Given the reputation of the Stanstead family—they considered William F. Buckley a flaming, and traitor-ous, liberal—Faith could understand that Emma might not want her parentage known to her in-laws, or the early pregnancy. But her husband? Wasn’t marriage 35
supposed to be about sharing—you’re your husband’s best friend and all that? It was one of the reasons Faith had ruled out matrimony so far. She preferred her best friends. They were easier to talk to and made her laugh.
“Emma, this is not a secret you can keep from your husband. He wouldn’t want you to. Blackmail is very, very serious.” Faith thought of Michael Stanstead’s concerned face. Emma had to tell him and together they could decide what to do next. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t be anything but supportive of his wife and upset at what she had gone through at such an early age. She told Emma about Michael coming into the kitchen.
“He is so sweet.” Emma appeared to be swayed, but then she stiffened. “You don’t understand, Faith. It can never come out that Nathan Fox was my father. It would completely destroy Michael’s political chances.
He’d be the laughingstock of the party—that he didn’t know his wife’s father was one of the most notorious radicals of the century. And it’s even worse now that Daddy’s dead, don’t you see?”
Unfortunately, Emma made sense. She would be headlines and the tabloids would effectively destroy Stanstead’s chances—for the next election anyway.
“Our Man for the Nineties”—thirty-year-old Assemblyman Michael Stanstead was being touted as the brightest young star in the New York Republican firmament. He would be running for Congress in a favorable district, and after some time in the House, who knows where he might end up.
“I feel so much better. I think it was meant that you were there last night. But I must dash.” Emma gave Faith a quick hug and a smile crossed her face, fears al-36
layed. A slight shadow: “You do promise not to tell anyone? Oh, I’m being silly. Of course I know that you wouldn’t.”
Faith was glad that Emma, having spilled her guts, now considered her blackmail problem solved, and she hated to spoil things. But blackmailers tended to follow up on threats.
“What are you going to do about the note?” Emma had her hand up for a cab. She turned around.
“Absolutely nothing at the moment.” A taxi pulled up to the curb and Emma waved good-bye.
Faith crossed the street to the bus stop. Business was good, but not cab versus bus fare good enough yet. As she waited, she realized she was exhausted—and worried. She’d have to try to get Emma to tell her husband.
There was no other way. Faith couldn’t go to the police herself and betray Emma’s trust. She wished she could talk about the situation with her sister, Hope. Hope moved in Young Republican circles and might have picked up something about Michael that would help convince Emma—that his position was so secure, nothing short of an intrigue with farm animals would hinder his campaign, for instance. Faith also admitted that she was dying to tell somebody about Poppy and Nathan Fox. She wished she wasn’t so good at keeping secrets.
The bus came and, mercifully, she got a seat. It was crowded with holiday shoppers, bags making the aisle difficult to negotiate. An elegant elderly woman was occupying two seats with aplomb—one for herself and one for an enormous Steiff giraffe, the head craning out of the FAO Schwarz bag. The sight of the incongruous pair was causing the whole bus to smile. It was still early enough in the shopping season for New 37
Yorkers to feel the holiday spirit. Outside, the whole city was decked out in its finest. Faith was sorry she wasn’t walking. Each shop window rivaled the next in glittering offerings. If you can’t get it here, you can’t get it anywhere—that’s what the song lyric should say.
The bus stopped, and through the open door, she could hear the Salvation Army Band’s rendition of “Good King Wenceslas.” The man next to her was humming along, and at her look of pleasure, he began to sing in a surprisingly strong tenor:
“Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about,
Deep, and crisp, and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gathering winter fu-oo-el.”
“That’s as far as I go by heart,” he said apologetically.
“Me, too,” Faith said. “It’s something about
‘ “Hither, page” ’ and ‘ “Bring me flesh, and bring me wine.” ’ I’m a caterer, so I tend to remember the food details. I can do all the verses of the ‘Wassail Song.’ ”
“A caterer. That must be hard work, especially at this time of year,” he said. Faith was mildly impressed.
Usually, she heard inanities like “That must be fun” or
“How do you stay so thin?” He wasn’t bad-looking—
and he had to have terrific circulation. The only con-cession to the weather he’d made was a muffler on top of his tweed sports jacket. She looked at his hands. No gloves. No wedding ring.
38
“It is a busy time, thank goodness. I’ve only been in business since the fall, and it’s been going well.”
“Great. Well, this is my stop.” He dug in his pocket.
“Want to trade cards? I might suddenly remember the rest of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and wouldn’t know how to find you.”
“True.” Faith laughed as she fished a business card from her purse. “Or you may need a caterer.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Take care.” She watched him out the window before the bus pulled away. Not bad-looking at all. “Richard Morgan,” his card read. The address wasn’t far from her apartment. What does Richard Morgan do? she wondered. It wasn’t anything on The Street. Financiers didn’t wear tweed jackets. A professor? The bus started with a lurch and he was lost to sight. Without the distraction of carol singing, Faith’s thoughts re-verted once more to the problem at hand. The major problem at hand.
Emma, Emma, Emma. Presumably, she was now at her luncheon, breathlessly apologizing for her lateness as the crème brûlée was served, only to be politely nibbled or politely refused by the ladies present. Eating dessert in public was a no-no. Bingeing on Mallomars at midnight and throwing up was not. Much as everyone exclaimed over Barbara Bush’s inner beauty and lack of pretension, it was Nancy Reagan’s size-four red suits that set the standard. This was a crowd that didn’t need the Duchess of Windsor’s maxim—“You can’t be too rich or too thin”—embroidered on any of their pillows as a reminder.
It was difficult, almost impossible, to imagine Emma Stanstead as an increasingly high-profile politician’s wife. Yes, she had the beauty and grace—and 39
figure. Yet, she was quite shy. Growing up with Poppy—and Lucy—Emma preferred candlelight to limelight. When they had traveled in the same circles during adolescence and occasionally later, Faith recalled the change that would come over her friend when she was thrust into uncomfortable social situa-tions. More often than not, Emma would say the first thing that came into her head, and it was often the last thing that would have come into anyone else’s. At ease only with her most intimate friends, she would certainly find the campaign trail and the glare of publicity torture. Emma as a politician’s wife is almost as ludi-crous an idea as my being married to a minister, Faith said to herself as she reached up and swiftly pressed the strip for her stop.