Persuaded

by Alicia J. Chumney

  “But then the movie just completely ruined it for me. I was so invested in that scene and they ruined it.”

  “It isn’t always easy bringing books to life,” Anne interjected.

  “But they could have done it. They could have had them run into the right rooms, the overall audience’s appearance of the defeat as the final battle took place. The drama of the book…”

  “The movies are never going to make it perfectly right,” Anne interrupted. “Come on. I was in the theater when the house was destroyed in the sixth movie and turned to my friend Robin, and said, ‘That didn’t happen in the book!’ She shushed me, but all I could do was repeat, ‘But that doesn’t happen in the book!’ Robin,” Anne laughed as she shook her head, “turned to glare and me and threatened to dump my popcorn bucket on my head if I didn’t shut up. I kind of get why they made the change now, but then all I could think was, ‘That didn’t happen in the book!’ And it seems like you’re still having that issue.”

  “But they could have done it correctly and it would still have had the same impact!” he insisted.

  “Maybe,” Anne responded. “Maybe not. We won’t know because they didn’t do it according to the book. They made changes and we can’t go back and undo those changes.”

  Derek was silent for a long moment, plopping back down in his beach chair next to Anne. It took him a while to calm back down, something that made Anne smile even as she sketched the scene that had just happened.

  It took her a while before she realized that he was watching her transform the blank page into an image of him pacing back and forth, his arms and hands frozen in mid-gesture as the wind tossed his slightly too long hair around.

  “Why?” he finally asked as she started in on the tiny details that could capture him in motion.

  “Because I want to remember this,” she simply answered, her pencil gliding over the page as she made several sharp motions with her wrists.

  “But we were just discussing books and movies.”

  “We were discussing something you were passionate about,” she corrected.

  Chapter Six

  “Mama!” Anne suddenly shouted, dropping her things on the ground and darting away from where she had been walking home with Derek.

  Derek grabbed the book and pencils and put them in the bag he had been carrying for her. About fifteen feet away he could see her fiercely hugging a woman with very similar hair to Anne’s, only more tan than her decidedly paler daughter.

  Taking his time to join them, he meandered a bit.

  “What are you doing here? You weren’t supposed to be here for another week!” And this was after her trip was delayed a few weeks due to doctor’s appointments.

  Watching Mrs. Elliot’s facial expression, he knew. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. Mrs. Eliza Elliot had gotten bad news.

  “I missed my favorite daughter,” she answered instead of telling the complete truth, hugging Anne again so that Anne could not see the expression on her face.

  “I told you both that Beth and Mary wouldn’t do their chores.” Anne pulled back, popping a hand on her hip.

  Derek grinned at the hint of sass he knew was inside his girlfriend. She couldn’t have that wild hair without having some hidden emotional fountain that would threaten to burst open on occasion after having been blocked for too long. The pressure to remain neutral and unemotional would be too much for her.

  “Don’t worry about your sisters,” Eliza assured her. “I hired a maid service to come in while I’m here. The only thing the maids won’t do is laundry and dishes, but your sisters and father will figure that out soon enough.” Turning to look behind Anne, she eyed her daughter. “Now, who is that handsome young man watching us?”

  “Oh!” Anne exclaimed. “Derek! Get over here.” Turning back to her mom, she introduced the two of them. “Mama, this is Derek Worth. He lives in one of the houses down the street and we’ve been… hanging out.”

  Leaning in closer, Eliza said loud enough for him to hear. “If he isn’t your boyfriend, then you need to remedy that as soon as possible.”

  “He is,” Anne whispered. “Derek,” she gestured him closer. “This is my mom, Eliza Elliot.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Elliot.”

  “Eliza, please,” she corrected him.

  “Eliza,” he nodded. “Anne has told me so much about you.”

  “And yet she has told me nothing about you,” Eliza stated, raising a single eyebrow in her daughter’s direction. “Let’s go back to the house my sister is renting and you can tell me all about yourself over lunch.”

  Eliza Elliot listened carefully as Anne and Derek told her about their summer so far. She listened intently as Derek told her about his plans for joining the Navy and how his father was planning on his Boot Camp beginning in January.

  “In theory, I should be done with Boot Camp and A-School around the same time Anne graduates., but it will be close.”

  As they chatted, a smile slowly started forming on Eliza’s face. She doubted her sister would agree, but she thought that her daughter had picked well for her first serious boyfriend. She hoped, more than anything, that the pair hadn’t met too soon in their lives.

  “You must join us for dinner,” Eliza interrupted him. She was going to spend as much time with them as her short trip would allow.

  Eliza carefully watched the young couple as Derek pulled out Anne’s seat at dinner before sitting in his own. He had opened doors and smiled pleasantly. He had gifted Cassandra and herself a bouquet of Gerbera daisies each. He’d even opened the car door for her before he had opened it for Anne.

  She didn’t miss the constant hand-holding between her daughter and her boyfriend. The way Anne would glance over at him when she didn’t think anybody was looking. And the way Derek would glance over at her when he didn’t think anybody was looking. Eliza Elliot recognized that look. She had shared it herself with her husband before jobs and family and daughters and Baby Walter and a cancer diagnosis became part of life.

  “So,” Cassandra rambled on, “thanks to Anne’s lack of interest at dinner with the Matters, I was unable to convince Gregory to sign the deal.”

  “His son blathered on and on about football and this cheerleader he was interested in back home,” Anne interjected. “Apparently,” she grinned at Derek, “his high school team would have made it to state if his coach had put him in to play more often.”

  Aunt Cassandra, mildly annoyed that her niece had countered her comment, turned to Derek and asked, “Did you play anything in high school.”

  “My father had me running cross-country and track. He would have had me playing basketball, but I never showed much interest in the sport and was able to convince him to let me join the Debate Team. There was some overlap between everything, but I was able to manage. It helped that my school had Debate as a class.”

  “What do you want to do with your life?” she asked. Eliza covered her smile by raising her water glass to her mouth; her sister would never know that she was asking exactly what Eliza had wanted to ask her daughter’s beau.

  “I’m joining the Navy. My father wants me to get some more physical training in before I’m shipped off to Boot Camp…”

  Before he could say anything else, Cassandra interrupted. “What about after the Navy?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Some people consider the military a career. I can advance in the ranks or end up with a desk job in D.C. if I play my cards right.”

  “And if you get injured. Lose a leg…”

  “Aunt!”

  “Cassandra!”

  “… or something of that nature,” Cassandra continued, ignoring her niece and sister’s admonishment. Looking at them, she added, “It’s a legitimate question. He cannot guarantee that something won’t happen. He can injure his knee or shoulder before even leaving basic training…”

  “Boot Camp,” Derek interjected. “There’s a difference.”

  Nar
rowing her eyes at him, she shrugged, “But I still have a legitimate point. Something could happen to you at… Boot Camp, and you would have to go with your Plan B. What is your Plan B?”

  “Aunt!” Anne hissed.

  “No,” he waved a hand at Anne. “It’s fine,” Derek smiled. “You aunt is worried about my ability to support you if things progress further than what they currently are.” Turning to address both Eliza and Cassandra, he answered, “My brother is in real estate and I have a good head for math.” None of them were aware that he was downplaying just how good he was at math. “I also like history. I can take education classes and become a history teacher or take accounting and business classes and later join my brother in his business. I haven’t decided yet. By joining the Navy, I can take advantage of the G.I. Bill and go to school without putting myself in debt.”

  “So, you aren’t going to use my niece’s trust fund for your own benefit.”

  “Cassandra!”

  “Aunt,” Anne sighed. “I never told Derek about my trust fund.” Turning to look at him, she added, “No offense,” before turning back to her aunt, “but I know better than to talk about my trust fund to people I just met. I’m not Mary or Beth.”

  “But,” Cassandra argued with Anne, “he’s not in a position to support you.”

  “I’m about to start my senior year of high school!” Anne protested. “Derek’s current ability to support or not support me doesn’t currently matter. By the time I graduate, when this starts to really matter, he’ll be at his first posting. Getting paid. There are at least five years before his ability or inability to support me will even matter.”

  Anne missed the sharp glance Derek had tossed in her direction at her comment about it being at least five years before their relationship status could become more serious. Eliza did not miss his look, even if Cassandra was too focused on Anne. She wondered what that look actually meant.

  “And,” Anne continued, “even then it doesn’t completely matter because I’m not going to be some lazy housewife who doesn’t do anything but follow her husband’s whims. I will want to do something with my art degree.” Drawing in a deep breath, she added, “After being around you and Mama for so long, do you really think that I wouldn’t want to stand on my own two feet and be an equal partner in my relationship?”

  Anne and her aunt continued to make eye contact, verging into a staring contest, as Eliza looked down at her plate and smiled. Derek, on the other hand, kept looking at Anne with the reality of just how long-term their relationship could be sinking in. He had already contemplated what a long-distance relationship could mean for them.

  Nodding his head, he realized that they would have to take things a day at a time regardless of how long it would take them. Things were still early and Anne was still seventeen.

  Chapter Seven

  It was pure happenstance when they stumbled on the art supply store.

  “I’ve almost finished my current sketchbook,” Anne stated as she looked at the display in the window. “Oh, I haven’t been able to find these pencils at home. I have to special order them and I don’t trust my mailman enough to not lose them or break them or something.”

  “Has that happened before?”

  Laughing, Anne shook her head at the memory. “I ordered something online once…” then starting to correct herself, “I mean, I’ve ordered things plenty of times. Jewelry and some other presents from off of Etsy, mostly. But this one time I ordered these expensive drawing pencils from this store online. They shipped it in this bubble mailer with no cardboard to help protect the pencils. I didn’t expect this from a specialty store, but they assured me that it was a trainee error and shipped me a replacement order. But the problem was that my order had gotten lost somewhere through the post office system. When I got it, there was this huge tire mark across the bubble mailer and the pencils were broken.”

  Shaking her head at the memory now, she admitted that it was bound to happen eventually, even if 98% of her online ordering experiences had gone perfectly smoothly, it was always that one time when things went wrong that stuck in her memory.

  “Did they do anything?”

  “Oh, they sent me a new package of pencils and let me keep the broken ones,” she shrugged. Her eyes hadn’t left the window display.

  “Do you want to go in?” Derek offered. “We have time.”

  “Do we?” she asked. “We’re meeting Ed and Ava at the restaurant in…”

  “In over an hour. We still have ninety minutes to get to a restaurant that is ten minutes away.”

  Pursing her lips, Anne considered her options. “Okay, we can go in,” she finally grinned, “But you have to cut me off in an hour. We’ll be late otherwise. Especially if I decide to buy something and there’s a wait at the checkout.”

  “Yes, Dear,” Derek smiled down at her. Gesturing widely, he opened the door for her, earning himself a kiss on the cheek for his gentlemanly show of manners.

  The first place Anne beelined to was the display of sketchbooks lining the back wall. She figured she could start from the back and work her way towards the front. This might make things easier when it came time to leave.

  Opening the first book, the typical black book that the average beginning artist used, she felt her fingers across the paper.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m feeling the grain of the paper. Some people,” she explained, “like the feel of a smooth paper against the lead of their pencils or pens. They like the smooth glide. I like something a little more textured, but not too much,” she told him, placing the book back on the shelves. “I like feeling the slight catch that a mildly textured paper has. It’s like I’m having to work at it, pay attention to my strokes. I can feel what I’m doing instead of it feeling as if it’s going on too easily.”

  Picking a blue book off of the shelf, she opened it up and ran her fingers lightly over the paper. Something came over her expression as she smiled slightly.

  “I love seeing that look on a customer’s face,” a voice whispered from behind Derek.

  “People run their fingers over your sketchbooks often?”

  “Every day,” the owner admitted. “Far more often than you would realize. Some people, like your girlfriend said, love working with smooth paper. But some like myself, and your girlfriend, like the feel of a book’s rough texture.

  Closing the book carefully, Anne turned it over to look at the price tag. Letting out a slight gasp, Anne’s eyes widened at the price. “Twenty-five dollars! For a sketchbook!” she exclaimed.

  “It’s made from recycled paper,” the owner pointed out. “The cover is also a hardback and not the typical spiral bound like the average non-art store sketchbook. There’s also the personalization aspect. I can have your name or initials stamped on the cover.”

  Sighing, Anne shook her head as she placed the blue book back on the shelf. “I need a new sketchbook, but I can’t justify the expense.”

  Nodding her head, the owner sighed, “I get that a lot. Most artists that come in here are also students.”

  Glancing back over at the blue book, Anne shook her head and returned to the spiral bound books. “Maybe next year,” she sighed. “I’m planning on applying to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this year. I’m hoping to know early next year,” she told the owner. I’d love to have that journal for my portfolio, but…”

  “I understand,” the owner smiled.

  While Anne went back to running her fingers over the cheaper sketchbooks, Derek slipped the book she really wanted off of the shelf and told her he was going to look at the washi tape. “Ava loves washi tape,” he mumbled to his distracted girlfriend.

  Instead, he went over to the check out where the owner was watching them. “You said you can personalize it?”

  “I can have it ready tomorrow afternoon,” she told him. “I tend to do the personalization in the mornings and I’ll be closing in about thirty minutes.”

  “I’
d like an AE in a pretty swirly font,” he whispered. “Can I go ahead and pay for it while she’s distracted?”

  “Of course,” the owner smiled. “Or tomorrow when you pick it up.”

  Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “Aren’t you worried that if you personalize it without me paying for it that you’ll be stuck with a useless book?”

  Sighing, “That’s what my husband keeping warning me about.”

  Taking out his debit card, Derek handed over.

  “Don’t you want to check out the fonts?”

  “I’ll trust that you can pick something pretty that will look well with her initials,” he responded.

  Ringing up his order, the owner slid the book under the counter before tackling the personalization slip. She saw Anne approaching, even as the girl kept getting distracted by the various artist tools that were in her line of vision. Slipping him his receipt, she waiting for him to sign her copy before slipping it, along with the quickly filled out personalization slip, into the book she had stashed under the counter.

  “Is that all, Anne?” Derek asked as she slid her new sketchbook across the counter.

  “Yeah,” she sighed, glancing back at where a now smaller stack of blue books was still on the wall. “I…” Shaking her head, she firmly stated that she was done, but she’d be back later to look at the selection of drawing pencils. “I saw some watercolor pencils that I’ve been wanting to try out. Along with a good set of colored pencils. I can’t find some of these brands at home unless I order online.”

  “I order them special just to stock here,” the owner replied as she rang up Anne’s order.

  Anne, ignoring Derek, handed over some cash.

  “Anne,” he protested.

  “You can’t pay for everything, Derek,” she shook her head. “At least let me pay for my impulsive art supply purchases. I could bankrupt you if you insisted on paying for everything I want.”

  Shaking her head, the owner held back her laughter.