More Than Words

by Jill Santopolo

  Neither she nor Caro touched their food. But they made it through.

  As they left the hotel, Caro gave Nina an uncharacteristically tight hug. “You need me, you call,” she said. “Do you hear me, darling?”

  Nina nodded. “I do. And if you need me, you call. Okay?”

  Caro pressed her lips together and nodded. Nina could tell that behind her sunglasses, she was trying hard not to cry.

  73

  A few nights later, Nina was on the phone with Rafael, walking through her apartment, wandering from room to room. He’d just gotten home from yet another fund-raiser.

  “This sneaking around is killing me,” he said.

  Nina circled through her living room.

  “Me too,” she said. She imagined what it would be like to walk hand in hand with him in Central Park. To sit next to him at a bar, enjoying a glass of wine. To have burgers and concretes at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

  “Where would you want to go?” Rafael asked. The sound of his voice made Nina crave his presence; talking on the phone was an exquisite kind of torture. “If we could go out right now. This minute.”

  Nina thought about it.

  “Maybe a museum,” she said. “We could look at paintings together, and then sneak off into a dead-end hallway and make out like teenagers.”

  Rafael laughed. “I didn’t know many teenagers who made out at art museums.”

  “I did,” Nina said, thinking about how she and her high school boyfriend had kissed at the MoMA just outside the room that held the Jackson Pollocks.

  “Of course you did,” Rafael said.

  Now Nina laughed, stopping in her dining room. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “Just that you’re a classy broad, Miss Gregory. Totally out of my league.”

  “Not true!” she said.

  She heard Rafael sigh on the other end of the line. “Palabrecita, I’d so love to look at art and then make out with you right about now.”

  Nina paused at the de Kooning hanging on her wall, the one she’d bought as a thirtieth birthday present to herself. It gave her an idea.

  “Actually,” she said. “I know somewhere we could do that and no one would see, if you’re willing to take another long car ride.” She thought about what Tim had said right after her dad died about using power, using money to make someone you loved smile. Maybe he was right about that.

  “What are you talking about, Palabrecita?” Rafael asked.

  “The house upstate isn’t the only house I inherited,” she said, cringing at how that sounded. “My grandmother collected art, and a lot of it is out in the house in East Hampton. We can go. I’ll book us a car if you want. Or we could meet out there, if you’d rather drive yourself. Or I can drive, actually. My dad’s car is in a garage not far from you.”

  Rafael was quiet for a moment. Nina wondered which part was taking him so long to process. The prospect of a long car ride? The second house? The fact that it was already ten P.M.? “What the hell,” he finally said. “Let’s do it. How about you grab your father’s car and we meet near the FDR? If it looks like some photographer is following me, I’ll let you know and we can come up with a backup plan.”

  “Has it been worse?” she asked. “The photographers?”

  “Not great,” Rafael said. “But this late, they usually leave me alone. We can talk about that on the ride out. Or at the Gregory Museum.”

  Nina laughed. “It’s not a museum,” she said. “Maybe I oversold it. It’s just a house.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rafael responded. He was laughing, too.

  Nina loved making him laugh. She felt his laughter in the very core of her.

  “Okay, see you soon,” she said.

  “Until soon,” he answered.

  74

  When they got out of the car at the Gregory estate, Nina grabbed Rafael’s hand and started walking toward the house. And then realized he wasn’t moving at all. His head was tilted up. “This place is incredible,” he said.

  Nina tried to see the house through his eyes. It wasn’t anything like the one upstate. This was a real Georgica Pond mansion. Seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a pool, a tennis court, beach access, a boat slip. It had always just been her summer house; Nina was used to it. But when she put herself in Rafael’s place, maybe it was kind of incredible.

  “Come on,” she said, tugging his hand. “It’s even better inside.”

  She hadn’t given Richard a heads-up that they were coming, so the house wasn’t set up the way it usually was when Nina arrived, with flowers on the tables, music on the sound system, and the refrigerator filled with food.

  Nina flipped the lights on. “It’s nicer during the day,” she told Rafael, “when the sun comes through the skylights.”

  Rafael looked around, taking it all in. The art on the walls, the statue in the corner, the grand staircase that led to the second floor. “It’s plenty nice now,” he said. “The whole apartment I grew up in would fit in this foyer.”

  Nina could tell Rafael hadn’t really thought about it before—how much money she actually had. “I hope this house doesn’t change the way you look at me,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. “I’m still me.”

  Rafael turned, looked her up and down, and smiled. “Yup,” he said. “You look exactly the same to me.” And then he leaned over and kissed her. “Is it time for the making-out-like-teenagers part of the night?” he asked.

  Nina pulled away. “I promised you art,” she said. “A proper date.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Art. A date.” He slid his hand into the waistband of her jeans, into her lace underwear. “Is there more than just in this foyer?”

  “The art’s all over the house,” she said, her lips against his neck.

  “Bedrooms too?” he asked, sliding his finger inside her.

  “Bedrooms too,” she confirmed with a gasp.

  They left a trail of clothing as they went, jackets in the foyer, sweaters on the stairs, shoes in the hallway, until they stumbled into the bedroom closest to the staircase.

  “Whose room is this?” Rafael asked, looking around at the whitewashed wood, the painting of Venice hanging across from the bed.

  “Guest room,” Nina said. “We call it the Grubacs room. That’s who the artist is.” She waved her hand toward the painting. “See, we are getting to look at art together.”

  Rafael looked at the painting, then back at Nina. “I’d rather look at you,” he said, tugging her into bed.

  Nina ran her fingers up his chest and around his shoulders. “Me too,” Nina said. “I’d rather look at you.” She kissed her way down his stomach and then unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down along with his boxer briefs. Her mouth was on him, her legs up on the pillow next to his head.

  As she ran her tongue up and down, she felt him unbuttoning her jeans, pulling down her underwear, and then his mouth was on her. Her body was guided by instinct, awash in pleasure. Far too soon, she felt herself climaxing, her muscles constricting around Rafael’s tongue at the same time that the salty taste of him filled her mouth. She rolled away from him and swallowed, then propped herself up on her elbows. They were facing each other, and she was smiling. Rafael wasn’t, though. His face looked . . . she couldn’t tell how it looked.

  “What is it?” Nina asked. She was worried all of a sudden. It was the house. It was her. She’d done something wrong. Wanted too much.

  “Truth?” he asked.

  “Truth,” she answered, scared to hear it, but knowing she needed to. “Always truth.”

  He sat up, away from the pillows. “I’m . . . I’m afraid,” he said.

  Nina cocked her head sideways. She didn’t know what to make of that. “Of me?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Of losing you,” Rafael said. “Of you breaking m
y heart. Seeing you in this house . . . I don’t know how I’d ever be able to keep you.”

  “What do you mean?” Nina asked.

  Rafael sighed. “Do you know the story of my divorce?” he asked.

  Nina was trying to follow his train of logic. She was supposed to know how his brain worked—it had been her job. But now, she wasn’t sure where he was going. “Something about a helicopter?” she asked.

  Rafael smiled. “That’s the part everyone always remembers. I did take her on a helicopter ride around Manhattan for our third anniversary, but it was because I knew I was losing her. I knew she wasn’t happy. And when we talked the next morning, she told me there was someone else.”

  “Oh,” Nina said, moving so that her head was next to Rafael’s. So she was holding his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It nearly destroyed me,” Rafael said. “I took leave from work. I drank too much. I watched Law and Order marathons. I felt like an idiot. Like a failure. And I couldn’t figure it out. How could she do that to me?”

  Nina listened, her heart breaking for Rafael, angry at this woman who had hurt him so badly, but jealous, too, that he’d cared so much about her. And then wondering if in the future, Tim would be telling someone the story of their relationship, and she would be the villain, the woman who had hurt him like that.

  “I blamed the other guy. That asshole for taking her from me. But then I realized, her affair wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the disease, just the symptom. And then I was able to take a step back and see all the problems in our relationship. All the infections that were brewing deep in its vital organs. And I got past what she did. I got over it. But I don’t want to have to do it again. Now that I’ve seen the world you grew up in . . . how could I ever think I could make you happy?”

  “First of all,” Nina said, “the two of us being happy together has nothing to do with the way either of us grew up. And second of all, infections can be treated, can be healed. We’ll just have to be on the lookout. Make sure we catch them early before they have a chance to spread.”

  Rafael grabbed Nina’s other hand and faced her. “Can you promise me we’ll do that?” he said.

  Nina took her right hand out of Rafael’s and held it up, palm out. “I promise,” she said. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  “I don’t want to be either,” Rafael said.

  She kissed him. The top of his head first, then his nose, then his lips, so glad that he was still there. So glad that she hadn’t scared him away. He was the eye in the middle of the storm. He was her strength, her center, her fuertrado. “I was going to take you to my room,” she said. “But it’s down in the other wing of the house. How about if we sleep here tonight?”

  “Works for me,” Rafael said. “As long as I get to wake up next to you.”

  Nina climbed under the covers. “I promise,” she said again.

  Rafael fell asleep in her arms, and she watched him breathe. He had a glamour, she realized, just like her father. The confidence, the charm, the megawatt smile. Inside he was just as broken as everyone else. Maybe even more so.

  She thought about her dad. His affair wasn’t the problem, it was a symptom. There was something deeper there. Something that made him act that way. That was the case with Manxome Consulting, too. It was just a symptom of a different kind of disease. He felt the same pressure she did, Nina realized, inherited along with the family name: to appear to the outside world as if everything were perfect, even when it wasn’t. To swallow your own feelings. To be afraid of failure, not because you wouldn’t recover, but because of what everyone else would say. Pressure like that, it could break a person in so many ways. And it had broken her father. Nina knew it now.

  With that realization, the anger she had been feeling toward him dissipated. She couldn’t accept what he’d done, but she could at least try to understand his actions, put them in context. And make sure she didn’t end up the same way.

  Nina leaned back against the pillow and, with her arms still around Rafael, she fell asleep.

  75

  The next day, after an early-morning ride home from the Hamptons, dropping Rafael off first so he could make his breakfast meeting, Nina was back at her apartment, getting ready to head to the Gregory Corporation offices.

  She had to start preparing for the board meeting where TJ was going to announce his retirement and she was going to talk about some changes she wanted made at the hotel. Because she wasn’t going to sell. She realized on the ride back that morning that she’d never be able to sell her family’s company. After her night with Rafael, she’d come to terms with who her father was; she loved him in spite of his flaws. And that realization made it easier to make the decisions she wanted to make, to run the company the way she wanted to. She’d talked to Rafael that morning about her ideas: rooftop gardens to supply the restaurants, a partnership with local homeless shelters to donate the extra shampoo and soap and lotion, and a philanthropic foundation that she’d run personally that would funnel money to charities working to support young entrepreneurs as her own silent apology for what her father had done. Vorpal Sword, she’d call it. It didn’t have to be named after her. And it would remind her that she could slay the Manxome foes—and any other foes who came her way. That she was of her father, but she wasn’t her father. And she didn’t have to work in politics to help change the world. That was what Nina had decided in the car. And the decision had felt good.

  So she’d made another one, as Rafael drove along the Grand Central Parkway. She’d picked up her phone and Googled Daphne Lukas. Her aunt had passed away three years before from a heart attack.

  Instead of sorrow, Nina had felt anger.

  Life was so goddamned unfair sometimes. Someone else was gone from her world forever. But at the end of the obituary, Nina saw a line: Daphne Lukas Harrison is survived by her daughter, Clio Harrison of Denver, Colorado. It was her cousin. The one she’d never met.

  Nina Googled her and found an e-mail address at the Mountain School, a science magnet high school where her cousin taught biology.

  “Are you going to e-mail her?” Rafael had asked.

  “I need to think about it,” she’d answered, leaning into him.

  He kissed the top of her head, his eyes still on the road. “I know I don’t get a vote,” he said. “But I think you should. Not today, necessarily. But one day, when you feel ready.”

  Nina had kissed his cheek after that. Maybe she would. One day. When she felt ready.

  * * *

  • • •

  When Caro came by Nina’s office later in the day to say that she and TJ had decided they were going to live apart for a while and asked if she could stay in the apartment on Central Park West until she found one of her own, Nina made one more decision. She texted Tim, told him that if he wanted to talk about his parents, if he needed a friend, she was still there for him. He didn’t respond, but Nina didn’t blame him.

  76

  The Friday evening before the election, Nina was in Rafael’s apartment on Central Park North for the first time. They knew they shouldn’t, but there was too much to do this weekend to sneak upstate or out to the Hamptons, and Rafael said he couldn’t bear being away from her for another night. So she came in with folders filled with paper in her arms as a cover, and even then, went in through the building’s back entrance. Luckily, there’d been no photographers waiting there. They mostly camped out in the front, when they staked out his place.

  Rafael’s apartment was in a new building on 110th Street, and the wall facing the park was made completely of windows, tinted for privacy. It was amazing to Nina how many beautiful views there were in New York City.

  “Want a drink?” Rafael asked her as she walked into the living room. There was a bottle of red wine already in his hand. “I sure as hell could use one.”

  “How come?” she asked, dropping her bag and
the folders next to a guitar leaning against the wall and taking off her coat.

  He uncorked the bottle. “My poll numbers are down.”

  “What?” Nina turned to him after hanging up her coat. “Do you have the breakdowns?”

  He handed her the bottle of wine and then pulled a folder out of his briefcase. “Here,” he said. “I’m down in the older male demographic. Older white men, if you want to drill down. Mac says it’s the tax thing I talked about in the last debate. It’ll pay for universal pre-k, but you know—taxes are a touchy issue.”

  Nina looked at the numbers. “Older white men?” she repeated.

  Rafael nodded and poured two glasses of wine, handing Nina the first and taking a sip from the second.

  “Did you and Mac talk about using the Irish side of your identity to combat this?” She and Rafael had discussed it a bit since it had first come up, even though Jane and Mac were clearly against it. They decided it wasn’t worth messing with a good thing, since he’d been far enough ahead in the polls that a win was likely. But it wasn’t anymore.

  “We actually did,” Rafael said. “He’s worried I’ll lose other demographics if I incorporate that side of my identity.”

  “What do you think?” Nina asked, sipping her own wine.

  “Deep down? En mis tripas?” Rafael asked.

  “Yes, in your guts,” Nina said. “God, that sounds so much better in Spanish.”

  Rafael laughed. “In my guts, I think you’re right. I think I should win or lose as myself—all of myself. And if we do nothing, if we just cross our fingers and hope, the polls have me losing by two percentage points. So what’s the risk?”