laughed at her when it increased her appetite. The baby was just beginning to show when she walked down Haight Street one day, and saw a face she knew she recognized from the past, but she wasn't quite sure who it was. She returned to Moon in the house on Waller Street with a pensive air.

“I've seen someone I know.”

It didn't particularly worry him. They all saw people they knew at times, in their minds and hearts, and occasionally in more concrete ways. His wife and child had died in a boating accident just before he had walked out of his house in Boston one day and come here. He saw them in his mind's eye, much of the time, especially during the ritual. For Sunflower to see someone she knew now surprised him not at all. It was a sign of her rising to a higher state, and that pleased him. This child, who was part his, would bring her even higher before it came. “Who was it, child?”

“I'm not sure. I can't remember his name.” He had let her have one of the rare acid tabs he allowed her the night before, and the name Jesus kept coming to her mind, but she was sure it wasn't him.

Moon smiled at her. Later, she would have more mushrooms and acid again, but she had to remain pure for the coming child, she could have only just enough to keep her in an enlightened state. But she could not soar too high now, or it would frighten the child. And this baby belonged to all of them after all. They had all shared in it, the brothers and the sisters. Moon felt certain that it had been conceived during her first night, when she was the center of the ritual. The child would be specially blessed and as he reminded her of that the name John came into her mind, clearly, and then suddenly she remembered him.

CHAPTER 23

“Are you sure?” Lionel stared at him disbelievingly. John had done this to him twice before. They had both dropped out of school three months before, much to everyone's despair, and they had come to San Francisco to search for her. Ward had refused to hear about it from Faye, and Bob Wells was afraid they were using it as an excuse to drop out of school, go to San Francisco, and join the gays living freely there.

But Lionel insisted that Anne would go there. It was a haven for runaway kids, and though he didn't tell his parents, he felt certain that the runaways could live there for years without being recognized or turned in. There were thousands of them, crushed into tiny apartments, living like ants in the houses of the Haight-Ashbury, the houses painted a riot of colors, with flowers and rugs and incense and drugs and sleeping bags everywhere. It was a place and a time that would never come again, and Lionel instinctively felt that Anne was part of it. He had felt it from the first moment he'd arrived. It was just a question of finding her, if they could. He and John had combed the streets for months without success, and there wasn't much time left for them. They had promised to return to school by June for the summer session to make up for the time they'd lost.

“If you don't find her in three months,” Bob Wells had said, “then you have to give up. You can only search for so long. She could be in New York, or Hawaii, or Canada.” But Lionel knew he was wrong. She would come here, to search for the love she felt she'd never had from them. And John agreed with him, and now he was certain that he'd seen her walking in a daze near Ashbury, wrapped in a purple bedsheet, with a crown of flowers on her hair, her eyes so glazed he almost wondered if she had seen him at all. But for an instant, just an instant, he had been certain that she had known who he was, and then she had drifted off again. He had followed her to an old broken-down house that seemed to be housing an entire colony of obvious druggies and runaways. The smell of incense wafted right out into the street, and there must have been twenty of them on the steps, singing an Indian chant, and holding hands, crooning and laughing softly and waving at friends. And as she came to the stairs, they parted like the Red Sea for her, helping her up the stairs through their midst, as a gray-haired man waited for her in the doorway, and then carried her inside as John watched. It was the strangest sight he had ever seen and he tried to explain it to Lionel, describing her again.

“I have to admit, it sounds like her.” But the others John had found had too. Every day they split up and wandered through the Haight-Ashbury looking for her. If she was there, it was amazing they hadn't found her yet. And at night, they went back to the hotel room they had rented with the money Lionel had borrowed from Faye. They usually ate a hamburger quietly somewhere, they never went to a single gay bar. They stayed unto themselves. And in the morning, they started all over again. It was a labor of love the likes of which Faye had never seen. She had flown up several times to join them in their search, but as Lionel finally explained, she only hampered them. She stood out in the crowd of flower children, her shirts were starched, her jewelry reduced to a minimum was still too much, her jeans were too clean. She looked like exactly what she was, the mother of a runaway from Beverly Hills, looking for her child, and they ran from her like rats. Finally, Lionel had told her straight out. “Go home, Mom, we'll call you if we see anything. I promise,” She had gone back then to work on a film. She had urged Ward to take a co-producer on this one, because he was drinking so heavily, and things had gone from bad to worse with them. He still refused to even speak to Lionel. And when Lionel called her to report on what he had seen in the Haight-Ashbury, the moment Ward heard his voice, he hung up on him. It made communication with Faye extremely difficult for Lionel and Faye was furious. Eventually, she put in a separate phone for Lionel to call her on. But she noticed that the children avoided him as well, they were afraid of what their father would do if they talked to him. The twins never answered the phone Lionel called her on, as though Ward would know if they had talked to him. They had taken him at his word, and Lionel was abandoned by all save Faye, who loved him more than ever before, out of compassion, her own loneliness, and for what he was doing to find Anne. She spoke to Mary Wells as often as she could and expressed her gratitude for John's help. They seemed to have accepted the situation gracefully. They loved their son, and they accepted hers as well. It was far more than she could say for Ward, who had never spoken to the Wells since the morning Bob had thrown him out, the day he'd broken the news to them.

And things were no longer the same between Ward and Faye either. He had actually gone to the Super Bowl with Greg despite Anne's running away. He had insisted that the police would find her eventually, and when they did he would punish her, and put her on restriction for the next ten years if that was what it took to put some sense into her. But it was as though he couldn't cope with anything more, and he left with Greg, and had a great time at the Super Bowl. He seemed surprised to learn that the police had not located Anne when he came back, and in the ensuing weeks, he began to pace the floor at night, pounce on the phone the moment it rang. He finally understood that it was serious, and the police had told them bluntly that it was possible that their daughter was dead, or that she was alive and they would never find her again. It was like losing two children at once, and Faye already knew that they would never recover from it. She had buried herself in her work to ease the pain, to no avail, spending whatever time she could with the twins when they were free. But they felt it too. Vanessa was quieter than she had ever been before, her big romance died shortly after it began, and even Valerie was more subdued. She hardly seemed to wear makeup anymore or go out. Her miniskirts were less intentionally shocking, her wardrobe hadn't grown. It was as though they all waited to hear something that they might never hear again, and as each day passed Faye grew more fearful that her youngest child was dead.

She began going to church, which she hadn't done in years, and she said nothing at all to Ward when he didn't come home at night. At first, he came home at one or two o'clock, when the bars closed, and it was easy to see where he'd been, but eventually he began to not come home at all. The first time it happened, Faye felt sure he had been killed. But when he walked in at six o'clock the next morning, tiptoeing in with the newspaper under his arm, there was a look on his face which frightened her. He wasn't drunk, he was not hung over, he offered her no explanation at all, and suddenly she remembered a name she hadn't thought of in years … Maisie Abernathie … she remembered when Ward had gone to Mexico with her for five days fourteen years before, and Faye knew obviously it wasn't the same girl, but it was the same look on his face … the same way of avoiding her eyes, and suddenly she completely withdrew from him. He came home less and less, but she was so numbed by pain and tragedy that she felt nothing anymore. She was barely hanging on to her own sanity. Her days were filled with work, her nights were filled with guilt, and in between she did whatever she could for the twins, but their entire family had fallen apart in a few brief moments.

Eventually she heard the rumors at MGM. He was involved with the star of an important daytime TV show, and according to rumor, the affair was serious. She just prayed that it didn't turn up in the columns so she wouldn't have to explain it to the girls. She had enough on her hands just then, and just when she thought she couldn't stand any more Lionel called her that night. He had gone out with John that afternoon and followed the girl John had been so sure was Anne, and he was sure of it now too. She looked drugged and completely dazed, and she was heavier than she had been before, and wrapped up in what looked like a purple sari, but they were both sure it was Anne.

Tears rolled down Faye's cheeks as she listened. “Are you sure?”

Lionel said that they almost were, as sure as they could be. She was so dazed-looking and so wrapped up in her strange garb, surrounded by the members of her odd little sect, it was difficult to get close enough to her to find out if it was Anne. It wasn't as if one could yell “Anne” and have her wave back. And Lionel hated to raise his mother's hopes and then disappoint her. “No, we're not sure, Mom. And we wanted to know what you want us to do now.”

“The police told us to call them.”

“What if it's the wrong girl?”

“Apparently, it happens all the time. She'll probably turn out to be another runaway they're looking for. They said not to hesitate to call if we think we know where she is, and there's a Father Paul Brown up there who knows every kid there. He helps them out all the time.” The boys knew who he was, and agreed to contact him as well as the police. “Do you think I should fly up tonight?” She had nothing else to do at night now once she left work. She never saw Ward. He made almost no pretense about coming home at night, and he seemed to be waiting for her to confront him about it, but she didn't have the strength. She wondered if the rumors were true, that it was serious. It seemed incredible after all these years to get divorced, except that that looked extremely likely now … if they could just find Anne … and get Lionel back in school first … then she could deal with Ward's affair … and a divorce … her private line for Lionel rang at midnight that night, and she knew it could only be he. Ward never called anymore when he wasn't coming home and he would call her on their usual line.

She picked the phone up and held her breath. “Li?”

“The police think it's her too. We pointed her out to them today. They have half a dozen undercover cops working narcotics details out there, and looking for runaways. And they went to talk to Father Brown. Apparently her name is Sunflower. He knows who she is. But he doesn't think she's as young as Anne.” Anne would be fourteen and a half by then, but she had always looked older than her years, as they all knew, especially recently. He also didn't tell Faye the rest of what Father Brown had said, that she was living in a sect that indulged in strange sexual and erotic practices that involved group sex. They had all been busted several times, but it seemed impossible to prove either what went on, or that any of them were in fact minors. Everyone claimed to be over eighteen, and it was impossible to prove differently. He had also told them that LSD was involved heavily in what they did, and “magic mushrooms” and peyote as well. And the worst of it was that this girl they were following was with child. But he didn't dare tell Faye that yet. If it was the wrong girl, there was no point worrying her about that. “Mom, do you want her arrested, or just questioned?” They had never come this close before, and Faye felt her heart sag as she thought of her child. It had been five months since she had seen Anne, and God only knew what had happened to her in that time. She didn't dare think of it, and forced herself to concentrate on what Lionel had asked.

“Can't they just take her away, and have you take a good look at her?”

Lionel sighed. He'd been over that all day with them. “They can, if it turns out to be Anne. But if not, and if the girl isn't a runaway, and is of age, she can sue them for false arrest. Most of those hippies won't, but they're pretty cautious about that. I guess they've been burned a couple of times.” He sounded so tired, her heart went out to him, and Faye sighed. She wanted Anne back, at all costs.

“Tell them to do whatever they have to, sweetheart. We've got to know if it's her.”

He nodded at his end. “I'm meeting the undercover guys at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. They're going to stake out the house, and follow her again. If we can just talk to her, we will. If not, they'll bust her for being under the influence, or something like that.”

Faye sounded shocked. “Is she on drugs?”

Lionel hesitated as he looked at John. They were both sick to death of the Haight-Ashbury, the filth, the drugs, the scum, the scams, the kids. They were almost ready to give up, but now … if it could just be her … “Yeah, Mom. It looks like she is. If that's Anne. She doesn't look too great.”

“Is she hurt?” There was such anguish in Faye's voice that it tore at his heart.

“No. Just spaced out. And she's living in a pretty strange place. It's some kind of Eastern sect.”

“Oh Christ …” Maybe she had shaved her head. Faye couldn't imagine it. The whole place had been beyond her when she had gone up to meet Lionel and John to look for her before. She had actually been relieved when they had sent her away. But now she wanted to go back. She suddenly sensed that it could be Anne this time, and she wanted to be there too. She could still envision her as she had been the day she was born. It was hard to believe it was so long ago.

“Well call you tomorrow, Mom. As soon as we know something.”

“I'll be in the office all day.” And then, “Should I make a reservation on an afternoon flight, just in case?”

He smiled into the phone. “Just hang in. I'll call you either way, whether it's Anne or not.”

'Thank you, sweetheart.” He was the dearest son a woman could want, and so what if he was gay. He was a better son to her than Greg had ever been, although she loved them both. But Greg lacked his sensitivity. He would never have dropped out of school for three months to look for Anne. In fact, when he had come home at Easter, he had said that he thought Lionel was nuts. But Ward had glared at him instantly for speaking the forbidden name, and she had to control herself not to lash out at him in front of Greg. She had had all she could take, and maybe it would be a relief to get a divorce from him. But she couldn't think of that now. All she could think about was Anne.

She lay awake long after Lionel and she hung up, thinking of Anne when she had been a little girl, the things she had done, the funny things she'd said, the way she'd hidden so much of the time, the way she'd clung to Lionel. The timing of her birth had been unfortunate, Faye realized now, but that was no one's fault. Disaster had struck only weeks after she'd been born, and Faye had had her hands full selling the house, their antiques, her jewelry, moving them all into the hideous little house in Monterey Park, and then Ward leaving them, and her trying to support them all herself. Anne had sort of gotten lost in the shuffle of it all. The others had been just old enough to not need her quite as much, and she had given all her time to them before that. But not to Anne … never to Anne … she had worked ever since then, and Anne had kind of gotten tossed in with the pack. Faye could remember moments now when the nurse had come to her, months after Anne had been born, asking her if she wanted to hold the child, or give her her next bottle, and Faye had told her, “Not now … I don't have time.” She had brushed her off again and again, and Anne had paid the price for it. How could you tell a child like that that you did care, that you always had, but that you just hadn't had the time … what right did one have to have the child if one had no time for it? And yet, when she had been conceived, their life had been so easy, and she had had all the time in the world. Bad timing, bad luck … bad mother, she told herself again and again as she lay in the big empty bed, thinking about Anne, and wondering if it was too late, if Anne would hate her for the rest of her life. It was possible, she recognized that now. Some things could never be mended again, like her relationship with Ward … and with this child … and his with Lionel … the fabric of their family seemed to have been irreparably rent in the past few months, and it weighed on her like a rock as she got up at six o'clock, having slept not a wink all night. But she couldn't sleep now, wondering if the girl Lionel had seen was Anne.

She got up, showered, and dressed, waited for the twins to leave for school, and then went to her office at MGM. It amazed her that Ward was making no pretense at all. He didn't even call her, or try to explain where he had spent the night. Once in a while he came home, and she asked no questions of him. And now, when he did show up, she slept in Greg's room, and they spoke not at all.

She caught a glimpse of him as she walked down the hall later that morning, but she said nothing to him. She didn't want to say anything about Anne yet. There was no point until she was sure she had been found, and it wasn't sure at all. Not until she got the call just after noon and her heart almost stopped. Her secretary told her Lionel was on the line, and she hit the button hurriedly on her phone.

“Li?”

“It's okay, Mom, relax.” He was shaking from head to foot, but he didn't want her to know that. It had been hairy getting her out of there, but the police had handled everything, and no one was hurt, not even Anne. She was a little dazed. But she didn't even seem upset to have been removed, although the old guy had been. He had waved a staff at them and said the gods would punish them for stealing his child. But she had just let them carry her away, and she had smiled at Lionel, and now she seemed to know who he was. But she was also very high on dope, and it was possible that when she came down, she would be mad as hell. They were prepared for that. The cops were used to it and there was a doctor standing by.

Faye held her breath, and then her words exploded into the phone. “Is it Anne?” She closed her eyes.

“Yes, Mom, it is. And she's all right. More or less …” but they had found her at last. He looked at John again. The last months had formed a bond between them that they both knew would last for the rest of their lives. It was as though they were married to each other by now. But Lionel forced his mind back to his mother at the other end of the line. “She's fine, Mom. We're at Bryant Street, with the police, and they'll remand her into my custody, if you want. I'll bring her home in a day or two when she's had a chance to adjust.”

“Adjust to what?” He had a lot to tell her, which he couldn't tell her yet. Not over the phone at least. She was going to have to get prepared.

“She's been away from us for a long time, Mom. It takes a little adjustment to get used to the real world again. She's led a very different life for the last few months.” He was looking for a tactful way to say it to her, but he hoped she never heard the tales the police had told him. They knew the sect well, and their rituals. She would have died if she knew what Anne had been through, although Anne looked none the worse for wear. In fact, Lionel thought she looked happier than she had in years, except that most of that was probably the drugs, and she was probably not going to be nearly as happy when she came down from them. The police had discussed the possibility of bringing charges for being under the influence, but since she was fourteen years old, and had probably been coerced, they had decided not to press any charges at all. They wanted to know if the Thayers wanted to press any charges against the members of the sect for abducting or seducing her, and Lionel knew his parents would have to decide that. Faye was still trying to decipher what Lionel was telling her.

“Is she on drugs?”

He hesitated, but the truth had to be told. “I'd say so, yes.”

“Hard drugs? like heroin …” Faye's face went pale at her end. Her life would be over if that was the case, people never got off heroin, but Lionel was quick to put her mind at rest.

“No, no, more like marijuana, and probably some LSD and other hallucinogens.” He was becoming very expert about all that, and Faye sighed.

“Are the police holding her?”

“No. I thought I'd take her back to our hotel, let her take a bath and unwind …” (i.e., come down …)

“I'll catch the next plane up.”

Lionel gritted his teeth. He wanted desperately to clean her up before Faye arrived, and the “next plane” didn't give him much time, also there was something else that Faye would have to know, and it was easy to see now. “Mom, there's something you ought to know….” She had known instinctively that there was something else he wasn't telling her. Anne had been hurt … something … “Mom?”

“What is it, Li?”

“She's pregnant, Mom.”

“Oh my God.” At that, Faye burst into tears. “She's fourteen years old.”

“I know that. I'm sorry, Mom …”

“Do they have the boy?”

He didn't have the heart to tell her that the child had probably been fathered, not by a “boy,” but by the thirty or so male members of the sect. Instead, he was vague and said they'd have to leave that to Anne, but it was difficult to regain her composure after that, and she made a hasty note on her office pad, “Call Dr. Smythe,” he would arrange an abortion for her. He had taken care of the star of one of her films the year before, and if he wouldn't do a child of Anne's age, she'd take her to London or Tokyo. She didn't have to go through with this. She'd probably been raped. Somehow, the idea that Anne was pregnant was more horrible than the rest of this whole grim affair and she had to remind herself to be grateful that the girl had been found at all. She was still crying when she hung up the phone, and buried her face in her hands for a moment before taking a deep breath, blowing her nose, and straightening her shoulders to go down the hall to see Ward. He had to be told. Anne was his child too, however little he and she had in common now. She wondered how they would handle the division of their business life. So far they had gone on as before, but that couldn't go on forever either. And now that Anne had been found, Lionel would be coming home. And she had no excuses left not to confront Ward. She stopped outside his office, and his secretary jumped nervously.

“Is Mr. Thayer in?” But she knew he was. She had seen him only moments before.

The secretary looked at her anxiously, dropped a pencil on the floor, and then tried to avoid Faye's gaze. “No … he's not …”

“That's a lie.” Faye wasn't in the mood to listen to garbage from anyone. “I happen to know he's in.” It was a guess, but it worked.

“He's not … well, he is … but he asked not to be disturbed.”

“Fucking on his office couch again?” Faye's eyes blazed. She knew exactly what was going on, and in their offices. He had one hell of a nerve. “I didn't think we used the casting couch here quite so much.” She advanced toward his office door and the secretary gasped as Faye turned toward her. “Don't worry. I'll tell him I overpowered you.” And with that, she opened the door and stepped in. And the scene which met her eyes was reasonably sedate. He and Carol Robbins, the star of Follow My World, the daytime soap, were both fully dressed and talking across the desk, but he was holding her hand, and everything about them suggested that they were deeply involved. She was a pretty blonde with long legs and enormous tits. She played a nurse on the show, and the men loved to watch her buttons strain. But Faye looked directly at Ward as he let go of the girl's hand, and looked at his wife nervously.

She never acknowledged the presence of the girl, and kept her eyes directly on his.

“They found Anne. I thought you'd want to know.”

His eyes grew wide, and it was obvious that he cared a great deal. For a moment, he completely forgot the girl in the room, and looked only at his wife. “Is she all right?”

“Yes.” She didn't tell him about the drugs or the pregnancy. She didn't want the girl to know. It would have been all over Hollywood by dinnertime. “She's fine.”

“Who found her? The police?”

Faye shook her head. “Lionel.” There was a look of victory in her eyes as she watched his face go taut. “I'm going up there in two hours. If I can, I';ll bring her home tonight. You can stop by and see her tomorrow when she's had some sleep.”

He looked surprised at what she said. “Is there any reason why I can't come home tonight?”

Faye smiled a small bitter smile at that, and finally allowed her gaze to drift to the full-breasted girl sitting across from him.

“That's up to you. Tomorrow seems plenty of time to me.” She looked back at him then and he blushed beneath his white mane, and as she looked at him, she saw how much he had aged in the past six months. He was going to be fifty years old, but he looked older than that. He had been carousing with this girl, and drinking heavily for the last five months, and before that he had had two severe shocks. It had all taken a toll, but she didn't feel sorry for him. She had aged too, and he had done nothing for her. He had deserted her, and sought solace with this girl. She was almost sorry she hadn't done something like it herself, but she had been too worried about Lionel and Anne. She would have enjoyed an affair just then. But she'd have plenty of time for one now, and at forty-six she wasn't completely over the hill. She looked at him now with utter contempt. “I'll have Anne call you when we get back, if she wants to talk to you.” He looked horrified at the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, and he glanced nervously at the buxom blonde, as Faye walked out of his office and closed the door. Outside his secretary was shredding a Kleenex waiting for him to come out and murder her, but Faye looked perfectly calm as she walked out and nodded to her and hurried down the hall. She had to be at the airport in an hour, and she was just throwing a toothbrush she kept in her desk into her handbag when Ward stormed in.

“Just what do you mean by all that shit?” His face was red, and she couldn't know that he had just told Carol to go home. She had left in tears, accusing him of dumping her, which he was considering seriously. He was still married to Faye, as far as he was concerned, although she seemed to have forgotten it. And the affair had been begun for “fun” supposedly and had gotten out of hand in the last few weeks.

Faye looked up at him disinterestedly. Part of it was an act, although part of it was for real. “I don't have time to talk to you. My flight is at three o'clock.”

“Fine. Then we can talk on the plane. I'll come up with you.”

“I don't need your help.” Her eyes were cold and his were sad.

“You never did. But she's my child too.” Faye was momentarily silenced by that.

She looked up at him finally, unable to resist the urge to hurt him again, he had already hurt her so much recently. “Are you bringing your friend?”

He looked down at his wife. “We have to talk about that one of these days.” She knew it too, and she nodded at him, but they didn't mean it quite the same way.

“I wanted to get things settled with Anne and Lionel, before I tackled you on that. But I guess in a few weeks, everything will be relatively normal again, as much as it ever will be. Ill have time to talk to a lawyer then.”

“Have you already made up your mind?” He looked depressed, but he wasn't surprised. He hadn't done anything to prevent her from deciding that, and it was probably too late now. He felt defeated by life. His marriage was over, his son was a queer, his daughter had run away from them, and God only knew what had happened to her since she had. It was devastating to contemplate it all, but Faye seemed unswayed by all of it. She was remarkable. She never drowned. She just kept swimming until she reached the shore again, and she looked as though she just had. He was happy for her. “I'm sorry it's come to this.”

She spoke quietly as she stood up. She was ready to leave. “So am I. And I would assume that you're the one who's made up his mind. You don't even call to make excuses anymore. You just don't come home at all. I'm surprised you haven't just moved your clothes out yet. I keep coming home at night, expecting to find your things gone.”

“Nothing has reached that point, Faye.”

“I don't see how you can say that. You've already walked out, you just haven't bothered to explain it yet.” It seemed wrong to be fighting when Anne had just been found. They should have been shouting with relief, except that there was so much bitterness between them now. And they had avoided each other for so long.

“I haven't known what to say to you, Faye.”

“Apparently. You just walked right out of our lives.”

He knew it was true, and it was the second time in their life he had done that, but he didn't have the strength she had. And Carol had come along, and it had made him feel like a man again. It softened the blow of his son turning out to be gay … it was no longer a reflection on him … he was okay … but in the process he had walked right over her. He saw that now. But how could he explain it to her? There was no way that he could, and she walked past him to the office door.

“Ill call you as soon as we're back.”

Ward looked at her sheepishly. “I made a reservation on the three o'clock flight too. I figured that was the one you'd be on.”

“There's no point in both of us going up.” She really didn't want him along. She had enough on her mind, especially with Lionel saying Anne might be on drugs, and the pregnancy they'd have to get rid of as soon as possible, all she needed was Ward making excuses for what a sonofabitch he'd been. She didn't want to hear it now. It just wasn't the time. She looked at him in exasperation and he begged with his eyes.

“I haven't seen her in five months, Faye.”

“Couldn't you wait another day?” He didn't move from where he stood, and she looked at him and sighed. He was just making this more difficult. She looked suddenly resigned. “Fine. I have a studio car downstairs.” She turned and walked out the door, and he followed her. He said not a word to her on the way to the airport, and it was clear that she had no desire to talk to him. Their seat assignments were not together on the flight, and when the man at the desk attempted to do them a favor and shift some other people around, she discouraged him. There was no doubt in Ward's mind as they boarded the plane separately, that his marriage to Faye was over. And the bitch of it was that the other girl didn't mean a damn to him. She had just been a way of confirming his own masculinity to him and soothing the pain, but it was too late to try and explain that to Faye. She agreed to share a cab to Lionel's hotel with him, although she looked him straight in the eye and laid down the law to him.

“I just want to make things clear to you, Ward. Those two boys have just devoted five months of their lives to finding her. They gave up a term in school, and they've gone looking for her every day. If it were up to the police, we still wouldn't know where she was. So if you say one ugly word to either of them, I am never ever going to see you again, and I will sue you for every dime you've got, just to get even with you. If you want a friendly divorce, my friend, be decent to your son and John Wells. Is that clear?” Her eyes were rock hard, and his wore the same look of sorrow she had seen in them all day. He looked like a beaten man these days, but it was his own damn fault as far as she was concerned.

“And if I don't want a friendly divorce?”

“Then don't even try and ride into the city with me, Ward.” She raised an arm to hail a cab for herself and he pulled it down harder than he had meant to, but he was desperate now.

“That isn't what I meant. Why are you so sure I want a divorce? I haven't agreed to that. I haven't said anything at all about that.”

She laughed bitterly at him outside the airlines terminal. “Don't be ridiculous. I've hardly seen you for the last four months, you never even come home at night, and you expect me to stay married to you? You must take me for an even bigger fool than I am.” Besides which he had caused damage which she suspected could never be repaired.

“You're not the fool, Faye, I am.”

“I completely agree with you. But this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it.” She looked at him with immeasurable irritation. “I really don't know why in hell you came along.”

“To see Anne … and talk to you … it's been so long, Faye …”

“That's not my fault.”

“I know that. It's mine.” He seemed perfectly willing to take the blame. As though he had come to his senses at last. But it was too late. For both of them.

She looked at him skeptically now. “What happened, did your little soap-opera nurse call it quits this morning when I walked in on you in your office?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I called it quits with her.” More or less. She had left in a rage because he said he was going to San Francisco with Faye, and he had told her he'd talk to her about it when he got back. But he had every intention of telling her it was over between them, whether Faye wanted to stay married to him or not. She was twenty-two years old, and he was beginning to feel ridiculous with her. It was all over. It had been foolish and insane, but it was what he had needed at the time. What he needed now was Faye. He knew now that he always had, yet she had been so locked in her own pain that he couldn't reach her anymore. They had had nothing to give each other for a short time, yet all he wanted now was another chance—if she'd listen to him, but she was showing no sign of it now. She had hailed a cab, yanked open the door, and was staring at him.

“Are you coming, Ward?”

“Did you hear what I said? I told you, it's over with that girl.”

“I don't give a damn.”

“Fine. Just so you know where we stand.”

“And just so you know where we stand, Ward, we stand finished. Over. Finito. Through. Is that completely clear?” She gave the driver the address and sat back against the seat.

“I don't happen to agree with you.”

She was so furious she wanted to punch him, but she had to restrain herself. She attempted to lower her voice so the driver wouldn't hear, and went on arguing with him. “You've got one hell of a fucking nerve. For half a year, you abandon us, shit all over me, and make a fool of yourself with a girl almost thirty years younger than you are, and now magnanimously you decide to come back. Well, go fuck yourself, Ward Thayer. I want a divorce.” She saw the driver glance in the rearview mirror, and Ward took no notice of him.

“I want to be married to you.”

“You're a sonofabitch.”

“I know I am. But we've been married for twenty-one years and I don't want to quit now.”

“Why not? You had no trouble quitting five months ago.” But they both knew why. The shock of Lionel had been too great for him. She had always known it would be, and she felt a stirring of compassion for him now.

“You know what that was all about.”

“That's no excuse for walking out on me.”

“I had no other way to prove my masculinity again.”

“That's a miserable excuse.”

“But it happens to be true.” He stared out the window and then back at her again. “You'll never know what that did to me.”

“And now? Are you going to punish him again?”

“I'm grateful that he found Anne.” But his voice told its own tale.

“But you'll never forgive him, will you?”

“I can never forget what he is.”

“He's your son, Ward. And mine.”

“It's different for you.”

“Maybe. But I love him anyway. He's an extraordinary young man.”

Ward sighed. “I know that … I don't know what I feel anymore. I've been hurting and confused for so long, it's not easy to sort out now … and there's Anne….” Faye frowned, thinking of what Lionel had said. She wondered if she should warn Ward, if that would be too much of a shock for him too.

Her voice was gentle for the first time in months when she spoke to him again. “Lionel thinks she's on drugs.” He immediately looked up at her with a worried frown.

“What kind?”

“He's not sure yet. Marijuana, LSD …”

“It could be worse, I guess.”

“It is.” Faye went on. “She's pregnant too.” Ward closed his eyes and then opened them again and looked at her.

“What's happened to us all in the last six months? Our whole damn life has fallen apart.”

She smiled gently at him. What he said was true. But in time, they would put it together again, they'd crawl out of it. They had before. He looked at her, and took her hand.

“We've both been through hell.” She didn't disagree with him, and she didn't pull her hand away. They needed each other now, if only for the next few hours, and she was suddenly glad he had come along. Even if they never saw each other again after this.

The cab hurtled into town, as they both sat, lost in their own thoughts, thinking of their little girl.

CHAPTER 24

They arrived at the San Marco Hotel shortly after five o'clock. It was a small unassuming hotel off Divisadero Street, and had been John and Lionel's home for more than four months. Faye looked up at it for an instant before hurrying inside with Ward on her heels. She knew that their room was on the third floor, from her last trip up, and she headed quickly up the stairs before the desk clerk could say anything to her. She didn't want to talk to anyone now. She just wanted to see Anne. She even forgot that Ward was with her, as she rapped softly on the door. A moment later Lionel appeared. He looked at her through the narrow opening, seemed to hesitate, and slowly opened the door. And from where she stood, Faye could see the still form lying there, her back to her. She was wearing Lionel's bathrobe, her hair had grown long and her feet were bare, and for an instant Faye thought she was asleep, and then she turned slowly to see who it was, her face tear-stained, her eyes dark-rimmed and huge in the suddenly narrow face. Faye was instantly taken aback, but she didn't want to let on. Anne had completely changed in the five months she'd been gone. She was thinner, looked more grown up, and there was something so different about her face that Faye wasn't even sure she would have recognized her. She was almost sure she would not have from a photograph and was grateful that John had.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Faye advanced slowly toward the bed, almost afraid she'd frighten her away, like a wounded bird, and Anne gave a soft moan and huddled further into a ball as she turned away again. She was coming down from the hallucinogens she had taken on and off for so long, and Lionel and John had been feeding her orange juice and candy bars to keep up her strength. And a while before they had forced her to eat a hamburger they had brought in. She had immediately thrown up after eating it, but she looked better now, at least to John and Li. They had seen what she looked like when the police first picked her up several hours before, and Lionel had cringed at the thought of his mother seeing her then. He looked from her to his parents now, and he was stricken by the look in his mother's eyes. He didn't dare look directly at Ward. It was the first time he had seen him since that terrible day when he had walked in on him with John. But at least he had come, if not for them, then for Anne.

“She's not feeling too hot, Mom.” He spoke to her in a soft voice and Anne didn't turn around as John handed her another candy bar and she took it in a trembling hand. She felt hungry and sick all at once, and she didn't want to be here. She wanted to go back to them … to the Haight … to Moon … to the ritual … she belonged with them…. Tears choked her throat as she tried to swallow a bite of the candy bar, and she lay back and closed her eyes.

“Is she sick?” They spoke of her as though she weren't there, and Lionel hated to explain it all to them.

“She's just coming down from some of the stuff she's been on. She'll be all right in a few days.”

“Can we take her home tonight?” Faye was anxious to get her home, to have her seen by the doctor who had taken care of her for years, and to get her to Dr. Smythe before it was too late for him to take care of that. She hadn't seen Anne from the front yet and didn't know how far along she was, but she assumed that it wasn't too late. There was no reason to think it was. But Lionel was shaking his head in answer to what she had said, and Faye frowned.

“I don't think she's up to traveling yet, Mom. Give her a day or two to adjust.”

'To what?” Faye looked shocked. “To us?”

Ward stepped forward for the first time, and avoided his son's eyes while speaking to him. “Has she seen a doctor yet?” Lionel shook his head. “I think she should.” He walked slowly around the bed, and looked down at his youngest child. She was still filthy, caked with dirt, her face stained with tears, and the eyes were huge in her face, as he gently sat down and stroked her hair, feeling tears sting his own eyes. What had brought this child to that? How could she have run away from them? “It's so good to see you again, Anne.” She didn't shrink from his hand, but she watched him like a frightened animal, and then he let his eyes rove slowly down her limbs, and they stopped midway and moved on. He tried not to register the shock he felt. It was much too late to do something about that. And he turned toward Faye with a look of despair and then stood up, and glanced at Lionel again. “Do you know a doctor in town?”

“The police gave us a name. He thought they should examine her anyway. And they want to talk to you and Mom.” Ward nodded, at least he was able to speak to the boy, but he couldn't bring himself to look at John. The room's only bed, a double that looked barely that wide, on which Anne lay now, spoke for itself and he tried not to think of it. One drama was enough, and he wanted to speak to the police now. He took out his pen and jotted the names down of the men who had cooperated in finding her, and particularly the two who had brought her in. Lionel said they would have all the details, and Ward shuddered at the prospect of hearing them. But he knew they would have to know eventually.

Faye went over and sat on the bed next to Anne, as Ward had, but this time the girl flinched. It was like having a desperately sick child and visiting her in the hospital. Faye's eyes were riveted to her face and Anne started to cry.

“Go away … I don't want to be here …”

“I know, sweetheart … but we'll all be going home soon … to your own house … and your own bed …”

“I want to go back to Moon and my friends.” She sobbed. She was a fourteen-year-old girl and she sounded like she was five. And Faye didn't ask who Moon was. She assumed that he was the father of the child. And as the thought came to mind, she glanced down at Anne's belly, assuming it would still be flat, and she gasped in shock as she saw it sticking out. Faye knew from experience she was four or five months gone. And she decided to ask right away, much to Ward's chagrin. He didn't want to push her yet. Lionel was right. She needed time to adjust to all of them again. She had gone far, far away, and she had been away from them for a long time.

“How pregnant are you, Anne?” She wanted her voice to sound gentle when she asked, but she instantly knew it did not. It sounded nervous and harsh and sharp and Lionel looked at them in despair.

“I don't know how pregnant I am,” Anne answered her with closed eyes. She refused to look at her anymore. She hated her. She always had. And she hated her even more now. It was her fault that they had taken her away, her fault they wouldn't let her go back. She had always ruined everything for all of them, pushing them all around, doing everything her way. But she wouldn't this time. They could take her anywhere, and she would escape again. She knew how easy it was now.

“Haven't you seen a doctor yet?” Faye sounded shocked. Anne shook her head again, her eyes closed. And then slowly she opened them.

“My friends took care of me.”

“How long has it been since you had a period?” It was just like talking to the police, only worse, Anne thought. At least they didn't ask her questions like that. She knew she didn't have to answer her. But she always did. Faye just had that kind of way about her. As though she expected everyone to do what she said, and Anne did now.

“Not since I left home.” Faye knew only too well that was five months before, and she cringed at the thought. It must have happened almost as soon as she left home.

“Do you know who the father is?” It was an outrageous thing to ask so soon, and Lionel glanced at Ward, wishing he would stop Mom from asking her those things. Anne wasn't ready to be pushed, and he was afraid she would run away again before they got her home. And maybe this time they wouldn't find her. Lionel was afraid of that, but Anne only smiled at the memories.

“Yes.”

“Is it Moon?”

Anne shrugged. But Faye was in no way prepared for what came next.

“Yes. It's all of them.”

Faye's breath caught. That couldn't be right. There had to be some mistake. “All of them?” She stared uncomprehendingly at the child who was a child no more. She was a woman now, a twisted, broken one, but nonetheless she was no longer a little girl, and she was expecting a baby of her own. And suddenly Faye understood as a look of horror came into her eyes.

“Do you mean to tell me that the entire commune fathered this child?”

“Yes.” Anne looked sweetly at her, and sat up for the first time, and as she did the room reeled, and she looked to Lionel for help. He came to her and supported her as John handed her a glass of orange juice. They had both suspected something like that from what the police had told them about the sect, but Faye and Ward were not prepared, and now that Anne was sitting up, she looked even more pregnant than she had lying down.

Ward took over now, thinking of what had happened to his innocent child. He looked firmly at Lionel, ignoring Anne. “I'm going to call those inspectors now.” He had every intention of seeing all those sonsofbitches in jail, and Faye was crying softly as they left the room. She clung to Ward when they got downstairs, and she didn't care who was looking at them now.

“My God, Ward, she'll never be the same again.” He was as afraid as she, but he refused to admit that to her. He was going to help her now, just as Faye had helped him so long ago, given him a career he could never have found himself, taught him everything he knew until he could fly on his own. He would do everything he could, and if she still wanted a divorce afterwards, he would accept it gracefully. She had a right to that after what he'd done. And he still felt shaky now, looking at Lionel and John, but he couldn't allow himself to think of that now. They both had to stop blaming themselves, he for Lionel's homosexuality, and Faye for what had happened to Anne. He knew that they were both consumed with guilt, but to what end? It did neither child any good. “She'll be all right, Faye.” He wished he believed his own words, but above all, he wanted to convince her.

“She's got to get rid of that child, and with the drugs she's been on, God only knows what it will be. It'll be a vegetable.”

“Probably. Do you think it's too late for an abortion?” He looked at his wife hopefully and she laughed bitterly through her tears.

“Did you see her, Ward? She's five months pregnant, at least.” It suddenly dawned on her that she might have even been pregnant when she left home. She didn't think she was, although who knew anymore with Anne.

They went to the police station at Bryant Street immediately, and then went upstairs to speak to the juvenile authorities. There were apparently hundreds of cases like this one now. Children were migrating from all over the States, coming to the Haight-Ashbury, and some of them did a lot worse than losing their virginity, some of them lost their lives. There were stories of eleven-year-olds overdosing on heroin or jumping out of windows on LSD. There were illegitimate children being born to thirteen and fourteen and fifteen-year-olds, delivered in hallways as their friends sang. One girl had bled to death only six weeks before, and an ambulance had never been called. As they listened, Faye was deeply grateful they had found her at all. And she steeled herself to hear the tale they told about the sect Anne had been living with. She wanted to kill them all when she'd heard all of it, and Ward was insistent that he wanted the entire sect put in jail, but the police were discouraging. It would be difficult to bring charges against all of them, and it was impossible to accuse an entire tribe of statutory rape on one girl. And above all was this what they wanted for Anne? Wasn't it just easier to take her home, get her good psychiatric help, and let her forget the whole thing, instead of subjecting her to a lengthy trial, which wouldn't even come up for a year or two, if not longer than that, and which they probably wouldn't win? The kids would have disappeared by then, their own families, many of them moneyed and influential, would bail their children out. It just didn't make sense. In a year or two, it would all seem like a distant dream, the police said. A nightmare she would soon forget.

“What about her pregnancy? What about this Moon?” Faye wanted to know. And they told her that nothing concrete could be proved against him. He held none of them against their will, and none of the members of the sect would ever testify against him. They doubted that Anne ever would herself, and later they discovered the police were right. She had an unreasoning love for the man, and she refused to talk about him to anyone, even Lionel. It was hopeless, Faye and Ward finally agreed. And as wrong as it seemed, the police were right perhaps. It was best to take her home, get help for her, deliver her safely of the monstrous child, and let her forget it all, if only she'd be willing to. Lionel thought she would, in time, and John said nothing at all. He was still terrified of Mr. Thayer, and frightened he would lose control and hit him again, although Lionel swore he wouldn't let that happen again, and Ward showed no sign of losing control, except when he spoke of Moon or one of them. His rage was directed at them now, much to John's relief.

They all took turns staying with Anne that night, and the next morning the three Thayers discussed the trip home, while John sat with her. Faye was anxious to get her back, and maybe even check her into a hospital, though Lionel thought they should wait a few days. She was fairly clear now, but she was extremely paranoid. He thought she should have a few more days to come down, Ward agreed with Faye, but he couldn't imagine getting her on a commercial airline in the disheveled, disoriented condition she was in. Eventually, a compromise was reached. Ward called MGM and chartered the studio plane for all of them. It was to pick them up in San Francisco at six o'clock that night and fly them back to Los Angeles. He wanted to see the police once more, and after that he talked to his attorney, who basically agreed with them. No charges were brought, and at four thirty that afternoon, they bundled Anne up in a bathrobe Faye had bought for her on Union Street, and they took a cab out to the airport, as she sobbed all the way. The four of them felt like kidnappers as the young cab driver stared at them all angrily. Hardly a word was said, and she didn't have the strength to walk, so Ward carried her onto the plane, and for the first time in two days, he had a stiff drink once they boarded the plane, and the two boys and Faye all had a glass of wine. It was a difficult trip for everyone and Lionel and John were feeling the strain of being with Ward. He never really spoke to them. Whenever possible he addressed Faye and let her pass the message on, as though he were afraid to contaminate himself by speaking directly to either of them, and when the MGM limo dropped the boys off at their place on the way to the Thayer house, John heaved an enormous sigh of relief.

“I just don't know what to say to him.” He took a big gulp of air and looked apologetically at Lionel, who understood perfectly.

“Don't feel badly. Neither do I. But he's just as uncomfortable with us.” It had been an uneasy truce, and Lionel felt sure that he hadn't changed his mind, and wouldn't rescind the family ban on them. Lionel felt no more welcome in the family home than he would have three or four months before, and he was right.

“He acts like being gay is a contagious disease and he's afraid to catch it from us.”

Lionel grinned. It was good to be home, or so he thought. Faye had continued paying for their rooms at the house at UCLA for all these months, and they hadn't seen their roommates since they had dropped out in January. But they couldn't go to Lionel's parents' house or the Wells'. They would have been upset by the tales about Anne. So they walked up the steps now, home for the first time in months, anxious to unpack and settle in.

They were both talking about starting the summer sessions in a few weeks. They could both go back to real life now, whatever that was, but they had both forgotten what it was like to pretend and hide, and suddenly as they walked into a room full of sophomore and junior boys, drinking beer, they both remembered the agony they had forgotten, after five months of living in the hotel while they looked for Anne. They had to go back into hiding now, and it depressed them both as they put their things away. Lionel wandered into John's room, and they exchanged a look. Suddenly, they wondered if everyone knew about them. They felt as though it could be clearly seen, and Lionel wasn't even sure he cared anymore. Yes, he was gay. Yes, he was in love with John. He adopted an almost belligerent air as he went to the kitchen and helped himself to a beer, but no one said anything. And those who knew were glad he had found Anne. One of the others had a runaway sister too, a twelve-year-old, and they hadn't found her yet. Her parents were afraid she was dead, and her brother was convinced she was in San Francisco too. They talked about it for a little while, and Lionel thought there was a funny look in the boy's eyes, as though he wanted to ask him something but didn't dare.

And at the Thayer house, everyone was subdued. The twins had been shocked when they had seen Ward carry Anne in. They didn't realize she would look that sick, and when she stood up on shaky legs and they saw her belly sticking out, Vanessa had actually gasped, and Valerie couldn't believe her eyes.

“What's she going to do?” they questioned Faye later that night, and she thought she had never felt so tired in her life. She didn't have the answer to that herself.

They took her to the doctor the next day, and were relieved to hear that he could find no evidence of abuse on her. Whatever she had done, she had done willingly, and there were no marks, no scars. He estimated that the baby was due on October 12, suggested that she recuperate for six weeks after that, assuming the baby came on time, and could comfortably be back in school after the Christmas holiday. She would have lost exactly one year from the time she left, and she could finish eighth grade after the baby came, and go on to high school the following year. They made it sound so easy as Anne stared at them, and with the doctor standing by, Faye brought up what she had discussed with him. It was too late for an abortion of course, which would have been the easiest solution for her, assuming she would have agreed, but Faye would have seen to that. And it was impossible to tell just how many drugs she had taken since she'd conceived, or what effect they'd had. But even if the baby had minor disabilities as a result, there were plenty of childless couples who would be happy to adopt, even with some small defect. The Haight-Ashbury culture had been a real boon for them. There were dozens of babies being put up for adoption now, babies born of girls who would never have gotten pregnant a few years before. These were mostly girls from middle-class homes, sleeping with boys of the same ilk, in communes that had sprung up. And once the babies came, they weren't interested in keeping them. Some were of course, but most were not. They wanted to be free, to enjoy their days of sunshine and peace and love, without the burden of responsibility. And the doctor would be happy to help, he explained. Why, just in Los Angeles, he knew four couples anxious for such a child. All of them would give the baby a good home, and it would be a blessing for Anne. She could go back to the life of a fourteen-year-old girl, and forget it ever happened. Faye and the doctor smiled and Anne looked at them, horrified, struggling not to scream.

“You want to give my baby away?” She started to cry, and Faye tried to put an arm around her, but she fought her off. “I'll never do that! Never! Do you hear me!”

But there was no doubt in Faye's mind. They would force her to give the child up. She didn't need to drag some little mongoloid around for the rest of her life, to remind her of a nightmare they all wanted to forget. No, absolutely not. She and the doctor exchanged a speaking look. They had four and a half months to convince her of what was best for her.

“You'll feel differently about it later on, Anne. You'll be happy you gave it up. And it may not be normal anyway.” Faye tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact, but she was panicking inside. What if she ran away again? If she insisted on keeping the child? The nightmare refused to end, and all the way home, Anne huddled on the far side of the car, looking out the window with tears running down her cheeks. When Faye stopped the car at home, she tried to reach for her hand, but Anne pulled it away and refused to look at her. “Sweetheart, you can't keep that child. It would ruin your life.” Faye was sure of it, and Ward agreed with her she knew.

“Yours or Dad's?” She glared at her mother now. “You're just embarrassed I got knocked up, that's all. And you want to destroy the evidence. Well, what are you going to do with me for the next four months? Hide me in the garage? You can do anything you want, but you can't take my baby from me.” She ran out of the car and Faye lost control, screaming at her as she went. The last few days had been too much for her. The last few months in fact.

“Yes we can. We can do anything we want! You're not even fifteen years old!” She hated herself for saying the words, and by that afternoon, Anne was gone again. But she only went to Lionel's this time, and sat sobbing out her tale to him and John.

“I won't let them take it away from me … I won't … I won't!” She looked like such a baby herself, it was hard to imagine her with a child. And even though she had grown up in the Haight, she was still so young. Lionel didn't know how to tell her, but he agreed with their Mom. As did John. They had talked about it the night before, as they lay in bed, whispering so the other boys wouldn't hear. It had been so much better in the hotel, but now they had to face real life too, not unlike Anne.

“Baby,” Lionel looked at her compassionately, and gently took her hand in his, and he looked just like their mother when he did, but Anne never wanted to see the resemblance between the two of them. If she had, she might have loved him less than she did. The fact that he did look so much like Faye was the one thing that brought him a little closer to Ward, though not much anymore. “Maybe they're right. It would be a terrible responsibility, you know, and it's not really fair to impose that on Mom and Dad.”

She hadn't even thought of that. “Then I'll get a job and take care of it myself.”

“And who'll take care of it while you work? See what I mean? Baby, you're not even fifteen years old …”

She started to cry. “You sound just like one of them …” And he never had before. She couldn't stand it from him too, and she looked up at him with heartbroken eyes. “Li, it's my baby … I can't give it up.”

“You'll have others one day.”

“So what?” She looked appalled. “What if they'd given you away because one day they'd have me?”

He had to laugh at the example, and he looked at her so tenderly. “I think you ought to give it some thought. You don't have to make your mind up right now.”

She agreed to that at least, but when she got home, she got into a huge fight with Val, who demanded that she stay inside the house whenever her friends came around.

“I'll be the laughing stock of school, if everyone knows you're knocked up. And you'll be going there in a year yourself, you don't want everyone knowing that.”

Faye admonished her that night for being unnecessarily cruel, but it was already too late. Anne had gone to her room after dinner and packed her bags, and at ten o'clock she was standing in Lionel's living room again.

“I can't live with them.” She told him why, and he sighed. He knew how difficult it was for her, but there wasn't much he could do for her. He gave her his bed that night, and told her they'd figure it out the next day. He called Faye to tell her where she was. She had already called Ward, and Lionel got the impression that he was going to spend the night, but he didn't ask. And he told his roommates that he was going to sleep on the floor, but of course he slept with John, and reminded Anne to be careful of what she said, because his roommates didn't know that they were gay. And the next day, when the three of them went out for a walk, he was embarrassed at the questions she asked, but he tried to be honest with her. “Do you and John really sleep together every night?”

He started to say something and then changed his mind. “Yes. We do.”

“Like husband and wife?”

Lionel saw John blush out of the corner of his eye. “Sort of.”

“That's weird.” She didn't say it meanly and Lionel laughed.

“I guess it is. But that's the way things are.”

“I don't know why people get so upset about that, I mean like Dad. If you love each other, what difference does it make what you are, I mean a man and a woman, or two girls or two men?” He wondered just exactly what she had seen in the commune, and remembered what the police had said. She had probably had numerous homosexual experiences now too, but he didn't ask her that, and hers would have been drug-induced, and as part of a large group probably, given the sect's practices. And Lionel didn't want to ask. She might not even have remembered what she'd done. It was very different from what he and John shared, which was a genuine love affair. But he looked at her now. It was odd how she floated between being a woman and a child.

“Not everyone sees it that way, Anne. It's frightening to some people.”

“Why?”

“Because it's different from the norm.”

She sighed. “Like me being pregnant at fourteen?”

“Maybe.” That was a tough one. And it brought to mind what they were going to do about her. He and John had talked about it for half the night, and they had an idea. Lionel had talked to Faye about it. In some ways it would be easier for Faye and Ward too.

And Lionel had been right of course. He had always been an intuitive child, and he wasn't wrong this time. Ward had spent the night. His father answered the phone, but he said not a word to Lionel, they were back on their old terms of his no longer existing in the Thayers' life. Now that he had found Anne, they could dispense with him again, or at least Ward could. He handed the phone to Faye, and she proposed the idea to Ward when she hung up.

“Lionel wants to know what we think of their taking an apartment near school, and letting Anne stay with them until the baby comes. And after that, she can move out, come back here, and they'll find a roommate to rent her room. What do you think?” She looked at him carefully over coffee. It was nice to have him back in a way, even if it was for one night, or two. But he gave her some support in these difficult times. He frowned now, thinking of Lionel's idea.

“Can you imagine what she'd be exposed to with those two?” The thought made him sick and Faye bridled instantly.

“Can you imagine what she did herself in that disgusting commune, Ward? Let's be honest about this.”

“All right, all right. We don't have to go into that.” He didn't want to think about things like that with his little girl. Nor did he want her with John and Lionel, in a fag nest somewhere. But it was obvious that she was not going to come home to them, and it might take some of the strain off him and Faye for a while. The only ones home now were the twins, and they were never there. They were always out with their friends, especially Val. He looked at Faye. “Let me think about it.”

He still wasn't sure he liked the idea, but the more he thought it over, the more he had to admit, it wasn't such a bad idea. And the boys were relieved when Faye told them that. They had come to realize how impossible it was living with the other boys in their old house, and neither of them wanted to pretend anymore. At twenty, Lionel was ready to admit he was gay, and John was too.

Faye helped them find a small but attractive apartment in Westwood, not far from where they'd been living with the rest of their friends, and offered to decorate it for them, but John worked his magic in a matter of days, with whatever he had at hand, and Faye couldn't believe how pretty it was. He had bought yards of pale gray flannel and pink silk, and transformed the place, putting fabric on the walls, upholstering two couches they bought for fifty dollars at a garage sale, finding prints in back streets, reviving plants that had looked beyond hope, It looked like a sophisticated apartment done by a professional decorator, and John was thrilled with her praise. And his mother was even more proud of him, and bought them a beautiful mirror for over the fireplace. She felt sorry for poor little Anne, and was grateful it wasn't one of her girls.

And Anne had never been happier in her life than she was with them. She kept the apartment clean for them. It was even better than the commune she said one night, as she learned to make roast duck from John. He was a fabulous cook, and made dinner for them every night. Lionel had gone back to school, for the summer session in cinematography, to make up for the time he had missed, and he'd be caught up by fall. But John had taken a big step. He knew he didn't want to go to UCLA. He dropped out permanently and got a job with a well-known decorator in Beverly Hills. The guy had the hots for him and it was a pain in the neck rebuffing his advances every day, but the decorating experience he got was fabulous. He got none of the credit and did all the work, but he loved the homes he got to work on, and he told them both about his job every night. He had had it since July, and by late August the guy had finally gotten the message and was leaving him alone. He had told him about Lionel and that it was serious, and the older man had laughed, knowing it was only a matter of time. “Kids,” he had laughed. But he was pleated with John's work, so he let him be.

Faye dropped in on them from time to time. Ward had moved back in with her, and they were trying to put the pieces together again. She spoke to Lionel about it when they were alone, but not in front of Anne, and she inquired if he had made any progress about getting her to promise to give up the baby when it came. It was less than two months away now, and the poor thing looked huge. She was uncomfortable in the heat, and the apartment wasn't air conditioned, but John had bought them all fans. He was insisting on paying for half of the apartment now, since he had a job and Lionel was in school, and Faye was touched by how hard he worked and what good care he took of all of them. She looked at her son tenderly one day.

“You're happy, aren't you, Li?” It was important to her to know that. He meant so much to her. And she was fond of John, she always had been, but she was more so now, after his helping to find Anne.

“Yes, I am, Mom.” He had grown up beautifully, even if he wasn't what she and Ward had expected him to be. Maybe that didn't really matter after all. She asked herself a lot of questions about that at times, but it was still impossible to discuss it with Ward.

“I'm glad. Now what about Anne? Will she give the baby up?” The doctor had a couple who were definitely interested. She was thirty-six and he was forty-two, and they were both sterile, and the agencies said they were too old to adopt. She was Jewish and he was Catholic, and with all of that there was absolutely no hope, except this way. They didn't even mind the risk of the baby's possible defects from drugs. They were desperate and insisted they would love him or her anyway. And in September, Faye insisted that Anne at least meet them, to give them a chance. They were very nervous and very sweet, and they almost begged the child to give her baby to them. They promised her that she could come to visit him sometimes, although the doctor and their attorney discouraged that. It had led to some terrible incidents once or twice, and a kidnapping once, after the papers had been signed. It was better to make a clean break, they said, but they would have agreed to anything. The woman had shining black hair, and beautiful brown eyes, a good figure, a bright mind. She was an attorney, originally from New York, and her husband was an ophthalmologist with features similar to Anne's. The baby could even have looked like them, if it looked like Anne at all, and not the rest of the commune, Faye thought to herself. They were lovely people and Anne felt sorry for them.

“How come they can't have kids?” Anne asked as they drove away and her mother took her back to Lionel's.

“I didn't ask. I just know they can't.” Faye was praying she would be reasonable. She wanted Ward to talk to her too, but he was away. He had begged Faye to come with him, he thought they needed a “honeymoon” as he put it, now that they were back together again. And she had been touched, but she just didn't feel comfortable leaving Anne until after the baby was born. If something had happened to her, if she delivered early, which the doctor said teenagers sometimes did … and he had warned her that girls in their teens had the hardest time, even harder than women her age, and she was surprised. She was forty-six years old now, and babies were the farthest thing from her mind. But she was frightened that Anne would have a hard time, and she refused to go away with Ward. They had some time between films, but she was trying to spend as much time as she could with Anne. And instead, Ward went to Europe with Greg. Faye thought it would do them both good to get away.

Anne hadn't agreed to anything by the time the baby was due. She was so enormous she looked as though she was having twins, and Lionel felt desperately sorry for her. She seemed to be having pains all the time, and he suspected that she was scared. He didn't blame her at all, he would have been terrified. And he just hoped he was home from school when the baby started to come. If not, John had promised to take a cab home from work and get her to the hospital. It was a lot easier to reach him than Lionel. She had had some crazy idea about having it at home, like they did at the commune, but they had squashed that, and Faye had made them swear that they would call her right away. Lionel had promised, but Anne had begged him not to.

“She'll steal my baby, Li.” The big blue eyes pleaded with him and his heart went out to her. She was frightened all the time now, of everything.

“She won't do anything of the sort. She just wants to be there with you. And no one is going to steal the baby. You have to make up your own mind.” But he was still trying to influence her. He thought his mother was right. At fourteen and a half, she didn't need the burden of a child. She was still a baby herself. And he was even more sure of it the night she began to have labor pains. She panicked and locked herself in her room, sobbing hysterically, and he and John had alternately threatened to break down the door. Eventually, while he talked cajolingly to her, John went out on the roof, slipped in through the window, and unlocked the door, and let her brother in. She was sobbing hysterically on the bed, convulsed with pain, and there was water all over the floor. Her water had broken an hour before, and the pains had grown severe. But she threw her arms around Lionel's neck and sobbed, clutching him with each pain.

“Oh Li, I'm so scared … I'm so scared …” No one had told her it would hurt this much. On the way to the hospital in the cab, she moaned and dug her nails into his hand, and refused to go away with the nurse. She hung on to him and begged him to stay with her, but when the doctor came, he told her to be a good girl, and two nurses wheeled her away as she screamed.

Lionel was visibly shaken and John was pale as they spoke to the quiet older man. “Can't you give her a sedative?”

“I'm afraid not. It may slow her labor down. She's young, she'll forget it all afterwards.” That seemed difficult to believe and he smiled sympathetically at them. “It's hard on girls her age, they're not really prepared to go through childbirth, physically or mentally. But we'll get her through and shell be just fine.” Lionel wasn't as sure. He could still hear her screaming from down the hall, and he wondered if he should be with her. “Have you called your mother yet?” Li shook his head nervously. It was eleven o'clock at night, and he wasn't sure if they'd be asleep. But he knew she'd be furious if they didn't call, so he dialed his old home number with trembling hands. Ward answered and Lionel spoke at once.

“I'm at the hospital with Anne.”

Ward didn't waste time handing the phone to Faye. For once, he spoke to Lionel himself. “We'll be right there.” And he was as good as his word. In ten minutes, they were at UCLA Medical Center, looking slightly rumpled, but wide awake. And the doctor made an exception, and let Faye stay with Anne, at least as long as she was in the labor room. None of them were prepared for how long it would take. Even the doctor didn't know, although he was usually good at predicting that, but again with teenagers, nothing was sure, she could race through it suddenly or it could take three days. She was dilating well, but she would stop at each stage for long hours, begging for release, for drugs, for anything, clutching at her mother's hand, trying to sit up to leave and then collapsing with the pain, clawing at the walls, and begging the nurses to let her go. It was the worst thing Faye had ever seen, and she had never felt so helpless in her life. There was nothing she could do to help the child, and she only left her once to go outside and say something to Ward. She wanted him to call the attorney first thing the next morning, in case Anne agreed to give the baby up after it was born. They would have her sign the papers immediately. They had to review them again in six months, to make them permanent, but by then the baby would be gone, and hopefully she'd have started a normal life again. Ward agreed to call him the next morning, and she suggested he go home. It could take hours, and the three men agreed. Ward dropped Lionel and John off, without saying much to them, and the two boys went upstairs. They were surprised to realize that it was already 4 A.M. and Lionel never got to sleep that night. He crept stealthily out of bed, and called the hospital several times, but there was no news of Anne. She was still in the labor room, and the baby had not been born. And she was still there the following afternoon when John came home from work, and found Lionel still sitting by the phone. It was six o'clock and he was amazed.

“My God, hasn't she had the baby yet?” He couldn't imagine it taking so long. She had gone into labor around eight o'clock the night before, and had already been in terrible pain when they got her to the hospital. “Is she all right?”

Lionel looked pale. He had called the hospital what seemed like a thousand times, had even gone there for a few hours, but his mother didn't even want to come out to talk to him. She didn't want to leave Anne. He noticed a couple waiting nervously in the waiting room with the Thayers' lawyer, and he correctly guessed who they were. They were even more anxious for the baby to come than the Thayers were. And the doctor was guessing only a few more hours now. They had seen the head all afternoon, and she was ready to push, but it was going to be a while. And if there was no progress by eight or nine o'clock that night, he was going to do a Caesarean.

“Thank God,” John said, and both of them found they couldn't eat. They were too worried about her. At seven, Lionel called a cab. He was going back to the hospital.

“I want to be there.”

John nodded. “I'll come too.” They had spent five months looking for her, another five living with her now. John felt as though she were his little sister too, and the house didn't seem the same without her clothes and her books and her records spread around. He had threatened to put her on restriction once, if she didn't pick up her clothes, and she had laughed and teased him and said she'd tell the whole neighborhood he was queer. And he was desperately sorry for her now. It sounded like a grisly ordeal and when he saw Faye Thayer's face shortly after nine o'clock, he could only begin to imagine what the child was going through.

“They just can't get it out,” Faye reported to Ward, who was back at the hospital too. “And he doesn't want to do a Caesarean on a child her age, unless he absolutely has to.” But what she was going through was worse than anything Faye had ever seen. She was shrieking and begging, half delirious with the pain. There was absolutely nothing they could do for her, and the nightmare went on for another two hours, while Anne begged them to kill her … the baby … anything … and then finally, the little head emerged, and as the rest of him came, slowly, tearing his mother wickedly and causing her as much grief as possible right till the end, they all understood why it had been such agony for Anne. The child was huge, just over ten pounds, and Faye couldn't think of worse punishment for her narrow frame. It was as though each man who had entered her had contributed to this child, and he had emerged full grown, a composite of all of them. Faye stood watching him, with tears in her eyes, tears for the pain he had caused Anne, and for the life which would never touch theirs again.

Hours before, Anne had agreed to give him up. She would have agreed to anything then. And the doctor slipped a gas mask on her face now. She never saw the child, never knew how big he was, never felt them sewing her up, and Faye silently left the delivery room, feeling sorry for her own child, for the pain she had borne, for the experience she would probably never forget, the child she would never know, unlike her own, who had caused her joy and pain over the years, but none of whom she regretted having. And now her first grandchild was to be given away, and she would never see him again. He was put in a polyethylene basket and rolled away to the nursery, to be cleaned up, and given to someone else.

Half an hour later, as she and Ward left the hospital, she saw the woman with the dark hair holding him, with tears streaming down her face and a look of love in her eyes. They had waited fourteen years for him, and they accepted him as he was, not knowing who his father was, or what damage the drugs had done. They accepted him with unconditional love, and Faye held tightly to Ward's hand as they left, and took a deep gulp of the night air. The doctor had said that Anne would sleep for several hours. She would be heavily sedated now, thank God, and that night, as she lay in her bed, Faye cried in Ward's arms.

“It was so horrible … she screamed so terribly …” She sobbed uncontrollably now. It had been almost unbearable watching her, but it was all over now. For all of them. Except the couple with Anne's child. For them it had just begun.

CHAPTER 25

They kept Anne in the hospital for a week, in an attempt to let the wounds heal, both physically and mentally. The doctor told Faye that they would heal with time. They kept her on Valium, and Demerol for the pain. She had been torn badly by the baby's head because he was so large. But more than that, they all recognized that she would have emotional scars from this. A psychiatrist came to talk to her every day, but she would say nothing at all to him, she just lay in bed and stared at the ceiling or the wall, and every day after an hour he went away. She said nothing to Faye, or Ward, or the twins, or even Lionel when he and John came, carefully, at a different time from Faye and Ward. Lionel brought her an enormous stuffed bear, and he hoped it didn't remind her of the lost child. The baby had left the hospital three days after it was born. His parents took him away in an elaborate blue and white outfit by Dior, and two blankets his new grandmother had made. They had sent an enormous arrangement of flowers to Anne, but she had them given to someone else. She wanted no reminder of them. She hated herself for what she had done, but in those first few hours after she awoke, she felt so terrible that she never wanted to see him again. It was only now that he was gone that she wished she could have seen his face, just once … so she would remember him … her eyes filled with tears at the thought. Everyone said she had done the right thing, but she hated them all, and herself most of all, and she told Lionel that now, as John fought back tears. If it had been his sister, he would have died for her, and he tried to cheer Anne up now. Even if the jokes were in bad taste, they were heartfelt. He felt terrible for her.

“We could always redo your room in black. I have some great black corduroy at the shop … we could drape black tulle over the windows, a few little black spiders here and there.” He squinted artistically, and for the first time in a week she laughed. But when it came time to go home, it was Ward and Faye who came for her. They had talked to Lionel earlier that day, or at least Faye had, and explained that they were taking Anne home now. He and John were free to rent her room to a friend, or do whatever they liked with it. The purpose had been served, and now Anne had to come home to resume her life with them.

She was even more depressed when she found that out, but she didn't have the strength to argue with them now. She sat in her room for the next few weeks, refusing to eat most of the time, telling the twins to get the hell out when they stopped in to say hello to her, which admittedly they seldom did, although Vanessa really did try more than once. She wanted to reach out to Anne, with records, and books, and a bunch of flowers once or twice. But Anne steadfastly refused to be wooed by the gifts. She kept her heart closed to all of them. And it was Thanksgiving before she joined them for dinner again. Lionel was conspicuously not there, nor was Greg, who was playing a big game at school, and Anne returned to her room as soon as possible. She had nothing to say to any of them, even Vanessa, who tried so hard, and Faye, whose grief still showed in her eyes. Anne hated them all. All she could think of was the baby she had given up. He was exactly five weeks old now. She wondered if for the rest of her life she would remember exactly how old he was all the time. She could almost sit down now, which was at least something, Lionel reminded her when he stopped by, when he knew for sure their father was out. Ward knew he was coming to see Anne, and he didn't say anything, just so he didn't have to see him himself, or John. He hadn't changed his mind about any of that, and on Christmas, Faye begged him to let her invite Lionel to share Christmas dinner with them, but Ward refused to bend.

“I've taken a position, and I intend to stick by it. I disapprove of his way of life, and I want the rest of the family to know that, Faye.” He was totally intractable, and she argued with him day and night about it. He hadn't always been a saint. He had betrayed her more than once. But Ward was outraged that she would dare to compare his heterosexual indiscretions with Lionel's homosexuality.

“I'm just trying to point out that you're human too.”

“He's queer, dammit!” He still wanted to cry when he thought of it.

“He's gay.”

“He's sick and I don't want him in my house. Is that clear once and for all?”

It was pointless. She couldn't budge him an inch. And sometimes, she was almost sorry he had come back. Their marriage was definitely not what it had once been, and the issue of Lionel didn't help anything. It was a constant source of friction and despair between them. Mercifully, they had started another film, and she was out most of the time. And she was grateful for Lionel stopping by. Someone had to talk to Anne. She had had such an ordeal, and Lionel always had been able to talk to her. But it seemed so wrong to her to close the door on him. She hated Ward for it, and she looked at him angrily now. And yet, always beneath the anger, was the love she had always felt for him. Ward Thayer had been her world and her life for so long that sinner or saint, she could never imagine a life without him.

And on Christmas Day, Lionel was not there, and as soon as the family left the table, Anne left and went to their house. The Wells had made an excuse for not inviting Lionel although they would have welcomed their son, but somehow inviting his lover too made too much of a reality of it, even for them. And John and Lionel had chosen to celebrate Christmas alone. They were joined after dinner not only by Anne, but also a few of John's friends from work and a gay friend of Li's from school.

Anne found herself surrounded by a dozen gay young men, and she didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable. She was far more comfortable with them than the rest of her family. And she was looking more herself again. She had lost all the weight she had gained, and her eyes were a little more bright. She looked older than her years, and far more mature. She was about to turn fifteen in a few weeks, and go back to her old school to finish eighth grade. She was dreading it. She was going to be a year and a half older than everyone, but Lionel said she just had to grit her teeth and go, and in a way she was doing it for him.

They let her have half a glass of champagne, and she stayed with them until after nine o'clock. She had saved up and bought Li a cashmere scarf, and a beautiful silver pen from Tiffany's for John. They were the best friends she had, and the only family she cared about. John drove her home that night in his secondhand VW bug, while Lionel stayed with their friends. She knew the party would go on for several hours, but Lionel had wanted her to go home. He didn't think she belonged at evenings like that, sometimes they talked pretty openly, and some of their friends weren't as discreet as John and Li were. She had hugged her brother when she left, and she kissed John's cheek before she got out of the car.

“Merry Christmas, love.” He smiled at her.

“Same to you.” She gave him a quick hug and hopped out, and ran upstairs to her room to try on their gifts to her. They had given her a beautiful soft pink angora sweater with a matching scarf from Li, and little pearl earrings from John. She could hardly wait to put them on and when she did, she preened in front of the mirror with a happy smile. She was so happy with the gifts that she hadn't even heard her sister come in. It was Val, watching her admire herself. She was annoyed and in a rotten mood. Greg had promised to take her out with his friends, and at the last minute, he had backed out. Vanessa had a date with a serious beau she had, and Val was left at home to cool her heels. Even Ward and Faye had gone to friends' for a drink and Valerie and Anne were left alone, as Val stared at her.

“Where'd you get the sweater and scarf?” She would have liked to try them on, but she knew Anne would never offer them. She helped herself to most of Vanessa's clothes, but Anne kept her door locked most of the time, and never offered them anything, nor did she ask anything of them. She kept to herself, as she always had, even more so than before.

“Li gave them to me.”

“Playing favorites, as usual.”

Anne was hurt by the remark, but it didn't show. It never did. She was a genius at hiding what she felt. She always had been. “It's not as though you and he have ever been close.” It was a grown-up remark and the honesty of it took Valerie by surprise.

“What does that have to do with anything? He's my brother, isn't he?”

“Then do something for him some time.”

“He's not interested in me. He's all wrapped up in his fags.”

“Get out of my room!” Anne advanced on her menacingly, and she took a step back. There were times when the intensity in Anne's eyes frightened her.

“Okay, okay, don't get all worked up.”

“Get out of my room, you whore!” But she had said the wrong thing. Val froze in her tracks and looked viciously at Anne.

“If I were you, I'd watch that. I'm not the one who got knocked up and had to sell my kid.”

It was more than Anne could bear. She swung at Val and missed, and Valerie grabbed her arm and slammed it into the door. There was a sharp crack, and both girls looked shocked, as Anne freed her arm, and swung at her again. This time she didn't miss. She punched Val squarely in the face and stared at her, holding her arm. “The next time you talk to me, I'm going to kill you, you bitch, is that clear?” She had hit a nerve so painful and raw that she might almost have lived up to her words, and with that Faye and Ward walked in. They saw Val's face, saw Anne clutching her arm, and they easily guessed that the two had exchanged words. They reproached them both, and Ward made ice packs for both girls, but Faye insisted on driving Anne to the hospital for an X ray. As it turned out the arm was badly strained but not cracked after all, and they bandaged it for her. By midnight, they were home again, and they had hardly come in the door when the phone rang. It was Mary Wells and she was hysterical. At first, Faye couldn't understand what she was saying … something about a fire … and the Christmas tree … and then a chill ran down her spine … had it been at their home or John's? She began to shout into the phone, trying to find out what had happened to her, but eventually Bob came on the line. He was crying openly, as Ward picked the extension up, and they heard the words at the same time.

“The boys' Christmas tree caught fire. They left it on when they went to bed. John is …” He could barely go on, and they could hear his wife sobbing in the background, and somewhere far, far in the distance, there were Christmas carols. They had had friends over when the news came, and no one had thought to turn the music off. “John is dead.”

“Oh my God … no … and Li?” Faye whispered the words into the phone as Ward closed his eyes.

“He's badly burned, but alive. We thought you should know…. They just called us … the police said …” Faye couldn't follow the rest of it, she sank into a chair as Anne watched her with terrified eyes. They had forgotten all about her and she stared at her mother now.

“What happened?”

“There's been an accident. Li's been burned.” She could hardly absorb it all and her breath was coming short and fast. That had never happened to her before, but for a moment, she had thought they were going to tell her Li was dead … but it was John … John … poor child …

“What happened?” Anne was crying now, and the twins had come to the top of the stairs. Faye looked up at them in disbelief. It wasn't possible. She had talked to him only hours before.

“I don't know … Li and John's Christmas tree burned … John was killed … Lionel was taken to the hospital …” She leapt to her feet as the girls began to cry, Vanessa instinctively taking Anne in her arms, and the younger girl letting her. And Faye turned to see Ward crying softly as he grabbed his car keys again. They left a moment later, as Anne lay on the couch and sobbed, and Vanessa stroked her hair with one hand, while holding Val's hand with the other.

And in the hospital, Faye and Ward found Lionel being treated for severe burns on his arms and legs. He sobbed uncontrollably as he tried to explain it to Faye.

“I tried … Mom, I tried…. Oh God, Mom … but the smoke was so thick … I couldn't breathe …” As they both sobbed, he told her of the fumes, of how he had tried to give John mouth-to-mouth after dragging him outside, but it was too late and he could barely breathe himself. The fire department had arrived as he collapsed, and he had woken up in the hospital, where a nurse inadvertently told him that John was dead of toxic fumes. “I'll never forgive myself, Mom … it's my fault … I forgot to turn the lights off on the tree …” The enormity of the loss engulfed him again, as Faye sat and cried with him, reassuring him, holding him as best she could with his bandages and salves, but he seemed to hear none of it. He was so hysterical about John that he didn't even feel the pain from his burns. Ward stood by helplessly, watching them as Faye and the boy cried, and for the first time in months, he felt something for his son. He looked down at him gently, and suddenly he remembered him as he had been so long ago … running on the lawn … playing with the pony cart at their old house, before everything had changed … it was the same boy he was looking at now, except that he had become a man, and they didn't understand each other anymore. But it was hard to remember that as he lay in his bed and cried, thrashing the bandaged arms, and at last Ward took him in his arms and held him close, the tears running down his cheeks, as Faye watched them both, heartbroken at what had happened to John … and feeling guilty at how grateful she was that it had not been her son.

CHAPTER 26

The funeral was devastating. It was the most painful thing Faye had ever seen. Mary Wells was hysterical, and Bob cried even harder than she did. John's four sisters looked as though they were in shock, and as they rolled the casket away, Mary tried to throw herself on it and had to be restrained. Lionel stood so tall and thin and pale in a dark suit Faye didn't know he owned that she thought he would faint where he stood, and on his one unbandaged hand, she noticed for the first time with a shocked glance that he wore a narrow gold wedding band. She didn't know if Ward had ever noticed it, but she knew what it meant as she stared at it, and she knew what John had meant to him, as she looked at her son's face. It was the greatest loss of his life so far, and possibly one of the worst he would ever endure.

Anne stood as close to him as she could, crying softly into a handkerchief, looking up at him to make sure he was all right. And there was no question about what would happen afterwards. Ward and Faye had discussed it the night before. Lionel was coming home to stay with them for a while, and after the funeral he and Ward took a walk. Greg had escaped almost the moment they got back to the house. John had been his friend for most of his life, but he didn't seem to feel the pain so much now.

“What can I say?” He shrugged to Val after the funeral. “The guy was a fucking fag.” But he had also been his friend, and Valerie remembered the crush she had had on him, to no avail. They all knew why now.

Faye kept a discreet eye on Anne, she had been through a great deal in the past few months, but she seemed to be all right now … unlike Lionel, who walked along woodenly at his father's side unable to think of anything but his fight through the flames and his inability to get to John. He had thought of it again and again and again in the past three days since John had died. He would never allow himself to forget … never … it was all his fault … he had forgotten to turn the Christmas-tree lights off when they went to bed … they had drunk too much wine … and those damn little fucking blinking lights … why hadn't he remembered them … it was all his fault … he might as well have killed him with his bare hands.