“To that end,” I continue, “I thought about what you said the other day. About having run out of New York City landmarks for your characters to kiss in front of? And so, I have prepared a list of landmarks you have never written about, and may have never considered.” I hold up my notebook. “You’re going to look at my list. You’re going to cross off the places you’ve been to. Then, one by one, we’re going to visit the places left on the list until you find something worth writing about.”
“Lanie—”
“Talk to the list.” I set it down in front of him.
Fifty overlooked New York City landmarks. They are numbered in order of my personal preference, but all of them are gems. At the top, in an effort to inject a touch of playfulness, I’ve written the header Fifty Ways to Break Up Noah and His Writer’s Block.
“Do you have a pen?” he asks, stone faced and unappreciative of my good humor.
I hand over my pen. Noah crosses something out. I lean forward, watch as he retitles the page: Fifty Ways to Break Up Lanie and Her Anxiety.
“Just some light edits,” he says.
I want to tell him that my anxiety and his writer’s block are not mutually exclusive, that they are, in fact, in every way intertwined. But I hang back, because now he’s actually reading the list.
I’d spent most of Sunday drafting it after my brunch with BD. I had scoured the internet. I had paged through four old diaries. I had texted friends for help jogging my memory about the city’s little wonders that we’ve stumbled upon over the years.
To Rufus: Remind me how we scaled the back of the Pepsi-Cola sign in Gantry Plaza after that BBQ in Astoria?
He’d written back: All I remember is it involved a stolen fire ladder and a whole lot of Tanqueray.
To Meg: Does your mom-friend still live in that romantic little enclave on the UWS? Intel on how a girl might get access to the garden for an hour?
She’d written back: You mean Pomander Walk? That mom and I had a falling-out over gluten allergies. But the bish needs my help planning the school’s spring fundraiser, so lemme see what I can do.
My friends are used to these kinds of inquiries by now. They’ve stopped asking why and simply trust they’ll someday see the results in the pages of a book.
In this case, I really, really hope they will.
“What do you think?” I ask Noah when I can wait no longer.
“I think I made a good impression Saturday,” he says. “You really want to hang out with me. Fifty times.”
I grit my teeth. “More like I want to keep my job. For fifty years.”
“You’re serious about this?” He meets my eyes then shakes his head in disbelief. “Then I’d really better think of something, or there’s a lot of suffering in our future.”
My eyes flash. “What is so wrong with this list?”
“The Austrian Cultural Forum? You want to spend a Saturday with me at the Austrian Cultural Forum?”
“It’s an architectural marvel! Twenty-four stories high and just twenty-five feet wide!”
“Well, bravo to the architect,” he says. “But just because the two of us stand before this marvel doesn’t mean a book idea will fall into my head.”
“Why are you pretending that the concept of inspiration is so foreign to you?” I snap at him. “You’ve written ten books. Surely you know by now that writers go out in the world, look around, and get ideas?”
“Not like this,” he says. “I can save us both a lot of torture by stating now: It’s not going to work.”
“You know what else isn’t working?” I say. “Whatever you’ve been doing. You’re four months late and have nothing to show for it.” I sigh. “Please. Don’t leave Peony hanging like this. People are counting on you. You might not care about that, but I do. . . .”
I trail off because to say more feels futile. Why should he care about what I care about? He doesn’t owe me anything, even if he did spend the last seven years email-masquerading as my friend. It was only that, a masquerade.
He’s quiet for a moment, his eyes moving over my list. Alice rests her chin on his forearm, which is her most endearing gesture. I notice Noah glancing down at her, his lips nearly twitching to a smile. Suddenly, Noah picks up the pen. I hold my breath as he crosses out a few items on my list. Then a few more.
The Marilyn Monroe subway grate—gone. I can live with that. Though it could have been fun to gender bend the flashing scene from The Seven Year Itch.
The Liberty Pole at city hall—also out. I’d thought maybe a jury duty meet-cute, but okay.
But when he crosses out Pomander Walk, I can’t keep quiet. Meg made up with Mama Gluten Free to get me those keys.
“Pomander Walk is magical,” I argue. “It’s this romantic pedestrian-only secret alley on the Upper West Side. It feels like you’re in a Dickens novel—”
“I know,” he says curtly. “I’ve seen it. I’m not writing Great Expectations.”
“You’re not generating them, either,” I mutter.
“Could you not hover over me while I do this?” he asks.
I back off and move to the window to give him space. Even though I wasn’t hovering, merely trying to help.
Truthfully, it’s nicer at the window, getting away from the gravitational pull of Noah’s negativity. I gaze outside at the bright afternoon, watching one of the red CitySights buses lumber down my block. This line of hop-on-hop-off bus tours passes my apartment an average of five times a day. A speaker blasts the same recorded spiel each time. Like everyone else on East Forty-Ninth Street, I have it memorized. I could recite it in my sleep.
“Katharine Hepburn lived for more than sixty years in this Turtle Bay brownstone . . .” I say along with the recorded speech.
“Did you just do the tour bus monologue?” Noah snickers from the couch.
“No,” I say. “Okay, yes. I didn’t realize I said it out loud. When you’ve lived someplace for seven years, you sort of become one with its soundtrack.” I glance at him, wondering if he knows what the hell I’m talking about. It’s probably quiet as a tomb in his penthouse thirty-four stories above Central Park.
“Do the M50 bus,” he says.
Without thinking, I deliver a serviceable impression of rusty brakes, rumbling hydraulics, and the drone of the accessibility ramp being lowered. Then I remember Noah Ross is staring at me, and I get embarrassed and go silent.
I’ve clearly embarrassed him, too, because he doesn’t even acknowledge my attempt at being a bus. He only stares at me, then changes the subject: “So Katharine Hepburn lived here?”