Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  "Is it necessary? This is all temporary. Once you move to Houston we'll settle down. In fact, why don't you do it now?"

  "Because Peter hasn't graduated."

  "I know that. This is more important. Everything is changing, Elizabeth, and we ought to be sharing the changes instead of barely keeping up with them. And it's getting too hard for me to commute. Peter can graduate perfectly well in Houston; or if he insists on finishing here, let him live with Lydia and Spencer; they'd love to have him for a few months."

  "And Holly? She wants to finish the year here."

  "So two teenagers are setting policy for our marriage."

  "Those teenagers are our children. And I think they need their parents, or at least one parent."

  "For Christ's sake, it's only five months out of their lives!"

  "And it's only five months out of yours. So why can't you continue commuting for that short time?"

  "Because my work is there, damn it!"

  "Well, damn it, my family is here!"

  Matt slammed his glass on the table. "It's noisy as hell in here. Shall we go?"

  And that was as far as they got in talking about themselves.

  It simmered inside them but they left it alone because the next day, the last of the year, they took Holly and Peter to Nuevo for cross-country

  skiing with Isabel, Cesar, Luz, and Maya, and they had no time to themselves. Isabel and Cesar had invited a few friends for dinner; Holly had turned down five dates for New Year's Eve parties, saying she'd rather be with her parents and Luz; Peter had planned all along to be with Maya, "I'll take my car," he said. "Since I'm not sure what time I'll be coming home."

  "But you'll ski with us," said Elizabeth. "We'd like it if you would."

  "Sure. We'd like it, too."

  "And dinner?"

  "Uh, no. We're eating at Maya's."

  "With her parents?" Holly asked.

  "They're in Albuquerque for the weekend," Peter mumbled.

  Elizabeth and Matt looked at each other, and then away. Too many reminders of young love, Matt thought.

  They arrived in Nuevo early, while the sun was high, and in a few minutes had glided off, following the snow-filled riverbed. The mountain air was sharp, but the valley was protected from the wind and after a few moments of skiing they were warm from their rhythmic strides, and exhil-arated by the sense of well-being in the crystal clear day. They skied up the valley, skimming over the snow in friendly competition, picking up speed until the mountains on either side passed in a blur of white and green, brown and black. Finally Peter shouted at them to stop. "I can't see! I need windshield wipers for my eyelids!"

  Laughing, breathless, they stopped, and Cesar and Matt built a bonfire of pinon wood in the shelter of a cliff. Isabel and Luz took wine and cheese, apples and sliced sausage from their backpacks. Maya said shyly, "Peter and I made cookies, if anyone could use them."

  "Peter and Daddy eat cookies day or night," Holly said. "Mother and I made bread yesterday morning, but I forgot a knife."

  "I have a knife," said Isabel, and they sat on flat stones close to the fire, eating and drinking and watching chipmunks dart in and out of the shadows, leaving long curved lines of tiny prints like beads strung on the snow. The shadows grew longer across the valley. Matt put another log on the fire; there was a hiss, then the flames leaped in silence. In the crystal air, the only sound was an occasional caw of a blue jay or the snapping of a branch as a squirrel leaped from tree to tree. A pure, perfect moment, Elizabeth mused, suspended between yesterday and tomorrow. She remembered she hadn't talked to Matt about buying more land in Nuevo. After today, he'll want to, she thought. Whatever problems we're having, he'll know how right it is to have this waiting for us: a promise for the future.

  It was dark when they got back to the Aragons* house, tired and chilled, and they took turns showering and dressing in the three small bedrooms before coming back to the living room where Cesar was ladling out hot spiced wine before a roaring fire while Isabel and Elizabeth made dinner in the kitchen.

  When the guests arrived they sat on the floor, on pillows made of fabric woven by Cesar, eating at small low tables near the fire. After dinner, Luz and Holly went otf to be alone and the others talked lazily of the weather, new people building summer homes in the Holy Ghost and Grass Mountain areas farther up the valley, next year's crops, and this odd fellow Ballentine who was buying land in the valley and then renting it back to the people he'd bought it from, paying good money for something he never even saw.

  "That's not his name," said Isabel, pouring more coffee. "It's Ballen-ger."

  "He's loco," said Cesar. "And bad-tempered. He didn't like it that Isabel wouldn't sell to him."

  "He bought Zachary's house and land from us," said Elizabeth. "And I was thinking—"

  "I met him," Matt said. "I forgot to tell you. He was at a party in Houston. It seems he's not only a car dealer, he also buys property all over the world."

  "Does he," Elizabeth murmured thoughtfully. "I was going to find out more about him last August but the column took too much time; I never got around to it."

  "What were you looking for?"

  "I'm not sure. Isabel says he and two other men have bought up more than half the valley. I thought it was odd."

  Matt frowned. "He didn't mention that when we talked. Peculiar guy. Too enthusiastic. And he breaks up his words."

  "Like what?" Cesar asked.

  "New-ay-vo. Pe-cu-liar. Ar-a-gon."

  "That would drive me crazy," Isabel declared.

  "So someone said."

  One of Isabel's neighbors mentioned a rumor in Pecos about a new road in the area; no one else had heard about it but they debated its merits. Elizabeth, drowsy from the long day outside, and the wine and the warm room, curled up on the rug, her head on Matt's thigh, watching the flames. They were a little distance from the others. "I think we should buy in the valley," she said, her voice low beneath the conversation. "Before Ballenger gets it all."

  Matt didn't hear her. The talk about land had recalled a quarrel he'd had with Rourke over whether resorts should be built in wilderness areas. They'd have to resolve that, he thought: he needed a free hand in deciding editorial policies for their papers. Suddenly anxious to get back, to settle the quarrel with Rourke and tackle the other work waiting for him, he heard snatches of conversation about selling the land, irrigating the land, planting the land, finding markets for the pottery and rugs made in the valley. 'They never talk about anything else." he murmured.

  Elizabeth looked up. "It's their life." Her voice was as low as his. "They feel about it the way you feel about working for Keegan."

  "Do you think it's the same?" he asked curiously. "These people live in a dying town m a small valley hidden in the mountains. I don't see any connection with what I'm doing: I don't even find much that attracts me anymore."

  Elizabeth sat up. "You don't mean that." She'd been about to repeat what she had said about buying land: now she held it back. "All those years we came here with Zachary. we talked about building a second home, spending summers here. . .

  "A long time ago. I hardly remember how I felt about things then. Was that all I wanted 0 Did I sound like these people?"

  "These people are my friends." She studied his face in the firelight. "And they're more like you than you think. They have a passion for this place and the life they've made that keeps them here and sends them out each day to tend their animals and work the land whether they feel like it or not. whether they're sure the valley has a future or not. It's the same kind of passion you have for Keegan. for working for him. The same passion that will make you go back to Houston tomorrow even though we haven't finished anything we began a week ago."

  "Fresh wine." Isabel said, handing each of them a mug. "It's midnight. Padre is going to make a toast."

  "We wish for health and plenty." Cesar said, and rambled on about love and a place to belong, fertile fields and animals, large families and a prosp
erous year.

  Elizabeth held her mug and leaned forward to kiss Matt. "Happy New Year." she said softly, and neither of them was sure whether it was a prayer or a pledge.

  E

  lizabeth sat at Matt's desk in the glass-walled office of the Chieftain, writing a "Private Affairs" story about her father.

  He was seventy-five years old when he first picked up a hand saw and made a long cut through a piece of oak, overcoming the resistance of the wood with his own strength. And when he had planed and carved and sanded, and held in his hand something he had made himself, from part of the earth he lived in, he knew that, after fifty years, he was finally doing what he really wanted. And he was content.

  She wrote more quickly than usual, looking up absently as she tried to think of the right word or phrase. Through the glass wall she saw the bustle of the newsroom, Saul's smile, Barney Kell's friendly salute, Wally coming toward her. She shook her head to stop him and turned back to the typewriter. Late in the afternoon, she pulled out the last page and read through the whole piece. She stopped at the sentences she had re-

  peated at the end: "He was finally doing what he really wanted. And he was content."

  Matt, she thought.

  But then she shook her head. It wasn't really Matt. He'd been doing what he wanted, and it included both of them. But he'd been sidetracked, caught in his own ambition. And he'd be trapped in it until he found a way to balance ambition with the other things of his life.

  That's what we should have talked about at Christmas, she thought: the gap between what we dreamed and what we are now.

  Impulsively, she picked up the telephone and called his office in Hous-ton. "He's in a meeting, Mrs. Lovell," his secretary said. "With Mr. Rourke and the governor and some members of the Texas Commission on State Parks. It might last through dinner. Can I take a message?"

  "No," Elizabeth said. "Thank you. Just tell him I'll call him at home later."

  Not "home"; it's only a rented apartment

  But she never reached him that night, and the next morning his secretary called her. "Mr. Lovell left Houston after dinner last night, Mrs. Lovell; he went to Austin with the parks commissioners. He just called in and I gave him your message and he said to tell you he'll call you when he's back in Houston late this afternoon."

  Absently, Elizabeth thanked her. Matt was a newspaperman, a publisher; what was he doing in the Texas state capital with commissioners of parks?

  "I just wondered," she said when he called that night. "It seemed odd."

  "They were giving me information," he replied. "I had questions and they had answers, so I flew back with them just for the day. We're planning a series on land use in Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Texas and southern Colorado—"

  "Land use?"

  "Flood control, irrigation, resorts, state parks—huge projects, Elizabeth; it's incredible what's involved. The landscape of whole states could be transformed. And we're right in the middle of it; we own enough papers now to help shape what happens, build public support, push for new laws . . . can you imagine what that means? The size of it—! Of course the states can't afford to do all of it themselves; there will have to be federal and private money, too. ..."

  He talked on. All wound up, Peter would say, and Elizabeth didn't try to stop him. Their last few telephone calls had been brief and unsatisfactory, with Matt distracted by work and Elizabeth feeling left out, and left behind. It was better to be talking about land use than not talking at all,

  and it was better to hear her husband sound enthusiastic than vague and brusque.

  But when she told her mother about it the next day, Lydia was critical. "You didn't tell him you still felt left out?"

  "It wasn't the right time."

  "Any time is the right time to tell your husband something important about yourself. If you feel left behind while he dashes around the country playing powerful publisher, you should tell him."

  "Mother, do you tell your husband you don't like running the bookshop alone after you began it together?"

  "Of course not. He'd get defensive and huff and puff about my trying to stop him from doing something he loves when it's his first chance—Oh. Well. But that's different."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know, it just is."

  "Well, it doesn't matter," Elizabeth said. "Because it's only temporary, our being apart. As soon as I'm in Houston with him, everything will change."

  "Did you talk about moving to Houston?"

  "No. He was so busy telling me about state parks and flood control, I didn't say any of the things I'd planned to say. I didn't even tell him I bought two lots in Nuevo last week, just outside of town."

  "You bought land in the valley? Without even talking it over with Matt?"

  "We seem to be doing a lot of things separately these days. It's something I want and I'm not sure he cares about it one way or another. I'll tell him this weekend, when he's home."

  But Matt didn't get to Santa Fe that weekend; he had to be in Denver. "Some bright-eyed optimist started a newspaper without knowing the first thing about it," he told Elizabeth when he called on Thursday. "And now he wants to be bailed out. It could be something for us."

  "And it has to be this weekend?"

  "It was the only time I could fit it in. Was there a special reason you wanted me home?"

  She bit back an angry retort. "Is loving you special enough?"

  "I'm sony, sweetheart; I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I just meant—is anything special happening at home?"

  "It would be nice if you asked that more often."

  "Oh, for God's sake. Listen, Elizabeth—"

  "Matt, I'm sorry, but I've done a lot more listening than talking." Why am I apologizing? "You've got a family here, with a couple of children

  who are growing up fast, and you should be part of their lives instead of— M

  "Instead of what? Making a better life for them, with more money so they can do what they want?"

  "Maybe they want a father. Holly is nervous about her audition; it might help to have a father giving her encouragement."

  "The Santa Fe Opera audition? That's a long way off."

  "Two weeks from now. And it's the opera chorus. She told you about it."

  "I know she did. Two weeks? Well, but I'll be there before then, and give her all the moral support she needs. In fact, why don't I talk to her now? Start my encouragement early. Is she still awake?"

  "Of course she is; it's only ten o'clock. Have you forgotten she's seventeen? I'll get her. And then Peter can take over."

  "Fine. I talked to him yesterday, though, you know."

  "Yesterday?"

  "He called me at the office. I thought you knew."

  "I know both of them call you; I pay the telephone bills. They don't tell me every time."

  "Well, no reason they should. In fact, I was in the middle of a meeting and we only talked a few minutes, so I'd like to talk to him now. And I'll see you the weekend after this. By the way, your column on the audience at the chamber music concert was a gem. We loved the part about the man who snored through the evening— An uninvited tuba played obbli-gatofrom the second row. Keegan's been showing it all over town. I don't know how you turn out three of those a week."

  "I turn them out by working ten hours a day. Or night. If you asked more questions about us, you'd know that. Hold on, I'll get Holly."

  No more whining, she told herself as she walked down the hall. But she wasn't sure what she would do if he didn't show more interest in them. She didn't want to nag him into it; she wanted it to come from him.

  She knocked on the door of Holly's room. "Daddy's on the phone; he wants to talk to you."

  I'll find a way, she thought. Something that will get us through the next few months. I'd better; otherwise when I move to Houston I might discover I've gone to live with a stranger.

  Holly didn't want Elizabeth at the audition. "Please, mother; I can't stand the idea of you sitting there
worrying. I don't even know if they'd let you in. They probably wouldn't. They don't want hordes of frantic parents wandering around worrying. ..."

  "I'm not worried," said Elizabeth mildly, understanding who really was worried, wishing she could make it easier for Holly, and knowing she couldn't. "I was worried at my own auditions, the first time we faced the Chieftain staff" and the first time my column appeared, but I'm not wor= ried about you. You'll do your best, which is superb, and I think you'll make it."

  "You really think so?" breathed Holly. "Well ... but still, please don't come."

  "Of course I won't, if you don't want me to. But how wiD you get to Albuquerque?"

  "Peter said he'd drive me."

  "And go to the audition?"

  "I'm thinking about it. He can wander around the campus if I don't want him there."

  Elizabeth nodded. "Call me if you'll be late for dinner."

  Sitting beside Peter on the high seat of his new car, cozily warm with the heater on, Holly gazed dreamily at the snow-covered mountains on the horizon. "Mother's so nice these days. Like she's trying to make everything . . . nice."

  Peter grunted.

  "What does that mean?"

  "She's trying to make us not worry about her and Dad."

  Holly sighed. "I know. She's trying to make herself not worry, too." They were silent. "I guess we should have moved to Houston last fall; things would be okay then."

  "So it's my fault they're going to split!"

  "I didn't say it was your—What do you mean, they're going to split? Did mother say that?"

  "She doesn't have to; look at them, for Christ's sake. How much are they together? And have you watched them when they are? They used to touch each other, you know, little . . . touches. And they'd kiss, just quick ones, like Dad'd walk through the kitchen and give her a kiss and a little pinch on her ass—"

  "Peter!"

  "What?"

  "Well, it doesn't seem right to talk about Mother that way."

  "Everybody has an ass, Holly. Even mothers."

  After a minute, she sighed again. "You're right. They don't do those things anymore. Daddy just . . . visits."

  "We're his Santa Fe hotel."