Summary
A sun-dappled rectory garden becomes Eden for two children: Felicia, caged by her grandfather’s antique morality, and Dudley, whose red rubber ball arcs over a picket fence like a comet of possibility. One illicit peck—swift as a sparrow’s heartbeat—shatters the Major’s Victorian snow-globe; the girl is banished to the maple wilderness of Canada while the boy is left clutching only the echo of strawberry lip-balm. Years ferment. Felicia re-emerges in Manhattan’s electric twilight, stitching silk by day and translating private longing into kinetic arabesques by night. Dudley, now a sleek Manhattanite, wanders into a rooftop cabaret where gas-jets halo her spinning silhouette; memory detonates. He pursues her through rain-slick alleys, past El signs that sizzle like faulty synapses, arriving in time to wrench her from the groping talons of Graemer, the impresario whose moustache wax smells of backstage vice. In a final tableau worthy of Chagall, the lovers ascend a tenement stairwell that seems to lean toward the moon, resurrecting the kiss that was never truly stolen—only on layaway.
Synopsis
Felicia Day is brought up in seclusion by her affectionate but narrow-minded grandfather, Major Trenton. One day, Dudley Hamilt, a choirboy, throws his ball across the fence which separates the rectory from the Trenton yard and meets Felicia, from whom he steals a kiss. Trenton sees the children smooching and, shocked, sends Felicia to Canada. Years pass and Felicia, now an adult, decides to go to New York and make her living as a seamstress. She still yearns for Dudley but decides against seeing him because of her old-fashioned wardrobe. Possessing a natural talent for dancing, Felicia is offered a job by lecherous theatrical manager Allen Graemer, and she accepts. Dudley, attending one of her performances, recognizes his long-lost love and follows her home where he rescues her from Graemer's advances and admits his enduring love for the girl from whom he stole a kiss.
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