Persuading Annie

by Melissa Nathan

  Annie also knew that Susannah had trusted Edward absolutely, enough to tell him things he didn’t strictly need to know – and Susannah knew exactly how Annie felt about Davina, thanks to Cass’s dutiful updates. That was how Edward knew to appear to mistrust Davina whenever he was with Annie. Meanwhile, Davina knew, via Edward, that Annie was on to her. No wonder Davina hated her.

  Annie felt all the air had been punched out of her. She couldn’t trust anyone any more. And the nearest she’d got to being in a relationship with a man in seven years had actually been the biggest sham of all. She’d been utterly and totally duped.

  ‘He win you over?’ asked the cop eventually.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Edward.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Nope. I didn’t tell him anything,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘The truth is I was using him just as much as he was using me.’

  Candyfloss Cop nodded.

  ‘You didn’t tell him anything about the business?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I liked him as a friend, but I never really trusted him,’ she said. ‘I thought I did, but in hindsight, I didn’t tell him a thing. I told Jake more about the business than I ever told him.’

  She would have been ready to say more – is that why she had mentioned Jake? But the cop wasn’t interested. He was already lifting his bulky frame into a standing position.

  ‘OK lady,’ he was saying. ‘I gotta get this disk down to the station. All you gotta remember is not to tell anyone about the true Eddie Goddard and Davina Barker. That clear?’

  Annie nodded. That seemed easy enough.

  Then she remembered.

  ‘My family are expecting an announcement tonight.’

  ‘Between you and him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Edward.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jeez. I thought you said you were using him?’

  ‘Well I was, but I didn’t really realise until … recently. And then once I’d realised, it was sort of too late. And I didn’t have the energy to say anything. Look all you need to know is that I’ve been told that Edward’s going to propose to me tonight, and as far as my family is concerned, I’m going to do the right thing. As usual.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘They thought I was going to say yes.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘No. I was going to refuse him.’

  The cop smiled at her.

  ‘Sounds like you been goin’ through your own little drama here.’

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

  They smiled briefly at each other and Annie’s smile got briefly wider. Relief – and a new sense of freedom – flooded over her.

  ‘Good girl. So all you gotta do is keep the act up. Just keep pretendin’ like you’re about to pop his ring on your finger and we’ll all be fine. Don’t tell a soul the truth. You hear? You confide in any of your bosom buddies and they might start treating them differently and then we lose these two slippery characters. D’you understand? This ain’t no schoolgirl secret to blab to the first person you see, OK?’

  ‘I’m not a schoolgirl.’

  The cop smiled.

  ‘Good. I gotta go before your folks arrive. What you doin’ tonight, sugar?’

  ‘I was going to stay here for drinks with everyone and then go to the hospital to see Cass and Brutus. Then after midnight I was going to join all my family – and Davina and Edward – here. They were all going to the New Year’s Eve party at The Plaza.’

  The cop nodded gravely.

  ‘Now listen to me very carefully,’ he said. ‘Don’t do anythin’ that might arouse suspicion. Stay for the drinks and then go to the hospital as planned. Treat everyone as normal – especially Davina and Edward. We need those two to be at The Plaza waitin’ for us. Preferably after midnight, when everyone’s had the best part of the party. Just sit pretty.’ He grinned. ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?’

  Annie tried to stand up, but he was already leaving the room.

  ‘I can see myself out,’ he shouted from the hall.

  After she heard the door slam behind the cop, Annie sank into the sofa, drained.

  When the doorbell went, she was poleaxed by indecision. Who could it be? Could it be Edward? Was he going to surprise her more than he could imagine by proposing now, before the party? What if he’d seen the cop just leaving?

  She didn’t want to answer the door to anyone. Ever again.

  Then she remembered what the cop had said – act normal. Pity she couldn’t remember what normal was. She thought hard and finally decided that normal people would probably answer the doorbell.

  She got up and answered the doorbell.

  And there stood Susannah.

  ‘My dear,’ said Susannah, walking straight past her into the drawing room. Annie had no choice but to follow her.

  Susannah twirled round and faced her. She was grinning rather manically.

  ‘I just wanted to see you on this rather special day. How are you feeling, my dear?’

  Annie chose not to speak.

  It was a clever move, influenced largely by the fact that she was unable to.

  Act normal, act normal …

  Susannah changed her expression to one of fond devotion. She looked like she was constipated.

  ‘I can’t help but worry about you,’ she said softly. ‘You’re so much like your poor dear mother. She was never very good at making her own decisions either.’

  That did it.

  Annie shut her eyes. She just wanted Susannah to go away. Why did she always confuse her so much?

  ‘Don’t do that Annie, it will give you lines,’ said Susannah impatiently. ‘I shouldn’t think Edward likes lines.’

  Annie opened her eyes. Too right. Especially vertical ones running down his suit.

  ‘You know I only want you to be happy—’ continued Susannah.

  ‘No you don’t,’ whispered Annie before she could stop herself.

  There was silence.

  ‘What?’ Susannah’s voice was full of steely hurt.

  ‘Sorry Susannah,’ said Annie, with careful softness to her tone. ‘I think you think you want me to be happy, but you confuse your own happiness with my own.’

  Act normal, act normal …

  It dawned on Annie that a normal person – one who wasn’t still mourning the loss of her mother and her lover and had lost sight of her own mind in the grief – would have said all this years ago.

  ‘And the result has been that you have single-handedly made me unhappy for the past seven years.’

  Susannah’s voice was like a hacksaw.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Annie felt years of pain rise up to her chest. The anger at being abandoned by the two most important people in her life, let alone being duped by Edward – all of it was being redirected towards Susannah.

  And Susannah deserved it. Annie realised that Susannah had done exactly to her what Davina and Edward had been doing to her father’s company for the past year. Using insider information to extract exactly what she wanted, not caring about the empty shell she left behind.

  ‘I may have been young,’ she whispered, ‘but you knew exactly what you were doing. You confused me, you turned your own daughter into a spy—’

  She ignored Susannah’s gasp of shock.

  ‘—to get inside me so that you could press all the right buttons. You thoroughly undermined all my confidence so I ruined the most important decision of my life.’

  Susannah looked at her as if she had finally lost the two remaining marbles the family had pinned their hopes on.

  ‘You’re not still harping on about that pathetic college incident, are you?’ she demanded.

  Annie shook her head to get Susannah’s voice out of her ears. How did she always make her feel that her emotions were wrong? How could emotions be wrong?

  Susannah was still talking.

  ‘That time you thought you
were pregnant, only to discover you were one month late through student stress? Did you need any other proof that you were too young for marriage?’

  Annie felt her back straighten. She was not going to be confused this time. She would win this row. She felt a lifetime of tangled thoughts slip undone inside her head. She could see every strand of thought clearly for the first time in years.

  She took in a deep breath. ‘The right man doesn’t always come at the right time. So Jake came too early for me – does that mean I deserved to lose him?’

  ‘Jake?’ exclaimed Susannah. ‘What does Jake have to do with it?’

  ‘He was the “money-grabbing student” I was going to leave with.’

  Susannah went pale with shock. Words failed her. Jake? She realised that if Jake had been in the family all these years they might not be in this dire predicament. She’d certainly never envisaged the student to be anything like Jake. If she’d known … her mind was almost bursting with too many thoughts at this new piece of information.

  Annie was satisfied. She’d certainly never seen Susannah look so discomposed. She continued.

  ‘You terrified me into taking the safe option. You actually convinced me that he was only with me for the money and that I was trapping him for all the wrong reasons. How could you do that? When I trusted you so much! You used your knowledge of me against me – against my own happiness. And you’re still doing it. You confuse me all the time. How can you?’

  Her breath may have run out, but her words hadn’t. They were tumbling out, together with the tears, with a force that almost scared her. She couldn’t look up at Susannah; she just had to keep going.

  ‘When I told him that I wasn’t leaving with him, he left me. Went out of my life. Just like that.’

  Annie caught her breath. ‘And I’ve never been happy since.’

  There was silence. Annie’s voice dipped with pain.

  ‘I’ve been grieving for seven years. Everything I’ve done since has been a coping mechanism. And you – who profess to know me and love me so well – you haven’t even noticed—’

  Susannah didn’t respond.

  Annie sank back down into the sofa and buried her head in her hands.

  Finally she looked up at her godmother. Susannah was looking in shock at her.

  ‘I did notice,’ Susannah eventually whispered. ‘I just didn’t know what to do about it.’

  They stared at each other in silence for a while.

  The phone’s sudden ring made them jump. They both stared at it. Susannah picked it up.

  Annie watched her on the phone, her mind full of discordant, soured thoughts.

  Susannahput the phone down, her hand shaking. She turned to Annie.

  ‘It’s Cass,’ she said. ‘She wants us both. It’s urgent.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  When they reached the hall, Annie was almost as shocked as Susannah by the sight of Jake standing there. She had completely forgotten he was in the apartment.

  And from the look of him, he looked just as shocked to see them there. They all jumped at the sight of each other and then stared dumbly for a while, their mouths opening and shutting like goldfish.

  ‘Jake was just doing some e-mails from here,’ Annie finally explained to Susannah, resenting her need to explain. But Susannah was uninterested in anything but Cass.

  ‘We’re just going to the hospital,’ Annie told Jake. ‘Cass has—’

  ‘Yes I know,’ said Jake.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I overheard. Um. From the hall.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve just got one more e-mail to do. Could I—’

  ‘Just shut the door behind you,’ finished Annie and they left Jake standing in the silent apartment lobby. He stood quite still after they’d gone, his chest heaving, his eyes damp. But one part of him was the most relaxed it had been for years. He stretched his neck out and put his hand to it. Not a single twitch. In the silence he closed his eyes and grinned so wide it almost hurt.

  Behind him in the drawing room everything was still. Except for the tiny red light flickering in the growing dark, on the inconspicuous grey intercom.

  29

  BY THE TIME Susannah and Annie had reached the hospital, Cass was feeling much better. She’d had a nasty fright and had thought she was losing her last baby. But she wasn’t.

  The doctor was the most positive she’d ever been.

  ‘Every day longer that the baby stays inside her is good news, and it’s beginning to look like a survivor.’

  Annie insisted – for the first time – that she go in to see Cass first. She took Susannah’s quiet approval as a sign that her words hadn’t soured their relationship for good.

  Once with Cass, Annie made her promise not to tell her mother the truth about Edward. Cass agreed immediately and Annie knew then that the tables were finally turning.

  ‘You do love me, don’t you Annie?’ asked Cass quickly.

  ‘Of course,’ answered Annie, stunned. ‘We all do.’

  It had been the most she’d been able to say. Too many new thoughts had surfaced about Cass. They’d looked at each other for a moment, before Annie had said she had to go. Now was not the time. She returned to the apartment exhausted with only five hours to go until the worn-out year was dead and gone.

  Annie’s family had already returned and after making the right noises, she had locked herself away in her bedroom. Tonight was to be the biggest performance of her life.

  She studied herself in her bedroom mirror, about to dab on some make-up, and tidy up her hair but, to her surprise, she had a Fonzie moment. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps it was the way the glass caught her at that second, perhaps it was because she had just got so much off her chest – whatever it was, she looked beautiful.

  If only her insides were as balanced as her features.

  When she finally wandered into the lounge, ready to go back to the hospital, the sight that hit her eyes was quite mesmerising. Everyone was dressed in such finery that she felt like Cinderella and almost wished she was going to the ball instead.

  When the buzzer announced the arrival of Edward, she acknowledged all the knowing smiles of her family, didn’t look at Davina and went to answer the door.

  Edward was standing at the door in a tux, holding a single red rose. He looked deeply gorgeous and he knew it.

  He bowed and handed her the rose.

  Unable to do anything else, she took it.

  ‘OW!’ she yelled.

  She’d caught her thumb on a thorn.

  ‘Oh, Annie!’ exclaimed Edward, taking her thumb in his hand and kissing it, closing his eyes in apparent bliss.

  Annie thought she was going to retch.

  When he went to kiss her, she closed her eyes and saw Jake. No change there then, she thought bitterly.

  Back in the drawing room, Annie sat down quietly on the sofa and decided to take some crisps. She realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. As she dug her hand deep in the bowl, she spotted a piece of paper lodged underneath it.

  ANNIE

  It was Jake’s handwriting – she’d know it anywhere.

  He’d left her a note there. She wiped salty hands on her leg, desperate to open the note.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  It was Davina.

  Annie almost jumped out of her skin. Davina mustn’t know that Jake had been here earlier.

  ‘You look rather pale,’ she said, an attempt at affection in her voice.

  ‘She looks absolutely perfect,’ said Edward, sitting down beside her. ‘Pale is beautiful.’

  Davina managed a micro-smile before turning her golden brown shoulders away from them both.

  Edward wasn’t going to move away, so Annie held his gaze while moving the crisp bowl on top of the letter. She glanced down at it briefly when she took another few crisps. It was completely hidden. She must pick it up after they�
�d all gone to the party.

  They were waiting for David and Sophie and Tony and Fi, before leaving and of course, they were late. Annie couldn’t possibly leave before the others – she had to get hold of that letter without Edward and Davina seeing – but it was getting later and later and she knew Cass would be getting worried.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the door eventually buzzed.

  ‘Sorry we’re late, everyone,’ David explained amid the throng. ‘We couldn’t find it. We thought it was actually on Fifth Avenue.’

  After loud greetings followed by even louder farewell noises, Annie finally closed the door on the last of them and raced to the lounge, her heart pounding in her chest.

  ANNIE

  She could hardly open it fast enough, her hands were shaking so much.

  The phone made her jump and she stuffed the letter in her coat pocket and answered the phone. She wouldn’t have been able to read the note with any distractions.

  The voice on the other end was hardly recognisable.

  ‘Annie, it’s Susannah. Please come to the hospital now. Cass needs you.’

  ‘What’s happened? Has she lost the baby?’

  Susannah’s voice was breaking. ‘She says she needs you.’

  * * * * *

  Brutus’s eyes were dark and hooded. But when he saw Annie, he managed a smile.

  Cass’s room was dark when Brutus finally opened the door for Annie.

  ‘She’s fine,’ he whispered. ‘But she seems to think she has to talk to you.’

  Cass looked up immediately and tried to get out of bed.

  Brutus rushed forward. ‘Get back into bed, darling. Annie’s not going anywhere.’

  He gave Annie a brief smile before leaving them in the darkness.

  Cass forced herself to sit up and, staring determinedly at Annie, patted the bed.

  Annie sat down facing her friend. Cass was much calmer than she had expected.

  ‘It’s about the baby,’ she started.

  ‘It’s all right isn’t it?’

  ‘Not that baby.’

  Oh. Annie shifted on the bed. She spoke quietly and with a voice full of affection.