“How is that?” Tom asked, so Nina explained. Archie and Peter had been right; it got easier.
Tom smiled. “Well, it sounds like you got at least one good brother and a fabulous nephew out of it, and that’s more than most people.”
Their food arrived, and Nina continued the conversation around a bite of cheeseburger.
“Do you have a big family?”
“Not like yours. I have a brother and sister.”
“Older or younger?”
“One of each. Older brother, younger sister. My brother’s getting married soon.”
“Are you going to be a bridesmaid?” Nina looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Will you have a pretty frock?”
“Yeah,” he said, “if they can find one to fit me. I’m not built like the other girls.” He copied her glance-through-the-eyelashes move, pulling it off surprisingly well.
“I can see that,” replied Nina, then blushed. She wasn’t anxious around Tom, which was unexpected and pleasant, but she was definitely . . . aware. It was there in the air between them, an unspoken expectation of more to come. A whole other conversation was going on, wordless but clear.
“Shall I get the check?” asked Tom, his voice quiet.
“Yes,” said Nina. She swallowed. “I should head home.”
“Still time for a chapter before bed?” He smiled.
“Maybe,” she replied.
It turned out they’d both taken ride share to get to the movies, so they started walking south toward Larchmont.
Tom took a deep breath. “So, I guess your busy schedule doesn’t allow for much dating?”
Nina took a similarly deep breath. “Not really.” She paused. “And I’m pretty happy being single, honestly. I have plenty of . . .”
“Friends?” finished Tom, and Nina nodded. “Me too. You never wanted anything more?”
Nina didn’t reply for a moment, as they crossed Santa Monica Boulevard. “I’m not against it. I’m just not looking for it. Do you know what I mean?”
“Sure,” Tom replied, easily. He effected a Garbo-esque accent. “You want to be alone.”
“You know, she never actually said that. She said she wanted to be left alone, totally different.” Nina shook her head. “I get it. I want to be left alone, too.” She looked at him quickly. “Not by everyone. Just by most people. I like a quiet life.”
He snorted. “Have you thought about leaving LA? It’s not exactly a Trappist monastery.” A chorus of horns underscored his point.
“I noticed that,” she replied. “But I grew up here; traffic is the rumble of the ocean to me.” They crossed Melrose. “What about you? Do you date a lot?”
He shrugged. “On and off. I had a girlfriend for a while. We broke up a few months ago.”
“Oh yeah?” Why did that make her frown, wondered Nina. Maybe because a few months didn’t seem very long.
“Yeah. It ended badly, so I’ve been enjoying my own company.” He sounded fine, but she wondered if he was still getting over it.
“You’re not friends?”
He shook his head. “No.” He was silent for a moment, navigating a busy cross street. “My brother says I’m a sucker for difficult women. He says I like a challenge.”
“You disagree?”
Another shrug. “I don’t think it’s conscious. I’m a fairly boring person, I think.”
“Not to me. Not yet, at least.” Nina was glad she wasn’t looking at him, because she felt herself blushing yet again. Her cheeks were such traitors.
“Well, thanks. Maybe ‘boring’ is the wrong word. I’m calm. I kind of take things as they come. Do you know what I mean?”
“I guess,” said Nina, laughing. “I’m not like that, but I’ve heard people like you exist. Like unicorns.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re more common than that.” He stepped around a crowd of teenagers and found himself more closely at her side once they were reunited. Their sleeves brushed, and neither of them moved apart. “Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to people who have some kind of spark, you know? Sometimes that ends up being not such a good thing, but it’s true of my friends, too. Lisa, for example. We’ve been friends since high school, and she was always the brightest star in our group. Interesting. Different.”
“She seems very nice.”
He laughed. “Well, I don’t know if ‘nice’ is the right word, but she’s definitely her own person, and I like that.” They walked in silence for a while, and Tom was thinking about reaching out to take Nina’s hand when suddenly she said, “This is me,” and stopped.
He looked up at the guesthouse. “So it is,” he said. “Do you know that cat?”
Phil was perched on top of the gate, watching them.
Nina nodded. “I do. He’s mine.”
“What’s his name? He’s judging me.”
“His name is Phil, and actually,” said Nina, “he’s judging me.” She looked up at Tom. “I’m really glad we ran into each other. I feel pretty good we didn’t send Harold out for potatoes.”
“Me too,” said Tom, and stepped closer to her. She looked at him, then stepped closer still, tugging at his coat and pulling him into a kiss. After a few moments they stepped apart, and Nina opened her mouth to invite him in.
“Well, good night, Nina,” said Tom. “Maybe we can do this again soon?” He leaned down and kissed her again, then smiled against her lips and turned away to leave. “I’ll text you, OK?”
“OK,” she replied, watching him go with a little crease between her eyebrows. Crap, she thought. What went wrong there?
But when she went inside her phone buzzed.
“I wanted to come in,” he texted, “very, very much. But you were planning to be Garbo tonight, and I decided not to push my luck. Besides, as another actress said, tomorrow is another day.”
She smiled and picked up a surprised Phil and hugged him.
“Watch the whiskers, lady,” he said. “They don’t stay gorgeous on their own.”
Eighteen
In which Nina fulfills her first family obligation.
Sunday was usually Nina’s extravaganza of planning. She would sort out clothes for the week, plan her meals, make sure she’d read whatever she needed to for work and for the book club, make a proper shopping list and shop for groceries . . . It was her reset and recommit day, and she always felt like she’d crushed it by the time the evening rolled around.
However, on this day, things were already out of whack by 10 A.M., and it was all Peter Reynolds’s fault. For the first time in her life Nina had a family obligation, and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked it.
Peter had texted her at nine, an hour he said was the earliest acceptable time to contact someone on a Sunday.
Nina had still been asleep. Somewhat acerbically, she suggested he recalibrate and set her earliest acceptable time to eleven.
“No,” said her nephew, “if I make an exception for you, I’ll need to customize my entire system, and that won’t work at all.”