Page 35 of Modern Persuasion

I wondered who had pulled out the muffins and arranged them nicely on a platter for each of us to eat as we wanted. I was sure Karen knew neither my father nor Elizabeth would think to accommodate a guest.

Karen looked at me as she continued to pick apart the mangled muffin in front of her. "So, she had a good tour, and you had a bad one."

"I don't know if I would call it a bad one. It wasn't how I would have chosen to spend my time, but it did give me a chance to think about what is going on," I said, hoping I sounded nonchalant.

Karen gave me a tight smile. "What do you mean about what's going on?"

I looked her in the eye. "Fredrick's agent sent me his manuscript, but I never saw it. How is that possible?"

Karen's mouth fell open, and she got pale but didn't say a word.

"I don't want to assume anything because that's not fair, but I was told that you passed the manuscript on to Christi, who saw a draft full of my notes from eight years ago," I continued when she didn't respond.

"You didn't need him in your life again. You've moved on," Karen said in a whisper.

I took a sip of my tea to give me time to carefully consider my response. "This isn't about Fredrick right now. This is about how I am treated professionally. Right now, I understand that you have been watching my emails and interceding when you don't like something. I can't help but wonder, considering how agents wanted a contractual commitment to working with me, how many people have been passed on before I knew they existed."

Karen opened her mouth to respond, and I put a hand up, not wanting to let her interrupt me. "You are clearly in a difficult situation because of your own choices, but I'm increasingly confident that our bosses now consider me a problem. This is why I was forced to go on a book tour with one of those authors. Is my future with this company at risk?"

Karen looked down and pursed her lips before whispering. "You work for me, not them."

"If that were true," I said, "you would have been able to keep me from spending the last month babysitting Fredrick. To be honest, I was the only reason he needed babysitting. Our history made us both miserable, and it could have derailed the tour. It would have made things worse."

Karen opened her mouth to speak again, but her face was red, and I was confident that she would defend herself. I wasn't in the mood to hear excuses. Her response had confirmed my theories, and now I had to decide one last thing. There was nobody around me who could advise me about this decision. It was on my shoulders.

Later that day, Karen and I packed some dinner and walked down to the beach with Thing One and Thing Two in tow. As soon as they saw Mary, they ran to her demanding food and attention. Fortunately, she was ready to supply both. Fredrick was sitting next to Seth and Louisa. I know Karen saw him, but she ignored him. There was still plenty of tension between us after our conversation that morning. She prattled on about how lucky we were to get such good spots. Fredrick looked back at me and smiled.

"Is this a good spot to get the attention of a Kennedy?" I heard Dave ask from behind me.

"Who the hell knows," I said with a shrug. "Do you remember anyone from the family coming here?"

Dave chuckled and shook his head. "Your father swears someone with the last name Kennedy is coming tonight."

I leaned closer to him and whispered. "Honestly, if Eddie and Little Eddie Bouvier Beale showed up, he would consider that a Kennedy showing up."

"Those are the hoarders from the Hamptons, right?" Dave asked with a smirk.

"Yes! The ones who got a movie out of it. My father can hoard like a champ, so I think they would get along wonderfully."

The two of us laughed for a moment. "Wait, isn't one dead?" Dave asked.

"Both are dead," I said as I tried to stop laughing.

I walked over to the cooler to find something cold to drink. I only found beer.

"There's water on the bottom," Fredrick said as he walked over.

I dug to the bottom, letting the ice water cool me off. "Good, beer now would mean I would be drunk in a heartbeat. It's much too hot," I said and pulled out a cold bottle of water.

I looked up to see my father acting like a social butterfly wandering from group to group, saying hello to old friends.

"Your father seems to be happy," Fredrick said, nodding his head in my father's direction.

My face fell. "He's with his social equals and betters. He's in hog heaven."

"You're very hard on him. I get it with Elizabeth, but your dad... he clearly hasn't gotten over your mother's death. Losing the person you love the most in the world can do odd things to people," Fredrick said, and our eyes locked.

"I lost her too, and I manage to act like an adult," I said without breaking eye contact.