The Secret Life of Prince Charming Read Online Free PDF Page A

couple of glasses of wine and flirted with the waitress, and we all laughed loud, and quiet couples looked at us with envy. Then we carried a stack of Styrofoam boxes full of food home again, and they were still warm when I carried them on my lap.
    Sprout went up to bed and so did Dad, but I promised Daniel I’d call him as I did every night, so I stayed downstairs because there was more privacy there. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to hear all the passion and desire and sexual longing in our conversation. How was your day? Fine, great. How was yours? Oh, pretty good.
    I took the phone from the cradle in the kitchen, settled into the big leather chair in the living room. Dad’s living room was as creative and patchwork as the rest of the house—the ceiling was covered in squares of tin pressed into elaborate designs, which had been taken from an old bank in New York that was about to be demolished, and the rug was a worn Oriental one covering the floor, which was made of the sort of polished, bumpy wood you’d see on an old ship. The room was full of objects he’d gotten on his travels—a music box, an ancient globe, a red tribal mask—and there was a painting above the fireplace that Sprout hated, a naked woman in cubist style, with one pointed, triangular breast, one rounded, oblong one. Dad loved these things—whenever there werevisitors, he’d show them his objects, like a hunter in his trophy room. I got this when I was in Africa…. I got this when I met the artist in New York…. I put my feet up on the fringed, velvety footstool, got comfortable for the intelligent and stimulating conversation that was coming. So, what’d you do today? Oh, track practice. Mowed the lawn. You? Train ride—did my homework.
    I was feeling the tumbling irritation of boredom, and the need to shake myself out of the kind of bad mood that would lead to the inevitable What’s wrong? Nothing conversation that would be full of edges and politeness and something close to cinched-in homicidal urges. I didn’t know what my problem was. Daniel was a great guy, and everyone told me what a great guy he was. I tried to remember what I liked about him. He was nice. That’s right. He had good legs from running track. We both liked math, and not many people understood that. He was…My mind snagged. Well, he was clean. Clean in all ways. His thoughts were as clean as his freshly showered hair. Which I think I liked. I was pretty sure I liked.
    I leaned my head against the high back of the chair, holding the phone in my palm, and that’s when I saw it. Something that hadn’t been in the room the last time we were here. It was a small statue on a black square, a glass statue. It was a curve of glass about ten inches tall, something that managed to look both delicate and strong. I could see that there was a brass plate on it, with some sort of writing, and I got up to see what it said. I left the phone in the soft squish of the chair, squinted at the words. Humphrey Bogart, I read. Lifetime Achievement Award. Film Artists Association of America.
    Okay, this was strange. Why would my father have a statue belonging to Humphrey Bogart? Why would it appear here suddenly? If he bought it somewhere recently, wouldn’t he have shown it to us or told us about it? It wouldn’t have been like purchasing a new pair of shoes or a garden tool not worth a mention.
    I looked at it, and there was a part of me that did not want to touch it, did not want to do what I did next, which was to pick it up and look underneath. I think I must have already had the sense that something was wrong, that this object had no place here. That the reasons it was here were bad reasons, ugly ones. But I was curious, too. And so I held the bottom of the statue up close so that I could read the words taped on a tiny note at the bottom of the statue. To Hugh Jenkins , it read. And to scotch on the rocks…Humphrey Bogart.
    Humphrey Bogart! Jenkins. I felt something heavy and