Free From This Moment by Elizabeth Camden

unemployed, and his father’s patience was growing thin. He couldn’t sleep at night,suffering from the withering fear that he was about to be unmasked as the hopeless failure his father had always claimed.
    Then came the notice that the Scientific World newsletter was about to go out of business, and a spark of inspiration struck. Evelyn had just gotten married to his best friend Clyde Brixton, a man who shared their obsessive fascination with science and technology. Romulus was perpetually low on funds, but Clyde had a job. As an enlisted soldier in the army, Clyde’s salary was a pittance, but he had managed to save a few dollars. Between the three of them, they pooled their money, pawned some furniture, and gathered the hundred dollars necessary to buy the failing newsletter.
    Romulus hopped on a train that very day and arrived in Washington by nightfall. By the end of the next day, his wallet was drained, but he possessed the subscription list to Scientific World , complete with the rights of ownership and distribution. He intended to grow it beyond the reports of patents into a magazine that would feature articles he and Clyde wrote about science and nature. Romulus persuaded some professors from Yale and Harvard to contribute articles, too. Their page count doubled, then quadrupled. As the magazine’s prestige grew, advertisers came knocking. Nine years later, they had grown the subscription list from a paltry 300 names to 160,000.
    And although he and Evelyn were usually brilliant collaborators, their partnership could be shaky. The weekly meetings to discuss the magazine were almost always torture, and one was scheduled to begin in a few minutes. Romulus shifted in his office chair, fiddling with the miniature gyroscope on his desk. His office was a reflection of his interests, and his desk was littered with various oddities he’d collected over the years. A chunk of petrified wood from Siberia. The jaw of an iguana from Mexico. The upper half of his office wall was a glasswindow overlooking the interior of the fourth floor, so he had a perfect view as Evelyn gathered her reading glasses and the production schedule and started heading his way. She rapped on his office door and entered.
    “Hello, dearest,” he said with a wide smile.
    She froze and looked at him over the top of her spectacles. Despite the schoolmarm outfit and narrow, rectangular spectacles, Evelyn was the picture of elegance as she swanned about the office. Always graceful, always in control.
    “You’re up to something,” she said as she closed his office door. “You never call me dearest unless there’s something you need.”
    He pretended to be hurt. “Dearest . . .” he drawled in his most soothing voice. Yes, he was up to something. He needed to inform her that the advertising revenue from Stallworth’s Fertilizer would now be paid in installments and reduced by thirty percent, and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation.
    Evelyn set the weekly calendar on his desk and pulled up a chair opposite him. “A team of Italian chemists are visiting Harvard,” she said. “They’ve got some interesting theories on helium, and I’ve arranged for you to meet them on Tuesday. On Wednesday, you’ve got an interview with the physician who is trying to develop a new vaccine for diphtheria. You might want to watch out for him. I have a sense he is using us for publicity, rather than dissemination of information. And the new electroplating press is due to arrive next week. They’ll need another payment before they deliver it. It’s a steep bill, but I can juggle our other payments until we have the revenue from next month’s subscriptions.”
    This probably wasn’t the ideal time to inform Evelyn that he’d offered Stallworth’s Fertilizer a lower price in exchange for a long-term contract, but she needed to know. He used hismost placating voice as he told her the news. It still didn’t go over well.
    “When were you