Sleeping Beauty (56 page)

There was a long silence. Nina wiped tears from her eyes. Marian looked at Vince with amazement and admiration. “Well, well,” William rumbled. Leo looked at Gail, who stared stonily at her plate.

Clara smiled at Vince with love and pleasure. He had told her the whole story shortly after they met: how he had rebelled against his father's authority at home and in the business, and finally, in a fit of temper, had sold his shares in the family company and left home and deliberately lost touch with everyone but Charles. When he was planning this dinner, she had gently insisted that he apologize to them. Clara understood Vince. What he needed was someone who would tell him what he had to do to get along with people. Because, as brilliant and politically astute as he was, and terribly concerned about the welfare of his country, Vince did not understand people. Clara knew that. It was a strange flaw in an otherwise perfect man. But he had found her, and she knew she could guide him to say and do those things that would smooth his path wherever he went. She would be Vince's Seeing Eye dog, leading him through the thickets of human relationships. It was her mission.

“What I really want to talk about is Charles,” Vince said after the waiter had served their soup and left the room. “I'm terribly worried about him. He comes to see me in Washington fairly often, and he's as honest with me as any brother could be. I've come to think of him as one of the bravest men I've ever known. But he also has serious limitations, and that's why he's in such trouble. And I want to help him.”

He paused and pushed his soup bowl a little away from
him. “I've
got
to help him. It haunts me that one of us should have such terrible problems. And I love him. He's much older than I, but we've always been close. We're the best of friends. But I'm going to be very honest about this—I've thought about it for months and we can't help him by closing our eyes to the truth—Charles is a weak man. And a frightened one. He can't take decisive action—sometimes he can't take
any
action—because he's sure the consequences will be bad. And he's been right often enough to make him even surer of it. Just this year, to take the latest example, when he made a major decision and moved on it, it was a disaster. That was the Deerstream development in the northwest suburbs of Chicago that depended on a highway that was never built. You all know that story.”

He looked around the table. No one was eating; they were listening. “The problems really started when Dad lost interest in Chatham Development and put all his energies into Tamarack. Poor Charles was left behind, and let's be honest, none of us helped him. We'd let Dad built up the company, and we weren't willing to go in and bail Charles out when he was letting it go to hell. William liked to work a few hours a day and spend the rest of his time writing letters; Nina was trying to find someone she could love, who would love her as much as she needs and deserves; Marian and Fred wanted a big company and knew how to run one, but they weren't willing to move in and take it over—”

“Fred wanted to,” Marian put in.

“In the right circumstances,” Fred added quickly. “Not by myself, of course; Walter's been wanting to move up, too . . . my daughter Rose's husband,” he said to Clara. “We haven't been happy, watching the company go downhill, but I couldn't exactly elbow Charles out of the way; after all, he's the eldest son and Walter and I only married into the family.”

“Whatever the reasons,” Vince said easily, sidestepping the fact that Ethan had disliked Fred and kept him away from the top even though Fred had been angling for Vince's place long before Ethan kicked him out, “we all let Charles down. I wouldn't blame anybody—we're all busy and we
have our own problems—but the fact is, we abandoned him. And I have to tell you, I weep for him. A couple of weeks ago, when he came to Washington, he brought me Chatham Development's latest financial statement. I know you've all seen it, but let me run through it, so we'll all be talking about the same thing. The banks are pushing for a ten-million-dollar interest payment on the company's loans; they won't make any more loans until they get it; and there's no cash in the company to pay it. Maybe even more important, there's no cash to start new projects that would get the company moving again. And Charles himself—poor Charles, trying to keep things from crashing down—has personally borrowed forty million dollars, putting up everything he has as collateral. He's absolutely on the ropes, and we all know it.”

Vince took a sip of water. “Now. If The Tamarack Company is sold, Chatham Development could end up with thirty to forty million in cash after Tamarack's debts are paid. Charles could pay the banks their interest and get them off his back; he could repay part of his own loans; and he'd still have ten or twenty million to begin some of the projects he and Fred have thought up. They're ready to go. They haven't been sitting around on this; they're dead sure they can turn everything around. All they need is the tools. They need money.”

He looked at each of them. “So that's where we are. Charles is in Chicago trying his damndest to make us proud of him, but the company keeps shrinking under him, and every time I see him it's obvious that he's more and more a broken man. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I came out here to see if I couldn't get us together to help him. He's our brother! And your father, Gail! How much longer will we let him suffer? He's asked the family for one thing: to sell The Tamarack Company so he can use the money to pay his debts and put Chatham Development back on its feet. I've told him I'll help him all I can, that I won't let him down, and I'm sure—
I am absolutely sure
—the rest of you won't let him down, either. There are lots of things we can do to
help, even after we get him the money. Maybe we ought to think about some changes in the company. Maybe it's time Fred took over, he'd make a fine president. And of course Walter would work closely with him, and they'd continue Dad's legacy better than anyone could. I'll bet Charles would be delighted; he'd be chairman of the board, and he'd know he wasn't a failure.”

The waiter came in to take the soup plates. Vince waved him away. “I know how you feel about Tamarack,” he said to Gail and Leo. “But the rest of us grew up with Chatham Development; that was Dad's first dream, and it was the one we all had a part in. If I'd been a better person, I'd still have a part in it. But that's why I'm doing what I can, now, for Charles and also for Dad. I threw away my part in it because I was young and a damn fool, but I never lost my love for it, and I never stopped feeling that I had a responsibility toward it. Well look, that's my problem, not yours; you don't have to help me try to make amends for my mistakes. But I think we all love Dad's company and we all feel a sense of responsibility toward it I don't think I'm wrong about that.”

He leaned forward, his eyes warm and intimate, his voice soft but urgent “We must do this! All of us together can save Charles and Dad's company; we can give them both a new life. What better Christmas present for Charles, and for all of us, than to know we've done this good thing?”

His voice died softly away. There was a brief silence. “Oh, my,” Nina said. “Poor Charles. How could we say no? He needs us.”

Marian nodded slowly. “I love Tamarack,” she said. “I wouldn't want it changed.”

“Why would it be changed?” Vince asked. “It's been successful for a long time; why would anyone fool with it?”

“There's a man going around town, telling us how he'd fool with it,” Gail said angrily. “He's talking as if the company's already his and he's ready to remake the town. His name is Ray Beloit and he's your campaign manager, and you probably know all about what he wants to do.”

There was an almost imperceptible pause. “Ray wants to buy The Tamarack Company? He never told me. He was probably afraid I'd try to talk him out of it because he's so involved with my campaign.” Vince looked thoughtful. “I can talk to him and find out what's going on; maybe that's what I'd better do. If he's got enough backers to buy The Tamarack Company, that could be the best thing that ever happened to us. He and I've known each other for almost twenty-five years; he'd listen to me, to all of us, for that matter, if we had concerns about what happens to the town. But he might not be the one to buy it, you know. If we put it on the market, we'd have serious interest from a number of sources. Leo? What do you think about all this?”

“We'd be damn fools to sell,” Leo said bluntly. “We're coming out of a difficult position right now; we've had problems that have weakened us, and even if I supported a sale, which I don't, I know we couldn't get the price we could get in six months or a year, when we've recovered. But the point is, we shouldn't sell at all. This is still a healthy company, and it doesn't make any sense, business or otherwise, to sell a healthy company in the faint hope of saving a failing one.” He took a long breath. “Listen, I worry about Charles, too. It's not easy to see Gail's father in this mess, but selling The Tamarack Company won't save him. How do we know that Chatham Development will ever be strong again? It needs more than money; it needs a driving energy and a purpose and a goal and imagination, and it hasn't had any of those since Ethan left it. We all know that. And that's what we ought to be thinking about: helping Charles and the company put together a good plan to be profitable on their own, not going off half-cocked and selling The Tamarack Company when that could be throwing more money down the drain. And throwing away Tamarack, too. It doesn't make sense.”

“Oh, dear,” Nina sighed.

“But you don't know how much we might get for Tamarack,” Marian said. “If it's higher than you're supposing it will be—and I do think you're making too much of these
little problems you've had, Leo, the water and so on; you're just too close to it to be objective—it might be enough to pull Charles out and make the company healthy, and we'd all be better off. We really have no idea what would happen if we put it on the market.”

“You'd get low offers,” Leo said. “And then it would be hard as hell to pull back; you'd have money dangling in front of you and you'd want it. Charles would want it.”

“Leo, really, he's not foolish,” Marian said chidingly. “Charles knows what he needs. He wouldn't want us to sell if it wouldn't help him.”

“He'd want what he could get,” Leo insisted. “He'd begin to think he could work miracles with whatever he could get.”

“No, we could control that,” William said. “That's not the problem. The problem is Charles and what we owe him, and I don't like it, but I think Marian's right. We owe it to him at least to find out what we could get.”

“But we haven't talked about anything else!” Gail cried. “Other ways to help him, other things we can do . . .”

“We'll do that, too,” said William. “But we have to start with The Tamarack Company; it's a bird in the hand. We don't have any other good ideas, do we?”

Gail bit her lip. Leo put his hand on hers. “Then we've got to set a good price, and not sell below that.”

“That's a little rigid,” Vince said gently. “We're talking about Charles; not cold real estate.”

“Well, of course, it's all Charles,” said Nina. “We're doing it for him. We don't have to hold out for the absolute highest price; that might discourage buyers. Whatever we get would help him, don't you think?”

“We'll get a good price,” Marian said. “We don't have to hold out for the moon, but we'll do fine; this is a prestigious company.”

“Let's see what offers we get,” William growled. “Then we'll make a decision.”

No one looked at Leo and Gail. They all knew the lineup of the shares in Chatham Development that Ethan had
distributed: that Charles, with Marian and her family, controlled 42 percent; and Gail and her family 13 percent. Either William or Nina could join Charles and Marian in a vote to sell, and that would be the end of it.

The waiter looked into the room again. This time Vince gestured to him to clear the soup plates and serve the next course. It was time for them to enjoy a family dinner.

K
eith watched Leo and Anne step into the gondola car for the ride up the mountain. He checked his watch. One minute to nine, on the dot. He looked up and met their eyes, and smiled brightly. “You never miss a morning,” he said to Leo as he walked beside their slow-moving car. “Even Christmas day.”

“What about you?” Leo asked. “Didn't I say you could take the day off?”

“I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I'm out of here in a couple minutes.” The car reached the end of the gondola building and the door automatically slid shut. “Have a good time,” Keith said, waving, and turned away as the car rapidly picked up speed and moved up and away from him.

“How about that,” Leo said. “Showing up on Christmas morning to make sure everything's okay. Keith always manages to surprise me.” He settled back on the cushioned seat. The car was made to hold six people, three facing up the mountain and three down, toward the town. Anne and Leo sat facing the town. The streets below were quiet so early on Christmas morning, the rooftops heavy with snow, the parks a jumble of sled tracks and footprints in the snow, guarded by snowmen. The peaks encircling Tamarack were pink-gold in the sunlight, but in the valley, the town was still in shadow, and the Christmas lights were like necklaces
draped over trees and buildings, and outlining the roofs and front porches of houses.

Anne forgot Keith and the discomfort she always felt when he was around. She liked sitting in the small, enclosed car with Leo, watching the mountain slide past beneath them. He was a good friend, easygoing and undemanding, as close to a brother as she could have. Fleetingly, she thought of Josh, and she knew that she would have liked him to be the one sitting beside her as they swung above the earth in sunlight and silence. Well, he won't be, she thought. It won't happen. She took a long breath, gazing through the clear plastic window that encircled the upper half of the car, and thought instead about Tamarack.