Page 21 of Modern Persuasion

"Nothing."

Chapter Fourteen

I was left on my own now that we were in Los Angeles. Louisa, who had been so excited to spend time with me before we got here, was utterly infatuated with Seth and spent her free time with him. Patrick and Fredrick stayed at home, only going to events when needed. I found myself with free time to get other tasks done. I sat by the pool now that I had a bathing suit, read manuscripts, or checked emails. I had never been this involved with a tour, and I was falling behind on my own work.

I was exhausted from trying to hold everything together, but every night I was picked up by Patrick and Victor and taken to another party in honor of Fredrick and the book. We would get to the party, Fredrick would already be there, he would be drunk (or maybe high), and he would brood. Patrick would take me around and introduce me to people. I heard the same things repeatedly as people realized who I was.

"You're so not his type."

"That blond girl with Seth is much more Fredrick's type."

"You're nothing like he wrote you in the movie."

"Fuck me, you're hot."

That last one was from one of the biggest douchebags in all of Hollywood. He didn't even remember that, when he was trying to get a terrible memoir published a few years ago, he had flirted with me at a party in New York City. He had stalked me at said party until I left. He must have been too drunk to remember anything from that night, and I wondered if the same would happen again.

One of the most surreal moments at the party was when I met Sammy, the petite blonde actress who played me in Fredrick's first movie. Aside from that one role, I'm a huge fan, and we hit it off. We met at a small party of friends that the above-mentioned douchebag threw our second night in town. She and I sat in a quiet room with her sleeping baby.

"Is this as weird for you as it is for me?" Sammy asked when we were alone in the room.

I was happily bouncing the giggling child on my lap and making silly faces. "Why? Yes, but why?" I asked without looking away from the chubby baby.

Sammy shrugged. "I feel like I know who you are. We made some big changes to the character because I thought they were too unfair. I spent a lot of time trying to figure her out, and now that I know you, I think I really got in your head more than I realized."

That got me to look up. What little I had seen of the movie had hurt. I hadn't considered that this had been someone's interpretation of Fredrick's work or that it could have been more generous than he had initially written. "Did you always know she was based on a real woman?" I asked, lowering my voice.

Sammy gave me a half-smile. "Then? No. Since then, I realized that Fredrick writes best when processing something difficult. This book is his way of working through Abby."

I shook my head. That was impossible, and since Sammy knew my history with Fredrick, I could openly talk about it. "He wrote this book before I even met him. I was the first person to read and edit it. Most of my edits made it into the final book."

Sammy looked confused. "Really? I wonder what he wrote to deal with Abby then?"

I was curious about that too. She was right about how Fredrick coped. Considering what I could tell at the parties, he got drunk and high each night, so I didn't know if he had remembered his healthy coping mechanisms.

I saw Sammy again the next night with her husband and baby in tow. This was a party Fredrick's agent threw, and many important Hollywood people were there. I was more comfortable at this party since few of them had known who I was to Fredrick. Sammy and I continued to chat about nonsensical things like how we both love knitting, have the same taste in music, disagree on which animals are the cutest, and other silly things. At some point, her six-month-old was back in my arms, falling asleep on my lap.

"This is probably the cutest thing I have ever seen," Patrick said, walking by.

Since I met Sammy, Patrick had kept his distance. He had not played anchor for me at all that evening. That comment was the first thing he said to me since introducing me to Sammy, and I noticed a few people turn to look at us, including Fredrick.

"Do you have children?" Sammy asked me.

This was the topic we had avoided for two nights.

I let out a sigh. "No. My younger sister, Louisa's sister-in-law, has two little boys. The oldest is almost four. I adore them."

"Can I ask you something personal?" Sammy asked as she looked behind me.

"Ok," I said, feeling more comfortable with her than I had with anyone outside my family in years.

"Has there been anyone in your life since Fredrick?"

I looked up and quickly found Fredrick in the crowd. He was sitting alone by the bar with a beer in his hand. He was staring at me, but I couldn't read his expression. It took a fraction of a second for me to replay the disastrous dates I had been on in the first few years after returning to New York. There had been a few short relationships, but I grew less tolerant of them as time went on. In the past year, there hadn't been more than one or two dates that ended poorly. I always made the mistake of comparing men to Fredrick without realizing it. Thinking of them all at once made me remember how happy Fredrick and I had been together, and I felt the tidal wave of emotions start to rise again. I tried to blink back the tears that were beginning to fill my eyes, but I had to wipe them away.

"He may date a lot of famous women, but none of them have been what he wants," Sammy said.

"He has made it clear he doesn't want me anymore even if I wanted to get back together," I said and cleared my throat.