I take a second egg roll. “These are phenomenal, by the way.”
He smiles, and takes one, too, and we chew happily for a moment. The mood seems right to mention sales conference that morning.
“So . . . I floated a title to the team today. . . .”
Noah’s brow furrows in alarm, a look I haven’t seen on him since our early days.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I should have checked with you first, but I was in the hot seat at a meeting and, honestly, the room loved it. I think it’s pretty good.”
He shakes his head. “I already have a title.”
I brace myself. It’s been well established that Noa Callaway sucks at coming up with titles.
“It’s Two Thousand Picnics in Central Park,” he says.
I exhale, laugh, then make a mind-blown motion with my hands. Noah grins.
“Yours, too?” he asks. I nod. “Well, that’s a first! With Alix, it was always war.”
“I remember. One of my first acts as her assistant was to book her a weekend at some New Mexico retreat so should could eat peyote and come down after the Fifty Ways title showdown.”
“That’s where she went?” Noah laughs.
“Around that time, I started picturing you looking like a young Anjelica Huston,” I say. “You had your gorgeous side. And your witchy side.”
I expect him to laugh, but Noah looks down at his hands.
“Not an Anjelica Huston fan?” I ask.
“It isn’t that,” he says. “I wish you hadn’t gone so long not knowing the real me. It would have saved us a few bumps.”
“It’s okay,” I say. Because it is—now. But Noah’s right, it was choppy there for a minute. “Though I have wondered . . . why are you so sealed off, even from people at Peony?”
“When Alix bought Ninety-Nine Things,” he says, “she wanted to keep my gender in the background. We pulled it off because, back then, no one had heard of me. By the time I signed my second contract, there was so much money involved, Sue insisted on the NDAs.”
I had always thought the anonymity was Noa Callaway’s personal preference. But of course, it makes sense that it was Sue.
He looks at me. “I wanted to come clean to you at the first chance. Sue didn’t like the idea, but—”
“You went over her head?”
He nods.
“Noah?” I say tentatively, feeling out my question like the first step into the ocean. “Is there a part of you that wants to come clean to your readers?”
“It’s too late.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to disappoint them. I also don’t want to stop writing.”
“No one wants you to stop writing—”
“I have a feeling some people would enjoy a public comeuppance,” he says in a way that lets me know he’s given this some thought.
“What if we got out ahead of them,” I say. Meg has pulled off mightier miracles. “We could plan a campaign around revealing who you are. We could coordinate it with this book’s release. . . .”
I trail off because my mind is whirling. This dilemma has a moral aspect, and it has a business aspect. In the grand scheme of things, a man publishing novels under a woman’s name registers low on the evil scale. But these books have been so successful that maintaining the secret feels manipulative, like we’re trading on a lie. I also have a fiduciary responsibility to my female-owned-and-operated publishing company. And I need a job to live. But what if I could bring the moral and the business aspects together? What if honesty proved to be profitable?
I realize then that Noah hasn’t said anything, and his posture has grown rigid. I ease off, telling myself it is enough, for now, that Noah has a book idea. That he’s writing rich, compelling characters. That he plans to finish a draft in a month.
We can take on his pseudonym and gender identity in the next breath.
But still, as the train speeds on toward Washington, I feel good to have planted this seed. And reassured to know that Noah doesn’t relish the fortress of his pseudonym.
“Can I ask you something unrelated?” I say.
“Please,” he says.
“How’s your mom?”
He takes a moment to answer. “The disease is progressing faster than we hoped. The doctor and I need to revise our plans, to prepare. We could have done it over the phone, but I’m her only family. I need to do everything I can.”
“I was ten when my mom died,” I say. “I can’t imagine being responsible for decisions about her care.”
“Would you . . .” Noah’s eyes meet mine and hold them. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“I was going to ask if you’d like to meet my mother. I think she’d like you, and, to be honest, I could use a friend there with me. If not, I understand, you’ve already taken so much time today—”
“I’d love to,” I say. I’m flattered that he thinks his mother would like me, and that he wants me there.
“Really?” He smiles. “It wouldn’t take long. I’d get you back to Union Station for a later train. I don’t know how she’ll be today, of course. Some days are better than others.”
“Yes,” I tell Noah. “I’d be honored.”
* * *
Calla Ross’s apartment at the Chevy Chase House is small and neat, roughly the size of Noah’s studio in Pomander Walk. It smells like lemons and clean sheets. I wait there alone while Noah and his mother meet with the doctor in the care center down the hall.
There’s a La-Z-Boy, a double bed, a TV tuned to reruns of Jeopardy!, and several half-completed knitting projects strewn across the couch. The most prominent feature in the room is a large white bookcase near the window. It is filled exclusively with Noa Callaway books. His mother has all the foreign editions—the Turkish Ninety-Nine Things; Twenty-One Games with a Stranger in Hebrew; even the brand-new Brazilian edition of Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Vows. I take it off the shelf and study the cover, so different from Peony’s punchy graphic design. There aren’t this many Noa Callaway titles in my office, or in Noah’s library on Fifth Avenue.
A queasy feeling comes over me, and when I face it, I know it’s envy. I’m envious of this simple presentation of a mother’s pride. Of all the things I miss about my mother, a sense that she’d approve of me is what I crave the most.
There’s a knock at the door. When I turn around, I see Noah pushing his mother in a wheelchair through the threshold. Calla is thin and frail, but the similarities between mother and son astonish me. She has Noah’s eyes—not just the bright green color, but the same shape and twinkle and intensity. Her hair is curly like his, though long and a silvery gray. He got his nose from her, too, and the same slow, cautious smile, which she is giving me right now.
I put my hand in hers. “Mrs. Ross.”
“Call me Calla, honey.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Calla.”
Noah sits on the couch facing his mom. I put the Brazilian edition back on her shelf and join him.
Calla nods at the books. “My son loved these stories growing up.”
I glance at Noah, unsure how to respond. His face gives away nothing, and my heart goes out to him. As much as I’ve lamented not getting an adult relationship with my mother, I can’t imagine her forgetting me.