Forever With Him

by Stacy Travis

  One of the new clients, Aventria, was trying to manage the fallout from the CEO speaking out of turn about a new drug and the certainty that it would get FDA approval. In fact, he’d gotten no assurances from the FDA, and even if he had, he shouldn’t have said anything publicly.

  I drove down to Torrey Pines, a wooded area near San Diego, where its labs and offices were located, so I could have a meeting with the chief executive who’d misspoken.

  I parked in the spacious outdoor lot and noted that the San Diego area was more spread out than what I was used to in the heart of LA. His assistant walked me from the bright, austere lobby to the corner office of the chief executive, chatting the whole way about different beverage options I could have during my meeting. I told her that coffee sounded great, and she deposited me in her boss’s office. “Be right back with the coffee. Cream and sugar?”

  “Just cream. Thanks.”

  By the time she returned with two cups, which she deposited on coasters on the desk, Donald Leaf was looking very contrite but also unsure exactly what he’d done wrong. I had no problem explaining it to him.

  “You know, you can’t make promises that will affect the stock price. But you and I both know it happens all the time, so we just need to manage investor expectations and put out a few well-worded statements explaining the exact state of your research and potential FDA approval,” I told Donald Leaf, who was sitting across his desk from me and typing on his computer while we talked. I could tell I only had his partial attention. It was the first time we’d met in person, despite the fact that he’d hired me to be his representative at the firm two weeks earlier. His colleague at another biotech company was also a client of mine, and he’d hired me on blind faith. I wanted to live up to his expectations.

  He looked up from his computer when I stopped talking. “I trust you.”

  Ha. He had no trust issues whatsoever, and he didn’t even know me. People were not all alike.

  “You shouldn’t, not without thinking through what I’m saying.”

  His fingers were poised over his keyboard, and he was ready to tune me out again, but some of my words must have penetrated. He moved his hands away from the keyboard and folded them on his desk. “Okay, here’s the problem with what you’re suggesting. I can’t say much about our research at all. My tease about potential FDA approval was meant to allow me to avoid talking about specific research.”

  “Well, now you get to talk about it. I’m not saying you break protocols. But there’s a way we can word the statements to make it clear that what you meant by your comment about FDA approval was really a reference to fascinating developments industrywide that will allow a lot of players—including your company—to push through products in the coming years that will meet with FDA approval and change the game.”

  Donald Leaf was a serious man who spent serious time thinking about science. But the grin that spread across his face told me I’d opened his mind to the beauty of spin control. “That’s brilliant. So in essence, I’m not saying anything specific about my company that will get me in trouble.”

  “Exactly. We’re controlling the narrative and telling people only what they need to know to understand that your company is doing great things and will continue to do great things that will make your investors a lot of money. We’re not saying when, and we’re not saying what. But when you accomplish it, you’ll look brilliant, because you told people to expect it a long time ago.”

  “So it’s lying, somewhat. Taking advantage of people’s lack of sophistication with respect to the science and then telling them we’ve been saying everything all along. And this works? People will believe this? This lying?”

  “We’re not lying. We’re molding the facts to fit the scenario.”

  He let out a hollow laugh. “That sounds like dirty pool, but since it will help me stay out of hot water, I’m giving you free rein to pursue it.” I loved his string of metaphors, none of which would be allowed when he made his official statement.

  Molding facts was what I did all day long. I’d gotten so good at finding the conclusion I wanted to extract from the end of the machine that it almost didn’t matter what facts I put into the front end. Kind of the way I was deciding where Chris and I would end without regard to the facts. I had to stop. And I would. I’d save all my fact-molding for Donald Leaf.

  “Perfect. First, we’ll do a download—in confidence—on the state of your research and your FDA approvals, so I know what’s really happening. Then we can talk about what’s safe to say publicly. I’ll craft a few statements for you to look over, and once you approve, we’ll put out the press releases. You’ll make yourself available for interviews with the bigger news outlets, and we’ll consider this crisis solved. Sound good?”

  “Sounds perfect. And I owe Jeff Pettit lunch for recommending you to me. I can already tell this will be a fruitful relationship.”

  “I’m here to help. But let’s not go looking for opportunities for me to bail you out. We should have a sit-down and go over things you should never say in a public forum. Or on Twitter. Please, God, never on Twitter.”

  We shook hands and set up our sit-down. Within two hours of arriving, I was back in the car, driving north. I wasn’t expected back at the office until late afternoon, so I took a little detour to a lookout point by the coast. The tall pines were so dense in places that it was hard to believe they’d yield to a view of the beach, but after a few minutes of winding along a westbound road, I could see the misty marine layer over the still blue water.

  Water down there was a different color than the more polluted Santa Monica Bay, despite cleanup efforts to make it better. There were just too many people in LA and too many dirty storm drains emptying into the ocean. I parked and walked down a scrubby path to the lookout point, which was marked with a bench and a coin-operated telescope.

  I didn’t need the long view. Sitting and taking in the wide landscape of beach and ocean was enough to bring a little peace.

  When I took my phone out to snap a photo, I saw a string of missed texts from Chris.

  Chris: Thinking about you.

  Chris: Okay, that’s a lie. I’m not thinking. I’m fantasizing about your gorgeous body. And your beautiful face.

  Chris: And your lips.

  Chris: And your tongue.

  Chris: And… other things. Not necessarily in that order.

  Chris: Missing you. A lot.

  Chris: Okay, gonna stop now before I ask for naked pics.

  Chris: P.S. send naked pics

  Before typing my reply, I thought about what I wanted to say. So much. Too much for a text. I missed him. I beyond missed him. Missing him had become such a persistent state of affairs that a permanent ache had taken up residence in my chest. My breathing always labored under a weight of sadness. I never felt whole.

  And yet, I wasn’t sure that having him fly in for another quickie could fix that. Seeing him for twenty-four hours here and there was almost harder than not seeing him at all. And as much as he kept saying that it was an unfortunate collision of projects and it wasn’t always going to be that way, I wasn’t sure I believed him. He’d been honest from the start. He’d told me he was a workaholic.

  At the time, I’d thought that his dark side seemed pretty lily white. But he was more than a workaholic. He was someone who never stopped working, even when it meant letting other parts of his life suffer. He had no work–life balance. He just had work. There was no room for me in the equation unless he made room.

  But I couldn’t say all those things, at least not in a text. They would have to wait until the next time we saw each other. So I responded as though everything was fine.

  Nikki: I miss you too. A lot.

  Nikki: And there will be no pics.

  Nikki: Kidding. There will be pics. And if you’re lucky, I’ll send them to you.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Santa Monica - Two weeks later

  Nikki

  At six in the morning,
it was still early enough to be light out, but the bright-yellow sun hadn’t risen high enough above the horizon line to be visible above the low-rise buildings in my neighborhood. That made it the perfect time of day for jogging, because it wasn’t so glary that I needed a hat or sunglasses. I preferred to run unencumbered.

  I passed a few fellow joggers, and we nodded to each other, acknowledging the same love of getting up before most other humans to pound the pavement. Runners were a specific breed. I couldn’t count the number of times someone at work had said to me, “I don’t know how you can enjoy running. It’s just… not my thing.”

  When something isn’t one’s thing, it is hard to understand how someone else can love it—or need it. I’d do my best to explain that it was about the breathing, the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement, the clearing of my head. To me, it was a contact sport. When my feet landed hard with each step, I felt relief from whatever pent-up thoughts or worries were plaguing me that day. The list was always long.

  But by the time I came back to my block and walked the last couple hundred yards as a cool down, I felt good. There was time for a shower before my daily call with Chris, and I wanted to make a pot of coffee and go over a client’s file from work. My brain had started shuffling through those tasks and pulling me out of my runner’s endorphin fog, so I almost didn’t see the person sitting on the steps in front of my building until I was too close to do an about-face and run the other way, which would have been an excellent plan. Because the guy sitting there was Johnny.

  As in ex-boyfriend Johnny.

  Bad-breakup Johnny.

  Don’t-call, don’t-write, don’t-show-up-on-my-doorstep Johnny.

  I did a double-take. I did the thing where a person rubs her eyes to see if the guy she thinks is her ex-boyfriend standing in front of her apartment is really just a telephone pole or a bush. I expected him to vanish and be replaced by tall, mocking foliage.

  “Hey,” he said, standing as soon as he saw me.

  “Um, hi.” After that, I was out of words. I had thoughts, but they were of the variety I didn’t want to say out loud.

  Why are you here?

  What the fuck are you doing here?

  How dare you fucking come here now, when you’re the last person in the world I want to see?

  So I said nothing and waited for him to explain why he’d parked himself outside my building at seven in the morning. I doubted he was just passing by.

  “Um… I was hoping we could talk,” he said, his expression serious. I wasn’t used to it. In fact, in the time we’d dated, I’d almost never seen him without a guilty grin or an open, inviting smile. Johnny loved to have a good time, and if he couldn’t have fun, he didn’t bother. It was a sort of life choice, and I’d finally come to terms with understanding that he never took anything seriously.

  His difficulty with being serious, at least occasionally, might not have been an issue for some people, but it was for me.

  Meanwhile, we were standing outside my building, and I really wanted to get out of my sweaty workout clothes and wait for Chris’s phone call. But I didn’t voice those thoughts, because I knew he’d come to find me for a reason. He could have called. But he showed up, knowing I was a creature of habit and would be out for a run. He’d thought it through, which was maybe the first time I’d known him to do that since we’d met.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, hoping he would say yes and go.

  He didn’t answer, and the awkwardness in his expression didn’t change. Maybe he was dying. Maybe he missed me and wanted to beg me to date him again. It had to have been something rather monumental, and I really wished he’d come out with it.

  “Everything’s okay. I just… I really need to talk.”

  “You mean… right now?”

  “Yeah. Could we? Can you spare the time?”

  I couldn’t leave him hanging, even though the last time we’d spoken, he’d been spiteful and mean. And he’d cheated. He was still a human who was asking me for something, though, and I decided I could give him that something. So I said okay.

  Johnny stayed on the front steps of my building while I went inside. I didn’t invite him in but agreed to come back in fifteen minutes, after I’d showered and texted Chris to let him know I had an early meeting and he could call me at work when he got a break, and I’d make time to talk.

  When I returned downstairs, Johnny hadn’t moved. He wasn’t checking his phone or amusing himself with some found object that caught his attention. Something was different, and it unnerved me a little bit to see him that way.

  “Should we walk to a coffee place?” I asked.

  He nodded, and we headed up the block to where there was a Starbucks, a Peets, and two independently owned cafes. I always picked the nonchain places when I could, and he knew this, so he steered us into the Bread Company without asking if I wanted to go there.

  He also ordered me a coconut latte, which used to be my favorite, and asked for an iced tea for himself. We sat. He looked at me as if I was the one who’d called the meeting. As much as I wanted to hear what he had to say, I also had to be at work in an hour and a half. I couldn’t just sit and trade glances. “Johnny, what’s going on? Just tell me.”

  He nodded. “Okay, I’m just gonna say it… I’m sober. Newly sober. It’s been two months.”

  Of all the things I might have expected him to say, that was at the very bottom of the list. Not because I didn’t think he had a problem with alcohol—he definitely drank what I considered too much, and he’d always denied there was a downside to his behavior.

  “That’s… so great. Congratulations.”

  He looked sheepish. “Thanks. So, anyway… as part of my twelve steps, I need to make amends with people I’ve… hurt… with my behavior.”

  It all made sense. He needed me to forgive him so he could forgive himself. After a year with him—despite the fact that he’d gotten a blow job at his high school reunion from someone other than me—I knew he wasn’t a bad person. I had some fond memories. And despite his easy laugh, I could tell this was hard for him. It didn’t need to be. “We’re good, Johnny. Water under the bridge.”

  He seemed surprised. “That’s it?”

  “What did you expect me to say. That I’m surprised you’re in a twelve-step program? I am. That I can never forgive you? No, I’m not gonna say that. It doesn’t help anyone.”

  “Okay…” He didn’t seem to know what to do next. He also seemed shocked that I wasn’t arguing.

  “Have people not been open to making amends with you?”

  “Truthfully, you’re the first person I’ve reached out to. You were the one I think I hurt the most, so I started with you.”

  “Oh.”

  I don’t know why, but it surprised me that he even realized I’d been hurt. At the time, I never got that impression. He’d seemed blasé about our fight and our breakup. He seemed to roll with it like he did everything else.

  “So… I’m really not sure how this is supposed to go.”

  I waved a hand at him and tried to put him at ease. He really seemed to be suffering through the conversation. “Don’t worry about it. Tell me what happened. What made you start a twelve-step program?”

  He sipped his iced tea through the straw. I wanted to tell him that straws were terrible for the environment and he shouldn’t use them, but I decided it was not the time. For the first time since he’d shown up at my door, his mouth pulled into a small smile. “Well, you know I never met a beer—or twelve—I didn’t like.”

  “I recall. It never seemed to occur to you that it was a problem. Your high metabolism and all that,” I reminded him. He always had an excuse for why he could put more beer away than seemed humanly possible. Or healthy.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure you told me.” He still seemed tense, but the tentative smile stayed on his face.

  “Listen… you weren’t ready to think about it or deal with it before. I’m just glad you’re dealing with it n
ow. Please don’t beat yourself up over what happened when we were together.”

  “Yeah… that. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted. I know you needed plans and structure and a future, and I was just looking for a beach with a good wave. And hell, I didn’t need to hurt you on top of it. I’m sorry I got together with Caitlin the night of the reunion. I was out of my head and didn’t know what I was doing. Whatever I said that night… I didn’t mean it.”

  I nodded. “I’m not gonna lie. It sucked. But it also woke me up. So maybe it was a good thing.” It was hard to think of it quite so magnanimously, but I wanted to try.

  He reached over and gave me a playful punch. “I don’t know if I’d necessarily say it was good. Just inevitable.” He drained the last of his iced tea and got up for a refill. I watched him saunter up to the counter—Johnny always sauntered—and made the barista laugh at some joke he made. He always did that too. It was what had initially drawn me to him—his mile-wide smile, his easy attitude, and his confident swagger.

  I took a moment to think through how absolutely bizarre it was that I was sitting there, watching him laugh and smile. I never expected to see Johnny again, and I really never expected him to apologize.

  While the barista was refilling Johnny’s glass with fresh ice, he indicated with his thumb that he was making a pitstop in the restroom. I nodded.

  While he was up, I checked my phone and saw that Chris had texted me back.

  Chris: Sorry I missed you. Will call later.

  Me: Can’t wait.

  I hated that I’d missed my call with Chris, partly because it was so hard to coordinate time when we could talk, and I didn’t like backing out of our plans. I also felt a little bit guilty for saying I had a meeting instead of telling him I was canceling so I could have coffee with Johnny. It felt like a transgression, even though I knew it wasn't. More like a lie of omission, which was a little bit like him declining to tell me about his public kiss with Triss until it was front and center in the Daily Mail.