Page 3 of Modern Persuasion

Mary sighed and shook her head. "He's complaining about the art he had to sell. She's in her room, making sure her stuff's undamaged. They aren't going to make any changes, are they?"

I gave her a small smile, glad I could count on her to be rational and to back me up. "It's doubtful. They both seem to think I've been secretly hoarding his money for such a situation."

"You set up the trust with what's left, right?" Mary asked with a look of panic on her face. "I mean, there's some left, right?"

When she passed away, my mother left her small fortune to my sisters and me. While we all used it to pay for college, we spent the remaining money in different ways. Mary followed our mother's example and put her share away in various accounts and trusts so her children could have it someday. Elizabeth spent hers on shoes, purses, and clothes. I used mine to buy an apartment in the city. My father had his own money and a retirement account he had blown through while buying his art.

In the ten years since our mother died, we had taken on atypical roles for our place in age order. Instead of being the responsible, practical, older child, Elizabeth had never been denied anything or expected to make anything of her life. My father was happy to still have her living with him at home. She had no responsibilities beyond her own imagined ones. Mary, the youngest, turned into an attention-seeking middle child. That left me in the middle, acting as the responsible and practical one. Mary had her own family to take care of, so I had allowed myself to take on the burden of paternal care.

"Yes, the rent from the apartment will be used to pay the rent and bills here," I said, ticking items off my fingers. "The credit cards have been canceled and are being paid off with the money from the art auction. It won't bring in enough, but they're getting an allowance. If either of them gets a new credit card, then I wash my hands of this once and for all."

Later, I got to Mary's house to find it filled with people, food, and wine. Mary's in-laws, the Musgroves, filled the house with good cheer. It was completely different from the world we had grown up in. I understood why my younger sister found herself drawn to her husband's family over her own. Mary's attention-seeking nature can be annoying. The Musgrove family give my sister the attention she needs and I love that about them. They adore her and her children, and she is far less annoying because they give her so much attention. I enjoy her much more now than I did as a child, even though I always liked her more than Elizabeth. I was fourteen when my mother passed away. Elizabeth was sixteen, and Mary was eleven. Our mother had been the anchor of the family. She kept my father from spending all their money and building the art hoard that would grow once she passed. They were always restrained, and showing affection was rare. They weren't uptight but products of their social class.

It was nice to spend time with the Musgroves. I could relax a bit when I was around this family. They were boisterous and loving. I had gotten their youngest, Louisa, a summer internship at my publishing house. She was clearly anxious to tell me about her first week since the entire company was getting ready to go to PubCon next week. PubCon was the largest publishing conference in North America. Publishers from all over the U.S., Canada, and worldwide came to show their newest titles, meet with new authors, and share with booksellers and librarians. My father's family had owned a publishing company for generations, so I had been going to PubCon since birth. My father allowed his company to be purchased by a larger one and had run the imprint until his retirement. He and my mother had met as young editors early in their careers. My mother's best friend, and my mentor, Karen Russell, had been hired by my parents, and she eventually hired me. I believed Karen's plan was to have me run the entire company one day. As a result of growing up in the publishing industry, going to PubCon each year didn't have the same excitement for me as it did for Louisa.

"So, I've been assigned to work with one of our new authors," Louisa told me after a late dinner in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Who?" Mary asked from across the room.

My younger sister hated to be left out of any conversation and could hear across rooms if she felt she was being left out.

"You know that screenwriter..." Louisa said, waving her hand. "Oh, I can't remember his name. You'll remember, Mary. He wrote that movie about that guy who dated an actress, and she left him for someone better. Then, last year, it really happened to him."

"Oh, Fredrick Wentworth!" Mary said, perking up.

Chapter Two

Fredrick Wentworth, Fred as I remembered him (and Freddy, as only I was allowed to call him), was the last name I expected to hear Louisa say. I'm not sure why. I knew he was publishing a book and that we were his publishers. Karen had turned down the chance to have our team work with him. To be fair, she probably turned it down because of my history with him.

When my mother passed away, Karen stepped in to help my father raise his three teenage daughters. Elizabeth was clearly my father's favorite, even when my mother was alive. Karen felt sorry for Mary and me, but it was clear that she favored me. Karen thought she was teaching me to see the world the way my mother would have wanted.

As a product of her generation, Karen considers herself a feminist. She's an advocate for women in the workplace, equal pay, ending rape culture, and all of that stuff. She taught me that I couldn't have it all, no matter what the media told me. Instead, I learned how to pick what was most important to me; confident Karen was an example of a woman who chose her priorities well. She opted not to marry and have children because she wanted her career. She was happy to live through her friends and their families. At twenty-two, when I graduated from college, she persuaded me that I had to make the same choice she did. I was in love with a man who wanted a life in Los Angeles, but I wanted to work in an industry that existed almost exclusively in New York City. To make the decision even more stressful, I had already taken on the mantle of caring for my father.

I met Fredrick, then Fred, the summer before my junior year at Northwestern University in Chicago. A friend and I had decided to rent an apartment together off-campus instead of sharing a dorm room. We found a great furnished apartment close to campus. Then said friend fell in love and left me alone to move in with her new boyfriend. Fredrick took over the lease. Fredrick was a tall, slender man at six-foot-four inches, with dark-reddish blond hair, brown eyes, and awkwardness that was really cute. He still had some baby fat that rounded his oval face when we met, but his smile was wide and happy. We started dating in the middle of the summer, and we stayed together until graduation.

I remember graduation so clearly. My father and Karen came to celebrate with me. Since my father doesn't like anyone from outside his social circle, I had no expectation that he would approve of Fredrick, but I didn't care. It was only Karen's opinion that mattered. Fredrick had proposed to me just before graduation. I had not given him an answer, anxious about what would change in my life if I accepted. When I confided in her, Karen was positive that Fredrick was the wrong guy for me. I remember her list of reasons very well.

He wants you to move to LA.

You know nobody in LA.

There are no publishing companies in LA (of importance).

Your entire family is in NYC.

You will reduce your entire identity to just being a wife and mother instead of a complex and important woman.

I remember my list of reasons to marry him just as well.

I love him, and he makes me happy.

Rationality won over love. Karen listed three questions when I told her my reason to marry him:

How happy would I be if I was lonely and bored in LA?

How quickly would I resent him if I was unhappy?

How much longer would I love him if I resented him?