Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  A sigh tore loose from Peter as he imagined the small triangle of hair he kept wanting to kiss except he didn't know if she'd like it . . . and then his pants bulged and he turned hastily away from his sister, walking in circles, kicking up puffs of dust.

  "And she's so nice," Holly persisted.

  "Uh-huh." Peter's back was to her. "She's a good listener," he said, wanting to talk about her but afraid he'd say too much.

  "That's what you do? Talk?"

  "What's wrong with talking? You don't ask me that about the men I talk to in the pueblos."

  "You don't want to make love to the men in the pueblos."

  Peter broke into nervous laughter and Holly giggled and then, with relief, Peter saw Heather driving toward them.

  Seeing them laughing, Heather thought what a difference it made, having their mother home. Only one day and already they looked happier than they had all summer—although the last couple of weeks Peter had looked dreamy and out of it altogether, lost in some private fantasy. Holly looked wonderful, Heather thought, in shorts and a white shirt, long-legged, tanned, her ash-blond hair like a pale waterfall down her back. Her beauty, like Elizabeth's, always made Heather sigh with envy, but in a rather pleasant way, since you can't really envy people you adore, and anyway, she knew she couldn't look like Elizabeth or Holly unless she woke up one morning with different hair, a different face, and a different figure. Not very likely, she reflected, so I give up. And then, involuntarily, she thought: Saul loves me the way I am.

  "Okay, everybody," she said aloud. "Hop in and take me back to work; I have a very strict boss."

  "Oh, sure," Peter said as Elizabeth joined them and they all got in the car. "Grandma was never strict in her whole life."

  "Probably not," Heather agreed. "Which is why I love her."

  "Instead of Saul," Holly said wisely, "who is very strict."

  Elizabeth, sitting in front with Heather, turned around. "You seem to know a great deal about it."

  "We've been with them a lot lately, listening to them fight, while you were in Albuquerque."

  "A little more respect, please." Heather's face was red. "We don't fight. We have long talks."

  "Right," said Peter.

  Elizabeth turned back to Heather. "Not going too well?"

  "Sometimes." Heather's lower lip trembled. "He keeps telling me what I should do. He's a lot older and he's been all over the world and won

  prizes and seen everything, and maybe he does know what's good for me, but I'd like to find out for myself and make up my own mind. Don't you think I ought to? At least try?"

  "Yes," Elizabeth said as they pulled up in front of the shop on Canyon Road. "Is it really all right if I keep the car for a while?"

  "Sure. Lydia and I will use mine, and Spencer has disappeared in a cloud of sawdust. Keep it until you buy a new one. Make it fancy. And expensive."

  "Why?" Elizabeth asked, amused.

  "Consolation prize. See you later."

  Consolation prize. Because she was the one staying home, while Matt drove off and conquered the world?

  But he was right; one of us should spend more time with Peter and Holly. And I have my writing. I don't need consolation.

  Still, a fancy car would be nice, she thought, turning on the air conditioning as they left Santa Fe and drove toward the Sangre de Cristo mountains through rolling, reddish-brown hills, dry grazing land, and clumps of scraggly trees. We can afford it now, and why shouldn't I have a nice one? I'll be driving around the state, interviewing people; I might as well be comfortable while I do it.

  The divided highway was almost empty and Elizabeth speeded up beyond Canoncito, beginning the climb into the mountains. Holly sat beside her, Peter lounged in back, and they talked about the summer that was coming to an end.

  "You know what we sound like?" Holly asked. "Like school, when everybody comes back at the end of vacation and compares notes."

  "True," agreed Peter. "And what have you been doing with yourself, my dear Mrs. Lovell? Running a newspaper? How very interesting. We've been busy, too; I have visited my very good friend Maya Solel in Nuevo, and friends in nearby pueblos, learning their legends—in fact, I plan to write a book about them, taking after my famous mother whose work has appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine. And my lovely sister also has been active; she takes singing lessons, practices many hours each day, visits her friend Luz Aragon in Nuevo, attends the opera . . . You may know all this, though it is possible word may not have reached Albuquerque—"

  "That's enough, Peter," Elizabeth said quietly. "I know I haven't been around much lately, but you don't have to overdo it. I'm here now."

  "And maybe it's not so bad," said Holly in her mother's defense. "I mean, maybe families take each other for granted when they're always together. At least now we appreciate having you here."

  "I always appreciated having my parents here," Peter said pointedly.

  "Peter, will you shut up!" Holly demanded.

  "Of course," he said. In the rearview mirror Elizabeth saw the odd, trance-like look that had appeared for the first time a couple of weeks earlier, about the time she was in Houston. Love or worry, she thought. I hope it's love.

  "I appreciate you both," she said. "And nothing your father and I have done means we don't appreciate you or love you. We had a job to do; we told you about it; and we asked you to be patient for six months. Was that too much to ask?"

  "No," Holly declared. "Peter's just going through sexual anxieties and worrying about being a senior."

  "What?" Peter demanded.

  "It's okay; I understand," Holly said. "Maybe I'll be scared, too, when it's my turn. Last year of high school, getting ready to leave home and face all that competition in college, being alone in the cold, cruel world—"

  "Bullshit."

  "Peter," Elizabeth said.

  "Sorry. But she's wrong."

  "She may be. But if she's right, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Give it some thought."

  Peter shrugged. "Sure." He wondered whether he should argue about the "sexual anxieties" part and decided to leave it alone. He couldn't beat Holly in a discussion, but he could really get to her by refusing to answer. Pulling off his hiking boots he put stockinged feet against the window and lay back on the seat. Nice being alone; he could dream.

  Holly was silent, too, as Elizabeth drove through the main street of Pecos and turned into the Pecos Valley. They climbed steadily on the narrow road, following the Pecos River between steep mountain slopes covered with pine, juniper, gambel oak, and the slender white trunks and quaking leaves of aspens. Above the narrow valley, the sky was a deep blue arch.

  Elizabeth drank in the beauty and the stillness. She always forgot how isolated it felt, this close to Santa Fe. Farther on, the valley narrowed even more; they drove through a gap little wider than the road, and then it opened up into broad fields. At its widest, a small sign said Nuevo. Eliza= beth turned onto the bumpy dirt road. "What would you like to do?" she asked Holly and Peter. "I'll be at Isabel's."

  "Maya's waiting for me," said Peter, trying to be casual.

  "Have fun." Holly's voice was suddenly wistful. "I'll go with you," she told Elizabeth as they came to a stop. "Luz is waiting for me,"

  Elizabeth put her arm around Holly's shoulders. "I want to leave in a couple of hours, Peter, so meet us at the Aragons' any time before then."

  "Right." He loped down the single road that ran from one end of Nuevo to the other as Elizabeth paused beside the car, gazing at the small town: houses of adobe or wood clustered together like tea leaves at the bottom of the cup-shaped valley, each with a vegetable garden and a few flowers; the general store; a repair shop with a gasoline pump at the side; and, some distance away, the small adobe church with a cemetery in back.

  On each side of the valley the mountains rose steeply in mixed colors of rock outcroppings amid stands of pinon pine and aspen; the valley floor was planted in corn and wheat, bean and chile plants. The blue ribbon o
f the Pecos River ran through the center, sparkling from the sun's reflection on ripples made by dragonflies skimming the surface. Zachary's parents had raised horses and cattle on pastures along its banks, and Zachary, when a young man, had bought additional acres and a house, higher up. We should have kept them, Elizabeth thought regretfully, but it had seemed so important at the time to buy the Sun The higher acres, she saw, were planted in corn, but the house looked neglected.

  "Elizabeth! Wonderful! I couldn't believe my luck when you called!"

  Swept into Isabel's massive hug, Elizabeth laughed. "My luck, too, since I get to see you."

  "This makes up for all the missed dinners. I've been praying for you for weeks! Holly, forgive me, Luz is in the garage, repairing our car. She dislikes it, but she does it better than anyone. Where is your handsome brother?"

  "He has an assignation with Maya."

  Isabel's eyebrows went up. "At ten in the morning? Well, why not? Peter is a man of wisdom. Establish himself firmly in her heart before she is lured by the outside world. How else can we be sure of anything, unless we get there first and then hang on? Come in, come in," she said to Elizabeth as Holly went off. "I'll get us something cold to drink and you'll say hello to Padre; he'll be in talkative ecstasy and we'll have to cut short his long-winded, though of course fascinating, stories or there will be no time to put our heads together and open our hearts. Good Lord, it's been too long . . . I've missed you hugely!"

  Isabel Aragon was forty-three, large and plain, with masses of black hak she restlessly wove into a heavy braid as she talked, then loosened, letting it spread like a crinkly cape about her shoulders until she braided

  it once again. She stood proudly, and her wide smile and unaffected laugh were so warm and welcoming that everyone was drawn to her, and after a few minutes no one thought her plain.

  Beside Elizabeth's slender, honey-colored beauty she seemed even larger and darker, and years earlier, when the two of them had walked about the valley with their small children, people in Nuevo had called them hermanas contrarias —opposite sisters—which had delighted Isabel. "Every woman needs a sister. Not necessarily next door, but nearby. As for me, I already have too many people next door."

  Everyone from the valley, all the way to Pecos, came to Isabel with their problems, receiving brisk, matter-of-fact advice—"that they could think of for themselves if they weren't so knotted up in their worries," she would tell Elizabeth. Her own worries she kept to herself or told to Elizabeth. They had begun the day her husband—young and handsome and such a lover!—was killed when his pickup truck was struck by a tourist van near the old iron mine farther up the valley, leaving her with her father, Cesar; her daughter, Luz, just five at the time; and a small wheel on which she made black pottery with a raised black and ivory design no one could duplicate. It sold well through four galleries in Santa Fe and Taos, and that, plus money Cesar earned with his handwoven rugs, and the vegetables they grew in their garden and canned for winter, kept them going.

  "We're doing better and better," she told Elizabeth as they settled into lawn chairs in front of her house. "Tons of tourists discovering Santa Fe —which has only been here since the year 1600 or so—and southwestern arts and crafts . . . Lord, I sell ten times as many pieces as I used to. Where did these people spend their money before?"

  "Wherever was 'in,' " Elizabeth said with a smile.

  Isabel filled their glasses. "Now tell me everything. Begin at the beginning. How come you're here in the middle of the week? Is it a holiday?"

  "I've changed jobs." Elizabeth told her about the dinner in Houston. Sitting in the hot sun in that quiet valley encircled by mountains, sipping lemonade and talking to Isabel, whose concentrated way of listening was so special, Elizabeth relaxed. "This is wonderful. I loved the drive up here, but I had the most awful feeling that it was all wrong: driving in the mountains on a weekday, letting down my staff—"

  "And wondering what your husband was doing behind your back?"

  Elizabeth smiled. "I didn't put it that way—as if he might be unfaithful."

  "He might be. With a newspaper," Isabel's infectious laugh echoed

  about them. Laughing with her, Elizabeth said, "If he's only unfaithful with a newspaper, I probably can deal with it."

  "Well, I wouldn't worry about any other competition," Isabel said. "At least not while he's knocking himself out the way he is. He's really hooked on it, isn't he? Where would he get the energy or time for an affair, even if he wanted one? I'm told the logistics of adultery are devilishly complicated: arranging, rearranging, covering your tracks, lying, remembering which lie you told to which person ... no way could / do it."

  Elizabeth's eyes were half closed against the sunlight. "How do you know all that?"

  "I'm told by experts. When their logistics get too complicated, they come to me for advice. Me! Ha! If they knew how long it's been since I've had a man in my bed . . . Oh, Elizabeth, I do miss it. Of course no woman ever forgets, so I can talk to them about sex . . . but adultery! What do I know about adultery? I never even thought about it! The way I felt about my husband . . . Well, you know all about that. It's just that I do miss it, you know. There's only so much satisfaction in a grateful father and knowing I've done a good job with Luz. . . ." She shook her head. "I've got to stop doing this; I make myself horny and then I can't keep a smooth hand on the clay when I work. Where was I? Oh, my advice-seekers. Well, you wouldn't believe grown-up men could get themselves so messed up. Then they come to me."

  "And what do you tell them?"

  "That if they dip their pen in too many inkwells they're bound to make a mistake when they try to write with it."

  Elizabeth burst out laughing. "Wonderful. Matt will love it."

  "He'll love it as long as he isn't dipping his pen."

  "He's too busy." They laughed again. "And in a few weeks, when the managing editor takes over in Albuquerque, he'll be home again."

  "Doing what?"

  There was a pause. A bluejay flew past, cawing at something unseen; a hummingbird hovered at a bush, then darted off; children dashed across the fields, chasing a yapping dog. "Working for Keegan," Elizabeth said at last. "Buying newspapers. Managing them. Whatever Keegan wants him to do."

  "The company is in Houston," Isabel said.

  "Yes."

  They were silent again. "You might like Houston," Isabel said.

  "I might." Elizabeth turned her eyes from the mountains to Isabel's somber face. "It's a long way from Nuevo."

  "Sure is."

  A shadow fell across Elizabeth's face and she looked up to see Peter, with Maya slightly behind him. His hair was a flaming halo in the sun; Maya's gleamed like ebony. They were holding hands and their eyes shone. Elizabeth felt a flash of envy. How wonderful to be young and discovering love.

  "You said a couple of hours," Peter reminded her. "It has been exactly that. However, I was hoping you'd stay longer; my friend here has invited me to lunch. Also, I don't see my sister anywhere."

  "Two hours!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Already?"

  Isabel shook her head. "We barely got started."

  "I thought I'd work this afternoon," Elizabeth said, "but it could wait until tomorrow."

  "Stay for lunch," Isabel urged. "And practice discipline tomorrow."

  Elizabeth nodded. She was too content to move. "Will you find Holly and tell her?" she asked Peter. "We'll leave about four. If that's all right," she added to Isabel.

  "Perfect." They watched Peter and Maya drift off, clasped hands swinging between them. "Before I forget, do you know anything about the guy who bought your land up here?"

  "Terry Ballenger? Not much. Why?"

  "Do you know how much of this valley he's bought?"

  "No. He bought more than Zachary's land?"

  "Seems so. He and two other guys. All together they've bought up more than half."

  "Half the valley?"

  "More than half."

  The journalist in Elizab
eth stirred. Terry Ballenger had told them he was a car dealer from San Diego looking for a quiet place to spend his summers, maybe do a little fishing. Not a rancher or a farmer or a horseman, not a man who would need more than the thirty acres he'd bought from Elizabeth and Matt.

  "We didn't think much about it," Isabel was saying. "Lots of tourists are looking for land in the great southwest; it wasn't until we got together and added up how much was sold that we got to thinking it was pretty damn peculiar."

  "It is. I'll look into it, Isabel, and I'll ask Matt about it. If nothing else, it might make a story for 'Private Affairs.' "

  "He offered to buy my place, too."

  "Ballenger? For how much?"

  "Thirty thousand."

  "A little high for the valley."

  "Right. But Aurelio got sixty and he's got twice as much land."

  "Aurelio couldn't have sold. I saw him harvesting when I was driving in."

  "That's another odd thing. After they buy, these guys give long-term leases at low rents and tell people to stay where they are, live in their houses, farm their land . . . you'd think nothing had changed."

  Elizabeth shook her head. "That can't be the same Ballenger. He said he wanted to spend his summers in the house."

  "This is the summer. Does the house look used?"

  Elizabeth remembered thinking it looked neglected. "No."

  "Same man."

  "Did you sell to him?"

  "Are you kidding? This is my home! The only one I've got! Besides, we don't need the money right now. He didn't like it when I said no. He likes to get his way." She sighed. "Who doesn't? Luz was furious; she wants me to sell and move into Santa Fe. She wants the high school and the town . . . And so it goes."

  She got up lazily and went into the house, returning with more lemonade and a platter of burritos and rice. "Happened to have these in the oven," she said casually, then laughed with Elizabeth. "Well, if Peter hadn't said anything, I would have talked you into staying for lunch. I feel bad about Luz: she's young and lively and ought to have all the fun of Santa Fe, but I can't sell the place out from under Padre, and he won't leave the valley. When Luz goes off on her own, there'll just be the two of us, and I have to think of him, too; he's my family and I like having a man around—even a padre—and he doesn't treat me like a daughter so much anymore. Sometimes we're like friends. Could be worse. I'm glad you're around, Elizabeth my opposite sister. Even when we don't see each other, it helps to know you're close."