“That has nothing to do with it. Some men do too. Don't you, in a way? Don't you want to do something nice for the next guy, if something good happens to you?”
His eyes grew rock hard as he looked at her. “Nothing good has happened to me in a hell of a long time … at least not since I've been here.”
“You're alive, aren't you, Ward?” Her voice was soft beneath the bright lights where they sat, but her eyes bore into him.
“Sometimes that's not enough.”
“Yes, it is. In a place like this, that's a lot to be grateful for. Look around you every day … look at the boys wounded and crippled and maimed … the ones who're never going home at all….” Something about the tone of her voice bore straight to his heart and for the first time in four months, he had to fight back tears.
“I try hard not to look at that.”
“Maybe you should. Maybe it'll make you glad you're alive.” She wanted to reach him, to touch the place that hurt so much. She wondered what it was, as slowly he stood up.
“I don't give a damn anymore, Faye. If I live or die, it's all the same to me and everyone else.”
'That's a terrible thing to say.” She looked shocked and almost hurt as she stared up at him. “What could possibly make you feel like that?”
He looked down at her for an endless moment, silently begging himself not to say anything more, and suddenly wishing she'd go away. But he stared at her, she seemed not to move at all, and suddenly he didn't give a damn who he told. What difference did it make now? “I got married six months ago, to an army nurse, and two months after that she was killed by a fucking Jap bomb. It's kind of hard to feel good about this place after that. You know what I mean?”
She sat frozen in her seat, and then slowly nodded her head. So that was it. That was the emptiness she saw in his eyes. She wondered if he'd always be like that, or if he'd come alive again. One day. Maybe. “I'm sorry, Ward.” There wasn't much else one could say. There were other stories much like this, some worse. But that was no consolation to him.
“I'm sorry.” He smiled a quiet smile. There was no point dumping it on her. It wasn't her fault. And she was so different from Kathy. Kathy was so quiet and plain and he had been so desperately in love with her. And this woman was all beauty and flash, worldly right down to the tip of every brightly polished nail. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell you something like that. There are a thousand stories like that here.” She knew that there were and she had heard most of them before, but that didn't make them any easier to hear. She felt terrible for him, and as she followed him slowly back out to the jeep, she was glad she hadn't had dinner with the CO. after all, and she told him so, as he turned to her with that quiet half smile of his that somehow appealed to her, more than any smile she'd seen in Hollywood, at least in the last year or two.
“That's a nice thing to say.”
She wanted to touch his arm, but she didn't dare. She wasn't just Faye Price the actress now, she was herself. “I mean it, Ward.”
“Why? You don't have to feel sorry for me, Faye. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself. I have for a long time.” But she saw more than that. She saw what Kathy had, and more. She knew how desperately hurt he was, how lonely, how shocked still by the pretty little nurse's death … his wife … it had happened two months after they got married, to the day, but he didn't tell Faye that bitter detail as he drove her back to the tent she'd been assigned. “I still think it's damn nice of you to come out here to see the men.”
“Thanks.”
He stopped the jeep, and they sat looking at each other for a long time, each with a lot more to say, but no way to say it here. Where did one start? How did one begin? He had read about her affair with Gable years before, and he wondered if it was over now. She wondered how long he would pine for the army nurse he had loved.
“Thank you for dinner.” She said it with a shy smile and he laughed as he opened the door for her.
“I told you … it's just like ‘21’ …”
“Next time I'll try the hash.” They were back to joking again, it seemed to be the only route open to them, but as he walked her to the door of her tent, and pulled the flaps back for her, there was something more in his eyes, something quiet and deep and alive in a way he hadn't been a few hours before.
“I'm sorry I told you all that. I didn't mean to lay my troubles in your lap.” He reached out a hand and touched her arm as she looked at him.
“Why not, Ward? What's so wrong with that? Who else do you have to talk to here?”
“We don't talk about things like that.” He shrugged. “Everyone knew anyway.” And suddenly the tears he had fought back before sprang into his eyes again, and he started to turn away, as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“It's all right, Ward … it's all right …” And the next thing she knew, she was holding him tight, and they were both crying, he for a dead wife, and she for a girl she had never known, and a thousand men who had died and would continue to die long after she went home. They cried for the agony and the waste and the sorrow that was inescapable here, and then he looked down at her, and gently smoothed a hand over her silky hair. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and it struck him odd that he didn't even feel guilty for thinking that. Maybe Kathy would understand … maybe it didn't even matter anymore … she was never coming back to him … he would never hold her or touch her again … and he would probably never see Faye again after that night. He knew that too, and wished he could go to bed with her. Now. Before he died or she did, or time ended the spark they felt as surely as any bomb.
She sat down slowly on the room's only chair, and looked up at him, as he sat down on her sleeping bag, and they silently held hands, a lifetime of words unspoken but deeply felt, as the jungle roared to life in the distance somewhere.
“I'm never going to forget you, Faye Price. I hope you know that.”
'I'll remember you too. I'll be thinking about you over here … I'll be knowing that you're all right every time I think about you.” And he actually believed that she would. She was that kind of girl, despite the fame and the glamour and the silver lame dress. She had called it a “costume” and to her that is all it was. That was the beauty of her.
“Maybe I'll surprise you and drop in on you at the studio when I come home.”
“You do that, Ward Thayer.” Her voice was quiet and firm, her eyes still beautiful after the tears.
“Will you have me thrown out?” He seemed amused at the thought and she looked incensed.
“Of course not!”
“I may try it, you know.”
“Good.” She smiled at him again, and he could see how exhausted she was. She had given so much of herself that night. To the others, to him. And it was after four o'clock. She would have to be up again in less than two hours, in order to move on, to do the next show. She had been working nonstop for months now. Two months on tour, and three months before that, without a day off, on her biggest film so far. And when she went back, there was another movie waiting for her. She was a big star, and she had a big career, but none of that seemed to matter here. She was just a pretty girl with a big heart, and given a little time, he could easily have fallen in love with her.
He stood up, almost regretfully, took her fingers in his own, and then lifted them to his lips. “Thanks, Faye … if I never see you again, thank you for tonight …”
She left her fingers in his for a long moment, her eyes holding his. “Well meet again one day.” He wasn't as sure, but he wanted to believe her words. And then the weight of the moment was too much for him, and he needed to make light of it. “Ill bet you say that to all the guys.”
She laughed and stood up as he walked slowly to the tent door. “You're impossible, Ward Thayer.”