Page 22 of Modern Persuasion

Sammy kept her voice low and leaned forward so only I could hear what she had to say. "When I was trying to get into character, I imagined I would regret the decision right away. That's how I played her."

I knew she was trying to clarify that she understood some of what I was feeling, but it triggered something defensively. "I was twenty-two years old. I have a father who still refuses to work through the grief of my mother's death. I wanted a career that I couldn't have in LA at that point. I made the best decision I could make."

I took a deep breath and hugged the baby closer, wondering for a moment about what my life could have been like if I had made a different choice. Sammy put her hand over mine and squeezed.

"I know you now. It sounds about right to me," she said with a small smile.

I spent the rest of the night dwelling on the idea of regret. I started playing back moments in the past eight years, trying to imagine if it could have been different.

"Louisa, do you regret anything in your life?" I asked her on the ride back to the hotel after that party.

Louisa had decided to take the car back to the hotel with me. Seth looked crushed, but I noticed her give him her hotel room key card before he left.

"No!" she said with her usual peppiness.

"Why not?" I asked and turned to look at her.

Louisa shrugged and gave me a smile. "I'm sure I've made plenty of bad decisions, but I love who I am right now. If I regretted my mistakes or wished to change them, then I wouldn't be as awesome as I am."

I let out a small chuckle and found her positivity infectious for a moment before I remembered the regrets I had been ignoring for eight years. "What about when you don't like who you are?"

Louisa's smile dropped, and she got serious. She could tell there was something else going on, and I appreciated that she wasn't pushing me for more information. "I always know I'm in control of how awesome I am. If I make a wrong decision, I don't regret it. I just change things. It's never too late to change things, Emma."

I sat there for a moment, hoping she never became as cynical as I was. We were both wealthy, white, educated women. Louisa had no fear because the world had never been cruel to her. When I was her age, I had already lost my mother to cancer and my father to his grief. I was a lot like her when I had been at college, but returning to New York changed me. Yes, I had the career I dreamed of, but I was starting to realize that I wasn't in as much control of that as I thought. Karen still had a heavy hand in my career, and something was going on with the company executives that I didn't understand yet. Would I have turned down the chance to be Fredrick's editor if the decision had been mine to make? I kept coming back to Karen's choices and their impact on my career.

I couldn't sleep that night as these thoughts went through my mind. How many books had Karen turned down even though I disagreed vocally? How many of those books had been major best sellers and award winners for other publishers? I remembered a rumor about how Karen was why Scholastic had published the US versions of Harry Potter. She had turned down the opportunity for us to publish it. Was she capable of making the best decisions for my career? Had I only trusted her because she had taken my parent's place in my life? I kept trying to imagine what life would have been like in LA if I had accepted Fredrick's proposal. I couldn't see it happening any other way. Yes, I like many of his friends now that I have met them. How many of these people would be in his life if he wasn't who he had become after our breakup? Would I hate being so far away from Mary and her family? I love my nephews and, when she is not desperate for attention, Mary is my best friend. Except not really. I had told Patrick more about myself in three weeks than I had ever told Mary.

Chapter Fifteen

I had been resisting visiting Ted's offices for years. He had been trying to entice me to take a job since he started the company. When I woke up the next morning for my meeting with Ted, I was convinced that he was the one person who could help me understand what was going on.

"EMMA!" Ted said as he gave me a huge hug and squeezed tight.

This was the man who had watched me grow up. He had a love/hate relationship with my father, but it had made them a powerhouse team. I was in a unique position to understand all the people around me and the business we worked in.

We started with a tour of his small suite of offices, and he introduced me to his staff. He showed me the books they had been publishing. The space was small and bustling. Walls were covered in bookshelves, and all shelves were filled with books. People's cubicles were piled high with manuscripts and posters of cover artwork leaned against walls. They struggled to find quality books to publish, but they clearly got many submissions. None of his editors had any solid contacts. They were limited to manuscripts sent to them. In most publishing companies, submissions are ninety percent crap. The agents bring the best authors, but they go to the companies they have relationships with. As we walked around, I found myself spinning ideas through my head about the type of help they needed and what I would do if I worked here. It had been a long time since I had felt this excited and energized.

After our tour, we went back to his office, and he closed the door behind him. I knew Ted was trying to entice me to work here and help him. It was evident in the way he talked about the business.

"I'm delighted I finally got you to come out here. I'm going to be honest with you, Emma, I need you here. You need to come out here and work with me," he said as he collapsed at his desk.

The small office he was using was much like the rest of the office. There were stacks of books scattered all over the office, most of them from his days in New York with my father. His desk and chairs were the ones he had taken from the office in New York when he moved out here.

I was torn in my desire to treat this as an information-gathering session and an actual interview. I couldn't ignore what was happening around me in New York and how different I felt on this tour.

I decided to be honest with him. If he was doing the hard sell, I would give him the harshest reality. "I wouldn't bring any authors with me, Ted."

I felt a little guilty about not mentioning that Tom Scott already promised to follow me anywhere I went and that other authors seemed to think I was leaving. I knew I could help him if I wanted to accept his offer. Even if I couldn't bring authors with me, I had enough contacts to get new ones into this company.

Ted waved his hand, dismissing my honesty. "I'll address that in a second, but let me tell you what I see happening in our industry. Publishing has always been based in New York. This will not change, but now smaller publishers are cropping up outside of New York. How many independent and small publishers showed up at PubCon this year?"

I thought about the exhibit floor this year. "The number seems to be growing," I said with a smile.

"Right," he said and extended a hand to display the piles of books around him, "but they rarely give books away to people. Maybe they will give two or three books away in limited numbers. They can't compete with the big guys because of the expense of just going to PubCon."

I shook my head, knowing he was right. Even when I walked past those booths, I was careful to only take books I wanted because I knew it was so expensive and I wasn't their target.

Ted continued, holding up a finger. "After what happened with the last day when the public attended, fewer indie publishers will come in the future. There's no way we could have stayed to give copies away to the public, on top of the industry insiders. The PubCon organizers knew that we could barely afford to attend as is. They wanted something more like a San Diego Comic-Con without proper planning. I hope Christi gets a shit-ton of money from them," he said and slapped his hand on his desk.