Highland Fling
Page 10
Seth sat staring at his daughter for a moment, caught between being dumbfounded at her practical and jaded assessment and proud of her for having an abnormal level of perspective where many teenage girls would have vowed Juliet was the ultimate goddess of true love for stabbing herself over a boy.
“I don’t know – they kind of give teens a bad name, I think,” Kelsey shrugged again and picked up her pencil to continue with her trig assignment.
“Such a modern girl,” Seth said with a shake of his head, knowing Dr. Sullivan would have applauded her no-nonsense attitude. “After homework, we’re watching Casablanca – no excuses.”
Kelsey gave a disgusted sigh and whined, “This is some sort of father-knows-best-life-lesson, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he answered, and turned to the index of his book to see what the wet blanket Liberty Sullivan had to say about the movie, dreading her pessimistic analysis of that one. “By the sounds of things, we need a little Romance 101 around here.”
“Ugh,” Kelsey grunted with a roll of her eyes, as she bent back over her paper.
“Go figure,” he muttered and read Sullivan’s passage to himself: “Casablanca often offends postmodern sensibilities because its heroine shows a timeless concern for collective human need over her own transitory impulse towards pleasure, wherein lies both the eternal mystique of the movie and greatest frustration for modern viewers. While Rick was tempting, Lazlo offered a connection beyond shallow coupling. The former is the trend in modern romance. The latter option is amongst the more substantial foundations of pre-modern marriage, now largely abandoned, much to our detriment. Even Rick, the hero of the individualist romantic crowd, was intelligent enough to realize momentary lust was nothing compared to the role of lifelong helpmate.”
When did being a romantic become such a bad thing, anyway, Seth asked himself as he tossed the book to the other end of the sofa. Seth had never identified himself as a romantic before, but his annoyance over her analysis made him realize it about himself. Most of the time, he was practical and logical, but he had to admit he strongly believed in the “myths” of love. Yes, there was the Right One out there for everyone. While he wasn’t actively seeking her, knowing she was out there made life more bearable. If one didn’t have that hope, it would be like all the sparks went out of the world. He supposed Libby would say that was a pipedream sold to him by corporate America, and it irked him.
Libby Sullivan was an enigma to him. This pessimism and disapproval over passion, he just couldn’t reconcile with the youth and vitality he saw in her. He knew she had a good sense of humor, and she seemed like a kind person. She was pretty and warm in a professional sort of way. He’d seen her traipsing across campus with her red backpack on, looking every inch the young co-ed, instead of a professor. She was the type of woman who’d always look younger than her age, by virtue of her good bone structure and her nature, which tended to be a bit hipper and more energetic than most thirty-something professors. She very rarely wore more than the lightest skiff of makeup on campus, so her skin was still relatively unlined and smooth, which, combined with her creamy, rosy complexion, made her look about nineteen sometimes.
That freshness, in combination with her mature curves, impressive brain and wicked glint in her eyes, was a heady mixture that continued to draw him to her more every week.
Seth wondered how such a smoking hot woman had become such an anti-love Scroogette.
He couldn’t help but consider what a delightful undertaking it might be to thaw her out.
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