Private affairs : a novel (30 page)

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."

"That's what I meant. We ought to be his Houston family."

"Well, we're moving there in June. It's really not fair to you; I get to graduate here and you don't."

"Peter!" Holly exclaimed suddenly.

"What?"

"My audition!"

"What about it? You afraid we're late? We have plenty of—"

"No. What if I win?"

"I don't get it. Isn't that the whole idea?"

"It's all summer with the opera company. I can't go to Houston!"

He scowled. "Shit."

"Well, you and Mother will go, that's all. And I'll stay here."

"She'd never let you stay alone."

"Of course not. In Grandma and Grandpa's guest house."

"Heather lives there."

"Heather will be married to Saul."

"When?"

"Any day now."

"Heather will never marry Saul," Peter predicted gloomily. "She'll keep putting it off forever. And Mother and Dad will split. And Grandpa will stay in his workshop day and night. Everybody we know has a fucked-up marriage."

"That's not true!"

"It sure is. And I'll go to Stanford and Maya will stay here and find somebody else—"

"Oh, that's what's bothering you!"

He shrugged. "Everything seems so . . . useless. Maybe I'll just spend my life being high."

Holly peered at him. "On what?"

"Coke, I suppose."

"Have you ever?"

"A few times."

"You never told me."

"You never asked."

"Did you like it?"

"Sure. It makes everything seem real simple. You never tried it? Even once?"

She shook her head. "I'm scared it might ruin my voice."

"Coke doesn't ruin your voice."

"I don't want to take the chance."

"Well, I can understand that. It's not that you're scared of coke; you just want to protect your voice."

"That's exactly right." They were silent. "Why did you only try it a few times, if you liked it?"

He shrugged. "I didn't want it to ruin my research."

"Oh. You mean, it's not that you're scared of coke; you just want to protect your brilliant mind."

'That's exactly right."

They burst out laughing. Peter reached over and tapped Holly's shoulder. "You're okay, you know. You and Maya are the only ones I ever told about being scared of it. Actually, it's not coke or pot I'm scared of as much as keeping it under control. I hate the idea of not knowing what's happening inside me—like, letting something besides my brilliant mind be in charge."

Holly nodded. "That's the way I feel."

"I figured. You're not bad to have around, you know, now that you're growing up."

"I'm growing up? You're the one who finally caught up with me! Boys are slower than girls; everybody knows that."

"You tell me often enough. The guys at school think you're a cold fish, you know. And a snob."

She shrugged. "That's too bad. You don't really think Maya will find somebody else, do you? She worships you."

"You think so?"

"You know she does. Peter?"

"What?"

"Do you and Maya make love?"

Peter frowned at the highway. "Sure."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"Is it wonderful?"

"Sure."

"You don't sound very romantic about it."

"Well . . . Christ, Holly, I can't talk about it!"

"Okay."

"It's . . . what you said. Wonderful." He paused. "You never have?"

"No."

"Because you don't want to?"

"Not with anybody I know. I think about it a lot. Did you? Before you and Maya . . . ?"

"Sure. I still do. All the time, seems like. It keeps butting in on my classes and my senior paper and everything. You really can't find anybody you like?"

"I like some of them. But I can't stand the idea of them pawing me. I mean, I read about it in novels—every position you can think of, really kinky stuff—but the more I read the more awful it seems that somebody I don't love would . . . invade me." A shudder went through her. "I'm about the only girl in the junior class who hasn't done it, and sometimes I feel like they're all grown up and I'm not, but I just can't do it—not with the boys I know. Did you feel more like a man when you did it the first time?"

He shrugged. "I guess. Mostly I just felt happy."

"Oh. I like that. Nobody who talks about it in school talks about being happy. They just talk about making it, like it's fudge or catching a bus. Ordinary. I want it to be beautiful and glorious and . . . happy. I know they call me a bitch and a tease at school, but . . . oh, it's so confusing! I want it and I don't, and it's scary but I'm dying to know what it's really like . . . Can't you tell me at all what it's like?"

"Close and warm and tight."

"Not for girls, big brother."

They giggled. "Right," Peter said. "I don't know how it feels to a girl. It depends on the guy. He has to be careful."

"That's another thing. I want somebody who knows what he's doing and thinks about me. I'm afraid of some kid who just wants to score, or find something better than his hand." She blushed. "Luz and I talk about it a lot; I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Why should it? I don't treat Maya like that."

"Because you love her. If I loved somebody. ..."

"Well, but you could like somebody a lot. I mean, I love Maya, but I'm not sure it's forever. Her mother told her she shouldn't let anybody touch her until they were married."

"Nobody believes that anymore."

"Maya's mother does. I wanted to talk to Dad about it, once. How he felt about screwing and girls and getting married . . . But he didn't come home that weekend."

"You could have called him."

"I did. He wasn't there. I thought about driving to Houston to see him, but, shit, I'm not going to chase him around. If he cared about being a father, he'd come home and be a father."

Holly nodded. "I think Mother feels the same way. That's why she doesn't call him so much anymore."

"Shit."

"You say that too much."

"Everybody says it."

"Well, everybody does coke and you don't."

"That's different." He paused. "Would you tolerate hell and damn?"

"Sure." They laughed. "I'm going to miss you when you go to Stan-ford."

"Some family we'll be. Me in California and you with Grandma and Grandpa. ..."