“I love them, too,” I say.
Calla smiles at me more broadly now. “Which one is your favorite?”
I lean in closer, drop my voice. “I hear Noa Callaway is writing a new book. It’s supposed to be the best one yet.”
“Did you know that?” Calla asks Noah. “A new book from Noa Callaway!”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Noah says, his eyes on me.
“My tender boy,” Calla says. “I worry for you. Love is never so easy as it is on the pages of a book.”
“Mom,” Noah says, his tone half tease, half earnest plea for her to stop. “Bernadette embarrassed me enough in front of Lanie last month. Let me keep a little dignity, if you can.”
I look at Calla, but when I see the blankness in her expression, I understand she doesn’t remember who Bernadette is. I think back to the picture in Noah’s office, when they’d all been young and smiling and well. I look to Noah, wondering what he’s thinking, but he’s looking away.
“That’s nice, dear,” his mother finally says, her tone more distant now. “Have you had breakfast yet? I put the cornflakes on the table.”
* * *
An hour later, we’re back at D.C.’s Union Station, and our rapport feels different, like we’ve come through something together. Noah will stay the night in D.C., but first he’s walking me to my train. He signals for me to wait as he slips inside a newsstand. A moment later, he returns, a bottle of water and two peppermint patties in his hands. He tucks them in the tote bag slung over my shoulder.
“How did you know I love these?” I say as we walk down the stairs to the quay. The train’s already boarding. I wish we had more time.
He scratches his chin. “I believe it was our email exchange on the afternoon of October twenty-third in the year twenty—”
“Okay, wise guy—”
“You told me once, and I remembered.”
“Because we’ve been friends,” I fill in what he’d been about to say, “for seven years.”
“And counting.”
We stop before the train. Noah turns to me and meets my eyes. We’re standing close enough that I get a little dizzy.
“Thanks for today,” he says. “I hope it wasn’t weird for you?”
“Not at all.” I want to thank him, too, but the words don’t feel right. I enjoyed today. Meeting Calla Ross was unexpected and illuminating. It felt profound to see Noah with her, the intimate family they make.
He seems tired, and I understand. I remember how much I slept the year I lost my mom. He has a hard road ahead of him with Calla’s care, and I want him to know I’m here.
I step toward him, put my arms around him. My face presses to his chest. I exhale when I feel his arms around me. He’s warm and firm and somehow not at all what I expected. Maybe it’s just the way he holds me back that takes me by surprise. Like it’s natural. Like we’ve done all this before. It leaves me breathless, and I realize I don’t want to get on that train.
What if I stayed? What if—
“All aboard,” a voice calls from the train.
“Good night, Lanie,” Noah says against my ear as the conductor blasts the horn. “Thanks again.”
Our arms fall away from each other. I turn from him reluctantly, and board the train.
Chapter Sixteen
When Meg comes into her office on the morning of May 15, she flips on the lights, then jumps at the sight of me, curled in the fetal position on her zebra-print love seat.
“Cool if I hide in here for the next six to eight hours?”
“Sure thing,” she says, tossing down her raincoat and purse. “Who are you hiding from? Are Aude’s sisters in town again?”
I shake my head.
“Oh, that’s right!” Meg’s eyes widen. “It’s motherfucking D-day for Noa Callaway!”
“Every time I hear footsteps,” I say, “I think it’s the Brinks messenger coming at me with that metal briefcase. The suspense may literally kill me.”
Meg powers up her computer, sipping a very large mocha from the café across the street. “Just think, by tonight at six o’clock, you’ll be curled up with Alice, reading the manuscript, swooning with delight, all your worries dissolved. But you’d better read fast, because Mama’s coming over after Goodnight Moon to drunk pack for Italy with you.”
I sit up on her love seat. “Meg, I have a confession.”
“You don’t want to drunk pack together?”
“It’s not that.”
She’s checking her email, not entirely focused on me. “Is it about Noa Callaway?”
I get up and close the door to her office. I come back to sit across from her, clasp my hands together on her desk. Now I have her attention.
“Uh-oh,” Meg says. “Is she . . . not delivering a manuscript for summer?”
“She is not delivering a manuscript for summer.”
Meg spits out her sip of mocha.
“He is delivering a manuscript for summer,” I say.
Meg wipes her mouth. “Wut?”
“Noa Callaway is a man. Like, anatomically. Facial hair, Adam’s apple, the works.” I make some gestures with my hands. “And you can’t tell anyone I told you.”
Meg bursts out laughing, waves me off—then freezes. “Oh sweet lord, you’re not kidding. How? What? When? Who!”
I stand up, pace the room. “His real name is Noah Ross. I only found out three months ago. Right after my promotion. Which Sue kept saying was provisional, so I couldn’t tell you until I got the manuscript. But now, well, here I am. Assuming he does deliver, assuming it’s good—I might want to explore what it would look like to tell his readers.”
“I understand,” she says, putting up a hand. “Complicity, the patriarchy, et cetera.”
I nod. I feel increasingly committed to telling the truth, to showing Noah’s readers what I’ve seen in him. “Can you help?”
I look at Meg, needing hardened, streetwise, Meg-like reassurance. But she is pressing her button in the hollow of her throat, trying to calm herself down.
“Should we take a cleansing breath together?” I ask.
“Let’s do that.”
We both inhale deeply. We let it out. We repeat. And soon, Meg gets a focused look in her eyes.
“Let’s start with the publicist’s first question,” she says. “What is he actually like? Is the guy playing GTA in his mother’s basement with a boa constrictor and a sack of Doritos? Is he a trench coat flasher? Does he torture dogs? Because my powers of spin are only so strong. . . .”
How to describe Noah Ross? How to sell him to Meg as an asset? Over the past three months, Noah has shown me so many surprising sides of himself, I don’t even know where to begin. Should I tell her about the motorcycle lesson? Our co-felony in D.C.? Calla Ross’s bookshelf in the assisted living home? Should I tell her about Javier Bardem eating sushi? Then I realize, Meg’s met him before.
“He’s Man of the Year.”
“No. Way.” Meg squeezes her eyes shut. “You are messing me up right now.”
“I couldn’t tell you. I still can’t tell you.”