Bella (9 page)

“That was yesterday.”

“Okay. I'm tired anyway.”

So they exchanged small talk while they waited for a vacant cab, Nina pulling information out of José who, she was sure, would have preferred to stand there in the continued silence. She tried to ask him questions with short answers.

José's favorite subject in school was math; Nina's was history. José's favorite color was blue; Nina's was orange. José's favorite ice cream was strawberry; Nina's was cookies and cream. José didn't watch television; Nina liked
Gilligan's Island
. José had wanted to be a doctor when he was really little; Nina wanted to be a dancer. She couldn't believe she blurted it out.

“A dancer? Really, Nina? What kind of dancer?”

He looked into her eyes, interested. Nina felt like some body was really seeing her for the first time in years. “A Broadway dancer. Tap, jazz, modern. You know, shows.”

“No ballet,
huh?”

“I dunno. I guess for me, so much of dance is about the music. Classical is okay and I know there's modern ballet, but I like rhythm, José. I like it when the notes force themselves down into your heart and into your stomach and you can't help but respond with your body. I knew I wanted to dance as long as I could remember.”

“So how do we get you dancing again?”

He looked so hopeful standing there, hands jammed deep in his pockets. Nina could see something different in José's eyes. “You're gonna help me decide about the pregnancy
and
get my career on track? Man, you've got your work cut out for you, don't you?”

A cab pulled up to the curb. José opened the door and helped her inside.

“So”—she slid over on the black vinyl seat—“we going to meet another mysterious person you used to
see
?”

He hesitated, then slid in next to her. “Frannie runs the Hacienda Sancho Panza.” He gave the address to the driver, then white-knuckled the handle of the door. “You ever heard of it?”

Nina shook her head. “So. This Frannie . . .”

“Frannie was one of the first people I met when I came to this country.”

“So she wouldn't go out with you?”

“No.” He screwed up his face.

“Why not?”

“She said she liked me too much to ruin it.”

Nina laughed. She was going to like Frannie.

“Think she'll ever settle down?”

José nodded. “Yes, but now she's married to her job.”

“Maybe she'll meet someone in the restaurant. People who love the same things should end up together.”

José just smiled. Apparently he had reached his maximum word count for the hour.

Well, I survived,
he thought, climbing out of the cab. He'd tried to appear calm, but despite the fact the cabbie, African judging by his garb and accent, said he'd gone for fifteen years without an accident, José couldn't help grabbing the door handle and pushing an imaginary brake pedal on the floor. Thankfully Nina didn't notice.

It was surely an experience he hadn't missed. Truth was, it wasn't just cabs he avoided. He hadn't ridden in any car in over three years.

The Hacienda Sancho Panza spilled its aroma and some of its tables as well onto the sidewalk. Though cooking wasn't his first choice of vocation, it would have been had he no talent on the field. Truth was, he loved good food. Since prison, he didn't allow himself all the luxuries he used to, but that was the beauty of food, particularly from his native Mexico. Even the simplest combinations formed the sublime. Chiles and onion and tomato. A man could create an empire with those three items.

Not that Manny wasn't trying.

He ushered Nina through the door and up to where the hostess stood behind her podium going over her tables. Their shadows fell across her seating chart and she glanced up, looked them up and down, taking in Nina's embroidered dress and José's chef 's coat. He suddenly realized what this must look like and he wanted to laugh, but he stayed quiet, waiting to see how the situation developed. She was a beautiful woman, thin, like a willow tree. Just the sort he would have been interested in years ago.

“We only take applications on Tuesdays from three to five.” She pursed her glossy lips and pushed a tassel of brown hair away from her forehead.

He leaned forward. “Um, can you please tell Frannie that José Suviran is here?”

She squinted, lowering her brows. “Regarding?”

“Just tell her I need to borrow a pound of saffron.”

She was a class act, José thought, as she failed to lose her cool. “One moment please.” She headed toward the kitchen, apparently oblivious to the fact that a pound of saffron was the equivalent of a football field of cultivation and would cost around five thousand dollars.

Nina burst into laughter.

José turned back toward the street where a little girl skipped, blonde pigtails bouncing as she kept up with her mother, holding her hand. A beautiful child, so much like—

“José,” Nina called. “What are you looking at?”

And then Frannie burst from the kitchen doors dressed in a tailored yet feminine pantsuit, her dark hair streaked with blonde, corkscrewing around her head. “I can't believe it!”

She was a beautiful woman too. How could he have been around so many beautiful women and ended up so lonely? Even now, sweet Nina beside him, he had no desire to ask for her company in any way other than friendship.

“José! What a surprise!” Perfect teeth, expressive eyes. José wondered . . . no. Too much water under the bridge now.

“How are you doing, Frannie?”

“Better than you, José.” She ran a finger along his bandaged hand. “You had one of these on last time I saw you. Don't tell me it's the same injury.”

“No, no.”

“Kitchen's a dangerous place. You boys burning each other again?” She laughed. José thought about the burn marks on his arm. Ones he didn't give himself. If customers knew what went on in the kitchens of the restaurants they ate at, they'd be shocked. Touch a man's broiler pans and you could end up scarred for life. Don't get near a grumpy man's grill, he'd warn them.

“No, Frannie.”

“Well, it's always good to see the man with the mysterious beard. Don't tell me you really came thirty blocks for saffron?”

“No, we came here to eat. This is my friend Nina.”

Frannie smiled, took the pencil from the hostess, and began making adjustment to the seating chart for José and Nina. “So, just taking the day off then?” She looked Nina up and down just like Helen had. “Nice dress. Let me guess. It was Manny's idea. It must have cost him a fortune.”

Nina shook her head. “He made us pay for them.”

Frannie stretched her mouth in a stiff smile. “Well, I would too.”

Oh, the fraternity of it all. Frannie knew word would get back to Manny. Somehow. The woman knew how to cover her backside. José couldn't help but appreciate that quality in a person.

Frannie turned to the hostess and tapped a table in the diagram with her pen. “Give them table six, Margaret. When these people get here, give them table three and comp them a bottle of Penascal. The Landrys aren't due for another half hour. Plenty of time.”

Margaret couldn't get over her shock. “But—”

“Oh, and these two—they can have anything under a buck fifty.”

José bowed. Frannie could afford a lot more, but okay.

“Okay, make it two-fifty if you give me your mole recipe.”

“Frannie, you know they'd kill me.”

“Manny would, you mean.” She tapped the podium. “Margaret, just tell Johannes to bring me the check.”

Margaret led them to a table outside.

Nina settled herself and picked up a menu. Opposite her, José pulled his chair closer to the table as he sat down. “You like paella?”

“Oh yeah.”

He took the menu from her and laid it on top of his.

The waiter stepped up to their table. “Good afternoon.
My name is Johannes. Can I start you off with something other than water?”

“We're ready to order. We'll have your mejillones and paella for two.”

“Very good,” the waiter said. “Anything to drink?”

José thought about it. Why not? It was turning into a day of surprises. “Half soda, half lemonade, and add some fresh mint, please.”

“Sounds fancy,” said Nina.

After he left, José leaned forward. “Paella is full of the things you need for a child.”

Whoa. Nina bristled.
“Who said I was having a child?”

“You did.”

“No. I said I was pregnant.”

The waiter returned, setting down their drinks.

“I'm not ready to have a kid. If you have a kid, your freedom's gone.”

Not to mention your sanity, your privacy.

“Things change,” José said.

Oh, lovely. Thanks for that.
“Having a kid isn't just a
change
. I don't think I even like children. I've hardly been around any, José.”

He just nodded.

So she kept babbling. “I just can't do it. I'm broke and alone.”

“Alone?”

There. She'd said it. Alone. Pregnant and alone, and that equaled only one thing. Pathetic loser. His eyes searched hers and in them was mirrored the sadness she felt so deeply at that moment. How had she landed here? In this place? Pregnant, jobless, boyfriendless, sitting in a strange restaurant with a man whose beard was the size of Staten Island, and to top it off, wearing a dress no other woman in New York would dare wear in public.

Down in her backpack, the paper frog and Bubbles rode on a pair of Converse tennis shoes. She wondered if there was a special kind of shoe that you could just put on and run, run fast and hard, run away from your life. And if she thought life was hard now, what about with some baby along for the ride?

No thanks.

And there it sat.

“I made my decision. Okay?”

“So what does the father think?”

“He's not a father, and he's not going to be a father. Just like I'm not going to be a mother. Not now.” Now was not the time to talk about Pieter. Who—she looked down at her phone—had not called one time to see how she was doing since he handed over her belongings. Figured. “He is all for ‘getting it taken care of.' Those are the words he used. As if it was a wisdom tooth to be pulled out.” She leaned toward José, wanting him to get the message. “You know, I wonder why kids are always the problem of the mother? Guys aren't inconvenienced by them. They don't ruin their freedom. And yet they have all this advice about what's best for me.”

“What guys, Nina?”

But she was on a roll. “Well, taking care of it is what's best for me.” How could he possibly understand? “Put yourself in my shoes.”

“Do you love him?”

What happened to the quiet José who minded his own business?

“I don't.” She couldn't help herself. It had been so long since somebody actually sat and listened to her. “It's Pieter's baby,” she whispered.

José's eyes grew, their whites showing beneath his dark lashes. “I didn't know.”

“Nobody did. It was all a big mistake, and Manny . . .”

“Yes. He would have fired you both if he knew.”

“And what happens when I find someone I do love? With a kid?” Oh, she could picture it. “Forget it. I invite someone up for a nightcap . . . and pay off the babysitter?” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “Mr. Right is gonna say, ‘Oh yeah, I love taking care of other people's children.' It's hard enough”—she gulped back the lump in her throat—“to get people's sincerity without throwing kids into the mix.”

She shook her head. No, no, no. She just couldn't picture all the bottles, the diapers, the 3:00 a.m. feedings, and dropping the kid off at day care. Little jammies and socks. “I can't even take care of myself, José. How am I going to take care of a kid?”

José reached out and settled his bandaged hand on Nina's forearm. The sight of it, for the staff knew what he'd been doing to himself for so long, undid her. This wounded soul reaching out, his own pain somehow a comfort to her . . . and she cried. For the first time since those blue lines marred the snowy surface of the test stick, the fear of life, the giving of it, the taking of it, the living of it, overwhelmed her completely.

Twelve

M
anny looked at the clock on the wall. Only forty-five minutes until the rush would be over. They hadn't had a lunch rush like this in a month, and today just had to be the day.

Not good.

The waitstaff milled about the window as the kitchen staff tried to plate food and get it ready to be served.

Manny handed Nina's replacement a plate. “Here, you're done, you're done.” He set another one on the window. “Here, that's yours.”

Pieter returned a plate to the window.

“What's this?” Manny asked. “What's wrong with that plate?”

“They sent it back.”

“What do you mean, ‘They sent it back'?”

“They said it was cold.”

Manny could almost feel the top of his head unhinging so the steam could fl y out of his skull. “It's cold?”

The phone rang.

Perfect.

“Somebody better go get the phone. I better not hear more than two rings, people. Somebody better go get the phone!”

More servers milled around him, more cooks, more, more, more. He handed a plate to a waiter whose name he couldn't remember. “Here. It's on the house, okay. Table two.”

“What about my order?” a young woman asked. Who was she? Manny didn't recognize her. Pieter usually okayed every hire with him. Maybe he was getting a little too cocky.

“I'm waiting for the special.”

He turned to Pepito. “Where's the snapper? Give me that snapper.”

Pepito shook his head. “This isn't for her!”