Authors: Beth Gutcheon
172
Five Fortunes / 173
“I just wanted to tell you how much we loved your husband.”
“Thank you,” said Laurie. She shook the young woman’s hand.
Walter watched closely.
Raw nerves. Emotions close to the surface. Not good. She may not be up to this.
“Let’s go to The Idanha,” he said. “I’ll buy you lunch at Peter Schott’s.”
“I love The Idanha! I used to go there with my father when I was little. He’d sit in that sunroom right over the street, and smoke and shake hands with anyone who came through…”
“Let’s go. I’ll buy you a cigar.”
Walter’s bag appeared, and as they headed out to the parking lot Laurie said, “Tell me about your mother. How was the funeral?”
They fell into easy conversation.
The Idanha, six stories of the finest architecture downtown Boise could imagine in 1901, was still boastful of having entertained President Taft, President Roosevelt (T., not F.), John and Ethel Bar-rymore, and Buffalo Bill. Walter was a regular here. He liked the feeling of a room crowded with such ghosts.
Today he asked for “someplace quiet,” and he and Laurie were given a small table in the back where they ordered pasta and hot tea. Walter studied the woman before him. Extraordinarily handsome. Clear, intelligent eyes. Something shy in the manner, none of the born politician’s brashness. The intelligence was a plus. The height was a plus; he wondered if he could get her into high heels.
She’d be close to six feet if he could. She had a long, delicate nose, slightly uptipped, and great cheekbones. She should be photogenic.
“Let me get the basics out of the way,” he said, dumping packets of sugar into his tea. “University of Idaho, then Harvard Law, right?
Then…”
“Private practice in Hailey.”
“And you met Roberto…when?”
“My last year of law school, at Christmas. My brother met him skiing and brought him home.”
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“But you weren’t married right away?’
“No. I had a beau at law school.”
Walter laughed. “A beau, I like that. Anyone I should know about?”
Laurie hesitated.
“I have to know,” Walter said. “I have to know everything.”
“Sorry. Of course, I realize that.” She named a newly appointed member of the President’s cabinet. Walter hooted.
“How did they miss
you
in the confirmation hearings? Everyone making snide remarks about why he’s single?”
Laurie said rather formally, “It was a long time ago. There was nothing improper.”
“Nothing improper…Laurie, come on. Unbuckle it.”
“I mean, we were both free, and it was our business.”
“Yeah, but what was he
like
?”
Laurie finally smiled. “Adorable.”
“Well, what happened?”
Laurie forked some tomato from her plate and took a long time swallowing it.
“I don’t really remember,” she said. “He went east, I went west.
I started seeing Roberto.”
Walter stopped eating and looked at her, hard. “I have to know everything,” he said again. “I don’t want to go into this with a bucket tied to my foot.”
“It was a long time ago,” Laurie said.
He gave up. “Okay. So Roberto…”
“Came to visit one Christmas, then again in the summer. He and my brothers played tennis. He spent some time at the ranch.”
“He was pretty glamorous.”
“Yes, but I was used to that. Dad was not exactly low profile.”
“True. Then. Elective office?”
“The school board in Blaine County. The run for Congress in seventy-six. When the twins were finally in school full time I ran for district judge.”
“And won. Easily?”
Five Fortunes / 175
Laurie nodded. Walter noticed the brief hesitation. Ah, it’s immod-est to boast. She’ll have to get over that too, if she can. If she can’t, good night.
“The first year was a special election to fill a vacant seat. Two years later I ran to succeed myself.”
“Big margin the second time?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And Roberto’s campaigns? You helped?”
“Yes, all I could.”
“Good. And who in the party have you talked to so far?”
“I spent an hour with the state chair this morning.”
“And?”
“He seemed delighted.”
Walter nodded, chewing. He was pleased, but he’d expected as much.
“We’ll make a list of key people you should call on right away.
Like tomorrow. But I think you’ll find all of them pleased. Do you fish Silver Creek?”
Laurie smiled. “Do you?”
“It’s my favorite thing in the world. I come up every August for it. Float downstream with your lunch in your pocket. Never care if you catch anything or not. Sometimes I forget to cast.”
“It’s a great state,” Laurie said.
“It is. It’s a
great
state.”
The waitress came to try to sell them dessert. Walter ordered some pie. While he ate, he talked about the steps that should be taken first.
Ask key people for support, rent an office, start rounding up volunteers. File a statement of candidacy with the Secretary of State. That had to be done as soon as she’d spent $5,000, which she’d probably do just setting up an office, so might as well get on with it. Then file campaign disclosure papers.
“How are your financials going to look?”
“A little thin. Roberto had life insurance, but it wasn’t huge, and he had some campaign debts himself. I own the house we live in.
The land belongs to a family corporation.”
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“Who’s in it?”
“Dad, Bliss, Billy, and me. If the ranch makes a profit after upkeep and taxes it goes to pay Billy and Cinder and the hands.”
“Money of your own?”
Laurie shook her head. “We live in a beautiful place. That’s our luxury. I do have some savings, and a Keogh.”
“Kids are in public school?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“You all through here?” The waitress was back. Laurie and Walter both leaned back in their chairs to make room for her to clear.
“We’ll talk about strategy as we go along, but the first thing you’re going to do is raise a lot of money.”
“Damn.”
“I knew you weren’t going to like that.”
“No, I’m not. How much?”
“At least a quarter of a million. You’ll probably need at least two million by the time you’re done. The more you raise, the more you’ll attract, and the earlier you start, the better chance you’ll have of scaring off other candidates.”
“Dad
said
two million. I hoped he was wrong.”
“No, not in this climate. I know it sounds like a lot, but I think you can do it.”
“I’m glad
you
do.”
The waitress came back with their check, and Walter paid it. Then he leaned back in his chair.
“Before we go any farther down this road, I want to know from you that you are absolutely sure you want to do this. I think you can win, if you can take the pressure. But I don’t know you very well. Can you stand the press, can you stand the lack of privacy, can you take the schedule, can you do what you have to do to make people give you money? What kind of fighter are you?”
There was a long silence.
Finally Laurie said, “Could we go out and walk?”
“Good idea.”
Five Fortunes / 177
They retrieved their coats and went out into the flat, windswept streets. It was a bright, cold day that smelled of snow, though none had fallen yet this year. The high western sky arched over them.
Boise was a city whose edges could be sensed, meaning even downtown you had a feel for the flat land under the pavement and the prairie out past the city limits. A few blocks to the north the hills rose, bristling with new houses for the computer people who were pouring into town. Out along Warm Springs Avenue were the
“mansions” of the founding families. It was a stone’s throw from Main Street to the Boise River, which cut through the heart of town.
In the summer, as people went about their city business, the Boise River was full of tourists, bobbing along in the sun in inner tubes.
Walter and Laurie started to walk toward the river, but were discouraged by the wind. They turned instead toward the capitol, the great domed building where Laurie had spent so much time as a child.
“Now I’m going to shock you,” Laurie said. She took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one.
“By god, you
do
shock me. Will you please promise you won’t do that any place there might be a human with a camera, ever again?”
“I promise. The children would kill me if they knew. I started again when Roberto died.” She dragged deeply and the smoke mingled with the frost from her breath, making a very satisfactory white cloud.
“Oh hell,” said Walter, “I’ll have one too.” Laurie offered him the pack and her box of matches. Breathing smoke like a happy dragon, Walter added, “If that’s the worst thing you have to tell me, we’re going to be all right.”
“It isn’t.”
“Oh,” he said.
They were almost the same height as they paced along in the early afternoon. There were few people about; lunch hour was over.
“I had an abortion,” she said.
“When?”
“The spring I finished law school.”
“Oh my god. You mean, you and Mr. Cabinet?”
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“No, it wasn’t…no, he never knew. It was…” she took a deep breath and stalled. She dragged on the cigarette, then stopped to stub it out on the sole of her shoe. She put the butt into her pocket.
“Don’t let me forget that,” she added, touching the pocket.
“It was 1972. You had an
illegal
abortion.”
“Yes.”
They crossed Bannock Street to the capitol building. They paced around it and on past the Joe R. Williams Building, a glass-faced office building that handsomely reflected the dome of the capitol in its own mirrored surface, as if paying its respects.
“Okay,” said Walter finally. “I’ve got to ask you some questions.”
“I know.”
“Where did you have it?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“Washington, D.C.”
Walter groaned. “Washington!? Couldn’t you have gone to some country where they don’t speak English?”
“I didn’t have a lot of choices. It was not a baby I could have. I couldn’t face my parents, I couldn’t marry the father, I was almost out of time when I realized what was wrong, because I had an IUD…I doubt you can imagine the panic. Or despair. I had one friend who knew someone.”
“Did the man know, the father of it?”
“Yes.”
“What was his attitude?”
“He was angry I wouldn’t marry him.”
“And why wouldn’t you?”
“He had a commitment to somebody else. That I hadn’t known about.”
“I’m not getting the picture.”
She was very reluctant to say more, but she did at last, speaking carefully.
“We’d gone out for a year, my first year in Cambridge. We’d broken off four or five times—it was a mess. He was brilliant but angry,
Five Fortunes / 179
and I wasn’t used to it. I didn’t know what to do. Except never see him. And I hadn’t, for over a year, and then—I can’t explain. One thing happened. There were reasons, but they don’t change anything.
The price was terrible.”
Walter looked at her, but she looked at the sidewalk as they walked. Clearly, still a painful subject, even after many years.
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No idea.”
“And you’re not going to tell me his name.”
“Correct.”
“Would he have any reason to want to hurt you?”
This gave her pause. “I don’t think so. He loved me. But I don’t know.”
They walked some more.
“You’re not exactly reassuring me,” said Walter.
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“And Mr. Cabinet?”
“He just knew that all of a sudden I was gone.”
“Well, didn’t he…”
“He was gone too. School was over, we were done.”
“You were having an affair…”
“We were having a romance.”
“What’s the difference?”
“There is one,” she said.
They walked on. After a half block, in which Walter realized that he was not going to get Laurie to tell him any more than she had decided in advance to say, he said, “Tell me about the doctor. Doctor?”
“Yes. It wasn’t a clothes-hanger deal.”
“Do you know what happened to him? Him?”
“Yes, him. There weren’t so many women doctors in those days either. If there had been, there probably wouldn’t have been so many clothes hangers.”
“Well? What happened to him?”
“He was finally caught…somebody turned him in.” She paused.
180 / Beth Gutcheon
“It was a terrible experience, worse than I can tell you. But he was a decent man. He didn’t even charge that much. He was trying to do the right thing.”
“Did Roberto know?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“My brothers. My brother Bliss got the money for me. And Billy helped put the pieces back together all the rest of that summer. I came pretty well apart.”
“So, now four living people know, if we don’t count the doctor.
How old would he be, by the way?”
“Oh god. He looked so old to me then, but he was probably…fifty.”
“So he could be alive.”
“Yes, but he didn’t exactly take my social security number.”
“So now five people know.”
“Cinder knows.”
“Six people know. Plus me. I guess that’s seven.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you know Ben Franklin said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
“We’ve kept this one a long time. And it’s a secret I share with a lot of good women.”
They turned a corner and started back toward The Idanha, by unspoken agreement.
“I take it,” said Walter dryly, “that you will be a Pro-Choice candidate.”
“Does that mean you think I can go ahead?”
“It’s going to add to the white-knuckle factor for the select few of us, but yes. I think it’s a risk worth taking.”
“What would happen if it came out?”
“I don’t know,” said Walter. “I don’t think you’d enjoy it. Nor would your father, or your children, or the men you were seeing at the time of the pregnancy.”