More Than Words

by Jill Santopolo

  “I’m sorry you had to go through it twice,” she said, thinking about his ex-wife.

  “My mom’s still around,” Rafael answered.

  Nina smiled. “I know,” she told him. “I meant with Sonia. Someone else in your life who disappeared, who you lost.”

  Rafael looked at her for a beat, as if weighing her words, as if weighing his own. “I hadn’t thought about divorce like that before,” he said. “But you’re right. The grief, the shock, the untangling of emotions. It’s not all the same, but a lot of it . . . you’re right.”

  “I guess both of our perspectives on life are changing right now.”

  “I guess so,” Rafael said, and he squeezed her hand once more.

  3

  By the time Mia met Nina and Rafael in front of the Norwood Club, the warmth that had flowed between them had cooled. But something had changed. When they got out of the car, Rafael waited for Nina so that they walked up the stairs side by side. She felt less like his staffer and more like—well, she wasn’t sure quite what—like a colleague or maybe even a friend.

  A tiny blond woman holding a glass of champagne threw her arms around Nina as they walked through the oak doorway.

  “Pris!” Nina said, laughing. “It’s great to see you, too.”

  “Everything okay?” Pris whispered into her ear. “I heard your dad hasn’t been in the office very much this week.”

  “It’s all fine,” Nina lied, hugging her friend back. “He’s been working from home.”

  “Oh, good,” Pris said. “I’ll tell my dad. He has an empty spot at a charity poker tournament on Wednesday and was hoping your dad could join.”

  Nina nodded and turned to Rafael, who’d been quietly watching the two women. “Pris,” she said. “This is Rafael O’Connor-Ruiz. Rafael, Priscilla Winter.” Then she remembered Jane’s rule. “Priscilla and Brent are about to head off to Cannes for the film festival.”

  Rafael stuck out his hand. “Thank you so much for hosting this fund-raiser,” he said, his face lighting up, that megawatt grin in place.

  Priscilla smiled back. “Oh, our pleasure!” she said. “When Nina tells us a candidate is worth supporting, we listen.”

  Nina cringed. She’d been unmasked. Rafael looked at her and raised an eyebrow but then turned back to Pris. “So tell me about this trip to Cannes.”

  Brent joined Priscilla, and the two of them chatted with Rafael, while Nina flagged down the waitress and ordered herself a Sauvignon Blanc and Rafael a vodka soda, heavy on the soda.

  She walked over to some of the other women there, people she knew from the board of the New York City Ballet, which she and Pris both served on.

  “When are you going to see the Balanchine?” Maggie Lancer asked, after hugging Nina hello. “I hear it’s just fantastic.”

  “Tim and I have tickets next month,” Nina said. “But I heard that Romeo and Juliet this summer is going to be even better. Zachary’s dancing Romeo.”

  “Zachary is stunning,” Maggie said. Then over Nina’s shoulder, she saw a couple walk into the room. “Oh, Hayley’s here! I have to talk to her about our dinner plans next weekend.”

  As Maggie walked away, Nina cast her eyes back toward Rafael. A small crowd had gathered around him, and they were all laughing at something he’d said. There was no denying his presence, his ability to draw people toward him. But at the same time, it looked to Nina like her friends were treating him as the night’s entertainment. It made her slightly uncomfortable.

  She was just about to walk toward him when she felt arms wrap around her and lips on the top of her head. Nina took a deep breath. Redken shampoo. Shea butter soap. Sandalwood shaving cream. Ever since he started shaving, Tim smelled exactly the same, a mixture of those three scents. That was one of the most comforting things about Tim; he was such a creature of habit. Nina could predict what she’d find in his refrigerator on any given day. She could even buy his clothes: Brooks Brothers slim-cut jeans in indigo denim, striped button-downs, V-neck sweaters, and navy blazers where he stuck his spearmint gum—always Eclipse, where you popped the white square through a thin piece of silver foil. There were never any surprises with Tim, and that was so much of what she loved about him.

  Nina turned into Tim’s embrace and fit there perfectly, tucked right underneath his chin.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said into her hair.

  She tilted her head and rose on her tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Barely late at all,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks.” He squeezed her shoulder with one hand as he waved a waiter over with the other. “Just wine tonight?” he asked her.

  Nina shrugged. “Technically I’m working,” she said. “Want to meet my boss?”

  “Of course,” he answered. “I’ve heard enough about him.”

  Once Tim placed his order and said hello to a few of their friends, she led him toward Rafael, who was now in a conversation with Priscilla and one of Brent’s work friends.

  “Tim!” Pris exclaimed as they got closer. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Rafael,” Nina said. “This is my boyfriend, Tim Calder. Tim, my boss, Rafael O’Connor-Ruiz.”

  The two men shook hands.

  Pris looked at Nina standing next to Tim and grinned. “I predicted this,” she told Rafael. “Back in high school, I knew the two of them would end up together. It’s just . . . it’s like they were born to be a couple.”

  “Oh?” Rafael asked.

  “Our fathers were college roommates,” Nina explained, just as Tim said, “We grew up together.”

  “And Tim’s dad is the CEO of Nina’s dad’s company,” Priscilla added. “So they’re basically like family already.”

  Rafael smiled at them, but it wasn’t his Daily News grin. “It must be nice to be with someone who knows everything about you.”

  Nina looked up at Tim. He probably did know everything about her. Or at least as much as one person could ever know about another. She wondered if Rafael’s smile had dimmed because he hadn’t felt that way about his ex-wife.

  “Have you met the Lancers yet?” Nina asked him. “They were big donors during the presidential election.”

  “Point me their way,” he said, and this time his smile reached across his whole face, though Nina was beginning to realize that there was a difference—small but perceptible: sometimes that smile was genuine, and sometimes it was just for show.

  As Nina guided Rafael in the Lancers’ direction, he threw a quick look over his shoulder at Tim.

  “Your boyfriend seems nice,” he said to Nina.

  “Thanks,” she said. “He is.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Later that night, back at Tim’s place, as Nina was brushing her teeth with the electric toothbrush he had gotten her, she thought about that word: “nice.” It was a perfectly fine way to describe someone—complimentary even—but it was tepid. Flat. That was how Rafael saw Tim. She was surprised by how much it bothered her.

  4

  New Yorkers in Nina and Tim’s circle brunched on Sundays. It was a citywide tradition. A cultural touchstone. And the Sunday brunch at The Gregory on the Park was legendary. Nina’s grandfather had personally crafted the menu when he opened the hotel in the early 1930s. It was four courses. Decadent. And served with champagne. Tourists knew that if they wanted New York City’s finest afternoon tea, they went to the Palm Court at The Plaza. And if they wanted the finest Sunday brunch, they went to The Grove at The Gregory on the Park.

  When Joseph Gregory took over the hotel in the 1980s, he decided to add a Saturday brunch, too. The first one was on the third Saturday in January 1989. Nina had been three, Tim had been five, and they’d sat with their parents at the front table near the door and greeted guests as they arrived. The guests loved getting to eat brunch in the same roo
m as Joseph Gregory, which Nina now ascribed partially to people’s fascination with wealth, and partially to her father’s public persona; he was the affable millionaire who was just as happy chatting with the Yankees’ owners as with their fans. Nina knew that wasn’t entirely true, but it was what everyone thought. It was their truth.

  It had been such a hit that her dad decided he would attend brunch the third Saturday of every month after that first one, except for in July when he was in the Hamptons. Nina and her mother had gone with him, until her mother died. Then it had been Nina and her dad until Nina went off to college, when Tim’s parents, TJ and Caro, joined him. Now, Nina and Tim came when they could.

  Tim loved sitting at the head table, waving at the kids who walked in, nodding at the adults. Nina didn’t. Ever since she came back to the city after college, she’d felt uncomfortable at these brunches—dressed up and on display. But she knew it was good for business—and important to her father—so she never complained. Except to Leslie, who encouraged her to rebel by showing up one day in ripped jeans. Nina never had, but she thought about it often.

  When she and Tim walked into The Grove that Saturday, a room filled with the same wrought-iron sconces and intricate crown moldings her grandfather had picked out, Nina’s father rose from his chair. He knew the room, knew where to place himself for the best effect, and stood directly in a beam of light, so it looked like he was glowing. Nina walked over and hugged him tightly. She was dimly aware of cell phones flashing in their direction, but mostly she inhaled the scent of his cologne—the tobacco, leather, and thyme that seemed to capture the essence of who he was.

  “Joseph Gregory, Thrilled to See His Daughter for Brunch,” her father said, captioning the photos the guests were taking, writing the headline for the story. It was a game he’d invented when Nina was a kid, coming up with both the best and worst possible headlines that would describe any given moment of their lives—a way for her to understand consequences and repercussions. But since his cancer returned in January, he’d stopped offering up the worst headline. She hugged him harder, not caring that they were putting on a show for the guests. “Love you,” she said.

  “More than words,” he answered, his rejoinder for Nina’s entire life.

  As they sat, Joseph at the head of the table, Nina on his left next to Tim, TJ and Caro across the way, Nina tuned out the conversation for a moment to take a mental picture of the tableau. She wanted to remember this. Her father presiding over the family that he’d willed together through friendship.

  “How’s the campaign going?” he asked her.

  Talking politics with her dad was always tricky. Nina had heard a conversation that he’d had with TJ once about her job. “She’s going through an idealistic phase,” he’d said.

  It had made her reevaluate what she was doing, wonder if everyone else thought she was being ridiculous, working for a politician instead of joining the Gregory Corporation right out of business school. But she decided that even if he was right, she wasn’t going to change her mind.

  Working in politics made her feel like an agent of change in a way that working in the hotel business never could. Volunteering for the New Haven mayor’s reelection campaign in college, Nina had fallen in love with speechwriting. She’d sat in on policy discussions and then tried her hand at synthesizing the ideas into just the right words, finding a way to change minds. It was a challenge, a game with high-stakes results. And she and the mayor’s team had won. Business never gave her that kind of high.

  “It’s going well,” she said. “We’re neck-and-neck with Marc Johnson.”

  Her father took a sip of coffee. He’d donated to Marc Johnson’s campaign for comptroller four years before. “Well, you tell me when he’s a sure thing.”

  Nina smoothed her napkin onto her lap. “Absolutely,” she said.

  Joseph Gregory only endorsed winners, regardless of party or previous donations.

  “But I’ll vote for him in the primary no matter what,” he added.

  “Yeah?” Nina asked, surprised.

  “Of course,” her father said. “It’ll look good for us if you chose the winner.”

  Every time the Gregory name was associated with a success, it gathered power, cemented its meaning in people’s minds. That was something her grandfather had always said, something her dad repeated: Names have meaning. And you’re nothing without your name.

  “Well, fingers crossed,” she said, taking a small roll from the overfilled bread basket. “So, anything exciting happening at the hotel this week?”

  “We’re about to exchange the calla lilies for roses,” Caro said, looking around at the vase upon vase of flowers filling the restaurant. She managed all the events at both Gregory hotels, which included the seasonal changing of flowers at The Grove and the downtown hotel’s restaurant, The Garden. In the fall there were chrysanthemums, winter brought snowdrops, spring was calla lilies, and summer was roses. Nina’s grandmother had made the first arrangements herself, but now there was a florist that Caro had hired. The flowers were replaced each week, early Friday morning, before the restaurants opened for breakfast.

  She turned to Nina. “Would you like to come watch?”

  Nina had loved watching the flowers change with her mom when she was a kid. Thousands of them, filling the restaurant with their scent and color. It seemed like a ceremony, the welcoming in of a new season—and was overwhelmingly beautiful. “That sounds fun,” she answered. “I haven’t come in ages.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” Caro said. “Can I steal you for breakfast afterward?”

  Tim cleared his throat. “Ahem,” he said. “What about me?”

  Nina nudged his shoulder playfully. “Are you afraid we’re going to talk about you? You know, your mom and I do have other topics of conversation.” Caro had always been there for Nina. She’d been the one who talked to her about what it would be like the first time she got her period and taken her prom dress shopping—both times. And Caro had made sure that Nina was on birth control before she went to college, even though it meant an argument with Nina’s dad.

  Caro tucked her graying blond bob behind her ear. Nantucket blond, she started calling it, once the color began shifting toward white. “Of course you’re welcome, Timothy,” she said. “I’ll see you both at six A.M. on Friday.”

  “Wait, it’s that early?” Tim groaned. “You can’t change the flowers at, say, eight?”

  Nina started to laugh. TJ was shaking his head. “Son,” he said, “what are we going to do with you?”

  Her dad, who had been watching this whole exchange with a smile playing across his face, started to chuckle. But then his chuckle turned into a cough that wouldn’t stop. Nina’s laughter faded.

  “Dad,” she said, quietly. “Did you bring that inhaler?”

  He nodded, then looked around the room. “Can’t do it here,” he coughed. “Be back.”

  He got up and, still trying not to let his coughing fit show, walked out the door of the restaurant, toward the bathroom.

  TJ stood up. “I’ll see if he needs help.”

  Caro, Tim, and Nina sat in silence. Nina felt like she did in the car with Rafael. Like there were vines wrapping around her rib cage, like she couldn’t breathe. Caro looked at her, reading the situation perfectly.

  “Girls’ trip to the restroom?” she asked. Then, softly, as if she hated saying it, but knew she had to, “No tears in front of the guests.” It was something Nina’s father had reminded her often as a kid, but he hadn’t needed to for years.

  Nina shut her eyes for a moment. She quelled the panic. Quelled the fear. And just like she did when she was eight, in the months after her mother died, she willed her heart to be unbreakable. They were putting on a show, and in this show, the heiress did not cry. Nina opened her eyes again.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “The next time Kristin walks by, could som
eone flag her down? I’d love a refill on my coffee.”

  Nina turned, but she wasn’t looking for Kristin. Her eyes were on the door, waiting for her father to come back to brunch. Her heart wasn’t unbreakable. Not even close.

  5

  After brunch, Nina hadn’t been interested in the fun things Tim had suggested they do. “I’m sorry,” she said, standing outside the hotel. “You do something fun. I’ll just . . . go home and . . . I don’t know. Read a book or something until I have to get ready for the art opening tonight. I’m not feeling particularly fun right now.”

  “I want to help,” he said, twirling his finger around her hair, so for a moment it sat in one spiral down her back. “Just tell me what to do.”

  But the truth was, she didn’t know. She took his hand, looking across the street at the trees, at the flowers in full bloom, at the horse-and-buggies waiting for passengers. There was some comfort in being here with Tim, in feeling his fingers woven between hers.

  “Let’s go to the park,” Nina said.

  They crossed Central Park South in the sunshine and walked through the Artists’ Gate.

  As they veered onto the loop, a breeze ruffled Nina’s skirt. “I’m sorry I’m such a downer. I just . . . feel like there’s this darkness hanging over everything.”

  “Even when you’re with me?” Tim asked.

  Nina sighed. The clip-clop of hooves echoed behind them, and Nina turned to watch a dapple-gray horse coming up the drive, pulling a white carriage with a family inside. This wasn’t about their relationship. She hoped Tim wouldn’t take it that way. “Always,” she said.

  He swallowed, and then his expression shifted to the mischievous one she knew well. “Nothing will cheer you up?” he asked. “Not even a carousel ride?”