Private affairs : a novel Read online

  His careful voice, warm as velvet, slipped now and then into self-mockery: he never could let anyone know whether he was truly serious. Perhaps he didn't know himself. Ten years earlier, he'd left his father's com-

  pany with nothing but the few dollars he'd managed to save from his extravagant life in Houston, called Elizabeth to tell her he was going to Los Angeles to become the top television personality in America—and had done exactly that. Now he was famous and rich; he lived in a mansion in Malibu; and for the past year he had been calling Elizabeth two or three times a month, saying she was the only one he could talk to, the only one who understood him, the only one who'd known him when he was young, before he got involved in the crazy play-acting of television stardom.

  "Dear Elizabeth, please let me come," he said. "I need to see you. I have no one to talk to but my refrigerator, which hums back at me in some exotic language I don't understand. And I have so much to tell you: I've just finished taping some shows in Spain and on the way home I stopped off in Italy and bought a small cottage—twenty rooms, I think— in Amalfi, and I need to tell someone my news. Elizabeth, are you listening?"

  "Maybe in a week or two," Elizabeth said, piqued and disturbed, as always, by the way he could make her feel desirable and at the same time like a dull housewife in a little house in the middle of the New Mexican desert, waiting for Anthony Rourke to float down to her from the heights of his glamorous world.

  "By then I have to be back in Europe. How about four weeks from today? I'll force myself to wait that long."

  "All right," Elizabeth said. "But for lunch, not dinner. Let me know what time; I'll meet your plane."

  "Does he want to interview you or what?" Peter asked as she hung up the telephone.

  "We're not famous or notorious enough for Tony's show," Elizabeth said lightly. "Would you like it if we were?"

  He reflected. "I guess not. I'm not like Holly; I can't do things in public. I'd rather nobody noticed me at all." He caught Elizabeth's quick glance and added, "On that guy's show anyway. You've seen him, Mom: his favorite thing is to make somebody look like an ass . . . with a hundred million people watching."

  "Thirty million," Elizabeth said absently, thinking she and Matt ought to talk about Peter's shyness and aloneness. They'd thought he would find friends in high school, but instead he'd become even more withdrawn, seeming younger than others his age, spending his spare time with the Indians of nearby pueblos and letting his sister be the talented center of attention. "Isn't Holly home?" Elizabeth asked.

  "She was; she went back for some kind of audition. If he doesn't want to interview you, what does he want?"

  "A friend."

  "Anybody with thirty million people watching him has lots of friends."

  "Is that so?"

  "Why wouldn't he? People stop you on the street, and you only write for one paper. Somebody like him—people probably call him all the time, invite him to parties, hang around, tell him how wonderful he is . . . Stars have plenty of friends. You know that, Mom."

  "I know they have hangers-on," said Elizabeth. "People who hope to get on television or have some glamour rub off on them. But I wouldn't call them friends. Anyway, not the kind you'll have when you find people who like you just because you're Peter Lovell and fun to be with and interested in lots of things and very lovable."

  "Oh, Mom." Peter met Elizabeth's smiling eyes and, almost reluc-tantly, grinned. Then they were both laughing and he gave his mother a quick hug. "Thanks."

  Elizabeth kissed his cheek. "Give it time, Peter," she said gently. "You'll have friends. And girls, too."

  "Yen, well. . . ."He shrugged. "I suppose. Is he coming here?"

  "You mean Tony?"

  "Right."

  "He might, in a few weeks."

  "I don't know why you like him."

  "There are lots of reasons for friendship, Peter. And it isn't necessary to explain them."

  He shrugged again and wandered around the kitchen, nibbling pine nuts while Elizabeth took meat and chiles from the refrigerator. Why do I like Tony? she asked herself. He makes me feel dull and backward—but he also brings me the excitement of the outside world and sometimes I need that. And he makes me laugh and feel young, and there are lots of times when I need that, too.

  But Matt is the one who should do that. Cutting the meat into cubes, she frowned, wondering again what was the matter with her. Why, all of a sudden, did she keep thinking of things that were wrong? Well, maybe not all of a sudden; maybe those thoughts had been cropping up for months. But they seemed to come in a deluge since Zachary died.

  And then there was the wedding that afternoon, reminding her of all the passion and excitement and hope that had been in her parents' garden sixteen years ago. Where were they now? Somewhere along the way, they'd just . . . faded. And what did she and Matt have left? A pleasant,

  friendly marriage, calm and stable, that hadn't changed or given them any surprises in years.

  But we're happy, she said. We have a good life, a wonderful family, a home, our own business. ...

  She slid the meat into hot oil in an iron skillet, stirring the cubes as they browned. Maybe we have the perfect marriage. Sixteen years of passion would have left us a pair of frazzled wrecks.

  Ruefully, she smiled. It might be nice to be a frazzled wreck once in a while. And then the front door was flung open and Holly rushed in.

  "Hello, hello, hello, isn't it the most beautiful, wonderful, marvelous, perfect evening?"

  "You got a part," Peter said.

  "Two parts." She danced about the room. "You are looking at the first high school freshman in history—and I won't even be a freshman till September, but it doesn't matter—the first one to get two solo parts in the College of Santa Fe summer choral concert. You are looking at a future star!"

  They were looking, Elizabeth thought, at a lovely young girl, almost a woman, flushed with excitement as she took another step in growing up, away from childhood, away from home. Both my children, she reflected, only a few years from going off to make their own lives. How had it happened so quickly?

  "Mother?" Holly asked. "Aren't you happy?"

  "Of course I am," Elizabeth said. "And proud." She hugged Holly and, as she felt her daughter's arms tighten around her, it struck her how much she loved her children, and how busy and rich and fun they had kept her life, masking a fading marriage. As if she stood apart, she saw herself with Holly, their blond heads close together. Hers had darkened over the years, like Lydia's, to a golden bronze so that Holly was the ash blond now, with Matt's deep blue eyes, Elizabeth's high cheekbones and slender face, and a pure soprano voice all her own—the only singer in either the Evans or Lovell family. "But I must say," she told Holly, "I'm not surprised. I've always known you're wonderful and I've always been proud of you."

  "Today the chorus," Peter intoned. "Tomorrow the Broadway stage. You'll be as famous as Mom's television star who's coming here in a few weeks to be friendly."

  "Tony?" Holly cried. "When is he coming? Maybe he'll interview me; he said he would, someday."

  "He was making fun of you," Peter scoffed. "Nobody in this family is famous or notorious enough for his show."

  "How do you know? I'm going to be famous and maybe he'll want me because of that."

  "I doubt it, Holly," Elizabeth said. "Tony only wants celebrities. He doesn't make people famous; he interviews them when they're already famous."

  "But he said it!"

  "He may have thought he meant it at the time. But you shouldn't take him seriously." She paused, thinking how difficult it was to explain Tony to anyone who didn't know what he was like beneath the actor's pose. "He doesn't want people to understand him. He thinks he's more interesting if he's dramatic and mysterious."

  "I think so, too," Holly said.

  "Maybe so," Elizabeth said dismissively. "Now tell us more about the auditions—"

  The telephone rang and Peter picked it up. "Dad," he said to Elizabeth. "Still
at work."

  "Matt?" Elizabeth said into the telephone. "Did something happen? You said you'd be home early."

  "I got waylaid." His voice was tight and Elizabeth knew he was holding his temper. He gets angry more often than he used to; something else that's changed since Zachary died. "Simon got drunk last night. Staggered in at noon and created havoc for half an hour before I sent him home. That left two of us to get out the brochures for the Crownpoint Rug Auction. I'm sorry, Elizabeth; I'll be there within an hour. Can you change the reservation?"

  "If not, we'll go somewhere else. Rancho de Chimayo isn't the only restaurant around."

  "But it was the one you wanted." The first place we went, Matt thought, when we moved here and needed a special place to splurge and pretend everything was fine. Now we're pretending again. "See what you can do; I'll get out of here as soon as I can. Would you rather I called them?"

  "No, I'll do it."

  "See you soon, then." Matt hung up slowly and stood at his desk, absently watching his pressman stack brochures for the post office. Anger and frustration knotted his stomach and he breathed deeply, trying to loosen up so he could finish and get the hell out of there. Too much was happening at once, one crisis after another; there was no chance to sort things out. Ever since Zachary died, time had speeded up, the days whirling around him and then away, like dust in a windstorm. Men should be prepared to lose their fathers, and he'd known for sixteen years,

  through three strokes that left Zachary progressively weaker, that he would lose his. But Zachary had insisted on working until almost the end, so in a way Matt was unprepared, and when he woke one day to the full realization that he would never see his father again, talk to him and laugh at his tall tales, the pain had struck him with a fierceness he had not expected.

  "Matt?" His pressman was pulling on his jacket. "All done. I'll drop them off at the post office on my way home. Unless you have something else you want me to do . . . ?"

  "No, you've gone way beyond the call of duty. Thanks for staying."

  "You sure there's nothing else I can do? Buy you a drink? Buy you two?"

  "Frank," Matt said, "are you doing what you want to do?"

  "At the moment or generally?"

  "Both."

  "At the moment, I'm going home, which is what I want to do. Generally ... I guess so. I don't think about it much."

  "Why not? Did you always want to be a pressman or did you ever want something else? Don't you wonder what might have happened if you'd gone a different direction when you were starting out?"

  Frank looked him up and down. "This your birthday or something, Matt? Is that why you're thinking deep thoughts?"

  Matt hesitated, then chuckled. "Okay, Frank. Sorry I asked. The end of a very long day is no time for philosophy. Go on home; I'll close up. I'll take you up on that drink some other time."

  "Hey, look, I wasn't poking fun. I just didn't know what to say. I really don't think about it much. You know, you get busy, you have good days and bad days, the kids are a pain in the ass or they do good in school and then you feel proud, like you're a good parent . . . Shit, Matt, I don't think about it." There was a long pause. "I wanted to be a baseball player. Outfield. I liked looking up at the sky, you know, and watching those long fly balls float right down into my glove, and if it was the third out I'd hear the cheers and run across the field to the dugout like I was king of the world." He turned to go. "I never found out if I was good enough. My girl was pregnant, so we got married and I got this job with your dad and that was that. I still like her, though, the wife, that is; that's one good thing. Be a real crock if we split after I gave up the outfield for her. Good night, Matt; see you tomorrow. I hope you feel better."

  Frowning slightly, Matt washed his hands, put on his tie, locked the front door, set the burglar alarm, and left through the back. It was after the rush hour and traffic on Cerrillos Road was light; he could be home in

  ten minutes. Speeding up, he thought of Frank, and the past three months since Zachary's death, and Elizabeth, who seemed to be having her own problems dealing with it, though they hadn't talked about it—actually, they weren't talking about very much these days; he couldn't remember when they'd last had a conversation about anything but the kids or the house or the printing company—and then he thought again about Frank, who'd wanted to play outfield, and that brought him back to Zachary.

  My father died and left me. It was almost a joke. Sixteen years ago Zachary had begged Matt not to leave him, and Matt hadn't, and now Zachary had left him.

  Sixteen years of guarding my father's dream, instead of my own.

  And that's what was running around in his head. He loved his father, he missed him—but every time he thought of him, it was as if those sixteen years were a dead weight around his neck. Sixteen years. Where the hell had they gone? What had they left him with?

  He thought of his wedding: all those predictions of a great future for Elizabeth and Matthew Lovell. Wrong. Instead, they'd put off their dreams—until Zachary was well enough to run the company again; until they had the money for a full-time manager to replace Matt; until Holly and Peter were older; until Holly and Peter were through college. And the years passed.

  You have good days and you have bad days and you don't think about it much.

  Sixteen years.

  But they were good years, he thought. Don't forget that.

  He didn't forget it. He had a wife he loved, two children, a home, his own business, friends, vacations . . . didn't he have everything he could want?

  Turning onto the Paseo de Peralta, his tires squealed; he was going too fast. No, damn it. He didn't have the life he'd given up when he was twenty-three. Instead, he was here, driving the route his father had taken for twenty-five years and he himself had taken for sixteen, going to the house on Camino Rancheros his father had bought in 1962 and they had enlarged to make room for all of them.

  Matthew Lovell was left without a father, but stuck in his father's dream.

  How did I end up almost forty — and nowhere?

  He barely slowed at the stop sign and turned onto Cordova Road, remembering again those predictions of success. He and Elizabeth had even won a prize. What was the name of it? He couldn't remember. And everyone said they could do anything they wanted.

  And they'd done a lot. But inside him was all this anger, boiling up after Zachary died. He remembered when it started: he was watching a plasterer repair a crumbling wall and he'd wondered how long the house would last and how they could afford another one . . . and suddenly he'd seen himself sitting in that chair for the rest of his life and then dying, just like his father—

  A horn blasted through his thoughts and he saw a car bearing down on his left in the instant he knew he'd run a stop sign. Goddamn it! A turmoil of shouts clanged through his head as his hands swung the wheel-hard to the right. Turn! Get over! Get away —/ The car passed, narrowly missing him, but he couldn't turn back fast enough; his car hit the curb and rode over it. He stood on his brake, but he was traveling too fast to stop; the car skidded along the sidewalk, then crashed into a light pole and bounced off into an adobe wall. Matt heard the explosion of steel against stucco and the shattering of glass; he felt a sudden excruciating pain, like a battering ram in his stomach. Then everything stopped. There was only the dark. And silence.

  H A P T E R

  L

  'ast time we were here," said Holly, her voice small and wavering, "Grandpa died."

  Awkwardly, Peter put his arm around her. In the waiting room of St. Vincent Hospital, eerily empty at four-thirty in the morning, he sat tense and rigid, with his arm around his sister, holding himself together, because he felt like he was going to burst. Everything inside him was screaming and yelling and scared; bitter stuff kept coming up in his throat and he swallowed hard to keep it down. Don't let me throw up, he pleaded silently; don't let me throw up all over the floor and make a mess and everybody would think I'm a baby and—DAD, DON'T DIE, PLEASE, PL
EASE DAD, DON'T DIE—

  "What are you thinking?" Holly whispered.

  Peter tightened his muscles until they hurt. "Dad," he said, forcing the word through clenched teeth.

  "Why doesn't Mother come back?" Holly wailed.

  Peter tried to clear his throat but that made him feel like vomiting again, and he was silent.

  "Peter? Do you think—if she's not here—?"

  Private Affairs 35

  "She's with Dad!" Peter blurted, and suddenly he was shaking all over, "In the"—he was almost gasping—"Intensive . . . Care . . . Unit."

  At the sound of his strangled voice, Holly seemed to crumple. "You think Daddy's dead."

  "He's not! People have car accidents all the time and they don't . . . die!"

  "I hate this place," Holly said. "I feel sick." She burst into tears. "I don't want Daddy to die!"

  At that, Peter let go too, sobs tearing through his body. He held Holly with both arms and felt hers around his back, and the two of them gripped each other, crying in the empty room.

  Elizabeth found them that way a few minutes later when she came in, carrying three Styrofoam cups. "Oh, my God . . . Holly . . . Peter. ..." She put the cups down and knelt beside the couch, her arms around the little huddle they made. "He's going to be all right. Don't cry; he's going to be all right. I should have come back earlier, I'm so sorry, I just wanted to be sure—"

  "He really is?" Peter demanded. He lifted his face from Holly's shoulder and glared through red eyes at his mother. "We're old enough—you can tell us the truth—"

  "He's going to be all right!" Elizabeth stood up from her crouching position and handed them two of the cups. Her face was pale and drawn. "Cocoa. Drink it right away; it's not very hot. Now listen: I'm telling the truth. Daddy had a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding and he was in shock, but those things happen a lot after automobile accidents and doc-tors know what to do about them. I'll explain it later, but the main thing is, the operation went fine. He'll be in the hospital a couple of weeks and then we'll bring him home. And in another six or eight weeks he can go back to work."