Private affairs : a novel (7 page)

"Money," Matt kept muttering. "I feel like a banker, not a publisher." Publisher. They looked at each other. "Are we really doing this?" he asked. "Or am I still in the hospital, drunk on anesthesia and raving mad?"

"You are at home," Elizabeth said. "Sober on coffee, quite sane, and soon to be a publisher."

He leaned over and kissed her, and their excitement made the kiss seem as new as their plans. "Starting again," Matt said. Everything was starting again.

Each night the handwritten columns grew longer, the total expenses larger, the income less certain. But each day the difficulties seemed to shrink. Because Matt was getting well, Elizabeth thought, and because they were doing everything together: working at the printing company,

making plans, plotting as they drove around Santa Fe, seeing its people as subscribers, its businesses as advertisers, each other as partners.

"What's with you two?" Peter asked. "You look like you won a prize or something. I mean, you told us not to bug Dad because he's depressed and then all of a sudden everybody's got these grins on their faces . . . Did we inherit a million dollars or what?"

"We're working on an idea that we're excited about," Elizabeth replied. "We'll tell you about it pretty soon."

"Why not now?"

"Because it isn't all worked out yet."

Talking, planning, sharing, they fed each other's excitement. They looked forward to the evenings, as they had long ago when they were dating and pushing the hours away until they could be together. Now they waited for the quiet time when they could sit at the kitchen table with notebooks and folders and sharpened pencils, talking about their secret, making it more possible, more real. They waited for the time when they would go to bed, kissing and holding each other with the same sense of beginning that was part of everything they did these days. They were changing their life. They were starting again.

It was all risk, it was aU discovery, it was bolstering each other up when their fears returned. "We can't sell the house," Matt said. "We have to live somewhere. ..."

"Which is cheaper?" Elizabeth asked, turning to a clean piece of paper. "Renting or taking a mortgage on this place?"

They wrote down numbers, percentage points, tax deductions. "Keep the house," Matt said finally. "It makes more sense. I hate to mortgage it to the hilt after Dad had it paid off, but—"

"It's better than camping in the mountains," Elizabeth finished, and kissed him. "I hated the idea of giving it up." Then she looked again at the number he had written. "It's a large payment, isn't it? Month after month . . . And there's the personal loan, too. ..."

He put his arms around her. "If we buy the paper, we'll make so much money you'll never notice it."

She nodded. "Of course."

Neither of them quite believed it, but neither of them said so. And at last, one night as they lay together in bed, talking in the last drowsy minutes before sleep, both of them said, at the same time, "When we buy the paper . . ." and they knew they'd leaped the final hurdle. No longer were they saying "If." The next day they would begin to sign the papers that would make it irrevocable. In the darkness they held each other

tightly. "I believe in you," said Elizabeth almost fiercely. And, still clasped in each other's arms, they fell asleep,

Elizabeth's parents had retired from their jobs in Los Angeles eight years earlier and moved to Santa Fe, converting one of the narrow, deep adobe buildings on Canyon Road to the Evans Bookshop and Art Gallery, and buying a house in the nearby mountain town of Tesuque. They had their own friends, but the most important people in their lives were Matt and Elizabeth and the children, so, on a warm, starry night in August, Elizabeth asked them to dinner, because there was something they wanted to talk about. And when they were all at the table on the brick patio—Holly and Peter uneasy because they figured something re= ally big was coming; Lydia and Spencer curious—Matt made the announcement of their plans.

Peter broke the stunned silence. "You promised Grandpa Zachary you wouldn't sell the company."

"He's gone," said Matt gently. "We kept it for him as long as he was alive."

"Do we have to sell everything?" Holly asked. "Like the house and the cars?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "We can manage—"

"Hold on a minute!" Spencer commanded. His white hair flew out as he swung his head from Elizabeth to Matt. "This is pretty sudden! You can't spring things like this on your family!"

"Can't?" Malt asked.

"Can't, damn it! You have responsibilities; you can't decide to change jobs like a teenager who gets tired of—"

"Now you wait a minute—" Matt began, but Spencer tore ahead. "What's the asking price for this paper you think you're buying?"

"The price of the paper we're going to buy is a little over a million," Matt said deliberately.

"The owners are very anxious—" Elizabeth started to say.

"A million dollars?" Peter yelled.

"A million dollars," Holly whispered.

Spencer shook his head. "Insane! Do you think you have rich parents? You know we haven't anything to spare; we've told you so. We thought we were doing you a favor by scrimping and saving so we could take care of ourselves and not be a burden to you: we did that for you—!"

"You did it because you were afraid," Matt said coldly. "Too afraid to do what we're doing."

"You damn fool, we were being sensible; not afraid! You will not have us to fall back on! Have you thought about that?"

"Of course we thought about it," Matt retorted, but Elizabeth cut in quietly. "We know you'd help if you could. We want to make it on our own."

"How?" Lydia asked curiously. "You're so young; we never could have done it at your age."

"A second mortgage on the house; a loan from the bank. It will be close, but—"

"We'll owe money all over town," said Peter.

"But we'll own a newspaper," said Matt.

Holly looked from her father to her mother. "You're excited. Your faces look all shiny."

Matt's eyebrows rose. "Shiny?"

"Like you said mine was when I got those two parts in the concert."

"It's called burning your bridges," Peter observed.

Holly swung on him. "Why are you so stuffy?" she demanded. "You're just like Grandpa, and you're not nearly as old as he is. Or are you just thinking about yourself? College and all that." Her voice wavered on the last words.

"See!" Peter shouted triumphantly. "You're worried about it, too!"

"We've taken care of that," Elizabeth said. "We're setting up a trust for each of you; you won't lose college, we promise."

"Just a minute!" Spencer demanded again. "We keep getting off the subject! What the hell do you know about running a newspaper?"

"Not a lot," Matt said. "But I've run a printing company for sixteen years, so I know the business end; we studied journalism, both of us were editor of our college paper; and Elizabeth's been writing for the Examiner for years."

"That's it?" Spencer asked. His face was red; his palms made slapping sounds as he clasped and unclasped his hands.

"Not quite. We've researched the paper and its competition. We're not going in blind; we know the problems and we have ideas for solving them. And the Chieftain has a good managing editor; he'll keep it going in the beginning, until we know what we're doing."

Spencer slammed both hands on the table. "Putting the welfare of your children in the hands of someone you don't even know. You can't even be sure he'll stick around to help you."

"Don't talk to me as if I'm a child!" Matt roared. Elizabeth put a hand on his arm and he lowered his voice. "Did I ever tell you my father wanted to be an artist?"

"Zachary?" said Spencer, surprised. "No."

"It wasn't something he talked about a lot. But when he was young he studied every art form he could think of: painting, sculpture, woodcuts, silkscreen, even linoleum cuts. And he was good. He just wasn't great. So he stopped; he didn't want to be a second-rate artist. Instead he bought into the printing company that later became his, and did lithography for the artists who lived here, and in Taos. An invisible assistant, he called himself. Except, he hated it. He told me he hated every minute of it and the more he hated it the more he put everything he had into it, not only for artists, but for himself, designing brochures and posters and maps for tourists: his only way of being an artist. Then, one day, the hating stopped and he was proud of what he made. That's why he was so terrified of losing it. Though I think he dreamed that someday, when he retired to Nuevo, he'd try again, to see if he'd do better than when he was young. Or just to have fun with what he called his small talent."

"But he died before he could try," said Elizabeth.

"Right. He died."

Spencer grimaced at the lanterns hanging above the table. "I hear what you're saying, but it doesn't wash. Nobody knows what's going to happen; nobody has a guarantee of living long enough to do everything. That's no excuse for risking your security, throwing away a thriving business—"

"We've weighed the risks," Matt said flatly. "And you have no right to tell us—"

"Daddy," Elizabeth said softly, "don't you understand? We need this."

"You mean your marriage is in trouble, is that it? And you think buying a newspaper will make it better?"

"We're not talking about our marriage," Matt said.

Elizabeth heard the ominous note in his voice. "Our marriage probably has as many ups and downs as yours," she told her father lightly. "What I meant was, we think we have to do this now. If we don't, we might never do it. We might keep putting it off—"

"We put it off!" Spencer's voice rose. "We put off indulging ourselves; we were responsible adults! Why can't you keep the printing company—a guaranteed income!—and buy into a paper? Be partners with someone! Do a little bit at a time—"

"No." Matt pushed aside his plate and leaned his arms on the table. "We believe in ourselves. We have to try with everything we have, because if we hold back, and then fail, we'll never know if we might have succeeded if only we'd had enough courage."

"I understand that," Lydia said very quietly. Spencer's face darkened. "Now listen—!" he began.

"My dear, it's my turn to talk," Lydia said. "And I want to say that I'm very impressed with Elizabeth and Matt, and I envy them."

"Mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"Your father was miserable the last five years he was working," Lydia said. "He may sputter at you about waiting, but he knows he was counting the days until he could get out. You're quite right; he was afraid to do it before he had his full pension, and I admit I was worried, too, and didn't encourage him. But I was counting the days, too, until we could leave. Not because I didn't like my job—I loved it—but who could live with an angry, frustrated man?"

"Elizabeth knows something about that," Matt said.

"But what if it doesn't work?" Peter demanded. "I mean, what if you . . . what if. . . ."He stopped. How could he say he was afraid his parents would be failures?

"What if we fail?" Matt asked, for him. 'Then we go job hunting. Are you afraid, Peter?"

"I guess so. Shouldn't I be?"

"Sure. We all should be. We've been comfortable and secure for years; now we're talking about taking some big chances. And we're asking you to take them with us."

"Peter." Elizabeth leaned forward. "We've thought about this a lot; it's something we want and need very much. You and Holly have your lives ahead of you, but when you get older the years slip away so fast ... I wish I could make you understand how it feels to turn around and find it's another spring or summer or Christmas and another year of your life is gone. And you can't get it back; you can't make up for what you haven't done in those twelve months. What we're afraid of is waking up one day and finding out it's too late to do the things we dreamed about and gave up and started thinking about again after Grandpa Zachary died. If we don't try now, when we have our health and enough energy to begin something new, we're afraid we may never try. Then we'd look back someday and know we missed our chance, maybe our only chance. And we don't want to live with that regret."

"I didn't think we had such an awful life," Peter mumbled.

Holly turned on her brother. "Can't you have some imagination? You and I could get jobs, you know! If you don't shape up you'll be a stodgy old man before you're fifteen."

"Somebody has to be careful around here!" Peter shouted, and on the

last word his voice cracked, ending on a high note. He flushed in embarrassment "I can't help it if nobody feels like me."

"We do feel like you," Elizabeth said. "But we also feel we have to make a choice. Can't you understand that? Isn't there anything you want to do now without waiting?"

"Be an anthropologist and study Indians," Peter said promptly. "But you always say I have to go to college first, that I have to do things in the right order. Isn't that what Grandpa said he and Grandma did? Wait till the right time to buy their shop?"

Elizabeth and Matt exchanged a glance, amused and exasperated, won-dering why parents' good advice often came back in a way they never expected. "It's close," Elizabeth admitted. "But not the same. A bookshop doesn't take the same time and energy as a newspaper; some jobs can't be started after a certain age. And I keep trying to tell you, Peter: the years are running away from us. We've waited sixteen years for this dream to come true. What if you had to wait sixteen years to be an anthropologist, or Holly had to wait that long to get a part in a Broadway musical?"

"I'd die," Holly said simply.

"Or learn to wait," Elizabeth said, smiling. "But then one day you'd say, 'Okay, it's now or never.' And you'd go after it."

"Peter," Lydia said, "there's no such thing as absolute security. Maybe everybody should take a big chance at least once. Maybe everybody should be greedy for more, at least once."

Elizabeth put her hand on Lydia's, feeling that from now on, they would be friends in a new way. "Thank you," she said, and kissed Lydia's cheek. "That means so much to me."