As summer drew near, Frederick was looking forward to the experience of flying. He'd decided that instead of going to summer school, he would head down to Texas to get his private pilot license. To earn the money to pay for his flight lessons, he was planning to get a part-time gig pumping aviation fuel. It wasn't just that he was hungry for the experience of getting airborne; he also wanted to maximize his chances of getting a pilot slot, and clocking in some flying hours of his own would be helpful.
Though they knew it was a childish practice, Anne and Frederick ended up making all kinds of pacts before they parted for the summer. They promised to send each other email every day; to keep up with their respective running distances; for Frederick to bring Anne's pig, now reduced to a sagging frame of foam-board, up with him when he did his first solo; and so on.
"Do you want to spit in your hand and shake on it?" Anne grinned.
"Naw. Didn't you outgrow all of that by fourth grade already?"
When Anne saw Frederick off for the summer, he was sporting a new bumper sticker on his creaky rust-brown '86 Pontiac, a gift from her. It read: "I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning."
Charles was all too eager to welcome Anne home when she finished summer school in August. They'd have even less time together than during winter break, for the fall semester would be starting in less than three weeks. There was something he wanted to say to her, and he'd been gathering up his courage for months on end to bring up the subject. It proved unfortunate, though, that he chose his own front porch as the place to bring it up.
"Say, Anne, um... you know, you're the nicest girl I ever met, and... we... don't you think, we always kinda understood each other? You've always been my favorite girl, all my life. So, do you, like, do you wanna be my girlfriend? Y'know, like, be a couple for real, now that we're not kids anymore."
"Charles, I'm sorry. We'll always be the best of friends. In fact, you're the best brother I could ever have. To my mind, we'll always be Fievel and Tanya. But that's the thing, you see - there's somebody out there, someone whom I love, not as a brother. Charles... I don't know how to say this, but I - I already have a boyfriend." Anne could barely get out the last few words, the last thing she wanted to do was to be cruel to Charles. She couldn't exactly say this had come out of left field when Charles had been trying to hang around her all of winter break; but yet, she wished he could have taken her hints so that she wouldn't have to break his heart.
"Who... who is he?" Charles knew he probably looked and sounded as deflated as he felt. He'd never seen this coming, not when Anne hung out only with him after school all the years when they were growing up, and even after going off to boarding school, she'd chosen him as her escort to the debutante party that Walter had thrown for her. Never having had much imagination, Charles didn't fill in the blanks for things he couldn't see; and so, even though he and Anne had spent a year of college on opposite coasts, it had never occurred to him that another boy could figure more importantly in Anne's life than he had.
"Um... someone I met in college." Anne wanted to say more, but at the same time, she still felt very awkward about hurting Charles' feelings. He was, after all, still her very dear childhood friend, and she did very much want him to stay in her life in a platonic capacity. She would have loved to wax lyrical about Frederick, but this was not the time, when it would just be rubbing it in and making him feel worse.
Their awkward silence was broken by two small figures shooting out from under the porch, and running right past them into the house. They could hear Louisa's voice yelling, "Mommy! Mommy! Guess what? Anne has a boyfriend!"
"Well, isn't that sweet." Lucy Musgrove appeared in the doorway. "Anne, dear, why don't you tell us all about him? And are we going to have the honor of seeing him soon?"
Before Anne could reply, the twins, who had been trailing behind their mother, cut in with their sing-song voices, "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a golden carriage!"
It couldn't be a worse time for that interruption, though Anne reminded herself that Mrs. Musgrove probably had no idea of the situation she'd just walked into, and that the twins were probably too young to fully understand the conversation they'd been eavesdropping on either.
"I-I'm sorry, but maybe it'd be better to talk about this some other time. You see, I... I haven't told my family about him yet. And no, he isn't in town. He's got a summer job in Texas, pumping aviation fuel. It's to pay for his flight school."
"Well, dear, tell you what, we'd love to hear more when you come by next. Do drop by again soon, OK?" said Mrs. Musgrove. She was starting to sense that something was probably wrong, as both Anne and Charles looked utterly miserable, especially Charles who was slouching speechless with the most pitiful hangdog expression on his face.
Anne excused herself quickly, trying to make as tactful an exit as she could. "Sorry Charles, Mrs. Musgrove, I promised Grandma I'd go pick up something at the store for her, so I've gotta be going. See you in a couple days, OK?" She was relieved that this time, she'd come from somewhere else and driven there by herself, rather than the usual practice of Charles picking her up from home. At least that spared Charles from the awkwardness of having to see her home, after all that had transpired between them.
"What a joke, Anne! I never pegged you for playing such a brilliant prank - imagine, you having a fling with some guy working in a gas station? That's a hoot if there ever was one!"
There had never been any point in explaining or reasoning as far as Elizabeth was concerned, and Anne knew that now was definitely not the time to start. And unlike all those past times when she'd lost it at Elizabeth, she now had the maturity to act on her knowledge that walking away was the only way to get out of such situations with her head held high. It was lucky that Mary was spending the summer at a school friend's summer house in Martha's Vineyard; at least she had only one sister at home to contend with over the issue.
"It's not like that, and you know it. In any case, I'm not going to discuss the situation with you any further."
"Anne! Whatever happened to your sense of - "
By the time Elizabeth found her tongue to come back with her standard retort, she found that Anne had already left the room and she was talking to thin air.
"Anne." Walter hated giving fatherly lectures, or in general, dealing with any kind of disciplinary matters pertaining to the girls. So when he summoned her to his study, Anne knew it had to be serious.
"It has been brought to my attention that you have been flirting around with some young punk working in a gas station. Is this true?"
"No, Father." Anne hesitated. "I mean, yes, I am seeing somebody. But it isn't like that. He's in my year at MIT, and also planning to major in aerospace studies. And he's an ROTC scholar."
"I see. And what is this young man doing for the summer? Who are his family, and where does he come from?"
"He's going to flight school in Texas, so he can clock up more flying hours to improve his chances of becoming a military pilot. Like us, he's from Detroit originally. But now that his parents have passed on, it's just him with his sister and brother. They're all really smart. His sister is in Guam with her husband, in the Navy, and his brother is studying at Oxford."
"Then what is this business about him pumping gas? Can you possibly offer any explanation for the rumor that's going around?"
"Well, Frederick is sort of pumping gas, I guess - but... but it's not what Liz thinks. All of them, all those boys learning to fly, are doing it that way - they get gigs refueling planes, and that's how they pay for flight lessons. It's the normal thing to do."
"Frederick, is it now?" Walter fixed Anne with a long, hard stare full of disgust and derision. "Well, well. I hope I do not need to remind you again of your duty as a member of the Elliot family. If you must have your fun, see to it that you don't disgrace the Elliot name. If you get pregnant, you're out. And I don't want to hear any more rumors. We are the Elliots, and we do not degrade ourselves by consorting with working-class stiffs. Whatever you have started with that townie, if you have started anything at all, you are going to end it, and end it quietly. I don't want to hear a single word more from anyone about it. Is that clear?"
"Yessir." Anne just wanted to end the entire conversation, though she had no intention of doing what he said.
"Anne, child. Tell me about your young man."
If there was anyone in her family that Anne thought of as safe, it would have to be Grandma Stevenson. Ever since their mother had died, Grandma had been just like a mother to the Elliot girls. Grandma lived in a smaller house near the Elliots' home in Grosse Pointe, and when the girls were growing up, Grandma had been the one who'd dropped them off and picked them up from school; fussed over them whenever they were ill; blown over scraped knees; and oohed and aahed at their little art projects and the A's that Anne had scored in school. And Grandma was the only person in the family who had a soft spot for Anne, because Anne was the one who reminded her most of her late daughter. To Grandma, Anne was just like Elizabeth Elliot nee Stevenson reborn, and she loved Anne most because of it.
"Well, where do I start? His name, I guess. His name is Frederick Wentworth. And he's in my year at MIT, and he's really smart. In any math course, he beats me hands down, and he's been giving me a good run for my money in design and mechanics class. We started out as rivals, and then we were friends - and then, well, Frederick's the only guy out there who likes me for being me, you know? So among all the guys who've asked me out, well, he's the only one I ever really wanted to be with."
"And what about dear Charles, then?" asked Grandma.
"Charles? How did you know?"
"Mrs. Musgrove had a word with me about it when she dropped by day before yesterday. That's when she told us about this little affair of yours. Poor boy, he's really upset about the whole thing. Anne, are you sure you won't reconsider?"
Although Anne felt sorry for Charles, now that she knew just how cut up he was about the whole thing, she couldn't help also feeling a little irritated at him for telling his mother about it. For that matter, she regretted saying anything at all to Mrs. Musgrove about Frederick, given the twisted way that the story had come back to her family. After all, nothing had ever started between Charles and her, and if Charles hadn't told, the matter would remain strictly between the two of them without anybody else having to know - or interfere.
"Grandma, you know I've always thought of Charles as a brother. Besides, I'm already with Frederick, and that was before Charles asked me." It was exasperating to Anne, how all of them trivialized her relationship with Frederick, as if she could just ditch him for Charles as if she was changing her jacket or something.
"Well, you're still young yet. And you have your whole future ahead of you. There's no guarantee that what you want in a husband won't change in a year, or a few years. You have plenty of time to meet the right boy, and you'll want to be with someone who will fit into the life we raised you for. It won't be long before you have to start thinking about how you'll be carrying on the Elliot legacy. And no matter what anyone else says, you must believe in yourself that you can do the Elliot name proud. This young man, is he financially stable? I hear he has to take on a summer job to finance his flying lessons?" Anne was only nineteen; Grandma was convinced that there must be ample opportunity for her to find a better match, especially as her social circle could only expand now that she and Elizabeth were both in college. Wasn't MIT right next to Harvard, after all?
"Yes. That's true. And I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. After all, he's earning an honest living, and not all of us are lucky enough to be born with the resources to chase our dreams. In fact, I respect and admire him all the more because nothing was handed to him on a platter - no parents, no family wealth, nothing. Everything he's got so far has been earned through his own hard work, and how many people can be that independent, when they're just 19 years old? When I compare myself to Frederick, every day I think about how blessed I am to not have those kinds of worries - that even if I am funding my own studies, at least I have the security of a home, a family and a business to fall back on." Anne had never felt that being rich was something to be proud of, because it came from an accident of birth, not through any real merit. On the other hand, she'd been in all of Frederick's classes in spring semester and watched him ace all of them - surely, that must be enough for her to believe in him?
"I'm not questioning your young man's character, or honor, or whatever you young people choose to call it these days," admonished Grandma. "But really, what kind of a life can he provide for you, when he can't even go through a summer without living hand to mouth? Flying lessons are expensive, a luxury. So if he's already insisting on living above his means even when he's just a college student, how can you trust him to save for a family? Of course, now it's easy for you two to be together when you're still in school. But after graduation, can it be the same? If you come back to ELMSCO, can your father accept Frederick? Once you marry someone, you marry their family - and this applies to Frederick as well as to you. Can you be happy - and can he - when your father will never acknowledge him? And if you don't come back to ELMSCO, don't you think your life will be a far cry from everything that you have been used to here? Think about that - and whether you can live with it."
All this was totally new to Anne - marriage had been far from her thoughts, even after she'd started officially going out with Frederick. At their age, weren't they entitled to live in the present, after all? Still, none of what Grandma said, even if some of it - but not all - might be legitimate, could change Anne's mind about sticking with Frederick. She knew that she had never been more in her element than after she went to MIT and met Frederick, and no number of obstacles they might face in getting started with adult life would change the fact that it was all worthwhile. Furthermore, she didn't begrudge Frederick for not having savings when he didn't have anything left to save - his ROTC stipend was meant to cover just the bare essentials, and even then, he managed to cobble together a small amount to send to Sophia every month for her to build a nest egg. It simply wasn't fair that he should be dinged for pursuing his dreams, just because he didn't have rich parents to fund them.
"I have every faith in Frederick," declared Anne resolutely. "He's so driven and determined, nobody could ever doubt he has a realistic shot at achieving his goals. And as for his future career, the Air Force will take care of that. He's on an ROTC scholarship after all, and it isn't easy to get those."
"Then you have even more to think about." Apparently, Grandma wasn't done nagging. "In the military, he could be posted somewhere that you can't go to, and then you'll have to cope with the household, even children maybe, all on your own. And you can't be sure if he'll ever come back. That also means you can't join ELMSCO and be with him at the same time. I'm not asking you to make a decision now. But you're still young, and it's wise to keep your options open. Don't rush to tie yourself down, because when you're older, more options will come your way. After all, you've always been a smart and pretty girl, with lots of potential. You're right about one thing - you grew up very lucky indeed. Don't negate all the advantages you grew up with - it wouldn't be worth it."
By the time she was due to return to school, Anne was thankful she'd driven her car home from Cambridge instead of flying back. It wasn't just about saving money - the drive, which she spaced out over two days, allowed her to escape all the lecturing, chiding and prodding a little earlier.
Besides, Anne was desperate to get back to Frederick. She'd never felt this alone in her life before - in the past, Grandma had always been on her side, but now it seemed that nobody at home at all was in favor of her relationship with Frederick, not even Grandma. Anne now knew that if she and Frederick were to have a future together, she'd have to be financially independent from Walter, and she'd have to think about how she could strike out on her own after graduation. It was a new thought, but one she doggedly clung to. All of it would be worthwhile in the end, she was sure.
And while making that resolution to become independent of her family, Anne resolutely kept silent about Frederick. She'd make sure that until they secured their future together, her family members would never hear the name of Frederick Wentworth again. That way, they couldn't pour more cold water on her, or on them.
Chapter Notes:
Canon Divergence - The concept of Lady Russell being a friend who is almost part of the family yet doesn't become Anne's stepmother doesn't modernize well, so I've turned her into the grandmother to give her more sway within the family. Also, I brought forward the part where Charles wants to get together with Anne, because in a modern world where people don't have to restrict their social contacts to the same few families, it is highly unlikely that Charles would propose to Anne and then switch to Mary a year later. So, I figured, Charles' attraction to Anne would primarily be puppy love, and then he would later grow up and find more lasting compatibility with Mary.
Canon Notes - I tried to capture all the facets of Lady Russell's disapproval of Captain Wentworth: no savings, the military is a dangerous job, no guaranteed future because he didn't inherit anything. Also, to stay true to the spirit of Walter Elliot's cold reception of the matter (not believing it could possibly be a serious relationship) and Elizabeth being a wet blanket in general but having no power to influence anything.
