Treasure Box Read online

  "Who?"

  "You."

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. "You're my dream, and here you are."

  "No, that's not what you told me. There in the garden. Under the cherry tree."

  "En château de la grande dame."

  "Remember? You coveted power, you said. To pick your candidates and help them get started. What you didn't have was money."

  "But what do you care about politics?"

  "That's why it's a partnership. You pick the candidates, I fund them."

  "It doesn't work that way. There are election laws. Limitations on contributions, that sort of thing."

  "We'll form PACs. Foundations. We'll contribute to local party organizations and encourage them to support the candidates we favor. Mad, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that when you have enough money the law is a reed that will always bend your way."

  "You make it sound possible."

  "Not only possible, but completely legal. And if we can't contribute directly, so much the better. The goal wasn't to have candidates beholden to us, was it? The idea was they should be independent and wise and sane and—telegenic, wasn't that part of it?"

  "Do you mean it?" she said.

  "As I said, I have connections in every city that matters. Let's make the grand tour. Attending the parties that I've avoided for all these years. You'll dazzle them, and I'll talk turkey with the local politicos. We'll pick our candidates and start the ball rolling. Isn't there an election next year? Is it too late to find candidates for Congress?"

  "If only it weren't too late to choose a candidate for president."

  "President schmesident," said Quentin. "We could probably make more difference if we concentrated on state legislatures."

  "You're right, Tin. What I care about is finding good people and getting them started. And it might very well be state legislatures. County commissions! City councils! School boards!"

  "We have our work cut out for us."

  They fell back on the bed, laughing. "We sound like a silly old movie," said Quentin. "Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. 'We can put on our own election.' "

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," said Madeleine.

  "You've never seen an Andy Hardy movie?" asked Quentin. "You can't be serious. You're—you're not even an American!"

  "No, I'm just not an elderly American. You really did grow up in a time warp!"

  It was only later, as she slept beside him on the plane, that it occurred to him that Wayne Read had accused him of living in a time warp, and he had never told her about that conversation. Had he?

  He must say a lot of things without realizing what he was saying. Because he had never told her that "Tin" was Lizzy's nickname for him. He wasn't stupid—when she first called him that it was in the garden, under the cherry tree, and the last thing he had wanted at that moment was to get prickly and say, Don't call me that, it was my dead sister's nickname for me. And later, he didn't want her to change, it felt right having her call him that, so why would he have told her that Lizzy used that name for him? When would he ever have told her? And yet she knew. Before Mom explained, she knew.

  Maybe she just put things together. Picked up clues, reached a conclusion, and then thought he had said it outright. So she was observant. He couldn't hide things from her. It was a good thing he intended to be a faithful husband.

  Their new political career wasn't as easy as they had thought. Oh, their initial plan worked very well. A man of Quentin's wealth and a woman of Madeleine's beauty and grace had no trouble at all being admitted to the highest circles of political activity in either party, in any city. The trouble was that in those circles they never met anyone that fit Mad's criteria for a good candidate. That was the basic contradiction of their plan: If the ruling cliques already knew a person, he or she was already too "inside" to qualify.

  They needed to find people who weren't politically aware, or at least not politically self-aware. So through the autumn of 1995 they widened their net. They established their credentials with the insiders, yes, but they also went to service organizations, to activist groups, to charities and churches; they took newspaper reporters and city bureaucrats to dinner and asked them who really made a difference in the community, the men and women they actually admired. And slowly but surely they began to find people. Not in every city, but now and then one face, one name would come to the fore.

  It was exhilarating work, and Quentin could see why Mad loved it, even though it wasn't something he would ever have chosen to do on his own. And watching her do it, that was almost miraculous. His money opened political doors and made campaigns possible, yes, but she was the one who persuaded these reluctant candidates, who kindled the ambition that had lain dormant within them, or had been turned outward to some cause. You can make a difference. If you don't run, who will? Instead of fighting city hall, you can be city hall—and you won't be beholden to anyone. You'll have the courage and strength that come from not caring—because you don't care whether you get reelected, do you? So you won't always have your eye on the polls—you'll be free to follow your heart and mind. And if you lose—well, you tried, didn't you, and you'll only have made more connections to help you in the work you're already doing.

  They bought it. They absolutely bought into her dream and made it their own and after a while the only thing that continued to surprise Quentin was how little it cost. National politics might cost millions, but local politics could still be paid for out of pocket change, as long as you had willing volunteers—and Madeleine had the knack of finding people who really could inspire others to spend hundreds of hours stuffing envelopes or knocking on doors or manning booths or phoning people. And once the candidate began to emerge, other financial supporters gathered.

  "Mad," Quentin said to her, as they drove from the airport to his parents' house for Christmas. "Mad, this politics thing isn't working."

  "Are you kidding?" she said. "I think it's going great!"

  "Oh, sure, for you it's going great. But it was supposed to help me get rid of all this money, and we're just not spending it fast enough."

  "That's because you're in the wrong country," said Mad. "America isn't corrupt enough yet. There are some Latin American countries where you have to compete with drug lords when you want to buy an election, and you can soak through a hundred million in no time."

  "Well, I'm going to have to start another hobby. Something really expensive. Donating to universities, for instance—I hear that's a bottomless hole."

  "A Fears Building of Something on every campus, is that it?"

  "Or a Cryer Building," he said. "They don't have to be named for me."

  "Not that name," she said. "I don't want my name on anything."

  "Too late. I've got it on a marriage certificate."

  "You tricked me! Just to get my autograph!"

  Christmas was wonderful, even though Mad complained a little about the green lawns and the lack of snow.

  "We can't all live in the perfect climate of the Hudson Valley," said Dad.

  "Californians are climate-deprived," said Mom. "The things that do go wrong aren't seasonal. There's no earthquake season, for instance."

  "There's a mudslide season," suggested Dad.

  "But not every year."

  "Next year," said Dad, "Madeleine should invite us all to Christmas with her family. So we can tramp around on snowshoes. Do you have any nieces or nephews, Madeleine? Or—heavens, you're young enough—you might still have younger brothers and sisters at home!"

  "No believers in Santa Claus, if that's what you mean," said Mad, laughing.

  Quentin watched her, waited for her to sidestep the issue. But she didn't.

  "Maybe I will have you all come out."

  "No," said Dad immediately. "I was just joking. We don't go inviting ourselves to other people's Christmases!"

  "Not Christmas Day, maybe," said Mad. "We don't do much for Christmas anyway, I think you'd be disappointed. But the week af
ter. Don't you think, Quentin? Wouldn't that be a good holiday next year?"

  "Sure," he said. "Sounds great."

  But it bothered him. She wouldn't take him home to meet her family, after all these hints. And yet she'd invite Dad and Mom to come along with them. Of course, she was inviting them a year in advance—she might find a thousand excuses for canceling before then. Or maybe whatever she dreaded there might be easier if his parents came along with them. Or maybe she had simply overcome those fears, right now, today, in this conversation.

  "You don't sound very enthusiastic," said Mom. "Are you afraid we'll use the wrong fork, Quen?"

  "Oh, it's just that Mad has told me such terrible things about her family. Visitors have been known to arrive and... disappear."

  Mad looked at him in consternation. "No such thing."

  "That's why she's never taken me there. And her house is haunted. And it was built over an old chemical sludge factory. People get cancer just flying over, the airlines have to route around it."

  "There were no factories making chemical sludge when the family manse was built," said Madeleine. "All the rest is true, though."

  "Don't forget the Indian burial mound, Mad," said Quentin. "Her family bulldozed a whole burial mound because it blocked their view of the river. But on the spot where the mound was... nothing grows."

  "That's not true," said Madeleine. "It's always a jungle of briars and poison ivy."

  "Which your mother harvests and uses to make those unforgettable prickly salads."

  "All right," said Madeleine, laughing. "I'll take you home first, to meet my folks."

  Mom and Dad were appalled.

  "Quentin hasn't even met your parents?" Dad asked. "How does he know idiocy doesn't run in your family?" He was trying to make a joke out of it.

  Mom's reaction was sympathetic—but not to Madeleine and Quentin. "Oh, but your mother must be so hurt that you married without telling her!"

  "Oh, don't worry. I told her. I just didn't invite her."

  "Oh, worse and worse!" cried Mom.

  "My family's very odd," said Madeleine. "You have to understand—they would have thought it presumptuous of me to expect them to come. You simply have to understand that... I mean, when I came here—did you people pose for Norman Rockwell or what?"

  "That depends," said Dad. "Do you like Norman Rockwell paintings?"

  "I dreamed of Norman Rockwell paintings when I was a child," said Mad. "I thought they were a wonderful fantasyland. Or heaven—if I died, that's where I'd go, to a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving or Christmas. Like the one we just had."

  "Well, what does your family do, beat the servants and burn down the neighbors' house?" said Dad, carrying the joke too far, as usual.

  Madeleine smiled wanly. "Servants always used to quit before we had time to beat them," she said. "They finally gave up hiring them."

  Mom was outraged at Dad, though of course she put a jesting face on it. "I can't believe he's teasing about your family, Madeleine, dear, he just has no sense of tact, he never has." She playfully punched her husband on the arm; but Quentin could see that it hurt, and Dad didn't like it. It was a pattern already familiar from his childhood—Dad always got a small, painful bruise when he went too far. And yet it didn't stop him from going that far. As if painful jabs were the medium of exchange in the economy of their quarreling. Would he and Madeleine evolve ways of hurting each other and then ignoring it and going on?

  "Oh, please," said Madeleine. "Let's just take it as a given that my family is weird. I'm simply the normal-looking one who can go around in public. But I'll tell you what. Quentin has been dying of curiosity and I think he's sort of hurt that I've never taken him, so this is it. Next week. After New Year's. We'll drive up the Hudson Valley and I'll take him into Château Cryer and when he comes back here he can tell you all the weird things he saw. Believe me, you can't stay there for three hours without having a dozen very bizarre tales to tell."

  "Tell us some now," said Quentin.

  "You see?" said Madeleine. "Now that I've actually agreed to take him, he's afraid and he wants me to prepare him in case he wants to back out. Well, I'm not going to tell him a thing. He'll just have to come with an open mind."

  "I'm sure your family is perfectly wonderful," said Mom, "and that's what Quentin will tell us."

  "Maybe," said Madeleine with a knowing smile. "And maybe not. But I'll tell you this. Nobody in my family makes a banana cream pie like yours, Mother Fears. And the half-pie in your fridge is moaning my name."

  "The pie doesn't know your name," said Quentin. "That was me you were hearing. But we'll settle for the pie for now."

  "Quentin," said Mom reprovingly. "You're not such a newlywed anymore that we should have to put up with your innuendos."

  "Innuendo?" said Quentin. "Why, whatever do you mean, Mother dear?"

  After the pie, as Mom cleaned up in the kitchen and Dad signed on to America Online to send after-Christmas e-mail to his brothers, Quentin gave Madeleine a chance to back out of her invitation.

  "But I don't want to back out. I'd already decided it was time for you to meet them. I would have told you privately but then the conversation just went that way and—you don't mind, do you?"

  "Not at all. In fact I'm relieved. That you trust me enough to take me home."

  "It wasn't a matter of trusting you, Tin, my pet, my poo. I know you can handle it. They just have a way of getting under my skin. With you to hold on to as an island of sanity, I think I can get through a day with my family. Just a day, mind you."

  "And then a night at the Holiday Inn?"

  "Well, of course we have to stay overnight, but you know what I mean. Twenty-four hours and then we go, no matter how my family pleads with you to stay, do you understand me? Because even if I'm wearing a plastic smile on my face and saying, 'Oh, yes, Quentin, let's do stay,' trust me, I do not want to stay, I want you to get me out of there before we reach the witching hour."

  "Which is?"

  "If we arrive at noon, then by the next noon we must be gone or I will turn into a puddle of mucus on the floor."

  "That's an attractive image. If I kiss it, does it turn back into a princess?"

  "No, it just turns into a cold." She kissed him. "Your kiss has already turned me into a princess."

  6. She Loves You, Yeah

  The limo met them at La Guardia in the late afternoon on New Year's Day and they started out on the drive up the Hudson. "Shame we won't be able to see the river," Quentin said. "It'll be dark before we get over the Triborough."

  "You can't see the river anyway," said Madeleine. "Not the way you can from the bluffs. The great houses were all built to be seen from the water. That was the highway then, the steamboats up the Hudson."

  "The house is that old?"

  "A fireplace in every room. The kitchen is an add-on. The bathrooms are carved out of hallways and stuck under stairs. All afterthoughts."

  "They built these huge gorgeous mansions and then went outside to the privy?"

  "Don't be silly," said Madeleine. "They had fine porcelain chamberpots. Which were emptied by the servants."

  "Let me guess about the toilet paper."

  "Every room had a water basin and towels. What do you think they were for?"

  "Oh, for the good old days," said Quentin.

  "I suppose your people all had flush toilets from the fifteenth century."

  "No. But they dug their own latrines and built privies and used the Sears catalogue. Nobody handled anybody else's sewage."

  "The idea of money was different then," said Madeleine. "If there was a filthy job, other people did it, and you paid them."

  "My people believed in independence. You did for yourself, beholden to no one."

  "The snobbery of the poor."

  "The helplessness of the rich."

  "Only you're the one with money."

  "What, your family's broke?"

  "We have what we need, I guess. Nothing on your scale." />
  "My money's an accident, Mad. It fell on me while I was doing what I cared about. I was lucky to be in a company run by a marketing madman. And once I had money, I couldn't stop it from growing."

  "That's what I love most about you, Tin. You have no ambition whatsoever."

  "One ambition. To make a future with you."

  She smiled at him.

  He pulled the Beatles Anthology CD out of his carry-on bag and put it in the player in the limo. "I haven't had a chance to listen to this since you gave it to me."

  "I thought you might want something from your childhood."

  "It's not like I remember them. I was three years old when they did the Sullivan show."

  "It's all ancient history to me."

  "You're not that much younger than I am." On the marriage license she had put 1965 as her year of birth.

  "I lived on another planet then," she said. "We didn't even have a radio in our house."

  "Chamberpots, no radio."

  "I did love to crank the Victrola."

  "Seriously?"

  "No. I suppose there was a radio somewhere, but it's not as if anyone would dream of letting me choose the station. We didn't get out much."

  "Why not? Didn't you go to school?"

  "Tutors. Family tradition."

  "Were they trying to isolate you?"

  "I think perhaps so," said Madeleine. "Grandmother ruled with an iron fist. She never liked me."

  "Grandmother? Will I meet her?"

  "I don't know. She ought to be in a rest home, with tubes sticking out of her."

  Quentin had never heard such venom from her.

  "Alzheimer's?" he asked.

  "Advanced bitchiness," she answered.

  "Give me a little preparation. Who is it I should try hardest not to offend?"

  "Tin, don't you get it? I don't care who you offend. I've been free of their control for years now. I'm bringing you here to show them that there are good people in this world and I found one of them and if they don't like you, screw 'em."

  Quentin digested this for a while, listening to the music, then looking at the booklet that came with the CD. "It's funny how all their early stuff sounds so much like Elvis. Only not as good."