More Than Words(61)

“Want to split this smoothie?” Nina asked.

Priscilla looked around. “If you don’t tell my trainer,” she whispered with a wink.

Nina laughed again and slid her smoothie over so it was halfway between her and Pris. “Secret’s safe with me,” she said.

Pris dipped her straw into the smoothie and took a sip. “Oh God, that’s so much better,” she said after she swallowed. “Did you pierce your ear?”

Nina lifted her hand to touch her piercing. “I did,” she said. “Tim hates it.”

Pris inspected Nina from a few different angles. “I don’t,” she said. “I like it. It makes you seem multilayered. More than you appear at first glance.”

Nina found herself laughing once more. Pris always had that effect on her. “Are you saying that I’m boring?”

“No,” Priscilla said. “Not that you are boring, just that sometimes you might appear boring.”

Nina stopped laughing. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“To be honest, your clothes are always nice but kind of bland.”

“My clothes?” Nina looked down. She was wearing black capri leggings and a gray tank top. Pris’s top was turquoise.

“You just . . . you seem to dress to blend in instead of to stand out. You always have,” Pris said, taking another sip of the smoothie.

Did she? Nina thought about it. Most of her clothing was black, gray, navy, brown, cream. Elegant but sensible. Respectable. Why did she dress that way?

“Maybe I should change that, then,” Nina said. “You have time to go shopping?”





57



They went back to Pris and Brent’s new apartment to shower.

“Brent wants to start trying,” Pris said as they walked by the door leading to the wing waiting for the children the two of them planned to have one day.

Nina smiled at her friend. “That’s exciting,” she said. “You two are going to have the cutest, blondest baby on the Upper East Side.”

Pris laughed. “I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet. Not even Hayley.”

Nina reached out and squeezed Pris’s hand. “I won’t say a word. I’m glad you told me—it’s nice to have something happy to think about.”

Pris squeezed Nina’s hand back, then led her to the guest bedroom, which had an en suite bathroom. “I’ll grab you some clothes,” she said.

While Nina showered, she thought about the babies she’d been imagining she’d have with Tim. The ones she’d expected would be friends with Pris and Brent’s kids. She’d assumed they’d spend time together out in East Hampton, maybe ski together on family vacations. If they had girls, they’d send them to Brearley, and the boys would go to Collegiate. As much as Nina thought she was different from her father and her friends, she was the same, too. If she and Tim broke up, she’d lose that whole life. She’d lose those kids. And TJ and Caro as second parents. And all of the traditions they’d built up over the years. The intimacy, too, of knowing someone as well as she and Tim knew each other.

“Clothes are on the bed!” Priscilla called from the guest room. “And since we’re getting you a new, more exciting wardrobe, I left you a fun outfit. Just giving you fair warning.”

Nina got out of the shower and found a comb and an assortment of hair products in the vanity. She chose a volumizer and then blew her hair dry upside down. She looked different already.

As she was putting on a pair of artfully ripped gray jeans, a white tank top, and an off-the-shoulder yellow sweater, Pris came into the room. “Here,” she said, “try some navy mascara.”

Nina wanded her eyelashes and then blinked into the mirror. “I like this,” she said.

“Keep it,” Pris told her. “It looks better on you.”



* * *



? ? ?

The two women headed down Madison Avenue and then stopped in front of Reiss.

“First stop?” Priscilla asked.

“First stop,” Nina answered. Then she walked inside and pulled out a simple gray dress.

“Not that!” Pris said. “Okay, you go to the dressing room. I’m picking. And you have to try it all on!”

Nina found herself wearing intricate patterns and bold color blocks. The minute the clothes were on her body, Pris rendered a verdict: definitely yes, definitely no, or needs further consideration. Looking at the woman in the mirror, with her wild hair and ear piercing and blue eyelashes, Nina felt like she did when she was out with Rafael: free.

They went from store to store, and except for a red slim-fitting pantsuit that Nina refused to try—and Priscilla knew better than to push—the afternoon was what Pris declared “a smashing success.”

Nina had bought so much that she’d called a car to bring it all home. Patterned wrap dresses and form-fitting cigarette pants. Flouncy skirts and tiny belts. She loved all of them.

Pris had even insisted that she buy a royal blue purse that Nina switched her wallet and phone into immediately and carried for the rest of the day, jamming her old black Birkin in a shopping bag. Her father had gotten it for her, and she’d never felt completely comfortable carrying it anyway. She had no problem spending money when she loved something, but that bag seemed like the sort of thing her father bought so that when his daughter walked around with it, it would telegraph his success to the world.