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“Roger, shouldn’t my father be here for this?” Dad asks.
Roger’s face heats, and his lips droop into a frown that makes him look a little like he’s going to cry. “It’s customary that only the beneficiaries of the will be present at the reading. If you would like to invite Mr. Rhodes to be present, we can delay until he is available.”
From my seat, I watch as Mom glances at Dad, her red-polished fingers reaching out to lay a palm across his leg.
“Are you saying that my father, my grandfather’s next of kin, isn’t named in the will?” Dad asks, his voice shocked.
“I think it would be best for me to read the contents of the document to you, hopefully that should answer any questions you might have,” Roger says, his voice calm and monotone.
“Of course,” Mom answers quickly, in her sickly-sweet tone that she only ever uses when she’s talking to a boy. “Please go ahead.”
Roger clears his throat, then lifts the pile of papers in front of him up and starts to read. “I Reginald Thomas Rhodes the Second, resident of Green Acres in the state of California, being of sound mind, not acting under duress or undue influence, and fully understanding the nature and extent of all my property and of this disposition thereof, do hereby make, publish, and declare this document to be my last will and testament, and hereby revoke any and all other wills and codicils heretofore made by me.”
He pauses, lifting his eyes from the document to glance over at me, a strange expression crossing his face before his gaze drops back to the papers and he continues to talk. I don’t really understand anything he says for the next five minutes until he says my name.
“What?” Mom squawks.
Clearing his throat, Roger flashes that look at me again, then says, “I leave my estate in its entirety to my eldest great-granddaughter, Miss Penelope Emerson Rhodes, provided she adheres to the attached list of stipulations.”
My parents’ voices become a cacophony of noise, and I cringe as they argue with the lawyer, until Dad jumps out of his seat and snatches the papers from Roger’s hands, demanding to read the will for himself.
Frozen to my seat, I do nothing while my parents lose their minds. I might not have understood all of what was just said, but I got the gist. My great-grandfather, a man I’ve seen a handful of times in my entire life, just left all of his money to me.
My mind whirs, the butterflies in my stomach turn into birds, and start to swoop uncontrollably inside of me, and through it all, I sit, straight-backed, legs crossed, hands demurely clasped in my lap, completely oblivious to the fact that this day would change absolutely everything.
2
PENELOPE
PRESENT DAY
Staring down at my cell phone, I reread the letter I received from my great-grandfather that day. I don’t need to look at the screen, though, because I memorized each word years ago. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this letter—enough that the actual paper copy has gotten so thin that I took a photo of it and saved it to my phone and cloud so I could never lose it.
Years ago, when this all started, Mom made me recite this letter to her over and over again until I could relay each word, line, and paragraph on demand. This godforsaken letter outlines the rules. The stipulations that I have to abide by to receive the money my great-grandfather bequeathed to me in his will.
Penelope,
For hundreds of years, the Rhodes name has been admired for our reputation for our hardworking nature and upstanding moral values. I myself, devoted my entire life to upholding my father’s and his father’s legacy.
However, despite my guidance and firm hand, both my heir and his heir in turn, have sullied our family’s good name and made a mockery of the fortitude and perseverance our ancestors and I strove so hard to instill. As such, I have decided to cut away the rotten fruit in our orchard and try to recover our great family name with your generation.
I am worth a great deal of money, all of which will ultimately become yours if you can prove that you are prepared to work hard to be successful and contribute to the Rhodes legacy I want to create for the future generations to come.
The world can be a complicated and difficult place to navigate, and as such, I have created strict guidelines that I expect you to abide by. This inheritance is not free money. I expect you to work for it, and by asking you to obey this set of rules, I am providing you with the incentive to become a person worthy of the Rhodes name.
Should you fail to live up to the standard I expect of you, the bequest will be revoked, and my lawyers will act on my wishes on who should inherit in your stead.
Below is a list of my expectations of you as my sole heir.
I expect you to graduate as an exemplary student from Green Acres Academy—the school I attended and continued to act as a benefactor for until the time of my death—with no less than a 4.0 grade point average.
You will apply to, and be accepted into, one of the below mentioned colleges.
Harvard University
Cornell University
Yale University
