Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

Eyes closed, he smiled. “What else did you do?”

“Played softball. There's a new pitcher, a girl who just moved here, and she started by striking everybody out.”

“Including you?”

“The first time. She's very tall and has a boy's haircut, and she's got incredible muscles, so I figured her father wanted a son and got her instead and he's bringing her up like a boy. So I thought she'd probably think like a boy, too, and after she struck us out once she'd feel superior to all of us, as if we're timid and
female,
and then she'd get careless. And she did. And I hit a home run.”

Vince was watching her now. “What a pleasure to see that little mind of yours at work,” he said softly. “And those big eyes that do see everything. Did your team win?”

“One to nothing. She concentrated more after I got my home run. She's really awfully good.” She paused. “That's all that happened at school; the rest was infinitely dull, as usual. They're so slow you could take a nap and wake up and wash your face and change your clothes and have a snack and they'd still be working on the same algebra problem or reading the same paragraph they were on when you went to sleep. And then there was my party, and you know all about that.”

“Everyone praising you to the skies.”

“As long as I don't bother them,” Anne said flatly. “That's what they like best about me.”

Vince shrugged. “Well, why not? You don't need diapers anymore, you can hold your own fork, you can cross the street alone. They're giving you room and board and making sure you get an education. What more do you want from them?”

“I guess . . . nothing,” Anne replied, her voice low.

He ran a finger along her arm. “You don't need them, little girl; you have me.” He gave her arm a quick squeeze, and slid out of bed.

“Next Tuesday,” he said when he was dressed. He took the enamel Raggedy Ann pin from its box and ran his thumb over it. “Wear it to dinner on Sunday.” He opened the door and looked carefully down the long length of the hall, dimly lit by sconces between five other widely spaced bedroom doors receding into the shadows. He always left after midnight, when he knew the house would be sleeping, but still he stood there motionless, looking, listening, before taking a few long strides to the door that opened onto a stairway leading down to the side entrance of the house. Without looking back at Anne, he pulled the door quietly shut, and was gone.

Anne sat unmoving, cross-legged on her bed, letting the silence wash her clean. It was getting harder to shut her mind to what she was doing. A few months earlier, around Christmas, when the family's houses were warm and fragrant with holiday decorations and baking pies, she'd found herself having good feelings about Vince, brief flashes that shot through her without warning. It wasn't that he'd suddenly done anything special, it was just the season. Whenever she turned on the radio or television she heard the sweet sounds of Christmas carols; trees and streets and stores were strung with long rows of tiny white lights, like a fairyland; and it seemed that people smiled more and were nicer to each other. There was just a lot of love around. And Anne didn't want to be left out; she wanted to be happy, like everybody else.

So suddenly, in the midst of whatever she was doing, when she thought of Vince, she would remember something nice he'd said, and how sweet his smile was, and how, some of the time, he really acted like a friend. She hated what she had to do with him, but at least he paid attention to her. He still talked a lot about love, and she thought that was pretty stupid, because she knew it was just talk that made him feel good, for some reason or other, but he also asked her about herself and wanted to know about her life, and he was mostly the only one who did. Marian did, but she didn't listen as well as Vince; she always seemed to be thinking about something else. And Charles asked her about school and sports and even about whether girls and boys were dating at fourteen, but as soon as Anne mentioned problems or worries about school or dating, he'd get uncomfortable and find an excuse to leave the room. He just didn't know what to do with somebody's fears.

But Vince listened; Vince wanted to see her twice a week; Vince told her she had a good mind and a good body and he told her she was pretty. And a lot of the time, especially at Christmas, that made the other things they did together fade a little bit, like the horizon of the lake that blended into the sky on misty days and you could almost think it wasn't really there. So, for a couple of weeks in December, Anne had some nice thoughts about Vince, and she could feel she was really part of the season.

But six months after her fourteenth birthday, everything changed. It was a warm fall, warmer than anyone could remember, and everyone felt strange, as if the seasons had been turned inside out. In late October the trees flamed red and gold and bronze; beds of asters, salvia, chrysanthemums, and dahlias surrounded the homes of Lake Forest with white and yellow and a deep burgundy that reminded Anne of the wine they drank at Sunday dinners; and the sun blazed day after day from a sky streaked with thin clouds that made thin purple and jade shadows on the lake. Anne hurt from the beauty; she ached with wanting it in every part of her life. She wanted beautiful days and wonderful friends and exciting work that made her feel useful and
triumphant. She wanted to feel good about herself. She wanted to be free of Vince.

That fall she had begun her second year in high school, and she found that she no longer knew how to talk to the girls in her classes. Suddenly it seemed they were all talking about dates and parties and petting; they giggled about how wet their underpants got when they were excited; they groaned about how gross the boys were when they started panting like puppies and trying to crawl all over them; they all said they were virgins, and after every weekend they tried to find out who wasn't anymore. Anne stayed away. This is how prostitutes feel, she thought: tired and bored and knowing too much. And old.

Her body was changing, but she could not take pleasure in it. Her breasts were becoming full and firm, her knees and elbows had lost their knobby look, and she seemed taller, with a slim waist and narrow hips. Vince said he missed her lean boniness, but still he liked staring at her nude body; he said it was due to him; he had made her a woman. She hated him when he said that.

She hated him most of the time that fall, and it reached a peak on Halloween. Rita and Marian had taken the young children out for trick or treat, and the house was quiet except when the doorbell rang. Anne heard it every few minutes when children came to their door, and she imagined groups of them in their costumes, waiting and giggling together until the maid came and handed out the packets of candy kept in a wicker basket in the front hall. I wish I was young again, Anne thought. I wish I could be a little kid and go trick-or-treating.

“This is our trick-or-treat night,” Vince said with a grin when he came in. Anne looked puzzled. “You're turning tricks for me,” he said. She had never heard that before. “And you have your bag of treats to keep me happy. To keep both of us happy.” He sat on the edge of the bed and motioned to Anne to kneel in front of him. “Where else would I want to be on trick
and
treat night?”

Anne felt like screaming. She wanted to smash his smiling face. She thought of biting him until he cried and begged for
mercy. But he wouldn't; he'd kill her. She clenched her fists as she knelt in front of him, and took him in her mouth and stroked his thighs. She was more afraid of him than she had been in months because he seemed invulnerable.

He was always very pleased with himself, but lately he had preened with new successes. He had been in charge of building a group of three office towers near O'Hare airport, and he had done it brilliantly. Everyone said so, even Ethan. And soon after the three buildings were completely rented, Ethan had announced he was putting Vince in charge of Tamarack, the little town he had been developing for twenty years without any formal plan. Now he would turn it over to Vince. When the announcement was made, it seemed that everyone in the family, even those who had been cool to Vince, admired and deferred to him, as if, Anne thought, he'd suddenly become the crown prince. And that made him especially terrifying because she felt weak and unimportant beside him. He was the prince of the family and she was just a commoner. And so was her father, she thought; or at least he was a lesser prince, if Vince was the one her grandfather preferred. So there was no one on her side who had any power in the family. Who would believe anything she said now if Vince didn't want them to believe it?

“Tamarack,” Vince said on Halloween. He sat propped against the pillows on her bed, winding a strand of her hair about his finger as she lay beside him, staring out the window. “Do you know how far we're going to go with Tamarack?”

“It sounds like you're chewing when you say it,” said Anne. “Like it's a candy bar and you're licking it and taking little bites. Like you're swallowing one tiny bit of Tamarack at a time.”

Vince's eyes narrowed. He wound her hair more tightly, until she winced, and she knew she had gone too far; he didn't like it when she saw through him. “I asked if you know how big our plans are,” he said softly. “And look at me when I'm talking to you.”

She turned from the window and met his bright brown eyes. “I only know what Grandfather talks about at dinner
on Sundays, and he hasn't said much lately. I thought he'd finished building there. Last summer, when we were there, it was all changed; I didn't know he wanted to do anything else.”

“He wants to make it bigger. He wants it to be the best; bigger and more exclusive than Zermatt and Gstaad. He wants it to be the most famous resort in the world.” When Anne was silent, he said, “And what do you make of that?”

She hesitated. Often in the past few months he had asked her what she thought, mostly about plans he was making for the company and for himself. She no longer had to entertain him with stories; now he wanted to talk about himself. He even talked about his quarrels with Rita. He asked Anne how she felt about all of it, as if he wanted her advice. But Anne never gave advice. She knew what he really wanted was to be listened to and agreed with. “I guess . . . if that's what he really wants. I didn't want him to change it at all. I loved it the way it used to be; it was such a funky little town. All those empty miner's cottages and falling-down buildings and unpaved streets . . . it was a nice little ghost town and the people in it kind of moved around in it without really touching it. I loved thinking it was so hidden away in the mountains it was eternal just the way it was.”

“That was a long time ago,” Vince said dismissively. “It hasn't been like that for ten years. It won't even stay the way it is now; in another year or two you won't recognize it. That's what I asked you about; you haven't answered me.”

Once again, Anne hesitated. She didn't like to talk about Ethan to Vince; it seemed like a betrayal. “I don't know anything about famous resorts. I told you, I thought Grandpa had done what he wanted; I didn't know he wants to do more. In fact, I don't think he does. He's not interested in Zermatt or any other place. He just loves Tamarack. Why would he care whether it's bigger or smaller or more famous or anything than Zermatt?”

“He put me in charge of it,” Vince said flatly.

“Well, but . . . just to run it, isn't that right? He didn't tell you to go change it all.”

Vince frowned. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

“I want to know what you think about him. Sometimes you see things that other people don't. What does he want there?”

“I think,” Anne said after a moment, “he wants to make a paradise where everyone will be perfect and happy and no one will ever be sad or disappointed again.”

Vince was amused. “He's not a dreamer, sweetheart; he's one of the shrewdest businessmen you'll ever meet. There's no room for paradise in the development business, and he knows it.”

“That's why he's planning to get out of it.”

Vince shook his head. “He's not going to Tamarack; I am. He'll come out now and then, the way he always has, but most of the time he'll stay right here.”

“For now,” Anne said stubbornly. “But I think he built Tamarack so someday he'll have a place to live that he likes better than here.”

Abruptly, Vince got out of bed and began to dress. “That town is mine; I have plans for it. And he damn well knows it; I haven't kept them a secret. He doesn't want a paradise; he wants a town that will make money. That's what he wants from me: to see that he makes money on his investment.”

Anne was silent.

“You think he has his own plans that he hasn't told anyone about. You think he already likes it so much he might not back what I want to do, that he might keep the money tight, keep me on a short leash.”

Anne said nothing. She had not thought that far, but hearing Vince say it, she thought he was probably right.

“Next time you see him, ask him what he's got in mind. Not the pap he feeds the family, but what he's keeping to himself. If he's got his own private timetable, I have a right to know it.”

“Ask him yourself,” Anne said. “I'm not your corporate spy.”

Vince paused in buckling his belt. “I didn't hear that,” he said with a smile.

“I'd just rather you asked him,” she said.

“And I'd rather not.” He stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. “I'll see you next Wednesday. You can tell me then what he said.”

“Wednesday? But last time you said it would be Tuesday. Because of your trip.”

“I changed it. What difference does it make?”

“Well, it . . . I'm doing something on Wednesday.”