The Short History of a Prince by Jane Hamilton

Author:Jane Hamilton [Hamilton, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-76407-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

They walked up Michigan Avenue, arm in arm. The gold candles wound with plastic greens were still strapped to the streetlights, along the avenue, left over from Christmas. The sun was shining and the wet sidewalks were crackly underfoot with salt. Susan was wearing a long, heavy camel coat that was too big for her, and on anyone else would have looked dowdy. She was all elegance in the coat and her white beret, just as she had been at ten in a black leotard. She could not possibly have needed the coat in Florida. Walter wondered if she’d lugged it from home, or, miraculously, found it in the closet at the hotel. She had always seemed to have what was appropriate, necessary, he thought, and then, amending that idea he said to himself that she had always had the enviable ability to claim what she needed.

“You know,” she said, pulling him closer, “I finally figured out that you let me win some of those music games. It was nice of you, by the way.”

“It made you so mad to lose,” he said. “I had to give you victory sometimes, purely out of self-defense.”

She frowned, looking at him. “I used to have to win back then. I thought I had hidden that unpleasant trait, but you’ve always known me. I think Daniel’s death forced me to sort things out, to realize that winning is beside the point. I did love beating you, though. I cheated to win, Walter. Sometimes, I cheated.”

“I know you did, darling.”

“I would have hated me, if I were you. Do your parents still have the neighborhood Christmas party? I loved all those strange people, poor Billy rocking back and forth with his hand in his mouth, drooling into the candies. Your aunt Jeannie trying to get her children to perform. You could just tell Sue Rawson always wanted to drive a spear through her heart.”

“Exactly,” Walter said. “That’s the whole problem with Lake Margaret. Sue Rawson wants to punish everyone because God gave her a twit for a sister. She’s had to share the place with Aunt Jeannie for so long and she has finally come to the end of her rope. If she knew she wouldn’t get caught she’d just go over to Ted and Jeannie’s house after dark. With her concealed weapon in her pocket, she’d walk in the basement door, make her way to the bedroom and blow her little sister’s brains out. But even that wouldn’t be as satisfying as this Lake Margaret deal. She’s going to torture Jeannie slowly, make her pay. Either she thinks that everyone in the family is somehow going to understand why she’s doing it, and not take it personally, and excuse her, or she figures we’ll all be mad at her forever and she won’t care, because she’ll have so much personal, lifelong satisfaction from skewering Jeannie. Whatever happens, she’s going to make about four hundred thousand dollars and possibly get revenge on top of it.” “It’s so sad, to lose a place like that.

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