More Than Words

Leslie shrugged. “Is the why more important than the what?”

Nina sighed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for most of my adult life. . . . Maybe I’ll start writing notes. I’ll make Thanksgiving a big deal with my kids.”

Leslie raised her wineglass and turned to Nina. “To your dad. To Thanksgiving.” They looked at each other and clinked glasses, keeping their eyes locked until they took a sip. Years ago, Leslie’s sister Jodi had told her that if you broke eye contact, it would mean a year of bad sex. Leslie had taken that superstition very seriously in college—at least until she met Vijay. But she and Nina had been doing it out of habit ever since.

Leslie must have been thinking about that, too, because she said, “I know this might not be the most appropriate time to ask this, but now that we’re alone: What’s going on with that former boss of yours? Because the tension between the two of you was thick enough that even I blushed when you were together.”

Nina put her hand to her face, feeling her cheeks get hot again. “Oh God,” she said. “Did everyone think that? Did Tim see?”

Leslie refilled Nina’s wineglass. “I don’t think so. And no one else knows you like I do, so they probably wouldn’t have picked up on what I did. But—whoa!” Leslie fanned herself with her hand.

Nina cracked a brief smile. “Nothing untoward has happened, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But?” Leslie prompted.

“But he’s . . . made it pretty clear he’s interested. And I’ve . . . I’ve imagined a lot.” Nina couldn’t look at Leslie when she said it. It felt horrible to admit. A confession that even while she was dating someone she imagined her future with, her mind strayed. When Leslie didn’t respond right away, Nina looked up and saw her friend looking down at her wineglass.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Nina asked.

“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” Leslie said. “So I think I’m going to shut up for once. Maybe Vijay’s right. You’ve been a good influence on me.”

Nina groaned. “You never say the wrong thing. Sometimes it’s not the thing I want to hear, but it’s never wrong.”

“I’ll just say this, then.” Leslie turned so she was facing Nina again. “When I was dating Vijay, there wasn’t anyone else I was imagining anything with. There still isn’t, twelve years later.”

Nina tipped her glass of wine so she could get the final sip that was sitting at the bottom. Fortified with that last bit of alcohol, she decided to tell Leslie about Tim’s aborted marriage proposal. But she found she couldn’t do it. What she ended up with was: “I shouldn’t be imagining anything with anyone either. It’s just . . . it’s not rational.”

“Love isn’t always rational,” Leslie said, carefully. “You know you don’t have to date Tim if you’d rather be with someone else.”

Nina didn’t say anything. She knew that. Of course she knew that.

Nina wondered, again, if her dating life would have been different if her mom were still alive. When Nina brought her high school and college boyfriends home to meet her father, he’d spent the next week talking about their flaws, why they weren’t good enough for Nina—not smart enough, not successful enough, not driven enough, not wealthy enough. Her father had been concerned that part of why her college boyfriend, Max, was interested in Nina was her trust fund. And maybe it was part of it. She hadn’t thought to worry about that before he’d said it.

And that was the thing. After her father brought up these concerns, Nina began to see what he saw. Her high school boyfriend wasn’t as polite and respectful as she’d wished he would be. And Max did seem to start arguments with her father whenever they went out to dinner.

“Your grandfather would roll over in his grave if he knew you were dating someone so arrogant and ill-informed,” her father had said after one particularly contentious dinner. “Can you imagine how badly he’d reflect on our family if you took him with you to the Met Gala?” Which Nina hadn’t done, at her father’s request, but she did take him to a family friend’s wedding, which caused perhaps the third worst argument Nina and her father had ever had.

Joseph Gregory disliked Max so intensely that Nina didn’t introduce the man she dated during business school to her father at all. But that felt wrong, too. And Nina realized then that no matter how exacting her father might be, she could never be with someone long term that he looked down on. And he’d practically given his blessing to Tim.

“Nina?” Leslie asked, softly.

“I think it’s time for bed,” Nina said, regretting the fact that she’d brought any of this up. “I’m drunk. And tired.”

“I know,” Leslie said, opening her arm for a hug.

Nina leaned in to her friend. “Thanks for staying the night again,” she said.

“Stop it,” Leslie said. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

That night Nina fell into a fitful sleep, without Tim by her side. He’d wanted to give the two women time alone together, but that meant Nina was by herself in bed. She tossed and turned, saw images of her father and her mother merging into one. Stood alone on a barrier island, water lapping at her feet. The ocean became a sea of numbers, which she knew was a test she had to ace or her father would die. And then her father did die. She woke up at four in the morning, her pillow wet with tears and her head aching. That was what she got for going to bed drunk the night before her father’s funeral.

She squinted at her phone and saw she had a new text message. Her stomach flipped and she slid on her glasses to see what it was: just a note from her cell phone carrier saying her bill was ready. And she felt deflated.

She’d been hoping it was Rafael.

She fell asleep wondering what her father would have thought of Rafael if the two men had met.

33

The next day, after her father’s funeral, after TJ spoke about his legacy, his success, his power, after his grave was filled, after her heart felt like it was wrung out and squeezed dry, but somehow still full, Nina knelt down next to the freshly turned dirt and laid her hand on top of it. There was an early fall chill in the air. She hated the idea of leaving him there in the cold; it was his body, even if it was just a husk of who he’d been. Dampness seeped through her skirt where her knees were resting on the ground. There would be circles on the crepe when she stood. Still she stayed.

After a few moments, Nina felt a hand on her back. Then Tim was kneeling next to her.

“We’re going to get through this,” he said quietly.

“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.