Sleeping Beauty
Authors: Judith Michael
Praise for the Fabulous Novels of
Judith Michael . . .
A RULING PASSION
“A novel of love, lust, passion, greed . . .
A RULING PASSION
has something for everyone . . . a delight.”
âUnited Press International
“Judith Michael scores again . . . a suspenseful, passionate story that takes you behind the scenes into a world of wealth and power. . . .”
âTulsa World
“When Judith Michael writes, readers read. . . . Their blending of plot and characters is ingenius and readers line up for a chance to experience every nuance of their juicy plots. . . .”
âOcala Star Banner
“A WINNER EVERY TIME . . . A BOOK BY JUDITH MICHAEL IS HARD TO PUT DOWN.”
âChicago Sun-Times
INHERITANCE
“THE WRITING IS IMPECCABLE . . . FOR THE PERFECT RAINY-DAY READ, LOOK NO FURTHER.”
âThe New York Times Book Review
“Put aside reality and indulge . . . the writing is professional and seductive . . .
INHERITANCE
is a tale of redemption, class envy, and, in the best American tradition, upward social mobility and eventual financial success.”
âChicago Tribune
“Full of fascinating characters and plot twists. . . . The characters are so rich and the story so compelling . . . you will be ensured hours of reading pleasure.”
âInland Empire
magazine
“Fascinating. . . .
INHERITANCE
is sure to please.”
âSouth Bend Tribune
PRIVATE AFFAIRS
“A GRIPPING NOVEL. . . . I liked it enough to read it well into the wee hours . . . entertaining and easy to read.”
âProvidence
Sunday Journal
“A story of romance and ambition. . . .
PRIVATE AFFAIRS
offers large doses of entertainment.”
âChattanooga Times
“PRIVATE AFFAIRS
is charmed lives, repressed passion, and fantasies come true. . . .”
âALA Booklist
“Judith Michael has struck again . . . a ride through the fast lane, where greed is the passion that rules all else. . . .
PRIVATE AFFAIRS
has plenty to please the fans.”
âRichmond Times-Dispatch
SLEEPING BEAUTY
A LITERARY GUILD MAIN SELECTION
A DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB MAIN
SELECTION
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For Ronald Barnard
in friendship and love
A
nne stepped from the limousine and stood beside it, gazing at the massive, carved doors of the chapel, willing herself to go inside. The driver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, and she knew he was wondering what she was waiting for after an hour of sitting impatiently in the backseat while he fought the expressway traffic to get from the airport to Lake Forest by ten o'clock. She was late, but still she stood there, staring at the cold, Gothic stones of the chapel, grayer and colder beneath dark clouds that hung over the town. Chauffeurs in other limousines parked along the length of the block looked up from their newspapers to watch her. All right, I'm going, she snapped at them silently, and walked to the front steps. They seemed to stretch ahead of her, rising to the heavy double doors with large brass rings for handles. I have to do this, she thought; I want to do this. For Ethan.
She pulled on one of the brass rings and the door opened noiselessly. She walked into the anteroom and an usher opened an inner door and stood aside for her. The chapel was full; all the seats were taken and people stood along the side aisles and at the back. A large man with a briefcase made room for Anne and she slipped in beside him. Someone was speaking, but she barely heard him. She stood still and looked at the backs of the Chathams, all the generations of Chathams, rows and rows of Chathams and
their friends and business associates and even a few of their enemies, and beyond all of them, at the front of the chapel, the coffin of Ethan Chatham, dead at the age of ninety-one.
The room rustled and swayed like a wheat field under a prairie wind as people bent left and right to whisper to their neighbors and listen to speakers reminisce about Ethan. They all knew each other; many of them had grown up together, and gone to private schools together, and now they were bankers, executives of multinational companies, owners of industries, commodities brokers, and presidents of insurance companies. They were the warp and woof of Chicago society, and Ethan Chatham had been one of them, and they had tolerated his eccentricities, even his running off to the mountains of Colorado, because, after all, he had made so very much money.
Quietly, Anne moved to the side aisle and made her way unobtrusively toward the front, to look at all the faces. Most of them were strange to her. But in the two front rows was the Chatham family, and as she looked at each profile, each one was so familiar she named them all in an instant. It was astonishing to her. But why would they change? she thought. I was the one who ran away. They stayed where they were; comfortable, smug, the same. For so many years.
“He was a great builder,” said Harrison Ervin, president of Chicago's largest bank, “a creator of housesâof whole towns, in factâthat won him awards and brought prestige to all of us. And then he went west, as restless men always have done in America's history, and discovered Tamarack, in the mountains of Colorado, and made it a world-famous resort. He was a man who knew what he wanted and knew how to achieve it. That was his greatness.”
Charles Chatham stopped listening. It wasn't greatness, he thought, for his father to turn his back on his family and spend the last twenty-some years of his life concentrating on a private paradise he'd built from the ruins of a little mountain ghost town. Turned his back on Chatham Development, too, the company he'd built; behaved as if it could rot in hell, and Charlesâtrying to run the company, trying
to run the familyâcould rot, too, for all his father gave a damn. That wasn't greatness; that was obsession.
“I visited him in Tamarack,” Ervin went on. “He was building there, too, always building, molding the town into the shape of his dream. Sometimes he was impatient with how slowly things went, or frustrated because he knew he wouldn't live to finish it. But he never got discouraged or angry; he wasn't the type to let anger corrode his energy.”
Marian Jax shifted in her seat. Ethan had been angry at her when she insisted on marrying Fred. More than angry; her gentle father had been furious. Because he wasn't at all gentle when he thought his children were being stupid; he roared at truly volcanic levels. He'd roared at Marian for not listening to him, for going ahead with her wedding to Fred Jax, who, he kept telling her, was sly and conniving and far more interested in Marian's money than in Marian. She folded her hands neatly in her lap with a brief glance at Fred, sitting smooth-faced beside her. And of course her father had been absolutely right.
“He was a good friend,” said Ervin. “He'll be missed for so many things. His wisdom, hisâ”
I miss him already, thought Nina Chatham Grant. I needed him, probably more than most daughters need their fathers. He listened to me and never scolded when I got another divorce. He believed in love and faithfulnessâhe never remarried after Mother died; I don't think he even went out with anyoneâbut he was always sweet to me; he knew I wanted to be good, he knew I kept trying to be good. She shook her head sadly. I'm almost fifty-nine years old, and there's still so much I don't know about life. She looked sideways at her brother William, who met her eyes and put a comforting hand on her arm. Nina smiled at him through her tears. He wasn't as good as her father, but he was better than nothing. Everybody needs a family, she thought, just to listen and to be kind.
“âand most of all,” Ervin said, “his affection for friends and family alikeâ”
Charles' granddaughter Robin, eight years old, saw
Charles' face tighten even more. “Don't be sad, Grandpa,” she whispered. “It'll be all right.” She scanned the crowd, looking for something with which to distract him. “Who's that pretty lady?” she asked suddenly. “Is she a relative?”
Charles followed her gaze, turning his head to look at the mourners standing along the side wall. He knew none of them, and he wondered again at all these strangers: how little he had known of his father's life.
“Isn't she beautiful?” Robin whispered. “She looks nice, too.”
His gaze flickered over them again, and then he saw Anne, partly hidden behind someone else. He frowned, briefly puzzled. He peered at her, and then, suddenly, he was halfway out of his seat, poised as if to lunge toward the side of the chapel. He heard a rustling in the crowd behind him; from the corner of his eye he saw Harrison Ervin pause in his eulogy and look at him in surprise.
Confusion spread across Charles' face. He hesitated, knees bent, and then, slowly, sat down, staring straight ahead.
“So what is she?” Robin whispered impatiently. “A relative?”
Charles closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. “Yes,” he said.
“And he was a teacher,” Ervin went on. “He taught us new ways of thinking about building; he shared with us his visions for our city; he taught us about ways to live.”
He didn't teach me anything, Walter Holland thought. Only that it's a stupid, half-assed thing to marry into a family and a company at the same time. Shifting, he knocked against Rose's arm. The seats were too close in here; why did everybody have to be crammed against everybody else? It was like marrying into the Chathams: always hemmed in, pressured, squeezed, stomped on. Asking Rose to marry him had been like asking a whale to swallow him up. Like asking to disappear.
Rose Holland moved her arm from her husband's touch. There were too many Chathams here; she'd known it would annoy him. But what could she do? This was a funeral, not a
cocktail party with a few handpicked guests. Walter knew that; he ought to behave himself. But he'd never managed to control his temper when he felt they were surrounding him as if he were the last survivor facing an army of occupation. It must be awful for him to go to work each day, she thought.
