Persuaded

by Alicia J. Chumney

“Oh, Anne,” Mary giggled later. “Etta asked Derek what he thought about you.”

  Rolling her eyes as she fed Baby Walter, Anne recognized the game that both Mary and Etta were playing.

  Finally, “And?” she asked, more to make her sister happy than out of curiosity.

  And maybe she was lying to herself.

  “He said he barely recognized you!”

  Anne quickly took stock of herself. She barely recognized that seventeen/eighteen-year-old girl she had been when they’d first met and dated.

  Gone was the long hair and ponytail. Gone was the sketchbook that had been a constant companion. Gone was the air of childish innocence and lack of responsibility that had vanished with her mother’s death.

  “I barely recognize myself and it’s been five years since I last saw him.”

  But her reply didn’t change the fact she was still hurt by what Mary had told her through third-hand knowledge. She’d recognize him even if he’d gone gray!

  Alas, his hair was still dark, his eyes still blue, and he was still tall, even if he’d developed a slight limp to his walk. Most importantly, Anne mused as Baby Walter spit up all over her clean shirt, Derek was still as handsome as ever, if not more so.

  And she, with her untamed hair going everywhere and spit up on her shirt, was a mess.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Musgraves Girls had formed a habit. They would haunt the sidewalks until either Derek or Charles, and sometimes even Anne, would come walking towards the house. Derek, while not a daily visitor, would often show up on Tuesdays and Thursdays, after Charles’ American History class. Together they would go over what the lecture had been about that day until Charles started to understand it. Sometimes this meant additional sessions.

  Anne, well aware how tutoring sessions were set up and paid for with her own sessions to run, began to suspect that Derek was making a tidy profit off of Charles or, at the very least, Charles’s father. Even more, she began to think that the two guys had started to become friends of a sort. After an hour or so of going over notes, correcting notes, and making index cards for Charles to study later, the pair of them would wander off to the downstairs ‘basement’ – also known as the room on the lowest level that was connected to the carport – where Charles had a pool table and a gaming system set up.

  Sometimes Charles would invite Charlie Hayes to play with them, knowing that Charlie and Etta had an arrangement of some sort between them.

  Only the more often Etta and Isa hung onto Derek’s every word, the surlier Charlie became, starting to turn down more and more of Charles’ invitations.

  He wasn’t the only one that attempted to find himself away from the Musgraves’ house. Anne would stay and study in the library just to get away from the noise, gossip, and shrill giggles spilling forth from the nineteen to the twenty-one-year-old trio of girls in that house.

  Gone from barely tolerating each other, Mary had warmed up to Etta as soon as she recognized the crush that the older Musgraves sister had on the much older Derek.

  In the face of a Senior, poor twenty-one-year old Charlie Hayes was momentarily forgotten.

  Disgusted by Etta’s lack of faithfulness, even if nothing had happened between her and Derek, Charlie found himself ignoring her more and more often. If Etta couldn’t make up her mind, then he would make it up for her!

  Unfortunately, it was one of those days where Anne couldn’t stall at the library. She suspected that Mary had put off going grocery shopping even though the boys were now in daycare – paid for by their Musgraves grandparents – and Anne knew, since she was doing most of the cooking, that the cabinets were nearly bare.

  It didn’t help that Etta and Isa now frequently dined at their brother’s house instead of using their meal plans in the Student Unions Dining Services. Especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays if Charles or Mary could convince Derek to stay for dinner.

  And he did far more often than Anne liked. Even worse, he’d be sitting across from her without saying much more than, “Pass the potatoes, please.”

  Not even a comment on her cooking skills, which had greatly improved since a cooking disaster that happened when she tried to impress him ‘that summer’.

  So, on one particularly annoying Thursday, she followed behind them as Derek walked with Henrietta and Louisa – too annoyed with herself to even to refer to the girls by their nicknames even in her mind – with only a ‘tiny’ bit of jealousy. She’d missed her chance and now Derek tended to pretend as if Anne didn’t even exist!

  “Oh yeah,” Isa whispered loudly, “Charles liked Anne first; they went to high school together. He liked to think he was a big reason why she transferred here after she left her art school. But then Mary came to visit Anne on campus for lunch one day and the rest is history.”

  Glancing around, Anne was relieved to see that nobody else was within of earshot. They all knew the unspoken meaning behind Isa’s comment.

  “So, Anne and Charles dated?”

  “Goodness no!” Louisa laughed. “I don’t think she’s seen him as anything more than a friend. He helped her through a nasty break-up after her mom died.”

  “Really?” Derek asked, trying to keep the curious interest out of his voice.

  “Yeah. Some long-distance boyfriend. Apparently, her father interfered and told the guy that Anne never wanted to see him anymore or something like that. Anne was furious, even more so when the guy ignored her trying to reason out.”

  “Is that so?” Derek asked, thinking mostly to himself.

  They both knew that Isa didn’t have all of the story, she wasn’t even close, but neither of them cared enough to correct her. Let everybody place the blame on Walter Elliot.

  “I would never let my father do that to me,” Isa claimed, reaching for his hand in the process.

  Derek, lost in his memories, let her.

  They weren’t aware that Anne was nearby, observing them. As soon as she saw Isa staking her claim, Anne withdrew even more from the group.

  She had some grocery shopping to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Shortly after Charles’ first history test was taken and passed, the Musgraves decided to throw a dinner party to celebrate. They had invited Derek as the guest of honor but had also invited his sister and brother-in-law as a belated welcome to the neighborhood gesture.

  Naturally, Little Charles and Baby Henry Walter were upstairs with their school-age aunts and uncles playing. Despite Mary’s complaining, the boys had settled down to a huge pile of chicken nuggets and French fries before getting to play. The infamous Allie Grace had been hired to watch over the two boys while the others disappeared into their own rooms to finish up any homework that they had left off until the last minute.

  Downstairs the adults and college students laughed as Derek regaled them with tales from the Navy. Bob shared some of the more absurd cases he had tackled while Sophy added her two cents about what it was like working in the same law firm as her husband.

  “I’m more than thankful that Bob had his boating accident,” she confided to the group. “And that the college offered him this guest professor position. The gossip surrounding some of those associates was quite toxic.”

  Isa, not one to let an opportunity pass, leaned into Derek and asked him what it was like to be stationed overseas.

  Only a handful of them noticed him freezing up. “I was stationed in Italy for my first overseas base,” he finally answered her. Glancing up at Anne first, then looking down the table at Sophy, he shook his head. “I wasn’t there very long. We were training and doing some running when I fell and that was the end of that.” He dismissed the rest of his story.

  “What does that mean?” Isa leaned towards Charles.

  “That means he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “But…”

  “Isa!” Charles sharply snapped. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.” In a misjudged attempt at drawing the attention away from Derek, he turned to Cha
rlie and asked him how his classes were going.

  Charlie had no idea why he was even at dinner. He just knew that Charles was technically a friend, that nobody else held a candle to Etta, and that he must have been invited out of habit.

  The Musgraves parents did not have a clue that he had been distancing himself from Etta.

  Beside him, Etta sat frozen in place, uncertain how to breach the divide she was beginning to realize was her fault.

  “Charles,” Mary hissed loudly from beside him. “Why is he even here?”

  “He’s a friend of mine, Mary,” Charles hissed back.

  Once again, the table looked around, refusing to make eye contact with anybody else nearby.

  “But he isn’t family.”

  “Neither are the Crofts or Derek,” Charles pointed out.

  “But…”

  “Do be quiet, Mary,” Charles snapped, slapping his napkin down on the table and excusing himself.

  Taking a deep breath, Anne knew exactly what she needed to do. Skirting around the edges of the room, she neared the couch where Derek was sitting, absentmindedly rubbing his knee.

  “Does your knee hurt?” she asked, nervously fidgeting with the hem of her shirt as she approached him.

  Without looking up, he answered, “Sometimes. How can you tell?”

  “Your sister told me you injured it when she was talking all about you the first time we met at Kellynch. She didn’t say how or anything… just…” she found herself beginning to ramble.

  “Training exercises,” he curtly interrupted her, repeating what he had said during dinner. “They had us running and one of the guys tripped me.” This last part he had not told the others; only his siblings and father knew the truth.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t bother me that much anymore.”

  “And yet you are sitting here, rubbing it as if it hurts.”

  “I meant the fact that one of my fellow Seaman tripped me during running exercises,” he bitterly corrected her. Shaking his head, “Why am I even telling you this? We broke up.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anne whispered, barely able to look up at Derek. “I wish things…” She almost felt her hands shaking as she tried to hide them behind her back.

  “Don't apologize,” Derek snapped, once again interrupting what Anne was about to say. “Apologies are weak and ingenuine.”

  “But…”

  “No,” he nearly growled, turning away and crossing to the other side of the room.

  “But,” Anne whispered to herself, “you don't even know what I'm sorry for.”

  And he didn't. And his snap judgment and statement about apologies not being genuine angered her at the same time.

  He didn't know what she was going to apologize for.

  Glancing back, Derek noticed the flush of anger that colored her cheeks. With the wild curls she refused to tame going everywhere, this Anne Elliot was completely different than the seventeen-year-old girl who had constantly pulled her hair back into an orderly ponytail or bun that he had first met.

  Maybe he should go back and apologize, but his own stubborn pride held him back.

  Mary, creating a disturbance nearby, was loudly heard complaining about Charlie Hayes’ presence at the Musgraves dinner, again. Etta was near him, flushed with embarrassment at her sister-in-law’s displeasure while Charlie pretended to not hear Mary. Instead, he focused on chatting away with Bob Croft and his wife.

  Thankfully, the Crofts helped create a lighthearted air around them as they laughed and joked about nearly everything. Derek, surrounded by other college-age people near his age thanks to the Musgraves having three children in college at the same time, felt well at ease until Mary started making her barbed comments about inviting frat boys to the Family’s Sunday Dinner.

  Anne, starting to move in Mary’s direction to intercept her sister’s monologue, stopped. Instead, she made a short detour back toward Derek’s direction. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with reining her sister in; eventually, Charles would have to learn how to manage his wife’s thoughtless tongue.

  Heaven knew their father had allowed his youngest daughter too much free rein and didn’t check her bad habits as much as he should have.

  “My sister wasn't always like this,” she informed him after catching a particularly interesting expression on his face.

  He'd made that expression before. She could tell that he was confused and disgusted at the same time. Truthfully, if she had never dealt with Mary before – even Elizabeth for that matter – she probably would have made the same face. Over half of the stuff that sprouted from Mary’s mouth was either insulting or pathetic.

  “Oh, really?” he dryly asked her.

  “Remember when I told you about Walter?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Derek looked over at where Mary was handing her youngest over to his grandmother.

  “Not that Walter,” Anne correctly interpreted his look. “I had a younger brother. He was two years younger than Mary and died when he was six. Leukemia. Mary was just old enough to connect the dots – Walter gets attention because he’s sick and everybody else gets ignored.”

  “Am I supposed to understand something?”

  Narrowing her eyes, Anne snapped, “You would if you didn’t interrupt me.”

  Drawing back, Derek looked at Anne for the first time since she sidled up to him and started to warn him about his sister. Five years ago, Anne would not have used that tone with anybody.

  “My apologies,” he responded, still stiff.

  “Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “After Walter died, Mary started having colds and sore throats and other ailments that gained her attention. Mom was so worried about losing another one of her children that she took Mary to the doctor every single time that little girl coughed. She then sat at the dining room table and helped her get caught up on her work so that Mary would not get held back.”

  “That doesn’t explain her disdain for frat boys.”

  “She calls them social climbers, but that scene was more about Charlie getting attention over her.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  Releasing a sigh, Anne turned to face Derek. “I get it. You don’t like me anymore. Fine. You can at least be polite and not rude.” Narrowing her eyes, “You were the one who disappeared without a word when I needed you the most.”

  “You wouldn’t decide between me and art school.”

  “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me!”

  “And yet you are still at a state school less than thirty minutes away from your father’s house.”

  “A house that, if I recall correctly, is your current address.”

  “Because your father mismanaged his money.”

  “Don’t look at me,” she protested, taking a step backward and holding her hands up. “All I did was try to figure out what would best benefit my future, our future. You are just mad that I didn’t marry you right out of high school and move overseas with you.”

  Aware that they were beginning to create a scene, Anne shook her head. “You know what. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not doing this.” Then, doing one of the hardest things she had ever done, besides returning the engagement ring to Derek, she stepped away from him and left the room.

  Even though he was watching her leave, Isa moved in for the kill and started talking to him about her English Comp class. She chattered on, unaware that his attention was focused elsewhere.

  Eventually, during her monologue about the readings for her English Comp class, his attention caught on Etta and Charlie talking about something in a corner. Once or twice she glanced over where Derek was sitting with her sister. This seemed to anger Charlie, his sharp tone regaining Etta’s attention.

  When she placed her hand on his shoulder, he shoved it off. “I can’t believe this!” he shouted before storming out of the room.

  “What was that about?” Isa asked next to his ear.

  Derek shook his head, aware that the
entire room had watched the end of the increasingly dramatic exchange, was watching Etta’s reaction before turning away and pretending to be interested in something else, anything else.

  Shortly after that, Mary pulled Charles and Anne away, the Crofts – and Derek – following soon after that.

  Later that night, Anne could hear Charles scolding Mary through the floor.

  “I can’t believe you said that about Charlie!”

  “What?” Anne could see Mary shrugging her shoulders in her head. “I don’t know why he was at dinner tonight.”

  “Etta’s been dating him for six months now!” Charles stated. “He had every right to be at dinner tonight.”

  “It’s only been six months. I wish she had never given up on going after Derek. He’s going to be a rich real estate agent and Charlie is only going to be a gym teacher.”

  “There is nothing wrong with being a teacher.”

  “There is everything wrong with being a teacher,” Mary scoffed, forgetting that Anne was planning on becoming an art teacher. “They are poor and merely glorified baby sitters.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” Charles growled. “Your own sister is studying to become a teacher.”

  “An art teacher,” Mary countered. “Besides, she’s a female and as soon as she gets married, she’ll resign her position and become a stay-at-mom like me and our mother did.”

  “And what if she doesn’t want to resign her position when she gets married?” Charles countered. He’d had enough conversations with Anne to know that she had no intention of becoming reliant on her husband’s income and incapable of leaving if she needed to.

  He didn’t know that she would rather be painting and selling her art over teaching art and art history.

  “Like Father would ever let Anne remain a teacher after she gets married.”

  “It’s not like she’s currently dating anybody,” he pointed out.

  “Mere technicality.”

  But Anne, used to overhearing more conversations than people realized, felt sick at the thought that her father would attempt to control her actions long after she had left his household.