Page 69 of A Heart of Bluestone

I slump on the bench and lift the receiver from the phonebook. It’s cool against my ear. “Father?”

“Olivia, I hope I didn’t you wake you.”

Father’s way of telling me I took too long getting to the phone.

Rolling my eyes, I snatch the gum from the edge of the phonebooth, left behind by my brother or someone else in the booth before me. I rifle through the thin foil stuffed inside, then tug out the only strip of gum left.

I stuff the gum into my mouth.

The inky taste is horrid, enough to twist my mouth, but the bubble you get after chewing for an hour is the glittering night sky. It’s worth it.

I smack the gum on my tongue. “I wasn’t asleep,” I lie. “I was working on an essay.”

“Which class?”

Trying to catch me in a lie.

I’m better prepared than he expects.

“Geometry.”

“Of?”

“The Ley Lines.”

“Oh.” I can almost hear Father’s signature small, proud smile. It’s fleeting. Always is. He’s back to business, quick. “I am calling to inform you that your contract has been reopened for the season.”

The season is the New Year. The debutante balls and ceremonies will roar through the final month of the year. Then, after school’s last semester, we enter wedding season—midway through the year—and contracts close for those months. It’s tacky to get engaged during wedding season. Steals the spotlight, and all that nonsense. And the following two months after wedding season is a whole load of pregnancy announcements. A lot of us, the aristos, are born in the same months. February, March, April—you do the math.

So contracts close for months each year to protect the dignity of wedding season and all the consequent pregnancy announcements.

For now, mine is open. Again.

I flatten my tights-covered feet on the wooden wall opposite me. “That’s good.”

“Your tone suggests otherwise,” Father drawls.

My knees are too close to my face, and I can see the little blonde hairs that dodged my razor and poke through the material of the tights.

“I don’t mind,” I say with a shrug. “Just… It doesn’t matter, does it? Open or closed, no one’s making any offers on me.”

He has a pause before he says, “I suspect many of gentry will.”

I smack my gum. “Now who’s the one who doesn’t sound thrilled?”

“I have higher ambitions for my only daughter,” Father says, softer. “And it appears that might come to be.”

The speckled black gum is pinched between my bite.

I pause, then frown at my knees. “What?”

“No offer has been made of yet,” he says, as if to slow down my excitement… but there is no excitement.

I’m just stunned.

There’s nothing happy about my surprise.

Someone higher than gentry has talked to Father about my contract? That would be aristos. An aristos bachelor.

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