Great Big Beautiful Life(23)
“You wanted to know what it was like to be born into my family,” she says after a beat. “Before you can understand that, you have to understand where this all began. My story, every bit of it, is tangled up with what Lawrence did.”
“Do you…do you mean to Thomas?” I ask.
“My great-grandfather was a cold, cruel man with no qualms about taking what wasn’t his,” she says, that surprisingly powerful, potent gaze of hers still fixed on me, the kind of charisma that can hold a person captive.
I let the silence linger like an invitation. But uncertainty flashes across her face. Any second, she’s going to retreat again, that maddening push-pull of any great interview. I make a snap decision and lean forward, stopping both recordings.
Her silvery brows lift in surprise. “Is that allowed?”
“We haven’t agreed to anything yet, other than a conversation,” I say. “A monthlong conversation, sure, but just a conversation. If you end up wanting to do the book, we can record things later. But if this is making you nervous, let’s forget it for now.”
You can trust me, I think at her, between every line.
She holds my gaze. Decades ago, when she was at the peak of her fame, she was so open with the press. Always smiling and waving and blowing kisses to the paparazzi, giving glib little quotes to reporters on her way down red carpets or into clubs. She’s so different than those old pictures and articles made her seem, so tightly bottled into herself, with only little glimmers of wry charm and sudden blasts of emotion slipping out.
You’re safe, I think at her.
Her mouth opens and closes twice before any sound comes out, and when she does speak, her voice is quieter, confessional almost.
“By the end of his life,” she says, “all my great-grandfather did was ramble about three things.”
Her lips knit tightly together as she carefully charts her own path forward.
“He apologized to his brother Dicky, like he was right there in the room with him. Wept about losing him like it had just happened,” she says. “And he argued with Thomas Dougherty. Raged at him, really. Lawrence’s son, my grandfather, wouldn’t let anyone else into the room—he was so afraid of what Lawrence might say, that it might leak to the press. My family’s rivalry with the Pulitzers was well underway by then—an Ives couldn’t sneeze without making it in the papers.”
I scribble three bullet points. Beside the first, I write apologizing to Dicky, and next to the second, arguing with Thomas. When I see Margaret watching me, I double-check: “Would you rather I didn’t write this down?”
“That’s my preference, yes,” she admits.
I scribble out the note and set my pen aside.
She nods something like a thank-you and then goes on: “After word reached Thomas about the silver ore my great-grandfather had cheated him out of, Thomas came back into town, furious. He’d thought of Lawrence like a brother, after all that time together, and he wanted to know why he’d been betrayed.
“But Lawrence refused to even meet with him. Day after day, night after night, Thomas stood outside that tiny hotel, screaming for Lawrence to come face him. But my great-grandfather had enough money and enough men in his employ then that he could make himself inaccessible. So eventually, Thomas left. He went to the biggest newspaper he could find back in California, to tell the story of my great-grandfather’s treachery. Eventually the reporter came to talk to Lawrence, and Lawrence responded by buying the paper.”
My jaw drops. “The San Francisco Daily Dispatch?” The start of everything for Ives Media? “He bought it to protect his reputation?”
She snorts. “Oh, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about reputation. When he talked to the reporter, he asked how much Thomas had made off selling the story, because those were the terms Lawrence Ives thought in. When he heard the dollar amount, he knew right away that the news was one more place he could bury his money and watch it fruit.
“He started mining less, investing more. Bought a beautiful home in San Francisco and sent for his younger sister—it had always been his plan to bring her to live with him once he’d built a comfortable life. But in the years since he’d been gone, she’d grown up. She’d all but forgotten him. And worse, she’d married a Dougherty, another poor farmer. Because of what Lawrence had done to Thomas, she wanted nothing to do with her brother.”
After a moment, she goes on, “At the end of his life, when he wasn’t apologizing to the ghost of Dicky, Lawrence was arguing with a phantom Thomas. Blaming him for everything that happened. Telling him he deserved what he got, to die, drunk and penniless, for being stupid enough to believe that Lawrence was responsible for him. He thought anyone who relied on anyone else would pay for it, eventually. Though I’ve always thought the lesson was that anyone who relies on an Ives will only be hurt for their trouble.”
I sit for a moment, absorbing that. Margaret’s gaze has gone slightly cloudy, as if this thought is swirling around behind her eyes.
I clear my throat and gently nudge us back on track: “So what was the other thing?”
“Excuse me?” she says.
“You said your great-grandfather used to rant about three things,” I remind her. “What was the last thing?”
A smile tugs at her lips, wispy and unconvincing. “I think we should save that for another day,” she says, pushing herself up from her chair. “I’m in dire need of a nap.”