“To my family’s restaurant,” he said. “Is there anything you don’t eat?”
I grabbed my chest in mock horror. “Dude, I’m from New York. You can’t scare me even if you try.”
Rafe grinned.
* * *
Many subway stops later, we emerged in Washington Heights. I’d never been to this neighborhood before. It was past Columbia University, where my high school friends and I used to go to drink in the bars that served college students without ID. It was north of the hospital and north of pretty much everything. The only time I’d set foot up here was on a school trip to The Cloisters museum.
I didn’t like to think of myself as an Upper East Side snob. But there it was.
“Are you freezing?” Rafe asked.
“No, I’m fine.” Truly, I was getting cold. But after that scene I’d put Rafe through earlier, I wasn’t going to complain about anything else tonight.
“I wanted to walk past the site.” Rafe pointed down the block.
“Oh! For our project?” What a lousy teammate I was. It hadn’t even occurred to me that we were only blocks away from our Urban Studies assignment. I followed him to West 165th Street. And there it was, the ugly building from the photograph. “Can’t imagine why we’d tear this down,” I teased.
“Right? But we don’t need to look at the building so much as what surrounds it.” He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me. “Across the intersection, there’s an apartment building. That looks like a nice place.”
It did, too. It was six stories high, a pre-war brick building. One of thousands in the city.
“But those are some pretty gritty retailers over there.” Rafe indicated a check-cashing joint and a pawn shop. There was also a skeevy little bodega and a shoe repair store.
“This spot has good foot traffic, though,” I said. “We could put something better here. A grocery, or a restaurant.” I took out my phone and began to turn in a circle, snapping photographs of everything.
“The judge is a food guy, remember. If we did something with food, he might like it.”
I gave Rafe a little poke in the ribs. “Look at you, Mr. Tactical! I like it.”
He put a hand on my back. “Speaking of food, let’s go eat.”
A few minutes later he led me under a striped awning into a brightly lit hive of activity. The restaurant wasn’t fancy. The interior looked like it had been there since the seventies, if I had to guess. There were Formica tables with metal edges, and the walls were painted in colors which were just a little too bright to be stylish.
But the place was jammed. I couldn’t even see it properly, because there was a knot of people between the door and the dining room.
“Dios,” Rafe said under his breath. A small missile hurtled into his knees. When I looked down, I saw a toddler-sized person with gorgeous brown skin and curly black hair. Rafe leaned over and scooped the child off the floor.
“Wafe,” it said.
“Hey, Gael,” Rafe said. “Where is your mami? There are a lot of people who are trying to pay.”
“No sé,” the child said.
Rafe carried him around the end of the counter to where the cash register was. “Sorry for the wait,” he said to the couple who was first in line. “Did you need to check out?”
The couple handed him their check and a credit card, and Rafe handled the transaction, while his very small relative poked him in the cheekbone.
“None of that,” Rafe said, grabbing one little arm in his hand and tucking the kid farther back onto his hip. “Your hands are sticky, little man. Did you get into the dulce de leche?”
Rafe cashed out three couples before he was even able to mouth “I’m sorry” in my direction.
A young woman came skidding on high heels to the front of the restaurant. “Rafael!” she cried. “Lo siento. I got caught up helping untangle a delivery order.” She grabbed the child out of his arms.
“His hands are sticky,” Rafe warned. He skirted the woman to come back to my side.
“You look handsome tonight, señor.” She grinned. I saw her eyes flick toward me. “And aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Cara, this is Bella, who has not had dinner yet. Bella, this is my aunt Cara. Now we’re grabbing that two top before somebody else does.” Rafe put a hand on my lower back and guided me towards a little table by the window.
I sat down, but then Rafe made an irritated noise. “Ay, the table.” He disappeared for a moment, reappearing with a cloth to wipe it off. Then he put two rolls of silverware down before finally collapsing into the seat across from me. “Nothing is easy tonight.”
“So true,” I agreed. But privately, I was soaking it all in. The music playing in the restaurant had a sexy Latin beat. Tipico had a relaxed, neighborly vibe that was a hell of a lot less stressful than the other place we’d been tonight.
And watching Rafe step behind the counter of his family’s business with a toddler on his hip had a strange effect on me. He’d looked so comfortable there. I’m sure Rafe wasn’t intending to use his Harkness degree to make change for restaurant customers. But he already had a place in the world where he knew exactly what he was doing. Where he fit in. Where he was needed. I’d never had that. And with each passing month, it seemed increasingly likely that I never would.
A teenage girl bounced over to our table and let out a little squeal. “Rafael! What are you doing sitting in my section?”
“Florecita, what do people usually want when they sit in your section? We’re hungry.”
She put her hands on her hips, her eyes sparkling back and forth between us. “Is this your girlfriend?”
“Subtle, Flori. This is my friend Bella. Bella, this is Flori, my nosy cousin.”
“Hi,” I said, trying not to smile.
“She must be your girlfriend,” Flori declared. “You’re all dressed up.”
“If I lied and said she was, could we get some food?”
“You are no fun at all, you know that?” But her expression said the opposite. She looked at Rafe with hero worship in her eyes.
“Flori, bring us a couple of beers, and leave your order pad.” To make his point, Rafe grabbed the pad out of her apron pocket and then gave her a little shove toward the back.
She sighed, taking the pencil from behind her ear and dropping it on the table. “Fine. But I’m telling everyone in the kitchen that you’re here with your girlfriend.” Then she flounced away.
Rafe looked at me wearily. “I thought this would be a quick way to score some food. But I may have miscalculated.”
“I think she’s hysterical.”
“That’s one word for it.” He took the pencil and began scribbling on the pad. “I’m going to get a little of everything, okay? You can pick out the dishes that appeal to you.”
“You’re going to tip me, right?” Flori had reappeared. She held on to the beers for collateral, waiting for Rafe’s answer.
He raised one dark eyebrow. “You think I’d stiff you? Really?”
She put the bottles down. “You never sit at a table, so how do I know? Papi says he’ll comp your food but not the beer.”
Rafe shrugged. “I’d pass out face down in the mangu if your Papi ever bought me a beer, Florecita. I’m half expecting him to come out here and remind me to wash my own dishes.”
She patted his shoulder. “Since you brought company, he probably won’t do that. I should try that sometime.”
Rafe handed her the pad and the pencil. “You bring a boy in here, he’s going to chase him off with a chef’s knife.”
Her smile faded. “That is probably true.”
When she went away with our order, he folded his arms on the table and smiled at me. “Hungry? I ordered a lot of food.”
“Sure.” I was, too. “What should I expect?”
“Dominican food is sort of like Cuban. Lots of fried things. It’s not health food.”
I picked up my beer bottle and touched it to his. “Fuck hea
lth food. We’ve earned a few fried plantains tonight.”
“Damn straight,” he said, then lifted the bottle to his beautiful mouth.
“You work here during the summer?”
“Yeah. And every holiday. And all the years in high school. They didn’t even pay me minimum wage until last summer. My uncles are slave drivers. They think blood relatives should work for almost nothing.”
“But you get tips?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been working in that kitchen since I could hold a knife. I wrote my Harkness essay about learning to keep my cool in a crowded kitchen.”
“That’s awesome, Rafe. I’m not like you.”
He gave me a lazy grin. Slouched back in his chair across from me holding his beer, rocking a five o’clock shadow on his jaw, Rafe was easy on the eyes. “What am I like, then?”
“You’re good at everything.” Honest to God, the sight of Rafe dancing the merengue as easily as he walked was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. The boy could move. It made me want to gobble him down and ask for seconds.
He set the bottle down with a snort. “Right. I wish that was true. School isn’t easy for me.”
“No? You seem like you’ve got it all together.”
His eyes took a tour of the room. “My family thinks I live a cushy life, going to school and working a few shifts in the dining hall. They think it’s like a four-year vacation. And I’m sweating buckets just to keep my grades at a B- average. My mother wanted me to pick a school in the City so I could live with her across the street from this place and work five nights a week.”
“She doesn’t understand, though. You’re going to have the word ‘Harkness’ on your resume in two and a half years. That sticker is going to be worth a pile of money to you, if you want it to be.”
He leaned that handsome face into one of his hands. “What about you, Bella? What are you going to do with your Harkness sticker?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “I really wish I knew. And the fact that I don’t is starting to freak me out. I mean… it’s not like I’m going to starve. But I really don’t want to move back into my bedroom on East 78th Street with nothing but a diploma to show for my effort.”
“But hey, the diploma will be in Latin,” Rafe said. He touched his bottle to mine and then drained his beer. “Where is that cousin of mine. Flori?” he called as she ran past. “Where’s our food?”
“Some of it is up, I think,” she said over her shoulder. “Why don’t you check?”
“What is the deal with this joint?” he asked, and I laughed. He swept our empty beer bottles off the table and went into the kitchen.
Two minutes later I saw him reappear through the swinging doors, a tray in his hands. I was so busy admiring the sexy sway of his shoulders that I almost missed the gorgeous woman hot on his heels. She had exquisite cheekbones, dark skin and wavy hair which had been captured into a clip on the top of her head.
“Rafael! Adónde vas? Espera a su madre.”
He answered her in rapid-fire Spanish. Setting the edge of the tray down on the table, he began removing dishes. Each one he put in front of me looked better than the last. And the smell! I was salivating in seconds.
Behind him, the beautiful woman put her hands on her hips. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but from her tone it was obvious that a) she was his mother, though she looked almost too young to have a college-age son and b) she wasn’t entirely happy with him.
“Ma, stop yelling,” Rafe commanded. “This is my friend Bella. She has never had Dominican food, and we did not have any dinner. So be nice and let us eat.”
Rafe’s mother peered around his shoulder, taking in our dressy clothes. Her face softened just a little. She offered her hand. “It is so nice to meet you, Bella. And Rafael! Why do you not have water glasses? And extra plates, if you’re going to share?”
“That would be a question for Flori, I think.”
But Rafe’s mom had already turned on her heel, running off presumably to get them.
Rafe rubbed his hands together. “Food, at last! Okay. The dish in front of you is called La Bandera.”
“That just means ‘flag,’ right?” I couldn’t resist showing off that I knew a Spanish word.
“Exactly. It’s supposed to look like the colors of the flag. But every Dominican kid is like, ‘What the hell?’ Rice is white. Fine. And the sauce on the meat is reddish. But beans aren’t blue. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
I picked up my fork and popped a flake of the stewed pork into my mouth. “It’s really good, though. I don’t think it would be better if it were actually blue.”
“This is mofongo.” He pointed at the weirdest looking thing on the table. “Mashed plantains, fried, with a meat sauce on top. But they’re even better like this.” He pointed at gorgeously crispy pieces of plantain on another plate.
“What’s that?” I asked, aiming my fork at another fried thing. It was square, about the size of a playing card. And when I sank my fork into the corner, it squished.
“Fried cheese. Another health food. The only lighter thing is this bulgur salad.” He picked up the bowl and showed me the contents. On top of the grains sat tomatoes, avocados and parsley, with a few grilled shrimp on top.
A clean plate landed on the table in front of me. In a blur of motion, Rafe’s mother tucked a serving spoon on to each of our dishes. Then she set a glass of water down in front of me. “Enjoy!” she said before stomping off.
“Your mother is a whirlwind,” I said.
Rafe grinned at me as he scooped food onto his plate. “The kitchen boys call her la tormenta. The storm.”
“Are you going to be in the doghouse for coming in here tonight?”
Rafe looked surprised. “Not a chance. They’d like to have me working in back. But they’d rather I show my face than stay away. We bitch at each other a lot, I guess. That’s just how we talk.” He ate a piece of plantain with a thoughtful expression on his face. “You know, coming back here after I’ve been away for a while, this place looks shabby to me. I want to give it a facelift. I tried to say that this summer and the uncles didn’t want to hear it.”
“It’s comfortable, though,” I supplied. “Not every restaurant needs to be fancy.”
“I know. But I think we could update it a little, then raise the menu prices about thirty percent. But they’re afraid to change anything.”
“My dad is the opposite. There’s no building in New York that he’s afraid to bulldoze. If people actually knew what he looked like, he’d need a bodyguard in certain neighborhoods.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I don’t mean that he’s knocking down historical treasures or anything. But most people are resistant to change. That’s normal.”
“I don’t know if ‘normal’ and ‘mi familia’ belong together in the same sentence.” He stabbed a bite of mofongo with his fork.
“Mmm,” I said, stuffing my face. The food was incredibly good. The stewed meats were tender and flavorful; the rice was fluffy. “You’re going to have to roll me out of here after this.”
A skinny teenage boy was shuffling toward us, wiping his hands on a chef’s apron. “Hola, primo.” He put a hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “You know Flori is in the kitchen, texting all her sisters that you’re here with your girlfriend.” The boy smiled, and his eyes crinkled up in the corners. “I tell her that your girlfriend’s name is Alison, but she say maybe you have more than one.”
“Well, that’s me,” Rafe said, putting his fork down. “The Don Juan of Harkness College.”
“Wherever Rafe goes,” I teased, “the girls follow in little packs, hoping he’ll notice them. I had to follow him all the way to Manhattan just to get this close.”
The boy laughed, and Rafe rolled his eyes. Kidding aside, Rafe probably could have girls hanging off of him if he wanted it that way.
Rafe’s mother snuck up behind the kid and asked him a pointed question in Spanish. With a si
gh, he headed back into the kitchen.
“He was only here for a second,” Rafe protested. “Just saying hello.”
“We do not stand around in the dining room wearing kitchen clothes.” She sniffed. “It looks unprofessional.”
“Relax, Ma,” he said, his head tilting back to look at her. “Since when do you work Saturday night?”
“There was a party to cater. Nobody else was free. And you saw — Cara was here late with her little one. This is our busy season.”
“It’s always our busy season.” He began to stack our finished plates. Rafe and I had demolished all that food in an almost embarrassingly short amount of time. “Flori!” he called, and his cute little cousin came bounding over. “Can you scare up a check?” He handed a stack of plates to her, too.
His mother lunged for the remaining dishes, practically clucking over him. “There is no check, Rafael.”
“We had a couple of beers.”
“Eh. Pablo will live. Do not run out yet. I’ll bring you dulce de leche en table.” She turned to me. “Would you like coffee?”
“Oh! No thank you. Everything was wonderful.”
She smiled and darted away. Rafe’s mother reminded me of a little bird, flitting from one place to another in an instant.
Rafe rubbed his stomach. “I needed that. Putting up with the crazy family was almost worth it.”
I gave a little groan. “Sorry, but your crazy is not nearly as crazy as our crazy.”
Rafe measured me with his chocolate eyes. “You only win this contest because of the creepy brother-in-law. Otherwise I think I’d have you beat.”
Gazing at him from across the very small table, my neck heated. Not only was it a beautiful view, but I was remembering the last time we had a contest to figure out which of us had it worse. The crazy night we’d shared was still special to me, even if I’d never figured out why Rafe had been so miserable afterward.
His mother reappeared with a plate holding four little sugary-looking squares and several slices of star fruit. “It was lovely to meet you,” she said, giving me another smile. “I am going upstairs now. You’ll be along soon?” she asked her son.