“My mom died of stomach cancer so it was, you know, very messy,” I said as I crouched to pet Sugar. “I’ve been through a variation of this. But sometimes I still can’t believe how undignified and sad life is.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, “but I’m sure it makes a huge difference to Jerry that you’re here.” We both were quiet, and the whisking and tapping of a nearby sprinkler became noticeable. “I wish I could make this easier for you,” Noah added.
“You have,” I said. “In about a million ways. Have you ever been around a super-sick person before?”
“There was a producer, this beloved guy named Billy Rodriguez, who died in 2010 of glioblastoma. I’d worked with him on all my albums except one. I wasn’t directly cleaning up after him, so to speak, but I saw him a bunch of times in the hospital and once in hospice and yeah—it’s rough.”
“If you want to go back to L.A., I hope you know it’s okay. I don’t want you to feel trapped here.”
“Do you want me to go back to L.A.?”
“No.”
Again, we were quiet, and Sugar wagged her tail against the deck and the sprinkler went tck, tck, tck. Was it my imagination, or was there a head and a pair of shoulders in the Larsens’ second-floor bathroom window, a figure watching us? Which was as likely to be Charlotte as one of her daughters.
“I don’t want to go back to L.A.,” Noah said. “I do eventually. But not now.”
* * *
—
That afternoon, courtesy of Viv and Henrietta, an enormous box arrived from a gourmet grocery store in New York: dried fruit and fancy coffee and cheeses wrapped in gel packs and many kinds of crackers and cookies. I was moved, and almost certain Noah would eat none of it. That night, he made us pan-seared salmon for dinner, and as we were cleaning up in the kitchen, I said, “So I have a question.”
Noah raised his eyebrows.
“Do you still want to be my boyfriend—or whatever—now that you’ve given my stepdad a shower?”
He laughed. “I’d love to be your boyfriend or whatever. I do have a condition, though.”
Nervousness surged through me.
“If something upsets you,” he said, “it’s fine if you need to pause the conversation or go in the other room, but I don’t want you to blow everything up, because it’s too stressful to live like that.”
“Blow everything up meaning what?”
“Meaning check into a hotel. Or throw a bomb about me dating models so we don’t talk for two years.”
I swallowed. “I think that’s fair,” I said. “Do you know the movie term lampshading?”
“I don’t.”
“It’s when something in the plot or the logic of a film doesn’t quite make sense and the screenplay has the characters acknowledge it without resolving it. It’s a trick to reassure the audience that you’re not trying to trick them.”
“Okay.” He looked puzzled.
“I want us to stay together,” I said. “I want to be your girlfriend. And I know that if I am, your professional identity will overshadow my professional identity and Internet trolls will criticize how I look and say they can’t believe you’re with me. I can work on not caring about those things or not paying attention to them, but I can’t keep them from happening.”
“If this helps, I can remind you that Internet trolls are Internet trolls.”
“I’m going to lampshade it because I don’t know how to resolve it. But you’re worth the risk. Even I know that giving up would be a huge mistake.”
“Oh, yeah?” He was grinning. “Even you?”
“This might come out wrong, but I haven’t been sure until now if you know how to be a normal person. For a celebrity, you’re amazing. But I didn’t know if you knew how to pick up takeout or live without assistants or stay in a crappy little house with wall-to-wall carpet. And I don’t think you’ve been trying to prove yourself, but if you had, it’s clear that you’re actually a lot better at being a normal person than I am.”
“I’m always trying to prove myself to you.” He made a wry face. “But maybe I’m lucky that you underestimate me so it’s not that hard.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask—do people recognize you at Target?”
“I don’t think so. I’m a middle-aged bald dude wearing a baseball cap and a mask.”
“I think it’s only a matter of time before the mom next door realizes you’re here, if she hasn’t already. Apparently, she’s a superfan.” I pointed toward the window facing the side of the Larsens’ house.
“Did she say something?” Noah seemed unruffled.
“That she’s a superfan.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s a nice person, and I don’t think she’ll alert the media or anything like that, but I might have to develop some skills for running interference for you.”
“If people ask you for stuff from me, you can always ignore them or else refer them to Leah and let her handle it.”
“I don’t long to be your secretary, but you’re not worried that I’d ignore something important?”
“People tend to be persistent when it’s important. And they shouldn’t be reaching out through you anyway. Regarding the neighbor—”
“Charlotte.”
“Regarding Charlotte, I’m happy to meet her. I can’t be all things to all people, but the family who took care of Sugar? I’m glad to.”
“That’s very nice, and I hope you don’t come to regret it.” I’d been wiping the kitchen table, and I squeezed the rag over the sink. “Anyway,” I said, “for as long as I live, I’ll always remember that you went and bought Jerry a bedside commode.”
“Don’t forget the shower chair.”
“And the shower chair. And the portable urinal with the glow-in-the-dark cap.”
“The funny thing,” he said, “is that when you were staying at that hotel in Santa Monica, I was brainstorming about how to win you back. I was thinking about how in romantic comedies, don’t they usually end with one of the people hurrying to be reunited with the other and publicly declaring their love? Like at a party or an airport? I didn’t know I just had to buy a urinal at Target.”
“The term for that is a grand gesture.”
“I was wondering if you’d like it or hate it if I came to your hotel and, well, serenaded you. In front of other people, I mean, like from the sidewalk.”
“Good question. I think maybe I’d aspire to hate it but secretly love it.”
“Why would it be better to hate it? Because it’s cheesy?”
“Well,” I said, “I once heard a smart person point out that it’s hard to determine where the dividing line is between cheesiness and acceptable emotional extravagance.”
He grinned again. “I didn’t tell you at the time, but I know exactly where the line is. When it’s happening to other people, it’s cheesy. When it’s happening to you, it’s wonderful.”