Sleeping Beauty (20 page)

“Is that why you married me? For my possibilities?”

“Let me see if I can remember. I married you because you could turn on your charm and be a wonderful companion for a whole evening, and I thought with my help you could learn to be wonderful for a week or a month, maybe even a year. I suppose I married you so I could share your stardom; it's fun to be at the center of power. What else? Oh, yes. You're very clever, Vince, and I always wanted to marry a clever man. I thought you might be smart, too, but I've decided you're not. You don't learn. I think that may be your fatal flaw. Oh, here we are.” The limousine had come to a stop beneath a brightly lit canopy. “Smile, Vince; you've only got a week to go.”

She said it again after dinner, when the television lights were turned on and the cameras were trained on the podium
with its array of microphones. Looking deeply into Vince's eyes for the benefit of the photographers clustered below the main table, Maisie adjusted his bow tie with loving hands. “Smile, Vince. We've only got a week to go.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the party chairman. “My job tonight is to introduce a speaker everybody knows. I looked around for something new to say about him—maybe he raises llamas, or he's a champion at barbecuing spareribs, or he buys his lovely wife pearls or cars or airplanes—but I decided to let him have his secrets, if he has any, because all we need to know about him is this: he believes in growth for Colorado and growth for America, and he knows what he's talking about because he's put Colorado on the map when it comes to growth. He's a
can-do
and
will-do
guy; his name stands for
big
and
biggest
and
get out of my way because I'm on a fast track,
and that's what we need more of these days when people say America is falling behind. His name stands for success, and that's exactly what
America
should stand for! We all know his name . . . ladies and gentlemen, Vince Chatham, the next United States senator from the state of Colorado!”

Four hundred people were on their feet, cheering. Vince took the few steps to the podium and erased Maisie from his thoughts.

“Good evening,” he said when the room was quiet. His voice was low, as it always was when he began, but as he spoke, it grew in volume and intensity so that by the time he finished he was shouting. The speech, like all his speeches, was short, with short, rhythmic sentences and sketchy ideas that would come across on television with the speed of a variety show. “The chairman gave my speech so brilliantly I think I'd be better off keeping quiet.” He waited for the ripple of laughter to die away. “But I would like to talk about a few ideas I have for now and the future. We're surrounded these days by naysayers. People who keep telling us what won't work. What can't be done. What isn't possible because it's too
expensive
or too
time-consuming
or too
risky
or too
uncertain.
These people mean well—though we can't always be sure of that, can we?—but are they the kind of
people who built America? Are they the kind of people who won two world wars, and rescued Europe, and conquered space? Are they the kind of people to lead us back to greatness?” His voice rose. “I don't know about you, but let me tell you,
I am sick and tired of being told what I can't do!”

The room exploded in applause. When at last Vince went on, he talked about Colorado and America, and growth. “Growth makes wealth!” he cried. He was coming to his conclusion and his voice was almost at full volume. “We can have steady growth and still protect every small businessman and every family farm. We can have large-scale growth and still preserve the land we love!”

“How?” murmured Maisie, but no one heard.

“We'll fill the empty acres of this vast country with houses for everyone. We'll fill them with splendid shopping centers so no one will be more than arm's length from abundance. We'll fill them with factories and schools and highways. We'll fill them with movie theaters and amusement parks and zoos to provide recreation for everyone. We'll fill the empty acres of this vast land with the good things of life because we know how to do it better than anyone in the world . . .
and because we've earned it!”

Applause swept over him. He held up his hand. “Listen to this! Never forget it! And don't let anyone tell you otherwise! We gave freedom and democracy to the people of the world! We gave the principle of hard work to the people of the world! We gave the greatest industrial production and the most skilled management teams in the history of the world! We gave space exploration to the world! We gave the ethic of the family to the world: a strong, enduring, loving family that protects its young and helpless from the dangers around them! We made the world a better place for everyone, and now we deserve to build the best life for Americans that can be built!
We deserve it!
And that's what we're going to get, starting next week when I become your senator—”

Applause and cheers rose to the chandeliers.

“—and take that message to Washington—”

The roar drowned out his last words. No one cared. Vince was smiling, the sweet, humble smile of a public servant
who was being loved. His brown eyes were bright as they swept the room, resting for just a second on his wife, who was applauding with a mockery only he could see.

His look moved on, skimming the excited eyes and cheering mouths and clapping hands of his voters, pausing at each television camera so it could send to the world his open smile and purposeful gaze. Everything was all right; everything was under control.

Maisie would stay with him; women like her never walked away from powerful men. Ethan and Charles and the others would be there when he needed them. Already they'd helped; they provided him with a visible family. His picture, surrounded by many of his loved ones, had been in
Time
and
Newsweek
and
People.
He was the ideal candidate, with the perfect wife, the perfect family, the perfect message.

And a week later, even before the polls closed, he was Senator Vince Chatham, on his way to Washington, and eventually, the rumors already said, the White House.

A
nne was in her office when she read about Vince's election. It was early morning and she was alone in the thirtieth-floor labyrinth of lawyers' offices and secretaries' cubicles, drinking coffee and reading the
Los Angeles Times,
when, suddenly, Vince's face was before her, grinning in boyish triumph. With a cry, Anne dropped the paper. Coffee splashed on her desk as she clumsily put down her mug. She was trembling, and felt a coldness spread through her, a shame and helplessness that she had not felt for years. Stop it, she said silently, stop it, stop it, stop it, and gripped her hands together to force her body into stillness.

She swiveled her chair and stared unseeing through her large windows. It had been nineteen years since she had last seen that smile, and still it could cause her to tremble and draw her body together in defense. Bury it, she told herself—the same words she had repeated every day for the first year she was in Haight Ashbury. Bury it.

She tried to focus on the view that usually gave her such pleasure. Thirty floors below, the early-morning sun had turned the sprawling vista of Los Angeles to red and gold, with the mountains in the distance crisply outlined against a pale blue sky. The landscape was at its clearest and most beautiful in this hour before the smog built up; the towering palms, velvet lawns, and lush tropical flowers gave no hint that it was November and, in other parts of the country, the beginning of winter.

From the thirtieth floor, the city looked rich, orderly, and serene. It was a landscape that always gave Anne a feeling of comfort and safety, and in the midst of even her busiest days she frequently glanced at it as an antidote to the pinched meanness and splintered dreams that permeated her office as she dealt with clients in the midst of divorce.

Everything about the thirtieth floor gave her that feeling of safety and comfort, especially her office. It was large, with a wall of windows, and it seemed to wrap her in a protective embrace. The furnishings, like those of all the offices in the firm, were heavy walnut and leather, the lamps were brass, the carpet was dark green, the paintings on the walls were of English cathedrals and rural scenes. Anne liked the solid permanence of the room and had not added a single personal touch other than her framed diplomas from the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School. But soon after she moved in, Eleanor came from New York for a visit, and said it needed something different.

“Maybe even a little eccentric,” she said. The next week, a long, narrow mirror with an antique English frame was delivered to the office. “Hang it opposite your desk,” Eleanor had written on the note that accompanied it, “so whenever you look up, you'll see the best lawyer in Los Angeles. And also my very best friend, whom I miss, damn it, because we don't see each other nearly enough.”

Anne turned from the window and looked at herself in the mirror. Her dark blue eyes gazed back at her steadily, with no sign of distress. It was a look she had spent years perfecting. She was often admired for her beauty, but that was not as important to her as the image she presented to the world of a professional woman in perfect control of herself. Her black hair was sleekly coiled at the back of her long neck, her only makeup was a pale coral lipstick, small pearls were at her ears, and she wore superbly cut suits of wool and silk that made her look taller and more imposing. Her public image was smooth, guarded, and impeccable, and no one who met her doubted her reputation as a skillful, tough lawyer who had overcome her firm's prejudices to
become a partner though she was just thirty-four and a woman.

She sat in her large, leather executive chair and gazed at the public image in her mirror. She had been polishing it for a long time, from the lonely, anxious years in Berkeley to the increasingly confident ones at Harvard when she discovered that the law was exactly what she wanted, and knew she would be good at it. She kept working on that image when she got to her first job in New York, and she still worked at it, even now when she was part of the most prestigious firm in Los Angeles and was already their top divorce lawyer, sought out by corporate executives and television and film celebrities who wanted her skill and discretion. She had lived with her image for so long that she had begun to believe she was indeed the person she saw in the mirror.

And then I fell apart over a photograph in a newspaper.

Beyond her door, the office was coming to life. Lawyers, clerks, secretaries, and receptionists greeted each other, gossiped, told jokes, and discussed the day's activities as they walked to their desks or gathered in conference rooms. Anne heard snatches of conversations and bursts of laughter as the pace quickened. It was her favorite time of day, when she could anticipate everything that lay ahead: the high drama, the surprises, even the plodding details of the law. All of it was her world and it sustained her. It was only here that she felt truly at home, and alive.

It wasn't just a photograph. It was a reminder. A ghost. And now I have to start again, learning how to get rid of it.

She picked up the paper and forced herself to read the story.

A wealthy real estate developer who brought distinctive, often daring architecture and massive building projects to Colorado and the mountain states, Vince Chatham ran a well-financed campaign that avoided specifics and successfully fended off accusations of shady connections and questionable tactics in his rise
to prominence. He won election to the Senate, his first political office, by a narrow but decisive margin.

It's just a story about a politician. It could be anybody. It has nothing to do with me.

It was quieter beyond her door; the office was at work. But still she sat, facing the mirror, as if waiting for something. After a moment, on impulse, she picked up her telephone and dialed Eleanor's number in New York.

The private secretary answered, and then Eleanor was there. “I was just going out; God, I'm glad you caught me; I haven't talked to you in ages. How come you're calling in the morning? Is anything wrong?”

“No, I just felt like talking. Where are you going?”

“Shopping and then a ladies' lunch, and then I'll pick up the kids and take them to New Jersey for the weekend to make their grandparents ecstatic. Are you sure nothing's wrong? You never just feel like talking; you're usually too busy.”

“I guess I was thinking about when I was younger, and I thought of you. How's Sam?”

“Even busier than you, if that's possible. I don't see much more of him than I do of you, or anyway it seems that way, but maybe that's the formula for a good marriage. Or at least one that lasts. I think about being younger, too. I miss it; we had such a good time. Are you missing it?”

“No. I'm glad I'm through with it. I never felt in control of my life. I do miss going barefoot sometimes.”

“You're one of the star lawyers out there; you could work barefoot all day long and nobody would say a word. You'd probably start a trend. Pretty soon the
Times
would be photographing upscale people going barefoot on Madison Avenue and the footwear industry would be writing letters to the editor, crying foul.”

Anne laughed. “If I decide to try it, I'll let you know. Who's going to be at the ladies' lunch?”

“A bunch of very high-society types who wear Valentino for lunch and Ungaro for dinner. Or maybe it's the other way around. We're planning a benefit for the library. It's
going to be a swell party; why don't you come for the weekend and go with Sam and me?”