More Than Words(35)

“I know,” she answered, just as softly.

And in her head, she knew it was true. But her heart was finding it hard to believe.

Tim’s arm wrapped around her shoulder and squeezed.

Nina slid her arm around his back.

And the two of them knelt there together, each lost in their own mind for a moment.

“You ready?” Tim asked.

Nina nodded, and they stood, twined together like the hawthorn trees next to the Gregory plot, their arms wrapped so tightly around each other, it was hard to know who was holding up whom.

Maybe they both would’ve fallen long ago if they hadn’t grown together that way.





34



“I had an idea,” Tim said the next night. Nina was going through the Gregory Corporation financials, trying to find the thing her father had wanted to talk to her about. But the numbers wouldn’t stay in their columns. She couldn’t concentrate.

Nina put down the spreadsheet.

“What’s your idea?” she asked. Tim had been trying so hard all day, ordering breakfast from Nina’s favorite brunch place, making a photo book of her and her dad online and ordering it to arrive the next day, going to the nearest Duane Reade and buying her every single butterscotch candy they had in stock. Things that would normally make her smile, but this time it wasn’t working. Still, she loved Tim for trying; she loved him for knowing what she loved.

“Okay, it was actually Priscilla’s idea,” he said. “She called while you were in the shower and I picked up your phone. Anyway, she thinks the four of us should go to the Dining Room at the Met tonight. She remembered how much you loved it in high school.”

She felt lucky to have them, Tim and Priscilla. But even so, she was in no shape for a night out. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s a great idea, though.”

Tim scratched his beard. Then he snapped his fingers. “The Temple of Dendur,” he said. “Forget the Dining Room. They opened it to everyone in June, so it’s not as special anymore anyway. But you love the Temple of Dendur.”

Nina thought about the room that held the temple. The water, the windows out to the park, the ancient structure that always felt so solid, so stable. “There are always so many people on the weekends,” she said. “I’m not fit for the public right now.”

Tim smiled, triumphant. “Leave that to me.”

A few hours later, they were in a car on the way to the Met. Tim had made a few phone calls, pulled some strings, called in a favor, and secured them a half hour of private time in the temple, along with Priscilla and Brent.

“So what did you say on the phone?” Nina asked, as the car drove up the West Side Highway, knowing that even for them, this was a crazy thing to do.

Tim shook his head. “I just said it was for you. You’ve got a lot of power in this town, Nina Gregory. Especially at the Met.”

“Not true,” Nina said. But she thought about his words. In New York City, money was power, and she did have a lot of it. Or at least she would soon. At one of the events she’d gone to with her father in the Met’s rooftop garden, a woman had cornered her. “Just look around,” the woman had said, swooping her arms around the party, her champagne sparkling along with her beaded dress. “Look who’s here. We run this city.”

Was that Nina now? Was she one of those people who would drink champagne on the roof of the Met, absorbed in her own importance?



* * *



? ? ?

“Quarter for your thoughts?” Tim asked from his seat next to her in the car. They’d decided years ago that the penny hadn’t ever been adjusted for inflation, so they’d made their own adjustments.

“Just thinking about power,” Nina said.

“The measure of a man is what he does with power,” Tim said. “A woman, too.”

Nina looked at him for a beat. He wasn’t usually someone who quoted Plato—quoted anyone but Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs, actually. “So you’ve used yours to close the Temple of Dendur for us?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve used yours. But I can’t think of anything better to do with power than make the person you love smile.”

He slid his hand into hers and held on tight. The car merged into the traffic to cross through the park on 79th Street, and she looked at the trees her father would have seen from his bedroom, might have been looking at just before he died.





35



A few days later, the board of directors of the Gregory Corporation were having a meeting. Nina knew she should go. She should show her face. She should show them how much she cared. How much she’d absorbed just by growing up as her father’s daughter.

Nina got up. She stood in front of her closet staring at the rows of grays and blues and blacks and browns and creams. Pantsuits and skirt suits and sheath dresses and blouses.

“Do you need help choosing?” Tim asked, already dressed, on his way to the kitchen.

“I have nothing to wear,” she told him.

He laughed, but she didn’t crack a smile. “Of course you do,” he said. “Look at this closet. You have everything.”

And Nina started to sob. “I don’t,” she said. “I don’t have everything. I don’t have my dad.”