I’ve always wanted to play at the chess house, with its shaded arch of benches and stone tables in front of the redbrick building. I’ve suggested it to Ryan on a few warm Sunday afternoons, but he doesn’t have the patience for the game.
The February sky is clear and crisp. Turning west onto the path at Sixty-Fifth Street, I hear the chess players before I see them. For a gang of largely retired women, they swear like sailors and slap their timers like bongos. BD would fit right in.
“You gonna take my bishop before we die, Marjorie?” a player asks from one table.
“No way, Betty, I’m not falling for your Siberian trap,” her opponent says.
There must be a dozen players, ranging from sixty to eighty, rotating around four boards. My eyes and intuition scan the group, eliminating half of them. I know Noa Callaway, and she’s not the diminutive Russian lady with lipstick on her teeth. I’m trying to make eye contact with a platinum blond boomer with diamond-rimmed bifocals at the tip of a Roman nose, but she’s focused on advancing her queen and not looking up. Which, honestly, is so Noa Callaway of her.
I draw closer. If I can just catch her eye, then I’ll know. I can take five seconds to acclimate to the reality of her. Then I’ll be good. I can focus on not fucking up this meeting, on being professional instead of an adoring fan. But before she notices my approach, my gaze is disrupted by her opponent, who is looking right at me.
I freeze when I realize I know him. It’s Ross, from the launch party. Man of the Year. Edible confetti shower sharer. Thrower of lightning bolts through my body.
Look away. You have one job.
He smiles at me, a sly expression on his face. I see they’re in the endgame, and that Ross’s queenside pawn majority is rolling.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.” My cheeks ignite. I’m not dressed for lightning storms today.
“Checkmate, bitch!” the woman says all of a sudden. If she isn’t Noa Callaway, I give up. But when she looks at me, the blankness in her gaze hits me hard.
I raise my book and say her name, but she doesn’t hear me. She’s calling to the other women in the group.
“I finally beat Ross!” She pumps her fists as women rise and swarm the table. Everyone needs proof. When they get it, Diamond Bifocals disappears in hugs.
“Want to play?” Ross says, gesturing for me to sit down.
“I’m sorry. I’m supposed to meet someone.”
His smile pulls me close, then drops me with how quickly it vanishes. I turn my gaze away, make myself available to Noa Callaway.
“Lanie,” Ross says.
“Excuse me,” I say, waving an apology as I back away. “It was nice to see you again.”
“Lanie.” His voice commands my attention.
And then—my stomach sinks. Because I get it. It’s like the force of gravity has doubled. That’s how heavy I feel as Ross and I regard each other for a long and silent while.
“You?” My legs feel shaky. I drop onto the bench.
“Yeah.”
“Oh my god.”
Noa Callaway has an Adam’s apple. Noa Callaway has chest hair. Noa Callaway has a deep voice and a firm handshake. By all estimation, Noa Callaway has other firm things, too.
The years of emails, the online chess games? All this time, it’s been him?
I think of reading Ninety-Nine Things furtively in my college dorm room. The way that story spun my life in an entirely new direction, toward this version of me, right here, right now. I think of my Ninety-Nine Things list, snug in Ryan’s wallet, the man it led me to.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t seem to catch my breath.” The scarf is too tight around my neck. I gulp from the water bottle in my bag. I close my eyes and try to speak. “How . . . how could I not have known?”
“I could have sworn you did know,” he says.
“Why would you think that?” I hear the anger rising in my voice.
His lips part. His eyes widen. He’s like a zookeeper realizing the grizzly is about to attack.
“The other night, at the launch,” he says. “I was worried that seeing me was what threw you off onstage.”
“Threw me off?” Could he be more tone-deaf? “I was thinking about the readers, about my obligation to deliver Noa Callaway’s next book to them. I was genuinely overcome with fondness for those women. Not that you’d know anything about being genuine.” I clap a hand over my mouth, then let it slide down to my heart. “Your fans will lose it if they find out who you really are.”
His eyes dart around the park, then lock on mine. “Why would they find out? Isn’t it in everyone’s best interest to keep this between us?”
“They trusted you.”
It’s less embarrassing than saying I trusted you.
A silence follows. He seems completely unaffected by the idea that he’s betraying millions of readers, and that I am now complicit. How is it possible that the book that changed my life—that convinced me Ryan is the one!—was written by an asshole?
“I’ve always wondered where you learned to play chess,” he says, pointing at the board between us.
“My grandmother taught me,” I say, distracted.
“Did your grandmother dress you, too?” he asks, taking in my Fendi suit.
I stand, heart pulsing, barely able to restrain my rage. It’s a good thing the chessboard is inlaid upon the table; otherwise I’d slam it on his head so hard it’d knock his next three novels out of him.
I straighten my blazer. “Yes. It was hers. And it’s fabulous. And the Noa Callaway I was led to believe existed would appreciate its timeless elegance.”
He stands up, too, which makes me move more quickly, stuffing my book and scarf and water bottle back into my bag.
“This isn’t going well,” he says.
How dare he. My idol has been desecrated. The very reason I got into publishing pulled out from underneath me. Everything I loved about love is in question. And he thinks it’s not going well? I turn on my heel and speed walk away.
“Lanie.” He follows me past the chess house.
I don’t know where I plan on going. I’d like to run very far away from here. I’d like to buy six pints of ice cream and hide under my duvet for the rest of my life. I’d like to enter a wormhole where my longtime hero is the inspiring woman I always imagined—not this guy.
I think of Sue forecasting turbulence. This is more like dual engine failure.
“You need me,” Ross says as we pass the Dairy, children running out around us, clutching new souvenirs. I stop in my tracks.