Five Fortunes by Beth Gutcheon Read Free Book Online Page A

same block?”
    “We live on a ranch. The houses aren’t so close in distance, but the kids can ride their bikes or ride horses.”
    “It sounds like paradise. Where is this?”
    “Hailey, Idaho. Near Ketchum.”
    “I know Ketchum. My son, Walter, has a house there.”
    “Does he?” Laurie was breathing more normally and seemed almost completely over her crying spell. “We know a lot of the Sun Valley people—what’s his name?”
    “Walter Keely.”
    Laurie stopped and put a hand on Rae’s arm. She smiled a real, if wan, smile.
    “Walter Keely? The campaign guy? You’re Walter Keely’s mother?”
    40 / Beth Gutcheon
    “Well, yes, I am,” said Rae proudly. “I hope you haven’t heard anything terrible about him because it’s probably all true.”
    “No, it’s—he was a friend of my husband’s. They played golf together…”
    “It’s a won derful world,” Rae cried, and Laurie took note that she meant it deeply.
    “Maybe Walter mentioned my husband to you,” Laurie said. Here was another dangerous moment, but after a pause, she got through it very steadily, like a skater after a fall, hitting a triple axel. “He was Roberto Lopez, the tennis player.”
    “That beautiful man!” said Rae. “That smile!”
    Laurie smiled herself, and nodded. “Yes. The billion-watt smile.
    He was really like that too.”
    “That commercial where he jumps over the tennis net…” Rae didn’t have to finish the sentence.
    “My son Carlos looks just like him.”
    “And tell me about the other four,” Rae said. With something like real savor, Laurie described each one. They had reached the overlook where the group stopped for water. Laurie and Rae were aware that the others had been waiting; the group shepherd was not allowed to lose any of the guests on the mountain. Someone gave them each a section of orange, and with the rest of the group, they moved off again briskly.
    “Did you ever remarry?” Laurie asked Rae.
    “Oh yes,” she said, “after Walter and Harriet were grown. I met Albie on a cruise. I was working and I had a strict rule about social-izing with the guests. But after we docked in San Francisco, he started courting me. We’ve been married for twenty-three years, and they’ve been very, very happy ones.”
    “You were working? On a cruise ship?” Laurie didn’t exactly know how to ask the next question. Rae couldn’t have been the captain….
    “I was the dance instructor. My partner and I taught ballroom, and did exhibition dancing in the evenings.”
    “Like Ginger Rogers?”
    Five Fortunes / 41
    “ Exactly like Ginger Rogers. We taught the samba, that was big.”
    Rae performed a few steps on the rocky path, clicking her fingers as if she had castanets.
    “The samba, the meringue, the tango, the Charleston…the twist…I do them all, divinely. My one regret is retiring before the lambada.”
    Laurie laughed. “And your husband—is he a dancer?”
    “He’s a marvelous dancer. After his first wife died, he went on this cruise, and…voilà!”
    “That’s very romantic,” Laurie said.
    “It was very romantic. He’s a very courtly man, Albie is. There aren’t many like him.”
    “And how do Albie and Walter get along?”
    “Famously. You can understand—Walter barely remembers his real father.”
    “Does Albie have children?”
    “Two. But he always wanted a houseful, and he treats mine as if they were his own.”
    “He sounds wonderful,” said Laurie, meaning it.
    “Yes. He really is.”
    They had arrived back at Saguaro, where earlier arrivals were drinking lemon water and watching the television news. The polls were open in the east, and there was a lot of chatter about pollsters and Contracts with America and Report Cards on Congress and what would it all mean. Courtney and some allies sat waiting for mention of her brother’s race. There was a satisfying cry when the camera showed a picture of the brother entering the polling booth.
    “Oh look,” Courtney