by Jane Smiley
“What place?”
“The club.”
“The club?”
“Have we got the wrong place, Joe? Sir, isn’t this the Preston Mountain Resort?”
The guard looked around.
Marcus adopted a tone of convivial concern. “Mr. Newman drew me a little map, and I was sure I could find it, but maybe it’s farther down the road. We’re looking for a private club called the Preston Mountain Resort. I’m Marcus Burns. I do business with Mr. Newman, and we were planning to meet at that club because Mr. Newman is proposing me for membership, but he said it was so secret that even the neighbors don’t know right where it is, so I suppose we’re really screwed if his map is wrong.” He kept smiling in a friendly way.
The guard heaved a sigh, gazed at Marcus for another moment, then said, “This is the club, but members always call ahead, and no members have called for this morning. Maybe you should wait here for Mr. Newman.”
Now it was my turn. I got out of the car and took the guard over to one side. I said, leaning close and whispering, “I don’t think you should make Mr. Burns wait in the car. He’s had a long trip from Paris.” To Portsmouth? But the guard didn’t notice that. “He’s not really the kind of guy who waits in his car for movie actors. Or for anyone.”
“Who is he?”
“Have you heard of Horizontal Technologies?”
“No.”
“How about ABM?”
“I’ve heard of that.”
“He is ABM.”
“And he doesn’t want to wait?”
“He’s not used to waiting.”
He went into the guardhouse and picked up the phone. I got back into my car. Marcus kept smiling. I watched the guard. He nodded and shook his head and nodded some more, and then he came out with a doubtful look on his face, and before he could say anything, Marcus held out his hand and put a folded-up twenty-dollar bill up the guy’s sleeve and said, “Thanks so much for your help.” While the guard was pulling it out, he said, “Go on, Joe. Up to the clubhouse.” And so we did. He said, “Who did you tell him I was?”
“You heard of ABM?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, I believe it stands for antiballistic missile, but he’d definitely heard of it. I said you are ABM.” We laughed all the way up through the woods.
The club was laid out on a big piece of ground that sloped upward first, and then gently downward into a shallow bowl, then upward again toward the northeast. The buildings were made of logs in that northwoods style they loved at the turn of the century. It was in the deluxe-summer-camp architectural family, somewhere between Yellowstone Park and a cluster of cabins, one of the few architectural styles that is impossible to remodel and even, on this scale, to tear down. It looked like an entire virgin forest from somewhere out in California had been brought here. The grounds had an old-fashioned air also—more lawns than gardens, and the few gardens were very formal. The dark logs of the buildings gave even the air and sky the austerity of a pine forest. The Thorpe place, by contrast, had grace and human scale in addition to grandeur. I had a moment of appreciating what we had before two security guards in their golf cart approached us. Marcus said, “Turn right.”
I turned right. In a moment we were cruising along beside the golf course, and Marcus was staring at it avidly. He said, “Don’t look. Just keep going and do what I say.” I kept going. The road curved around the lake. I turned right again, and went between a couple of fairways. I turned left and went up the hill behind the main lodge. Marcus said, “Speed up just a little.” I did. “Turn left.” Now we were at the beginning of the back nine, which stretched up the hill and had beautiful views of the lodge and the perimeter of trees and the valley beyond, toward Roaring Falls. Maybe I had seen this place from a plane sometime over the years. It still seemed amazing that I had never heard of it. Then the road eased around the back side of the mountain, and I saw that the property had another hidden valley with no road access other than from the lodge. We passed the outer holes of the back nine, probably thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, which wound around a man-made lake. Marcus said, “Pull over here.”
I pulled over into a service road, behind some bushes, and a few minutes later I heard the golf cart go by. Marcus said, “Now go.” I pulled out and drove in the direction we had come from, and soon we were at the top of the hill again, looking down toward the lodge and the gate. Marcus was laughing. He said, “Now they’re actually after us. I don’t think they believe in Mr. Newman! Let’s get out of here.”
I could see a more direct route to the gate, and I went straight for it. Marcus said, “They’re right behind us. That golf cart is going pretty fast.” I sped up. At some outbuildings, I turned toward where I thought the gate was, and sure enough, there it was. The guard was standing in the middle of the road and the gate was closed. Marcus said, “Slow down, but don’t stop.” He rolled down his window and began waving the guard out of the way. A moment went by. “Keep going,” said Marcus. Another moment. And then the guard stepped to the side of the road. He just stepped. He didn’t actually look afraid, but only as if he had decided not to chance it. Marcus leaned out the window and called, “Thank you so much, Lloyd! You’ve been terrific!” And then the gate opened, whether of itself or because Lloyd opened it, I have no idea. We sped around the blind curve and out onto Hatchcock Road, where I made a right turn and zoomed toward Roaring Falls. We were laughing and laughing. Marcus climbed over the back of the seat into the front and said, “Oh, God, I feel about fifteen! Wasn’t that a kick!”
“What a depressing place!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe a guy like Mr. Newman spends much time there.”
“Nah. For sure he doesn’t. I’ve heard of places like that. It used to be where people like the Rockefellers and the Morgans brought the wife and kids and sat around for the month of August, planning world wars and fomenting counterrevolutionary movements. I bet there was a train station somewhere close by—”
“There was one in Roaring Falls.”
“—and they had a branch line for private cars that went right up to the lodge there. But I’m sure all they do now is the men gather for some kind of secret meetings where they swear allegiance to one another. My bet is, it’s owned by some secret society, you know, something like one of those Princeton eating clubs or Yale senior things. What else would you do in that lodge besides dress up in bear suits and howl in a ritualized manner against the hoi polloi and the Jews?”
“I didn’t even see the golf course.”
“I did. Not bad, but very old-fashioned. Wide fairways, big greens. The length is probably the challenging thing. Dogleg here, dogleg there. Ours is going to be much nicer than that one. Have you heard of Pete Dye?”
“No.”
“Jack Nicklaus?”
“Well, of course.”
“One of those two.”
“One of those two what?”
“Is going to design our course. Only one in the neighborhood, maybe in the eastern half of the state, though I’m not sure about that. “I’ve had Dye’s people on the phone. They’re very interested.” He started laughing at my obviously terrified reaction.
“How much? What did Gordon—”
“It’s not that much more for a famous designer than some schmuck, and it’s worth it from the beginning. For one thing, all the golf magazines talk about it, and so buyers begin sniffing around for properties as soon as the guy gets on board, and anyway—”
“Anyway, nothing but the best.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Marcus. After a moment, he said, “Crosbie insists on it. I was on the phone all last week. He knows an S and L in Oklahoma somewhere, can you believe that? And they’re doing some golf and condo development in California, near Pebble Beach somewhere, and as soon as they hired Pete Dye, the price of the lots doubled. This little S and L, you know, Okie State Savings, one branch. They’re rolling in it. Crosbie’s eyes were green when he was telling me about it. You can’t
believe how I cultivate this guy, Joe. It’s hardship duty.”
“I believe you.”
“Anyway, Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Dwight David Eisenhower. You’ve got to get a designer all the golfers have heard of.”
At Roaring Falls Road, we turned toward the village, and as soon as we got into town Marcus said, “Here, I’ll buy you lunch. Wow! I can’t believe that! When that guard looked at me, I didn’t know what I was going to say. You know, I still carry my IRS ID card in case it might come in handy.”
“Winning by intimidation?”
“Oh, yes! But that didn’t seem, I don’t know, it just didn’t seem cool. So I just opened my mouth and out it came.”
“Well, you were a piece of work, as my dad would say.”
“I still want to meet your parents.”
“Oh, right.”
We got out of the car and went into the Frog Prince, a lunch place that did a lot of weekend business, and when we sat down, he said, “But you’re the genius. I was really stuck. I thought he was going to make us sit there until Paul Newman pulled up! I loved how you just kind of took him aside, very confidential, and gave the guy the true picture of my worldwide importance!” He threw his head back and laughed. Then he leaned across the table and looked right at me. He said, “You know, Joe, a lot of this would be like shoveling snow if it weren’t for you. I don’t feel that anyone, other than you, can really see what I’m getting at here. Everyone thinks so small. Linda quizzes me every day about how it’s going. I mean, I know she can’t help herself. When we came out here, she was worried about the risk. She always thought at least we had her job to fall back on, blah blah blah, and now we don’t have that, and you know the mortgage payment is something of a stretch for us, so I’ve got to say there’s a little refrain for every day. When she’s having a good day, it’s ‘Things are really working out, aren’t they, honey? You were so right! You really can’t get anywhere without taking a plunge. We don’t want the kids just thinking we always played it safe all their lives, and set them such a, I don’t know, unenterprising example. I mean you have to show kids how they can be through how you are.’” He sounded exactly like her. He smiled.
“Then, on bad days, it’s much more straightforward. ‘I just have a bad feeling about this. It isn’t going to work. Your sister had a worried look on her face today, and when I asked her what was wrong, she wouldn’t tell me, so I know there’s something you have to tell me, so you’d better get it over with and we’ll deal with it somehow.’” He shook his head. “Anyway, Joe, that’s just one example. You’re the only one who just goes on, gets things done.”
“Well, I—”
“You know, it kind of amazes me that you have settled for this. I mean, I don’t want to sound like I’m running down your life or anything—”
“But you are.”
“Well, yeah. I am. But, you know, only in comparison with your potential.”
We laughed.
“No, really. You’ve got a lot on the ball. Everyone likes doing business with you. People trust you. I mean, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve said, Well, one of my partners is Joe Stratford, and they can’t help themselves, they breathe a sigh of relief. I mean, two or three of them, yes, it’s ‘Oh, that’s Daniel Stratford’s boy,’ and I guess your father is famous in his way too, but there’s lots of others that are more like, ‘Oh, I bought a house from him once,’ or ‘He brokered a deal I did once.’ You know. I mean, I can’t tell you how valuable that is in a place like this just for getting off the ground.”
“Well, I’ve always tried to—”
“But it could be more. I mean, I’m not saying it’s not good, it is good, no two ways about it. It’s an absolute good to be respected in your community. But let’s face it, it’s a small community. Opportunities are greater elsewhere.”
“I was married until two years ago, don’t forget. Sherry—”
“Oh, the famous ex-wife! Didn’t I meet her? Oh, yeah! Madame Chef!”
“I believe that’s Ms. Chef to you, buddy.”
He grinned. “But she’s ambitious. I mean, pork medallions in Calvados, clafouti, crème brûlée. That’s très français.”
“It was a long approach to the pin, let’s put it that way. She added ambitions one grain at a time. For most of our marriage, she repainted and furnished our house. One year we repainted the living room four times and the only people who could tell that the shade was different were us.”
“Exacting. So maybe the man of the house did a lot of, you know, catering to the—oh, the queen?”
“Well, there was that. Though I didn’t see it as that at the time. I just saw it as her ideas being a little more intensely held than mine, so why not?”
Marcus looked carefully at the menu, took a couple of sips of water, and said, “I sometimes wonder how I would see my marriage if I were no longer in it.”
I pretended we had not gotten into a new uncomfortable area. “Well, I have to say, that was her idea too. I never thought about it before it happened.”
“Really?” He looked at me speculatively, and then the waitress came up and he ordered a steak sandwich and I ordered a hamburger. We didn’t say anything more until she was gone. Then Marcus said, “You know, Linda and I are very alike. We like the house to be the same way, we like the same sorts of clothes and books. We agree on how to raise the kids. I mean, lots of times couples say they’ve known each other so long they finish each other’s sentences, and they usually think of that as a bad thing, but I think of it as a good thing. I guess you will have noticed that I have an exacting side myself. Well, I prefer to call it meticulous. No, I prefer to call it a sense of style. Anyway, it’s something Linda and I share completely, and that’s valuable, and for a long time—I mean, until we moved here—I thought that was everything. But I see the move has brought out other sides of both of us, and it’s been kind of a surprise.”
“Meaning?”
“Oh, you’re being very cagey, aren’t you? But let’s put it this way. Have you noticed anything about Felicity Ornquist?”
“I guess I’ve noticed a lot of things about Felicity over the years.” I said it, and I said it casually, but the sudden intrusion of her name into the conversation electrified me to the roots of my hair. “I’m not quite sure which thing you mean.”
“Well, she’s ready for anything, but he isn’t, you know? Hank’s not ready for anything.”
“He’s very outdoorsy.”
“And he doesn’t like our project at all, at all.”
“No, he’s mentioned that to me.”
“I don’t think he’s as much against our project as he’s just against anything new, and she’s just the opposite. She’s very game.” I didn’t say anything about what Felicity had said to me about the project, but I did feel a sharp retrospective pang. “Anyway. Let me put it this way. I hope being game is either learned or contagious, and that Felicity manages to communicate some of it to my wife.” The food was set on the table. By then, I hadn’t seen Felicity in a month and a half. I couldn’t help issuing a sigh, which Marcus didn’t seem to notice.
Marcus was a big talker but now he fell silent, and I have to say that the silence was companionable. I thought for a moment there about a strange thing: I couldn’t really say that I had ever had a male friend, even a buddy. My best friend in high school was Sally, I didn’t last long enough in college for anyone to make an impression, and I had been in business since I passed the exam for my broker’s license when I was twenty-two. My business didn’t really promote friendships—Realtors are likely to be loners. There was Gordon, too fatherly, there was Bobby, too goofy. I wasn’t a sports fan, I didn’t play golf or hunt or fish. It was odd to think of myself, a sociable guy, as someone without a real friend, but right then it didn’t upset me, because I felt I now had a friend, Marcus. He had slipped under the fence and into the compound and guess what? I liked him. I thought he was smart and interesting and imaginative. He laughed
at jokes I made that I was used to laughing at by myself. He had a trick of laughing and glancing at me sharply, looking right into my face, that made me feel like I was actually communicating with him. I wasn’t surprised he had noticed Felicity’s gameness. I valued that about her too. If we were friends, then we would notice the same things about people. I ate my hamburger; then I said, “You know, Hank thinks I’m the brains behind this operation.”
“Who told you that?”
“He did, a few weeks ago, when he was trying to dissuade me from going forward. He hates golf courses.”
“What’s there to hate about a golf course?”
“Fertilizer, I suppose. Or maybe social privilege.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I said what else are we going to do with the place, let it go to seed?”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t have an answer.”
He ate a few french fries; then he said, “It’s good that he thinks you’re the brains.” But he didn’t say why. After that we chatted idly about golf courses and made plans to see four more. He promised me that after those four we would know all we needed to know about golf courses.
I said, “I still know nothing about golf courses.”
“Just wait. I guarantee you’ve taken in more than you think, just driving around.”
“Well, I’m glad there are only four more, because I have to get back to selling houses.”
“Oh,” he said, “we’ll just see about that.”
CHAPTER
18
NO MATTER WHAT SIZE your project is, the first person you pay is the town engineer and the second person you pay is your own engineer, so I called up Marcus when the bills came in and told him to pay them right away. Our start-up money, which had looked like not enough but at least respectable, had dwindled considerably. The imminent merger between Portsmouth Savings and the S and L from the western part of the state, after which we were planning to roll in money, had hit a snag and wouldn’t be complete until at least the late summer. In the meantime, Marcus had hired an architect to refurbish the house and a firm of golf course designers from North Carolina who were not famous but better than famous, because they were absolutely guaranteed by the insidest of the insiders to be the next great thing, to design the golf course. As long as I had known him, Gordon had engaged in robbing Peter to pay Paul, as did most developers, and I didn’t know who all the Peters were.
