“All girls?”
She rubs her arms and nods.
“As cute as you?”
She flushes a little and gives me a shy smile. Even in this cold, it makes me melt.
“Perrrfect,” I say. “Bring ‘em up, sweetie.”
She turns and wave to the girls at the back of the line, and they quickly scuttle up to where we stand.
“Nico, these are my roommates: Jamie, Shama, and Quinn,” Layla says, pointing to each as they pull out their IDs.
I take a cursory glance at each one. They’re all fakes, but good fakes. Fakes that won’t fuck over the bar owner if by chance an undercover cop shows up. It doesn’t happen a lot, but definitely more than it used to. One of the many changes after 9/11.
“Hey, man, what the fuck!” protests one of the investment-banker douches who tried to bribe me.
I turn and glare.
“You got a problem with these ladies, my friend?” I ask in a don’t-fuck-with-me voice that you only learn if you grew up in certain neighborhoods in this city.
Too bad this dude doesn’t get the message. He’s been too busy nursing his entitled ass out in Connecticut or someplace like that to learn basic commonsense in New York: Don’t piss off the doorman.
“We’ve been waiting for over an hour in this fucking weather, man,” says the banker. This idiot just doesn’t know when to stop. “It’s not cool to let in a bunch of skanks just because you want some easy pussy.”
“Excuse me? What the—”
One of Layla’s friends––I think the one named Quinn––starts to snap back at the guy, but I’m already done. It’s motherfuckers like this that make me want to leave this city and never look back. I’m off my stool and have the guy shoved against the icy brick wall of the building before anyone can say another word. Grant, the other bouncer, keeps his place by the door, clearly not concerned that I need his help. He knows I can handle myself.
“Listen, you pencil-dick, Gordon-Gecko-wannabe fuck,” I pronounce as evenly as I can. I have an audience with the girls, not to mention the line of people that has become really, really quiet. But I don’t care. “You will apologize to my friends here, and you will do it nicely. And then you will get the fuck out of here before I have to beat some manners into that slimy little mouth of yours. You got that?”
The banker murmurs a quick apology to the girls before skulking away with his friend. Most of the people in line look awkwardly in other directions, obviously not wanting to be the next person tossed out of the club line. Layla and her friends just stare at me with open mouths. Shit. So much for a good impression.
“Sorry about that,” I say uneasily as I sit back on my stool. “Those kind of entitled assholes think they can say whatever they want. I, uh, hope it didn’t ruin your night.”
All four girls nod, like they’re too stunned to respond. Fuck. I don’t usually lose my temper like that anymore, but something about that guy, and the way he was talking about Layla and her friends...I don’t know. It just got to me.
“Uh, how much do we owe you for the cover?” Layla squeaks.
Immediately, I soften. “Nothin’, sweetie. It’s on me. You girls go on and enjoy yourselves, okay?”
The girls murmur their thanks, clearly shaken up by what they just saw, and file through the door now held open by Grant. But I can’t help it. I don’t want Layla to go in thinking I’m some kind of thug, so I grab her hand and pull her back so she’s looking at me. Her eyes are still big, and the shock in them makes me feel very small. She looks down at my clutch on her fingers.
“You look really nice tonight, Layla,” I say quietly. I use her name, not “sweetie” or “NYU.” I want her to know that I see her.
She opens and closes her mouth a few times, like she’s unable to speak. I really fucked up. So much for the chance I was hoping for.
“Thanks,” she whispers, and pulls her hand free.
“Come out and say hi again if you have a second,” I say as I let her go. But the way this night has gone, I doubt she’ll have a second for me again.
~
Layla
The dancehall group lives up to the hype. For the next hour and a half, I actually forget that I’m here to flirt with the doorman, throwing myself into the music with my roommates and having the time of my life. I love dancing for the same reason I love playing sports—it forces you to live in the moment, to focus on controlling every movement of your body as you lose yourself in your surroundings. You can’t think about anyone or anything else.
It’s a nice way to ignore what just happened out there. You see things like that in movies, but it’s not the same when you see, in real life, the man you’re lusting over defend your honor. I don’t even care that he just threatened to beat the crap out of some stranger. I don’t care that I should probably have turned around and left. What really scares me is how turned on I was when he did it. That’s what I’m trying to forget.
After ninety straight minutes of dancing, I’m sweaty, tired, and ready for a break. The band is done, and now there’s a DJ who will play until last call, sometime around four. Shama split a while ago to meet up with Jason, and both Quinn and Jamie have cozied up to dance partners of their own, so I won’t be missed. I go to the bar for a cup of water, retrieve my coat from where it’s stashed behind a speaker, and head outside to fulfill my promise to Nico.
At this point, the line to get into the club is gone. Nico sits alone on his stool, hands shoved into his pockets while he stares at the concrete, deep in thought. Plumes of white escape his lips and nose as he breathes.
“Cold?” I ask.
He looks up, clearly surprised to see me. And then that grin appears again—I’m really never going to get used to that.
“Nah,” he says. “I could walk across Antarctica in this coat and still be hot. You okay, though? That outfit can’t be too warm.”
I look down to where my open coat reveals my dress.
“I’m good,” I say. “It’s really hot in there right now.”
The chilly wind actually feels refreshing for the moment. I shift back and forth on my feet, unsure of what else to say. Usually I’m pretty good at flirting, but with him, it’s like eighty percent of my vocabulary goes on vacation. How am I supposed to charm him if I can’t find words––any words at all?
I look back up to find him watching me intently, and before I know it, I blurt out, “You have a terrific smile, you know.”
That, of course, earns me another ear-splitting grin, which just about makes me lose my footing. Christ, what is happening to me? I look back down and tap the pointed toes of my shoes together. One, two, three. Anything to avoid staring at him like an idiot.
A gloved finger reaches out and tips my chin up so I’m looking into a pair of impossibly dark eyes. This close, I can see that they’re brown, not black. An insanely, chocolatey, dive-into-them dark brown.
Nico’s expression softens. “Thanks, sweetie,” he says gently, and drops his hand, almost as if the contact makes him nervous too. “I’m sorry about what happened before. With those guys. I was already pissed off, and when he called you a––”
“It’s okay,” I cut in, even while I’m trying not to flush. “Forget about it, really.”
Nico pauses, like he’s not sure whether to believe me. Then he sighs. “Did you like the music?”
I nod. “I did, yeah. Dancehall is really fun. Kind of reminds of samba, a little.”
“You dance samba?”
I nod. “Yeah. A little, since my dad is Brazilian. We’ve gone for Carnaval a couple of times. I picked up a few moves.”
Nico nods, scanning me up and down with an appraising look. “Yeah, I can see that. You got a little of the look of some Brazilians I’ve met. You speak Portuguese?”
I flush again and shrug. “A little. We, um, didn’t speak it much in the house. My mom doesn’t speak it at all.”
It’s one of the things that always made me feel so strange living in Iss
aquah. People looked at me and treated me like some exotic creature, but not speaking my dad’s language seemed to disappoint them. Like I wasn’t quite exotic enough. But then again, my dad has always tried his hardest to act like we’re not different at all. It’s not really fair of me to blame my lack of Portuguese on my mom since my dad was the one who refused to teach either one of us his native language.
Nico nods again, as if that confirms something untold about me. What, I don’t know.
“Well, let’s see it.”
“See what?”
Nico raises one black brow. “Come on, NYU. You were just telling me how good you can samba. Was that all just talk?”
I giggle. “This isn’t samba music,” I say lamely, earning another raised brow.
“Come on…” he cajoles, flashing another grin. “I’m not going to believe you otherwise.”
“Okay, okay,” I relent. “But only if you do it with me.”
To my surprise, he hops off his stool and holds out his gloved hands for me to grasp. Even through the thick leather, I can feel that electric spark.
“Show me,” he says.
So I do. We move awkwardly through the basic steps, which he keeps trying to dance like they’re salsa. Eventually, though, he gets the rhythm, and I start to speed it up so it roughly matches the grinding pace of the dancehall vibrating from inside the club. In Brazilian samba, the feet move so quickly you can hardly discern one step from another—it’s all in the hips. Soon mine are shaking all over the place, and I let go of his hands so I can move forward and back and turn to the music the way my cousins taught me a few years ago, the way I would practice in my bedroom when my parents weren’t home. Nico tries to follow, going faster and faster until finally we trip over each other’s feet, and I topple into his arms.
“Careful!” he exclaims, but we’re both laughing like crazy.
I inhale his scent and am barely able to stand upright when I pull away. Nico resumes his seat and looks me over, like he’s checking to see if everything is in order. I pull nervously at my skirt.
“Okay, NYU,” he says as he chuckles. “I guess you really are Brazilian. You move like one, anyway.”
Inside, I feel a twinge. Is that what I am? I never felt like it until I moved here, and everyone insisted on it.
“What about you?” I ask, diverting the attention from me. “What kind of name is Nico?”
“It’s short for Nicolás Soltero,” he pronounces. “I’m a mutt too, like you. My mom’s, um, Puerto Rican, and the other half is Italian, Puerto Rican, and some other stuff too. I grew up with my moms, though, so her side’s the only one that really matters.”
“You never saw your dad?” I blurt out, aware too late of how rude my question is.
Nico’s dark eyes grow even darker, but he gives me a rueful smile.
“No, sweetie, I didn’t,” he says kindly. “He ran with some bad dudes, got locked up before I was born. I don’t know where he is now. But...whatever. It’s in the past.”
An awkward silence grows between us, and we stare at each other. Anything that comes to mind to say seems completely inadequate and ignorant. In my suburban existence in Washington, I’ve never really known anyone who lived a truly hard life as a kid, and even in Brazil, my only real exposure to poverty came from the inevitable drives through the slums that surround all the major cities. We didn’t actually spend time there.
“Are you close to your mom?” I ask.
Nico gives me that rueful smile again and nods, suddenly absorbed with picking lint off his jeans. “Yeah, she still lives in Hell’s Kitchen, in the same apartment I grew up in. Fifty-second and Ninth. My sisters and I go over there on weekends.”
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Just two.”
“Younger or older?”
“Younger. Everyone’s younger than me. And they are total bitches too, let me tell you.”
I have to laugh at the matter-of-fact way he says it, but honestly, I’m jealous. I’m an only child, and it was a bit lonely growing up without much family in Washington.
“It’s great you are all close, though,” I say. “I bet your mom likes it, too.”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything. We stand together for a moment more until I shiver and zip up my coat. The post-dancing heat has definitely worn off, and the chill from the river penetrates my clothes further with every gust.
“You should go back in, sweetie,” Nico says. “You look like your lips are gonna turn blue.”
I smile, but nod because he’s right. “Yeah, I should check on my roommates. We’ll probably get going home soon.”
He reaches out and touches my elbow for a second. “Thanks for keeping me company, Layla. And for showing me your dance moves.”
A shiver that is completely unrelated to the cold shimmies down my back.
“Anytime,” I manage, and walk back inside.
A half an hour later, the DJ is starting to slow down. The bar will probably stay open for another hour or more, but the majority of the crowd vacates the premises with us. I look to say goodbye to Nico as we pass through the doors, but his stool has been moved inside.
“Jeez, he didn’t even say goodbye,” sniffs Quinn as we walk down to the subway station.
I shrug. He likely had better things to do than search out a bunch of college kids. That we shared a moment together is sufficient for me. Wherever Nico is now on this cold, late night, I hope he’s warm and safe.
~
CHAPTER SEVEN
Layla
I spend most of Sunday trying to get ahead of my reading and assignments for the week. I’ve only had this part-time job for a few weeks, but the suck on my time is starting to get the best of me. I need to be more disciplined.
Sometime around four o’clock, my cell phone buzzes on my desk. With an annoyed expression, Quinn looks up from her bed, where she’s surrounded by books.
“Senhora Barros?” she asks.
I nod. Like clockwork, my mom calls every Sunday while my dad lies down for a nap after lunch. With a shrug at Quinn, I grab the phone and duck out of the room and into the hall, where I won’t disturb anyone. Most students are probably doing the same thing we are, so the normally bustling thoroughfare is empty.
“Hi, Mom,” I answer once my door is safely shut behind me.
“Hi, honey. How are you this week? How is the paper going?”
When we’d spoken last week, I mentioned a paper that would be due this Monday. I’m not surprised she’s asking about it. She knows sometimes I procrastinate, and one of the conditions of even being in New York is that I maintain straight As. Otherwise, it’s back home and to a state school for me.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Mostly drafted. I have a bit of editing to do tonight, but it shouldn’t take me long.”
I don’t include the fact that I’ve got another hundred pages of reading to get through before I can actually start on it. But I’ll deal.
“Good, good,” she says. “How are your grades looking this semester?”
She asks me that same question every week—I know it’s because my dad wants to know, and he makes her ask. He usually can’t be bothered to call me directly. Too tied up with work.
I sigh. “It’s still early, Mom, like I told you last week. I won’t really know until I get my papers back and we take our midterms.”
“There’s no reason to be curt, Layla.”
I stifle a groan of frustration. Sometimes my mom is the most sensitive person on the planet. According to her, everything out of my mouth should be the equivalent of roses and sunshine. Polite. Demure. But it’s no use arguing with her either—I learned that a long time ago.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “But there’s really nothing to report. I will let you know when there is.”
Mom sighs prettily. I can just imagine her on the other side of the phone. She’s a timid West Coast princess, raised in Pasadena before meeting my dad while he was studying medicine at UCLA. Da
d was the big rebellion of her life, and only because he was a Brazilian medical student instead of an American one. Still a doctor. Still wealthy, conservative, and everything else her family expected of her. He just had an accent, is all.
The story of how they fell in love isn’t well known—not to me, not to anyone—and I suspect it’s because it was a forbidden affair. I don’t know her family well; they never seemed to approve of my dad or me. It doesn’t matter that my dad comes from a wealthy family too, or that his skin is as light as theirs. She was only eighteen when they met; my dad was almost twenty-eight. We see her parents every few years or so, usually when they come to marvel at the big house my dad’s career as a plastic surgeon has bought their daughter. But Dad doesn’t waste time placating his in-laws anymore. He usually has better things to do.
For a minute, I consider telling Mom about Nico. Maybe she’ll get it instead of insisting I get on the first plane back to Seattle. There are a lot of similarities: the age difference, Nico’s Hispanic background. The fact that I’m almost as young as she was when she fell in love.
But my parents aren’t happy with each other these days. Once they were in love—their wedding pictures, the shots at the Rio cathedral of my mom drenched in lace and my dad, dashing in his black tuxedo, are a testament to that. But these days they are more indifferent than anything else. I haven’t seen them kiss each other in years, and Mom is usually more concerned with the state of her antiques collection than with her husband. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember.
The only clue to anything beyond their pleasant détente was a comment my mom made when we attended her cousin’s wedding a few years ago. They were another young couple, marrying right out of college. The ceremony was short and sweet, but it wasn’t until the bride tossed her bouquet into a crowd of thrashing bridesmaids that I heard my mother speak to herself.
“No one should get married that young,” she murmured.
And before I could reply and let her know I’d heard her, she had located her glass of white wine and gone off to seek out her old friends, her slim, blonde form disappearing through the crowd.
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