Page 1 of Modern Persuasion

Chapter One

Your father's art collection is quite... large," said the woman sitting before me.

She was in her mid-sixties with a jet black pixie haircut and glasses with thick black frames. She wore a fitted black suit and carried a black leather portfolio as she walked around the apartment. She had been part of the New York art scene for most of her life and had been recommended to me by most of the people I spoke to.

We were sitting on wooden boxes in the Upper Eastside NYC apartment that has been in my father's family since, in his words only, the dawn of time. This woman was trying to pick her words carefully. To be fair, the fact that we could sit anywhere in this apartment surprised me. My father's art collection was a hoard. This woman knew perfectly well that inside the box on which she sat was some piece of art he was refusing to part with. I was sitting on another box. I knew what this woman would tell me next. She was here to tell my father the reality of the situation. The only problem was that my father was not in the room to hear it. He was off explaining his selection criteria to my older sister. He believed this woman and I were with them.

"You can be honest. I know he hasn't purchased items of value," I said in an attempt to speed this up.

She didn't make eye contact with me as she wrote something on her pad. "Well, to be fair, he has picked items from important artists."

"Yes, but he doesn't pick valuable items and pays more than they're worth," I said, letting my shoulders sag.

"Yes, you're correct," she finally looked up and gave me an encouraging smile.

I shook my head. "I've told him this for years."

"Walter seems to have some type of criteria for selection, though," she said and closed her portfolio. "I'm unclear how he makes such bad choices."

I could hear my father continuing to talk about that very criterion in another room. While a spoiled brat, my sister would allow him to continue to share the justifications he had developed over our lifetimes.

I leaned to the side to look down the hall, ensuring he wasn't coming. "I love my father, but he's full of shit," I said, lowering my voice. "His real criteria is to buy pieces by anyone people are talking about, but to pick the pieces that... well, he probably just picks the first one he sees."

"You can make money selling these pieces," the woman said, raising an eyebrow.

"Just not enough to make up for what he paid," I said, holding up a finger.

She nodded and sighed. "Yes."

"Can you lie to him?"

"How so?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I glanced down the hall one more time. "Tell him he can make money selling all these pieces. He needs the money much more than he needs art, even if he doesn't make enough money."

"Fine," she said with a sigh.

I was exhausted by the time the appraiser left. I had wasted a lovely spring Saturday in New York City dealing with my father, Elizabeth, and the art hoard. I wanted to go home, drink an entire bottle of wine, and fall asleep while reading manuscripts for work. I couldn't, as I had to supervise the movers who were boxing up the art.

"Emma, you're breaking my heart," my father said after the appraiser left.

He slumped on one of the large boxes and picked at the corner of a piece of tape.

I felt terrible, understanding that I was unraveling his world. "Someone has to make the difficult decisions."

He waved an arm toward my sister's room. "Next, you're going to make Elizabeth sell her shoes."

I winced. "She's going to have to do that too. You can sell the apartment, or you can sell the stuff. The decision is yours."

"Emma," he said, straightening up, "this apartment has been in our family since the dawn of time."

He may have been exaggerating, but my family had been living in the apartment for generations. It wasn't large, but it had once fit five people with a little room to spare. My father had filled the space with art over the last ten years. Every inch of wall space was taken up by abstract and modern paintings. Every flat surface had a sculpture on it. Even the bathrooms had been filled with some type of art.

My sister Elizabeth, who still lived in the room the three of us had shared as children, allowed my father's art to invade her space. That is, what space was not already filled with her crates of designer shoes and purses. She had them stacked up along a wall with labels of what was inside each container. At least Elizabeth was organized, but items were never taken out of their crates after the first use. She still hadn't noticed that I often took purses and shoes from her collection, even when she saw the shoes on my feet and the purse in my hands.

"Then the art has to go. You need the money to live on," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.

"If I sell the art, can we stay in the apartment?" my father asked, his voice wavering slightly.