“Are you certain you don’t want to reconcile with him now that he’s signed a lucrative contract?”
Nydia closed her eyes for several seconds. “I’m very certain. There were issues other than money that impacted our relationship.” She would never reveal to her mother that Danny had told his friends he didn’t need to hold down a steady job because his girlfriend earned enough to support him until he broke into the music business. And once he became a star he could have any woman he wanted.
She didn’t want to discuss Danny. “I’m going back to sit with Abuelita. She always complains that she doesn’t see me enough.”
Isabel pushed to her feet. “I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 8
Nydia leaned closer to the partition separating her from the taxi driver. “You can put me out at the next corner.” They were three blocks from El Rincon, and she decided to walk the rest of the way. She shoved a bill through the slot and got out of the cab. The wailing of sirens and flashing lights, along with bumper-to-bumper traffic along Second Avenue, was an indication she would not make it to the restaurant to meet Danny on time. And being tardy was one of her pet peeves.
The sidewalks were teeming with people entering and leaving stores and those standing on corners waiting for the lights to change. Nydia shouldered her way through a group of young girls wearing their school’s uniform. They were talking over one another, their voices escalating as they attempted to make their point.
She smiled. There had been a time when she was one of those girls, talking louder and faster to make herself heard. Nydia estimated they were around fifteen or sixteen, and she wondered if she’d been that loud or obnoxious at that age. Her mother had made her teenage years a living nightmare, when she punished her for talking back while Nydia thought of it as speaking her mind. It had taken a while for her to understand it wasn’t what she’d said, but how she’d said it. Once she tempered her tone, Isabel appeared more open to her opinions and requests.
Nydia held out her hand to signal a driver to stop turning the corner as she stepped into the intersection. As an adolescent she would have screamed at the driver that the pedestrian had the right of way, or if she was feeling particularly hostile, flip them the bird. Thankfully those incidents were behind her, and navigating crowded streets and sidewalks on her way to work would become a thing of the past once she moved to New Orleans and into her suite in the Garden District mansion.
As the CFO for the DuPont Inn, she would live rent-free on the premises; and her meals at the café Martine and the supper club Toussaints were also gratis. Food and lodging were the most important and significant components in any household budget—two factors that would no longer exist for her.
However, Nydia knew she would have to either buy or lease a car to get around her new city. Her father had taught her to drive, but owning a car in Manhattan had become prohibitive because of the dearth of available parking. She hadn’t wanted to get up every other morning to move her vehicle from one side of the street to the other for opposite side of the street parking, or drive around aimlessly to find a space blocks from her home. And there was no way she wanted to spend hundreds of dollar a month for a space in an indoor garage.
She made it to the restaurant with minutes to spare. There were a number of empty seats and booths in the popular eating establishment. If it had been the weekend Nydia knew she would have had to wait to be seated. She spotted Danny at a booth for two located close to the kitchen. He’d put on sunglasses and a baseball cap, probably in an attempt to conceal his identity.
He stood up with her approach. “Thanks for meeting me, doll,” he whispered in her ear. “Please change places with me, because I want to sit with my back to the door.”
She complied, sat, and slipped off the strap of her cross-body bag and placed the small purse on the seat beside her. “How are you dealing with the fame?”
Danny Ocasio lowered his eyes. Long, dark lashes touched a pair of high cheekbones in a sculptured face that reminded Nydia of the Greek statues she’d seen in museums during her school’s field trips. His thick black hair fashioned into a man bun, swarthy complexion, large, seemingly laughing dark eyes and balanced features had most women giving him a second and occasionally a third glance. Danny was the epitome of self-confidence when it came to his artistic talent and looks, but there was an exception few were aware of: height. Standing five-seven in bare feet had become his Achilles’ heel, and he had made it a practice always to date girls who were shorter than he.
“It comes and goes,” he said in a quiet voice. He looked up, his eyes boring into Nydia’s. “It’s like winning the lottery, and everyone you know wants a piece of your prize.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Danny. I want nothing from you.”
He nodded. “I knew you would be the exception.” A waitress came over and left menus on the table. “Please give us a few minutes,” he said when she lingered at the table.
“Okay,mi amor,” she drawled, and then winked at him.
Nydia lifted her eyebrows. “Before it was Danny, and now you’remi amor?” she teased.
A flash of humor crossed his face. “What did I say about wanting a piece of the prize?”
She knew he was right. Any time news floated around the neighborhood about someone winning Lotto or money from a legal settlement, relatives they never knew surfaced. “When do you start recording your album?” she asked in an attempt not to talk about money—the very subject that had become the source of her refusal to commit to a future with him.
“Next month. I’ll be going to LA with my manager and publicist.”
“You already have a manager and publicist.” Her query came out as a statement.
Danny nodded. “Once I got more than two million hits on the song I uploaded to YouTube, this dude contacted me and said he could get me a recording contract if he signed on as my manager. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so I signed on the dotted line. Three weeks later the head of new talent called and asked me how many songs I’d written. When I told him over thirty, he said he would contact my manager and discuss what they were willing to offer.”
He paused and smiled as if hiding a secret. “I have to confess that my manager is as lethal as a piranha when it comes to negotiating. I got a very lucrative signing bonus and a lot of other perks usually afforded gold record artists.”
Resting her elbow on the table, Nydia supported her chin on her fist. “They did it because they recognize your talent.”
“But do you?”
She blinked slowly. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you really believe I’d never make it, Nydia?”
