Page 26 of Modern Persuasion

Louisa looked back and forth between the two of us. "Ok, so the two of you obviously know this, and I have no memory of that line from the movie. I've been watching you all month, and you say it every time you go get drinks."

I looked at Fredrick, expecting him to relax or catch my eye, but he continued pacing. "It's from when Eliza is learning to speak better," I said. "He makes her say 'cup of tea' over and over. She keeps saying cuppa tea, which most British people actually say."

"Yeah, I don't care. What I find amusing," Louisa said. "Every time you say it, Freddy mouths it along with you in perfect time and then laughs to himself."

I over at Fredrick again, but his back was to me, and he was looking over the passage he would read. He had probably heard me say it so many times while we were together that it was just stuck in his head.

Louisa looked playfully annoyed. "Is it a Northwestern thing? A Chicago thing? Freddy does it every time. EVERY TIME!"

"Does it annoy you?" Seth asked, a big grin on his face.

"No, but it makes me feel like there's some inside joke that I don't get! It makes me feel like Mary, and I hate that," Louisa said, turning to me.

"It's really nothing," Fredrick said as I gave Louisa a half-smile.

I wasn't going to blurt out our history without his consent. Louisa reluctantly let it drop.

The next day Louisa had asked for the afternoon off to spend it with Seth. I couldn't deny her some free time after doing so much the day before. I went to Fredrick's room to go to the next bookstore together. I thought it would be fine since nothing had gone wrong yet. When Fredrick opened the door and saw me standing there, rather than Louisa, I realized that nobody had told him about the change.

"Where's Louisa?" Fredrick said, looking behind me.

I tried to act casual about her absence. "She asked for the afternoon off."

"And you said yes?" Fredrick asked, his jaw getting tense as his mouth tightened. "She was the last thing keeping this from being the worst tour in the history of tours."

"Excuse me?" I said, rapidly blinking.

I wasn't expecting this reaction after things had been so calm all tour.

Fredrick filled up the doorway and leaned forward. "Christi assured me you were the best at running book tours, but this has been the worst experience of my life. I pity the other authors you work with and everyone else if this is your best."

I wasn't going to let him try to intimidate me, so I stood straight and took a step forward. "Maybe if you could avoid getting drunk and high, you would see that this tour is fantastic. You're already on the top of the New York Times bestseller list. We had to ship extra books to the bookstores, and that's still not enough. They're getting a second printing going earlier than expected because this tour has gone so well."

He didn't back down. "The tour is about me, and I'm not happy."

The look on his face was like one I often saw on my nephews when they were stubbornly refusing to do something asked of them. I could feel the heat rise in my face.

"The tour is about your fucking book," I said and took another step forward, hoping to push my way into his room so we didn't have this fight in the hall, but he wouldn't budge. "None of this is about you beyond the fact that you wrote the book. I'm here to make sure the investment was worth it for my bosses. I'm here because they don't trust anyone else to do this."

"Except you pass things off to Louisa and Patrick."

"You have made it clear that you don't want to interact with me. You asked Patrick to protect you from your big bad ex-girlfriend. He and I assumed you would be happier if he supported you."

Fredrick took a step out of his room, closer to me. "Yeah, and it has all fallen apart since he left."

"Sorry, you aren't as mature as he thinks you are. He thought you could handle another few days with me. What did you expect would happen after eight years? Do you think this is easy for me?"

"It was easy enough for you to walk away and say no eight years ago. I thought you wouldn't have a problem doing it this time."

We were standing inches from each other. I fought my instinct to kiss him.

"You want to see a clusterfuck? I will give you a clusterfuck," I said and took a step back. "The limo is waiting for you to take you to the bookstore. Feel free to tell the manager you fired me."

I turned and walked down the hall.

I would like to stay. I stubbornly stuck to that. I would like to say it was a disaster. I didn't, and it wasn't. I let him panic, but in reality, I was fifteen minutes behind him and on the phone with the manager before either of us got to the bookstore. I even relayed a message to Fredrick through the manager.

"You really want me to use the word fuck?" the manager said on the phone.