Sleeping Beauty by Judith Michael Read Free Book Online Page A

Ethan?”
    â€œYou must call him Grandfather, Anne; it’s more respectful. Well, now, does Charles look up to Ethan? I’m not sure. Sometimes Ethan seems to admire Vince more than anybody else. Odd, you know, since Vince is the youngest of us; doesn’t quite fit my theory, does it?”
    Anne saved those conversations to tell Vince when hecame to her room at night. By now he had a schedule. For the first few weeks it seemed he was always there, and she had felt smothered by him. School started, and she had to rush through her homework because he would show up right after dinner. But then that changed. When summer ended, his business trips began again, and sometimes he was away for a whole week. And on weekends Rita liked to go out. So Vince settled into a routine of coming to Anne’s room twice a week, and he always told her in advance when the next time would be, so she would be ready for him.
    Anne thought it must be like a marriage. She hated it, but she thought most people probably hated being married, because it was like a job, with things that had to be done and gotten over with. Wives would hate the sex and husbands would hate being answerable to somebody else, the way Vince said he hated it with Rita. Of course he wasn’t answerable to Anne—she couldn’t ask him to do anything at all—but still, when they were in her room at night and she was telling him stories between the times he wanted her on the bed or the floor or the chaise, it seemed to Anne they were just like a married couple. Her flowered bedroom was their whole world; they sat in it and lay in it and talked in it, and when he brought cookies or doughnuts or éclairs, they ate in it. It was just like a married couple’s house, only smaller.
    But she wondered about love. She was sure married people were in love; all the books said so. But she and Vince had no love. She knew now that he did not love her and hadn’t loved her in the beginning. Whatever words he used, and he seemed to use that one a lot, love had nothing to do with what went on in her bedroom two nights a week.
    Love was a joke; she knew that now. It was a word people used to disguise whatever it was they wanted. She would never love anyone. And she would never get married.
    On her fourteenth birthday, Marian and Nina gave a party for her. She blew out all the candles on the cake, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” even Rose, Marian’s baby, who was only a year and a half old. Nina kissed her onboth cheeks. “We all love you, dear,” she said in her slightly breathless way. She was taller than Marian and her hair was dark brown where Marian’s was almost blond, but the two sisters had the same pale skin, crinkly lines at the corners of blue-gray eyes, calm foreheads, and perfectly manicured nails. “I’m afraid we criticize you a great deal, and I for one apologize for that; it’s just that we want you to be perfect. Marian and I agreed on that, you know, when you came to us after your poor mother died. We loved her so much and we felt we owed it to her to see that you grew up to be everything she would have wanted. And we feel sure you’re doing that, my dear. You’re going to be as beautiful as she was, and already you’re far more clever. Of course she would never swear, and she was always so perfectly turned out . . . the most elegant, sophisticated . . . but perhaps, when she was your age . . . we can’t be sure . . . well, I don’t want to sound critical; that wouldn’t do on your birthday. You’re a dear girl, Anne, pure and good and no trouble to any of us. We couldn’t ask any more of you. And I want to wish you a happy birthday, and many, many more.”
    Anne stared at her hands. She hated being the center of attention. She wished she could go to her room and be alone. But she wouldn’t be alone. Vince had told her he would be