I swirl the Styrofoam container, give it a deep sniff, and then a long, delicious slurp.

  “I pronounce this soup . . . the second best in the land,” I say solemnly.

  Noah clutches his heart. “My world is shattered.”

  “Speaking of your world,” I say, “what’s your character conundrum?” I want to make sure we cover everything during the three hours we’ve got together before Noah gets off the train to see his mom. Then I’ll turn around and take the three p.m. Acela back to New York. It’s a little absurd, and that’s what I like about it.

  He sits up straighter, brings his fingers to rest on his keyboard. His dark hair falls over his eyes, and I bank the image of Noah Ross in work mode.

  “Usually,” he says, “I start by asking what my characters want, and then what stands in their way of getting it. That how I get to know them.”

  “Sure. Writing 101.”

  “But the structure of this book is so different,” he says, “I can’t rely on a single guiding desire to propel the characters for five decades. I know Elizabeth is a doctor. I know Edward is a poet. I know what they look like, and how they walk, and what they eat for breakfast—”

  “Ooh, what’s on the menu?”

  “Cornflakes and a quartered orange,” Noah says. “At least, until Edward turns fifty. Then he learns to cook.”

  “Took him long enough.”

  “My problem is,” Noah says, “since they already have each other, what else do they want?”

  I think about his question. In life and in fiction, most people come to be defined by their obstacles. What they overcome and what they don’t. Summiting the mountain often reveals an unexpected world. It makes me think about my own obstacles recently—with Ryan, and with Noah—and how they’re changing what I thought I wanted.

  “Maybe you need to ask yourself how they imagine the rest of their life,” I say. “Then you could explore the scenes where they get close to that life. And the scenes where they fall short. Their love story might be the opposite of what they planned,” I say. “That would be the fun of it, proving themselves wrong. Finding beauty in their missteps.”

  “I like that,” Noah says. “And it works, because I think he’s mercurial. Someone who can still surprise his wife, even decades into their marriage.”

  “Learning to cook at fifty would surprise me, too,” I say. “And if she’s a doctor . . .” I trail off. I find myself thinking of my mother. “She’s meticulous, ambitious, generous, and stubborn.”

  Noah looks up from his computer to me. “What does she wish for? When she stands on the Gapstow Bridge and lets herself dream big?”

  I close my eyes. What did my mother want? I used to think it was to set the bar high for everyone she loved, to give us something to reach for. Recently, I see it differently. I don’t think her final words to me were a gauntlet, but an expression of her faith. I think my mom already believed that I could really, really love someone—because she’d shown me how, by loving me that way in the ten years we had together. I think her words were a parachute, tucked away but always there, ready to catch me when I’m ready to leap.

  “More,” is what I tell Noah. “She wants more time. More memories. More laughter. More little moments you don’t think you’ll remember but you do. She doesn’t want it to end. She wants more of what she already has.”

  Noah’s typing like Rachmaninoff. He types for several minutes without pause. “This is what I needed.” When he looks up at me, his eyes are bright and excited. “I don’t know how you did it, Lanie, but you got me writing again.”

  “Duh,” I say. “It was my Fifty Ways list.”

  “That must be it.” He gives me a look I can’t quite decode.

  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.

  “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.