Five Fortunes (18 page)

“I didn’t bring him home,” James said, trying to ask a question.

He knew that an earlier dog was buried in the garden.

“No, that was right. We just won’t mention him again,” she said, and went out.

When Mr. and Mrs. Strouse came downstairs for their anniversary dinner, they were two of the handsomest old people James and 134 / Beth Gutcheon

Doreen had ever seen. They had dressed. Mr. Strouse wore black tie, a bright red cummerbund, and a pair of velvet smoking slippers.

Mrs. Strouse wore a long dress of teal blue satin. They had danced in these clothes. Rae wore a diamond bracelet Albie had given her on their tenth anniversary. Albie had a red rose in his buttonhole.

They sat in the big library to have their cocktails. James had laid a fire for them, and brought in their cocktails on a silver tray. Mr.

Strouse had his vodka martini with two olives, and Mrs. Strouse had a glass of Dubonnet. The cook had made hot cheese puffs for hors d’oeuvres, and Albie showed that he considered this a great treat. They sat by the fire, and Rae chattered to her husband about her Italian lesson, and what she had eaten for lunch, and then she amused him by saying silly things in Italian. Still, underneath was a current of pure sorrow. When they had finished their drinks, James came in to announce dinner. They walked arm in arm into the dark-paneled dining room.

The table was beautifully set for two. Rae’s flowers were in the center, and candlelight gleamed on the dark wood. They sat together at one end of the room, and James served them their soup, cream of spinach with mushrooms, which Albie loved. He murmured his pleasure when he tasted it.

“Remember the Waltz Night on the ship, when we met?” Rae asked Albie, suddenly smiling. “Remember…we had barely met, and you told me a poem?” She began to recite:

“
Pa was broken-hearted…

When the dancing craze got started
,
And he found out that his shoes

Were full of feet…
”

Albie did remember, and smiled. “A song!” he said.

“That’s right, not a poem. A song. And you went on for verses…”

He nodded. Verses and verses. He had been famous for it.

Together they tried to remember more of it. “Something something something, Something dancing something…” and then together, triFive Fortunes / 135

umphantly, “I can dance with everybody but my wife!” and they laughed.

“But
you
,” he said.

“Yes. You can dance with me,” said Rae. “We could dance, from the first minute. You spun me around on that Waltz Night. And you told me poems and made me laugh, and I had to tell you I wasn’t allowed to canoodle with the passengers.”

He blushed. That was true, that was true. He remembered. They both remembered. They held hands across the table as James cleared the soup plates. He brought in two beautiful, delicate dinner plates, and solemnly passed the dishes, first to Rae, then to Albie. There was a platter of standing rib roast, sliced thin and garnished with watercress. There was asparagus swimming in butter. There was corn pudding. They ate in quiet companionship. This was Albie’s favorite menu.

When James had cleared their plates, Rae fumbled in her evening bag and produced a little present, wrapped with a green ribbon of real silk.

“Happy anniversary, dear heart,” she said.

Albie smiled. He put the box to his ear and rattled it. He put it down again and peered at it. Slowly, he opened it. It was a watch, rather oversized, with a digital face and a black plastic strap. Albie looked up with a puzzled smile. He
had
a wristwatch, and a gold pocket watch. It was in his pocket now. Rae put out her hand for the new watch, and pushed a button on its side. It spoke in an electronic voice: “Eight twenty-five. P.M.” Albie clapped his hands.

“For when you don’t have your glasses.” Albie pushed the button himself. The watch told him the time. He strapped it onto his wrist.

James brought in dessert plates and finger bowls. When their plates were piled with airy meringue floating in custard and James had left the room, Albie shyly produced a wrapped package from his pocket. Exclaiming with wonder, Rae unwrapped it. Inside was a necklace of marble beads, which she knew at once he must have managed to order in secret from a catalogue.

“It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw,” she said. “All my favorite col-136 / Beth Gutcheon

ors…. It will go with everything. Why, I never had anything like it.

I may never take it off.” And she fastened it around her neck, along with her pearls. “Thank you, darling.”

“Happy…” he said.

“Anniversary.” He nodded and smiled his sweet smile.

They finished their dessert, and James brought them demitasses in the library. As they sat in front of the fire, Rae hoped that no one would mention the dog until enough time had passed that it seemed a bad thing from the dim past, and caused him no pain or shame.

They went to bed together in Rae’s room, and held hands together in the dark. When she was sure Albie was asleep, Rae allowed herself to feel the pity for Winston Churchill, and sorrow for herself, that she’d been holding in all day and evening. It was hard to hold it in and grieve alone.

Sometime in the night Rae realized Albie was no longer in bed, but he often went back to his own room if he grew restless.

Toward morning she woke again with a sense of unease. It was not yet fully light; dawn came so late on winter mornings. She sat up and looked around the room. Everything was in order, except that Albie’s slippers were beside the bed. That was unusual. He was a creature of habit, and when he went from room to room he put his slippers on.

She got up and went quietly through the dressing room to Albie’s bedroom. The bed was untouched.

She went back to her own room for a robe and slippers. Quietly, not wanting to wake Doreen and James, she went down the front stairs. Everything was silent and as it should be.

The fire in the library had burned all the way to ash, and the room was cold.

She went to the living room, which they rarely used, and on to the kitchen, to see if Albie had come down for something to eat. But the kitchen was quiet. There was no sign that anyone had been there since the cook had gone to bed.

She went back into the front hall, about to go up to the den, when she felt a draft. Following it, she went past the front stairway, and saw

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that the little door to the back garden was off the latch. Immediately she went out, and down the steps.

The morning air was very cold; she could see her breath. The air was filled with the smell of dank earth, and moss. There was no wood smoke on the breeze at this hour. It was a cool, dark, green and woody, slightly rotting smell. She was careful on the steps going down, holding tight to the iron rail. The moss on the stone made these treacherous and the last thing she wanted was a broken hip.

There was no one in the garden. There was heavy dew, which would have been hoarfrost if it were just a little colder. She went on toward the pool house.

There were no lights on in the building, but as she now expected, the door was unlatched. Her heart felt like lead in her chest. She went in, and was struck by the wall of humid warmth and the smell of chlorine. She stood in the thick darkness and called: “Albie?”

The sound bounced and echoed around the room as sounds do across water. There was no answer. She was gripped by a numb sensation of being suspended in time. She didn’t want to move. But finally she forced herself to turn on the lights.

The room flashed into brightness. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Then it was only a matter of walking a few more feet until she could see that he was there.

He was naked. That was the surprise. She’d been fearing he’d gotten confused, and come here, and drowned by mistake. But he would have been wearing his nightclothes. For a moment then, she pictured him mistaking the time and coming to swim. But if so, why was he not wearing his trunks?

Then she saw the pajamas, on the stone bench on the other side of the pool. They were carefully folded, in exactly the way he liked it done. Everything about them said deliberation. Then she understood. It was the only kind of message he could leave her.

She sat for perhaps a half hour alone with him. She didn’t look at the bottom of the pool again. She just sat, breathing the humid air, alone with her love for the last time. She quietly cried.

138 / Beth Gutcheon

When she felt she could, she got up and went back to the house.

She went up to her bedroom and washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then she called James on the house phone.

He was instantly awake, and alarmed. Rae said, “I’m sorry to have to wake you so early, James. I’m afraid I need you.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said and had almost hung up.

“No, wait, please. Please call Mr. Walter and ask him to come here as quickly as he can. Then put on some water for some tea and then…please call the police.”

There was an intake of breath. “And I shall say…?”

“Ask them to send someone. Mr. Walter will be here and know what to do. And then please bring up the tea.”

H
unt had been invited to dinner at the big house for a family summit. The girls had cooked and the boys had washed the dishes; now the adults were caucusing in the living room. Cinder and Billy were sitting on the couch while Laurie sat alone in what had once been her father’s armchair. Hunt paced around the room. He reached into his shirt pocket twice, looking for cigarettes.

“You were a great campaigner, I remember that,” he said a couple of times.

“Do you think the party would endorse me?”

He looked out the window. “I think they would. They don’t have anyone else to put up against Jimbo, that I’ve heard, except that fella up in the panhandle, what’s his name?”

“Prince,” said Billy.

“That’s it.”

“Who is Prince?” Cinder asked.

“Some carpetbagger, made a lot of money building shopping malls somewhere. He moved to Sandpoint and retired, but he seems to think Sandpoint doesn’t know how lucky it is to have him.”

“What about raising money?” Laurie asked. “How much would it take?”

“At least a million, probably twice that,” Hunt said, and Laurie flopped back in her chair like a rag doll. “I told you, times have changed.”

“A couple of
million
? For a state with one million people?”

139

140 / Beth Gutcheon

“Be glad it’s not California. There it would cost you twenty.”

Cinder whistled.

“How does anyone raise money like that?”

“There’s a lot of money right around here, you know,” said Hunt.

“Even if it does wear flannel shirts and ride around in Jeeps.”

“You mean Sun Valley.”

“Sun Valley. Sandpoint. All over the state. Skiers, fishermen. They may not vote here, but they love Idaho, and some of them are even Democrats.”

“And some of them are even women,” said Cinder.

“And Boise’s changing,” said Billy. “All those computer people.

A lot of them have lived in the outside world. They know Idaho’s part of America.”

“Let me ask you this,” Hunt said. “If you won, is it a job you want?

You like being a judge.”

“I do, but it’s lonely.”

“Is it?”

“Much more than being a small-town lawyer. I used to know everybody in the district. All the lawyers, I’d either worked with them or against them. Now no one can forget that sooner or later, they may appear in my court. I could live without it.”

Hunt got up and paced around. Laurie, Billy, and Cinder exchanged covert glances. They could see he was loving every minute of this.

“I’d need a lot of help, Dad.”

“I know you would, I know you would. Now what about the children?” Hunt asked. “Have they been polled?” He turned to his grandson, who had brought a dining room chair into the room and was straddling it backward. “Are you the duly-elected Speaker, Carlos?”

“Yes, sir, until Christmas.”

“What are you authorized to say?”

“Our committee is unanimous, sir.”

“Very commendable.”

“Our decision is Go, Mom.”

“Is it? Well, that’s very interesting. Do all your members under
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stand what that means? Your mother would be very, very busy for long periods of time. She would be gone altogether for long stretches.”

“We plan to go with her, sir.”

“That’s often not possible.”

“We went through it when Dad ran. You ran for things and Mom and Bliss and Billy survived.”

“A national campaign is different. And when I was running for office your mom and uncles had their mother at home.”

“We have Cinder.” Carlos didn’t look at Cinder when he said this, since everyone knew she was shy about displays of affection. But all the grown-ups saw that her color rose and she looked at the floor for a while.

The younger children, including the cousins, had finished in the kitchen and filtered in to listen. The twins and Melanie sat on the floor. Anna sat on the arm of her mother’s chair. Tessie and Cara lounged in the doorway. There was a silence that stretched, and in it Laurie had the strangest feeling (and she learned later that she was not alone) that Roberto had entered the room.

Suddenly Carlos said, “I’ll tell you what Dad would say. Remember the time we went to Mexico for Christmas, and on New Year’s Day, on the Sea of Cortez, Dad wanted Mom to go parasailing?”

Carlos looked at his mother, who remembered the day vividly. He looked at his grandfather. “Cara and Anna and I had all been up, and Dad wanted Mom to do it with him. She was scared, she said,

‘I can’t, I’m a mother.’ And Dad pointed at these little, tiny people, little dots in the sky, dangling from a parachute thirty-five stories above the ocean, and he said to her, ‘Hey, what’s the worst that could happen?’”

He had reproduced his father’s accent and brilliant smile so perfectly that everyone in the room laughed. No one could ever resist that goofball courage in Roberto, but also they felt a little unhinged, joyous, as if for a very brief moment they had him back. The room fell quiet again very quickly.