Private affairs : a novel (33 page)

"You mean Elizabeth Lovell, Mrs. Matthew Lovell, who is forever beyond my reach?"

"And others, I assume. You can't be chasing only me."

"Only one. And you are not forever beyond my reach, dear Elizabeth. That's why I'm here. I'm courting you."

"A courtship takes two people, Tony. All I want is friendship and laughter."

"For now."

"You're dramatizing again. You have so many other women, Tony, and your work. Doesn't that give you pleasure? And contentment?"

"Does your writing give you contentment?"

"Often. But we're talking about you."

"All right, we'll talk about me. Does my work give me pleasure? Of course. Leaving aside the Sphinx and the submarine, I love every minute of it, especially the power of asking questions that make people squirm but come back for more because an audience of millions is more impor-tant to them than dignity or privacy. But do you know the one moment I love best? When the red light on the camera lights up, telling me I'm on."

"And you're no longer just Tony Rourke," Elizabeth observed. "But the famous 'Anthony,' watched by millions. Millions of mirrors, making him feel real. And potent, when they love and applaud you."

"Dearest Elizabeth, are you making fun of me?"

"No," she said seriously. "We all need love and applause."

"Well, I give you both. I love Elizabeth Lovell; I applaud Trivate Affairs.' Do you know we have eaten our trout and I haven't the faintest idea what it tasted like?"

She laughed. "Shall we order seconds?"

"Alas, no; television cameras show every extra pound. But I am al= lowed dessert now and then." He beckoned to the waiter and they or-dered apple pie with rum, followed by coffee and cognac. Then they bantered and reminisced, close and comfortable as the candles burned low on their table.

It was then that Elizabeth found herself thinking, I am having a very good time, the best time I've had in months. "Tell me about Keegan's dinner," she said abruptly. "What did you talk about?"

"Politics." Tony watched the waiter refill his coffee cup. "My father thinks I ought to make it my new career. I told him I'm happy in television."

"Did Matt think you should go into politics?"

"We didn't discuss it. We only saw each other at dinner and other people were there. Oh, I did talk for a few minutes to someone else who knows you; I met him in the newsroom at the Record. I was returning Chefs car, which I'd been using, and found him talking to someone who used to work for you. Artner. Something Artner."

"Cal? Cal Artner in Houston? With diet?"

"That's the name. He said he was working at the Chieftain when you bought it, and a few months ago Chet found him working at a paper Matt bought from a guy named Graham, in Roswell, and brought him to Houston. Small world."

"Yes." Elizabeth thought back to the last time she'd seen Cal, emptying out his desk after Matt had fired him. Cal and Chet. "Does Matt know Cal is there?"

"I have no idea. Should he?"

"I think so. I'll tell him. What else did you do in Houston?"

"Met beautiful women and thought of you." He leaned forward. "Could we talk about you? All I know is you write wonderful newspaper stories about people I'd like to meet. What else do you do with your time?"

"Oh, I'm as busy as Matt," she said. "I'm going to help fight for a town."

"A town? What's happening to it?"

"It seems someone wants to build a dam and flood it."

"And you want to save it so you can write about it?"

"I want to save it because my friends live there. Not everything is done for money, Tony."

He sat back, contemplating her. "Elizabeth the crusader. You're the first one I've ever known."

"I'm not crusading. I told you: I'm helping my friends."

"Whatever it is, it sounds diverting. Shall I get involved?"

"How?"

"I have no idea. Command me; I'll do what you say."

"I will, if I think of something. We don't know what's going to happen yet."

"Well, I like the sound of it. Better than a Sphinx and a Quebec winter. And any friends of yours are friends of mine."

"I warn you: I might really take you up on that."

"My dear, I'm always looking for ways to prevent boredom and being alone. If I can do that and also help you, it would be paradise. Ask my help; make use of my vast powers. Whatever you care about, I care about. Shall we drink to that?" He raised his cognac glass. "To Elizabeth. And Tony: her most loyal follower."

It was almost one in the morning before Matt answered his telephone; Elizabeth had been calling him since saying good night to Tony at eleven. "I thought you might be out of town again," she said when she heard his voice.

"A long and very dull dinner," he replied.

"You sound tired."

"Worn out. It's been a hellish week. We're revamping the paper in Phoenix, new type, new layout—"

"I know what revamping means; we did it at the Chieftain, if you recall."

There was a pause. "If I felt like a quarrel, I'd say that was a nasty crack."

"It was. I'm sorry, Matt. It's just that I get the feeling a lot of the time that you forget who I am, or at least what we did together."

"I don't forget. If I explain things to you it's because I'm in the habit of explaining things all day, every day. There aren't many people around here I can talk to the way I can talk to you."

"What about Keegan?"

"He doesn't know newspapers; he doesn't pretend to. If he did, he wouldn't need me. I saw your friend Tony, by the way. He was at Kee-gan's for dinner last night, talking about becoming a senator. He thinks that's what his new career ought to be."

"Who thinks that?"

"I told you, Tony. I gather it's something he wants for a rainy day. He says there's no such thing as permanent popularity for television stars, so the smart ones have a second career in reserve. What are you laughing about?"

"It didn't come out that way when he told me about it."

"He called you? Tonight?"

Elizabeth hesitated. "He was here. We went out for dinner."

"You went out for dinner. And where is he now?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I asked, where is he now?"

"I know you did," she said coldly. "I wish you hadn't."

"Don't use that tone with me!"

"Why not? You ask me an insulting question—"

"Which you have not answered."

She took a deep breath. "He is at La Fonda, no doubt asleep because he has an early flight to Los Angeles in the morning. And speaking of sleep, I'm very tired. Good night, Matt—"

"God damn it, don't you hang up on me. If you feel I've insulted you—"

"I know you've insulted me. If you think I'm sleeping with Tony, say so. We went through this a couple of years ago, remember? You accuse me of sleeping with Tony as if that explains whatever problems we're having. But it never does. I didn't have to tell you Tony was in town; I could have said we talked on the phone, or never mentioned him at all—but I don't he to you, Matt, and you know it. Now I really am tired. . . ."

"All right, I'm sorry," he said. "It's been a lousy week—but I've already told you that, haven't I? Don't hang up yet; I want to ask you something; I was going to call you tomorrow, in fact. There are two houses I want you to see and I'm going to be in New York for four days—"

"Over the weekend?"

"Probably. It can't be helped. But I want you to come here Wednesday and Thursday. I'll cancel everything else so we can be together; we'll look at houses and then go down to Galveston and walk on the beach and have dinner at the Wentletrap. Elizabeth? Are you listening?"

"Yes. I can't come on Wednesday, Matt."

"You can schedule your writing around a two-day trip. If I can juggle a dozen meetings, you can fit in your column."

"It isn't that. Saul and I are going to a hearing on Nuevo. Something's going on there—"

"Saul can tell you about it; you don't have to be there."

"I want to be there."

"More than you want to come to Houston."

"If I come to Houston, will you come home this weekend?"

"Are we playing games? I told you I have to be in New York."

"Well, I guess I want to go to the hearings as much as you want to be in New York."

"God damn it—!" She heard him take a long breath. "I'm sorry. That's about all I'm saying tonight, isn't it? Look, think about Wednesday. You can let me know tomorrow."

"Or the next day?"

"If you call early. I'll need time to juggle my schedule." When she was silent, he became exasperated. "I have a job. You have a job. Until we're

together—and even afterward—we're going to have to fit our schedules around our jobs; you know that. You do it now, don't you? Even with Holly and Peter."

"Whom you will not see for another week."

"I don't like it any better than you do."

"I wasn't thinking of me. I was thinking of them."

"For Christ's sake. . . ."

"Matt, I'm going to sleep. I'll talk to you soon."

"Call me tomorrow."

"I'll try."

"Elizabeth, did you hear me? I want you to call me tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Matt."

She hung up. They hadn't said / love you. They hadn't said / miss you. And she'd forgotten to mention Cal Artner.

I'll call him tomorrow. If I have time.

On the Sunday after the hearings, the people of Nuevo once more assembled in the church. Many sat in the same seats they had taken the week before, including Elizabeth in the front row with Peter and Maya, Holly and Luz, and a scowling Cesar. Isabel and Saul stood in the pulpit.

"I asked Isabel to let me say something before she begins," Saul told them. "She's going to apologize to you for failing. She shouldn't. She was as forceful as she promised; in fact, she was damned impressive, even with no time to prepare her case. But I'm sure nothing could have made a difference: they'd made up their minds. It was cut and dried."

Elizabeth, taking notes as she had the first time, recalled the overheated room, the bored faces of the members of the State Committee on Land Use and Recreation as they fidgeted and scribbled and whispered together while Isabel talked. When she had finished, they thanked her for her concise presentation, and Terry Ballenger for his, and Thaddeus Bent, their chairman, for his explanation of studies on the environment, resorts, state parks, water conservation, and job opportunities which had been researched and prepared over the past four years.

"Four years!" Saul had whispered furiously to Elizabeth. "And we didn't know about them. Which means they lumped them under State Parks, with no other identification. Why the secrecy? Never mind," he added. "I know the answer. As long as it was secret, nobody else would be interested in land around Nuevo, so Ballenger and his pals could buy what they wanted. But I would like to know why this committee should help them by keeping things quiet. And who the hell Ballenger and his crew are fronting for."

Standing in the pulpit of the church, Saul looked at the townspeople in the pews. "Isabel did her best. She did you proud. Remember that." He stepped down, and Isabel took his place.

"This is how it is." Her hands gripped the sides of the lectern; her eyes smoldered. "The Committee decided that a state park and reservoir for flood control and recreation would benefit the entire state. They voted unanimously to recommend that the legislature vote the funding to dam the Pecos River at the narrows below Nuevo to create a two-thousand-acre lake—about a mile wide and three miles long—and to develop the Nuevo State Park."

"But what about Ballenger?" asked Maya's father.

"Ballenger, that snake, owns more than half of the valley. It turns out those other two men were buying for him. He's donating the land along one shore of the lake for a state park. His company also will pay for a new road through the valley, since the one we have now will be partly under the lake. Also, his company will pay for cutting a road ten miles through the mountains to the Pecos Ski Area."

"But why?" someone shouted.

"Because Ballenger, that reptile, wants a year-round resort. In winter, cross-country and downhill skiing; in summer, golf, horseback riding, boating, swimming, fishing. He's bought the land for his resort, but he needs a lake. And to get the lake he needs a dam. And to get the dam he needs state approval. And because Ballenger is a very shrewd reptile, he makes sure of state approval by donating land for a state park and paying for a new road around the flooded part, the lake."

The church was hushed. "But we have leases!" Maya's father protested. "The state can't make a park or a lake—they can't even build a dam—as long as we have leases for the land!"

Isabel shook her head. "If a state government decides a project is good for the whole state, it can cancel private leases."

A sigh swept through the people like a heavy wind. "Wait!" Cesar said. "It won't work. Who does this worm think he is, anyway? He doesn't own the town—we didn't sell to him—or the rest of the land in the valley, so he can't flood it."

Looking down, Isabel met Elizabeth's eyes. The bearer of bad news, Elizabeth thought, knowing how hard this was for her. But Isabel gave it to them without softening it. "The state can condemn land. It can cancel leases and it can buy land if it decides it's for all the people of the state."

"For Ballenger, you mean!" Peter said angrily.

"The resort is Ballenger's. But the state park will be on one side of the lake, so even if Ballenger's resort is on the other side, the lake is there for

the people of the state. They made one concession: they extended the time we can stay here while we look for new places to live. We've got twelve months—until next March, Then we have to get out."

"Why?" Peter shouted. "It's up to the legislature, and if they don't vote for it—"

Isabel's lips tightened. 'They did. This morning. Our land will be theirs next March." Her voice rose over the sudden rush of protests from the pews. "But construction on the dam begins this spring, as soon as the weather —"

A tumult of voices drowned out her last words.