How is the question looping through my mind for the first cold couple of miles. How does a guy like Noah Ross write women, write love so well?

  At the launch, he had said he wasn’t married, no girlfriend, so I can’t credit a woman in the background. Then again, who knows if he was lying to me about being single, too.

  Not that I care. I’m just genuinely confused. How did he convince me, surely one of his most careful readers, that there was a deep, true, feminine intuition behind his stories? How did his take on love come to be what shaped my own?

  I cringe, thinking of my list. My Ninety-Nine Things. Tenderly crafted a decade ago on my dorm room bed.

  When I picture cynical Noah Ross coming up with the premise of Ninety-Nine Things I’m Going to Love About You, I have to stop running because I think I might be sick. Seagulls scatter as I lean over the railing on East River Esplanade, gulping air to catch my breath. Wind lashes my face as the river rolls by beneath me, undisturbed.

  And then, I wonder—

  If I hadn’t taken that book so seriously, if I hadn’t committed my own list to paper, carried it around with me all these years . . . would I have fallen so hard and fast for Ryan when we met? Would I be as sure that he’s the one?

  Stop it, I tell myself, and run west, away from the river. Just because Noa Calloway is a lie doesn’t mean my relationship is. It doesn’t mean love isn’t real and true.

  This is not about Ryan. This is about my career.

  And the man who might wreck it.

  If I let him. Which I’m not going to do.

  Usually, I’d be reaching out to my people about now. Ryan, first and foremost. And a half-second later, BD, then Rufus and Meg. But as my fingers itch to send a series of SOS texts to each of them, I see that non-disclosure agreement in my mind.

  I’d signed it in Sue’s office like an idiot. I can’t tell anyone the truth about Noa Callaway.

  Suddenly, I feel my torment focus into a single vector: Sue.

  Peony’s president and publisher sat there as I signed the NDA, and told me to buckle up. I feel betrayed by her, her poise and calm and cardigans. To be fair, I don’t think she’s ever actually met Noah, so she may not know his particular shade of self-obsessed. But surely, she knows he’s a man. Why doesn’t it present a crisis of conscience for her?

  Silly Lanie. Naïve Lanie.

  Money.

  That’s why.

  But what about Alix? If I am a good boss and a mentor to Aude it’s because Alix taught me how to be good. Why didn’t Noah’s identity ever seem to bother her? I’ve tried calling Alix, but her mailbox was full, and my emails have gone unanswered. So I’m left to wonder:

  Is it different because Alix discovered him? Signed his first novel with Peony? What if she crafted his pseudonym herself? Is this why she really gave her notice—to finally make peace with The Lie?

  I need to talk to Sue. There’s got to be another, more honest way to publish these books. Something between unmasking Noah for the asshole he is and perpetuating a fabrication to millions around the world.

  But the thought of going into Sue’s office, making any such request with no manuscript to show for my provisionally promoted self . . . it would be tantamount to asking Sue to fire me.

  I need ammunition. I need a watertight concept from Noah and a delivery date I can hold his ass to. Then, I can think about next steps.

  I begin to sprint. My legs and arms pump with sudden optimism. My muscles burn as I enter Central Park.

  I didn’t know I was headed here until I stop to catch my breath and find myself in the center of the Gapstow Bridge. I put my hands on the stone railing and let it center me. I take in the big, beautiful city in the dusk.

  Pink clouds stretch across the sky like spun sugar. There’s still snow on the north side of the Pond. In the distance, windows glitter gold as the sun sets, a shining fence around the park.

  Used the city up. I roll my eyes, recalling Noah’s words. It isn’t possible. I don’t believe him. Something else is going on with Noah, something I can’t see. Whatever it is, I’m not going to let it wreck my life. I’m going to pull one more book out of him. Then I’ll figure out what to do about his pseudonym.

  I’m glowering into the distance, contemplating how I’ll do this, when two approaching figures sharpen in my view. It’s getting dark, but I can still see them. Something about the way they move is familiar.

  Of course. It’s Saturday night, Edward and Elizabeth’s picnic hour. And here they are—not gone like I’d feared. My heart lifts.

  She is slight with cropped, silvery hair and a smart trench coat. He is scarcely taller than her, in professorial glasses and thick-soled orthopedic shoes. When he smiles, he’s a dashingly handsome older man.

  They’re older. But it’s them.

  Elizabeth has her arm threaded through the same picnic basket, but she’s added a cane since I last saw her. Edward, as usual, bears a tiny folding table and two chairs. I watch as he helps her step up onto the grass. It’s damp from the morning’s rain, but as usual, they have come prepared. As Edward unfolds the table and chairs, Elizabeth lays out a white tablecloth, carefully smoothing it down. He lights candles. She produces a box of fried chicken, a jar of pickles, and a bottle of wine. The whole scene is impossibly charming, but the best part is when they sit down and take each other’s hands across the table. For a while, they just talk, and though I long to, I’ve never drawn near enough to eavesdrop.

  I’m so glad to see them. It feels like a sign from the universe that not everything has gone to hell.

  I take out my phone and snap a quick picture of the couple in profile, of their glowing candlelit picnic. I’m about to send it to Ryan, because this will be us one day.

  But then I imagine him at his senator’s birthday dinner in D.C., the one I was supposed to attend. How he might not be pleased to get this photo.

  I put my phone away. I blow a kiss to Edward and Elizabeth, then jog toward home in the New York night.

  * * *

  “I’m about to tell you something,” I say to BD the next morning over brunch at an Ethiopian restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. “But first I need to swear you to secrecy.”

  BD puts down her menu and smiles. “This is why I need to come to New York more often. Do you know the last time your father or your brother started off a conversation half so well? I think Hillary’s husband was in office.”

  BD’s in town for just a few hours, passing through the city on a road trip with a group of friends she calls the League of Widows. This afternoon, they’re on their way to Niagara Falls.

  I was up all night debating whether I should say what I’m about to say. But if I hadn’t canceled my D.C. weekend with Ryan to meet with Noa Callaway, then I wouldn’t have gotten to see BD at all. So in a way, it feels like it was meant to be that my grandmother is here when I need her most.

  “You joke, but—” I say.

  “I joke, but I’m dead serious. In the way only an octogenarian can be. You can trust me with your confidence, Elaine.”

  “Thank you.” My eyes fill with tears.

  BD scoots her chair around the table to be nearer to me. She holds my hands. Hers are always cold and smooth, and she wears about eighteen thousand very nice rings.

  “Honey. Is it Ryan?”

  “What? No. Everything’s fine with Ryan,” I say. “It’s . . . Noa Callaway. I met Noa Callaway.”

  I swallow and meet my grandmother’s wide eyes. BD has been a fan of Noa’s almost as long as I have, ever since I bought her Ninety-Nine Things a decade ago in large print.

  “She’s a he,” I say and hang my head. “A man. And not the good kind.”

  “Well, that’s a third-degree doozy.” BD tosses her napkin on the table, as if she’s just lost her appetite.

  I, on the other hand, have started stress-eating. I grab a huge wedge of injera and sweep up a mound of spicy chicken doro wat.

  “Okay, where do we begin?” she says.

  “We could begin with the fact that the whole reason I got into publishing is because of Noa Callaway, and it turns out she’s a lie,” I say with my mouth full. “Now I’m an accomplice, and Peony is profiting off the misconception that our biggest author is a woman.”

  “Go back, go back.” BD waves her hand. “Let’s work our way up to moral depravity—”

  “But morally, I am violating the trust of millions of readers! Can I even call myself a feminist?”

  My grandmother pats my arm. “I don’t think Gloria Steinem is coming to take your card away just yet,” she says, then pauses to think. “Another way of looking at what happened is the classic you-met-your-hero, Lanie. Why don’t you slow down and tell me about it?”

  “Ugh,” I say, as the memory flows back into my mind. “His real name is Noah Ross. He’s a mid-thirties narcissist with a smug smile and a completely reckless disregard for the fact that he’s four months late on his next manuscript. He doesn’t seem to grasp that even if it doesn’t matter to him whether he writes another book, it matters to a whole lot of other people. It matters to me.”

  “What makes you so sure he’s not working on this book?”

  “Because yesterday I told him to send me what he had so far.” I push back from the table. “Radio silence.”

  “So.” BD raps her long nails on the table. “Noa Callaway is a putz, and he’s got writer’s block, just in time for your provisional promotion. This is not good.”

  “I keep coming back to the moment when I finally understood who he was. We were at the chess house in Central Park. And this thing passed between us. It was like both of us knew everything was about to change—and not for the better.”

  “So, you weren’t the only one nervous about the reveal?”

  “He wasn’t nervous,” I say. “He was ice-cold. He brought me to a location that meant something to us both—you know, our online chess games?”

  “Legendary,” she concedes.

  “And then he played me like a fiddle.”

  “A pawn would be a more apt metaphor, here, Editor.”

  “Whatever! He also mocked my suit!”

  BD’s brows shoot up. “The Fendi?”

  I nod, daring BD to defend him now. “Characterizing, wouldn’t you say?” I sigh. “I wore it because I think I was expecting him to be more like . . . you. Less like . . . himself. Honestly, it’s hard for me to remember now who or what I’d been expecting. Oh, BD, why couldn’t it have been you?”

  “Well, I’m flattered, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “Really?” I say, amazed. “You’ve read all Noa’s books. You’re honestly telling me you suspected Noa Callaway had a . . . you know . . .”

  “You can say penis to your grandmother, Lanie.”

  “Oh jeez. Fine. Penis.”

  “Manhood,” BD says.

  “Dick.” I put my head on the table. She runs her nails along my shoulder like she did when I was little, and it helps.

  “All I’m suggesting is,” she says, “there’s a reason he’s been hiding behind a pseudonym.”

  “I wish I knew what that reason was,” I say, lifting my head off the table. “It might make him seem more human. Less like the Great Red Spot of Jupiter settling permanently over my life. Then again, knowing my luck, I’d probably discover things about him that would only make me hate him more. Can you believe, he actually asked me why it bothers me to find out he’s a man?”

  “Did you have an answer?”

  I sigh. “It made me think of something Ryan said once, at a work party I brought him to. About how the whole point of fiction is that it’s a lie.” I grimace, remembering. “It didn’t score huge points with Sue. But you know, Ryan’s bookshelves are crammed with biographies of Great Men. He and his friends all quote from the same texts. They read them like technical manuals, how-to guides to Become Great. I think it lets them fantasize that someday, the story of their lives will be interesting enough for other men to want to read.”

  BD laughs, nodding.

  “Wouldn’t it rock his sense of self,” I say, “if Profiles in Courage turned out to be a hoax?”

  “Have you told him?” BD says.

  “I mean, the odds are JFK had a ghostwriter, but—”

  “I mean about Noa Callaway,” BD says. “Have you talked to Ryan about it?”

  “BD,” I sputter, feeling myself overdoing a display of shock. “My NDA! I can’t tell anyone . . .”

  She gives me her I’m-just-going-to-wait-for-you-to-get-there look.

  “I told you because I need advice, because I trust you,” I say. Still getting the look. “And because . . .” I pause. “I already know what Ryan would say.”

  She tilts her head, takes a tiny sip of her coffee. “What would Ryan say?”

  “First, he’d call Noah an asshole. Then he’d seize the opportunity to say that maybe this isn’t my dream job anymore. Before I knew it, we’d be talking about the improbability of my working remotely from D.C. Hypothetical children and their hypothetical Halloween carnivals, which I’d be missing because of my hypothetical commute. And then he’d go, ‘Maybe a fresh start in D.C. is what you need.’ ”

  I thought I’d just done a pretty good impersonation of Ryan, but BD isn’t laughing. She’s staring at me, concerned.

  I raise my shoulders. “That’s why I figured I would start with you.”

  BD and Ryan have met only once, at a big family reunion where all of my extended Atlanta relatives vied for Ryan’s attention, thereby guaranteeing that none got quite enough. It’s a goal of mine for my grandmother and my fiancé to bond before the wedding, but it hasn’t happened yet. She knows him, but she doesn’t know him, and I’d better clarify some details of our dynamic so she doesn’t get the wrong idea.

  “BD, what I mean is—”

  “You know, your grandfather wrote terrible poetry,” she interrupts. “He once wrote a series of haikus called Foreplay.”

  I glance around. “I missed the segue in the conversation.”

  “Believe me, he was good at many things. The man could read an X-ray like it was a nursery rhyme,” she says. “He made the lightest pierogi you ever ate. And when it came to a sensual massage, your grandfather had hands like a—”

  “Okay, BD!” I say, laughing. “I get it, but what’s the point?”

  “That no one person can fulfill every single one of another person’s needs. Which is why book clubs and grandmothers exist. I’m sure Irwin would have liked a more enthusiastic audience for his efforts in verse. Whereas I would have preferred the poetry of his fingers to the poetry of his . . . poetry. I would have liked him to pick up a novel once in a blue moon. There was this wonderful couples book club at the JCC we never got to join.” She takes my hand. “I do wish you could have known him.”

  “Me, too,” I say, and give her hand a squeeze. Irwin died before I was born.

  “My point is no marriage gets it all right, honey, but I hope that in choosing Ryan, you have found someone you can turn to when you have a problem, when you really need a steady heart.”

  “Of course,” I say, too quickly. “And I will tell Ryan. At some point. When I have a better handle on what I’m going to do.”

  “When’s that going to be?” she asks. “It won’t get easier to tell Ryan, especially if you have more interactions with Noah.”

  “I’m screwed, okay?” I say, surrendering dramatically. “Did I mention Noah told me he’s used up New York, that there’s nothing fresh for him to write about? Why did he have to choose now to get writer’s block?”

  “Very selfish of him.” BD nods as the waiter clears our plates. “This is supposed to be your moment to shine.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” I reach for the bill in the middle of the table, because it’s one way to seize control, and because if I lose my job, I won’t be able to treat BD to lunch for long. “How would Mom have dealt with this?”

  “Your mother believed in the hair of the dog. She’d look for a way to solve this problem according to its nature.” BD takes out her golden snakehead compact mirror and reapplies some bright magenta lipstick. She looks at herself in the mirror, seeming pleased. “What about Fifty Ways to Break Up Mom and Dad?” she asks after a moment.

  “What about it?” I say.

  I think about my favorite scene, where the characters go hang gliding. The moment just before they run off the cliff.

  Life’s greatest mystery is whether we shall die bravely.

  I read this scene aloud to Ryan once. I was just about to tell him how it made me think about my mother, when he’d teased me—“So suicide is sexy now? That’s the message?”

  But that wasn’t the message at all, and everyone in Fifty Ways made it down the fictional cliff in one piece. The message, as I understood it, was that some people can look into the abyss without losing sight of themselves or what they love. Without being too scared about what lies on the other side.

  Maybe my mom’s last words to me were an act of bravery. She wasn’t worried that I was too young to handle them. She trusted me enough to make a leap.

  Did she also trust that when the time came for me to make my own leap, I’d be able to feel her with me? Is that moment now?

  “Are you saying Noah Ross is my abyss?” I ask BD.

  “Maybe,” she says. “I’m also saying the man needs a taste of his own medicine. No one ‘uses up’ this city, and if he thinks he’s the lone ranger who’s done it, he’s got another think coming. You might have to be his tour guide on this adventure. It just might take you fifty ways.”

  “What do you mean? We go hang gliding over the Hudson? No, thanks.”

  “I mean take him to the places you take me,” she says. “This charming hole-in-the-wall, for example.”

  “It’s the best Ethiopian food in the city.”