“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.”

  She opens her eyes. “But everything is making much more sense. That’s why he was at the launch that night. That’s why you hid from him at Emergency Brunch. You don’t secretly want him—you secretly work with him!”

  “Well, yes.”

  It’s funny she put it that way, because it’s not that I actively don’t want Noah Ross. Especially this past month, when we’ve barely corresponded and haven’t seen each other . . . let’s just say I’ve had a couple of very stirring dreams. But I can’t tell Meg this—not right now. Her throat button can only handle so many pushes per hour.

  “Lanie, does he want to go public?”

  “We’re . . . in conversation about it,” I say. There have been a couple of emails from Noah, feeling out the particulars. Would we leak it to the press? Would he write an editorial? Would the two of us give interviews? Together? How close to publication should such a thing take place? And with what tone? What would be the rip cord if everything went to hell?

  I’ve played it casual, optimistic, and slightly vague in my responses to him. The truth is, I need Meg to brainstorm a strategy with me. And then there’s Sue . . .

  “What about Sue?” Meg asks.

  I look away, do some thumb twiddling. “You know, I think she’s sort of interested in keeping things status quo. . . .”

  Meg snorts. “You’d need to leverage her with a killer manuscript.”

  I nod.

  “And Noah needs to want this for himself. No equivocating. If that’s the case, and you’ve convinced Sue not to fire us all, I think we could spin a story to the press.” She raps her nails on her desk, thinking. “What we wouldn’t want is the Post scooping it first—the headline would kill us.”

  “ ‘Dude Writes Like a Lady.’ ”

  “New York mag would be good, or we could see about Jacqueline covering it for the Times. We’d have to get Patrisse involved for marketing.”

  I give her a cross-desk hug. “Thank you, Meg.”

  “It will be a giant effing headache,” she says, slurping her coffee with a shake of her head. “Let’s just pray this book is good enough to ride it out.”

  My phone buzzes with a text from Aude: Guess what arrived? Attached is a picture of the metal Brinks briefcase sitting on my desk, with a mason jar of golden tulips atop it.

  “I’ll do more than pray,” I say, and flash my phone at Meg before sprinting back to my desk.

  * * *

  My calls are held. My door is locked. My email set to OOO. The rain out my window is a bonus, as my noise-canceling headphones pipe in soothing river sounds.

  I light a Diptyque candle, dim my overhead lights, and pour a cup of rooibos tea from the giant pot I brewed. Altogether, my first-read setup is something close to bliss. I’m ready to leave this world, with all its anxieties, and enter Edward and Elizabeth’s:

  CHAPTER TWO THOUSAND

  It was sunset, as it always was for them in Central Park. The caviar glistened in its tub as Edward skated a blini across the top and fed the first bite to his wife.

  “Happy anniversary, Collins.” His pet name for Elizabeth was her maiden name; it was how they were first introduced, and over the years it had stuck. “Here’s to fifty more.”

  “Do you believe your life passes before your eyes when you die?” Elizabeth asked, dabbing her napkin to her lips. They had been discussing their mortality since their first date. Her husband was a poet, after all. But recently the timbre of the conversations had changed. Her sister had died the month before. His oldest friend, Theo, had passed that spring.

  “I hope it isn’t only a flash,” Edward said. “I’d want to taste the caviar.” He leaned toward her. “And your lips.”

  How could fifty years of kissing the same man still evoke that stir within her? The answer was that it hadn’t always, not every single time. There were kisses given for the children’s benefit—see how steady Mommy and Daddy are? There were kisses on ballroom stages, after one of them gave a speech accepting an award. There were kisses one whole summer when she might as well have spat in Edward’s face. But that was decades ago by now. And today, at seventy-seven, the most surprising thing of all: He could still kiss her in Central Park and make her want to take him straight to bed.

  “Which of our picnics would you most like to experience at the end? With all your senses.”

  “You want me to list my favorite of our picnics? We’ll be here all night.”

  She sipped her wine and smiled at him. “I’ll cancel my other plans.”

  He took another bite of blini and gazed across the Pond, where a lovely young woman jogged across the Gapstow Bridge. “All right, you want my favorites? We could start with last week’s picnic.”

  “Is that because your memory is going?” Elizabeth teased.

  He took her hand across the table. “It’s because of the red dress you wore.”

  When I come to the end of the first scene, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I love how Noah chose to open the novel with this prologue set in the present before we zip back in time to how they met.

  I’m also relieved by his characterizations. I’d been nervous he might turn my Edward and Elizabeth into a couple I didn’t recognize. But from this opening scene, the lovers I’ve long admired feel true. They read like the people I’d hoped they would be, as vibrant on the page as they’ve always seemed to me when I’ve marveled at them from the Gapstow Bridge.

  And, hold up . . . did he give me a cameo on page one?

  I smile, reading on, expecting the next scene to deal with a much younger Edward and Elizabeth.

  Instead, Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine takes place only a week before the previous chapter. It’s brief and told from Edward’s point of view, and he really does like that red dress. I read ahead quickly, curious about the structure. Soon I realize what Noah is doing.

  He’s writing their story backward.

  As a reader, this thrills me. As an editor, it scares me. It will be one hell of an ambitious undertaking to get the story to hang together right. It’s like diving backward off a cliff into the ocean. It requires faith—and deep enough water.

  I read on, drawn into the story. Out my window, the light fades to evening as I experience Edward and Elizabeth’s love in reverse. Grown children become pregnancies, then glimmers in the lovers’ eyes. Notable careers give way to apprenticeships and amateur mistakes. There’s a summer Edward and Elizabeth spend every picnic fighting. Reading this era from finish to start, I find such beauty in how they lean on love to forgive each other, even before I know the nature of the betrayal. Noah has included some of Edward’s poetry, and I’m touched to find inspiration taken from my own grandfather’s rhymes. There’s a racy scene in the back of a taxi. Another—even hotter—in a beachfront hut in Mexico. I know I’m alone in my office, but I blush reading them, my mind unable to resist casting Noah in Edward’s role.

  Before I know it, my teapot is empty, my headphone batteries dead, and I have arrived at the last chapter. I’m almost sad to be here, but I can’t wait to see how it ends—or rather, how it begins.

  I turn the page.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The rest is blank.

  Is this a typo? Did he send the wrong file? Or has Noah not written how Edward and Elizabeth met?

  * * *

  I trek to three fancy grocery stores in the pouring rain that night before I find the red-and-white-checked picnic basket I had in mind. Now, at Zabar’s, I pay dearly to fill the basket with fried chicken, dill pickles, cheddar biscuits, and a nice bottle of California zin à la Edward and Elizabeth’s favorite meal in Noa’s book. I throw in a bag of organic baby carrots for Javier Bardem.

  A quick recap of my day: Since breakfast, I have violated my NDA a second time by confiding in Meg about Noah; I have edited the novel that may save my career, and fretted over the issue that may end it—Noah potentially putting his name on this book. I emailed Sue to let her know the manuscript is fabulous, and that I submitted it for ARCs. I got an immediate reply: Congratulations, Editorial Director. Now, instead of going home to pack for my transatlantic voyage tomorrow, I am packing a surprise picnic for Noah as a gesture of my love and gratitude for this book. The weather will ensure it’s a living room picnic, but I’ve heard it’s the thought that counts.

  Huddled with my picnic offerings under my crappy umbrella, I ring his bell at the outer gate of Pomander Walk.

  “Hello?” He sounds tinny through the speaker.

  “It’s Lanie!”

  There’s a pause. It feels long. Too long. Is he waiting for me to explain my presence? That would be understandable. But how do I explain my presence? Why didn’t I call before I came?

  Then, suddenly, the gate buzzes and unlocks. I dash inside and up the stairs. He meets me at ye olde streetlight in the middle of the garden. His feet are bare, his T-shirt getting wet. My mind goes back to our hug in the train station the last time we’d been together. I wouldn’t say no to an encore . . .

  “You’re soaked,” he says, and waves me to his stoop.

  Once we’re inside, and Noah closes the door on the storm, it’s suddenly so quiet that I get the chills. All the nice things I was going to say about his book flee my mind.

  “You’re here about the last chapter,” he says.

  “I’m here because I adore the book!”

  “You do?” He looks surprised.

  “Here’s a celebration.” I hold out the basket. He trades me for a towel. As I dry off, I watch him open and examine the picnic. He smiles, but it’s one of his cautious smiles, from our early days.

  “Aren’t you leaving for Italy tomorrow?”

  He sounds so serious.

  “I do have a packing party scheduled with some friends in about an hour,” I say. “I was just . . . dropping this off—”

  “I won’t keep you.” He’s looking at his phone, typing something, which seems a little rude.

  “Oh,” I say. He wants me to leave. How obvious is it that I want to stay? I should go. Right now. But—“I was also wondering about the last chapter . . .”

  He pockets his phone, looks at me. I think I see guilt cross his face, but he’s so hard to read, I can’t be sure. “I’m working on it. I’ll have it to you by the time you’re back from Italy.”

  “That sounds . . . good.”

  I stand on his welcome mat, glancing over his shoulder at the marble table where we ate sushi and played chess like two not completely awkward human beings. It feels like an alternate reality. Where did I go wrong?

  “I’ll go,” I say, “just . . . one more thing.”

  This time, when he looks at me, his eyes flash, drawing me in. The lightning bolt licks through me. The image of leaping into his arms, adding a low-key straddle of my legs, intrudes upon my saner thoughts.

  “I think this could be the one,” I tell him. “For you to go out with under your own name.”

  “I have a lot to think about, Lanie,” Noah says, opening his front door. “Is it okay if I reach out to you when I’m ready?”

  “Of course.” Tell me everything that’s running through your mind. NOW. “Totally. Take your time.”

  A notification sounds on his phone. He turns the screen so I can see. “I got you a Lyft,” he says, taking my umbrella, holding it over me as he walks me out. “I don’t want you to be late for your packing party.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I guess he wasn’t being rude on his phone before? I guess he was actually being nice. I would have absolutely stood out here in the rain like a dumbass before I remembered to call myself a Lyft. Still . . . why don’t I want to leave?

  Noah points out the car, helps me inside.

  “Thanks for the picnic,” he says. “Have a wonderful trip.”

  * * *

  “I have vodka, Veselka, and Vigo,” Meg says when she shows up at my door at nine-thirty, after she’s finally gotten her kids to sleep.

  “A and B,” I say, reaching for the booze and the bag of take-out pierogi from my favorite Ukranian greasy spoon.

  “C.” Rufus reaches over my shoulder to snap up the DVD of The Lord of the Rings. He’d arrived half an hour earlier so I could give him the lowdown on tortoise-sitting Alice while I’m out of town. And also, so he could shit-talk my packing strategy, which he called a packing tragedy. By now he’s rolled up all my shirts into a tiny corner of the Louis Vuitton duffel bag BD bought in Paris in the seventies.

  “Do you have your passport?” Meg asks. “Travel adapter? String bikini?”

  “Locked and loaded,” I say. “Right next to my new motorcycle license.”

  “I am deeply concerned about this,” Meg says. “It’s supposed to be a vacation, not a stunt show. And where is the Tumi suitcase I made you buy at the sample sale?”

  “Doesn’t fit on a bike,” I say, ignoring Meg’s shudder. “But with this bungee cord, I should be able to strap the Louis Vuitton to the Ducati’s luggage rack.” I give the cord a couple stretches.

  “You have no idea how that works,” Rufus says.

  “Or that you’ll need more than one,” Meg adds.

  “That’s what adventures are for,” I say and pour three shots of vodka.

  “Launching your vintage Vuitton duffel into the Tyrrhenian Sea?” Rufus asks as he takes his glass.

  “Trying new things,” I say.

  “Cheers to that,” Meg says and raises her glass. “And to Noa Callaway, for turning in the book just in time for you to have a whole lot of reckless Italian sex.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Rufus says to Meg as we clink. “You want Lanie to be careful on her motorcycle but careless in the sheets?”

  “Risk/reward,” Meg says and drains her glass. “Falling out of bed is only a two-foot drop.”

  I laugh and drink, but I find myself picturing the bed in Noah’s apartment. I wish I were with him, that we were making our way through the zinfandel and fried chicken, and he was telling stories about his mom before she was sick. That we were playing chess and I was winning, or that we were both reading beside his fireplace—

  I stop myself. Noah couldn’t have gotten me out of his apartment faster with a can of Mace tonight. Our relationship is professional. I need to stay clear on that.

  I meet Meg’s eyes as we sip. We share a glance, but I can’t tell if she’s picking up on my cues. I want to find a chance to talk to her alone before she leaves tonight, to let her know I talked with Noah today about the pseudonym.

  “Ladies,” Rufus says, “I know.”

  “You know what?” Meg says.

  “I know Noa Callaway is that sexy guy Lanie was hiding from at Emergency Brunch.”

  “How did you know that?” I gasp.

  “I didn’t tell him!” Meg says.

  “I’ve known since that day he sent you tulips. Your pheromones were glowing. So I put a few things together. I figured I’d wait for you to tell me, but I’m not going to sit here all night watching you two shoot meaningful glances over my head.” He pours himself more vodka. “And people say men aren’t perceptive.”

  “You’ve known all this time?” I ask. “It doesn’t bother you he’s a man?”

  “What’s the big fucking deal?” Rufus says.

  “Wait a minute,” Meg says. “Pheromones?”

  “No.” I wave my hands. “It’s not—”

  “Lanie,” Rufus says in his life-coach voice. “Remember how bad you are at lying.”

  I scoop some cabbage onto a pierogi, take a steamy, stalling bite. “Fine,” I say with my mouth full. “I want him.”

  Meg gasps.

  “But it doesn’t matter, because he does not reciprocate,” I say. “I mean, we’ve touched exactly once. It was a hug—a good one—but it was under very particular circumstances. And then I didn’t see him for a month. Tonight, when I stopped by to congratulate him on the book, it was a mistake. He treated me like I was a door-to-door vacuum salesperson.”

  “Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Meg says. “Maybe it’s a rebound crush?”

  “Or something. It’ll fade. Italy will be good for me. I’ll get some me-time, and I’ll come back with my pheromones less . . . pronounced.” I sigh. “Either that, or I’ll die alone, and lose my job, and take all of Peony down with me.”

  “Oooh,” Rufus says.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking. The name. Lanie Callaway. It suits you.”

  “I would never change my name.”

  “Not even Lanie Bloom-Callaway?” Rufus says.

  “Wouldn’t it be Lanie Bloom-Callaway-Ross?” Meg asks.

  “This is a moot conversation in so many ways!” I say as my phone rings with a FaceTime call from BD.

  “What’d I miss?” BD is on her Peloton, a rainbow sweatband around her head. “Meg told me you were meeting tonight, and then my Hinge date had to sit shiva for his ex-wife, so it turns out, I’m available.”

  My doorbell rings.

  “That’ll be Postmates,” BD says. “I sent you some Van Leeuwen’s vanilla. Meg told me about the V theme.”

  “What’s the V theme about anyway, Meg?” Rufus calls over his shoulder as he goes to the door. A moment later, he returns with two pints of ice cream. “Is it to wish Lanie buon viaggio?”