I reread the first page three times before acknowledging that I have no idea what I’ve just read. I’m more upset than I want to acknowledge about having to clear my things out of Ryan’s place. It’s like, I know how we got here, but also—How the hell did we get here?
I give up on work for now. At least the soup is good.
From the bottom of my bag, I take out my old paperback copy of Ninety-Nine Things. I flip to the back of the book. How smug I’d felt three years ago, checking Ryan against my list. Look where it got me. Tears sting my eyes, and when I wipe them away, more come.
“It’s meant to be a comedy,” a male voice says over my shoulder.
I look up, then flinch at the sight of the very last person I want to see right now.
Noah Ross wears a black sweater and a Mets cap tugged low. He’s drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup. There’s a few days’ worth of dark stubble on his face, which makes him look rugged yet refined, like if you went camping, he’d cook a gourmet dinner on the fire.
I snap the book closed, put it down like it’s a thousand degrees. It embarrasses me to be caught vulnerable by him, and I’m trying to think of a way to gracefully steer this conversation toward a how-funny-to-have-run-into-you-and-goodbye!—when he sits down across from me.
I point at the jacket, the water bottle, the book. “I think someone’s sitting there.”
“I’m sitting there, Lanie. It’s my stuff. I just went to get some coffee.” He waves the steaming cup.
Of course he’s sitting here. Because this day was designed to destroy me. I surrender, Day. You win.
“If you don’t want to be disturbed,” he says, “I’ll find another seat.”
“No, please,” I have no choice but to say. “Unless . . . I’d be bothering you?” I gesture at his book. The thousand-page tome on Vietnam is not what I’d picture Noa Callaway reading in Noa Callaway’s spare time. Shakespeare’s sonnets, perhaps. Maybe Charlotte Brontë. Not some dense account of international stalemate.
Please. Please. Please say you want to read your book.
“Not at all,” he says, resting an elbow on the shared table between us. “This is . . . funny. Isn’t it? Running into you after you canceled on tomorrow? Terry gave me your message.”
“Really? I wasn’t sure, since I never heard back.” I don’t try too hard to hide my annoyance.
Noah smirks. “I’m sorry. She doesn’t like you.”
“How can you tell?” I deadpan.
“It’s nothing personal. She hated Alix,” he says. “Terry thinks my first drafts are perfect. She’s my godmother. It comes with the job.”
The Terrier is his godmother? I try to find a place to slot this into my understanding of Noah Ross, but I feel ill-equipped. I realize that I know his preferred chess opening （the Sicilian Defense） and his go-to florist （Flowers of the World, West Fifty-Fifth Street）， but nothing about his personal life, where he came from.
“Look, I’m sorry to have canceled—” I say.
He waves me off. “It happens. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I manage, sounding like a robot powering down.
I glance at my copy of Ninety-Nine Things between us on the table. Everything about this encounter feels tremendously embarrassing.
“I’ve just had . . . you know . . . a . . .”
“Bad day?” he says.
I nod. I don’t want to get into my personal life with Noah Ross. He’s being slightly less noxious than the first two times we met, but still, everything could go wrong at any moment.
He turns toward the window and lifts the jacket he’d slung over the second seat. Beneath it, I recognize the same animal crate I saw him carrying on Sunday on the Upper West Side. I lean forward, and there is the black-and-white rabbit, asleep inside.
“You have a bunny,” I remark.
“You have a tortoise,” he says, like this is the end of the conversation.
“Wonder who’ll win the race,” I say, which actually makes him laugh. “Alice was my neighbor’s. Mrs. Park. She moved to Florida a few years ago and couldn’t have pets at her new place. She asked if I’d take Alice as a favor. I’m really glad she did,” I say, smiling at the pleasant thought of Alice. She’ll wonder where I am tonight, but she has enough food and water to last until I’m back tomorrow.
I glance at Noah, because now it’s his turn to say something about his own unlikely companion.
“This is Javier Bardem,” Noah says, looking at the bunny. “He used to be my mother’s.”
“Your mom sounds like she has good taste in men.”
There’s a silence intended for him to elaborate. He doesn’t. He points at my thermos.
“Is that egg drop soup?”
“It is,” I say, feeling my hackles rise. “It was a gift, and it’s my favorite, so don’t—”
“I was merely going to say, it smells good . . . all throughout the car.”
“My soup and I will be happy to reseat ourselves somewhere else,” I say. Though I wish he’d be the one to leave. I unwisely unpacked three tote bags’ worth of stuff onto the table.
“No, stay,” he says. “I need you for cover.”
“What does that mean?”
“Three words,” Noah says, reaching into a brown paper bag. “Tuna. With. Onions.” He takes out a paper-wrapped parcel and soon reveals a large and extremely fragrant sandwich. My eyes start watering, again. “They were out of falafel at my favorite deli, so . . . Maybe our aromas will cancel each other out?”
Against my will, I laugh, and I’m shocked when Noah does, too. I raise my thermos and he holds up his sandwich. We lock eyes.
“Cheers,” I say, “to enjoying odiferous food in confined public spaces.”
I’m chewing a wonton and learning that I just can’t be in a bad mood while chewing a wonton. Noah’s chewing, too. The train comes out from underground, and we both look out the window awhile at the pink dusk of almost-spring. Would it be too much to ask for us to eat in silence the rest of the three-hour journey? We actually get along when we’re not talking.
My phone buzzes. When I look down, I see that Aude has sent me a photo. Of a keychain. My keychain. The one with Ryan’s key on it.
Please tell me this isn’t yours, she writes. I found it by the elevator bank.
“Oh no.”
“What’s wrong?” Noah asks.
“Nothing.”
“You sure? Because you look like you’re about to faint.”
“You have no idea what I look like when I’m about to faint.” But I do feel a little woozy. The image of Iris Bosch dumping my family heirlooms at Goodwill glows in my mind.
“I’m going to D.C. because I need to pick something up,” I say. “I need my keys to do it. And Aude just told me I left them at the office.” I cup my face, retracing my steps. “I ran into my friend as I was leaving . . . she gave me this egg drop soup . . . and I must have dropped my keys.”
“So, it’s actually key drop soup.”
I look at him, blink. “Oh my god, you just made a joke.” It was corny beyond belief, but it was a joke nonetheless.