Aude looks down. “I once slashed an ex’s mattress when I went to pick up my knife block after we broke up.”
“See, that wasn’t even in my head before, but now . . .”
“In and out,” Aude coaches.
“In and out,” I say.
She kisses my cheeks and hands me the printout of my tickets. I’m rounding the corner to the elevator when I almost collide with Meg.
“Hot soup!” she shouts in warning.
“And hello to you, too,” I say.
“Oh good, it’s you. I was just coming up to bring you this.” She holds out a thermos, and when she cracks the lid, I recognize the aroma as her mother’s homemade egg drop wonton soup. My weakness. “I meant to bring it to you for lunch, but shit got crazy on the second floor. Are you leaving early?”
“Ryan’s mom is going to ‘donate’ a bunch of my stuff if I don’t go get it. Tonight.” I give Meg a side-eye that bespeaks my annoyance. “So, you know, I’m taking a fun, spur-of-the-moment trip to D.C.”
“Girl,” Meg says, her tone empathetic. “Want company? Wait, sorry, I forgot two small humans rely on me to meet their every need. You know I’ll be there in spirit. And . . . I wouldn’t spend too long on the inside if I were you.”
“Did you slash an ex-boyfriend’s mattress, too?” I ask.
“There may have been some defecation left in the saddle of a certain NordicTrack.”
“Meg, no!”
“Not proud of it,” Meg says with a shudder.
“Well, I think we have a winner.” I laugh. “I’ve got to run. Thanks for the soup.”
“It’s a classic combination,” Meg says, waving as I step into the elevator. “Amtrak and egg drop.”
“Like tacos and Tuesdays.”
* * *
On track twelve at Penn Station, I climb the stairs toward my regular spot on the south end of the quiet car. I’ve taken this train so many times to visit Ryan. I know that at this hour on a Friday, it’s always crowded, but I spot a lucky open window seat at one of the four-top tables. There’s a jacket, a bottle of water, and a book about the Vietnam War on the rear-facing seat, but the forward-facing side looks open, so I slide in with my things.
As the train pulls away, I settle in, opening my thermos and taking out my tablet. It’s loaded with five novel submissions I’m supposed to read by Monday. Usually, I can tell within five pages whether I need to read more, and usually the answer is no. But I already know there’s one in here that’s promising. A romantic satire by a debut author whose first page had made Aude laugh out loud when she started reading it this morning.
I reread the first page three times before acknowledging that I have no idea what I’ve just read. I’m more upset than I want to acknowledge about having to clear my things out of Ryan’s place. It’s like, I know how we got here, but also—How the hell did we get here?
I give up on work for now. At least the soup is good.
From the bottom of my bag, I take out my old paperback copy of Ninety-Nine Things. I flip to the back of the book. How smug I’d felt three years ago, checking Ryan against my list. Look where it got me. Tears sting my eyes, and when I wipe them away, more come.
“It’s meant to be a comedy,” a male voice says over my shoulder.
I look up, then flinch at the sight of the very last person I want to see right now.
Noah Ross wears a black sweater and a Mets cap tugged low. He’s drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup. There’s a few days’ worth of dark stubble on his face, which makes him look rugged yet refined, like if you went camping, he’d cook a gourmet dinner on the fire.
I snap the book closed, put it down like it’s a thousand degrees. It embarrasses me to be caught vulnerable by him, and I’m trying to think of a way to gracefully steer this conversation toward a how-funny-to-have-run-into-you-and-goodbye!—when he sits down across from me.
I point at the jacket, the water bottle, the book. “I think someone’s sitting there.”
“I’m sitting there, Lanie. It’s my stuff. I just went to get some coffee.” He waves the steaming cup.
Of course he’s sitting here. Because this day was designed to destroy me. I surrender, Day. You win.
“If you don’t want to be disturbed,” he says, “I’ll find another seat.”
“No, please,” I have no choice but to say. “Unless . . . I’d be bothering you?” I gesture at his book. The thousand-page tome on Vietnam is not what I’d picture Noa Callaway reading in Noa Callaway’s spare time. Shakespeare’s sonnets, perhaps. Maybe Charlotte Brontë. Not some dense account of international stalemate.
Please. Please. Please say you want to read your book.
“Not at all,” he says, resting an elbow on the shared table between us. “This is . . . funny. Isn’t it? Running into you after you canceled on tomorrow? Terry gave me your message.”
“Really? I wasn’t sure, since I never heard back.” I don’t try too hard to hide my annoyance.
Noah smirks. “I’m sorry. She doesn’t like you.”
“How can you tell?” I deadpan.
“It’s nothing personal. She hated Alix,” he says. “Terry thinks my first drafts are perfect. She’s my godmother. It comes with the job.”
The Terrier is his godmother? I try to find a place to slot this into my understanding of Noah Ross, but I feel ill-equipped. I realize that I know his preferred chess opening (the Sicilian Defense) and his go-to florist (Flowers of the World, West Fifty-Fifth Street), but nothing about his personal life, where he came from.
“Look, I’m sorry to have canceled—” I say.
He waves me off. “It happens. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I manage, sounding like a robot powering down.
I glance at my copy of Ninety-Nine Things between us on the table. Everything about this encounter feels tremendously embarrassing.
“I’ve just had . . . you know . . . a . . .”
“Bad day?” he says.
I nod. I don’t want to get into my personal life with Noah Ross. He’s being slightly less noxious than the first two times we met, but still, everything could go wrong at any moment.
He turns toward the window and lifts the jacket he’d slung over the second seat. Beneath it, I recognize the same animal crate I saw him carrying on Sunday on the Upper West Side. I lean forward, and there is the black-and-white rabbit, asleep inside.