Five Fortunes (47 page)

“It didn’t help that they kept sleeping with the tennis pro. But what did I expect? Honestly.”

He reached for the bottle, but found there was not much left in it.

Carter went for another one, and brought a box of crackers. Jerry wasn’t a drinker and he was going to start feeling this cabernet, big time. Jerry put a big hand into the box and ate a handful of Wheat Thins while she dealt with the corkscrew and tried to think. All she wanted to do was laugh.

“I suppose you think this is easy for me,” he said gloomily, as she finally poured the wine. She had never seen anyone look so unhappy and uncomfortable.

“Is it not?”

“No. I couldn’t figure out whether to get drunk first and come over and ask you, or come over here while I could still drive, and then get drunk. Did I already ask you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I knew you’d laugh at me. The others never did. They’d just get all wide-eyed and puzzled and go sleep with their tennis instructors.”

“So this is really something you’ve given some thought to.”

“Yes! I told you. Since March. I mean, since whenever I noticed that Graciela was gone.”

“You could have mentioned it before this.”

“No, because you’d had a baby. I thought if I asked you to marry me you’d think I wanted the baby, you know to marry the baby. I mean, you know what I mean.”

376 / Beth Gutcheon

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t that. It did make me sorry we forgot to have children, both of us.”

“Graciela could have had them…”

“Carter…aren’t you listening to me? Graciela couldn’t have six people to dinner without a staff of twelve and a week in Hawaii afterward to recover. What would she be like with a baby?”

Graciela had
looked
as if she was high maintenance. Carter had just figured she must have been different behind closed doors. She knew how little patience Jerry had for that sort of thing. About the same as she had herself.

She refilled her own glass. This second bottle, she noticed, was not much like the first, which had been like raspberry velvet.

“So?” he said.

“So…”

“Will you think about it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good,” he said, and put his head down on the table. He took a deep breath. Then he sat up and looked calmer.

“I feel better now. When will you decide, do you think? Next week?”

She laughed. “Are you divorced?”

“Oh. No, probably not. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Anyway, next week I’m going to the fat farm with my buddies.”

“That reminds me, I think we should eat something. I’d like to take you out to dinner but I don’t think I can drive. Let’s call a taxi.”

“I can drive.”

“Oh good. Where would you like to get married? Mount Tam?

That’s where we usually do, but let’s not. Hawaii?”

“Let’s eat something, and think of someplace you’ve never been married before.”

“Antarctica.”

“I’d love that!”

“See, I knew you would! The others wouldn’t. Not at all. Russian cruise ships. Ooooh, the food. But
you
would like penguins.”

Five Fortunes / 377

They went out and got into Jerry’s car. He found the keys.

“I’ve never driven a car like this in my life,” said Carter.

“You’ll like it. I’ll get you one.”

Carter felt she hadn’t completely stopped laughing for about the last hour. She had a feeling she should be serious but she couldn’t seem to manage it.

“Where shall we go?”

“Somewhere they’ll give us a table rather quickly.”

“That’s anywhere for you, isn’t it?”

“I guess. Let’s go to Maple Drive.”

They did.

“I have to get you a ring.”

“Jerry, you don’t have to get me anything.”

“What do you know? How many times have
you
been married?

I know how these things are done, I have been trained.”

“But I haven’t said yes yet.”

Jerry looked at her with patience. “Of course not. You say yes when you get married. When you say you’ll think about it, you’re engaged.”

“My, the things Mama never taught me. I guess we could go shopping tomorrow.”

“Yes. Exactly. Now you’re getting the idea. Tomorrow, we will go look at enormous rings.”

“You know, this sounds like it could be fun.”

“Carter, haven’t you been
listening
?”

They laughed so much at dinner that the management offered to buy them a brandy at the bar, if only they would give up their table and leave the room.

“They’re jealous,” said Jerry as they left. And he was right.

I
t had been the only week of the campaign that felt like pure fun. Laurie had been on TV at least once a day since the shooting. The national press had arrived, and now there was sound and light equipment following Laurie and Jimbo everywhere. The Republican candidate for President flew in to stump for Jimbo. Old Senate campaigners and colleagues, they both got stuck in the tar pit of questions about GOP dirty tricks from the bad old days of Watergate. While they were mired and bellowing, they got hit with a good deal of splattered muck about money from foreign mining interests and using Idaho as a nuclear waste dump. “If it’s not safe, why is it all right to put it here? If it’s safe, why don’t you put it someplace that’s already ruined, like New Jersey?” Perhaps the an-griest questions came from the group who wanted to know, if they had to play dirty tricks, why they kept getting such meatballs to do it instead of ones smart enough not to get caught.

The shootee, meanwhile, maintained a stoic silence. His condition had been upgraded to “good,” and reporters camped outside his door reported that he seemed comfortable, now that his roommate had brought him clean underwear and his shaving gear, and a stack of
Soldier of Fortune
magazines. Walter’s researchers were desperately trying to find the money trail from Turnbull’s campaign to Tickner’s bank account, but so far they couldn’t and there were only six days to go before the election.

“We don’t need it,” said Walter, jubilant. “Look at the numbers.”

He showed Billy and Laurie the full-sample poll.

378

Five Fortunes / 379

Before the shooting, the numbers stood at: Turnbull 35

Lopez 27

Prince 19

Coney 6

Undecided 11

Natural Law 2

Now they stood at:

Turnbull 38

Lopez 37

Prince 17

Undecided 6

Natural Law 2

“Six percent undecided is still a lot,” said Laurie. “And we need all our people to go to the polls—if they think we’re winning, and the President is a shoo-in, they might stay home.”

Amy had turned her attention to the Get Out the Vote effort. She had her college sorority sisters making phone trees all over the state.

They’d call their friends, and get them each to call five more. Go to the polls. Rent a bus. Take your club. Take your church.

What they were waiting for now was the major endorsements, which would come out the Sunday before the election. The best news was that Bliss had gotten Mo Udall to sign a blistering letter. It attacked Jimbo’s support of the sale of billions of dollars of Idaho mineral rights to foreign companies for a pittance; it described the time the House had passed a bill reforming the mining laws, and Jimbo had threatened to talk it to death if it came to the floor of the Senate. They were going to run a half-page ad in the Sunday
Courier
with the letter and a picture of Udall and of Frank Church, to remind the state that once in Idaho there were Democrats.

Friday, the day after Halloween, Walter and Lynn and Laurie 380 / Beth Gutcheon

drove down to Boise to have lunch with the bigwigs at the
Courier
.

Jimbo had been there the day before; like many papers, the
Courier
had a conservative management with a fairly liberal press corps.

Sometimes one position prevailed, sometimes the other. Jimbo’s seniority in the Senate, his committee positions, could mean a lot to Idaho. This endorsement might affect the Undecideds, and it could definitely go either way.

A staffer was driving the station wagon with Lopez bumper stickers and “Lopez for Senate” posters in the windows. The drive was a romp; people kept waving and honking when they saw who it was. Walter and Lynn were grinning. Light snow had begun.

“All you have to do,” said Walter, “is don’t get drunk or tell dirty jokes. It’s going to go however it’s going to go. I think they’re likely to go for you; just don’t be nervous.”

“Let’s go over it anyway. Tell me exactly who’ll be there.”

Walter took out his briefing book.

“The editorial board itself. You know them. George, Marjorie, John, and Hugh.”

“Hugh and Roberto played poker together.”

“Good. Dan Popkey for sure, a couple of other columnists. And then, I think we’re going to get some VIPs from Des Moines.” The paper was owned by a chain headquartered in Iowa.

“They flew in with the presidential campaign, and stayed for the meeting with Jimbo. I think they’re still here.”

“To see if they can rattle my cage?”

“Or Jimbo’s.”

“Give me names, give me histories.”

“Well there’s Chip Barnett, he’s the son of, and grandson of.”

Laurie nodded. “Have you met him?”

“I have,” said Walter. “He’s bright. Got a law degree. Was dragged back into the family business screaming, but he’s grown into it. Then there’s a cousin, Michael Ross. He’s a shareholder, and sits on the board, and gives very big bucks to the Other Party. I heard Bush offered him the ambassadorship to Luxembourg.”

Five Fortunes / 381

“So I’m sure he’s got an open mind about us,” said Lynn dryly.

“What’s he here for?”

“Everyone likes celebrities.” Walter looked at Laurie. There was something wrong with her.

“Laurie?”

“Do you have a middle initial?”

“Do I?”

“Does Michael Ross.”

Walter looked at her hard, then riffled rapidly through his briefing book.

“W.” He was staring at her. “You know him.”

Laurie’s nod was almost imperceptible.

“So what?” Lynn asked, mildly curious.

Laurie turned from her and looked at Walter. It took him a minute.

Then he said, “No.”

She said, “Yes.”

Walter slumped back against the backseat and turned his face to the roof of the car. Then he closed his eyes. “There is no God,” he said.

L
unch was in the executive dining room at the top of the Courier Building. It was an imposing room, paneled in some sort of dark red wood, with huge windows and white-coated waiters gliding silently around. A large oval mahogany table in the center of the room was set for lunch. The newspaper people were standing around in clumps as Laurie’s group arrived.

“Would you like a sherry?” asked the editor in chief. “Come, let me introduce you.”

Laurie followed him around the room, shaking hands and smiling.

All the while she heard a buzzing in her ears, and couldn’t seem to get a full breath of air, as if the walls of her lungs were stuck together.

Several of the editors and columnists made jokes about Laurie’s aim, about whether she was armed at that minute, and did she have a license to carry? She smiled and nodded. Walter, right behind her, made jokes about the fact that they had other issues.

Michael Ross had positioned himself so that he was among the last to be introduced. Laurie gave her full attention to each person she met as she was led around the room, so that she had not even gotten a full look at him. She moved from face to face, sensing rather than knowing for a fact that he was there.

“Yes, that’s right, at the Press Club dinner, it’s nice to see you.

How do you do? Thank you. Welcome to Boise.”

“And this is Michael Ross,” said the editor in chief, and Laurie turned to him.

382

Five Fortunes / 383

He was bulkier than when she had last seen him. His forehead was higher, and he had some gray in his hair. He wore a dark suit and a bright yellow tie.

“Hello, Michael.” She gave him her hand.

“Laurie.” He bowed slightly over the hand, rather than shaking it. “You’re looking well.” He smiled, but his eyes were intense and still.

“Thank you. So are you.”

“And this is Helen McGowan…”

“I’m an old friend of your father’s,” said the smiling, gray-haired lady. She had edited the Local page of the paper for a million years.

They sat down to lunch, with Laurie at the head of the table. They were given clear soup, and Laurie was asked soft-ball questions.

They were given filet of sole and the questions got harder.

“Judge Lopez,” Chip Barnett piped up as she was taking her first mouthful of hot food, “what’s your position on the balanced budget amendment?”

Walter caught his breath. He’d been coaching Laurie to avoid this question, because no matter how she answered, it would sound like hell in a sound bite.

“I’m against it,” said Laurie.

“Really,” said Chip, shifting in his chair and glancing at Michael Ross.

“May I explain?”

“By all means.”

“I think it’s an improper use of the Constitution. You can’t make a document substitute for sound leadership. And if you try to, the most likely result is that you damage the document rather than solve the problem.”

“Maybe a better question, Judge Lopez, is what’s your position on the deficit?”

This was from Helen McGowan. A whiffle ball. She hit it over the fence. Walter passed out position papers.

“And your position on Choice, Judge Lopez?”

Laurie’s heart nearly stopped. She looked at Michael Ross. After a long beat, she managed to say, “I assume you mean school choice vouchers, since I’m clear on the record otherwise.”

384 / Beth Gutcheon

“Fine,” he said.

She answered the question. They were given a dish of sherbet and a cookie, and then they were shaking hands and out the door.

In the car, Laurie was trembling.

“I loved the little elephant pin in his lapel,” said Laurie.

“Yes. Nice touch.”