Thin Love(5)

Her mother’s voice was tense and Keira could hear the exaggerated sigh she blew right into the phone. “I just believe it would behoove you to make smart connections now. Mark is pre-med at Tulane. He’s mature and has a bright future ahead of him. You’ll want to snag him up before someone else does.”

Keira wanted to scream. Her mother had antiquated, ancient ideas about how Keira should live her life. Cora Michaels had managed at least one successful marriage, to a heart surgeon no less, and had considered that some great accomplishment. The woman liked to pretend she’d never been married to Keira’s father—a handsome musician with stage fright. She expected Keira to marry well. She expected Keira to be her clone. She expected a lot of things from Keira that the girl would never manage to live up to.

Taking a breath, Keira leaned against the wall, her attention distracted by a janitor mopping up a spill someone had abandoned on the gray tile floor. “I don’t want to snag anyone, Mother.”

“But Keira, he’s so fit and handsome and his parents…”

She knew all about Mark Burke’s parents and ignored her mother’s recap. They were the same as all her mother’s friends—wealthy, connected and the height of proper North Shore society. They fit among the elite, the disgustingly rich, the groups and gaggles of the affluent that looked down their noses at anyone who wasn’t just like them. She didn’t know Mark, but if he was anything like his parents, Keira knew they’d only clash. As her mother always said, usually when she was angry at Keira, she was too much like her father. The woman had never known that Keira didn’t consider that an insult.

Already tired of her nagging, Keira interrupted her mother and whatever ridiculous thing she was saying. “Mother, I have to go. My class is about to start.” She didn’t wait for a dismissal. She knew the rudeness bothered her mother, she’d mentioned once or twice that Keira had changed since she began living on campus. Since her move, the threats had been particularly venomous. But the idle threat of making Keira return to their lake house forty-five minutes from the city was weak at best.

Keira deposited her red Nokia in her pocket, glaring at the backs of the two girls who’d walked in front of her, when she noticed one of them intentionally bumping the janitor’s full mop bucket. The dirty yellow contraption tittered on its wheels before it toppled over, spilling murky, brown water over the floor.

“Stupid bitch,” Keira said to the girl’s back before she stepped next to the janitor to set the bucket right. “Can I help?”

The old man blinked at her, a wry smile pulling across his face when he registered her offer. “No, cher, don’t you trouble yourself.”

She squatted down next to him, caught the mop before it fell to the floor. “I feel like I should apologize.” She nodded toward the end of the hallway where the blonde had disappeared. “I don’t hold out much hope for my generation. There are too many like her running around campus like they own it.”

The old man laughed and the sound had Keira returning his smile.

“I’ll give you that, darlin’. Not many good sort that I’ve seen.” He took the mop from Keira and they both stood straight. “But pretty little things like you give me hope.” At his wink, Keira felt her cheeks warm. “Thank you for the offer, but I think you best be off to your studies.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, wiping her damp hands on the leg of her jeans.

She put her mother and the janitor out of her mind as she walked into the classroom. Keira loved this room. She loved the large wooden desks, lined in a semi-circle around Professor Miller’s larger, cherry table. It felt homey, almost cozy, and she smiled when she entered the room, taking her seat right at the front.

Arthurian Studies.

Just the roll of the class name off her tongue made Keira giddy. She loved the legends; she loved the melodrama, the purpose behind each journey, every damn Campbell cliché that was born from the study of a might-have-been-real King who reigned centuries before. She loved this class and Keira suspected that her classmates did as well. For the most part, anyway.

There were, however, three exceptions: Skylar Williams and her boyfriend Dylan Collins were two. Skylar seemed unable to release high school habits and spent a huge portion of the class doodling over her notebook. She wasn’t an artist. Keira thought she was vapid. She thought anyone who drew “Skylar loves Dylan” a hundred times on perfectly usable paper, was vapid. “Skylar loves Dylan” or “Mrs. Dylan Collins” covered today’s page alongside hearts and clouds and geometric shapes. Dylan slept through every class.