More Than Words(34)

Nina cracked a brief smile. “Nothing untoward has happened, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But?” Leslie prompted.

“But he’s . . . made it pretty clear he’s interested. And I’ve . . . I’ve imagined a lot.” Nina couldn’t look at Leslie when she said it. It felt horrible to admit. A confession that even while she was dating someone she imagined her future with, her mind strayed. When Leslie didn’t respond right away, Nina looked up and saw her friend looking down at her wineglass.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Nina asked.

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” Leslie said. “So I think I’m going to shut up for once. Maybe Vijay’s right. You’ve been a good influence on me.”

Nina groaned. “You never say the wrong thing. Sometimes it’s not the thing I want to hear, but it’s never wrong.”

“I’ll just say this, then.” Leslie turned so she was facing Nina again. “When I was dating Vijay, there wasn’t anyone else I was imagining anything with. There still isn’t, twelve years later.”

Nina tipped her glass of wine so she could get the final sip that was sitting at the bottom. Fortified with that last bit of alcohol, she decided to tell Leslie about Tim’s aborted marriage proposal. But she found she couldn’t do it. What she ended up with was: “I shouldn’t be imagining anything with anyone either. It’s just . . . it’s not rational.”

“Love isn’t always rational,” Leslie said, carefully. “You know you don’t have to date Tim if you’d rather be with someone else.”

Nina didn’t say anything. She knew that. Of course she knew that.

Nina wondered, again, if her dating life would have been different if her mom were still alive. When Nina brought her high school and college boyfriends home to meet her father, he’d spent the next week talking about their flaws, why they weren’t good enough for Nina—not smart enough, not successful enough, not driven enough, not wealthy enough. Her father had been concerned that part of why her college boyfriend, Max, was interested in Nina was her trust fund. And maybe it was part of it. She hadn’t thought to worry about that before he’d said it.

And that was the thing. After her father brought up these concerns, Nina began to see what he saw. Her high school boyfriend wasn’t as polite and respectful as she’d wished he would be. And Max did seem to start arguments with her father whenever they went out to dinner.

“Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if he knew you were dating someone so arrogant and ill-informed,” her father had said after one particularly contentious dinner. “Can you imagine how badly he’d reflect on our family if you took him with you to the Met Gala?” Which Nina hadn’t done, at her father’s request, but she did take him to a family friend’s wedding, which caused perhaps the third worst argument Nina and her father had ever had.

Joseph Gregory disliked Max so intensely that Nina didn’t introduce the man she dated during business school to her father at all. But that felt wrong, too. And Nina realized then that no matter how exacting her father might be, she could never be with someone long term that he looked down on. And he’d practically given his blessing to Tim.

“Nina?” Leslie asked, softly.

“I think it’s time for bed,” Nina said, regretting the fact that she’d brought any of this up. “I’m drunk. And tired.”

“I know,” Leslie said, opening her arm for a hug.

Nina leaned in to her friend. “Thanks for staying the night again,” she said.

“Stop it,” Leslie said. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

That night Nina fell into a fitful sleep, without Tim by her side. He’d wanted to give the two women time alone together, but that meant Nina was by herself in bed. She tossed and turned, saw images of her father and her mother merging into one. Stood alone on a barrier island, water lapping at her feet. The ocean became a sea of numbers, which she knew was a test she had to ace or her father would die. And then her father did die. She woke up at four in the morning, her pillow wet with tears and her head aching. That was what she got for going to bed drunk the night before her father’s funeral.

She squinted at her phone and saw she had a new text message. Her stomach flipped and she slid on her glasses to see what it was: just a note from her cell phone carrier saying her bill was ready. And she felt deflated.

She’d been hoping it was Rafael.

She fell asleep wondering what her father would have thought of Rafael if the two men had met.





33



The next day, after her father’s funeral, after TJ spoke about his legacy, his success, his power, after his grave was filled, after her heart felt like it was wrung out and squeezed dry, but somehow still full, Nina knelt down next to the freshly turned dirt and laid her hand on top of it. There was an early fall chill in the air. She hated the idea of leaving him there in the cold; it was his body, even if it was just a husk of who he’d been. Dampness seeped through her skirt where her knees were resting on the ground. There would be circles on the crepe when she stood. Still she stayed.

After a few moments, Nina felt a hand on her back. Then Tim was kneeling next to her.

“We’re going to get through this,” he said quietly.