“You’d better be telling me the truth,” Jane said.
“I am,” Nina said. “I am.”
Jane hung up, and then a text came through from Rafael.
Sorry about that, it said. If it makes you feel any better, she said worse to me.
Nina didn’t usually use emojis with anyone other than Tim, but she sent back the one with very big eyes and pink cheeks.
You said it, he replied.
Nina paced around her apartment. Jane wasn’t right. She hadn’t screwed up Rafael’s campaign. Or had she? She’d already screwed up her relationship with Tim. And she was afraid she was going to screw up the Gregory Corporation—if her father hadn’t done that already. Why not screw up a campaign, too?
Her loft felt tiny. There wasn’t enough air, enough space to breathe.
She picked up the phone and called Priscilla.
“Lunch at Ippudo?” she asked when Pris picked up the phone. “In, like, two hours?”
“Would love to,” Priscilla answered, “especially because I want to know the story behind that photograph of you and Rafael, but I’ve got a spin class in an hour and a half and I scored the best bike. Want to come?”
Nina was not a fan of spin class. All the effort and you stayed in the same spot the whole time. But she needed to get out of the apartment. “Sure,” she said. “The cycle studio near your place?”
“Always,” Pris said. “I’ll sign you up.”
“Thanks,” Nina replied, hanging up the phone.
She put on some running gear that seemed spin class appropriate, and then dialed Leah, who was in charge of the Gregory restaurants, saying she was trying to get to know the company a little better and would love to ask some questions. Leah’s voice seemed to take on an extra-professional tone when Nina asked her first question.
“We fill the Dumpster about twice a week, and most of that is food waste,” she said.
“And the Dumpster is how big?” Nina asked.
“I think it’s four cubic yards,” Leah answered. “It’s mostly food people leave on their plates. And rolls. We throw away so many rolls. Once we put the basket on the table, they’re done.”
Smaller portions, Nina thought, personal rolls instead of a basket, so the customer could say no. But someone must’ve thought of this before and rejected it.
“What about the food that goes bad before it’s eaten? How much of that is there?” Nina asked.
“Not a ton, but some. We’re pretty good at predicting how much we’ll need, but it’s not a hard science.”
Donations, Nina thought. Tax write-offs maybe.
“Thanks,” she said. “I might call back later.”
Nina flipped again to the pages with the Manxome Consulting line items. She couldn’t find a listing for them anywhere on the Internet. Maybe she’d ask her father’s lawyer to look the company up in the Corporation and Business Entity Database. Or maybe she’d ask Rafael. He should have access, too. She really wanted to see what they had to say. Not reinvent the wheel if she didn’t have to.
Nina jumped in a cab to head across town.
56
After the spin class, Nina and Pris sat down in the cycle studio’s juice bar, Pris with carrot juice and Nina with a mango smoothie.
“I didn’t realize how close you and Rafael were when you asked me to throw that fund-raiser for his campaign,” Pris said, as she tightened her ponytail.
“We weren’t,” Nina said. “And we’re not all that close now, really. The photo made us look closer than we are.” She was lying to Pris, but she’d learned years ago from her father that if you were selling one story to the press, you didn’t tell the real story to anyone who didn’t need to know it. Pris didn’t need to know. Leslie had always been an exception, since she was so far removed from New York society. Pris, though, was at the center of it.
“But Tuesday’s fund-raiser in your dad’s—I mean, your—hotel? Brent and I can come, by the way.”
“Oh good! I’m so glad,” Nina said. There had been lots of RSVPs already. About seventy-five couples had said yes so far. Nina wondered how much of it was a morbid curiosity to see how Joseph Gregory’s daughter handled the company’s first corporate event without him. “And I’m doing that because Christian asked—and because my dad probably would have.” She shrugged.
“Yeah.” Pris took another sip of her juice and winced slightly. “I always feel so good ordering carrot juice, but then when I go to drink it, I remember that it doesn’t really taste that good at all.”
For the first time that day, Nina laughed. That sentence right there illustrated why she’d stayed friends with Pris for so many years. Pris wasn’t the kind of person who would pretend to like carrot juice if she didn’t, and there are so many people in the world who would.
“Want to split this smoothie?” Nina asked.
Priscilla looked around. “If you don’t tell my trainer,” she whispered with a wink.
Nina laughed again and slid her smoothie over so it was halfway between her and Pris. “Secret’s safe with me,” she said.
Pris dipped her straw into the smoothie and took a sip. “Oh God, that’s so much better,” she said after she swallowed. “Did you pierce your ear?”
Nina lifted her hand to touch her piercing. “I did,” she said. “Tim hates it.”
Pris inspected Nina from a few different angles. “I don’t,” she said. “I like it. It makes you seem multilayered. More than you appear at first glance.”
Nina found herself laughing once more. Pris always had that effect on her. “Are you saying that I’m boring?”
“No,” Priscilla said. “Not that you are boring, just that sometimes you might appear boring.”
Nina stopped laughing. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“To be honest, your clothes are always nice but kind of bland.”
“My clothes?” Nina looked down. She was wearing black capri leggings and a gray tank top. Pris’s top was turquoise.
“You just . . . you seem to dress to blend in instead of to stand out. You always have,” Pris said, taking another sip of the smoothie.
Did she? Nina thought about it. Most of her clothing was black, gray, navy, brown, cream. Elegant but sensible. Respectable. Why did she dress that way?
“Maybe I should change that, then,” Nina said. “You have time to go shopping?”
57
They went back to Pris and Brent’s new apartment to shower.
“Brent wants to start trying,” Pris said as they walked by the door leading to the wing waiting for the children the two of them planned to have one day.
Nina smiled at her friend. “That’s exciting,” she said. “You two are going to have the cutest, blondest baby on the Upper East Side.”
Pris laughed. “I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet. Not even Hayley.”
Nina reached out and squeezed Pris’s hand. “I won’t say a word. I’m glad you told me—it’s nice to have something happy to think about.”
Pris squeezed Nina’s hand back, then led her to the guest bedroom, which had an en suite bathroom. “I’ll grab you some clothes,” she said.
While Nina showered, she thought about the babies she’d been imagining she’d have with Tim. The ones she’d expected would be friends with Pris and Brent’s kids. She’d assumed they’d spend time together out in East Hampton, maybe ski together on family vacations. If they had girls, they’d send them to Brearley, and the boys would go to Collegiate. As much as Nina thought she was different from her father and her friends, she was the same, too. If she and Tim broke up, she’d lose that whole life. She’d lose those kids. And TJ and Caro as second parents. And all of the traditions they’d built up over the years. The intimacy, too, of knowing someone as well as she and Tim knew each other.
“Clothes are on the bed!” Prisc
illa called from the guest room. “And since we’re getting you a new, more exciting wardrobe, I left you a fun outfit. Just giving you fair warning.”
Nina got out of the shower and found a comb and an assortment of hair products in the vanity. She chose a volumizer and then blew her hair dry upside down. She looked different already.
As she was putting on a pair of artfully ripped gray jeans, a white tank top, and an off-the-shoulder yellow sweater, Pris came into the room. “Here,” she said, “try some navy mascara.”
Nina wanded her eyelashes and then blinked into the mirror. “I like this,” she said.
“Keep it,” Pris told her. “It looks better on you.”
* * *
• • •
The two women headed down Madison Avenue and then stopped in front of Reiss.
“First stop?” Priscilla asked.
“First stop,” Nina answered. Then she walked inside and pulled out a simple gray dress.
“Not that!” Pris said. “Okay, you go to the dressing room. I’m picking. And you have to try it all on!”
Nina found herself wearing intricate patterns and bold color blocks. The minute the clothes were on her body, Pris rendered a verdict: definitely yes, definitely no, or needs further consideration. Looking at the woman in the mirror, with her wild hair and ear piercing and blue eyelashes, Nina felt like she did when she was out with Rafael: free.
They went from store to store, and except for a red slim-fitting pantsuit that Nina refused to try—and Priscilla knew better than to push—the afternoon was what Pris declared “a smashing success.”
Nina had bought so much that she’d called a car to bring it all home. Patterned wrap dresses and form-fitting cigarette pants. Flouncy skirts and tiny belts. She loved all of them.
Pris had even insisted that she buy a royal blue purse that Nina switched her wallet and phone into immediately and carried for the rest of the day, jamming her old black Birkin in a shopping bag. Her father had gotten it for her, and she’d never felt completely comfortable carrying it anyway. She had no problem spending money when she loved something, but that bag seemed like the sort of thing her father bought so that when his daughter walked around with it, it would telegraph his success to the world.
“This is the new me,” Nina had said, when she slung the blue bag over her shoulder, tossing a fringed scarf she’d also just bought around her neck.
“Love the new you,” Priscilla said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
Nina loved the new her, too. In these clothes, she felt confident and powerful. Like someone worth noticing. Like someone who would make bold choices, whatever they were.
She knew, though, from the moment she saw herself in the mirror, that Tim wouldn’t agree. And then she felt bad for thinking that. Maybe she wasn’t being fair. They needed to talk. She needed to tell him how she’d been feeling, what she wanted, give him the chance to know her in the way she hadn’t been, tell him how important it was to her that things change. If she could surprise Tim, maybe he could surprise her, too. Maybe he’d understand.
58
That night, she met Tim for a drink in one of her new dresses. Magenta satin, cinched at the waist, 1950s style. It made her look like she had more of a shape than she actually did, giving her curves where her body dealt in straight lines.
Her hair was still wild, and she’d reapplied the blue mascara. It was going to be fun. A date. Just the two of them, outside either of their apartments, getting a drink and spending time together. Tim said he was okay with Nina going back to campaign headquarters that night at eight, as long as other people were going to be there, too. She understood, and appreciated that he was comfortable with her going at all.
Before then, she wanted to focus completely on her time with Tim. Do her best to remember all of the reasons she’d liked dating him, why she’d agreed to marry him. To make sure that it was Tim she wanted, not just the life she’d lead with Tim. And most important, give him a chance to understand her. No matter how Rafael made her feel, Tim had been Nina’s forever. Her past, her present, her future—and she couldn’t throw that away. Help me figure this out, Mom, she thought. She’d been wondering all day what her mother would do in her situation. Or, even more to the point, what her mother would want her to do.
Nina was sitting at the bar when Tim walked in.
“Well, that’s bright,” he said, before kissing her hello.
She slid off the bar stool. “It’s new,” she said, doing a little twirl. She wasn’t usually a twirling sort of person, but this dress begged for it. And she was determined not to let his criticism deflate her mood.
“There’s a lot that’s new these days, isn’t there,” Tim said. He wasn’t being snide or critical, just observing. And it gave Nina the kind of opening she’d hoped for.
“Listen,” Nina said, getting back on the stool, “I know you like it when things are the same—it’s actually something I love about you, how stable you are, how dependable—but now, for me . . . it’s . . . Just because I did something one way once doesn’t mean I want to do it that way forever. There are things that I’m just discovering and . . . I’m not feeling very predictable right now. I need you to be okay with that.”
She’d been trying to figure out the right words to say, and those were definitely not them. But maybe he’d get her meaning anyway. She hoped he would.
Tim cleared his throat and ordered a vodka tonic before he responded. “I can try to be more open,” he said. “If you need me to be.”
Nina let out a breath. “Thank you,” she said.
She wasn’t sure where to go after that. Neither, it seemed, was Tim.
“So, how was your day?” he asked.
“I went shopping with Pris,” she said. “And found out that the Gregory Corporation is wasting a ton of bread.”
“All restaurants waste bread,” he answered. “I’m sure our dads have looked into that and minimized it as much as they could.”
Nina shrugged. “I’m not really sure if they did,” she said.
“Of course they did,” he said, dismissing her words with the wave of a hand. “If there’s one thing our fathers did well, it was run that business. They made it so much more profitable than it had been when your grandfather died.”
Nina looked at Tim as he took a big swallow of his vodka tonic. She knew what their fathers had done. She’d grown up hearing about it, too. The second hotel. The restaurants, the bars, the clubs on the roof, the redesigned event spaces that brought in millions each year alone. But that didn’t mean it was perfect, that there wasn’t an even better way to do things, or a different direction to go in.
She thought about what he’d said the night before, how he wanted to be the CEO after his father retired. If this was how he was going to respond to her, how he was going to think about her ideas, that couldn’t happen.
“I’ve been thinking,” Nina said. “About what you said last night.”
“Which part?” Tim asked, taking another gulp of his drink. She could tell how hard this conversation was for him. How much he wanted things to work but didn’t know how to make that happen. He wasn’t happy. She wasn’t happy. And she knew that what she was about to say wasn’t going to help the situation. But it had to be said.
Nina swirled the wine in her glass, watching the light reflect off the deep burgundy, turning it gold and navy and amber. “When your dad retires, I really think it would be better to hire someone outside the family.” She wasn’t looking at him. “Things are less complicated that way.”
He didn’t say anything. Nina shifted her eyes up.
There was a look on Tim’s face like she’d just punched him in the stomach. “What’s going on?” he said. “Is this your way of telling me you think I’m not up for the job? I could do it, Nina. I could do it well. I can’t believe I have to even say this. I thought you bel
ieved in me.”
Nina felt tears rushing to her eyes. She’d always hated when Tim looked that way, and hated it even more that she was the one who brought that expression to his face. “It’s not that,” she said. “I do believe in you. I think you’d do a great job. I just don’t think it’s a good idea, us working together. Me being your boss.”
“But our fathers—”
“Aren’t us,” Nina said. “They were friends.”
“Best friends,” Tim said.
“Best friends,” Nina amended.
“But aren’t we?” Tim asked.
Nina drained the glass of wine in front of her and placed it carefully on the bar. “I don’t think we are anymore,” she said, biting her lip. “I think we changed that, when we kissed each other, when we slept together. When you date your best friend, he’s not your best friend anymore. He’s your boyfriend. It’s different.”
“Your fiancé,” Tim said, mumbling the words. Then: “I’m your fiancé,” he said, loudly.
Nina pulled the ring out from where it had been hanging on its chain under her new magenta dress. She rolled it around in her fingers. The word fiancé made her uncomfortable. In all honesty, from the day after she’d told Tim she’d marry him, things hadn’t felt right. And they’d felt more and more wrong as time went on.
The old Nina wouldn’t have done anything about it. But she was her new self now. Or at least on the way to becoming her new self.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be,” she said, quietly.
She hadn’t gone into the night with this plan. It hadn’t been what she thought would happen at all, but it felt like the right thing to say. It felt true.
“Tim, I love you. I will always love you, but I don’t think I should marry you. At least not now. I don’t know who I am anymore. You keep talking about the old Nina, but I’m turning into a new one. You want me to stay the same, and I don’t want to do that. As much as I love you, I can’t compromise myself for you.”
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