Private affairs : a novel (53 page)

"Fine. How efficient you are."

"You said you didn't mind a simple lunch. I took you at your word."

"I took you at yours," Elizabeth said, carrying a tray to the terrace. "When you said you could go fastest alone."

"I am alone. And I'm going as fast as I want. Did you come to Houston to play the betrayed wife?"

"That's the first time you've asked me why I came to Houston."

"I was sure you would tell me."

They set the table with plates and silverware, glasses, a bottle of Sauvi-

Private Affairs 335

gnon Blanc, and a platter of cheeses, grapes, sliced nectarines, and English water biscuits. "Napkins?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'll get them. I always forgot the napkins, didn't I?"

"Yes." She closed her eyes briefly. "You always did."

He left and was back in a moment. "Did I forget anything else?"

"No. It's a lovely lunch. Thank you."

"I should thank you. You taught me how to function in a kitchen. I remember when I couldn't slice a nectarine without mangling it."

"Do you really remember that?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"It doesn't look as if you kept anything of the past."

"You mean the apartment." He shrugged. "It isn't what I would have chosen, but I've gotten used to it. Did you come to Houston because of Nicole?"

"Of course I did. You can't be surprised."

"Can't I? You didn't come when I asked you to move here; you didn't come with Peter and Holly on their visits; why should you come when you hear I've found a companion? Did you expect me to commute to Rourke Enterprises from a monastery?"

"No. I expected you to sleep around."

"You what? When have you ever known me to 'sleep around'?"

"Never. That's why I thought you'd do it now." She leaned forward, elbows on the table, her chin on her clasped hands. "Aren't you doing a lot of things you never did before? We met in our first year of college, Matt; you had one year of dating in your senior year of high school and then you met me. You never slept with anyone but me, you never lived alone, you never made your way in the big world without either your father or your wife as a partner. Now you're doing it all. You're finally getting the adolescence you never had."

"Adolescence."

"That may not be the best word—"

"How clever of you to recognize that."

"How clever of you to talk about one word you don't like instead of facing what I'm saying."

"I know what you're saying. You don't like what I'm doing so you give it a name that makes you feel superior."

"It makes me feel rotten," Elizabeth said bluntly. "After you left, last May, I thought maybe it wasn't such a bad idea for us to have some time apart, maybe we needed it, but I also made a lot of predictions about you and none of them has come—"

"Predictions?"

"How else do you think I could watch you walk away from our house? I predicted you'd do all those things you'd never done before and then you'd grow—" She caught herself. "—Wake up and think differently about things. I predicted you'd see through Keegan and stop idolizing him; I predicted you'd want to be your own boss again. I was sure you'd miss your family, and working with your wife. And I predicted you'd get tired of casual screwing and remember how loving we were. ..." The words hung in the air between them. "I bought a couple of lots in Nuevo —did Holly and Peter tell you? It was a silly thing to do—sentimental—it helped me believe you'd remember what we once dreamed of, and want it back. But none of that has happened. I can't believe how wrong I was. You're all snug and settled with that cold bitch who slid out of Keegan's bed and into yours—"

"That's enough. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know as much as I see. As much as I hear."

"You see and hear what you want. I'm not snug and settled with Nicole, but I'm damn lucky she's here. She's attractive and stimulating and supportive of me—"

"Clean, brave, reverent, and loyal. Just a good little Texas girl scout."

"You can't make her disappear by being sarcastic. She's a good friend who doesn't criticize me, or my work, or the man I work for. Can't you understand what it was like when I came here? I was learning, I was on trial, I was being watched by Rourke and his executives, I had more work than I could handle. But I was making it. I was buying papers and making them pay; I was reaching millions of people; I was getting supplements into the schools and working with community leaders . . . damn it, / was beginning to have some influence! That was my dream; you knew it; and every time I took a step forward or won a battle I turned around to tell my wife—to share, damn it!—and where the hell were you? At my side, making the days easier and the triumphs more satisfying? Hell, no, my wife was in Santa Fe or the playgrounds of California, thinking what a son of a bitch her husband was for wanting to grab his brass ring while he was young enough to take it for all it was worth."

He poured more wine into their glasses. "I was so busy and tired I could hardly think straight when I got home at night, but I was awake enough to know I missed you and wanted you and you didn't give a damn. I kept expecting you to show up, apologizing for not standing with me, telling me you missed me and loved me and we'd work out our two lives. I missed Saul, too, but that's another story. I missed a lot; but / wasn 't going to miss the chance Rourke gave me."

"Of course not," Elizabeth murmured, feeling closer to him than she

had in months. She looked at his dark unruly hair, wanting to touch it; her hand almost reached out to smooth away the lines between his eyes that had not been there before. Damn it, she cried silently. Smile at me the way you used to; show me the warmth I know is there; don't pretend you're someone else.

Unless you are.

"I wasn't going to miss it," he repeated. "And that was all I spent my time on for four months; I barely saw Nicole or anyone else outside the company in all that time. I waited like a good little scout, as you put it, until I didn't know what the hell I was waiting for. And Nicole gave me what I'd been wanting from you: she listened, she admired, she encouraged me. She even changed her plans last summer to be with me. You could learn a few—"

"How dare you!" The closeness was shattered. "Don't you ever tell me I could learn from—"

"I wouldn't have to if you'd try to understand what I'm talking about!"

"You're a misunderstood husband? Is that the line you gave Nicole? Or did she need one? Was she lying in wait? Who found this apartment? Who decorated it? Who plays hostess in it?"

"Nicole found it, decorated it, and plays hostess in it because my wife refused! What do you think I've been saying? If you'd come here five months ago, when Peter graduated—"

"All right! I should have! Are you satisfied? You didn't want me— you've forgotten that part, haven't you—but I should have come anyway. Holly would have managed with her grandparents, and I could have kept up my column at least once a week, in between hostessing, and I probably could have kept my mouth shut about anything I didn't like in your work and Keegan and the rest of it . . . but do you know what I think? Nothing would be any better between us. Because you want your own way—"

"Like an adolescent."

"Exactly. And adolescents don't have wives and—"

"That's enough, damn it! If you want to talk about adolescents, talk about Elizabeth Lovell. No husband around, free to do what she wants, making her way in the big world all by herself—as far as the Rodeo Collection, by God!—a social butterfly winging her way to Malibu—"

"How do you know about—"

"Hardly noticing her husband is gone—and when she does she's damn glad of it—"

"That's not true! What are you talking about? I've missed you for five months!"

"Not enough to live with me. Talk about wanting things your own way!

If I won't conform to what you want, you write me off. Much more satisfying to posture in front of television cameras . . . you're not even with your daughter, for Christ's sake: the only reason you gave for not moving to Houston!"

"It wasn't the only reason, and you know it. And I'm never away from Holly more than one night a week; you're the one who dropped that responsibility—"

"And if you really want to talk about adolescents, I'm not the one who's still sleeping with the lover I had when I was seventeen!"

The sudden silence settled over them like a cloak, muffling the sounds of traffic, the drone of a plane, the clink of Elizabeth's glass as she set it on the table. "Your spies seem to be working overtime. But they're not—"

"I don't want excuses or denials."

"I wouldn't even try. I came here to find out how far apart we were, what we had left—"

"You pretended you came because of Nicole. But it had nothing to do with her, did it? You came from a bed in Malibu to tell me we don't have much left."

"I came to ask you that. You just gave me the answer."

A wave of shame surged through Matt. He turned away, gazing over the parapet at the skyline of the Galleria and the Transco Building. Strange, to be looking at it with Elizabeth beside him; he was accustomed to seeing it with Nicole, telling her what went on behind its closed doors. He started to tell Elizabeth he was sorry, but no words came. Because, he suddenly realized, he didn't know what he wanted. Except time. More time to see what he could accomplish, more time to think about the demands others had on him.

"Will you stop seeing her?" Elizabeth asked. "Until we know where we are?"

"No," he said without turning.

"Then ... do you want a divorce?"

"No," he said immediately.

"Matt, please sit down. I'd like to have one quiet glass of wine together before I leave." He met her eyes, wide, clear gray touched with the blue of the sky. "Please," she said.

He returned to his chair and filled their glasses, emptying the bottle. "Are you sleeping with him?"

"What difference would it make, since you have Nicole?"

He gave a rueful smile. "I'm not in love with Nicole."

"I'm not in love with Tony. Matt, I asked you if you want a divorce."

"And I said no."

"Why not? You said we don't have anything left."

"I didn't mean that."

"What did you mean?"

"I don't know."

"You can't be that vague about yourself—"

"I don't know! There are too many unanswered questions. What about you? Do you want a divorce?"

"No."

"Do you want to live with me?"

"Yes. But not here. Not as part of Keegan's empire."

He shrugged. "Nothing's changed."

"Oh, no, a lot has changed. You're very successful; you still look up to Keegan—"

"Not in the—" Matt stopped. He wanted to tell her about those brief feelings of dislike for Rourke, of the pressure of that hand on his shoulder, little seeds of discord over political candidates . . . but he couldn't. He could tell Nicole, but he couldn't give Elizabeth a chance to say she'd been right. And he wasn't sure of that, either. "Not in the same way. We're more equal than before."

"Then everything is fine." She heard the quaver in her voice and forced herself to smile, sitting straight in her chair. But when she tried to drink her wine her throat closed against it. "It's difficult to enjoy wine on foreign territory," she said almost inaudibly and walked across the terrace to a wooden tub of azaleas, their flowering season long past, and deliberately emptied the glass over it. "You don't want me," she told Matt. "You just think you've burned too many bridges already and you don't want anything else to change for a while. That's why you wouldn't talk to Saul about selling the Chieftain, isn't it? You like the thought of a place waiting for you. Even though you don't plan to come back, you like knowing we're all there. Just in case."

"I don't want to sell the Chieftain because it's part of me."

"Part of us."

"I haven't forgotten," he said.

"The hell you haven't."

"I haven't forgotten, but I've gone beyond it! I don't dote on the past! If you could ever learn that, if you could let yourself face the fact that people change, goals change, marriage changes ... we might have something to share again!"

"If I could face it! You haven't let me face anything else! But I could ask you to learn a few things, too. That people can share their goals, even

while they're changing, if they want to; that they can build their marriage in a new way together // they really want to."

Matt's voice hardened. "Is that your explanation for everything? That I haven't wanted to protect our marriage?"

"Have you?" she asked. "Has it ever had a chance, next to the prizes Keegan offered?''

"It's not a contest! Damn it, does it have to come down to winners and losers?"

"Maybe ... If the stakes are big enough. What if it did? Who would win?"

Once more, silence fell between them. It stretched out until Elizabeth couldn't stand it. She walked through the terrace doors into the living room, and then stopped in bewilderment because she wasn't sure what she would do next. Matt was still on the terrace, only a few feet away, but he had gone so far from her that those few feet might as well have been miles. She looked back, and all she saw, silhouetted against the glare of the Texas sky, was a tall form, a well-dressed businessman, a stranger.

Somehow, through all the past months, Elizabeth had always believed that if she needed to stretch out her hand to her husband, she could reach him. There was no way she could believe it any longer. He had walked out of the place in her life that had been his, and for the first time in all the years she had known him, Elizabeth felt alone and unprotected.

She had to get away; she couldn't look at the stranger on the terrace. Walking carefully, afraid of stumbling, she made her way to the foyer and took her purse from the small table near the door. But as she began to open it, Matt appeared beside her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to make it a contest."

"Neither did I," she replied. "But maybe that's all that's left when a partnership ends." He was standing so close to her their hands touched, and suddenly she wanted his arms around her so intensely she ached all over. Instinctively she reached up, as she had wanted to do earlier, and smoothed the lines between his eyes, but that made the aching worse.