More Than Words(6)

She turned to Nina. “Would you like to come watch?”

Nina had loved watching the flowers change with her mom when she was a kid. Thousands of them, filling the restaurant with their scent and color. It seemed like a ceremony, the welcoming in of a new season—and was overwhelmingly beautiful. “That sounds fun,” she answered. “I haven’t come in ages.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Caro said. “Can I steal you for breakfast afterward?”

Tim cleared his throat. “Ahem,” he said. “What about me?”

Nina nudged his shoulder playfully. “Are you afraid we’re going to talk about you? You know, your mom and I do have other topics of conversation.” Caro had always been there for Nina. She’d been the one who talked to her about what it would be like the first time she got her period and taken her prom dress shopping—both times. And Caro had made sure that Nina was on birth control before she went to college, even though it meant an argument with Nina’s dad.

Caro tucked her graying blond bob behind her ear. Nantucket blond, she started calling it, once the color began shifting toward white. “Of course you’re welcome, Timothy,” she said. “I’ll see you both at six A.M. on Friday.”

“Wait, it’s that early?” Tim groaned. “You can’t change the flowers at, say, eight?”

Nina started to laugh. TJ was shaking his head. “Son,” he said, “what are we going to do with you?”

Her dad, who had been watching this whole exchange with a smile playing across his face, started to chuckle. But then his chuckle turned into a cough that wouldn’t stop. Nina’s laughter faded.

“Dad,” she said, quietly. “Did you bring that inhaler?”

He nodded, then looked around the room. “Can’t do it here,” he coughed. “Be back.”

He got up and, still trying not to let his coughing fit show, walked out the door of the restaurant, toward the bathroom.

TJ stood up. “I’ll see if he needs help.”

Caro, Tim, and Nina sat in silence. Nina felt like she did in the car with Rafael. Like there were vines wrapping around her rib cage, like she couldn’t breathe. Caro looked at her, reading the situation perfectly.

“Girls’ trip to the restroom?” she asked. Then, softly, as if she hated saying it, but knew she had to, “No tears in front of the guests.” It was something Nina’s father had reminded her often as a kid, but he hadn’t needed to for years.

Nina shut her eyes for a moment. She quelled the panic. Quelled the fear. And just like she did when she was eight, in the months after her mother died, she willed her heart to be unbreakable. They were putting on a show, and in this show, the heiress did not cry. Nina opened her eyes again.

“I’m fine,” she said. “The next time Kristin walks by, could someone flag her down? I’d love a refill on my coffee.”

Nina turned, but she wasn’t looking for Kristin. Her eyes were on the door, waiting for her father to come back to brunch. Her heart wasn’t unbreakable. Not even close.





5



After brunch, Nina hadn’t been interested in the fun things Tim had suggested they do. “I’m sorry,” she said, standing outside the hotel. “You do something fun. I’ll just . . . go home and . . . I don’t know. Read a book or something until I have to get ready for the art opening tonight. I’m not feeling particularly fun right now.”

“I want to help,” he said, twirling his finger around her hair, so for a moment it sat in one spiral down her back. “Just tell me what to do.”

But the truth was, she didn’t know. She took his hand, looking across the street at the trees, at the flowers in full bloom, at the horse-and-buggies waiting for passengers. There was some comfort in being here with Tim, in feeling his fingers woven between hers.

“Let’s go to the park,” Nina said.

They crossed Central Park South in the sunshine and walked through the Artists’ Gate.

As they veered onto the loop, a breeze ruffled Nina’s skirt. “I’m sorry I’m such a downer. I just . . . feel like there’s this darkness hanging over everything.”

“Even when you’re with me?” Tim asked.

Nina sighed. The clip-clop of hooves echoed behind them, and Nina turned to watch a dapple-gray horse coming up the drive, pulling a white carriage with a family inside. This wasn’t about their relationship. She hoped Tim wouldn’t take it that way. “Always,” she said.

He swallowed, and then his expression shifted to the mischievous one she knew well. “Nothing will cheer you up?” he asked. “Not even a carousel ride?”

Nina’s mouth quirked into a small smile. She’d dragged Tim with her to the Central Park carousel more times than she could count. But she shook her head. “I don’t really want to be cheered up,” she said. “I just . . . can you stand in the darkness with me?” She’d been reliving the car ride with Rafael over and over in her mind these past weeks, trying to figure out why it had made her feel better. And that was what it had been: He’d stood with her in the darkness and made it feel safe. It was what she’d needed then. It was what she needed now, too.

“Remember when we went skiing in Park City?” Tim said, as they kept walking, bikers and joggers zipping by them.