Private affairs : a novel

by Michael, Judith

  "I miss you, too. And I'm sorry I missed the party. You still haven't told me much about you."

  "There's nothing new, Mother; you've only been gone a week."

  "A week? I can't believe ... it seems like more."

  "Because everything you're doing is new. Everything I do is the same, except for the election, and a week feels like a month. I wish I was with you. Are you doing lots of new things?"

  I'm sleeping with a man who isn't my husband and that is certainly new, and I'm enjoying it, which is something I never thought I could do. . . . "There are lots of things I don't have time for. Next time you'll come with me and we'll do all the sightseeing I'm not doing now; we'll go around the whole city—"

  "Aren't you doing that with Tony?"

  "He's not interested and we're really much too busy. It will all be new when you <*nd I do it."

  "He's not interested?"

  "Only in restaurants and theaters—"

  "And an exquisite, exciting, passionate woman," Tony murmured in Elizabeth's ear. He ran his lips across the back of her neck and she shivered and shook her head.

  "Tell me about school," she said to Holly.

  "It's the same as ever. How long will you be in Paris?"

  "Three more days. Don't you have my schedule?"

  "Yes, but I like to hear myself say the word. Paris. Paris. Paris. Is it as beautiful as it sounds?"

  "It is, and you'll love it. There's music everywhere . . . and grandeur, even in everyday things, that's so different from home. The whole city is like an art book; when you turn a corner it's like turning a page to a new painting. The streets are laid out so you can see down long avenues to a building or monument, as if you're looking through a telescope in a museum. Except of course it's not a museum; it's a place where people live and work and gendarmes direct traffic as if they're conducting an orchestra. ..." She heard Holly sigh. "You'll be here before long, and it will all be waiting for you. For us. We'll discover it together."

  Abruptly, she stopped. And that's why I couldn't do any more sightseeing. Because Matt and I always planned to go to Europe and it was all wrong that I was exploring Paris alone,

  "Mother?" Holly asked.

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. "We'll discover all of it together. We won't put it off; we'll make time. I promise." They talked a few minutes more; then Elizabeth hung up. "Everything seems so far away."

  "But I'm right here," Tony said and put his arms around her.

  "No, Tony; give me a few minutes. I'm having trouble switching from one person to another."

  "From Holly to me?"

  "From the old Elizabeth Lovell to the new one."

  He shrugged. "We all change, my sweet. It just took you longer, tucked away in the desert, settled in your snug—"

  "Tony. I don't want to talk about it."

  "Well, then. Let's go over today's schedule. Can you meet me here at five? Tea in the Galerie des Gobelins with some newspaper people from Le Monde and Figaro. And tomorrow I've planned a dinner at L'Arches-trate with a bunch of writers. Does that interest you?"

  "You know it does. Tony, how sweet of you."

  Private Affairs 353

  "I am a very sweet fellow. Keep that in mind." "I will," she said, and smiled.

  In Rome, while Tony interviewed a former model who had married into the exiled royal family of Rumania, Elizabeth was introduced to Genghis Gold. That afternoon she wrote a column about him.

  Genghis Gold sketches portraits of tourists in the Piazza Navona in Rome, plays the saxophone in London's underground stations, and sings folk songs while playing his guitar near the Opera in Paris. He is tall and gangly and slightly stooped, like a scavenging stork; his blue eyes have a bright, puzzled look in the small clearing between his dark hair and beard; his fingers are slender and quick. He dresses like an international conference: his raincoat a Burberry, his hat Russian sable, his jeans American, his scarf Irish, his pointed shoes Italian. He hasn't been home—a gray-shingled house in Baltimore where his parents still live—in ten years; last month he turned thirty and next month he will have a new name. "Genghis Gold is only for a while," he says. "Every name is only for a while. Last time I was Balfour Brie, and before that Morgan Massive. Sometimes I have trouble remembering the name my parents gave me."

  He sits on the edge of the fountain of the four rivers in the Piazza Navona. Behind him, in stepped pools of water, are lifesize horses and cherubs, gods and goddesses, frozen in marble. Genghis Gold shakes his head. "I'll never be like them: always and forever the same. I change my name, I change my face. Some weeks I have a beard, or just a mustache, sometimes black hair or blond or red. And I talk in different ways: loud, soft, tough-guy, British gent, American southerner, cockney, Russian immigrant, Chinese-American. I'm very good at it; nobody can tell it's not really me."

  Leaning back, hands in pockets, he looks at the sky. In the protective thicket of his beard, his mouth turns down; his eyes grow more puzzled. "But once in a while . . . once in a while I wonder what it would be like to be the same person all the time. Maybe then somebody would fall in love with me. I'm not sure I could keep it up because I'm so used to pretending, but now that I'm thirty, getting old, I do think about it. Quite a bit." He gets up, stretches until he finds a posture he likes, and

  starts to walk away. He pauses, and looks back over his shoulder. "In fact," he says softly, "if you want to know the truth, I think about it all the time." Then Genghis Gold crosses the piazza, and is gone.

  Elizabeth was still writing when Tony came in and kissed the top of her head. "You're early," she said, typing the end of the sentence.

  "The idiot couldn't say three words in a row. All he can do is ride a horse, but who expects a jockey to do anything else? We canceled it." He leaned forward and read the lines on the computer screen. "Can I see all of it?"

  Elizabeth scrolled the text to the beginning and moved away so Tony could sit in her chair. He read in silence. "Good piece. Terrifically visual. How come you're wasting him on a newspaper story?"

  "Wasting?"

  "Sorry; I didn't mean that. I meant, he's perfect for the screen. Stands like a stork, thicket of beard, international clothes ... I'd like him on the show."

  Elizabeth shook her head. "I don't want to make a fool of him."

  "He wouldn't be a fool; he'd be himself."

  "He'd be performing. Demonstrating his cockney accent, or how he walks or shuffles or acts like a tough-guy—"

  "That makes a good show, Elizabeth. Why does it bother you?"

  "He's not a performer. He's a sad little man who doesn't have a real life, only one fantasy blurring into another, and I don't want to have him stand in front of a camera, all alone, and . . . lonely."

  "My sweet, he really got to you."

  "I cared about him. And I don't want to take advantage of him, or have his parents turn on their television set and see their son for the first time in ten years, and discover he isn't really their son anymore; he isn't anybody."

  "But that's the kind of character who gets viewers off their collective asses to call their station and say we're wonderful—"

  "Tony. I don't want to use him."

  After a moment, he shrugged. "It's your decision. But I wish you'd think it over and remember that viewers like us better when we give them a chance to feel superior to some character on the screen."

  Elizabeth gave him a long look. "You don't feel sorry for him."

  "No; did you want me to?"

  "Of course I did; if that didn't come across, the story fails."

  "Don't say that. Your stories don't fail. It didn't work for me; he just

  made me uncomfortable; but you mustn't worry about it, Elizabeth; you have millions of readers who'll probably feel just what you hope they'll feel."

  He was wandering about the room, glancing at magazines and newspapers on the low coffee table, and Elizabeth gazed pensively at him. Maybe he's uncomfortable because he and Genghis are brothers under the skin
, she reflected. Tony used to play-act all the time; maybe he doesn't like to be reminded.

  Or maybe he's still that way, and what he is now—sweet, thoughtful, the perfect lover—is just the current pose, for Europe, for me.

  Tony looked up and found her watching him. "Dearest Elizabeth," he said, and came to her and took her in his arms. "I wanted to tell you how I felt, coming back to the hotel and finding you here; like a suburban husband coming back to hearth and home at the end of a long day." Beneath his lips Elizabeth's mouth opened and her body curved along his, warm, melting, shaping itself to his. "I want to make love to you," he murmured. "And then ask you to help me do some work."

  She drew back, then began to laugh. He's not acting, she thought as they walked through the suite to the bedroom, their arms around each other. He's changed. We don't feel the same way about a lot of things, but he's tender and he cares about me and he makes me feel wonderfully young and desirable. He's just what I want: an amusing, exciting lover who's learned to care about someone other than himself—just when that's exactly what I needed more than anything else.

  "And I meant it about work," Tony said when they were dressing for dinner. "I have to make some decisions about next spring and I want you to help me."

  "Of course," Elizabeth said, but she was distracted by her image in the tall, gilt-framed mirror. Tony had gone shopping with her the afternoon before, on Via Condotti, where prices were even more numbing than on Rodeo Drive but the clothes more dramatic, and though he knew better than to ask her to let him pay for anything, he had freely offered advice. In front of the mirror, studying the white satin blouse with plunging neckline, the narrow ruby red skirt, and shocking pink silk sash with the ends trailing almost to her hem, Elizabeth thought briefly of blue jeans and a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and construction dust covering her shoes. She hadn't thought of Nuevo other times she'd worn finery; why now? she wondered.

  Because now I'm in Europe. So far from home. In every way.

  "—famous but just at the beginning of being known everywhere," Tony

  was saying. "My lovely Elizabeth, you're stunning; you should always buy Italian clothes; but are you listening to me?"

  She laughed. "Yes. Just getting known everywhere. And what am I to do?"

  "Help me choose some of our new celebrities for next spring. Bo's given me backgrounds and photos on a few dozen and I trust your judgment; can you spare an hour or two for the next few days, to help with this very dull chore?"

  "I'd love to help you."

  So it became part of the pattern of their days to spend a quiet hour or two before dinner talking about the work they'd done that day, and planning future shows. Tony's best interviews were now the ones built around Elizabeth's questions. Neither of them talked about it but both of them knew it, and so they chose celebrities whom she knew, or knew about, or could learn about quickly so she could think of sharp, probing questions for him to ask. Once she got him started, he thought of his own, and then they would bat one-liners and tough questions back and forth, laughing as Elizabeth pretended to be Tony's guest, until he knew them by heart. Even so, he would write the best ones on a small card and carry it with him, in case he forgot them on camera.

  Elizabeth looked forward to those close times: the hushed room letting in only faint sounds from the traffic on the Via Veneto below; the two of them sitting together on the cut-velvet sofa, making notes on clipboards, talking in the private language of two people who share work and play, drinking a soft red Spanna Gattinara and sharing antipasti of baked oysters with Parmesan, shrimp with oil and lemon, and roasted peppers with anchovies.

  Then they would change for dinner, and at nine o'clock go to one of Rome's grand restaurants with journalists and television writers whom Boyle had found, on Tony's instructions, and told in advance about "Private Affairs" and Elizabeth's television interviews. All of them were prepared to greet her as a fellow professional, but when they saw her, the men let out a long Italian sigh, vocally admiring this lovely woman whose honey blond hair was like a flame among all the black curls at the table, and whose clear gray eyes they compared in Italian and English to rare opalescent pearls.

  The women greeted Elizabeth with curiosity and comradeship, liking her best when she laughed comfortably at the men's exaggerated praise and returned their compliments by comparing them to charming princes and errant knights. Then they talked into the late hours about writing and interviewing, television and radio, gaily comparing jokes and superstitions

  Private Affairs 357

  in their countries, and the peculiarities of the rich and powerful who controlled their jobs. Elizabeth's descriptions, as colorful as those she wrote in her columns, drew laughter and praise, and at the end of each evening her head was reeling from the attention she received for her beauty, her clever way with words, and also the success of syndication in four hundred papers and a place on television.

  I have it all, she thought. Everything I dreamed of. Doing what I love, working and living with a man, sharing our work, sharing new friends. And my children, who call me, even in Europe, and who, amazingly, write to me regularly. There is nothing I don't have.

  The thought was dreamlike, but it gave her none of the pleasure she expected. Later, when Tony slept, she repeated it to herself—/ have it all —but it kept slipping away from her. I'll think about it later, she told herself. Some other time when I'm not so busy. I'm happy, and that's enough for now.

  And if there was a thorn in the happiness, she didn't want to look for it; she preferred keeping it out of the way by filling her time with work and pleasure and planning.

  "I'd like to interview Isabel, Tony," Elizabeth said on a dark afternoon as they sat in their suite. The drapes were pulled but the sounds of traffic seemed louder than usual, and rain and wind shook the windows.

  "I'm thinking of Amalfi and warm sun," Tony said, closing his eyes. "Flowers. White, white houses and dark green trees. The corniche to Ravello. Swimming with you in the bay. And—"

  "All that in two days?" Elizabeth asked.

  "—and making love to you in my own bed in my own villa," he finished and they were silent, listening to the wind, while Elizabeth tried to imagine an Italian coast she had never seen, where it would feel like summer.

  "Tony," she said after a minute, "did you hear me about Isabel?"

  "Of course. You've already done her. In a column."

  "Yes, but she'd be wonderful on television. And I told you she's been elected to the state legislature."

  "You're supposed to do invisible people, not politicians."

  "She's not a politician, she's an elected official."

  "Same thing."

  "Tony, open your eyes."

  He looked at her. "Why is it so important?"

  "Isabel is important. How many Hispanic women get elected to public office and—"

  "Does it matter? Who cares?"

  "I care. Women care. Women from traditional cultures hardly ever make waves in public, and now here's Isabel Aragon trying to fight off a bunch of people who want to drown her town. Even if you don't care— and why don't you?—isn't that just the kind of drama you're looking for? You always say you want viewers to get off their collective asses and call their stations to say how wonderful 'Anthony' is. Isn't that what happened in Los Angeles after my column on Isabel? Or don't you remember?"

  "Of course I remember; it convinced Bo to bring you on the show. And I know what she's doing; if you remember, I was there when you interviewed her. Do you want her on the show to inspire other women or to give a speech for stopping . . . what was it? A dam?"

  "Yes. She won't give a speech. I want her because she's a wonderful personality; she reels off anecdotes about the people of the valley like a storyteller; and she may not be as unknown as the others I've interviewed, but she's only a state representative from New Mexico, Tony; that hardly qualifies her as a celebrity."

  "And what about her crusade against this dam?"
/>
  "What about it? If she talks about it, maybe she'll get some attention. It can't hurt us if somebody proves the power of television or, better yet, 'Anthony.' "

  He sighed. "I'll talk to Bo. I don't think he'll like it, but if it's important to you—"

  "It is."

  "Then I suppose we'll manage it, to keep you happy. Maybe I'll put my father on the show with her; he'd bulldoze River Oaks for a resort if he thought he'd make money at it. Wouldn't that be something? A homely, middle-aged Hispanic woman putting the great manipulator and Lord of River Oaks on the spot."

  "Don't call her a— Would you really put Keegan on the show?"

  "Of course not. I don't want him near my show. Anyway, we've never had debates on 'Anthony'; there's no reason to start now. Have we finished Bo's lists? Our last night in Rome; a farewell party with your adoring admirers, and one or two of mine; I don't see why we should work at all."

  "We've finished," Elizabeth said. "We can play all we want."

  But the next day, when they had finished their last interviews and were having a drink in the hotel bar, Bo Boyle handed them a folder. "A few more notables I thought of. . . ."

  Tony shook his head. "Not this time, Bo. We are leaving in one hour

  for Amalfi, land of sunlight and love, to recover from three grueling weeks of doing your bidding. We intend to do nothing but swim and eat."

  "And frolic," Boyle said, contemplating the two of them as they sat together. He ignored the folder Tony was returning to him. "Slip it into your overnight bag; it doesn't take any room, and if you get a few minutes, you can go through it."

  "If we get a few minutes we won't spend them on your assignments."

  "I'll see you in Los Angeles on Monday," Boyle said. Unexpectedly, he leaned over the table and kissed Elizabeth's cheek. "You've been terrific, Lizzie; much better than I could have hoped. No temper tantrums over the schedule, lovely interviews, and you turned Tony into a human being for three solid weeks. You're quite a lady."