Nina followed with a sip of her own. “Adorkable?” she asked.
Rafael laughed. “So you do that in English, too,” he said. “Were the headlines a game?”
“Yeah, but I think it was actually his way of getting me to think about consequences,” Nina told Rafael, running her fingers along the base of the glass. “He’d ask me what the best and worst headlines were that someone could come up with. He wanted me to think about the worst spin a reporter could put on a situation.”
“Wow,” Rafael said.
“I know.” Nina took another sip of beer. “Sometimes being his daughter was a little intense. I’m realizing it more and more these days.”
Nina had the urge to tell Rafael about the house in the Hudson Valley, what she’d learned while she was there, how talking to employees at the Gregory Corporation had unearthed surprises, and how it all had changed her opinion of her father. But she didn’t say anything. Even though she had a feeling Rafael would understand. Talking about all of these raw emotions made her feel vulnerable. And she didn’t want to go there. Not when she was trying so hard not to watch Rafael’s lips as they touched the rim of his glass.
“I think a lot of fathers are a little intense,” he said after he swallowed. “I know mine was.”
“How so?” Nina asked, wondering if Rafael’s father monitored his behavior in the same way hers did.
But their burgers arrived just then, and Rafael didn’t answer. So Nina opened up the ketchup, trying to get some onto her plate. It was stuck in the bottle.
“May I?” Rafael asked.
Nina handed the ketchup bottle over, and Rafael recapped it, shaking it three times. Then he uncapped it and gave it to Nina. “Try it now,” he said.
Nina turned the bottle upside down and the ketchup flowed smoothly onto her plate.
“It’s a non-Newtonian fluid,” Rafael said.
Nina looked at him. “Is this a Bronx Science thing?” she asked.
He laughed. “Actually, I did learn it in high school physics. Non-Newtonian fluids sometimes act like solids and sometimes act like liquids, depending on how much force is exerted on them. When you shake up ketchup, you exert enough force that the spherical particles turn into ellipses and basically become a thousand times thinner than they were pre-shaking.”
Nina blinked at him for a moment.
“I guess it was my turn to be dorky,” he said, looking a little embarrassed.
“Dorky people are my favorite kind,” Nina answered, realizing too late that she probably shouldn’t have said that.
Rafael didn’t look embarrassed anymore. “Mine, too,” he said, looking at her as if she were a book in another language he needed to translate.
Nina handed the bottle of ketchup back to him, so he could pour some onto his plate.
And then a camera flash went off.
Nina and Rafael both looked toward the bar, where the flash went off again.
“Rafael! Nina!” the photographer said, trying to catch their attention. But Rafael and Nina had looked back at each other.
“Madre de Dios,” Rafael muttered under his breath. “This guy has been popping up everywhere. He took my picture as I was walking out of the gym last week.”
Nina thought about what the owner had said to Rafael, urging him to bring a girlfriend. And then she thought about how long it takes to drink a free half yard of beer. “You were set up,” Nina said. “The bartender. The beer. That guy’s paying him off to get photos of you.”
Rafael looked at the photographer and then at the man behind the bar. “I have an idea,” he said, grabbing their jackets from the hook behind him and getting off the bar stool. He reached out his hand. “Come with me?”
Nina took Rafael’s hand and slid off the stool. She felt the calluses on the tips of his fingers. As the photographer kept snapping pictures, the two of them ran into the kitchen. Their waiter hurried after them saying, “Sir! Ma’am!”
Rafael settled up the bill, paying in cash, and then said, “Just so you know, I won’t be coming back here. I don’t appreciate this sort of thing.”
The waiter looked at the floor, which made Nina suspect maybe he was in on it. But she didn’t want to make this any worse.
Rafael kept going. “I’m assuming we can get out the back entrance into the alley?”
The waiter nodded. “Yessir.”
“Great,” Rafael said. “That’s where we’re going. Where does it let us out?”
“Tenth and Fiftieth,” one of the line cooks answered from behind Nina. “Espero que ganas, vato.”
“Gracias,” Rafael said, walking over to shake the man’s hand.
Nina followed. “Cual puerta debemos usar?” she asked him, wondering which door he’d tell them to use.
He looked surprised that she spoke in Spanish but replied her question, pointing to the door next to the freezer. “Ese,” he said.
“Gracias,” she responded.
“Come on,” Rafael said, handing Nina her jacket.
The two of them walked out the door into the alley behind the restaurant, and then Rafael started jogging. Nina had no trouble keeping up with him, and they ran down the darkened city streets until they reached the Hudson River Greenway, overlooking the river. They sat on a bench that was illuminated by a streetlight, its glow making a halo around them in the crisp autumn night. They were both slightly out of breath.
“Well,” Rafael said. “That was a nice escape.”
“I can’t believe we did that,” Nina said. “Now the story’s going to be even crazier than if we’d just sat there. Mac and Jane are going to kill us.”
“Candidate and Former Speechwriter Hide from Press in Kitchen?” Rafael asked.
Nina smiled at the fact that he was playing her father’s headline game. But then she got serious again. “Maybe . . . Joseph Gregory’s Daughter Enjoys Night Out Three Weeks after Father’s Death.”
Rafael touched the gray silk blouse that was skimming Nina’s forearm but moved his hand away before she could feel the warmth of his fingers on her skin. The hair on her arms stood at attention.
“They won’t say that,” he said. “Maybe Mayoral Candidate Romances Former Staffer.”
Nina looked at him, her heart beating faster. “Are you romancing me?” she asked.
“What do you think, Palabrecita?” he said, actually squeezing her forearm this time, perhaps emboldened by the fact that she hadn’t moved it away when he brushed his fingers across her shirt.
His touch made her shiver. “I think if you wanted to romance me, burgers and beer and a physics lesson and an escape to the Hudson River Greenway—”
“Isn’t enough,” Rafael finished, seeming disappointed. “I know you’re used to more than that.”
“No,” Nina said. “If you were trying to romance me, this would be just the way to do it.”
Rafael put his hand on top of hers and interlaced their fingers. Nina knew she should take her hand away, should say something about Tim, but she didn’t want to. His hand was so warm. She imagined it caressing her cheek. Don’t, she told herself. But her self-control was weakening.
“You know,” Rafael said, “my whole life I’ve felt like a chameleon. I can be whoever people want me to be. Talk about my family in Ireland, or my family in Cuba. Pepper my conversations with Spanish, switch into it completely, or pretend those words aren’t in my mind at all. I can be the kid who grew up in Queens sharing a bedroom with my sister and brother, or the one who got taken out to the fanciest restaurants in New York City when I was a summer associate at Sullivan and Cromwell.”
Nina tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her attention was split between his words and the feel of his hand on hers.
“My sister . . . she said she’s always felt wrong. Too Cuban to be Irish, and too Irish to be Cuban. Never the right amount of anythin
g. But me . . . I feel like I can present the right front, the right face, say the right thing, and people see what they want to see in me. I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about in the office, before the burgers. I want to use the speech about my cousin Kevin. I don’t want to be a chameleon anymore. I want to be myself, my whole self, not just who people expect me to be. It might cost me some votes, but I hope the authenticity will gain me some others.”
Nina thought about that. People expected she would act a certain way, too. Mac always thought so. They expected her to be their idea of what it meant to be a Gregory, what it meant to grow up in a world of excess. And as well as she knew Tim, for as long as she’d known Tim, he expected that, too.
“You know,” Nina said. “I’m a Lukas, too.”
“A what?” Rafael asked, his hand still around hers.
“A Lukas,” she said. “My mother’s maiden name. She grew up in Colorado, and her family was from Greece originally, generations ago. That’s really all I know. Not even the island they’re from.”
“You’re Greek!” Rafael said.
“Can I claim it, if I know nothing about it?” Nina asked. She’d been wondering about that for the last week.
“It’s part of your DNA,” Rafael said. “It’s part of your blood. But it takes work to make it part of who you are, I think.”
Nina nodded. “It also takes work not to hide who you are,” she said. “I’m glad you’re going to use the speech about Kevin.”
Rafael looked at her. Their hands were still touching and now their eyes locked. “I feel like I can be myself around you,” he told her. “All of me. I never feel that way. Not even with my ex-wife.”
“I feel like I can be myself around you, too,” Nina said. She was whispering. The pieces of her that felt new, the questions she had—Rafael didn’t seem like he had expectations of who she would be. More like he wanted to learn who she was, deep inside.
“Is that a new earring?” he said, reaching out to touch the pierced cartilage on her left ear.
“Yeah,” she said, her stomach flipping at his touch. “I’d always wanted one. My dad told me not to, but I did it. A few days ago.”
“Well, it looks good,” Rafael said, seeming to weigh exploring what she’d said about her father, then deciding not to.
Everything had gotten so quiet, it seemed like the city had paused, waiting for them to make a confession, to open their hearts to each other after so long.
“I realized that being alone with you might be dangerous that time we rode in the car together to the Norwood Club,” Nina said, knowing she shouldn’t say it, but doing so anyway. “And then I was sure of it when we talked the night my dad died.” Her voice caught in her throat. Tears threatened to spill and she didn’t fight them, because she wasn’t afraid to feel vulnerable any longer. He’d told her his truth; she could tell him hers.
Rafael wrapped his arm around her, and Nina leaned into him, wiping her tears on his coat. “Dangerous how?” he asked.
She felt his strength through the wool. “Dangerous because you make me feel out of control.”
“Is that a good thing?” His voice vibrated against her back.
“I think it might be,” she said. Once she uttered those words, a million thoughts went rushing through her mind. What about Tim? was the first one. The one that rang like church bells in her head. And then: Where do we go from here?
Rafael tightened his arm around her and pulled her close. Nina leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Can we do this again?” Rafael asked, running his fingers along her arm.
“Sit on a bench?” Nina asked. She felt the weight of Tim’s engagement ring around her neck, pressing against her heart under her blouse.
Rafael laughed. “Well, sure,” he said. “But I meant go out. Preferably somewhere with no photographers.”
When Nina didn’t answer, he continued, “Did you . . . did you feel that rush when we were in the same room? The adrenaline and cortisol that races through your body when you’re with someone you have a crush on?”
“Is that what it is? Adrenaline and cortisol?”
Rafael nodded; Nina could feel his chin move against her head. “Yup,” he said. “It means my biology likes your biology.”
Nina closed her eyes as she admitted, softly, “Yes, I felt it.”
Rafael turned his head sideways and kissed her temple.
Her pulse was racing. She wanted to feel his mouth against hers. She wanted to give in, to catch his lip between her teeth, to feel his naked skin beneath her fingers.
He hugged her closer to him, and her engagement ring pressed into them both.
Nina took a deep breath. She had to stop this. “Rafael,” she whispered. “We can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
Rafael pulled away from her, six inches of air now between them where there used to be heat.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m still with Tim,” she said. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t change how I feel when I’m with you, but . . .”
“You can’t,” he finished, pulling farther away. It was like someone had dialed up the air conditioning, thrown a switch on the freezer. “I’d hoped . . . I’d hoped that your response when I said I was romancing you, when you put your head on my shoulder . . . I’d hoped it meant you were free to—”
She cut Rafael off, not wanting to feel the guilt, to have to examine her actions.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I should’ve been clear. I didn’t mean to . . . I should’ve . . .” She trailed off, not sure where to go. And then she looked at him, focused in on his dark brown eyes with their flecks of gold. “It’s true,” she said. “Everything I told you. It’s all true. I just . . . everything feels so tangled right now.”
He looked at her for a silent moment and then sighed.
“I’m still helping you with your speech tomorrow night, right?” she asked quietly. “And we’re still doing the fund-raiser on Tuesday?”
Rafael took a deep breath and let it out. “Right,” he said.
And then Nina’s phone vibrated. She looked down. As if he had read her mind, it was Tim calling. There were texts, too. Ten or twelve of them that she hadn’t seen. Call me, they all said. Call me now.
“I’m sorry,” Nina said to Rafael. She was worried that something bad had happened to TJ or to Caro—or to Tim himself. “I need to pick this up.”
“Are you okay?” Nina said when she answered the phone.
“What in the hell is going on?” Tim replied. “Twitter just told me that you’re cheating on me. With your ex-boss, in fact. Please tell me Twitter is wrong.”
Nina looked over at Rafael.
Was she going to lie to Tim? Or finally be honest about her feelings for someone else?
“It’s wrong,” she said. “I’ll be right over.”
In her heart, all she could think was: Joseph Gregory’s Daughter Follows in Her Father’s Footsteps.
53
All through the taxi ride to Tim’s apartment, Nina kept trying to figure out what to say to him, how to say it. She’d told Rafael that a picture of them was posted on Twitter, and she was really sorry, but she had to go. They’d talk tomorrow, she’d said. She’d told him that in spite of the crazy photographer and the way it ended, this was the best night she’d had in a long while. And then she’d hailed a cab and asked the driver to take the quickest route to East 10th Street.
I wasn’t cheating, she would say. Which was true. They didn’t kiss. They’d kept their clothes on.
It was just a business dinner. Which was also true. It was. They’d been in the office and went to get a burger. It wasn’t a big deal. As a working woman, as the head of the Gregory Corporation, she’d have business dinners all the time. Tim would understand that. He’d have to understand that.
But
she knew it wasn’t just a business dinner. She knew it was more. And she knew she wanted to do it again. She wanted to sit with Rafael. And talk with him. Lean her head against his shoulder. Touch her skin to his. The way she felt when she was with Rafael was so different from how she felt with Tim. The spark, the zing. The freedom.
Nina pulled up the web browser on her phone and Googled her name and Rafael’s together. The first thing that popped up was a photograph of the two of them, holding hands and running toward the kitchen at the Dublin Pub. She was looking at him, and he was glancing at her over his shoulder. There were grins on both of their faces.
She clicked on the photograph, and a headline came up: The Princess and the Politician: How Long Have They Been Together? Then underneath that photo was a smaller one of the hug that Samira had tweeted the night of the primary. Rafael’s eyes were closed, his cheek against Nina’s hair. And her arms were so tight around Rafael’s back that her fingers made dimples in his suit jacket. God, was that what they’d looked like? No wonder Tim was so upset. But honestly, why couldn’t the media have just left them alone? Why did anyone care?
Nina went back to the Google search list and clicked on another news outlet. The same original photo was there, the one of them racing into the kitchen, but then next to it was a picture from that ages-ago spread of Nina’s parents in People. This headline said: Rafael O’Connor-Ruiz Looks at Nina Just Like Joseph Gregory Looked at Phoebe. Nina inspected the photo, the expression on Rafael’s face, on her dad’s. And it was true. The awed, amused, adoring look was there for the world to see. Jesus.
Nina’s phone chimed. It was Rafael.
Jane just sent me the links, he wrote. It’s more than Twitter. We’re all over the Internet. I’m really sorry.
Nina stared at her phone. She didn’t know how to respond. This was why her father had created the headline game. This was the worst-case scenario. She opened up the last conversation she had with him. I could use some help here, Dad, she thought. You, too, Mom.
She scrolled through their last weeks of texts, looking for inspiration. How would he have fixed this? What would he have said to create the least amount of damage? She wished she could ask him what to do. And at the same time, she was almost glad he wasn’t here to see his daughter disappoint him so publicly.
More Than Words Page 17
