“I took you there because I love you. Because I wasn’t scared you’d mock it or think it was boring. I am not showing that man my New York.”
“You know it’s a good idea, though,” BD says, sipping the last of her coffee.
“He probably does need to get out from behind his desk more often,” I acknowledge. “At the park, he had the look of someone who hasn’t seen the sun in a month.”
“See?”
“I could ask Terry to take to him to some new places,” I say. “I wish I could get overtime approved for Aude to do it. She’d have him whipped into shape in a week. . . .”
“Lanie, you are Noa Callaway’s editor.” BD shoulders her Birkin and rises from the table. “If Noa doesn’t write this book, Terry and Aude will still have jobs. Will you?”
I worry a hole in the paper tablecloth, not liking where this conversation is headed. Not able to stop it, either.
“Fine,” I say, standing up. “I will consider proposing a visit to someplace in New York that Noah Ross has likely overlooked.”
BD links an arm through mine as we leave the restaurant. “I foresee success.”
We step back into the city for the pleasant stroll up to Lincoln Center, where she’ll meet her League of Widows.
“I’m glad you’re so confident,” I say as we wait for a crosstown bus to pass. “Should I remind you that in Fifty Ways, the plan backfired horribly? They were supposed to break up their parents. They ended up breaking up themselves, climactically—at their parents’ wedding.”
“Yes, but that was fictional kismet,” BD says and winks at me. “You are my real, live granddaughter, whom I’m proud of and believe in. You are going to rise to this occasion like a Tinder date with a pocket full of Viagra.”
“BD!” I groan. “I’m going to have to work so hard to erase that mental image.”
“I’m sorry, doll, but I couldn’t resist.”
Chapter Eight
On Tuesday, I work from home, ostensibly to edit the third draft of the paranormal ballet manuscript. But really, I am busting my ass to clean my apartment, from worn floorboards to art deco crown-molded ceiling. I may be a mess, but my apartment doesn’t have to be.
I’ve mopped and I’ve dusted. I’ve taken a toothbrush to my grout. I’ve fluffed every pillow and gone through two bottles of Windex. My toilet bowl is sparkling, and the inside of my refrigerator is now scrubbed of last week’s experiment in wilted arugula. I even bought one of those vacuum robots, which is presently chasing poor Alice around my living room and will probably give her tortoise nightmares.
All this because I had the superb idea of inviting Noah Ross over for an editorial powwow.
We can go ahead and blame Terry, who nixed five in a row of my perfectly good ideas for cafés, bistros, and teahouses around the city where the two of us might discreetly meet. Too busy, said Terry, or too loud, or too near the publishers’ lunch circuit (it was on Eleventh Avenue, please!). She rejected one place because they only serve two-percent milk.
Terry was pushing for Noa’s Fifth Avenue penthouse—less hassle for him, was the phrase actually employed—but after last weekend at the chess house, I learned my lesson about meeting Noah on his turf.
Thus I boldly threw my hat-sized apartment into the ring. And I guess Terry couldn’t come up with any objections that wouldn’t have sounded prohibitively rude, so she ended up agreeing. I’d felt vindicated hanging up the phone.
Ten seconds later, the cleaning panic set in.
My goal is to make my apartment a completely neutral site, where the water stains on my windowsill and the lopsided lampshade in the entry hall won’t distract us from focusing on Noa Callaway’s next book.
The trouble is, I’m realizing how much in my apartment speaks volumes about me. Volumes that I don’t want Noah Ross to hear. My vintage bar cart, for example, boasting BD’s blown glass cocktail shaker, martini set, and the collection of bespoke vermouths left over from the New Year’s Eve party when Rufus and I went a little too nuts on Negronis. I stare at it now for ten minutes, wondering if its prominent place in my living room says your editor knows how to have fun or your editor knows how to black out on a Monday night. I wheel it all the rattling way into my bedroom before I realize that if, on the off chance, Noah Ross were to open my bedroom door, thinking it was the bathroom, it would be way worse for him to see my bedside speakeasy.
Then there’s my bookshelf. My carefully curated pride and joy, whose space is so limited I feel it keeps me honest. But now I’m wondering: Is it serious enough? Is it light enough? Is it diverse enough? Is it classic enough? Are Noa Callaway’s books prominent enough? Are they too prominent?
Noah is going to be looking at this shelf and forming opinions about it, about me. We’re book people. It’s what we do. Should I try to make room for the copy of War and Peace I use as a doorstop in my closet?
“I know it looks like I’m losing my mind,” I say to Alice, who is glaring at the robot vacuum from the safety of her dog bed. “But sometimes, this is what being a boss looks like.”
Noah is supposed to arrive at three o’clock, when the south-facing windows of my living room let in their softest light. By two-fifty, I’ve changed out of sweats and into a white peasant blouse and what Meg calls my “adult jeans,” because they need to be ironed. Though I’m tempted to put on the Fendi suit again, just to fuck with him.
I’ve got my French press packed with freshly ground espresso, a clean fridge chilling whole milk, and almond milk, and damn it, I bought something called oat milk, too—okay, Terry? I’ve got Pellegrino and a box of pastries from the only bakery in midtown Aude finds edible. All that and a stomach full of nerves.
I don’t know whether my Fifty Ways plan is actually going to work, but that’s not even on today’s menu of worries. Today is about getting him to agree to try it out.
At two fifty-eight, I position myself at my bedroom window, overlooking the entrance to my building. I may or may not be hiding behind my ficus plant when a black town car slows to a stop on the street below.
“Typical,” I mutter, thinking what a hassle it must have been for Noah to be chauffeured down here in his town car’s heated seats.
But then, the driver comes around to open the back door, and out slides a blond woman in a floor-length rabbit fur coat. She’s toting four sweater-vested shih tzus and an extra-long selfie-stick. I’m waiting for Noah to get out after her, for this to be his type. Instead the driver closes the door, waves goodbye to the woman, and the next thing I notice is a commotion on the street corner.
It’s Noah Ross, arriving on foot from an unknown direction, staring into his phone—and getting fully entangled in four shih tzu leashes. He hops to get free of one leash then ensnares himself in two more. The woman with the dogs is getting really pissed. The dogs are yapping as she brandishes her selfie-stick at Noah and yanks her leashes so violently he almost bites it on the pavement.