“This party is on May eighteenth,” I say. “Three days after your deadline for the book we have no concept for.”
Noah looks unfazed. “If I promise to get you the draft before you leave,” he says, “will you go?”
“I will go to Mars if you get me a draft before I leave. But realistically, Noah, we don’t even have a premise yet.” I press the invitation back into his hands. “I’m honored that you asked me. And it’s really generous of your Italian publisher, but until both our careers aren’t teetering on the brink, I can’t in good conscience accept.”
Noah scratches his head. He looks stunned. “I didn’t even get to lay out my conditions.”
“You and your conditions,” I say. But I’m curious. “Well, let’s have them. Just in case.”
“It’s really only one condition,” he says. “Payback for your list. My List.”
“Your list of what?”
“I lived in Positano for two months to research Vows. I know the best place to buy the vintage designer souvenirs for your grandmother—and where you can get a great Piedirosso around the corner.”
“I never say no to a glass of Peidirosso,” I say, hoping I’ve guessed correctly that this is a type of wine. The idea of traveling around Italy with a list of Noa Callaway’s favorite local haunts in my pocket fills me with a secret glee. People would bid on eBay for such a thing.
Not that I’m going to Italy.
And then I realize: This is the first time I’ve reconciled Noah Ross and Noa Callaway as the same entity. It happened without my noticing. I wonder, if I can get comfortable with the man behind the books, could the readers? Could the press?
I want to explore this with Sue, and with Noah. Once we have a manuscript.
“I accept your condition,” I say, “on the condition that—”
“We have a book?”
“Exactly,” I say, “so in the meantime . . .” I motion at the museum around us.
Noah catches my drift, and we turn our attention back to the Cloisters. I mentally put on my Noa Callaway glasses and try to see the gardens through their lens.
Across the fountain, there’s an older woman in a wheelchair being pushed by a pretty young girl. Likely her granddaughter. I watch the girl excuse herself around a young gardener who’s toting a giant bag of sod. I point them out to Noah and lean in to whisper.
“So, what if . . .” I say, “he’s the caretaker of the garden. The horticulturist. And she’s the caretaker of the lady in the wheelchair. Who wants to be brought to the Cloisters each week. They see each other a dozen times. I’m talking lingering glances, a couple of ‘excuse me’s.’ Each is forming opinions—all wrong!—about who the other is. And then one day . . .” I trail off, thinking. “What happens? Who would break the ice? Maybe it’s the old lady. She wants to live to see her granddaughter find love, so she slips the gardener the girl’s number?”
“I like it,” Noah says, no trace of sarcasm in his voice.
“It could work, right?” My heart and confidence soar.
“Maybe you should write it,” Noah says, crouching to study a medieval aloe plant. “Or offer it to another writer you work with?”
And . . . heart and confidence now plummeting down to the core of the earth. Invitation to Italy spontaneously combusting. “Why not you?”
Noah circles the fountain, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m not trying to make this harder. But recently, I’m finding myself less interested in the meet-cute as an engine.”
Two weeks ago, I would have found this comment obnoxious, dismissive of the books I love and he claims to love, too. I would have fought back: The meet-cute is everything! All good love stories need one.
But today is not about me. It’s about helping Noah get inspired.
“And you’re finding yourself more interested in . . .” I offer.
He looks at me. His green eyes flash. “The full rhapsodic spectacle of life.”
Well, he was ready for me there.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Yeah, that can be romantic, too.”
He tips his head for me to follow him, and we walk out of the garden, toward an elevated stone walkway that overlooks the Hudson River. It’s a gorgeous day, a spectacular view. I resist the urge to tell him this is one of the highest points in all of Manhattan.
“My mom is sick,” Noah says, leaning his elbows on the railing by the river. “She has Alzheimer’s. And recently, she’s taken a turn.”
I stand near him, feeling crushed on his behalf. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not telling you to make excuses. I only want to explain. My mom is the reason I started writing.”
“Really?” I’ve always wondered about the Noa Callaway origin story. Everyone at Peony has.
“Her first name is Calla,” he says. “I wrote Ninety-Nine Things because of her. She likes love stories. She used to, anyway.” He rubs his jaw, and gazes out across the water. Sorrow shimmers from him. I recognize it well.
I know the best that I can do is listen.
“If this book is the last book I write that she gets to read,” he says, “I want it to speak to the scope of love, not just to its beginning.”
“The epic of a heart,” I say, as my skin pricks with goose bumps. It’s not bad. It’s very good.
He nods. “I don’t know who the characters are, or what the circumstances would be. . . .”
For a few moments we say nothing, but it doesn’t feel like one of those silences you look for ways to fill. It feels like we are letting this quiet upper reach of Manhattan take our hard conversation in its gentle hands.
“Tell me about your mom,” I say. “You said you were raised by a house full of women?”
“After my dad left,” he says, “Mom and I lived with two other ladies from her nursing school. Aunt Terry and Aunt B.”
“Back up. Aunt . . . Terry?”
Noah smiles, enjoying my surprise. “We were this crazy, estrogen-rich, romance-loving household. My mom and my aunts’ favorite thing to do was swap novels and argue over plots and characters. It was like a book club that never ended.”
“And eventually,” I say, “you got inducted?”
“I read Clan of the Cave Bear in first grade.”
“Those books are so underrated!” I say. “Jondalar was my first fictional crush.”