Family album

This had to be the summit, she told herself that every year. She couldn't imagine anything improving from this point on. How could it? And yet it had. The roles got better and bigger and more important, the praise more lavish, the money more unbelievable each year. The only blemish in it all came when her parents died. It made her sad that her parents were no longer alive to enjoy it with her. They had both died the previous year. Her father of cancer, her mother in a car accident on an icy Pennsylvania road near Youngstown. She had tried to get her to come out to live in California with her, after her father died, but her mother hadn't wanted to give up her home. So now she had no one. The little house in Grove City, Pennsylvania, had been sold the year before. She had no sisters or brothers. And other than the faithful couple who worked for her in the small handsome house she had bought in Beverly Hills, Faye Price was alone. She seldom felt lonely though, there were too many people around her for that. She enjoyed her work and her friends. And yet, it was odd not having any family now. No one she “belonged” to. It still surprised her that she had become so successful, and her life had become so lavish in such a short time. Even at twenty-one, when the war had broken out, her life had been different. But now, ever since her last USO tour two years before, things had settled down. She had bought the house, made six pictures in two years, and although she had intended to go on tour again, she had never had the time. Life seemed to be an endless round of premieres and publicity pictures and press parties, and when she wasn't doing that, she was getting up at five o'clock in the morning and going to work on a film. Her next picture was scheduled to start in five weeks, and she was already reading the script for hours every night before she went to sleep, and now that she had just finished the movie she'd been working on, she could really get down to work. The new one was a sure Oscar for her, her agent had told her. But she always laughed when he said that … it was a ridiculous thought … except that she had already won one, and been nominated two other times. But Abe insisted this film would be a big one, and Faye believed him. In an odd way, he had become a father figure for her.

She turned her car right on Summit Drive, past Pickfair and the Chaplins, and a moment later reached her own home as the man who spent his days in the little gate house, opening the gate for deliveries and friends, or Miss Price herself, ran out with a smile for her.

“Have a nice day, Miss Price?” He was ancient and white-haired and grateful for the job. He had been working for her now for over a year.

“I sure did, Bob. Did you hear the news?” He looked blank. “The war is over!” She beamed at him and tears came to his eyes. He had been too old to go to the First World War himself, but he had lost his only son. And now, in this war, it reminded him every day of the grief he and his wife had felt way back then.

“Are you sure, ma'am?”

“Positive. It's all over.” She reached out and shook his hand.

“Thank God.” His voice trembled and he turned his head to wipe his eyes. But he didn't apologize to her when he looked back into the lovely face. “Thank God.” She wanted to kiss him for all that they both felt, but she smiled, and waited for him to quietly open the large handsome brass gates which he kept shined to perfection at all times.

“Thank you, Bob.”