Persuasion

© Francine Saint Marie 2009-2012

All rights reserved in their entirety

Distributed by Smashwords

E-book Edition 2012

First Edition Paperback 2011

ISBN 10: 1439299153

FIFTH COLUMN PRESS

Fiction>Coming of Age – Fiction>General

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. PERSUASION is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, places, events, etc, is a coincidence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

First published in 2006 by the renowned women’s press Spinsters Ink, Francine Saint Marie’s debut novel The Secret Keeping was a LAMBDA Notable Book, Goldie Award finalist, semi-finalist for the Independent Publishers Award and an IPPY Bronze medalist. Her popular three-novel series The Secret Trilogy containing her acclaimed debut was nominated for the prestigious Ferro/Grumley literary prize in fiction. She is also the recent recipient of the Green Book Award which honors works of fiction and nonfiction that bring greater public awareness to issues concerning the environment. A writer and artist living in New York, Persuasion is her fifth published novel to date.

Persuasion NOVEL NOTES:

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Theme/s: coming-of-age, mystery, roles, romance

Tags: coming of age, environment, Francine Saint Marie, ghosts, identity, magic realism, mystery, romance, paranormal, persuasion, sexuality, social studies, suffrage movement

Audience: All - PG

Main Characters (in order of appearance): Jessica Wheeler (age 19), Zoe Boice Summerfield (age 22), Millicent Ida Parsons (ghost), The Karner Blue (endangered butterfly)

Primary Setting: present day New England USA (September)

Period: 21st century, with 19th & 20th century flashbacks

Time Frame of Events: approximately ten daylight hours

Narrative: Third Person

Font/s: Times New Roman

Number of Print Pages: 200

Number of Chapters: twenty (see table of contents)

Persuasion CONTENTS:

Chapter One: The Letter

Chapter Two: The Key

Chapter Three: The Window

Chapter Four: The House

Chapter Five: The Trees

Chapter Six: The Town

Chapter Seven: The Music

Chapter Eight: The Message

Chapter Nine: The Woods

Chapter Ten: The Car

Chapter Eleven: The Call

Chapter Twelve: The Butterfly

Chapter Thirteen: The Spirit

Chapter Fourteen: The Battle

Chapter Fifteen: The Man

Chapter Sixteen: The Path

Chapter Seventeen: The Truth

Chapter Eighteen: The Decision

Chapter Nineteen: The Answer

Chapter Twenty: The End

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

— Zhuangzi (369 BC)

Chapter One

~ THE LETTER ~

Jessica Wheeler arrived in the world over nineteen years ago. Nineteen years, forty-seven weeks, three days, one hour, nine minutes, and a few passing seconds.

Jessica? Where are you?

Born in the middle of October, she was a Libra, just like her mother was, and like her mother’s mother as well.

Jessica?

At five-foot-five-inches tall and approximately 120 pounds, she was, also like her mother and maternal grandmother, at last fully grown now. And, despite her current dyed-black hair, which was slowly growing out, her roots revealed that she had been born a brunette too, just like her mother and her grandmother had been before their hair had turned to silver.

Jessica…?

As a matter of fact, everything about Jessica Wheeler, above her skin and beneath it, except for that rose tattoo on her ankle, was identical to those two women. Indeed, it could be said that all three of them were far more the same than they ever could be the opposite, even if they tried—allowing, of course, for the obvious disparity between their ages and eras, and, now and then, a stark difference of opinion.

Jessica!

The same height. The same weight. The same brown hair. The same heart-shaped face and dimples. The same pug nose. The same hazel eyes with yellow specks and skepticism in them. The same full, red lips permanently pouting.

Jessica Louise Wheeler, answer me this instant!

The same sneer.

Jessica, I know you can hear me!

From where Jessica Louise Wheeler lay this bright sunny morning, face down on the dewy lawn, she could, she thought, if everyone would kindly just shut up, hear everything.

And that was because, today, she was actually listening.

She could hear the birds singing above her and the grass sighing beneath, the leaves chatting on their trees about turning color, the seasons discussing a change again, the days–growing ever so slowly shorter–grumbling, the muffled sound of a booming bass from the neighbor’s house down around the bend of the cul-de-sac, her brave heart belligerently beating.

She could hear the kitchen window slide up with a sudden jerk and her mother whispering loudly through the screen, her voice drowning out the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings.

Jess-i-ca, Mom scolded, in that firm but beseeching tone of hers.

A few yards from Jessica, amid the stench of gasoline and mashed grass, the overheated engine of a hopelessly stalled lawnmower tsked, tsked, tsked at her, its maxed-out metals echoing a similar-sounding disapproval.

Yes, Moth-er.

Jessica, please…you’re embarrassing your father.

Poor Jessica’s father was embarrassed by his daughter.

Again.

Good, Jessica replied without lifting her head, without even lifting a finger. I’m glad.

What’d she say about me? she heard him ask from the breakfast table.

But her mother didn’t answer him. Come on, Jessica, she pleaded. The neighbors are watch—

Screw the neighbors, Jessica muttered into her shirtsleeve. I ran out of gas anyway.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…

What was that, Laura? What’d she just say?

Uh…she says she’s run out of gas, honey. The mower’s got no—

A chair scuffed rudely across the tile of the kitchen floor and then, That’s a bunch of baloney, Jessica’s father snarled through the window. You’ve been promising me all week you’d do the mowing. Now you get up off the ground and finish what you’ve started, he ordered. I’ve had just about enough of this—this—

This was the whistling mailman heading up the driveway.

This bullcrap, her father managed to squeeze out before slamming down the window.

Well, a good morning to you, Jessica Wheeler, the postman said, cheerily oblivious to the discourse he was temporarily interrupting. I see you’re keeping the lawnmower company today.

Jessica turned over and sat up. Good morning, Ron, she answered, pulling modestly at her sweatshirt which had ridden up to partially expose a small pad of baby fat she still had on her belly.

She was, in public, very self-conscious about that baby fat. Self-conscious about a host of other things, too, which she had gradually begun to realize was quite silly. What’s going on?

Got yourself another certified letter. Need your John Hancock right here.

Another piece of certified mail this week. Shit.

The sun was shining directly into Jessica’s eyes now and she winced. She shielded them with one hand and looked up at the mailman apprehensively. From the school again?

Nope. This one looks to be a love letter. Yep, that’s what I’m willing to wager it is, a certified I-love-you addressed to one ‘Jessica Wheeler at 284 Maple Lane’. Going to sign for it?

A certified love letter for Jessica Wheeler at 284 Maple Lane? Oh-my-god. She knew, without asking, who that had to be from.

Jessica shot a glance toward the kitchen window, relieved to see that no one was there now.

Can I get your signature? Ron the postman repeated, his bald head glistening in the sunlight.

Yeah, she said. Got a pen?

He produced a pen and Jessica hurriedly signed for her special delivery.

Hey there, Ron, Mr. Wheeler said, erupting from the house like a cannonball. Another school bill is that?

Oh, I couldn’t say for sure, Mr. Wheeler. I just deliver the mail, I don’t really look at it, you know?

Jessica folded the mysterious missive in two and quickly shoved it into her back pocket.

Anything for me then? scowling Mr. Wheeler asked, eyeing both the postman and his daughter doubtfully. A big fat check perhaps, to offset all of my sudden but not-so-unexpected losses?

Sorry, there’s mostly junk here, I’m afraid, the postman replied, handing him a stack of mail bound together with a wide, red rubberband.

Mostly junk—yeah, he doesn’t look—you might as well toss it over here, Jess, if that’s another notice from the school.

It’s not another notice from the school, Dad, so just forget about it.

Well, you all have yourselves a nice day then, folks, Ron said, retreating back down the driveway.

Just forget about it, she says! Then I know who it’s from. You don’t even have to tell me.

Oh, you know who it’s from. But you know everything, don’t you? I wish I could be as smart as you are, Dad. As smart as ‘Mr. Wheeler Dealer’ is. Say it then. Who’s it from?

But, of course, this letter—or rather the letter writer to be more specific—is what they had just argued about last night, and then again this morning over breakfast, and last week during dinner, and so on and…so Mr. Wheeler just sidestepped the issue for the moment and wagged his finger at his daughter, "Yes I am smart, young lady, so you just watch your—"

Did I forget to put gas in it, honey? Mrs. Wheeler asked, appearing out of nowhere it seemed and offering both father and daughter yet another of her awkward rescue attempts, hoping against hope that sooner or later they might be persuaded to accept one, that they too might be awfully tired from all this endless bickering.

It was so pointless and depleting.

I must have forgotten to refill it the last time I used it, she lied. Before I put the thing away.

Nah, that’s not the problem, her husband snapped. I know there’s plenty of gas in the tank. As a matter of fact, I can smell gas all over the place because she’s gone and flooded it.

It stalled on me, Mom, and wouldn’t start again. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.

Mr. Wheeler blew air through his nose. What’s wrong with it—you didn’t empty the bag, that’s what’s wrong with it! You choked it to death. Probably burned out the engine in the process. Do you have any idea what this mower cost me? This is a very, very expensive lawnmower, I’ll have you know. Cost more than that—that two-bit boyfriend of yours two-bit wreck he dares to call an automobile, that’s for sure.

Now, honey, his wife interjected.

But her husband was on a roll: That pencil-necked, sissy, pipsqueak. Seven-thousand buckeroos, Jess, that’s what a lawnmower like this costs a man. And then you just go and destroy—

Seven-thousand bucks, whoop-tee-doo! Jessica mocked. Seven-thousand bucks, everybody! Did everyone hear that?

Now, darling, her mother interjected.

But her daughter was on a roll: C’mon, Mom, really, what kind of an idiot would pay seven-thousand dollars for a freakin’ lawnmower, I’d like to ask?

Mom wouldn’t speculate.

What kind of an idiot? Mr. Wheeler volunteered, his face and neck beet red. "I’ll tell you what kind of an idiot. The same kind of idiot who throws away twenty-five grand on your freakin’ college education, that’s what kind of an idiot. And now you don’t want to go to school. Now you don’t want to be a teacher. Now you don’t want to be anything but on that damned computer or the cell-phone day and night. Twenty-five grand down the toilet!"

Al, let’s not flog a dead hors—

"I should have known better than to let you talk me into sending you to that private college. All the things you wanted to be that you never finished. Gymnastics, soccer, cheerleading, piano lessons, guitar…college, teaching. All that good money