Private affairs : a novel (58 page)

"Today. How do you know what you'll need tomorrow?"

"You mean other than you?" he asked lightly. He pulled on the cashmere turtleneck she had bought him the day before, on her daily shopping tour of Aspen, and picked up the tortoise-shell comb on the dressing table.

"Very handsome," Nicole said, standing in the doorway of his dressing room.

Matt studied her reflection in his mirror. "No one will notice me when they see you." Her hair was pulled sleekly back; she wore narrow black leather pants and a wool and silk tunic woven of black and white nubbly threads; at her throat were twisted strands of freshwater pearls. "But this is a wonderful sweater, Nicole. Thank you."

She gave him a long, slow kiss and he pulled her against him. his hands moving down the silky tunic to her leather pants. She pulled away, smiling. "I'll try to keep you in cashmere; it suits you. Shall we zoT'

They drove down the winding road, their headlights illuminating chalets of rustic barn sidmg and stained glass windows, glass-fronted ranches

with swimming pools and tennis courts shrouded in deep snow, and massive four-level cedar homes tucked into the mountain. Below, the lighted town seemed to grow larger as they descended. It was cold and still in the early evening, reflecting the glow of Victorian street lamps, trees bending to the ground beneath heavy snow, and behind it all, Aspen Mountain's ghostly ski runs and black trees against the cloudy sky.

While Nicole browsed in her favorite boutiques, Matt wandered through the mall, buying a Jim Hayes silver belt buckle for Peter and another for himself; he bought a turquoise pin for Holly and, impulsively —because she was trying so hard to make this trip special for him—a hammered silver bracelet for Nicole.

He gave it to her in the car. 'Thank you for everything you're doing," he said, and slipped it on her wrist.

"I'm just hitting my stride," she said with a smile, then gave him directions to Starwood. As he drove down Main Street she turned her wrist, letting light from the street lamps gleam on the bracelet. "It's lovely. How thoughtful you are."

"The word is grateful. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I wouldn't have taken time off—"

"—though you clearly needed it, tense and moody as you were."

"—and I wouldn't have asked Keegan to loan us his house; I would have rented one."

"But you wouldn't have found one as lovely. You're too proper, Matt: I've borrowed that house dozens of times. Keegan loves being generous when it doesn't interfere with his plans, and he dislikes Aspen in December. He told me to check with him whenever we want to get away; especially March; he won't be using it then."

"I didn't know that. When did he tell you?"

"We had dinner last week, while you were in Denver. Turn right at the stoplight on the other side of the bridge. Now let me tell you about some of the people you'll be meeting; it's a different crowd from last night."

Each night it was a different crowd, at a different party, and each day a larger group joined them on the slopes. Nicole seemed to know everyone, and she'd filled their calendar for all ten days of the vacation. She had suggested the trip after the November elections, when Matt was working every night to catch up on work left over from the hectic campaign weeks.

He'd been unprepared for the demands on him. Besides the normal routine of keeping track of thirty papers, he had to follow their political coverage; work with his editors on which issues and candidates, both local and national, they would support; and take telephone calls from

morning to night from candidates asking for his editorial endorsement or legislators urging him to support candidates who would vote for their favorite bills.

And after election day, his telephone still rang. Newly-elected congressmen wanted his papers' support for bills in congress; city council members urged him to take this or that position on local problems with police and firemen, garbage collection, mass transportation, school lunches, new highways and state parks.

He and Rourke went over the list once a week, deciding which causes and political figures would get special attention. 'There's that firebrand congressman in Tulsa," Rourke said thoughtfully. "I want him out two years from now."

Matt frowned. "I endorsed him."

"I know that. We couldn't beat him this time, so I didn't raise the issue. But he isn't what we want in Oklahoma, Matt. Read up on him and we'll talk about it again."

"I've already read up on him. I don't make endorsements until I read up on candidates."

Rourke nodded. "I'd like you to take another look. Now, where do we stand on that dam and state park in New Mexico—Nuevo, isn't it? Can we control that woman when she's in the legislature?"

Matt smiled, picturing anyone trying to control Isabel. "No. But there's been a change; I think the people are beginning to want the dam. I'll have editorials and stories in the Albuquerque Daily News and the smaller chains. We have until January, when the legislature meets; we can do a lot by then."

The meetings went on, the telephone calls came in, the work piled up. But Matt reveled in it. He had an empire of thirty newspapers, four television stations and plans for buying more with the backing of Keegan Rourke, and a national network of corporate executives whom he called regularly to share information and advice. It was the headiest time he'd ever known; it seemed nothing was beyond his grasp. But he was also worn out and when Nicole told him he was moody, irritable, and needed a vacation, and she'd arranged for a house in Aspen, he was ready to go.

"Wonderful people for you to meet," she said with satisfaction as she finished filling their social schedule. "They detest tourists, so they come here now, when it's quiet."

She organized everything but breakfast; Matt drew the line there. "If I want an extra hour in bed with you, I don't want to be told we're due somewhere for orange juice and socializing."

Nicole conceded with a low laugh. "No dates for breakfast. I like that extra hour, too."

But in every other way she kept things moving, and the hours sped by in a kaleidoscope of people and talk, skiing, drinks before roaring fires, lavish dinners, late-night dancing, and early-morning lovemaking. By the time they were halfway through their stay, Matt had met as many political and corporate figures as he had in a year and a half with Rourke. "It's much easier when they're all in one place," Nicole said. "That's why I knew you should be here."

He'd been there before, Matt thought. But he and Elizabeth had seen no one. He felt a brief moment of nostalgia for that quiet anonymity, but it vanished in the blinding glare of this new side of Aspen that pulled Matt to its center. Tall, tanned, handsome, radiating vitality, his dark hair newly shot with gray, his blue eyes deeper and more intense than ever, he was the season's star attraction. And with Nicole's striking beauty beside him, they became the most sought-after couple in that group of the world's rich and powerful who made Aspen part of their yearly peregrinations.

At the Formans' cocktail party Matt was greeted everywhere by name, even by those whose faces were new to him. When Nicole left him to talk to a stockbroker from New York, he made his way through the crowd, holding his vodka with one hand, shaking hands with the other, exchanging pleasantries with worldly men in cashmere and suede, and confident women in silk jumpsuits with snakeskin belts, or velvet pants and fur-trimmed angora sweaters.

At the end of the long room a buffet table had been set up beside the pianist who was pounding out chords in a vain attempt to be heard. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Nicole's black and white tunic in the crowd and turned to see her talking to a tall red-faced man, deftly taking small dance steps backward each time he tried to put his arms around her. Matt pushed his way to her side.

"Matt, how lovely!" Nicole exclaimed with a little skip that took her almost into his arms. "I thought I'd lost you. May I introduce our host? Roy Forman, Matt Lovell."

"How do," Forman said. "Heard about you from everybody and his cousin. And Nicole talks favorably about you. She's a lovely lady, Nicole. You're a lucky fellow to have her."

"I don't 'have' her," Matt said, shaking the damp hand Forman held out. "But I'm lucky to have her friendship."

"Well, now, if that's the way you want it, senator. I could use a. friendship like that, myself."

"Publisher, Roy," said Nicole sweetly. "Not senator."

"What's to choose? He prints lies; senators tell them." He contemplated Man. "Which would you rather be?"

"Publisher," replied Matt in amusement.

"Then you're one of a kind. Odd breed, newspaper folk. Don't trust 'em, don't read 'em: that's my motto. Glad you could come tonight; look forward to skiing with you tomorrow."

He turned and was swallowed up by the crowd. Matt and Nicole looked at each other, laughing. "Polished and sophisticated," Matt said.

"I warned you. But it doesn't hurt to keep him friendly. Shall we circulate, senator?"

"I think you should know I'm forgetting names faster than I'm learning them."

"Don't worry. I remember them all. Just stay close to me and you have nothing to worry about."

"I'm discovering that," Matt said, and they followed Forman into the maelstrom of guests.

Forman was part of the group awaiting them the next morning when they arrived at the Little Nell lift. The group grew larger each day. and they rode the chairlifts in shifting combinations that gave everyone a chance to talk to everyone else. Musical chairs, Matt thought, amused, but it was exhilarating to be sought out by these powerful men and drawn into their turbulent lives.

"Damn good place to talk," said Seth Vaughn, chairman of Vaughn Electronics, as he settled himself beside Matt on the Bell Mountain lift. "How many places do you get fourteen solid minutes of privacy these days?"

"Not many," Matt said. "And if you try to sell the Aspen Ski Company on putting mobile phones on these chairs I'll oppose you in every one of my newspapers."

Vaughn chuckled, then began to talk of a breakthrough in high fidelity speakers as they moved up the mountain. The day was brilliantly clear, the air cold but windless beneath a blazing sun. Matt turned briefly to look at the receding town. The roofs of Aspen were mounded in white; white steam and smoke rose from the chimneys: the streets were white with packed-down snow.

"Nice place," Vaughn said. Matt turned back to him. "You know, Matt, I've been taking note of you, enjoying our talks, watching you ski. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he skis: you're confident and fast, you take chances but not crazy ones, and you like to know where you're going. I like that. I like to know where I'm going, too." When

Matt nodded, Vaughn put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "I think we ought to see more of each other. I'm going to have my wife invite you and Nicole to our place in Palm Beach for a week in January. Think you can make it?"

Matt kept his face still while triumph swept through him. Seth Vaughn, close friend of three presidents, former ambassador to England, gave few invitations. "I'd enjoy a few days, Seth," he replied. "A week is usually more than I can take. I work for a strict boss."

Vaughn's laugh echoed off the mountainside and from the chair in front of them Nicole turned and smiled at Matt. "Sure you do," Vaughn said. "He's so strict he talks to everybody about how great you are. Well, you work it out with my wife. A few days, a week, whatever you want. Already time to get off? Fastest damn ride on the mountain."

They stood and skied away from the chair to a flat area where the rest of the group awaited them. "Are we skiing from here?" someone asked. "Or taking the next chair to the top?"

"Now where else would Matt Lovell go but to the top?" Seth Vaughn asked.

They laughed and gave Matt mock salutes, then skied toward the next lift. Matt stayed behind, waiting for Nicole and thinking of what Vaughn might want. Everyone wants something, Rourke was fond of saying. They prance around for a while, but there's always something behind the stroking and the praise.

"Something wrong, senator?" Nicole asked, beside him.

He put his arm around her. "You're very beautiful this morning. Is that the new outfit?"

She nodded. "Elli's finest." It was a sleek one-piece suit of black piped in heavy white braid, and with it she wore white mittens and a white fur hat pulled close about her face. Her cheeks and lips provided the only color. "I'm glad you approve. Now what caused that frown between your eyes?"

"Vaughn. He wants us to come to Palm Beach as his guests. And of course he wants more. Probably fierce editorials pushing import quotas."

"Probably. But it's not all business, Matt; he likes you. He told Russ Garson he wishes he had a son like you."

"Too late; I've already been adopted by Rourke. Let's ski by ourselves for a while. Are you ready?"

"Always, dearest Matt." She threw him a smile and pushed off, to beat him down the slope. Matt deliberately held back, skiing just behind her. He enjoyed watching the fluid lines of her body as she swept down the mountain, her skis together, her body swaying like a long reed. She skied

as she did everything from Ping-Pong to socializing: with hard determination, staying close to the fall line, in perfect control but descending at an aggressive speed that would have left Elizabeth far behind and often beat Matt by several seconds. No one else in the group could challenge her and for their first few days the group had hired an instructor who specialized in leading the glamorous and the famous around the mountain. "We reserve Tommy every December," Lita Heller told Matt as they rode the chair to the sundeck. "Everyone enjoys him and he's very good with the ones who can't admit they have anything left to learn."

Matt smiled. "What's my share of his fee?"

"Nothing," she said easily. "You're our guest; the rest of us divide it up."

At once serene and vivacious, she and her husband had welcomed Matt into their circle of friends—all year-round residents of Aspen—with a natural openness that drew him to them, but now he shook his head. "I like to pay my own way, Lita. I'll take care of it at lunch, when I can get at my wallet."