More Than Words(54)

Nina took Rafael’s hand and slid off the stool. She felt the calluses on the tips of his fingers. As the photographer kept snapping pictures, the two of them ran into the kitchen. Their waiter hurried after them saying, “Sir! Ma’am!”

Rafael settled up the bill, paying in cash, and then said, “Just so you know, I won’t be coming back here. I don’t appreciate this sort of thing.”

The waiter looked at the floor, which made Nina suspect maybe he was in on it. But she didn’t want to make this any worse.

Rafael kept going. “I’m assuming we can get out the back entrance into the alley?”

The waiter nodded. “Yessir.”

“Great,” Rafael said. “That’s where we’re going. Where does it let us out?”

“Tenth and Fiftieth,” one of the line cooks answered from behind Nina. “Espero que ganas, vato.”

“Gracias,” Rafael said, walking over to shake the man’s hand.

Nina followed. “Cual puerta debemos usar?” she asked him, wondering which door he’d tell them to use.

He looked surprised that she spoke in Spanish but replied her question, pointing to the door next to the freezer. “Ese,” he said.

“Gracias,” she responded.

“Come on,” Rafael said, handing Nina her jacket.

The two of them walked out the door into the alley behind the restaurant, and then Rafael started jogging. Nina had no trouble keeping up with him, and they ran down the darkened city streets until they reached the Hudson River Greenway, overlooking the river. They sat on a bench that was illuminated by a streetlight, its glow making a halo around them in the crisp autumn night. They were both slightly out of breath.

“Well,” Rafael said. “That was a nice escape.”

“I can’t believe we did that,” Nina said. “Now the story’s going to be even crazier than if we’d just sat there. Mac and Jane are going to kill us.”

“Candidate and Former Speechwriter Hide from Press in Kitchen?” Rafael asked.

Nina smiled at the fact that he was playing her father’s headline game. But then she got serious again. “Maybe . . . Joseph Gregory’s Daughter Enjoys Night Out Three Weeks after Father’s Death.”

Rafael touched the gray silk blouse that was skimming Nina’s forearm but moved his hand away before she could feel the warmth of his fingers on her skin. The hair on her arms stood at attention.

“They won’t say that,” he said. “Maybe Mayoral Candidate Romances Former Staffer.”

Nina looked at him, her heart beating faster. “Are you romancing me?” she asked.

“What do you think, Palabrecita?” he said, actually squeezing her forearm this time, perhaps emboldened by the fact that she hadn’t moved it away when he brushed his fingers across her shirt.

His touch made her shiver. “I think if you wanted to romance me, burgers and beer and a physics lesson and an escape to the Hudson River Greenway—”

“Isn’t enough,” Rafael finished, seeming disappointed. “I know you’re used to more than that.”

“No,” Nina said. “If you were trying to romance me, this would be just the way to do it.”

Rafael put his hand on top of hers and interlaced their fingers. Nina knew she should take her hand away, should say something about Tim, but she didn’t want to. His hand was so warm. She imagined it caressing her cheek. Don’t, she told herself. But her self-control was weakening.

“You know,” Rafael said, “my whole life I’ve felt like a chameleon. I can be whoever people want me to be. Talk about my family in Ireland, or my family in Cuba. Pepper my conversations with Spanish, switch into it completely, or pretend those words aren’t in my mind at all. I can be the kid who grew up in Queens sharing a bedroom with my sister and brother, or the one who got taken out to the fanciest restaurants in New York City when I was a summer associate at Sullivan and Cromwell.”

Nina tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her attention was split between his words and the feel of his hand on hers.

“My sister . . . she said she’s always felt wrong. Too Cuban to be Irish, and too Irish to be Cuban. Never the right amount of anything. But me . . . I feel like I can present the right front, the right face, say the right thing, and people see what they want to see in me. I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about in the office, before the burgers. I want to use the speech about my cousin Kevin. I don’t want to be a chameleon anymore. I want to be myself, my whole self, not just who people expect me to be. It might cost me some votes, but I hope the authenticity will gain me some others.”

Nina thought about that. People expected she would act a certain way, too. Mac always thought so. They expected her to be their idea of what it meant to be a Gregory, what it meant to grow up in a world of excess. And as well as she knew Tim, for as long as she’d known Tim, he expected that, too.

“You know,” Nina said. “I’m a Lukas, too.”

“A what?” Rafael asked, his hand still around hers.

“A Lukas,” she said. “My mother’s maiden name. She grew up in Colorado, and her family was from Greece originally, generations ago. That’s really all I know. Not even the island they’re from.”