by Grace Palmer
But, at the same time, Kendra’s light made Toni feel so small and shadowy. It wasn’t quite accurate to call it envy, though it was certainly a cousin of it. Longing might be a better word, with a wistful bent to it. She wanted Kendra’s happiness, not her circumstances, necessarily. She wanted to feel like she belonged somewhere. Like she had purpose. She wanted to care for people and be cared for in return. Surely that wasn’t such a bad thing?
“And, speaking of Andy, how are the two of you?”
Kendra touched Toni’s knee and smiled even wider. “He’s the best. I don’t know how on earth I got so lucky, but he’s taken to fatherhood like a fish out of water. He pops out of bed before my eyes even open the second that Maggie starts fussing, he changes diapers, he makes bottles—he’s Super Dad, really.”
“You picked good,” said Toni.
“I did. I really did. I just feel—like, blessed, you know? But, anyway, I’m rambling on and on, so rude of me! Tell me about you. Tell me everything, tell me now. I missed you!”
Toni had known this was coming. Anyone would—it’s the natural kind of question that you ask of a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. And yet, she’d been sort of hoping, sort of praying that it wouldn’t come up, that she’d be able to swoop in and more or less warm herself by the fireside of Kendra and Andy’s happy little family and then leave without having to dampen their light with scraps of her own budding misery. It was a foolish hope, she knew, but one she’d been clinging to nonetheless.
“I—” she started to say.
But then, like a prayer being fulfilled, the front door swung open. Andy came in with one-month-old Maggie in his arms, and Kendra’s question was immediately forgotten.
“Oh my goodness!” Toni yelped as she jumped to her feet. “Kendra, you have outdone yourself. She is absolutely gorgeous.” Toni would’ve said that no matter what, of course, but it was made much easier by the fact that it was one hundred percent true.
“Our little Gerber baby,” Andy joked as he bobbled his daughter playfully. “Gonna bring home those modeling bucks to Mommy and Daddy, yeah? Buy us a yacht?”
Kendra rolled her eyes, and Toni laughed as they all gathered together in the foyer. “Honey, you remember Toni Benson, right?”
“Of course!” Andy said. He switched Maggie from the crook of one elbow to the other and shook Toni’s hand. “How are you?”
He was a handsome guy, with dark, mussy hair and an easy smile, the kind of face that immediately sets a person at ease. His handshake was like his personality—warm, comforting, gentle. And, just like Kendra, he was practically bursting with exuberance.
“Not as good as the two of you, apparently,” said Toni. “The three of you, I should say. You guys should be on the front of a family life magazine or something.”
Andy grinned and looked to his wife. “Did you hear that, babe? She thinks we’re cover models. Maybe the two of you. I was always told I had a face for radio, though.”
“Ignore him,” instructed Kendra through a smile. “He thinks he’s funny.”
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” Andy asked Toni. “Outnumbered by the women now. My days of getting some respect in this house are extremely numbered.”
“You might want to practice your ‘Yes, darling,’ and curtsy right now,” Toni quipped.
“Don’t I know it. Can I get you anything?”
“Kendra’s got me all set, but thank you so much.”
He nodded, still beaming. “Well, she hasn’t gotten you this yet, has she?” Then, with no fanfare whatsoever, he plunked Maggie into Toni’s arms, winked, and walked past them into the kitchen to wash his hands.
Toni was frozen stiff as a board for a second before she finally came to her senses and looked down at the little angel she was holding. Her eyes were the clearest glacier blue that Toni had ever seen, that translucent otherworldly shade that only newborns have. Between that and her long, dark eyelashes, Toni was ready to weep at the little girl’s beauty in those first few seconds already.
“She looks sleepy,” Toni murmured. Indeed, Maggie’s eyes were fluttering open and closed, like she wanted badly to look back and figure out just who this Toni woman was, but couldn’t quite muster up the alertness to do it.
“Just about naptime,” said Kendra.
Toni brushed the tenderest finger she could against Maggie’s tiny nose. “She is perfect.”
“Says someone who clearly doesn’t change her diapers!” Andy called from the kitchen.
“She is a lot of work,” Kendra agreed, “even if we do love her.”
“Like a fixer-upper, you know?” Andy chimed in again as he rejoined them. “Always something to tend to, and just when you think you’re all set, the roof caves in. Or something like that, I don’t know. I was never much good at analogies.”
“This is why you should stick to computers, dear,” Kendra said with a gentle wifely smile.
“Sage advice. Speaking of which, I’ve gotta go answer a couple emails real quick. Paternity leave, shmaternity leave, am I right? Someone needs to explain the concept to my boss.” He bid Toni a quick goodbye and disappeared into the back of the house.
Toni and Kendra sat back down in the living room and talked for a while more. Toni kept perfectly still so as not to jostle the sleeping Maggie while they reminisced about high school and gossiped about how everyone they’d known growing up was turning out—babies and weddings and divorces and new businesses, that kind of thing. Miraculously, they managed to stay away from Toni’s personal life, until at long last, Maggie awoke and began to whimper.
“Time for lunch, I think,” Kendra said with a scrutinizing eye.
Toni handed Maggie over carefully and stood up. “I think so for me, too. What’re you guys doing for the Fourth tomorrow?”
“I think we’re going to go down to the beach with my parents. You?”
“Mae and I are going to take the kids down to watch the fireworks from the cove, I believe. Maybe we’ll see you there?”
Kendra nodded and smiled. “Sounds lovely. Toni, I can’t tell you how good it was to see you. Let’s not drift apart again, okay?”
“Pinky promise,” said Toni. She hugged her friend once more before letting herself out the front.
She was surprised by something as she went down the steps and retrieved her bike from where she’d left it: she felt a little better than she did before.
And there was something else, too—an idea in the back of her head that was just now beginning to take shape.
14
Buenos Aires, Argentina—December 31, 2018
It is New Year’s Eve. Where has the time gone?
It feels like it was only yesterday that Toni was stepping off the plane from Nantucket carrying all kinds of baggage—literal and emotional alike. It feels like it was only yesterday that she was standing in the baggage claim lobby, exhausted and irritated beyond belief, bickering with a strange, angry man in a business suit about whose bag belonged to whom.
Now, that same man is smiling at her like she’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen. That same man is still wearing a suit, yes, but tonight it is a tuxedo. Rather than hate him on sight, Toni briefly considers the thought that maybe the exact opposite is true: maybe she is falling in love with him.
It’s a preposterous thought, and so she shoos it away before it picks up too much momentum. But she knows it’s not the last she’s seen of it—mostly because it’s not the first she’s seen of it, either. The thought of whether she might be in love with Nicolas has cropped up again and again over the last month or so like mushrooms after a rain shower.
She thought it first in Tigre, when he stepped aside to reveal a decadent Thanksgiving spread transported there from half a world away. In the days and weeks since, she’s thought it more and more.
Simple things make her think it—the way his hands look when he holds a cup of coffee or a pen, so strong and capable. The way he can wink so suavely. The way he laughed when h
e found out that Toni didn’t know how to wink and the way they spent the next two hours together trying (and failing) to teach her.
Subtler things make her think it, too. The sound of his footsteps coming down the hallway of her hotel. How he folds the sheets in the linen closet of his apartment so crisp and neat, almost military-like.
It’s a revelation in the strangest way to think those things. Toni has pondered on why that might be, and what she’s settled on is this: it is strange to fall in love with Nicolas for those reasons because she never thought that love could make itself felt in such small, insignificant ways before.
She sees it most in his hands, as crazy as that is. They’re big and capable, but she’s felt their soft touch on her back while they dance and she knows how gentle he can be. Every time Nicolas touches her with those hands, Toni’s mind flashes back to the night of Jared’s surprise party all those years ago. She remembers Jared’s hands balled into fists at his sides and she relives the shock and embarrassment of that moment.
Nicolas would never. But is loving someone’s hands actually love?
The more Toni thinks about it, the more Toni decides that it might be the only true form of love there is.
Those same strong, assured hands come to rest lightly on her collarbones. “Are you all right?” Nicolas rumbles. “You look…distracted.”
The lights of the awning overhead, a kind of vintage movie theater thing, reflect off his irises as Toni looks up at him. She smiles faintly. “I am here with you,” she says.
Nicolas smiles back. “And what a blessing that is.” He runs a hand through his dark hair (which has actually begun to show signs of some incoming salt-and-pepperiness, making Nicolas blanch and Toni cackle in delight) and rolls his eyes.
She pinches him on the side. “Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Ow! I wasn’t.”
“Sounded sarcastic to me.”
“Everything sounds sarcastic to Americans. You are constitutionally incapable of accepting things at face value.”
“Don’t speak ill of my countrymen,” Toni smarms back, hiding a grin. She knows Nicolas hates when she gets faux-patriotic. He usually rolls his eyes and tries to pull out a map to show her that America is, in fact, not the center of the world. She doesn’t care much about the whole topic one way or the other—she just likes to push his buttons sometimes, to get him riled up.
“As you wish. Now, are you coming with me, or shall we retreat and go dancing instead?”
Toni swats him on the shoulder. She lets her hand linger a second longer afterward, admiring the taut feel of his muscles. Those push-ups really do wonders for the man.
“Hush, we’re not retreating anywhere. This is important for your work, right?”
Nicolas sighs and eyes the inside of the building ruefully. “I suppose it is.”
“Then in we go.” Toni takes his elbow again, and they stride down the red carpet and into the chic movie theater where the event is being held.
Nicolas’s firm has rented the place out for tonight’s New Year’s Eve gala. It’s buzzing with men in tuxedos and women in elegant ballgowns. The chatter of half a dozen different languages rises up in a tumult over the crowd. With Nicolas having so many international clients, it’s like the Tower of Babel in here.
Toni smiles. She’s come to appreciate the beauty of things she doesn’t understand, even if it took some getting used to when she first arrived in Argentina.
A waiter approaches them at once, bearing flutes of golden champagne on a tray. “Gracias,” Toni says as gracefully as she can while taking one. She turns to Nicolas and clinks her glass against his. “Happy New Year to us.”
“Happy New Year,” he murmurs back.
Toni feels a hand brush her shoulder. She turns around to see Camille, and her eyebrows shoot up in glee. “Cami! Oh my goodness, come here.” The two women embrace. Toni feels her heart surge with happiness. Food, drinks, friends, celebrations, and the turning of the calendar on one of the most tumultuous years of her life—there is so much to be grateful for this evening, and she is doing her best to throw that gratitude everywhere she can, like rice at a wedding.
“You look ravishing,” Camille says with that French shimmer in her voice that gives the word “ravishing” the kind of life it deserves. “Come, come, turn around, let me see it all.”
Toni obliges with a devilish grin as she gives her friend a full twirl and runway strut. She is wearing a burnished golden dress that sweeps all the way to the floor from an empire waist. The top is a deep V-neck with wide golden straps over the shoulders. She fell in love at first sight when she saw it on the rack at a shop in San Telmo. And when Nicolas saw it after she brought it home, he got some mischievous ideas.
“Stunning,” Camille repeats after Toni has finished her playful dog-and-pony show, “absolutely stunning.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, darling!” Toni shoots back. She considers winking and thinks better of it.
Camille looks as exotic and gorgeous as she always does, in a glittering navy dress with long sleeves and a V-cut that swoops all the way down to just above her navel. Her legs look lean and beautiful in the slit up the sides of the dress, and the sparkle coming off her many rings makes the whole ensemble come to life beneath the overhead lights.
“Shall I leave you two ladies to compliment each other back and forth for a while?” Nicolas asks sarcastically.
Camille clucks. “The poor baby is upset that we didn’t tell him he’s gorgeous! Come here, love. You are a handsome scoundrel, as always.”
Toni laughs as Nicolas bends down, scowling, to give Camille the customary kiss on the cheek.
“Now,” Camille says when Nicolas’s bruised ego has been tended to, “I’m off to find some alcohol. I’ll catch up with you two lovebirds in a little while. Ciao.” And then she sweeps off, leaving Nicolas and Toni chuckling to one another in her wake.
“She is a shot of life, that one,” Toni says.
“A handful.”
She gives him a side-eye. “Is that what you say about me behind my back?” she asks in an ominous tone.
Nicolas blanches and looks almost offended. “Of course not!” he exclaims, mortified. Then his face splits into a big, wicked smile. “I say you are two handfuls.”
Toni yelps and swats him again, with her clutch this time. “You’re on thin ice already, mister,” she warns him. “I’d be on my best behavior if I were you. Otherwise, you might not survive the night.”
He winks—that casual, daring wink that Toni is still wildly envious of—and says, “At least I’ll die in the arms of a beautiful woman.”
She blushes, but before she can come up with a retort of her own, a bald man with a brunette on his arm—who looks to be the man’s wife, judging by the enormous size of the diamond on her wedding ring—strides up to Nicolas with a brilliant smile.
“Nico!” he booms. The two men shake hands, and then the bald man takes off in a long stream of rapid Spanish.
Toni settles in against Nicolas’s side, holding his elbow lightly and surveying the crowd.
The rest of the night goes much like that. Nicolas cuts quite a popular figure. Folks come up to him again and again all night long to shake his hand, clap him on the back warmly, laugh with him and pay their dues. He handles it all with his standard effortless grace.
“Are you running for office?” Toni whispers to him at one point.
“I am merely being polite,” he huffs back. To a man passing by, he says, “Ciao, Don, good to see you.”
“The great and powerful Nicolas Perez! It is an honor to be here with you tonight, my friend.”
“The honor is mine, Don. Go try the shrimp; they’re fantastic.” The men shake hands once more before Don shuffles off in search of whichever waiter is guarding the amuse-bouches.
When he’s gone, Toni turns back to Nicolas. “Bend down for a sec. Let me see the top of your head.”
He complies, though he frowns in confusio
n as she pokes around the hair on the top of his head. She can’t help but run a few teasing fingers through the thickets of it. For a man pushing sixty, his hair shows no signs of vacating his scalp anytime soon.
“Are you checking on the status of the salt and pepper?” he inquires.
“No,” Toni says. “Just seeing if you had a crown on up there.”
He pushes her away, laughing. “I should’ve known better.”
“You’ll learn one day,” she says.
“Yes,” Nicolas replies. His eyes gleam with an unspoken intensity. “I hope to. One day.” There’s a bigger meaning to those simple words.
One day. A future together. Is that possible? Probable? Is it wise? As always, Toni has far more questions than answers.
Blushing, she hands Nicolas her clutch. “I’m going to go find the restroom. Do you mind holding this for me?”
He nods and takes it from her. “I’ll be here when you return, bella.”
Toni smiles faintly, then hitches up her dress and goes off in search of a bathroom.
She locks the door behind her when she finds one. It is a nice relief to step into a little oasis of silence. She checks her makeup in the mirror and rinses the stubborn crumbs of shrimp crostini off her fingertips.
Then, she pauses for a second and takes stock of her reflection. She hardly recognizes the woman looking back at her. Since when does Toni Benson look so—well, so much like this? There’s a graceful, elegant, exotic woman gazing back at her. A woman who wields her age like a weapon, rather than hiding it like a blemish. A woman who is stronger for the things she has suffered through, not weakened by them.
Oh, how things have changed.
She unlocks the door and emerges back into the bubbling crowd. Nicolas, true to his word, is standing right where she left him.
“All is well?” he asks.
“All is perfect,” Toni says.
