Convince Me

by Nina Sadowsky

  Take the first time we met.

  Back in graduate school after several years in the workforce, I was gobsmacked by how hard it was for me to readjust to the routine of classes and homework. Not to mention the undergrads. Some of them seemed impossibly young, which in turn made me feel ridiculously old. Tailgating and binge drinking; football games and Greek life. It hadn’t been my thing even back in the day, which is why I did my undergrad at a smallish but prestigious liberal arts college in New England. Now I was at a big university surrounded by kids.

  In addition, over the last couple of years, I’d made decent bank and I was struggling with the return to the poverty of student life, school loans, and ramen dinners.

  I was impatient. Restless. A little lonely.

  One Saturday, hungry and depressed by the meager contents of my refrigerator, I shoved my feet into sneakers, stuffed my books and computer into a backpack, and ventured out. My dingy little apartment had the advantage of being walking distance from the business school campus. That’s why I’d taken it sight unseen, only to discover the proximity might have been its only true advantage. The apartment’s walls were thin; my neighbors loud. The elevator threatened to stall so often I only took the stairs. Wafts of frying oil from the chicken place next door simultaneously made me hungry and turned my stomach.

  My plan was to hit one of the food trucks that line up around the perimeter of the university and then make my way to the air-conditioned confines of the library. It was late on a gorgeous morning, edging into a hot afternoon.

  As I emerged from my building, I nearly tripped on a square brown carton sitting just outside. A hand darted out of nowhere and jerked me away from the package just in the nick of time.

  Primal fight or flight hormones flooded my system. I instinctively gripped my computer bag. Raised an arm. To defend? To attack? I wasn’t sure, but I was ready.

  Until I looked into the eyes of the man dragging me behind the box hedge that separated the vestibule from the tiny front yard. They glimmered with mischief and fun, not menace.

  “Watch the box!” he cautioned in a delighted whisper as he pulled me down to a crouch. “Motion sensor.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” I managed to stutter, indignant and yet also somehow whispering in the same hushed tones the stranger had used, already drawn into his world.

  “Sshhh. It’ll just be a sec.”

  A woman in shades and a dyed blond ponytail pulled through the back of a baseball cap strode briskly down the sidewalk. Upon seeing the package, she glanced around cautiously.

  The stranger put a steadying hand on my shoulder and one finger to his lips.

  The woman took one last glance over her shoulder. Unzipped her backpack and reached for the package. As soon as she lifted it…

  BANG!

  Loud as a gunshot, the sound reverberated in the warm air. The woman fell back on her ass and scrambled away, crawling to her feet and running down the street.

  The stranger next to me leapt to his feet. “That’ll teach you not to steal people’s packages, you goddamn thief!” His peals of laughter chased her down the street.

  He turned back to me with a radiant grin. “She’s been stealing my shit for weeks. Other people’s too. I even got her on video on my phone, but the police didn’t want to hear about it, so I figured I’d teach her a lesson. That was awesome! Right? Just a little gunpowder wired to a touch-sensitive circuit trigger. I’m Justin. You’re 3B, right? Also in the business school?”

  He barely paused between sentences. I remember thinking that I should have found him off-putting (just a little gunpowder!!), but his smile and good humor were magnetic. “Yes, right, 3B. Will Barber. You?”

  “I’m 2C. Where are you headed this fine day, Will Barber?”

  “Food trucks and then library.”

  “Oh, I think we can do better than that.”

  “I really need to study.”

  “So do I. But look around. It’s magnificent out. We should embrace the day. Besides, I know where we can eat dumplings like kings for $12 each.”

  He laughed again, a full-throated chortle that made me want to join in. “Come on, Will Barber, just say yes.”

  * * *

  —

  I turn my head just in time to see Annie swivel away from me. I knew I’d felt her gaze. Carol battles another wave of sobs and grabs for Annie’s hand. I feel awful for both of them. No mother should have to lose a child, the way Carol has. No woman should have to lose her husband so young, the way Annie has.

  Beside me, my girlfriend, Molly, swishes her black-nylon-clad legs. I appreciate that she came with me today. We’ve not been in the best place lately and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d begged off.

  I indulge in a fantasy. The rear doors of this dreadful, somber room swing open. Justin waltzes down the center aisle in top hat and tails, twirling a white-tipped cane. He’s not dead after all; it’s just another in his series of robust practical jokes.

  Justin was a man with an arsenal of mottoes. This ability to quote or coin a maxim for almost any situation was a ridiculous part of his charm. But his most frequent and heartfelt aphorism was:

  Life’s too short to ask permission. Better to ask forgiveness.

  And everyone forgave Justin. He pushed limits all the time, his own as well as everyone else’s, but no one could stay mad at him. He was so openly enthusiastic, so willing to laugh at himself and the world, so charming and interested, so voluble and quick.

  The pounding headache I’d dispatched with Advil this morning begins to creep in again, surrounding my temples in a viselike grip. I dry swallow three more pills. Cough as they catch in my throat. Molly hands me her bottle of water and I nod my thanks. Take a swallow. It goes down hard, past a lump in my throat. Tears spring into my eyes.

  I’ve cried over Justin’s death. After Annie called to tell me his body had been found, after I saw photographs of his wrecked torso and face, again last night after I politely asked Molly to leave my apartment despite the hurt in her eyes.

  I have no problem with crying. I don’t do it often, but I’m not one of those guys who believe tears are a sign of weakness. I cried when all four of my grandparents died; I cried when a buddy of mine hung himself in college. I’ve cried for Justin and I know I’ll cry for him again, although I’d prefer to do it alone, in private, away from pitying eyes.

  It’s not just that we were best friends and built a business together. We were a unit. For years he was my professional co-conspirator, my sounding board, my partner in crime. I planned his bachelor party and was best man at his wedding. The three of us were our own little gang, a fact that I know Molly resents.

  Now he’s dead and my life’s work is at risk.

  How will I ever figure out how to make sense of it all without him?

  CHAPTER THREE

  CAROL

  As the service progresses, a rising wave of panic threatens to engulf me. When it’s all over, my baby, my son, laid out in his crisp black wedding suit, will be rolled away and set aflame.

  Is it too late to change my mind? Have him buried?

  What difference does it make? Justin’s dead. Whether his physical body is charred to ash or left to decay doesn’t matter. He is gone.

  My baby. My son.

  My handkerchief is sodden with tears and snot. I press it against my raw, aching eyes. Push it harder against my eyeballs until they hurt, as if the pain will ease my devastation. It doesn’t.

  The sheer range of emotions I’m experiencing is overwhelming.

  Grief. Rage. Regret. Shock. Terror. Anxiety. Loneliness.

  A fresh bout of tears erupts from my swollen eyes. Will I ever stop crying?

  It’s not natural for a mother to outlive her son. It shocks. It destroys.

  My husband, Justin’s father, died
when my boy was only ten years old. After that it was just the two of us against the world. Then he found Annie and our little family expanded. I’d hoped they’d have children; that I’d be a grandmother eventually, continue our fractured family line. Now I am alone, that hope demolished.

  There’s still Annie, of course, but what woman would stay linked to the mother of her now deceased spouse? Anyway, I’ve never quite been sure if Annie likes me. She behaved impeccably always, polite and considerate, but I felt it was motivated more by love of Justin and innate good manners than any true affection. I wish we were closer. We shared the most important man in both our lives; that should be a bond.

  I stroke Annie’s hand. I sense her instinct to pull away, but grasp her fingers tightly within my own. She’s numb, poor thing. When it hits her, it will be terrible. She’ll need me, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

  It’s funny how cogent thoughts still churn through my brain, even as I cry, even as my insides are hollowed with loss. Survival. It is our most primal instinct and the ways in which we survive are sometimes surprising, even to ourselves.

  I loved my boy so much, my mischievous, darling son.

  The day Justin was born, it was hot and humid. The air was thick and sticky. Anyone with any sense had fled Manhattan for more hospitable locales. Our window air-conditioning unit was straining mightily. There had been a few rolling brownouts across the city already that summer, giving it a strained, apocalyptic tension.

  I was ready for this baby. His nursery was prepared, decorated in shades of blue and green. Adorable tiny clothes were stacked inside the dresser with the changing-table top. Stuffed animals, Dr. Seuss books, and monogrammed hooded bath towels awaited my little miracle. Plus, I’d been roasting like a turkey for the last two months of my pregnancy, my ankles were swollen and my bladder in a state of perpetual leaky anxiety. I was more than ready.

  Justin was a scheduled C-section—breech, and resistant thus far to efforts to turn him. Mike went out to hail a cab to take us to the hospital while I waited in the relative cool of the tiny vestibule of our apartment building on East 12th. I rubbed my belly.

  “Hey there, little boy,” I crooned. “Almost time to come say hello.”

  I watched as Mike hoisted my overnight bag up on his shoulder and lifted his arm to signal an approaching taxi. A wave of love for my husband coursed through me. We’d made this baby together. He’d be a wonderful dad. I knew this; it was one of the reasons I’d married him.

  It was my choice to take just an epidural and stay awake during the procedure. I didn’t want to miss a second of my boy’s life. Still, it remains one of the more unnerving things I’ve seen in my life, the reflection of my C-section in the mirror above the operating table. My flayed skin, the blood, my organs, and my baby, emerging slick with viscous fluid, a matted crown of thick black hair on his head.

  I was crying, I was laughing, and Mike was just the same. The nurses laid Justin on my chest. Our two hearts beat as one for too brief a moment. Justin was spirited away. They unplugged the mucus from his nose, wiped him clean, took some measurements, ran some tests, swaddled him in a striped blanket, and returned my love to me.

  My heart was so full that day, that relatively ordinary August day. Seventeen other women gave birth on the same day in my hospital alone, no doubt millions more around the globe. But still, the birth of my baby, my son, on that ordinary day was extraordinary, a transcendent event, a true miracle. Maybe every mother feels that way.

  My limbs feel leaden, my throat constricts. My mind flashes to Mike’s funeral, how Justin pressed up against my side, his face solemn and terrified, how I whispered to him that I would always be there to take care of him.

  With a chilling blast of anger, I recognize that nothing will ever close this chapter for me. Nothing. I will be torn ragged by Justin’s death until the end of my own life.

  Fury melts rapidly into despair. I release a small involuntary whimper as I finger the gray silk knotted around my throat.

  I’ve entered the era of sleeves and scarves. A lonely old woman with crepey skin and no one left to love her.

  I allow myself a healthy wallow in this self-pity. My son is dead; I’m at his funeral. If not now, when? Fresh hot tears sting and threaten.

  And then, suddenly, the service is over. I will have to make my way to some bar Will has picked. Endure hours of murmured condolences and awkward sliding glances. As the hours grow later and liquor is consumed, I’m sure I’ll also be subjected to a few stories about my son I’d probably be better off not knowing.

  I fantasize briefly about ditching the reception; about just fleeing this dreadful place with its cloying scent of rotting flowers, its solemn rituals and painful piety, about running away and not ever coming back. But I squelch the impulse.

  My son may be dead, my own life rendered meaningless, but I will give Justin the farewell he deserves.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ANNIE

  I couldn’t bear to stay inside the funeral home while Justin burned. Carol did, staying behind to walk alongside the rolling casket as it slid into the oven. I had to turn away. Run away, if I’m being honest. I fled to the sun-baked parking lot and stumbled into my car.

  I sit here, the windows rolled up tightly, the engine off, making no attempt to cool down the intense heat of the car. The seat leather is scalding, searing the backs of my legs; my dress sticks to my shoulder blades. Sweat rolls down my neck and between my breasts. The confining, airless heat of the car feels like the punishment I deserve for a crime I must have committed. I insisted on driving my own car today, which I admit doesn’t make all that much sense. I probably shouldn’t be on the roads; distracted, heartbroken, I’m a menace.

  I just didn’t want to be stranded or dependent on anyone on this particular day. I wanted to be able to bolt if necessary, even as I knew that was impossible. I’m the grieving widow, for fuck’s sake. I need to stay front and center.

  A sharp rap gets my attention. Will peers in at me.

  I power on the car and roll down my window. Hot air puffs out and into Will’s bearded face.

  “Car sauna?” he asks with one cocked eyebrow. “Ready to pitch?”

  A laugh of pure relief escapes me. This is a game the three of us played, coming up with ridiculous Shark Tank products and pitching them to one another.

  I launch in, even though my words feel leaden. “The Car Sauna is the latest and the greatest in efficient weight-loss strategy. Who doesn’t want to hop in their car and arrive five pounds lighter at their next party?”

  Will continues the joke. “Bonus feature: The Car Sauna also steams the wrinkles out of your outfit. Arrive thin and freshly steamed everywhere you go!”

  We smile at each other. Fall silent. I can see Molly hovering over Will’s left shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “You know,” I reply, “not really.”

  “Still think the cocktail party is a good idea?” Will’s face creases anxiously.

  “It’s what J would have wanted.”

  Will nods.

  “Let us drive over with you,” Will offers. “I’ll leave my car here and get it later.”

  I nod, open the door, and slide out of the car, offering him the driver’s seat. Molly joins him in the front.

  Will is relieved, I can tell, which irritates me a little.

  It’s not like I’ll drive my car into a brick wall or anything.

  Then again, maybe I will.

  I’m not sharing these darker thoughts with anyone, but perhaps Will’s right to be relieved. He knows me well, maybe better than anyone else now that Justin’s dead. Plus, shared shock, loss, and insecurity about the future bind us even more deeply than the easy friendship which had held the three of us in its tight net.

  “JAWs.” Justin made up the moniker. Justin. Annie. Will.
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  Justin used to say we were like sharks, “unstoppable.” Even the shark in the movie gets taken down eventually, which I pointed out, but Justin grinned a reply: “Yeah but until then, an epic ride.” I let it go. Why argue the point? It feels poignant and painful now. JAWs is just AWs; the epic ride is over.

  The day Justin and I met, after the hot chocolate and brandy and a later meal of freshly baked bread and soup (he remembered and ordered my favorite, lentil), he paid for an extra room at his hotel so that I had help nearby if I needed it. The next day, he drove me to the tow yard to retrieve my luggage and skis from the destroyed Acura, and offered to drive me back to L.A. I accepted.

  In that five-and-a-half-hour trip we covered a lot of ground. Justin talked with great affection about his mother (always a good sign in a man). He mentioned his father had died when he was young and then steered the conversation away, which I respected; people shouldn’t have to share everything, in my opinion, at least not until they’re ready.

  He offhandedly referred to a pretty incredible Ivy League pedigree for both his undergraduate work and his MBA, and talked with great excitement about the VR startup he was launching with his best friend. He told me that first grad school and then work had pulled his focus the last few years; he hadn’t dated much. He followed that admission with a cheeky grin that made me blush all over again.

  And he was phenomenally interested in me. He wanted to know all about me, asking a series of probing questions about everything from my upbringing to my education, to the places I’d been and the places I dreamed of visiting, to my current job and my aspirations for the future. I’d never felt so seen by a man.

  He took me back to my duplex apartment in Los Feliz. Carted my luggage and skis upstairs. As I fumbled to get the key in the lock, I wondered what I should do. Ask him in? Play hard to get? He hadn’t even asked for my number yet, although clearly he knew where I lived.