More Than Words

by Jill Santopolo

  They hugged stiffly, Nina afraid to let herself hold him the way she wanted to, realizing she no longer had the right to. Now he was just supposed to be someone she used to know.

  Nina couldn’t watch as he walked out her front door.

  62

  A little while later, Nina left her apartment in her running clothes feeling stunned. There was a pit of guilt in her stomach that made her stop and lean against a street post, sure she would throw up. She didn’t; the guilt just ate at her. And the uncertainty. She’d made a decision her father would never have agreed with. She’d given up the man he’d imagined her marrying for more than thirty years. She’d lost her best friend.

  A truck was parked in front of her with a mirror at eye level. Nina peered at herself. She hadn’t gotten all of her eye makeup off from the night before. Her eyes were swollen from crying. And her hair was stringy now, ratty in its ponytail. Nina fumbled in her runner’s backpack for a tissue and another hair tie. Even if she felt like shit, she didn’t need to look like shit. A braid might fix things a little.

  She couldn’t find an elastic. But she did find her tiny Swiss Army knife, a gift from Caro for her twenty-first birthday. “Just in case you ever feel threatened,” Caro had said. Nina had never used it, but now she took out the scissor tool. Right there on the street, Nina decided it was time to cut her hair. She didn’t want to see her old self in the mirror anymore.

  Chin length, she decided as she let her hair out of its ponytail. She’d made it through just a couple locks when she realized this was insane. Down the street was a hair salon.

  “Can I help you?” the woman behind the front counter asked, taking in Nina’s day-old makeup and puffy eyes. “I was just opening up the shop,” she said. “We don’t take customers for another half hour.”

  “I . . . I was hoping for a haircut,” Nina said.

  The woman eyed her partially cut hair.

  “Sometimes when something terrible happens, a new haircut is a good first step,” the woman said. “I think I can squeeze you in before my first appointment.”

  She led Nina to a chair and threw a cape around her shoulders. “I’m Hannah, by the way. Hannah Lee.”

  “I’m Nina,” Nina answered, leaving off her last name.

  Hannah cut quickly and efficiently. As they finished up, she shook out Nina’s hair with her fingers, letting it fall back into place.

  “It’s a great length on you,” she said. “Really brings out your cheekbones.”

  Nina looked at herself in the mirror. She was someone else now. Her transformation was complete. Short hair, pierced ear, no Tim.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Hey,” Hannah answered. “Women have to stick together, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Nina agreed. “We do.” She thought about Leslie and Priscilla, about Caro. And she thought about her aunt. Why hadn’t she stuck around? Why hadn’t she been there for Nina after her mother died? Nina was going to find her. Talk to her and figure out why she’d disappeared. “How much do I owe you?” she asked Hannah.

  “That’d usually be about sixty-five, but I’ll give it to you for fifty,” she said.

  Nina nodded and handed over her credit card. “Thank you,” she said, as she took the credit card receipt and left Hannah a $200 tip, equaling out what it usually cost to get her hair done. “I really needed this.”

  When Hannah took the receipt back her eyes opened wider. She looked at the name on Nina’s credit card and Nina saw her make the connection. But Hannah didn’t say anything. All she did was hand Nina back her card and a small square wrapped in foil. “This is my favorite eye makeup remover, if you want to give it a try,” she said.

  Nina thanked her again and, while Hannah went to the back of the shop, Nina walked over to the mirror by the door and wiped off her eye makeup. War paint, Caro had always called makeup. “Give me a minute,” she’d say on family vacations, “I need to put on my war paint.”

  Nina winced. Would she really lose Caro now? Forever? She looked in the mirror again and wished she had mascara with her. Eyeliner. Lipstick. She needed war paint. Especially if she was heading into battle on her own.

  63

  As Nina started walking home, her phone pinged. She wondered if it was Tim, saying maybe they could be friends after all. It was Jane.

  We need to talk about last night. Can you come to HQ ASAP? Take the service elevator just in case photogs are out front.

  Nina looked at the time. Eight forty-five. She wasn’t looking forward to a conversation about last night with Jane. But it had to happen.

  I’ll be there in an hour, she wrote. She’d go home and get ready first. Put on her war paint.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Nina got to campaign headquarters, she went around the back, like Jane had suggested, and texted so someone could come down and unlock the door.

  While she was waiting, she started a text to Leslie and another to Pris, explaining what had happened with Tim, but before she’d gotten the words right, the door opened in front of her, and Rafael was standing just inside the entrance.

  “I wasn’t expecting you,” Nina said. She ducked inside, and Rafael studied her for a moment before they started walking. “New hair?” he asked, as they moved through the loading dock, toward the freight elevator.

  “Mm-hm,” she said.

  Rafael paused. “It looks great.”

  His responses were so different from Tim’s.

  “I’m sorry if I provoked your boyfriend last night,” he said. “I really didn’t mean to.”

  “My ex-boyfriend,” Nina answered quietly.

  Rafael looked at her as he pushed the elevator button, sympathy on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked.

  Rafael laughed as the elevator dinged. “Well, no,” he said. “But that’s what you’re supposed to say when someone tells you they’ve broken up with their boyfriend. And I know it’s a hard thing to go through, no matter what caused it.” His face turned serious again. “Was it because of me?”

  Nina shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “That was maybe part of it, but there was a lot more.”

  “There always is,” Rafael said.

  The freight elevator opened, and the inside was covered in padding. It went all the way around, obscuring the buttons and covering the camera in the corner.

  “I felt like I was in a gift box on the way down,” Rafael said, holding the side of the elevator door with one hand, letting Nina go in before him. “One marked Fragile.”

  Nina walked in and leaned against the padding. It was nice to relax for a moment.

  “I feel like a china figurine,” she said, closing her eyes.

  “You look like you could be one, in that dress,” Rafael said. His voice was right next to Nina, and she felt his weight pressing down on the padding to her left.

  She opened her eyes and turned her head.

  When she did, she found that her face was so close to Rafael’s she could feel his breath on her lips. It seemed like there was a magnetic force between his mouth and hers. And just like magnets, without even realizing it was happening, Rafael’s head tilted forward and hers did, too, and then they were kissing. He tasted like cinnamon gum—spicy and sweet at the same time. Rafael ran his top teeth along her bottom lip, and she shivered. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they broke apart and looked at one another.

  “I didn’t mean . . .” Rafael said, grabbing her hand. “It’s not why I came down. I didn’t know you’d broken up with Tim. I just . . .”

  “I know,” Nina said, her heart beating faster, her body awash in him.

  The elevator opened on the twelfth floor, and Jane was standing in front of them. Her smile fled quickly when she saw their hands intertwined. “Stop that right now and follow me,” she hissed, sta
ring pointedly at their fingers.

  Rafael and Nina separated and then followed Jane into the conference room off the elevator lobby. Nina felt chastened. She heard her father’s voice in her mind: You’re smarter than that. And she was. But sometimes it wasn’t about intelligence. Not when the heart got involved. Her father never seemed to understand that. Or maybe he did. All too well.

  “Not a word,” Jane said when she shut the door behind them. Then she grabbed a napkin from the stack that sat on a table pushed up against the wall. “You,” she said to Rafael, “have her lipstick on your lips. Wipe. Now.”

  “And you.” She turned to Nina. “What in the hell happened to your brain? First you tell Rafael that you think he should change campaign strategies without talking about it with me or Mac, and now you cheat on your boyfriend and lie to me—you both lie to me—about what’s going on here. No wonder there was a fiasco last night. I know you lost your dad and that’s not easy, but what the hell, Nina?”

  The old Nina would have apologized. Would have retreated. But the new Nina did not. “First of all,” Nina said. “Tim and I aren’t dating anymore. So I didn’t cheat on anyone. And second of all, what Rafael and I told you was true at the time we told it to you. We were just friends. The fiasco last night, as you call it, was Tim getting too drunk and too jealous for anyone’s good. And as far as the campaign strategy, I don’t work here anymore. I can talk to Rafael about whatever ideas I want.”

  Jane looked at Nina openmouthed. Rafael had an amused smile on his face. “Watch out, Jane,” he said. “Nina’s on fire.”

  Nina felt a rush of adrenaline after speaking up that way. She smiled back at Rafael.

  “You both are killing me,” Jane said. “I was going to talk to you about how we should handle the photographs that are being leaked from last night, but it seems to me like we might need some other kind of strategy now. There’s still goddamn lipstick on your face, Rafael.”

  “Sorry,” Nina said. “Chanel stays on pretty well.”

  “Chanel!” Jane threw her hands up in the air. “Jesus Christ. Both of you stay here while I get soap and Mac. We need to figure this out.”

  She left the room and Rafael started laughing. “Am I really wearing Chanel lipstick?”

  Nina looked at him carefully. “Barely,” she said.

  He slid his arm around Nina’s shoulders and she leaned into him. “You know Jane’s right,” she said. “We shouldn’t start anything now. What we talked about last week is still true. We should wait until the election is over before we pull any attention from your policies, before we mess around with your voter margins.”

  “I know,” Rafael said. “But we hadn’t kissed then. I don’t know if I’ll be able to think about anything else now.”

  Nina looked up at him, feeling that magnetic pull not only in her lips but in her heart. “Of course you will,” she said.

  “Don’t think so,” Rafael answered, and then she was in Rafael’s arms and he was kissing her, his lips warm and soft. He slid his hands down the back of her dress and ran them over her hips. She laced her fingers together across his shoulders and pulled him closer.

  They broke apart for a moment. “Rafael—” Nina started. But then his mouth was on her neck, kissing the hollow of her collarbone.

  Nina leaned her head back, exposing more of her neck for him to kiss. “We have to stop,” she murmured, not wanting to. “Jane’s going to be back.”

  “Mmm,” was Rafael’s response.

  “I’m serious,” Nina said, even as she slipped her hands in the back pockets of Rafael’s pants, so she could pull him toward her.

  “Me too,” Rafael said again. And then his lips were on hers and their bodies were pressed together so tightly that she could feel the buttons on his shirt pushing into her skin.

  Nina took a deep breath and stepped back. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, deliberately, trying to tamp down the desire she felt, the need to be close to Rafael. French fries. Milkshakes. Interoffice envelopes. Her old tricks still worked, but barely.

  “This is torture,” Rafael said.

  “There’s more lipstick on your mouth now,” she said, grabbing another napkin to wipe it off.

  And that was how Mac and Jane found them when they walked into the room. Nina wiping Rafael’s lips with a napkin.

  They were not happy.

  64

  After a dressing-down from Mac, after promising she wouldn’t give any more speech input, and after swearing that whatever was going on between them would be private, out of the spotlight so that they wouldn’t make headlines so help them God, Nina and Rafael were alone again in the conference room.

  “So what do we do now?” Nina asked, wanting to touch his hand, to move closer, to press herself against him.

  “Well,” Rafael said, looking at Nina so intently it felt like he was trying to memorize every square inch of her face. “I have a few interviews to do today. I’d love to see you after that, but I’m afraid dinner at a local restaurant is out. I’d suggest cooking at my place—or at yours—but Mac would kill us both if someone snapped a picture of us walking into either one of our apartments alone together at night.”

  Nina thought of her mother’s house. Her house. Hardly anyone knew it existed. “What are your thoughts on the Hudson Valley?” she asked.

  “Nice apple picking this time of year?” Rafael answered.

  “I’ve got a house there,” Nina said. “That’s basically a secret. If we make our way there separately, no one will know. It’s only about an hour and a half from here.”

  Rafael handed her his cell phone. “Key in the address,” he said. “My last interview should be done by eight tonight. Then there’s a drink with a donor . . . and final prep for tomorrow’s meeting with the union reps . . . so how about . . . I’ll meet you up there around eleven thirty?”

  “I’ll book a driver now,” Nina said.

  Rafael gave her one last kiss as he took his phone back. “Until soon,” he said, heading for the door.

  Nina tossed him a napkin. “Wipe your mouth!” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  As she waited in the conference room alone, Nina realized she felt truly alive for the first time since her father had died.

  65

  Being with Rafael made Nina feel stronger. Smarter. Like she could tackle whatever needed tackling. So she headed over to the Gregory Corporation headquarters. They were on the twenty-ninth floor of a glass high-rise building in Midtown.

  After taking the elevator upstairs and telling the receptionist she wanted to see TJ, who, as far as Nina knew, still thought she was dating his son, Nina sat down on an overstuffed taupe couch. She picked up a Gregory Hotels pamphlet and flipped through it, surprised to find a photograph of herself at ten years old standing next to the sign for Nina’s Nest, her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. She remembered when that was taken. She was wearing red sparkly shoes like Dorothy’s from The Wizard of Oz. She’d loved those shoes so much that her father had bought her a second pair when they got too small. The caption said: Even Nina Gregory knows how great birthdays can be at our hotel restaurants.

  Her dad used to bring her to Nina’s Nest all the time, making sure to take her picture next to the sign, watching as Nina grew taller than the letters that spelled her name. He used one for a publicity campaign when the hotel had been open for sixteen years. The tagline said: Sixteen Never Looked So Sweet!

  “But I’m eighteen in that picture,” Nina had said, on a phone call home from college, after people had started sending her shots they’d taken of the billboards with Nina’s photograph on them. “It’s the hotel that turned sixteen. Why did I need to be in it?”

  “Because you’re prettier than I am,” her father had joked, not picking up on her annoyance.

  She wondered if he was the one who had
chosen to include the picture of her ten-year-old self in the pamphlet. And if that was before or after the billboard incident. The surprises seemed endless.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Nina,” TJ said as he walked across the lobby. “So glad to see you. I hadn’t realized you were coming by today.”

  “Sorry I didn’t give you any warning,” she said, getting up and following him through the glass doors that he unlocked with a wave of his key card. “I’d said I’d start at the company after the fund-raiser had ended, and this afternoon seemed like a good time to start sorting things out.”

  They’d reached the executive hallway. Nina looked to her left and saw the door to Caro’s office, but she wasn’t inside. They kept walking to the corner of the building, where TJ’s executive suite was, next to Nina’s father’s old office.

  “You can head in there, if you’d like.” He nodded down the hallway toward her father’s door. “We haven’t touched it. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Nina walked the twenty feet alone. She had a distinct impression that everyone was staring at her—the people in the offices on the other side of the hallway and the people in the cubicles out front. She nodded at Melissa, her father’s former administrative assistant, and then walked into his office and closed the door.

  She looked around. There was a picture of her and Tim on her father’s desk from the day Nina was born. Tim’s red hair was in corkscrew curls and he had a bundled Nina in his lap. The look of awe on his face was unmistakable. Nina’s heart clenched. She could make out Caro’s hand in the photo, reaching in to avert any potential disaster. No matter how hard Caro tried this time, disaster struck. Even with evening plans to see Rafael on her mind, Nina still felt the hole that Tim left behind.

  She kept looking at the shelves. There was a picture from her business school graduation. The mosaic picture frame she’d made for her father the Christmas her mom died was there, too. The picture inside showed Nina and her dad sitting next to each other on the couch, their heads bent over a book of children’s crossword puzzles. Her mom had taken it one Sunday—up in the country, Nina now realized, recognizing the print of the couch. Not in 21-B.