First Papers by Hobson Laura Z

Author:Hobson, Laura Z. [Hobson, Laura Z.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781453244425
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

“BUT THE MINUTE IT’S ready to play on,” Fran said in despair, “I’ll have to go away for the summer! Can’t I please? Just for two weeks?”

Alexandra said nothing. Day after day since the start of June, this argument had run along until the sight of the tan expanse beyond the windows made her angry. To stay behind when they started for the beach was what Fran was nagging her to death about, to stay behind by herself, so she could preside like a queen over the tennis court.

“If it was my fault,” Fran went on. “But you know how much rain there’s been.”

“You can not stay all alone, no matter whose fault.”

Fran looked away, hating her mother for being so pig-headed. She glanced at her father, who was insensible to what was going on around him, in that way he had, and then at Fee, who was almost as miserable as she was. Fee understood. They had worked all spring a year ago and all spring this year, and now at last the court was nearly ready, would positively be ready by Graduation—and bang, the next day she had to turn her back on it until September.

“It’s like being a prisoner,” she cried out. “Dragged off to the beach no matter what.”

“By apron strings,” Stefan agreed suddenly. “Fran is nearly seventeen. Is she to be tied hand and foot regardless of her own desires?”

“Apron strings,” Alexandra retorted. “Could any mother believe more in free will for her children?”

“Free Will and White Slavery!”

Alexandra was infuriated. She wheeled toward the girls and said, “Must you both sit there enjoying this spectacle? Go upstairs or go outside.”

Neither moved.

Fee sat as if tacked to the chair and Fran stared at her father, mute, afraid to break the spell and see him return to indifference. To have him as her ally and defender was an unimaginable glory. Maybe he could see the tremendous necessity of being right here for the court’s first two weeks of life, so Tom and Jack Purney and the whole neighborhood would get it fixed in their minds forever that it was her court, not just any old tennis court but her private court, inextricably a part of Fran Ivarin, no matter how many of them played on it with no matter what equal rights. Maybe he could make Mama see it, too.

“Aping the rich,” Alexandra flung at him, forced to accept the girls’ immobility. “You said it a hundred times—they’d want tiaras next, you said. And now you’re the big defender and I’m suddenly the Czar’s jailer who wants to tie Fran up in apron strings and lock her away on the beach.”

A faint smile moved across his mouth and Alexandra was infuriated anew. If he said a word about her being volatile, she would leave the room, leave the house, and they could all three get along forever without her. Her eyes stung with a hundred points of hotness and she started for the back door and the sight of her garden just beyond.

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