More Than Words(8)

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When Nina left after dinner that night, Tim did too, and they got a drink at Weather Up, the cocktail lounge right near her apartment, and then another. And went to sit by the river. And soon they were talking about life and love and the future, their breath making puffs of smoke in the cold night air. And then Nina was crying, and Tim was holding her, and maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was just the time it was meant to happen, but Tim kissed her, and Nina relaxed against him, and he tasted like the past and the present and the future all at once.

By the time Priscilla called to ask what those photos from the press conference meant, Nina and Tim were finally dating. “You two were meant for each other,” she’d said. And maybe it was true.





7



Since Joseph Gregory relapsed, Caro called Nina more.

“Hi, darling,” she said, late Sunday afternoon, the weekend after the brunch. “I’m down at the Seaport hotel checking on a few catering concerns.”

“Is everything okay?” Nina answered. She’d been reading a new speech out loud in her living room, dropping her voice to see how the words would sound in Rafael’s register.

“It’s all fine,” Caro said. “But since I’m down your way, how about a walk along the river?”

Nina was one of the few people in Caro’s life who didn’t mind taking long walks with her. Caro built them into her schedule, but TJ thought it was an inefficient use of time.

Nina put down the speech she’d been reading. “Sure,” she said, glad for the break. “I’ll see you soon.”

The two women planned to meet in the lobby of The Gregory by the Sea. Just after her grandfather died, when Nina was two years old, her dad had opened the second hotel by the seaport and named the rooftop bar Nina’s Nest. You could see all of New York Harbor from there. It was one of Nina’s favorite views of the city.



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When Nina got to the hotel, she said hello to the staff and then waited in front of the framed spread of her parents from People magazine hanging next to the elevator bank. In one of the photos they were both laughing, her mom’s dark brown hair loose and sweeping across her face. Nina wondered if that was how her mom had looked when she caught her father’s eye in Barcelona. He’d been enjoying paella and a glass of wine on the beach, just as Nina’s mother was finishing her doctoral thesis on the depiction of the female body in Spanish literature. He’d always said that she’d been so beautiful reading on the beach—serene, ethereal—that he’d had to invite her to join him.

The media loved the story: New York’s most eligible bachelor falling in love with an unknown woman from Colorado while on vacation. Their wedding was held in the ballroom on the thirty-second floor of The Gregory on the Park and was covered in the New York Times, the New York Post, Newsday, New York Magazine, and the Daily News. Shorter pieces even made it into the national magazines. The pieces were scattered throughout the two hotels in frames. Nina had once drawn a map detailing where they each hung, her parents’ love story made into her very own treasure hunt.

She remembered the first time she’d ever seen the People magazine spread. She’d been five years old, and the piece had been published as part of the coverage on the opening of the rooftop bar at The Gregory on the Park. Her dad had named the bar Los Tortolitos, Spanish for the lovebirds, something her parents had been called in the Spanish press, and jokingly adopted for themselves. Nina had needed her mom to read the article’s title to her. “Los Tortolitos: A Love Story for the Pages,” she’d said, when Nina brought her the magazine, “and then underneath it says, ‘Don’t you wish your man looked at you the way Joseph Gregory looks at Phoebe?’”

“I do, Mommy!” Nina told her.

Her mother laughed and picked Nina up. “When you’re older, you’ll find someone who loves you like that, but not for a long time.” Nina wondered if that was how Tim looked at her now.



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“Nina, darling,” Caro said, crossing the lobby and shaking Nina out of her reverie. She was wearing white tailored pants, a boat-neck sweater, and a pair of flats. There was a silk scarf around her neck. She was dressed down, since it was a Sunday, but dressed down for her was dressed up for most people.

“My parents looked so happy together,” Nina said to Caro as they started walking along the water, her mind still on the magazine spread.

“They balanced each other out well,” Caro said.

Boats were pulling into New York Harbor, and Caro paused to watch one drop anchor.

It was funny. When Nina was dating other men, she talked to Caro about them. Asked questions, wanted her opinion—not necessarily on the men themselves, but on what to say, on how she felt, on how to navigate both their emotions and her father’s. But now that she was dating Caro’s son, she didn’t feel like she could talk about it with her. At least not directly.

“What do you think is the most important thing, the one thing that makes your relationship with Uncle TJ work so well?” Nina asked.

A foghorn sounded in the distance, and Caro turned. “Honesty,” she said. “I’ve always told TJ that we can handle anything that comes our way as long as we’re honest with each other. Then we can be partners. A team. Face the world with a unified front. I know I can trust him, always.”