Bella (15 page)

“Thank you, but I really can't.”

Manuel nodded.
“It's been a pleasure. This is your home.”
He stood up and kissed Nina on the cheek. Tears filled her eyes. She knew he meant what he said.

“Gracias,” she said.

“Take care.” Maria hugged her, a warm, mother's hug.

Eighteen

E
duardo and Veronica were staring at each other on the couch when Nina walked into the room.

“Are you looking for José?” Eduardo asked, refusing to remove his gaze from Veronica.

“Yes.”

“In the carport.”

“Thank you.”

She headed through the kitchen where Juanita loaded up the dishwasher. Juanita smiled and nodded, and Nina wondered how long she'd been working for the Suvirans.

Out the back door, past the wheelbarrow and gardening tools, Nina already felt at home, as if this was something she'd been waiting for. She was smart enough to realize everyone felt that way entering this home, but the biggest question remained as to why Manny and José ever wanted to leave it.

Eduardo was smarter than they were giving him credit for, obviously.

She remembered talking with her dad one day about leaving home, asking him why children, if they loved their fathers as much she loved hers, ever left home?

“Because good parents teach their children how to stand on their own two feet, and they tell their children they love them so much and prove it, the children know no matter how far they wander, they will always have a place to come back to, a place to be loved and accepted.”

She'd hugged him then and said, “I'm never going to leave you anyway, even if you are a good father.”

And she never did. His death made sure of that.

She stepped into the carport.

José leaned against
the hood of the old car and stared at the beat-up soccer ball. That little boy, David, never got it back.
So much for my promises.

And yet. He'd eaten with his family, spent the day with Nina, even stood up to Manny not just for his own sake but for the sake of the entire kitchen staff.

That wasn't so bad, was it? That was something, yes?

It seemed a little crazy, perhaps. But his grandmother used to tell him, quoting her favorite person, Mother Teresa, “It's not that we must do great things, but that we do small things with great love.”

Nina's shadow fell across the cement floor, the sinking sun low behind her. He couldn't see her face against the golden backlight, but he could hear her voice. “I need to go home.”

He just couldn't bring himself to end the day. His vision caught two lanterns his father made for walking the beach. “Let's go to the beach and then we can go from there.”

He tossed Nina the ball, and in that motion, he felt like he was letting something go. Yes, Nina needed a friend, but he needed to trust her too. Maybe he needed a friend even more than she did. Heaven knew he'd been alone for so long.

“Sure,” she said.

A few minutes later, carrying lanterns that looked like illuminated boxes, one white, one red, they made their way into the grapy dusk.

Nina held up her lantern. “I never saw anything like this before.”

“My father made them. They say he has too much time on his hands. But after he sold the ranch”—José shrugged—“he needed something to do, and Mama wanted him out of her way around the house.”

“I just adore him. He is so great. Is he from Mexico?”

The wind blew over them as they stepped onto the creamy sand.

“No. My father's from Puerto Rico and my mother's from Mexico. So I'm . . . eh . . . RicoMex.”

She laughed.

“It means half Puerto Rican, half Mexican.”

“It's all the same to me.”

José realized he knew so little about her. Obviously not Hispanic, what type of family did she come from? Irish? German? Or had they been over here so long they were simply typical Americans with nothing left of their old countries in them?

He always thought that was sad.

She took off her sandals and scooped them up to dangle from her fingers. “So, is it always like that? I mean, did you grow up with . . . that?”

“What?”

“Joy? Love?”

Her description of his family made him smile. “That's nothing. I mean, when my whole family gets together, it's really amazing! The talking, the food, the music, the dancing—salsa, meringue—wow. It's beautiful.”

“I'll bet it is.” Her voice lowered, fraying around the edges into something softer, maybe, he thought, filled with a little hope. “How does Manny feel about people knowing he's adopted?”

“To us that doesn't make a difference.”

“You're
seriously
lucky. You have a good family.”

“Yeah. What about your family?”

“My dad passed away when I was twelve. No brothers or sisters. So that's my family.” She rubbed her arms.

“Here.” José took off his chef 's jacket and put it around her shoulders.

“Thank you.”

They continued down the beach, gulls circling overhead, the sun below the western horizon now.

“What about your mom?” he asked.

“After Dad died, she just kind of sat on the couch with the remote and never moved on. I raised myself . . . and her.” She pulled the jacket tightly around her. “I'm tired of always having to deal with something, José. Just once, I wanted something to work the way I planned it. Just once.”

“How was it dealing with your dad's death?”

“I don't know. It's hard for me to remember what the twelve-year-old me was feeling. I think that my mom took it so hard, I didn't get the chance to grieve in a healthy way. It was like I had to take care of her, you know? At first, it brought us closer together, but I eventually turned into the typical teenager and all that grief turned into resentment.”

“One night I got stoned out of my mind and went home. I walked into her room, and there she was, watching TV. I looked at her and started laughing at her, pointing right in her face. She just sat there, taking it all without a word, and I started to cry.”

Nina wiped the mist from her eyes, her voice beginning to shake. “I told her how much I missed my dad too; I knew she was in pain, but I was in pain too.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It was like, for the first time, she saw me again. She stood up and hugged me.” She paused, gathered herself, and said, “Then I got the munchies.” She exhaled a laugh. “We ate some doughnuts and talked about him all night. The next morning I woke up and felt like I had a mom again. But . . . it was too late.”

They sat down together on the sand. Nina leaned back on her hands. José, feeling the fatigue of the day and realizing that tomorrow, knowing Manny, would be even more exhausting, lay down beside her. He handed her a seashell.

“When I was about eighteen,” she continued, “my mom held out her hand and waved her wedding ring at me—this tiny stone my dad probably got at a pawn shop.”

Nina wiggled her fingers like she was showing off an engagement ring. “She said, ‘You need to get you one of these.' ” She looked down on her hand, so devoid of a wedding ring. José had never seen something so stark. “She loved him so much she never took that ring off. That's what I want, José. I want to bring a child into this world out of love, with a man who's gonna take care of us. I don't have that. I can't have this baby and watch it suffer with me. Now
you'd
make a great father, José. You just need to meet a little number like your brother Eduardo has. First you need a little cleanup, though. What's with the beard?”

José rolled his eyes. “We're talking about you, Nina. You're not being fair to yourself. You'd make a great mother.”

“Yeah, I had such a stellar example.” She picked at her skirt. “Someday . . . not now.”

She stared at the waves. “You know . . . what I'm carrying inside me is not that little girl. It's not that little girl to be reborn.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“I don't know what I'm doing.” She wiped her eyes. “I'm gonna need a friend next week.”

Helplessness covered José completely. So he said nothing as she sniffed back the tears, hoping that being there was enough for now.

He put an arm around her and gathered her to his side.

The sun had
set hours before, and the chill of the spring evening settled in her bones, the gentle pounding of the surf caressing her ears freely, because the surf would continue to come and come and come, and she didn't have to do a thing but enjoy it. Beside her, José breathed deeply in sleep. She didn't want to go back to the city, not yet. The city would always be there. But today had been special. She snuggled up close to him and closed her eyes there against his warmth. He was a mystery, but he knew how to love in a way that went beyond sex and the gooey feelings of a romance book. She hadn't felt love like this since the day her father left for work and never came home.

Maybe it was time to move beyond that.

The truth of it hit her.

Maybe this baby was a chance to do something right for a change. To stop looking for her dad and become like him instead. Not perfect, but someone who tried to do the right thing.

“But I'm not ready to be a mom,” she whispered to the waves.

Just be for now
, the waves whispered back.

It did seem
as if the new morning held more promise than the old one. But the waves were gone and the only rhythm she heard was that of the train clacking along the tracks back to the city. They'd caught the first train in.

José leaned in. “Look at us. In English you say we are fish out of water, eh?”

“Yes.” They couldn't have been more disheveled, and try as they might, they couldn't quite get all the sand out of their clothing and shoes. And José's chef jacket and her loud waitress uniform did nothing to normalize them along the lines of their fellow travelers. Well, it was the early train. Most of them were probably too sleepy to really care.

But she was tired and laid her head on José's shoulder. She slept a little more.

Wide awake, José
watched the scenery zip by his window. Nina breathed heavily, and when he looked down at her, he experienced a compassion like he'd never felt before and he understood something. He understood how his family felt when he was in trouble all those years ago, how much they yearned to make things right, to do what they could.

In a way, his failure to move on informed them their affection, their caring, was wasted on him.

Lucinda's not coming back
, he thought.
But I can live my
life, do something good for a change, and honor her death that
way. Anything else would be a waste
.

An idea came to mind.

Would Nina go for it? He doubted it, but maybe he'd convince her.

He looked over at Nina, her dark lashes soft crescents against her pale cheeks. She'd create a beautiful baby, he realized.

The train pulled into Penn Station as the dawn grayed the sky. He nudged her. “We're here.”

José took her hand and they stepped off the train, up the stairs, and onto the streets of the city near Nina's apartment.

She pointed the way, and he accompanied her as the city awakened to another typical day, another turn of the living clock, another dance of people leading and being led, and somehow, despite all the heartache, they all went on, not so much because they had to, but because there was nothing else imaginable. So much possibility, so little creativity, considering.

As they waited for the Walk signal, Nina reached into her bag and pulled out the scarf she'd purchased the day before. She pressed it into his hand. “Here, I want you to keep it.” In a way, she looked like a medieval princess handing off her handkerchief to the winner of the tournament. José was no knight in shining armor, he realized, but he hoped he had treated her in kind, with dignity and respect.

“Oh. Thank you.”

She laid a hand on his arm and squeezed. Her eyes seemed to say,
Look at me, please
. “You're gonna come with me to the appointment, right?”

José didn't know what to say. How could he go someplace with her where he thought . . . and yet, she was his friend.

She removed her hand, shaking her head. “You know what—don't worry about it. I'll be fine.”

“I'll call you.” He looked into her eyes. “I'll call you, okay?” And he reached out.

Nina felt connected
to him in that embrace. She knew José meant what he said, that truly, for the first time in many years, somebody was willing to actually put himself out for her. It felt strange, and she wasn't sure what to think about being the scrappy person she'd become. But she remembered the waves telling her to be and she heard one more message in the whizzing of the cabs and buses: wait.

Okay then. But not too long. Time is not on my side.

They parted ways. Nina turned toward her building, José back to the station.

Nina stopped in at the drugstore, bought a soda, and made small talk with Carla, who, she found out, had two kids. Her husband worked down at the docks, and she worked this job to put them in the nearby parochial school.

“That's nice,” Nina said.

“Oh, you'll do anything for your kids to give 'em a fighting chance,” she said.

Nina was thankful she was discreet enough to not mention the test kit she'd bought yesterday.

Only yesterday? It didn't seem possible.

So Nina headed up the steps to her apartment. She put on a little Nina Simone, threw on sweats and a T-shirt, and picked up her book. The weekend sat before her, lonely and filled with a whole lotta nothin'. But Monday she'd call Frannie at the new restaurant, and she'd be working soon enough.

She figured Frannie would be just as difficult as Manny, but she was doing a good turn for her friend, José, and maybe that would make all the difference.