Private affairs : a novel (8 page)

"How about me?" Holly demanded. "I thought it was a good idea, too! I think you're as wonderful as Grandma does!"

"And we thank you," said Matt. "We need you behind us."

"Well, if it works, of course it would be . . . fine," rumbled Spencer, not wanting to be left out of what was clearly building to a vote of confidence. "And of course I'm behind you as much as Lydia; and we'll help with something, if things get really tight. ..."

"Well, I can help too!" Peter exclaimed. "If you need money I'll sell my pottery collection—and get a job," he added with a dark look at his sister.

Matt took Elizabeth's hand, feeling her slender fingers link with his. "We won't ask you to sell anything, Peter, or go to work just yet. All we want is your faith in us. That's all we want from all of you. Because we have faith in ourselves. We know we're going to make it." He looked at Elizabeth with love and anticipation, and put his arm around her shoul-

ders. "When something is now or never," he told all of them, "and when you're working with someone you love, you don't hold back. You put everything you've got into it."

Holly drew in her breath at the look on her parents' faces. A sharp pain went through her: envy, hope—and a fear that maybe no one would ever look at her like that. "When do we start?" she asked, trying to share in their intimacy.

"In a couple of months," Elizabeth said. "When we close on buying the paper. October, probably. We start in October."

As Matt's arm tightened around her, she looked around the table at her family. A warm breeze lifted a corner of the tablecloth; the lantern lights flickered. "We're so happy," she said. "We know what we're getting into, and we know that everything is going to be so wonderful, from now on."

"Happily ever after," Holly said in a small voice.

"Yes," Elizabeth said. "I guess it sounds silly, but that's exactly right. The two of us. Happily ever after."

H A P T E R

I

.t was the beginning of the best time they had ever known: our golden time, Elizabeth called it, but softly, almost as if she were crossing her fingers, as she had in childhood, wondering how long it could last.

Because it was also a time when they felt as if they had launched a small boat on a stormy sea, one minute riding high and confident, the next plunged into worries about the crazy chances they were taking. They signed large documents filled with small print—each time cutting off a piece of themselves, Elizabeth thought—until it was all done: Lovell Printing sold, their house mortgaged; money borrowed from the bank. The only thing untouched was Zachary's house and land at Nuevo; at the last minute, Matt hadn't been able to bring himself to sell them. Then they signed the last documents, wrote a terrifyingly large check—and the Santa Fe Chieftain was theirs.

That night they took the family to see it. With Spencer and Lydia, and Holly and Peter behind them, Matt turned the key in the front door of the Chieftain building. But then, while the others went ahead, he and Elizabeth held back, gazing at the dark building that hulked unusually large in the light of the street lamp. Elizabeth shivered slightly in the cool October

Private Affairs 57

air, and Matt took her hand. "Forward," he murmured, and they followed the others inside.

A newspaper office is never really silent; even when empty it echoes with the day's frenetic activity: people rummaging through papers, photographs, and books, piling them on desks and the floor, tacking cartoons and notes helter-skelter on walls and partitions, leaving cold coffee in the bottom of Styrofoam cups, typing stories for new editions to join yellowing old ones piled haphazardly in corners and under desks.

As Holly and Peter dashed ahead with Spencer and Lydia following, their footsteps rang on the hard floor, but Elizabeth and Matt heard instead the familiar echoes that made them feel they'd gone back in time: to the university, and the daily campus newspaper; to the Los Angeles Times where they'd had summer jobs as intern reporters; to the years when they grabbed every chance to be together—in the classroom, in parks and city streets, in bed—falling in love, planning their future.

"And it's here," Elizabeth whispered in the large room. She gestured toward a glass-walled corner office. "Yours," she said, her voice shaking with the enormity of what they had done. "It's yours, Matt. Publisher and editor-in-chief. Try it out."

Still holding hands, they walked into the office and Matt twirled the high-backed leather chair at the desk. From there he could see the entire newsroom crammed with file cabinets and desks, those in the center for four reporters, two photographers, and two secretaries; others along one wall, separated by low partitions, for the managing editor, features editor, and advertising and circulation managers.

"Our empire," Matt mused.

"We snap our fingers," Elizabeth said whimsically, "and a staff leaps to obey."

"Creating hordes of new readers. ..."

"Luring advertisers. . . ."

"Moving mountains at our command. ..."

"Or at least moving the furniture," Elizabeth said as their laughter filled the small office. "Matt, I feel like a little girl with my first real toy."

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I keep wanting to giggle. Except that that's for kids."

"I like feeling like a kid once in a while."

He grinned. "Your father thinks we should be worrying."

They smiled at each other. "I love you," Elizabeth said.

"Now that is the best part of all. How many publishers and features editors are crazy about each other? Which reminds me. We're running this show together, but I have all this grandeur"—he looked at the

cramped space and shabby furniture—"and all you have is one of those cubicles out there. We'll build you a real office, next to this one."

Elizabeth shook her head. "I should be with the others. They expect it, and we don't want to make them more suspicious of new owners than they probably are." She took a deep breath. "Matt—I'm beginning to believe it."

He grinned again. "So am I. Elizabeth, my love, this is ours and it's going to be all right."

They put their arms around each other, excited, scared, eager, exhila-rated. "Free," Matt murmured, his lips against Elizabeth's hair. "Beginning again: my own way, my own dream." He caught himself as he felt the surprised tensing of Elizabeth's body. "Our way. We'll do everything we dreamed of. We waited so long, now we'll do it all. My God, we're going to be the greatest Mom and Pop business in America!"

Elizabeth laughed and they kissed, holding each other, their bodies fitting together.

"Excuse us," said Peter, lounging in the doorway. "We thought we were here for a guided tour from the boss. Bosses."

"/ didn't want to interrupt you," Holly said. "I thought it was crude."

"So I'm crude." Peter shrugged, attempting nonchalance. "I just thought it'd be sorta nice to see what we bought."

"Yes it would be," said Elizabeth, still in Matt's arms. "I just thought that first it would be sorta nice to kiss your father."

Peter reddened. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"No problem," Matt said casually. "We'll make time for everything. And right now," he added as Lydia and Spencer came up, "the tour is about to begin."

Elizabeth watched Matt lead the others through the long, low building, organizing the tour so that when they reached the back loading ramp, he'd given them a complete explanation of how a newspaper is planned, written, printed, and distributed through the city and nearby towns. But she was only half listening, letting her mind wander. We'll make time for everything. Nothing was ordinary anymore; everything was new. She thought about what she would be doing tomorrow and in the days to come. Making assignments instead of having them made for her. Writing the way she wanted instead of the way she was told. Working with Matt. Owning their paper.

Ours.

The glow began to fade the next morning, when sunlight showed the Chieftain to be simply another of Santa Fe's brownish-pink adobe build-

ings where there was work to be done, and Elizabeth and Matt tried to build up courage for their first meeting with the staff.

"Friday morning," Matt said. "Next issue of the paper due out next Thursday. All we have to do is get to know a bunch of people who have their own ways of doing things, convince them we're not going to change everything at once, make them feel needed, and at the same time sell ourselves as new owners who deserve respect and loyalty because we know what we're doing. ..."

"Nothing to it," Elizabeth smiled. "Just be our usual charming selves." She picked up an envelope on Matt's desk. "Someone's already writing us letters."

"Maybe they have a welcome wagon." Matt saw her face change as she read. "What is it?"

"Ned Engle. He's quit. As of today."

"Quit— r

Matt skimmed the letter, his face darkening. "The son of a bitch. He gave me his word he'd stay on as managing editor. At least six months, he said; that lying son of a bitch—"

"Matt, he knew this paper inside out; what are we going to do without him?"

Matt paced the small office. "Bastard. Didn't even wait to see how we run the place—//we run it. Six days to get the paper out. You'd think he wants us to fall on our face. . . ."

"Of course he does!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "That's exactly what he wants! He's waiting for us to call and beg him to come back."

Matt stopped pacing. "Right. And he can wait until he grows roots. We're not going to be at the mercy of any son of a bitch who thinks he holds all the cards."

Elizabeth's throat was dry. Her father had warned them, but they'd brushed it aside, so sure Engle would be there, his competence making their inexperience less obvious, giving them time to learn and take charge. "The reporters," she said, casting about. "They know the paper. Couldn't one of them take over, just for a while?"

"I am not going to start out the first day by asking reporters to run our paper for us. God damn it!" Matt kicked his chair, making it spin a full revolution. "That bastard managed the whole operation; obviously he wasn't the greatest, since the paper was going downhill, but he did run it." And we've never run a newspaper, he thought. Not off the protected turf of a university.

Elizabeth lined up a row of pencils on Matt's desk, very carefully, very

neatly, trying to keep down the fear spreading through her. "What do you think we should do?"

He shrugged and began pacing again. In a minute he stopped beside her where she perched on the corner of his desk. "Hold on," he said, and took her face between his hands. "This is both of us, remember? The whiz kids who are going to do everything together. So let me ask you: can two smart, talented, mature, ambitious people replace one crude, thoughtless, probably inept bastard?"

Elizabeth gave a small laugh and she brought Matt's face to hers and kissed him. "If you're willing to be half a managing editor, I'm willing to be the other half."

"Top or bottom?" he grinned, sitting beside her.

"Anything you say." She became thoughtful. "But if I'm features editor and half a managing editor—"

"Not much time for eating and sleeping. About the same as my being the other half, plus editor-in-chief."

"And publisher," Elizabeth added. "But I was thinking about my column. I was going to start it in a couple of weeks."

There was a pause. "It's going to have to wait," Matt said.

She was silent. It had waited sixteen years. "Not for long," he went on, with more assurance than he felt. "As soon as we know what we're doing around here, we'll hire a new managing editor. I'll tell you what," he went on when she still said nothing. "We'll set a deadline. Two months. You'll be writing your column in two months, if I have to raid the New York and Chicago newspapers to find someone."

Elizabeth smiled faintly. "More likely the University of New Mexico Journalism School; that's all we can afford. It's all right, Matt, I can wait." Through the glass wall, they saw the staff coming in, moving restlessly about the large room, making coffee, perching on the edges of chairs, glancing covertly or openly at Matthew and Elizabeth Lovell: their new bosses.

"They're nervous," Elizabeth said. "I wonder if they know we are too."

Matt stood. "As long as we're calm, confident, knowledgeable, and in control, everything will be fine."

She laughed. "You take control; I'll sit back and admire you. I think that's what they expect of a woman. Forward," she added, echoing Matt from the night before, and they went out to greet their staff.

Since the Chieftain had been sold, its fifteen staff members had been speculating about Matt, whom none of them knew, and Elizabeth, whose byline they'd seen for years in their rival newspaper. "And she's good," they said. "Good writer. But what she's like to work for . . . and what

he's like . . . what the hell does a printer know about running a newspaper?"

The previous management had been a disaster, but that didn't mean they were ready to welcome new owners with open arms, and when they took a look at the young couple walking out of Matt's office, the older ones looked at each other and shook their heads. She was a stunner; nobody that gorgeous was serious about hard work. And he had a long stride and confident air that meant he probably was stubborn. So they were cool and watchful when Matt introduced himself and Elizabeth, and they listened in silence as he described their backgrounds and their determination to make the Chieftain as big as its rival, the Examiner, and then bigger.

"I want to hear your problems and suggestions," he said. "But first you ought to know that Ned Engle has resigned as managing editor"—he waited for the flurry of comments to die down—"and until we hire a new one, Elizabeth and I will handle that job."

"Handle it?" asked Herb Kirkpatrick, gray-bearded with fierce eyebrows to match. "When you've never worked on a real paper before? Do you have a step-by-step manual?"

"Shut up, Herb." The lines in Barney Kell's face deepened in a scowl. "It isn't their fault; they didn't fire him. Did you?" he asked Matt, suddenly anxious.