All American Addict: A Novel by Cunningham Jason

Author:Cunningham, Jason [Cunningham, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Phantom Fiction
Published: 2013-04-04T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 38

GRACE PLUM HAD time on her hands. She woke up early and tossed the two remaining bottles of gin into the trash and immediately took it to the curb. Out of sight, out of mind. She found herself in her bright kitchen, wide-eyed and chopping fruits and vegetables like a machine. It was a routine by now, having started each day the same way during the six-year run of the TV show—only this time she wasn't practicing for All American Home. That was another life, one which had suddenly ended a week earlier. Grace was now reborn, freed from the TV persona that she could never live up to anyway. She was perfectly glad to do away with that peppy fraud filled with her fake smiles and cheesy banter. Sure, her real family was a dysfunctional mess, but at least they were real. And these days, she craved real.

After spending all morning cleaning the house from top to bottom, she found herself at William's bedroom. It took a moment for her to push open his door and step inside. The morning buzz had worn off and now real wasn't looking so nice. It was downright unpleasant.

The room was already clean, but that wasn't the reason she'd entered. She walked softly over to the wall and ran a hand across the middle tier of his book shelf. The usual dust one expects to find on a collection of books was not present. Her son actually read these books. Often. She tapped a random key on his computer keyboard and the monitor glowed to life. The wallpaper image showed a cat wearing a lime on its head. She smiled. William's sense of humor was a little high-brow for his age, so she found the image quite amusing. He was, after all, still a teenage boy. There was comfort in knowing that there was some vestige of adolescence left in him.

Grace noticed some kind of text file on the desktop screen. She maneuvered the mouse pointer and double-clicked the image.

She leaned forward as the program launched. It was a media file—elegant text interspersed with beautifully rendered artistic drawings portraying some kind of mythological folklore. Her eyes scanned the pages, beginning with the first. It took her a moment to realize that William had written it. “This must be what he was always working on up here with Philip,” she thought.

She continued to read, mesmerized by the wording, depth and artistry. Of course she knew her son was gifted—the Hemingway proved that—but this was not a fluke. This was passion and skill. This was the complete mastery of craft. She wondered how on earth a teenager could write something so capable of gripping her imagination.

Grace's jaw hung open as she leafed through the file, savoring every word, every image. An intense feeling of pride swelled up inside of her. It wasn't so much from discovering the depth of her son's talent; it was more about knowing she hadn't ruined it. Not even Mike had been able to stamp out the boy's God-given abilities, or his willingness to use them.

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