The Kiss Thief

My cheeks heated just thinking about last night. Senator Keaton had yet to leave his room this morning since returning from escorting his guests to his private jet while I was asleep. I’d be content not to see him the remainder of the weekend, month, and the span of my lifetime.

“How do you mean?” my father demanded.

“Why, Papa, I have the best news. My new groom has decided to send me off to college. Northwestern, no less. I’ve already taken a tour, and I’m filling out an application today. He was so supportive of that decision,” I uttered, noticing with satisfaction the thin smile tugging at Ms. Sterling’s lips as her eyes remained on the same page for long minutes. I was sure my father was well aware of the fact that Angelo, too, applied for a masters at Northwestern. He was good at connecting the dots.

A few days ago, I’d sighed and complained to the garden around me that I needed more pots and a new watering can. The day after, new ones were waiting for me in the shed. She could be nosy, but she was definitely not as bad as my husband-to-be. “He even expressed his support to my pursuing a career. Now I just need to figure out what I want to do. I’m thinking a lawyer or maybe a cop.” That last touch was laying it on thick. My father hated lawyers and cops more than he hated child molesters and atheists. With illogic rage that burned in his blood.

I’d been my parents’ puppet for so long, clipping the strings felt scary and forbidden. I wore long skirts and dresses I absolutely detested because they liked them. Attended Sunday mass regularly even though other church girls usually disliked me for having better clothes and nicer shoes. I even refrained from kissing boys to appease my strict folks. And what good did it do to me? My father sold me off to a senator. And my mother, despite her deep pain and disappointment, was helpless against him. But that did not stop her from discouraging me to pursue the same route as her.

She didn’t want me to study and get a job.

She wanted me to be as stranded as she was.

“Is this a joke?” My father choked on his drink on the other line. “No daughter of mine will work,” he spat.

“Your future son-in-law doesn’t seem to share the sentiment,” I singsonged, momentarily putting my hatred toward Wolfe aside.

“Francesca, you have the breeding, the beauty, and the wealth. You were not born to work, Vita Mia. You’re rich in your own right and more so since you’re marrying a Keaton,” Mama cried out. I didn’t even know the Keatons were a thing before all this. I’d never bothered to ask anyone, least of all my future husband, since money was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m going to college. Unless…” It was a crazy idea, but it made sense. A cunning smile touched my lips, and my eyes met Ms. Sterling’s from across the garden. She gave me a barely noticeable nod.

“What?” my father snarled.

“Unless you tell me why you gave Wolfe my hand. Then I’d consider not going.” Mainly because then I’d have the full picture. I very much doubted I could change my fate at this point, but I wanted to know what he’d gotten me into to see if I could dig my way out.

My father snorted, his glacial tenor stabbing at my nerves. “I do not discuss my business with women, much less my own daughter.”

“What’s wrong with being a woman, Papa?”

You sure acted like a pussy the day you gave me to Wolfe Keaton.

“We play different roles,” he clipped.

“And mine is to make babies and look pretty?”

“Yours is to continue the legacy of your family and leave the hardworking jobs to people who need them.”

“This sounds a lot like you don’t respect me as an equal,” I hissed, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder and stabbing the trowel in the mud and wiping my forehead simultaneously.

“That’s because you’re not my equal, my dear Frankie.”

The line went dead on the other side.

I planted twenty pots of flowers that day. Then went to my room, took a shower, and started filling out my application to Northwestern. Political Science and Legal Studies, I decided, would be my major. In all fairness, I always thought gardening was my calling, but since my father infuriated me to no end, sticking my major in his face was worth going through years and years of studying something I doubted would interest me much. I was Petty McPetson, but I was gaining an education, and it felt good.

I hunched over my oak desk when something in the air changed. I didn’t have to lift my head to know what it was.