The bedroom opened onto a porch that was built over the east wing, vulnerable to the salt spray that blasted off the rocks and soaked the air, and facing into the sunrise. In all the world, this was Ellie’s favorite place and she resented every moment of absence. “Politics,” she lamented into the steam that was rising from her coffee mug. Gordon’s candidacy was dragging her out of her life, far from her children, and away from her work. She had anticipated the intrusions of noblesse oblige when she had married into the Acton family, but she had never imagined just how wrenching those intrusions would be.
“Why?” she had asked Gordon when he told her he was thinking of filling the vacancy in Congress.
“Just something I should do.”
“Why should you do it? Don’t you have a choice?”
“I guess it’s something I want to do. Other things take care of themselves. This is something that I can affect. It’s a place where I can make a statement.”
Ellie hadn’t discouraged him. She had put aside her academic career so she could be with him at important events. She had surrendered her kitchen to the housekeeper. Most galling, she had turned her children over to babysitters during the days, and rushed home late many nights only to find them already in bed.
“Politics,” she whispered again.
But there had also been benefits, most importantly the revived energy of their marriage. It was hard to do anything important for Gordon, who was used to having things done for him. The Actons didn’t even have to clip their own coupons. But with her background in special education, she had become a symbol of Gordon’s promises for better schools. He had publicly deferred to her views and openly admired her determination to send her own children to the public schools. There was even a hint of her becoming the state’s educational czar.
She had also lent a sense of history. Ellie was Ellie Williams, a direct descendant of Roger Williams. Her roots in the state reached back to times when it wasn’t even a state, or even a colony. While the Actons had been building ships on the Narragansett since the Civil War, the Williams had been fighting for religious tolerance in the area since 1650. It was who they were more than what Gordon stood for that had crushed the hopes of the state’s largest Cadillac dealer.
And, there was her obvious class. Here was a woman of means married to a man of even greater means. She could do whatever touched her fancy. What she had chosen to do was involve herself in solving the problems of failing schools and, more important, failing children. Even if a voter couldn’t identify with a rich kid whose family had made a fortune selling lifeboats to the navy in World War II, it was easy to admire his charming wife. Ellie felt important again.
Gordon stepped quietly onto the open porch and slipped into one of the Adirondack chairs, setting his own coffee on the arm. “They’re fed, dressed, and hypnotized by television,” he announced.
“Something educational?” Ellie asked.
“Wile E. Coyote,” Gordon laughed. “It’s okay as long as the voters don’t find out.”
They shared the sunrise and the small of salt air.
“Gordon, yesterday Henry was talking about seeing me during the summer. You’re not going to need me during the summer, are you?”
“I always need you, spring, summer, winter, and fall.” He began humming the song from Camelot.
“I mean for the campaign.”
“Not as much. The primary was the real contest. The last time the district went Democratic was during the Great Depression.”
’Then I can plan on having my summer.”
He nodded.
“The way we discussed. Out on the Cape where I can finish my damn thesis.”
He nodded again.
“With a nanny, so I won’t be constantly interrupted?”
“Right,” Gordon said. “Away from politics. Away from Henry Browning. Except for an occasional appearance now and then. And I’ll be out there every weekend. Maybe even some days during the week.”
She leaned back and sighed with pleasure.
“I’ve even arranged for your nanny,” he said.
Ellie sat bolt upright.
“Contingent on your approval, of course,” he rushed to add.
“You’re arranging for my mother’s helper.”
“Not really. That’s your call.”
“I was thinking of Trish Mapleton. She watched the kids a lot last summer and Molly really liked her.”
Gordon nodded. “Then Trish Mapleton it is.”
Ellie stared at him for a moment. “What is it, Gordon? What is it that you’re not telling me?”
He tried to look innocent of any possible deception. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just that there’s this girl... a nineteen- year-old in junior college... the class valedictorian when she graduated from high school. I thought I’d arrange to have you interview her.”
“Do I know her?”
“I don’t think so. Her name is Theresa. Theresa Santiago. She’s from Tiverton. Very blue collar.”
“I know Tiverton,” Ellie fired back. She looked suspiciously at her husband.
“She’s kind of an overachiever. Worked to help out her family while she was winning all sorts of academic honors. Now she’s trying to earn money for college,” Gordon said to fill in what was becoming a heavy silence.
“This is Henry’s idea,” Ellie concluded.
“No, it’s my idea. Henry just pointed out the opportunity. It made enough sense to me that I thought I’d run it by you. And it looks like I have your answer.” He pushed himself up from the Adirondack chair. “It just seemed that with your interest in education this might appeal to you.” He picked up his coffee mug and started back into their bedroom.
“Santiago,” Ellie said slowly. “Is she Portuguese?”
“No,” Gordon said, turning back from the door.
“Minority?”
“She’s Hispanic. Her family came from Santo Domingo.”
“And Henry wants the voters to see you stirring the melting pot. Or tossing the salad, or whatever the politically correct metaphor is.”
Gordon bristled, and set his mug back on the arm of the chair. “I told you this was my idea. And there’s nothing racial about it. It’s just simple logic. The state-line area is a Democratic stronghold. The people over there don’t care much for the blue bloods on Ocean Drive.”
“Because we’re all Wasps, and they’re all immigrants. And that sounds racial to me.”
“Okay, call it racial if you like but that’s not my term. I call it smart politics. If we can break the Democrats’ hold on the area, we can turn this election into a landslide. It would be great if some of those people reached across to us, and I think one way of getting that to happen would be for us to reach over to them. This girl is a neighborhood icon. She’s the poster child for the schools you’re hoping to build. It just seemed to me that the two of you together would be a knockout.”
Ellie made no attempt to hide her anger. “So, instead of working on my thesis, I’m supposed to entertain the poster child as well as mind my own two children. And show up at every photo opportunity with my Latina companion. God, but this whole thing stinks. It smells just like Henry Browning.”
“I said it was my idea. And I have no intention of you entertaining Miss Santiago. I expect that she’s going to watch our kids so that you can get your thesis done.”
Ellie turned away in a pout. “I’ll bet…”
Gordon got aggressive. “That was my thought. Based, in part, on the fact that you weren’t all that happy with Trish Mapleton last summer.”
“Trish was fine—”
He cut her off. “Didn’t you catch her under a blanket with a lifeguard when she was supposed to be watching the kids?”
“That was just one incident.”
“And weren’t you upset at what Molly might be thinking with all that action happening ten feet from where she was building a sand castle?”
“Well, maybe Trish Mapleton isn’t th
e perfect choice,” Ellie conceded. “But I think it should be one of the girls who vacations on the Cape.”
“Blond hair, blue eyes, and great teeth,” Gordon said sarcastically.
Ellie rejoined the battle. “That’s not what I mean. But as long as you bring it up, what kind of an experience do you think a minority kid will have with a summer on the Cape? You think she’ll get to spend her free time at the yacht club with the rest of the kids? You think she’ll be invited to the clambake?”
“Ellie, I wasn’t planning on adopting her. I was thinking about giving her a job, where she could make some money for college, learn from you, and enjoy the beach in the bargain. I was figuring that she would be watching our kids so that you and I could go to the clambake.”
“And pick up another thousand votes in the process,” she added.
“And pick up another thousand votes in the process,” Gordon agreed. “Is that so bad? If an idea works for me, and works for you and the kids, why do you think it had to come from Henry Browning?”
That was his parting shot. He stormed off the porch deck and kept moving through the bedroom and down die stairs to join his children and Wile E. Coyote. Ellie stayed out on the porch while her anger cooled to self-pity. “Damn politics,” she mumbled to herself over and over again. It took her half an hour to rally her spirits and get into the day’s activity.
Three
Gordon motored away from the slip and turned west toward Jamestown, dead into the chilly wind that was keeping the memory of winter alive.
“Motor or sail?” he offered.
Molly said “sail” simultaneously with Tim’s decision of “motor.”
“Okay, a little of each,” Gordon decided.
They were a nuclear family at its most nuclear moment, all together in the cockpit of Lifeboat, their big catboat knock-off, named after the source of his family fortune. Seated at the helm, the wind brushing his salt-and-pepper hair, Gordon was playing the role he liked best. His strong hand on the wheel conveyed a sense of command. He was in charge, capable of taking the ship wherever he thought best. His wind-breaker, over an open-collar shirt, portrayed his informal side, a captain whose authority was obvious without special chevrons or symbols of rank. His physique—tall, muscular, trim—announced his strength. Yet his face, with blue eyes wide open and full lips that seemed always to be breaking into a smile, modulated his physical presence with a promise of concern and compassion. This was his self-image, acted out so that it could be shared with his wife and children, and now with his broader political family. Henry Browning had wanted to send a very gifted photographer along when he heard that Gordon was going to spend the day after the nomination sailing with his family. “He’ll just be there shooting candids. One little camera. You won’t even know he’s onboard.” But Gordon, anticipating what Ellie’s reaction would be, had vetoed the idea instantly. “Not now,” he had told Browning. And Henry had accepted the verdict. “You’re right. Let’s do it later when we can put Theresa Santiago into the family setting.”
Ellie was sitting on the opposite side, unable to relax as she eyed her children. They were experienced sailors; Molly had gone on cruises with them when she was only three, and was already captaining her own sailing dinghy in the yacht club youth program. Tim had been brought aboard before he was able to walk. They were both in life jackets and sitting low on the cockpit deck where they were in no danger of being tossed over by waves, or even a broadside hit. But the sea was always uncertain, and Ellie wanted certainty for her children.
She was, in many ways, the opposite of her husband. Where he was physical, she was intellectual. Where he was solid and muscled, she was lean and frail. Not sickly, in any sense of the word, but more straight than curved, more angular than soft. She was over five foot nine and yet weighed less than one thirty, a fact that explained how her bra could ride up over her breast. In the summer, she hardly ever wore one, preferring to put on a fitted shirt so that the shapes beneath could occasionally give provocative hints as she moved. Her face was interesting more than glamorous, with a long nose and hard-etched features that bore a resemblance to the face of her distinguished ancestor, whose portrait hung in the foyer of the state house. Her eyes were brown but took on green overtones whenever she put a light rinse in the brunette hair that she wore short.
“Put up the sail,” Molly demanded.
“When we’re in the channel,” Ellie answered.
It was an exchange that occurred in one fashion or another every time they left the dock.
Ellie still lacked some of Gordon’s self-assurance, probably because she had come late into her career, and to the acclaim that her work brought. She had been an indifferent high school student whose best moments came on the tennis court, but even these were never of championship quality. She had picked her college, a small teacher’s school in Boston, because it was less competitive, and picked her career in education because it didn’t seem as demanding as careers in law or medicine. By the standards of the Williams family, she was a bit of an underachiever, a view that probably accounted for the fact that she had never told students or faculty about her distinguished heritage.
But when she actually began working with public school children, her interests focused, her energy strengthened, and her personality blossomed. Ellie became die tireless advocate of every failing child in the district, and a gadfly to administrators who were terrified at the thought of venturing beyond the status quo. As her new programs were implemented, and lost children were recovered, she was recognized as a tireless overachiever. The Williams name attached quite easily to her new reputation as journalists and toastmasters began to see a parallel between Roger Williams’s rebellion against religious conformity, and Ellie Williams’s battle with educational apathy. It was her reclaimed heritage that made her a perfect match for the powerful Actons.
But beneath her daring demeanor, Ellie was still a bit timid, particularly when it came to the safety of her children and the health of her family. Gordon’s political ambitions were a threat to the privacy that she wanted for her daughter and son, so she was a less than enthusiastic running mate. In the same way sailing, even with her husband’s skill and responsibility, posed a physical danger to the children, so Ellie was a less than enthusiastic shipmate. It had been her preference for a boat that was tame and easy to handle that prompted Gordon to buy a beamy, single-sail catboat design instead of one of the more powerful ocean racers that he would have preferred.
“Molly … Tim?” Ellie asked.
Neither gave any indication that they had heard her voice.
“I have … actually, your father and I have a question that we want to ask you.”
Molly looked up with attention while Tim kept knotting one of die mooring lines.
“We’re thinking of hiring a full-time mother’s helper for the summer. A girl who would be living with us, and with you all the time.”
Gordon focused on her. Very fair, he thought. She could have used words like babysitter, or different kind of girl, or new girl, which would have instantly prejudiced them against the idea. Instead, she was putting the idea in a positive light. Someone who would be with the family for the summer, and with them whenever they needed supervision.
“What about Trish?” Molly asked, seeing through the inoffensive wording of the question. “Is she going to take Trish’s place?”
“No,” Ellie lied. “Trish will still be there to take you out. But she has things of her own to do. She can’t be with you all the time. This girl would be around all the time with nothing to do except be with you.”
Gordon found himself smiling, not so much to sell the idea, but rather in admiration of Ellie’s skill. She was the politician, able to make any decision sound pleasing to all the diverse constituencies. He knew she didn’t like the plan, but she was giving it every chance to win favor.
“I like Trish,” Molly decided. “But, if the other girl is around just when Trish can’t be, that’s okay.
”
“What if they both were around sometimes?” Ellie asked, unwilling to let her daughter think that the new girl would function only as a pinch hitter.
Molly shrugged her indifference.
“Then should I invite her over so that you can meet her?”
“Sure!”
“And what about you, Timmy?”
He looked up blankly from the rat’s nest he was tying into the mooring line.
“Would you like to meet her?”
He rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “Meet who?”
“The new girl who might be with us on the Cape.”
“What new girl?”
Ellie looked up at Gordon, smiled, and shook her head. “I don’t think he cares one way or the other. Probably doesn’t even remember Trish from last summer.”
Gordon leaned across the wheel so that he could whisper to her. ‘Thanks, for the way you handled it.”
She accepted the compliment.
“Okay,” he called out to his crew. “Let’s get the sail up.”
Ellie slipped aft and took her station at the wheel, keeping Lifeboat’s bow into the wind and the telltales blowing astern. Molly unlocked the mainsheet so that the wishbone could move freely. Gordon began cranking in the main halyard, lifting the sail up the mast where it began to unfurl and snap with the wind. Ellie turned a few points to starboard so that it would billow into the shape of the wishbone.
“Ready about,” said Ellie on Gordon’s signal. Molly and Tim scampered into the cabin, safe from the lines that would be moving across the deck. “Hard alee,” Ellie called as she turned the lumbering boat across the wind and aimed it down the channel. She slowed the throttle while Gordon trimmed the sail. Then she switched the engine off. The instant quiet was overwhelming, her first chance to get in touch with herself since Gordon had announced his candidacy.
The Trophy Wife Page 34
