More Than Words

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Later that night, Rafael lay in Nina’s arms. Even though he had a king-sized bed, they took up maybe three feet of it, the way they slept, twisted around each other, their legs scissoring, woven tightly together. Rafael said that when he was in bed with her, it was the only time he could sleep through the night.

77

The next morning, Nina used the service exit to leave Rafael’s building while he walked out the front door. They were lucky she had, because the same photographer who’d ambushed them at the Dublin Pub was there taking Rafael’s photo in his workout clothes. Nina got home and saw it on Twitter: Rafael O’Connor-Ruiz Calms His Pre-Election Jitters with a Run in Central Park. That, she realized, would be her life with him if he won. Pictures in the papers. Her clothing analyzed in the New York Post. She knew now wasn’t the right time to talk to Rafael about her worries, so she called Leslie.

Leslie had been as supportive as ever when Nina caught her up on everything that had happened. Breaking her engagement to Tim, sleeping with Rafael, Rafael’s willingness to be with her in spite of what her father had done. Nina had told Leslie about that, too. It felt wrong, keeping anything a secret from her best friend. And Leslie had been outraged at first, like Nina had. But now that Nina had made her peace with her father, Leslie had, too.

“Auntie Nina!” Cole’s voice came over the phone in an excited shout. “My mommy says we can come visit you soon! We’re going to see all the dinosaurs.”

“That’s awesome, sweetie,” Nina said. “I can’t wait. You know what else is in the dinosaur museum?”

“What?” Cole asked.

“The biggest whale you ever saw in your life!”

“I never even saw a small whale,” Cole told her.

“Well, then it’ll be your lucky day when you come. Your first whale will be enormous.”

“Can we go tomorrow?” Nina heard Cole asking Leslie, no longer paying attention to Nina on the phone. “Or maybe today?”

“Maybe in a few weeks,” Leslie said. “How about you go draw a whale for Auntie Nina and we can send it to her?”

Nina heard the phone clatter to the floor.

Then Leslie picking it up.

“Hey,” Leslie said. “I was thinking maybe we could come for Thanksgiving this year. Since it’ll be your first without your dad.”

Tears pricked her eyes at her friend’s words. “I love that idea,” Nina said, sitting down on the couch in her living room and wiping her eyes. “I’ve mostly been ignoring Thanksgiving, but I think it’s time to face it.”

“It’ll come anyway,” Leslie said.

“Like death and taxes,” Nina said.

Leslie laughed. “Just with more gravy.” Then she said, “So what’s up? How’s your secret hunk of a boyfriend doing?”

Nina sighed. “He got paparazzi’ed this morning.”

“Ugh,” Leslie said.

“That’ll be my life, Les, if I’m with him. Even if he’s not mayor now, he’s a politician. He’ll keep running. He says he’d be happy doing something else, but I don’t know if that’s really true. Or at least how he’d be happiest.”

“And?” Leslie asked. Nina could hear her washing dishes on the other side of the phone.

“I hated it so much when I was a kid and we were in the newspapers and magazines the year my mom died. And my mom hated it, too. I can’t help but think it’s part of what messed up my parents’ relationship. What if it does that to me and Rafael?”

Leslie turned off the water. “Listen, Neen. I’ve never seen you as happy with anyone else as you’ve been with Rafael. And you’re older now—and much tougher—than you were at eight. Plus you’ve grown up in this world in a way your mother never did. You’ve got tools she never had. And you’re going into it with your eyes wide open. What’s the alternative? Stop dating Rafael?”

When Leslie put it that way, the paparazzi didn’t seem so bad. Nina thought about how she felt when she was with Rafael—desired, adored, needed. And loved for every aspect of who she was. She didn’t want to give that up. “You’re right,” she said. “Thanks for talking me off a ledge.”

“What else are friends for?” Leslie said. Nina imagined her smiling. “And . . . for whatever it’s worth, I think you’d make a great mayor’s wife.”

Nina laughed. “You’re ridiculous,” she said.

“And that’s why you love me,” Leslie answered.

As the conversation went on, Nina thought about all the people she loved. Leslie was happy that Nina and Rafael were a couple, and Caro had come around, after the three of them had lunch together. But Nina still hadn’t heard a word from Tim. And as much as she adored Rafael, as much as she wished she could shout about her relationship with him to everyone she met on the street, it still made her sad that the decision had to be an either/or instead of an and.

78

On election night, Nina was standing with Rafael at campaign headquarters. They were in the conference room off the elevator lobby, just the two of them, and Nina was helping him get ready. There had been a media blitz starting the previous afternoon. Spots on all the local stations, on the radio. New speeches in English and in Spanish, talking about both sides of his family. Targeted ads flooding every social media platform. Rafael was interviewed on practically every website in the city.

They didn’t know it if had worked—wouldn’t know until the votes were counted—but they were optimistic. Or at least trying to be.

Nina resisted the urge to run her fingers through Rafael’s hair, since it was stiff now with hair spray.

“Are you ready?” she asked as she fixed his collar.

“Are you?” he asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She was so nervous she hadn’t been able to eat all day.

He smiled and kissed her cheek to avoid another lipstick fiasco.

“You didn’t forget your azabache today, did you?”

“Never,” Rafael answered, patting the collar of his white button-down. “But if I lose, it’s okay, too.”

“Of course it is,” Nina said. They’d talked about it last night—what would happen if he won, what would happen if he didn’t, when they would go public with their relationship either way. Slowly, they thought was the best way to do it: a date or two out in the open, then more, then something posted on his Twitter account. Let people get used to it. It meant keeping things a secret a while longer, monitoring their time together, but they could be patient.

“Do you know about the theory of the multiverse?” Rafael asked, wrapping his arm around Nina’s waist.

“Is that like in Back to the Future, where there’s a second 1985?”

“Kind of,” Rafael said. “It’s the idea that every time something important happens, a new world is created based on each potential outcome. There’s a world where I went to law school and another where I didn’t. A world where your grandfather bought a hotel and another where he didn’t. A world where your father never met your mother in Barcelona.”

“One where my mother didn’t die. Or my father didn’t have an affair.”

“Exactly,” Rafael said, fiddling with his tie pin. “I read about that concept after my dad died, and I found it comforting. I liked the idea that there was another universe out there—maybe more than one—where he was still alive. And if I lose this election, there will be another universe where a different version of me won. But if that Rafael doesn’t have a chance to be with you . . . well, I don’t envy him the win. He can have it.”

“There is something kind of comforting about that,” Nina said, turning toward him and smoothing his lapels. It was hard not to touch him. “We’re just living one version of the present, but the other ones are out there. They all would’ve happened, regardless of the choices we make.”

“That’s precisely it,” Rafael said. “They’ll all happen anyway, but we get to live this version.”

He kissed Nina’s forehead. Maybe, she thought, she should stop wearing lipstick.

There was a knock on the conference room door, and then Jane called, “The results are in.”

Rafael walked out the door first, Nina a few minutes behind. The rest of the team was gathered around the television set in the corner.

“Here it comes,” Mac shouted from the other side of the office.

Rafael walked closer to the television.

“Ninety-four percent of the vote has been counted,” the newscaster said. “And the race is . . . still too close to call.”

Everyone groaned. Mac walked out of the room.

“It’s okay if I don’t win,” Rafael said, almost as much to himself as to everyone else. “If I lose, there’s another Rafael in another universe who won and all of you were part of it.”

Jane looked at him as if he were speaking a language she’d never studied.

“He’s talking about the multiverse,” Nina tried to explain.

“Breaking news!” said the newscaster. “Ninety-six percent of the vote has now been counted, and we can declare a winner in the race for Gracie Mansion!”