Private affairs : a novel (49 page)

"Not often enough. I don't even read the Chieftain as often as I'd like. I have too many editors who need direction; you're not one of them. I'm sorry if you feel ignored."

"Don't make me sound like a cast-off mistress. I don't want instructions shot at me from Houston; I like a free hand. I was only questioning your idea of friendship."

Matt looked around the pressroom, remembering. All those weeks, after they fired Artner and Axel Chase quit, when he'd run the press and Elizabeth did paste-up. All those months when the two of them had worked late into each night, coming home to coffee at the kitchen table and then bed, where they'd found just enough energy to make love. So long ago. One newspaper, one marriage. Simple goals. And when Saul had come, that had been simple, too. He and Elizabeth had more time together; he had a friend.

"I've missed you," he said at last to Saul. He paused. "Is there any reason to keep this press running?"

"You can turn it off," Saul said absently. "Matt," he said abruptly, "I'd like to buy the Chieftain. Hold on, don't say anything yet. I've been running it pretty much by myself since you went to Houston; Elizabeth has tried to keep up, but she only has so much time, although I'd want her as consulting editor—"

"She's agreed to this?"

"Calm down; she hasn't agreed to anything. I told her about it last week; she listened politely and said she'd think about it. I want you to think about it, too. You've got other papers; Elizabeth has her column and her television show. I'd like the Chieftain. Trouble is, I don't have

much money, but I've worked it out that if the two of you agree to be minority shareholders—"

"No." Matt felt as if he were smothering. He didn't know why, but his throat felt constricted, his muscles knotted, as if he were in a cramped cell, with no room to move. "I'm sorry, Saul; I understand how you feel, but I can't sell it."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't."

Saul contemplated him. "It's a very tiny part of your empire."

"God damn it, I said no! It's not part of any empire; it's separate and it's mine and it's going to stay that way."

"Yours and Elizabeth's. Or did you forget?"

"Listen, you son of a bitch, that's enough. Just run my newspapers; I can run my own life!" Saul gave a low whistle and Matt closed his eyes, running his hand roughly over them. "Christ, I'm sorry, Saul. Hell of a thing to say; I didn't mean it."

"You don't have to apologize; you know I won't quit. I gave that away, didn't I? I told you I want to buy the paper; this is where I want to be."

Matt paced to the end of the pressroom and stared out the window at the Chieftain trucks parked near the loading dock. He shouldn't have come back. It had been a sudden impulse—Peter had called from Stanford and they'd had a long talk and then Matt had had a terrible longing to see Holly and he'd thought he could make a quick stop at the Chieftain building; it was his, after all, and he hadn't set foot in it for months—but it was a mistake. He should have sent Holly an airline ticket and stayed in Houston. Something about the place was making him say all the wrong things.

Saul, maybe. Wanting the paper. Running it pretty much by myself since you went to Houston. Working with Elizabeth. Deciding editorial policy and whom to endorse—

He turned from the window. "I meant to ask you, Saul: who's the woman you've endorsed for Tom Ortiz's seat in the legislature?"

Saul stared at him, then began to laugh. "You really don't know? You've made my day, Matt. Isabel Aragon."

"Isabel — ?" It sank in, and then Matt was laughing with him. "By God, that's wonderful. Of all people! The legislature will never be the same. I wish someone had told me."

"Maybe no one thought you'd be interested."

Matt ignored it. "I'll ask Holly about it at dinner."

"Is that why you're in town?"

"Mostly. I didn't realize how good it would be to see you again." He

looked again about the familiar room. "I spend too much time talking about business and not enough wandering around newsrooms."

"I've missed you, too, you know; we had some good times. You were a hell of a publisher. I'm not sure how much we have to share anymore. But I'll give it some thought. Do you have time to say hello to Heather?"

"Of course. Is she here?"

"In my office. Sorry. Yours."

"Yours, Saul. For now."

Through the glass wall they saw Heather look up from the book she was reading and her face light in a smile when she saw Matt. Poor love, Saul thought. She thinks all is well, but she's about to discover once again that men are often unreliable.

"I found a friend in the pressroom," he said, opening the door.

"Matt, how wonderful to have you back!" Heather said, kissing his cheek. "There's grease on your sleeve; what have you been doing? Elizabeth's on her way to—"

"Heather," said Saul quietly.

She looked from his face to Matt's. "Oh. How long are you staying?"

"Through dinner." Her green eyes, losing their warmth, made him uncomfortable. "I'm on my way to Phoenix and I stopped off to—" He caught himself as Saul and Heather exchanged a glance, and he knew they were remembering all the times he'd been annoyed at Tony's "stopping off' in Santa Fe.

Heather's eyes had become as glittering as emeralds. "Saul," she said, "I have some questions about the special section on the opera. When can we talk about it?"

Saul gazed at her thoughtfully, wanting to kiss her. He knew what she had in mind and he loved her for it, but it wouldn't work; Matt might be interested in what they were doing, but not interested enough to change his mind all of a sudden and move back to Santa Fe. They were small potatoes next to what he had in Houston.

But what the hell, he thought; what did they have to lose? "Let's talk about it now," he said. He pulled his desk chair across the room, next to a pair of faded armchairs. "Want to sit in, Matt? Give us the benefit of big city thinking?" Without waiting for an answer, he sat down and when Heather sat in one of the armchairs and handed him a folder, he said, "Elizabeth thought this up a few months ago. . . ."

He and Heather began to talk, glancing at Matt without bringing him into the discussion. But after a while he couldn't resist it. The ideas were good; best of all, they were ideas he knew he could use for all his other papers, and soon he was caught up in their talk. He leaned forward,

offering a tentative suggestion. "Good thinking," Saul said casually, and added one of his own.

With that, suddenly, the two men were talking at the same time, challenging each other, topping each other, jumping from thought to thought, idea to idea. Now and then Heather asked a question, but mostly it was Matt and Saul, reaching into their store of knowledge for new ways to do traditional things, chuckling as they tossed in impossibly expensive gimmicks or story ideas they'd never put in a family newspaper. Watching them, Heather knew, from the look of contentment on their faces, that only Elizabeth was missing to make this exactly like the wonderful give-and-take sessions they'd had in the years before Matt left.

Matt knew it, too. As he and Saul talked rapidly, voices overlapping, he felt the joy of creating, sharing his experience and skills with the one man whose thoughts most closely matched his. Then, in the middle of a sentence, Saul said, "I have a lot to do before the end of the day. Matt, how about staying over until tomorrow? I don't want to cut in on your dinner with Holly, but in the morning we could—"

The spell was broken. Matt sat back and shook his head. "I'm expected in Phoenix. I'd like a raincheck, though."

Saul nodded, disappointment and nostalgia sweeping through him, even though they'd only been recapturing the past for an hour. Don't act like a cast-off mistress, he ordered himself. We're too small for Matt; I knew that. Small potatoes compared to Rourke Publishing. "We'll be using some of those ideas you've just given us," he said.

"I hope so," Matt replied. "I'm going to do the same. Modified, of course." He hesitated, reluctant to move. "I've enjoyed this."

Saul nodded, then stood up. "So did I. It's fun to look back now and then."

It was polite, but it was a dismissal. Matt kissed Heather, shook hands with Saul, promising to keep in touch, and then he went into the newsroom and talked to the staff, making conversation about Houston and Elizabeth and the Chieftain's success under Saul.

And all the time, beneath the friendly banter, he was telling himself that his joy in one small discussion wasn't important. Nothing he did in Santa Fe could be as far-reaching, or have the same impact, as his work in Houston. The afternoon had been only a reminder of what was gone, like a footprint on a beach or the wake of a boat in a quiet lake. Time didn't stop; people didn't go backward.

He used Barney Kell's telephone to call home—Elizabeth's home—and Holly answered. "I finished early, sweetheart," he said. "Can you spare an extra hour?"

"Oh, yes," Holly said. "How lovely. Mother's not here—"

"I know. I'll see her next time. But I want lots of time with you. Can I pick you up in ten minutes?"

"I'll be ready. I'll be waiting in front."

"I'll see you soon. I'm looking forward to it."

Too formal, he thought. Somewhere between a father and a date. He stood beside Barney's desk, absently gazing through the glass wall of the corner office where Saul Milgrim sat at Matt LovelPs desk. Heather sat nearby, making notes on a page from one of her folders. Watching them, Matt realized they were more harmonious than he had ever seen them. They were working together and they'd already forgotten him; they were busy putting out a paper. And all around him, the newsroom was busy; everyone intent, concentrating . . . it's Wednesday, he thought. Tomorrow they go to press. He was an outsider, watching. And then, he heard Nicole's voice. You were wonderful. You did exactly what you had to. You have power, Matt.

The feeling of being an outsider left him. He'd been right; this wasn't his place anymore; it wasn't where he belonged.

The trouble was, he thought as he waved good-bye to the staff and went outside to his rented car, he didn't know exactly where he did belong. The give-and-take with Saul, the brief feeling of a close-knit group he'd had in the newsroom, were part of what he'd given up for Rourke Enterprises. He'd done it because there was a bigger job to do there than any in Santa Fe, but it left him with an empty space that nothing else quite filled, and that odd question of where he belonged.

Maybe nowhere, he thought disconcertingly. But as he drove the familiar route to Camino Rancheros, he brushed it aside. At least in Houston, he knew the direction he was going. He knew what was expected of him; he knew what power he had and how to use it. And Nicole was there, approving what he did. Houston was the closest he could come, at the moment, to being home.

♦♦

o

n stormy days when the surf was high, waves thundered against the wall at the base of Tony's Malibu house; when the wind was calm and the ocean tame, the water lapped in playful curls and ripples of foam along the glistening sand of his beach. From the low window seat that spanned the width of his glass-fronted living room, Elizabeth had watched storms roll across the sky, and waves rise into huge silver walls hundreds of feet from shore. When they crested, the top of the waves curved over, then plunged straight down, like waterfalls along the faces of the advancing walls that grew smaller as they ran down themselves until what was left crashed with a roar against the piled stones protecting Tony's house.

On other nights the ocean was quiet, reflecting vivid sunsets that lit the room behind Elizabeth in shades of salmon, coral, burnt umber, violet, and purple. The colors blended imperceptibly into each other until darkness swept them all away, flinging stars in their place.

On the night of Tony's party in her honor, no one paid attention to the stars outside: the important ones were in the house. Tony and Bo Boyle had made up the guest list in the first week of October; invitations had been printed; envelopes were stuffed, addressed, and stamped—and

tucked away in a drawer, to be mailed only if "Anthony" 's ratings were up at the end of the month.

They were up three and a half points, moving "Anthony" to second place in its time slot. Television critics across the land wrote solemn analyses of Elizabeth Lovell, "Private Affairs," and the new American passion for the secret lives of "invisible" people. And Bo Boyle, in a reckless moment of uncharacteristic generosity, promised to supply cases of Dom Perignon for Tony's party—the invitations to which had been mailed two minutes after the ratings were in.

"Tony, you're making me feel like the debutante of the year," Elizabeth said as she listened to the two men go over the guest list a final time. She looked at the papers scattered on the round, glass-topped table, with names starred, checked, or crossed out. A breeze off the ocean, reaching the deck where they sat, riffled the sheets of paper, and the rustling mingled with the cries of gulls and the steady rhythm of the waves that slid lazily up the beach and then withdrew. The afternoon sun was low; the three of them wore slacks and cotton shirts and dark glasses, and Elizabeth had trouble believing it was the end of October and she'd worn a wool suit when she left Santa Fe that morning. "If you give this kind of party for me after only two months on your show, what's left? I have nowhere to go but down."

"Give us another five points in the ratings," Bo said in answer, "and we'll charter the Concorde for you. Just to prove you can always go higher."

Higher, she repeated to herself. Big, bigger, biggest. She knew exactly why it tugged at Matt; it tugged her in the same way. She remembered when she had been stopped in grocery aisles in Santa Fe. Now she was stopped in restaurants in Los Angeles, and recognized in the boutiques of Rodeo Drive and Melrose Avenue, and greeted with pleasure by executives and crews of the television network who had long ago stopped being impressed with most celebrities.

And then Tony told her he was giving her a party, to present her to the most important people of television and movies, because she was now one of them.