Private affairs : a novel (12 page)

Elizabeth burst out laughing. "After that, how can you say it's no good?"

"The best writers have bad days," he said with a grin. "And bad nights. But I'm not worried; you'll be fine." He stood behind her chair, kissing the back of her neck, sliding his hands over her breasts. "I love you and I want you, but I'm going to leave you alone so you can write." And taking his cup of tea, he left the kitchen.

Leaning her head on her hand, Elizabeth gazed at the typewriter, thinking of Matt. He'd found a way to prop her up, so why wasn't she writing in a fury of creativity? Because she could feel his hands on her breasts and she wanted him. And it was still so special, this renewed passion, that she let it grow within her, treasuring it, loving the fact that she loved her husband. I could go to him, she thought, By now he's back in bed, and as long as we're awake. . . .

But then her glance took in a sentence on the page in the typewriter, and as she read it the words rearranged themselves in her head. She rolled the paper back to retype them, and along the way she came across another sentence that hadn't seemed right all evening. But it's simple, she thought; why didn't I see how to do it before? And then a phrase came to her— Edward Ortega hangs onto his dreams the way a rock climber clings to a ledge —and she knew she had her opening sentence. She pulled her

chair closer to the table. Dearest Matt, thank you, she said silently. And she began to type.

"Private Affairs" appeared the following Thursday, spread across the bottom third of the Chieftain's front page. Since it was her first column, Elizabeth began with an explanation. "These will be portraits of people who aren't in the spotlight," she wrote. "People in rural towns and back roads, sparsely-settled valleys and crowded city neighborhoods. Some are poor, others are comfortable; some are beautiful, others plain; some are angry, others content. All have stories to tell, with as much drama as any book or movie—but almost always private, unseen by the world. When their stories are told here, if they wish to remain private, they'll be given a different name. But with their own name or a pseudonym, in 'Private Affairs' they will share their stories with all of us. 'Private Affairs' is all of us."

Then the story began.

Edward Ortega hangs onto his dreams the way a rock climber clings to a ledge. He's held on to them all his forty-eight years. Black-haired, black-browed, with eyes that puncture pretense, he creates a whirlwind of rapid speech, joyful laughter, roaring anger at injustice, and a dreamy storytelling that sounds like a chant as he describes his vision for the future of his people.

As the article went on, in Elizabeth's words and his own, Edward Ortega grew as real and vivid as if he strode across the page. His home seemed real, too: a cluster of small houses almost lost in the vastness of the pink-gray-brown desert dotted with green; the curve of a highway between irregular fields of grazing and farm land, watered, in good years, by a twisting stream that came from the blue-gray mountains on the horizon. Elizabeth wove together Ortega's stories of the Indians' past and present, loves and legends, wars and feasts, and the Anglos and Spanish who surrounded the pueblo, attracting young people, making it harder for the older ones to keep a separate language and sacred ways.

The next morning Elizabeth found on her desk a rare cactus plant with a spray of white flowers, and a card. "For the best writer and the best story the Chieftain ever had. Are we going to be famous!" And everyone had signed it.

But it was only the beginning. That day three people called, one scolding Elizabeth for making an Indian some kind of hero, the others thanking her. "I never knew how they felt," one caller said. "You made me

think maybe I ought to help them," said the other. And the next day the mail brought ten letters of praise and three saying if she loved Indians so much why didn't she go live with them?

Matt was jubilant. "Thirteen letters!" he said at the Friday morning staff meeting. "From one column!"

Jack Jarvis, the advertising and circulation manager, tapped his pencil on the desk. "And for every reader who takes the trouble to write, hundreds more have an opinion but don't write—and how many hundreds of others read the story, talk about it to their friends, begin to look for Elizabeth's column, maybe even buy the paper to find out what she writes next? Thirteen letters. Very impressive."

"Print them," Wally said. "We've never had Letters to the Editor."

"We'll run an ad for the column in the Features section," Jarvis went on.

"Send copies to school teachers," Barney said. "They could use them in social studies. Learning about pueblos. Or learning how to write."

Jarvis made a note. "Good idea; sell a few hundred more each week."

Kirkpatrick inspected his cigar. "You have your work cut out for you," he told Elizabeth. "You won't always find controversial subjects that get so much attention."

"You sour son of a bitch," Barney rumbled.

Kirkpatrick barely glanced at him. "We all carry our weight around here. However, I congratulate you, Elizabeth. It was a well-done story. I hope you can keep it up."

Elizabeth broke into laughter. "Thank you, Herb. I'll try not to get a swelled head from such lavish praise."

"Don't pay any attention to him," Wally said heatedly. "He's jealous. So am I. Elizabeth, I wish I could write like you."

"And I," Barney said quickly. It was the highest praise writers could give each other and Elizabeth felt again the flush of triumph that had come when she found the plant on her desk.

"All right," said Matt. "We have the rest of the paper to do; let's go over the main stories for the week."

They settled down, but there was a new excitement in the discussion. Because they had all been in the business long enough to know what it meant when readers began talking back to a newspaper. They were on their way.

Peter and Holly were washing and drying dishes, comparing problems. "He criticized everything I sang," Holly said mournfully. "It was the worst lesson I ever had."

"He was in a lousy mood," Peter suggested. "His wife's cooking gave him food poisoning. His mistress found somebody with a bigger, longer="

"Peter!"

"Well, something was wrong with him and it wasn't your singing. He usually tells you what a brilliant future you have. You'll see: next time he'll be back to normal. Or dead of food poisoning."

She laughed. "Thanks. What did you do after school?"

"Went to Nuevo."

"Nuevo! We haven't been there for ages. How did you get there?"

"Hitched a ride with Maya's father."

"Maya?"

Peter got very red and scrubbed a pot so vigorously that soapy water splashed on his shirt. "I've been going there. She's studying pottery-making with Isabel—you know, Mom's friend, or she was Mom's friend; she says she never sees Mom anymore. ..."

"I've talked to her on the phone, when I've called Luz. If I'd known you went there I'd have gone along. Tell me about Maya; I hardly remember her."

"She's little and beautiful and . . . fragile. And she listens a lot. And laughs at my jokes."

"Smart," Holly said. "Well, I'm glad you finally got a girl. Too bad you couldn't find one at school, closer to home."

Peter shook his head. "I like Nuevo. It makes me remember Grandpa."

"I like it too. Could I go with you next time? I haven't seen Luz forever and I miss her. We were so close all those years when Grandpa was alive ... I wish Mother and Daddy weren't so busy."

"It's their goddamn precious paper."

"I know." Holly sighed. "I guess it makes them happy, though. Like when I'm singing, that's when I'm really happy."

"If you had kids, you'd be happy spending time with them."

"I know, but right now they really love the paper—"

"They ought to love us! That's what I meant!"

"They do love us! We just don't need taking care of like the paper. That's their baby; we're grown up."

"That's a dumb thing to say."

"It's not dumb. It's the truth."

"Hah!"

"They're at home now," Holly said.

"Working," Peter retorted.

"Well. . . ." She sighed again. "I guess I should be, too; I have homework."

"Me too. Holly?"

"What?"

"Do you think we're normal?"

"Who? Our family?"

"I guess. Or ... I don't know ... do you ever feel alone? Like you don't belong anywhere? See ... I do. Except with Maya, and this one guy I met who's okay . . . But nobody else is like that; they all have friends and . . . groups. And I don't. That's not normal, is it?"

"I don't know. I feel like that a lot, too, except when I'm singing."

"But the rest of the time—?"

Holly shrugged. "I don't think teenagers are supposed to be happy."

"Well, I want to be."

"We're too young," said Holly sadly.

"For what?"

"Almost everything." She spread the damp towel on a rack. "I guess I'd better go do my homework."

"Me too. Homework I wish the next ten years would just disappear."

"Well, maybe just the next five. . . ." Holly said, drifting off to her room.

Elizabeth saw her pass the living room arch and wondered what she and Peter had talked about to make her look so mournful. "Isn't this supposed to be the best time of their lives?" she asked Matt.

He looked up. "Was high school the best time for you?"

"No; that's true, it wasn't. I was never sure what I was supposed to be or how I was supposed to act."

He smiled at her. "You've learned. Tell Holly there's hope."

"I'll try. She may not believe me."

"Tell her if she's like her mother she'll be the best there is."

Elizabeth laughed, an intimate laugh that embraced the two of them as they sat in deep armchairs on either side of the round corner fireplace. Then Matt turned back to the stack of applications that had poured in when he advertised for a managing editor and Elizabeth picked up her pencil and the story she was writing. A family at home, she mused. Only Zachary was missing. Everything else was perfect. How long can it last? She shook her head, annoyed at herself. Forever. Why not? And she bent to her work.

Crossing out lines, changing words, she felt herself knotting up inside. There is nothing to worry about, she said silently, repeating everything Matt had said the night she wrote her first column. But still she worried.

Six "Private Affairs" columns had been printed after that first, magical day, but only two letters had come in. It was as if her stories were stuffed into bottles and tossed into the ocean—and sank immediately to the bottom: unseen and unread.

Controversial subjects that get attention, Herb Kirkpatrick had said. Elizabeth kept trying to find others, and waited for the mail. Barney told her to relax; most columns get no response until they're established, he said; the one on Ortega was a fluke. But she didn't want flukes; she wanted success. "You're trying too hard," Matt said. "Write about someone who reminds people of their sons or daughters or neighbors; isn't that the real idea of 'Private Affairs'?"

And soon after that she found Heather Farrell, who had just begun working for Spencer and Lydia at their shop on Canyon Road. The daughter of wealthy, indulgent parents in St. Paul, Heather had lived a sheltered life until she decided to marry a man her parents called a fortune hunter. When she argued, they cut off her weekly allowance. So, for the first time Heather defied them. She left Minnesota and followed her lover to Santa Fe—and found him happily ensconced with an oil heiress amid all the comforts he had not found in St. Paul.

Alone in a strange town, Heather sat on a bench in the Plaza, watching families and lovers parade by. She couldn't go home and admit she'd been wrong, but she couldn't stay, either, unless she found a job. Which was why, the next day, she stood tentatively in the Evans Bookshop and said to Lydia, all in a rush, "I can't do very much of anything, but I love books and paintings and I love your shop—it looks like somebody's living room—and I'll do anything you say if you'll let me work for you."

Lydia offered her coffee and at that small touch of mothering, Heather broke down in a torrent of confidences: her lover, her rejection, her dwindling money, and her awful aloneness—the first in her twenty-two protected years.

Lydia hired her on the spot, though, as she told Elizabeth on the telephone, she wasn't sure what they would do with her since November was hardly a tourist month.

"Can you keep her for a while?" Elizabeth asked. "We'll be hiring another secretary as soon as we can afford one. Can she type?"

"I have no idea. I doubt it. She wraps packages beautifully."

Elizabeth smiled. "That's not in the job description for a secretary. But I'd like to meet her. I'll be over this afternoon."

When Lydia introduced them, Heather sighed. "I thought maybe Lydia was exaggerating, like all mothers, but she wasn't. You're as beautiful as she said. Did she tell you anything about me?"

Elizabeth studied her. Small, fine-boned, with heavy-lidded green eyes and wildly frizzled brown hair, she stood there hoping for approval. Elizabeth smiled, liking her lively face, her openness, and the stubborn set of her chin. "She didn't tell me why you don't go home to your family and let them take care of you."

The stubborn chin thrust forward. "I don't want anybody to take care of me but me."

That was when Elizabeth knew she wanted Heather in her next column. Matt would approve: Heather Farrell was like so many daughters and sons, struggling for independence and self-esteem and discovering that life was a lot more complicated and difficult than they'd thought.

She interviewed her for a whole evening, then wrote and rewrote her story a dozen times, trying to bring Heather to life in a way that both parents and their children would understand. Then they might call or write to tell her so; just a few, she thought; so I'll know someone is out there, reading what I write.

She heard the telephone ring; then Holly came dancing down the hall. "Tony Rourke is on the telephone; he wants to visit us tomorrow. I told him it sounded fine. It is, isn't it?"