Damon brings the car around to the front of Johnson’s palazzo, but Dad can’t wait until they’re in to let loose. “You couldn’t have been nice to Jessop Hawkins? You had to act like a spoiled brat?” Dad thinks he’s keeping his voice down, but the other party guests are getting an earful.
Sparrow climbs into the backseat while Dad gets in up front. She should have guessed this was coming. Since last week when the Wall Street Journal ran the story, “Debutante Dads: The New Millionaires,” Dad’s been asking how much girls she knows from school are going for.
“You know I don’t want to get Signed,” she reminds him yet again. “I’m going to college.”
“We can write a college deferral into your Contract like they did for that girl in your class, Dayla something or other.”
“Singer. Her name’s Dayla Singer.” Dayla’s under Contract to marry a technology prince after she graduates in five years, but the way things are going with Seth, Sparrow puts the probability of that happening at less than one percent.
“You know what your problem is?” Dad says.
Sparrow tears the clip from her hair, and shakes free her long curls. “No, what?”
‘You’re selfish.”
“I’m selfish?”
“Damn right. I’ve got three boys to get through college at $200K apiece. Then grad school. Then I’ve got to come up with enough to buy each of them a wife. You do the math! It’s twelve million easy. I don’t understand why you refuse to help your brothers.”
“That’s complete bull, and you know it,” Sparrow throws back at him. “You contracting me into marriage is not about helping my brothers. It’s about helping you!”
“And you can’t help your father? I pay for that expensive school you go to while your brothers make do with crappy public schools.”
Sparrow stares at the sunroof and wills herself not to explode. A merit scholarship pays half her tuition at Masterson Academy, but she won’t throw that back at Dad. Her teacher, Ms. Alexandra, has pushed her to keep her “eye on the prize” and not to argue with him.
Dad huffs and puffs up front, but Sparrow cancels out his noise. I’m going to Boston, she repeats to herself. Harvard, MIT, BU. She imagines her future as an equation. Boston + Harvard+ physics= freedom. And freedom is greater than or equal to happiness, because freedom might, if she allows herself to dream, include Imran.
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Sparrow's Story - A Girl Defiant
Teen FictionBoston, Harvard, but most of all, Imran. That’s what Sparrow wants. Imran is physics and poetry, deep brown eyes and a smile that makes her heart race. And he’s the only guy she’s ever met who loves her brilliant mind as much as her beauty. They’ve...
