Convince Me

by Nina Sadowsky

  I pushed open the door and my cat, Cinnamon Toast, curled his fat calico body around my legs.

  “Who’s this?” Justin crooned, settling down into a crouch.

  Oh my god, he even likes cats.

  “Justin, meet Cinnamon Toast. C.T., meet Justin.”

  He stroked Cinnamon Toast’s head briefly and then rose. “Well, Annie,” he said. “I should get going. Are you going to be okay?”

  “I am. Thank you so much for everything. I owe you.”

  “Then let me take you to dinner.” He beamed at me, that infectious, open grin.

  “Shouldn’t I take you?” I asked.

  Justin’s eyes locked into mine. “Just say yes.”

  I swallowed. I felt like I was balancing on the brink of something. An adventure I hadn’t known I was waiting for.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  I tipped into the abyss.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WILL

  As he’d promised, Justin did know a dumpling place in K-Town that was mad good and crazy cheap. For someone who’d landed in L.A. from New York fairly recently, he was amazingly plugged in. He seemed to have friends everywhere and a kind of Midas touch. If you were out with Justin, he knew the doorman by name, and the house always bought you a round or sent over a free dessert.

  Designers gifted him clothes. Once, staring at the contents spilling from assorted slick shopping bags, I had to ask, “You get all this shit for free? Who do you have to fuck?”

  “This is why we’re homies,” he replied cheerfully. “You’re not afraid to call me on my shit. But here’s the secret. I don’t fuck anyone. I just let them think I might.”

  “And that works for you?”

  “Apparently my tantalizing charms are effective on men and women alike.” And there it was, his famous grin. “Listen, Will, you have to take this.” He handed me a loaded shopping bag with the label of a trendy Dutch designer. “I picked everything out with you in mind.”

  I started to protest, but he insisted. He’d sized up for me; he couldn’t wear the clothes anyway. I accepted, particularly relishing the soft comfort of a black cashmere sweater that I still own.

  That was one difference between Justin and me. Where I resigned myself to scraping by on my loans and carefully hoarded savings, Justin was determined to live his best life no matter what. I was just lucky enough to be along for the ride.

  He told me enough details of his life that I understood where his desire to live in the moment and live well came from. Dad dead when he was just ten, a younger half-brother with mental illness and addiction issues who drained money, time, and compassion from his poor beleaguered mother back on Long Island.

  When his brother, Tommy, committed suicide during our first year of business school, Justin was crushed. He left school and we lost touch for years afterward. After we reconnected, our friendship grew stronger than ever, but he never wanted to talk about his brother or even mention his name.

  I respected that, because despite all the shit Justin had endured, I’d never met someone so relentlessly, endlessly positive. No matter what bad hand he was dealt, he was always sure he’d win the game in the end.

  It’s a form of self-torture, but I can’t help but wonder about his last thoughts as his car hurtled and bounced down the mountainside, as he stared death in the face. Was he terrified? Or was he convinced that Lady Luck would intervene to save him?

  I hope it’s the latter.

  I hope he was optimistic and full of spirit until the very instant the life was crushed from his body.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CAROL

  Survivor.

  That word has come to mean so many different things. A side effect of a society infected by hyperbole, I suppose. A quick Internet search reveals how the word has become commodified. Survival status is emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to decorative pins, sashes and cards, banners and coffee mugs.

  I survived Jackie’s Bachelorette Weekend! I survived my trip to…Miami! Aruba! Cancun! I survived the Zombie Apocalypse!

  As if real survival had anything to do with vacation, or drinking with the girls, or science fiction. I’m a true survivor, of my husband, of my beloved Justin, of so much more. This cheapening of the word distresses me. It’s a lesser problem in our chaotic world, I understand that, but I can’t help but flinch.

  Alone in the back of the limo taking me to the reception Will planned, I struggle to prepare myself for the hours ahead. Condolences. Tears. Awkward hugs from virtual strangers. Anecdotes about my son that will both bring him closer and make him feel farther away. It ain’t this survivor’s first rodeo.

  A long sigh escapes me and I realize I had been holding my breath. I open a bottle of water from the limo bar and gulp it down.

  When did I last eat? Lunch yesterday.

  It wasn’t a conscious fast; I just forgot. I hope they’ve organized food along with the alcohol.

  Air. Water. Food. I’d argue love is another essential tenet of survival as it creates will, the will to live, the will to find the strength and resilience to keep going and do what must be done.

  My mind ticks along with these random thoughts; they form a perimeter around the chasm of my grief.

  Loss is cumulative, I’ve come to believe. Each fresh sorrow scraping raw the tender scars of the previous ones. If I tip into the void it will swallow me whole.

  When I was fifteen, the rest of my family was killed in a freak house fire. The blame was placed on shoddy electrical wiring in the newly built suburban “dream home” my parents had purchased in pursuit of their version of the American Dream.

  I should have died too; I would have, if I hadn’t snuck out to meet Bobby Tanaka, a year ahead of me in high school. I had my first kiss and lost both of my parents, my older sister, and my little brother all in the same night.

  The fire became the single event that defined me. Life before the fire was one thing. Life after it, entirely different. The pervasive stench of tragedy followed me.

  I don’t talk about it much anymore, which is a relief. As it was the defining thing in my life for so many years, I was happy to let it recede. In the immediate aftermath, of course, the subject was paramount as my extended family tried to determine what to do with me. Then the story was shaped for my college essays, which netted me a full ride to NYU. Don’t get me wrong, my grades and scores were good, but I know it was my special tragedy that bought me my slot, that made me special.

  Once I was finally at school, almost every new encounter stalled when we got to the inevitable subjects of siblings, parents’ occupations, or holiday plans. It got so I could predict the reactions. Shocked dismay led to either awkward silence or a rush of over-compensatory effulgence along the lines of “Come to my house for Thanksgiving! I’m sure my parents would love to have you!”

  I usually accepted these invitations. I wanted those windows into other homes and families. I relished the treatment I received from my friends’ mothers in particular. The poor orphan girl brought about an onrush of maternal coddling. I was told to sleep in, wasn’t allowed to help with the dishes, and was treated to little gifts. These excursions were far superior to returning to my aunt and uncle for holidays, with their sour marriage and three screaming little boys.

  It was also on one of these family visits that I met Mike. I was a junior in college, returning to my friend Robyn’s home in Vermont for the second Christmas in a row. Last year, it had just been Robyn and her parents, and they had treated us like princesses. Favorite snacks laid in, piles of presents for us both, lavish dinners out.

  This year Robyn’s older brother was also coming. Robyn was indifferent. She thought her big brother was weird. For me, it was love at first sight.

  Up until the day Mike died, we lived a valentine. He was a little weird, but a sweetheart, a gangly, crooked-toothed,
shaggy-haired shambles of a man, with a fierce heart and a fast mind. He gave me a kind of stability I hadn’t had before and haven’t had since.

  Justin occasionally admonished me for idealizing his dad, his brow furrowing in irritation. He argued that Mike couldn’t have been that perfect; no one was. Wasn’t it better to love and mourn the real man rather than a fiction?

  I chalked it up to a kind of jealousy. After all, Justin was a little boy when his father died; he and I shared the closeness many single moms develop with their sons. How many times did people tell him he was now “the man of the house”? How could he not want to be primary in my affection?

  The day Justin took on the mantle of “man of the house” began like most. We were living on Long Island then; Mike left early to drive to his job in the city. I dropped Justin at school and went to the local real estate office where I was a broker. We had a team meeting and then I had three showings, a busy day. Justin had Robotics Club after school.

  I was at my last showing of the day. The Kleins and I stepped out onto the porch of the house I had just shown them. They agreed to make an offer and I was ecstatic; I’d been carrying the listing for months. A police patrol car pulled up in front. As soon as the cops got out of their cruiser, I knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  A five-car pileup on the Long Island Expressway had claimed three lives. There had been a fire, so they’d only just been able to positively identify Mike. He’d been dead since 8:11 that morning. Over seven hours had passed.

  How had I not known? How had his soul left this earth without me feeling it?

  Fire. He died in a fire.

  Later I was told I had fainted, that if Marty Klein, former high school quarterback, hadn’t been so quick, I would have crashed right onto the brick porch.

  When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed. Justin was the first thing I saw, perched on an orange plastic guest chair, fists bouncing on his knees, his bright eyes searching mine.

  “Mom! You’re up!”

  One of the cops who had broken the news moved into my line of sight. “How are you feeling, Carol?” he asked. “You fainted on us there. Gave us quite a scare.”

  I pushed up to a sitting position and opened my arms for my son. Justin crawled in. I addressed the cop over his head, “Does he know?”

  “No, ma’am,” he answered softly. “We thought that should be up to you.”

  And then I had to tell my little boy that his father was dead.

  Survive that, bitches.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANNIE

  The blare of a car horn makes me jump. I flick my eyes forward. The light is green. We’re not moving. Will jerks my car into the intersection. Maybe he shouldn’t be driving either.

  Rigid beside Will in the front of the car, Molly desperately tries to read him. I can see it in her anxious, sidelong glances and tense jaw. If we were friends I would tell her that the best thing she could do right now is back off, give Will some space. But we’re not friends really, Molly and I, and I have my own troubles.

  Maybe Molly wasn’t all that wrong when she complained about being unable to break into JAWs’ inner ring. She’s fine, but she isn’t one of us.

  I should be more charitable, shouldn’t I? Kinder? It’s hard to muster when I feel so eviscerated. I chide myself: Do better, be better.

  Oh fuck it. Not today.

  From our first encounter on, Justin promised me a life full of surprises. He was exuberant, generous, sensitive, expansive, a little bit mad. He brought me out of my shell, even as I found myself holding my breath wondering how far he would go.

  For our first real date, Justin planned a day of gallery hopping in downtown L.A., with lunch at a charming Vietnamese restaurant still in its soft open. It went on to become one of the hottest spots in the city. I learned that he was always the first one in the know, tipped off about the hot new restaurant, the up-and-coming band, the edgiest new street artist or fashion label. He seemed to know endless people, all interesting, all interested in him, and by extension me. He was more inside L.A. than I, a lifelong resident, was. He made me feel glamorous.

  We ended our first date at a trendy millinery shop owned by a friend of his, where he picked out a hat for me. It was a natural straw number with a navy and white silk striped band, and maybe the only hat that ever looked good on me. Justin kissed me for the first time after he paid for it, ducking his head under the shallow brim for a quick soft kiss on my parted lips that sent an electric shock through my system.

  Our first few weeks together zipped along at a giddy pace. Justin wooed me in an old-fashioned way: flowers, dinners at trendy restaurants, thoughtful little gifts (the aforementioned straw hat, a stainless steel bracelet engraved with the longitude and latitude for Mammoth Mountain, a LACMA umbrella in the midst of a particularly rainy week). These presents were perfect: personal, considerate, and appropriately modest for a relationship in the early stages.

  I felt deeply cared for, and also acutely longed for, as Justin kept his desire known but our physical contact restricted to kisses and nuzzles. This lasted for weeks. At first he claimed consideration for the injuries I’d sustained in the car accident. And in truth, with my busted-up nose and split lip, swollen eyes and sore jaw, I was grateful.

  The delayed physical intimacy also gave us a chance to build a relationship on the basis of shared conversation and confidences. I discovered Justin really cared about how I saw my life unfolding (unlike most men I’d dated, or even just met, for that matter). I work in PR; it pays the bills. But I dream of supporting myself as a fiction writer, an admission I rarely made in those days.

  A slew of brutal rejections of my first post-graduation submissions had made me gun-shy. A few years later, I tried again, only to get no response at all to at least 75 percent of my attempts. Was my work so dreadful that people couldn’t even be bothered to reply? I felt smaller than a pebble. I packed up my dream of a literary career and tucked it away. I committed to being the best damn PR rep for MediFutur that I could be.

  And I was good. Am good. It’s surprising how complicated public relations can be for a medical technology company. My work is both industry- and public-facing. The company is on the cutting edge of some technologies that are going to be literally life-changing and lifesaving. I take pride in working there. Or rather did take pride in working there. I can’t imagine walking back into the place now.

  I force my attention back to my early days with Justin, a much more pleasant place for my thoughts to linger.

  A turning point in our already fevered relationship came about when Justin asked to read some of my writing. I emailed him three of my favorite short stories. I was terribly nervous. I even sent him a text telling him to delete them without reading them. What if he rejected them like everyone else? What if he rejected me?

  I didn’t hear from him for three days. I was manic with worry. I was convinced that not only did he hate my work, but that he hated it so much that he was going to break up with me. How could Justin Childs, charismatic, enigmatic, connected, and charming, stand to be with me, an abject failure at my chosen craft?

  failure [ˈfāl-yər]

  noun, 1. the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends; 2. one that fails; 3. the condition of being insufficient or falling short

  synonyms: incompetent, bankrupt, non-performer, underachiever, loser, flunker, turkey, flop, has-been, no-account, dud, derelict, dead duck

  That was the drumbeat in my head.

  When Justin texted to confirm our dinner plans for Friday, I was relieved. Still, I continued to torture myself, imagining that he was merely doing me the courtesy of breaking up in person.

  I made certain to look killer for our date. It was like pulling on a suit of armor. I turned heads walking in to meet him at the restaurant, which Justin clearly clocked. He greeted me w
ith a kiss and a possessive embrace. Then he launched into his delight about my stories. He discussed them with me intelligently, his eyes lighting up with questions and ideas. I was relieved. No, more than that. I was ecstatic.

  A week later, he gave me a leather journal embossed with the letter A, and a gold pen with exquisite heft and flow. On the first page, he inscribed,

  To Annie, Never Stop

  Love, J

  He made me believe in myself as a writer again. This, of all Justin’s many gifts to me over the course of our time together, was the one for which there was not then, and now will never be, an adequate thank-you.

  As time went on, I healed and we heated. I wanted more than chaste kisses, but it was Justin who pulled back. He cupped my tender jaw between his two warm palms. “Annie, something unusual is going on here. Would you agree?”

  Mesmerized by the sweet brightness in his eyes, I could only manage a nod.

  “I have a feeling we’ll have our whole lives to go to bed together. So let’s wait a little. Keep us both in suspense?”

  How sexy was that? He sealed the question with the lightest of kisses. It made me crazy with desire for him.

  Needless to say, when we finally did take each other to bed, it was explosive. Sex added a delicious layer to a relationship that was already forged in intellectual connection, similar senses of humor, and like wells of hopeful ambition.

  We began to merge and enmesh. We left toothbrushes at each other’s places. I wore his hoodies. He wrapped a scarf of mine around his neck and claimed it as his. I feigned outrage and he sugared the theft with a wink and the assurance that it was only so he could inhale my scent when we were apart.

  How am I going to survive the next few hours? How will I survive the rest of my life?

  Will and Molly are looking at me, I realize. I’ve stopped short in front of the entrance to the Pickford, the location of Justin’s funeral reception. I was so deep in my own thoughts I’m shocked to find myself here. I don’t remember Will parking, or getting out of the car, or walking over to the entrance.