Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  Matt admired it as a job superbly done. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. He finished his coffee and dessert, then, groaning inwardly because he had been unable to resist the amaretto truffles, he excused himself, strode the full length of the playroom and then back, to stand at the side of the dining room, watching those who were still eating.

  "Lonely?" Nicole asked, coming to stand beside him.

  "Recovering," he replied with a smile. "If I hadn't stood and stretched after that meal I wouldn't have been able to get up for a month."

  She did not, he noted with approval, make a coy comment about his staying for a month; she merely returned his smile, giving him another chance to admire her beauty. Her black hair was loose and frizzed—each time he saw her it was different—making her face seem smaller and as clear and pale as fine china; her strapless dress was white silk, sinuously molded to her body; around her neck, like a fabulous collar, lay an eight-strand necklace of ebony and ivory. A red camellia nestled in her hair, matching her lipstick: her only dashes of color. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked, and she might have been asking about the party or looking at her.

  "Very much," Matt answered, letting her decide which he meant. He glanced about the room. "It's quite a collection of people."

  "Which surprises you."

  Embarrassed, he said, "Am I so obvious?"

  "Less than most men. It's one of the reasons I find you interesting. But

  you are puzzled about me and you didn't expect to be. Am I right? My house has surprised you, my dinner has surprised you, my guests have surprised you."

  "You've been watching me."

  "I watch all my guests, to make sure they're happy. You've spent the evening trying to categorize me and put names to the things I own. The rug in the library, by the way, is a Bakhtiari." She laughed. "I'm sorry, Matt; I'm taking advantage of your expressive face. But I like it; I prefer a man who shows his emotions even when he's puzzled because I don't fit into simple categories."

  He shook his head. "Unfair. I don't always look for easy explanations."

  "Come, now. Men do."

  "You pride yourself on knowing enough about men to know that all men don't."

  She laughed. "Clever man. Another reason I find you interesting. Not many men are."

  "How many have been?" Matt asked curiously.

  "I don't keep count," she said, smiling. "Do you, with women?"

  "Yes. It's a very small number."

  "Ah. Lucky as well as clever. What would you like to know about me?"

  "What would you like to tell me?"

  She gave a low laugh. "Nothing right now. Someday, when the time is right, I'll tell you the history of the Renards. I'm ahead of you there; I already know yours. Matt Lovell, the brightest star in Keegan Rourke's galaxy."

  "An exaggeration. Keegan must have been under a spell. Was it yours?"

  Still smiling, she shook her head. "Keegan has been free of my spell for years. You impressed him without sorcery. And why would you need it? You do very well on your own."

  "Only a fool turns down help when it's offered."

  "Even demonic?"

  "If he can control it."

  "Ah. A confident man. No wonder Keegan trusts you with one of his biggest jobs."

  "If he does. I'm still on trial."

  "And covering the whole southwest. Hardly a small stage."

  "Hardly a small critic. Keegan isn't easily satisfied."

  "Are you?"

  "Easily satisfied? No."

  "The winners of the world never are. I sympathize with you; Keegan isn't easy to work for. But the rewards make it worthwhile."

  "You don't mean money."

  She gave a small shrug. "Many people make money. It's harder to get power and influence."

  "And you think that's what I'm after?"

  "I hope so."

  "And you?"

  "Of course."

  He looked at her curiously. "And when you have enough? What will you do then?"

  "There is never enough. The stakes get bigger. Keegan knows that, which is why he is never dull. He wants me to design your office. Shall I?"

  "I'm not there enough to notice. I like what you did with his."

  "I do my best work for my friends. Of course I only work for friends."

  "I thought decorating was your business."

  4 'My business is pleasing myself. I decorate offices because it pleases me and keeps me from being bored. And I'm very good at it." She laughed again at his frown. "Matt, your disapproval is showing. What's wrong with wanting to please myself? Isn't that what you want? Why did you buy your first newspaper? Why did you go in with Keegan? You want to please yourself and avoid boredom and do what you're good at. You and I are exactly alike. And because we're like that, we're more interesting, more pleasant to be with—not grouchy from frustration or envy—and more satisfied with ourselves. Is anything more important?"

  Matt gazed at her. "You make a good case for it."

  "Good case for what?" asked Rourke, joining them. "Excellent dinner, my dear Nicole, as always. Your chef is more innovative than mine. Perhaps mine should come here for lessons. Are you making a case for decorating Matt's office?"

  "I offered. I was rejected."

  "Matt, you surprise me. Your hostess offers to design your office—"

  "And I merely said I wasn't there enough to appreciate it."

  "Notice it," corrected Nicole.

  "You'll notice and appreciate it, both, if Nicole designs it," Rourke said. "If she'd done it a few months ago you'd have found it more comfortable and been with us more often, available when we needed you, instead of running around the country. If you take my advice, you'll have her start on it right after New Year's."

  Matt looked from Rourke to Nicole. It was very neat; as if they'd planned the conversation in advance. You 'd have been with us more often,

  instead of running around the country. In other words, in Houston instead of Santa Fe. If Rourke wanted to re-open that discussion, even after agreeing to Matt's working half-time in Santa Fe until Peter graduated, what better way than through Nicole? But Matt couldn't be sure. And he preferred not believing they'd conspired to get him to change his plans.

  Nicole was studying him. "I think Matt would rather not have his office decorated," she said softly. "At least not yet. And he's probably right. He should set his own schedule. But I would like to work for you when you're ready, Matt. Will you call on me?"

  Her amber eyes were eager and a little anxious. Matt felt a stab of guilt for his thoughts. It wasn't like him to be suspicious. "Of course," he said. "In fact, there's no reason why you shouldn't do it any time, if you really want to. I don't know how much I'll be here, but I might as well enjoy my surroundings when I am."

  Nicole touched his hand briefly. "Thank you. I'm not busy in January; I can start right after the holidays. And I'll have sketches for you in a week."

  "There's no rush; I'll be in Santa Fe until after the first of the year."

  "Oh. Well, they'll be ready, whenever you are."

  "Rourke!" a new voice interrupted. "Lookin' fine; not hungry or sleepy or peevish. Must be that ex-cel-lent dinner which certainly sits well; very well. I thank you, Nicole; couldn't have left Houston without one of your spec-tac-u-lar dinners."

  "Leaving already, Terry?" Nicole asked.

  "I am, and I apologize." He shook hands with Matt. "Terry Ballenger. Don't know if you remember me; I bought—"

  "Of course I remember," Matt said. "I'd hoped we could meet when you bought our property, but the realtor and lawyers were too efficient for us. Are you enjoying Nuevo?"

  "Haven't had time to set foot in the place. New-ay-vo. Have to get there one of these days. Right now, though, I'm sorry, Nicole honey, but I am indeed sayin' goodbye; I'm flying to Hawaii tonight, looking at some property there—du-ty, you know; du-ty calls, even at holiday time—and then it's on to Japan, so I've got to run."

  "How much of Japan
are you buying?" Nicole asked, then said in mock warning to Matt, "Watch out for Terry, he'll buy your house out from under you while you're in the shower."

  They laughed and chatted lightly until Terry again made his farewells and Rourke walked with him to the door. "I cannot bear to be called honey!" Nicole said in disgust. "And the way he breaks his words into

  pieces ... I couldn't live with him five minutes; it would drive me mad."

  "He didn't mention other property when he bought my land last spring," Matt said thoughtfully. "In fact, I think he specifically said he was a car dealer."

  "He does that, too; he owns four dealerships. Is it important?"

  "What does he do with the property he buys?"

  "Builds on it, sells it, plants daffodils—who knows? I never can endure him long enough to find out. Somehow Keegan finds such peculiar people. Or dull. Most of them are dull."

  Matt forgot Ballenger. He looked at Nicole, waiting for her to tell him he wasn't peculiar or dull. But once again she avoided the obvious. "I'm sorry you won't be here New Year's Eve." Her husky voice was almost lost in the din of the party that was increasing steadily. Matt leaned closer. "I'm having a few friends over, very quiet, nothing like tonight. Keegan will be out of town. I was planning to ask you to join us. Music, conversation, dancing in the playroom, supper at midnight. But you won't be here."

  He felt the pull of her amber eyes and half smile; he could almost taste her spicy fragrance on his tongue. But then the party broke in, with its rising decibels, the smell of coffee and candle wax and balsam. "I'm afraid not," he said. He saw the shadow in her eyes—disappointment, he noted, rather than annoyance over not getting her way, which made him like her even more. "My family is counting on me and I'm looking forward to a week with them. We don't have much time together anymore."

  She tilted her head slightly. "What are your lucky colors?"

  "My what?"

  "Lucky colors. I need to know, for designing your office."

  "I haven't any."

  "Of course you have. You just don't know it. Poor Matt; no superstitions? I'll have to teach you some." She appraised him critically. "Burgundy. Midnight blue. Beige. Definitely not green or orange. What is it?" she asked as his eyebrows went up.

  "You just ruled out the two colors I like least. I hope that's as far as your mindreading goes."

  "It isn't," she said. "Fair warning."

  Just then the party shifted; the foyer filled with people and they were surrounded. Nicole smiled at him. "No more privacy for now. But I do have some ideas for after the first of the year."

  "Fair warning?" he asked lightly.

  "Fair warning," she repeated, and her hand brushed his as she was

  swept up by a crowd. Alone for a moment, Matt smiled to himself. As Rourke had said, she was very good. I should be flattered, he thought, especially since I wouldn't have expected her to waste her time on a married man. He watched her move among her guests. He followed her to the playroom where she briefly joined a game of marbles, knocking an agate from the circle with the aim of a ten-year-old on a city sidewalk. "I learned that in Paris," she said casually, and looked directly at Matt, a challenge in her eyes. Without a word, he squatted beside her and sent a Lutz shooter like a missile into two colored sulphides, knocking them out of the circle. "I was born knowing that," he said with a grin.

  All evening, when he was not talking or being talked to, Matt found himself near her, or he looked up to find her just behind him, or close by. When he thought about it that night, and the next morning, he realized he had talked to fifty people or more, but remembered only Nicole. Part of the game, he told himself as he sat on the plane watching Houston's vast sprawl and the blue-gray water of the bay disappear below him. Which she obviously likes for its own sake. Like marbles. Spin hard and fast and make an impression and then turn to something else to keep from being bored. A good way to play. No one gets hurt.

  Best of all, he thought before opening his morning newspaper, I can be sure I won't come back to a green and orange office.

  Snow fell on Christmas Eve, drifting from low clouds and wrapping Santa Fe in feathery white. Churchgoers strolled home at midnight on silent feet, as if walking through a cave, muffled and glowing faintly from pale street lights speckled with falling flakes. In their homes families lit farolitos— candles placed in sand inside large paper bags—and many set small bonfires, or luminarias, in front of their houses to recall the fires that had warmed the shepherds of Bethlehem.

  The next morning the sun blazed and the snow sparkled all over town, even as it began to melt on church domes and sidewalks, streets, lampposts, and the tops of adobe walls. And Christmas bells filled the air.

  Holly's pure voice soared through the house, singing carols and folk songs and snatches of operas. All week she had sung in Christmas con-certs, and in two Las Posadas pageants telling of Mary and Joseph's search for shelter, one performed in a church, the other in Lydia and Spencer's home in Tesuque for a gathering of friends. She had sung with the school chorus in a Christmas Eve concert in the Plaza, and all Christmas day, while she and Elizabeth cooked and cleaned, she was still so full of music she could not sing enough.

  "Maybe because Daddy's home," she told Elizabeth as she swooped

  into the kitchen and peered into the oven. "I feel so lovely inside. Full of love. When will everybody be here?"

  "Five," Elizabeth said. "What time did Peter say he'd be home?"

  "About four, but you know he's never on time. Do you worry about me as much as you worry about him?"

  "I would if you hitch-hiked all over the place the way he does."

  "Mother, he's almost eighteen. He's a man."

  "Oh. But you say the seniors who ask you out are only boys."

  Holly flushed. "They act like boys. I do go out, you know that, but there don't seem to be many real grown-up men in the world."

  God knows that's true, Elizabeth mused, thinking of the men she'd met at Rourke's party in Houston—as greedy as children for more money, more influence, more power—and the men at the Chieftain and the Daily News who seemed to spend half their time working and the other half looking for scapegoats when something went wrong. "But you should go out more often, Holly," she said. "You don't do enough with people your own age."

  "You don't go out when Daddy's in Houston."

  "Of course not. I wait until he's here."

  "Well, I'm waiting, too. When I find somebody I like, I'll go out with him. A lot. I promise."

  "What do you promise?" Matt asked, coming into the kitchen.

  "I promise to give you a Christmas kiss," said Holly, throwing her arms around Matt. "It's so lovely to have you home."

  "Yes it is," Matt said, wondering how he could have been away so much in the past months. From the moment he arrived, the day before, he'd felt himself being drawn into his family with a warm sense of belonging he hadn't felt on all the weekends he'd been back. Probably because he'd always brought work with him, he thought, and closeted himself at the Chieftain or in his office at home. This was a real holiday: the first week since he'd joined Rourke that he hadn't even brought his briefcase with him.

  "So if you think it's lovely, why aren't you here more often?" Holly demanded, and that was what they all asked him—the whole family and Saul and Heather—when everyone was at the dinner table watching him carve the turkey.

  "I thought I heard you say," Lydia commented, "when you took this new position, you'd be here at least half the time. Though my hearing could be failing with old age."

  "Nope." Peter poured honey on puffed triangles of bread called sopapi-llas. "I heard the same thing."

  "Well, men have to travel," Spencer put in absently. "Did everyone get a look at the bowl the posole is in?"

  "Yes, and it's beautiful," Heather said. "The most beautiful you've ever made. I thought Matt was planning to work in his office at the Chieftain,"

  "You didn't travel in your job," Lydia pointed out to Spencer.<
br />
  "I didn't make as much money as Matt, either," he replied. "You know, that is a beautiful bowl. I should have gone into woodworking in my youth, instead of spending my best years at a desk shuffling personnel records."

  "And ten years owning a bookstore and art gallery?" Lydia asked. "Was that such a sacrifice?"

  "What? Good heavens, no. We were working together—very pleasant —restorative after the university. But a man has to move on. Even at seventy-five."

  "What about it, Matt?" asked Saul. "You were going to work out of Santa Fe, at least until spring."

  "I thought I could," Matt said shortly. In Houston they think Vm in Santa Fe too much; in Santa Fe . . . "Does everyone have turkey?"

  "I don't," Elizabeth said quietly.

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I passed you up. I should have filled your plate first. Everything looks wonderful."

  "Everything is," said Holly. "That wouldn't surprise you if you ate here all the time, like most fathers."

  "That's enough, Holly," Elizabeth said. "In fact, that's enough from everyone. Let Matt enjoy his dinner. I want Peter to tell us about college. It's pretty special to get an early acceptance to the place you most want to go."

  Peter needed no urging; his excitement was still intact from the day, only a week ago, that the fat envelope had arrived from Stanford and he'd telephoned everyone with the news. He launched into a description of the university and the anthropology courses he planned to take, and that gave Elizabeth the opportunity to ask him another question. "Tell us about Los Matachines; I've never seen that dance. Where were you, Peter? Which pueblo?"