CHAPTER 38




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I can see that.”

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

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

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