As I sit down here to write about Faye, the question isn’t what to say but where to start. She was a tiny little thing, something under five feet tall, and thin in that way that isn’t anorexic but is just perfectly right. And she was so graceful – every thing she did, every move she made, it all seemed effortless. Faye was a tough lady – I was much bigger than her, but she had an inner strength of immense proportions that I could never hope to match. in a fight (if such a thing can even be imagined), she would have taken me apart. And she knew it. She told me once that she could never be hard on me because I was always so hard on myself.
Faye was very shy with me for the first two or three months we worked together. Which was a bit odd, because Faye was not a shy person, especially with me – as can be attested to by her five marriages. But the shy didn’t last. Faye and I got to know each pretty well. I was going through a lot of personal turmoil at the time, which resulted in me drinking way too much and getting into fights and such. I was twenty-three years old and bussing tables at The Woodshed was my first real job. Faye was fifty then, and she had the air of a person who’d seen it all and done most of it herself. She became a steadying influence on me – my guardian angel.
But Faye was no angel. She smoked cigarettes like a chimney (she had this hand-made slip cover for her lighter that was just the coolest thing I’d ever seen). She drank, but I never saw her drunk, and she didn’t let me get drunk when she was around. She didn’t have to strong-arm me or even say anything – when Faye was around, there were certain rules of decorum that had to be followed and I didn’t ever even have to think about it. We’d have a drink or two after work from time to time and she was a joy to sit and talk to.
It nearly broke my heart when Faye and Mel moved to Bend. We parted on the best of terms in 1987. She and Mel came in to the Woodshed to get her last check. I was waiting for my shift to start – I’d come in early – and Faye and I sat in the banquet room and talked for a few minutes. What we talked about – the things we said and the things we didn’t have to say – are something I’m gonna keep just for myself. But we didn’t say goodbye. Saying goodbye was one of those things we just couldn’t say to each other. When she and Mel left... they were so happy. They looked like two kids on the last day of school – so full of the joy of life. I always thought the two of them together was a beautiful sight to see.
Roland Marty 
