Mark had told him that some people from GWGW might stop by, incognito, but he didn’t say they’d be posing as agents. It wasn’t such a bad idea, really—it could make the students more hopeful, even confident, to think they had attracted an agent’s attention just by being here (at least, until they had the inevitable misfortune of being ignored by one). But he decided, absent confirmation from Mark, to keep that to himself. “Agents? I don’t remember any agents.”

“Because I’m just thinking that the manipulation, the game playing, is just not right for this crowd. I should have picked the worst ones, or just the richest ones, but I was alone and I didn’t, and now we’re stuck with these people, and I don’t think I can take advantage of them. I don’t think I can screw them over while I’m living with them.”

“Nobody said we had to screw anybody over.”

“You said, when you told me about this, that it would be good for everybody. We’d make money, your aunt’s hotel would get fixed up, we’d finish our books, and the students would have a chance to feel like writers. I thought I wouldn’t care about the students—I thought I just cared about our needs—but I don’t know that I can do it if they wind up hating us, if they find out we’ve invited in an organization that is clearly problematic.”

“How is GWGW—”

“Averse to our values, Eric. Just a scheme. Promise me that won’t happen.”

Eric stopped walking and turned to Marianne. Without her heels—she wore flip-flops all the time now—she was a whole head shorter than him, and she was appealingly small, even frail, in his jacket. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent down to look into her eyes. “Marianne, I promise we can do this right, okay?” he said. “Can you just trust me on that?”

She shook her head but did not remove his hands. “No, Eric, I cannot just trust you. I have to be involved. You can’t just go having meetings with your brother and leave me out. This was partly my idea, and I feel responsible.”

Your idea was taking money from Christians, he almost said but didn’t. He knew this wasn’t the way to convince her. He took a breath, let go of Marianne’s shoulders, and started walking. “Okay, so, going back to the goals of the students and how they connect with, say, the expertise of our faculty. We have a problem there, right?”

“Ugh,” she said. “We have a big problem there.”