Sleeping Beauty Read Free

leaned forward.
    â€œThe one everybody’s looking at? You know her?”
    â€œGet rid of her,” Vince said. “Find out what she wants, give it to her if it isn’t a problem, and then get rid of her. And see that she doesn’t come back.”

chapter 2
    A nne was thirteen when Vince began coming to her bedroom and opening the door without knocking. He was thirty, the handsomest man she knew, bright with charm, successful in business, her father’s favorite brother. Her father’s favorite.
    She had always been in awe of him because of the way her father treated him: as if he were some kind of prince; as if he were the center of the family. She knew he wasn’t; her grandfather Ethan ran the family and made all the rules, and Vince had to obey them just like everybody else. But still, when her father and Vince were together, her father seemed to shrink, and Vince, even though he was eleven years younger, and shorter than her father, seemed to grow taller and more handsome. Next to her father, who was always quiet, Vince was full of excitement with his travels and his business deals, and it was hard to remember that he was just one of the Chathams who lived in Lake Forest, north of Chicago, and worked in the family company, and besides, was the youngest of Ethan’s five children.
    They all lived within a few miles of each other, and whenever they were in town and didn’t have an important engagement, they had to meet at Ethan’s house for dinner, every Sunday and on birthdays and holidays. It was Ethan’s rule, and everyone, even Vince, who hated rules, obeyed it. They would sit around the long table in the beautiful room Anne’s mother had redecorated for Ethan shortly before shedied, and one by one, they would tell about their week. Ethan always spoke first, and Anne loved listening to him as he reported with grave courtesy about Chatham Development Corporation—new houses, new shops, entire towns rising from the cornfields surrounding Chicago—and how that day they had planned the school site or laid out the shopping center or named the streets. Every Chatham town had streets named Vince, Charles, Anne, Marian, William, Gail, and on through the whole family. Ethan was too modest to name streets for himself, but his son Charles always did it for him, and then all the Chathams were there, enshrined on metal signs that swayed in the Midwest winds and pointed the way to the houses the Chathams had built.
    When Ethan finished speaking, Charles spoke, and then Vince. Anne’s attention would begin to waver because she thought business was dull. She preferred watching the faces around the table, imagining what they were thinking behind their smiles and chuckles and little frowns. They all seemed to be happy that they were eating together, but Anne knew you could never be sure; you had to dig a lot deeper than a smile or a frown to know what people were really like.
    All the men worked together—Charles and Vince were vice presidents, William was finance director, and Marian’s husband, Fred Jax, was sales manager—but each week they had different stories to tell, and Anne always wondered if they divided up the interesting news when they got together for drinks before dinner, so everyone would be impressed with how much they did each week. The women did the same: they had their own stories to tell. Vince’s wife, Rita, told them what new words Dora, who was three, had said that week, and which swimming and calisthenics classes they had gone to. Nina talked about whatever small company she was investing in, and sometimes about getting married, or divorced. It seemed to Anne that Nina got confused about beginnings and endings; she always hoped for something good, or something better, whether she was starting a marriage or saying good-bye to one. Anne’s sister, Gail, who was seven, talked about school or summer camp. Rose and Keith, who were two, just