“Good. That'll give me some more time with the kids.” He noticed that she didn't mention Ward, and hadn't for quite a while, but he wasn't surprised at that. He wouldn't have given ten cents for the chances that their marriage would survive. Ward was apparently not adjusting to their circumstances, from the little Faye had said, and sooner or later, Faye would dig her way out and leave him behind. It was easy to read the handwriting on the wall, or at least Abe thought so. He had never fully understood how deeply attached to Ward she was. Without family or many close friends, and having given up her old life as a star for him and the kids, she had been totally dependent on him for years and still was. She needed him, just as much as he needed her, or so she thought. And it came as an enormous shock when she saw him return from Mexico. He was tanned, healthy, happy, with a long, thin Cuban cigar in his teeth, an alligator suitcase in his hand, and wearing one of his old white linen suits. He looked as though the Duesenberg would still have been parked outside if she'd looked. And he only looked slightly sheepish when he looked at her as he came in. He had expected her to be in bed at that hour. It was well after midnight, but she was studying the new script.
“Have a good trip?” The chill in her voice hid all the loneliness and pain she had felt since he'd left. But she was too proud to let him see that … yet.
“Yes … sorry I didn't write …”
“I imagine you didn't have time.” Something in his face made her feel sudden anger at him. There was sarcasm in her voice, and anger and bitterness. He wasn't sorry he had gone at all. She could see it instantly, and she rapidly sensed the reason why, “Who were you with?”
“Some old friends.” He set his bags down, and sat across from her on the couch, aware that this was more delicate than he had told himself it would be.
“How interesting. Funny you never mentioned it before you left.”
“It came up pretty suddenly.” Something nasty lit in his eyes. “And you were busy with your film.” That was what it was really all about. His revenge for her finding a job when he had not, and she knew that too, but it wasn't fair of him.
“I see. Of course then I understand. Next time you leave for three weeks, you might try calling me at work before you go. You may be surprised at how easy I am to reach by phone.”
“I didn't know that.” He was growing pale beneath the tan.
“I guess not.” She looked deep into his eyes and knew the truth. She just didn't know how to confront him with it. But the papers made it easy for her the next day. It was all there. All she had to do was throw it across the bed at him. “Your press agent's pretty good, and your travel agent must be too. I just don't happen to think much of your taste in girls, or your judgment about who you take along on trips.” There was a gash in her guts that felt as though it would kill her on the spot. But she refused to show him that. She didn't want him to know how much pain he'd caused her with this flagrant affair. And she knew too that it was his way of coping with all that had happened to them, of pretending that he was still part of the world he had just lost. But no matter how hard he pretended all that, it was over for them … unless he married that world again.
Ward almost gasped as he read the words. “Bankrupt millionaire Ward Thayer I'V and Maisie Abernathie should be back from Mexico any day. They've been lolling on her yacht outside San Diego for three weeks, and went down to Mexico to meet friends and play with the fish. They look awfully happy and everyone is wondering what he did with his retired movie queen …” Faye stared at him with terror and hatred in her eyes for the first time in her life. “You can tell them I quit. It won't make headlines anymore, but at least it'll clear things up for you and Miss Abernathie, you sonofabitch. Is that how you're going to handle what happened to us? By running around with people like her? You both make me sick.” Maisie Abernathie was a spoiled, self-indulgent heiress who had slept with almost every man they knew … “except me,” he used to tease. And now the list included him as well.
Faye walked out of the bedroom and slammed the door, and when he came downstairs, he found that she had left to take the four older children to school. She had been spending most of her time with them for weeks, to make up for the months she'd worked and would work again now. She missed them terribly when she worked, but she wasn't thinking of them as she walked back into the house and found Ward waiting for her, downstairs, in a blue silk dressing gown he'd bought in Paris years before.
“I have to talk to you.” He looked terrified as he stood up, and she brushed past him on her way upstairs. She was going to do her reading at the public library.
