According to Phaedra, negotiation consisted entirely of playing one parent off against the other. But then, she’d never had a job Daddy hadn’t paid for.
At the moment, she was an assistant communications executive at a PR firm that really didn’t have the time or energy for the lunches and chatty champagne hours Phaedra seemed to think were the essence of public relations. Aria wondered how long it would be before their father got another phone call. ‘We’re so sorry, Mr Chappelle, but we simply can’t keep Phaedra on. She’s a lovely girl, but she’s affecting the morale / culture / performance of the rest of the team.’
Aria had heard enough of her father’s rants to be able to play the conversation word for word. He’d offer to pay them more, and if he was lucky, it would buy him a couple more months before he’d have to find something else to fill his youngest daughter’s days.
He’d take a slug of his whiskey, and look over the tumbler at Aria, with her own glass (neither of her brothers had any appreciation for the drink) and say. “You’ve done well enough for yourself. Got your job on your own merits. Why can’t Pheddy be more like you?”
And Aria would refrain heroically from rolling her eyes and say. “But then she wouldn’t be Pheddy, and Mother says that one of me in the family is more than enough.”
“Your mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Ahhh, yes, the glorious harmony of her parents’ marriage. She wasn’t even sure what kept them together. Money, on her mother’s side, that was for certain, but what tied her father to a woman he neither liked nor respected? Maybe Aria had things to learn from her mama in the art of negotiation.
Or blackmail. Frankly, that was more likely.
The DNA of Stories 