Persuasion

“Could I persuade you to have another glass of gin?” asked Fred.

He had just met Stella and he was a bit pushy for her liking, but in the spirit of the party, she agreed.

“If I must. I’ve never loved gin.”

“Well, why are you drinking it, then?!” he asked, in jest.

“Because I don’t drink wine, I don’t like any other spirits and whenever I asked for a coke, the lady serving the drinks grimaced at me like I’d asked to drink out of the toilet bowl.”

“Fair enough – gin it is. With tonic?”

“Yes, it makes it slightly more drinkable – only slightly.”

Fred went in search of Stella’s drink, and she took her opportunity to move on to someone else to talk to.

She didn’t know why she’d let Alexa persuade her to attend this unbearable party. To Stella, an apologetic introvert, parties really were the absolute worst.

A guy with a pleasant expression made eye contact with her and she decided he might be worth talking to. But if the evidence of the rest of the night was anything to go by, it was probably wishful thinking. Still, she gave the conversation a chance. Gladly, he didn’t want to work his way through all the approved small talk topics; he started talking about dogs straight away.

“Do you like dogs?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

“I just think it’s an important question to ask. If you don’t like dogs we aren’t going to get along.”

“There are plenty of dogs at this party,” she said, with irony.

He laughed a deep, hearty laugh that made his entire body shake. It was satisfying to watch, but Stella still wasn’t entirely decided upon whether she wanted to continue talking to him.

The table of appetisers was calling her. It had quite a spread and no one else was paying it much attention. Food had always been a priority for her, especially whenever she was feeling starved conversation-wise. It was an excellent excuse for not talking. The guy’s eyes followed hers to the table.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said, going to get her a paper plate.

They weren’t the usual gaudy party plates; they were still made of cardboard, but with a delicate delft design. It was one of those details that only perfectionists like Alexa would think to add. It was so dull, but things were livening up since talking to, what was his name?

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Curtis.”

“You don’t look like a Curtis.”

“What do I look like? Dare I ask?”

“I don’t know – just not a Curtis.”

"What’s your name?”

“Stella.”

“As in Gibbons?”

“As in Artois. My father had a fondness for lager.”

“If it was my name, I’d lie and keep the Gibbons. She’s a funny writer … have you read her?”

“Can’t say I have. I love reading though – especially sitting alongside my dog,” she said, with humour.

“You don’t have a dog, do you?” he asked her.

“Nope, but if I did, I’m sure I would read alongside it.”

“Unless it was an energetic puppy that trailed you all over the countryside.”

“That sounds horrific.”

“I told you – if you aren’t a dog person, this is never going to work.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t,” she said, diplomatically. “What kind of dog do you have?”

“A golden retriever. I’m thinking of getting another one too – maybe a schnauzer.”

“Why the disparity in size?”

“Once you have one dog, you have to get a dog for your dog – once they’re old enough to handle the responsibility,” he said, with a straight face. “It has to be a smaller dog than your original dog. No one can have a pet that’s bigger than them.”

“Does that apply to people too?”

“Of course, have you ever seen a small person walking an Alsatian or a Rottweiler?”

“Yeah, it looks ridiculous.”

“Exactly. It looks like the dog is walking them. They just get pulled along and stand there, powerless to stop it when their dog starts doing something they don’t like.”

Stella looked at her watch face. “I can’t believe how long we’ve spent talking about dogs.”

“They’re important members of the planet.”

“More important than the collapsed economy, or equal trans rights, or heartfelt charity work?”

“They’re on a different plane. I have a dog – I know more about them. I’m going to the toilet.”

“Ok,” said Stella, giving him a sideways glance.

He was strange, alright, but she couldn’t deny that he was the most interesting specimen at the party. She couldn’t help seeing all the guests as such, for some reason. She pictured them all between microscope slides, or in sealed glass jars, informing scientific study. They were all just pawns in the same big game. However, Stella couldn’t help thinking that Curtis was different. It was like he had created an enclosure of his own. She wondered how on Earth he had ended up at Alexa’s party. The invites had been carefully distributed. Alexa had said something about keeping the “riff raff” out: an expression that Stella thought had died out. It turned out that careful curation didn’t necessarily make for an exciting party; just a controlled one.

She noticed Fred standing across the room, holding his pint and her gin. She wondered if she should go over and claim her drink, but she didn’t want to look callous and cruel, so she stayed away instead. He was taking alternate sips from each anyway. Maybe she’d helped him uncover a lifelong love for gin; who knew?

Then, there was a huge disturbance. A cake was rolled into the room on a platter with wheels. It even had a steering bar – one of those metal ones that is generally attached to an industrial sized trolley in furniture wholesale centres. It rolled to a stop and then the candles started to send off firework-style sparks. Then, a person burst out of the centre of it, disappointingly revealing that the cake was more paper than sponge. Curtis emerged, covered from head to foot in cake, laughing. Stella was thrown by it. How had an unexceptional toilet trip ended with a bachelorette style appearance from a cake? Curtis climbed out, still laughing to himself and offered her some of the cake on his sleeve. The party had acquired an atmosphere of rowdiness then. She couldn’t help laughing at him, despite the fact she’d promised herself she wouldn’t smile for the duration of the party. She’d decided she would go, but she’d be damned if she enjoyed such a pointless affair.

She noticed that Fred had got talking to another lady. She looked demure and reserved and conformist: everything Fred was probably looking for.

On the other hand, Stella was happy to be with someone much weirder than the others, much more interesting than a straight conversation from A to Z. She took a bite of the cake that he carried on his shirt and giggled. Then, true to what she had learnt of Curtis in their short meeting, he suggested they go elsewhere. Whenever she asked where, he didn’t leer at her and suggest something unsavoury.

“You can meet my dog,” he said, and she knew that was what he meant, in the literal sense.

She smiled. He’d persuaded her that not all parties were a complete waste of time.