I open the Christle and sink onto a leather couch just as Noah comes in with the sushi. Javier Bardem hops in from out of nowhere and Noah scoops him up.
“I thought I’d find you by the books,” he says, turning to me. “Is this okay? Are you comfortable?” His expression suggests that I am very uncomfortable.
“Sure,” I say, holding up the Christle book. “She’s really good.”
“I have her other collections at my office,” he says, moving into the kitchen where I hear the rustle of unpacking sushi. “Most of my books are there.”
“It’s funny,” I say, “I just found out my grandfather wrote poetry.”
He looks at me through the galley window of the kitchen, eyebrows raised. And so I find myself telling Noah Ross about Drenthe, and the war, and how BD had FedExed me a giant Ziploc bag of poetry this week. I tell him how, reading it, I’d felt a new kinship with my grandfather; I wasn’t the only weirdo in my family of doctors to ever care about words on a page. Saying all this aloud feels meaningful, and I’m glad to have Noah here to listen.
“If you hadn’t sent me those tulips,” I say, “I wouldn’t have understood that my mother planted tulips for her father. I wouldn’t have looked this closely to find the reason I’ve always loved the simple way they bloom. Because of her. Because of him.”
“I think what you’re talking about is the second draft effect,” Noah calls from the kitchen.
I rise from the couch and go to the kitchen, where I find him plating sushi like a chef. “Explain.”
“You know how the second draft is the point where things start to make sense?” he says, taking out real chopsticks from a drawer, tossing aside the disposable ones. “It’s why I blaze through my first drafts so quickly—to get there.”
I know what Noah means. Back in the garden with my mother, that was the first draft. Exploring the cool, damp soil between my toes. The curving yellow stripes of a caterpillar wriggling across a leaf. The weight of my mother’s hands over mine as she showed me how to pack the bulbs into the earth. The sunny sound of her voice when we sang Lucinda Williams songs together, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” The pleasure of being with her overwhelmed my power to know what it all meant.
Time and space and losing her, emails with Noah, talks with BD, and the Ziploc bag of poems have given things a new perspective. I can shine a light on the meaning that was always there. It feels like getting a little more of my mother and my grandfather than I’d had before.
“Can I help?” I ask.
It’s too late to help, and this is not accidental. Meg would have called me out—Classic Lanie! But Noah has done a far better job setting up this feast than I could have. There are little dishes for soy sauce and ponzu and ginger, ceramic chopstick holders. He’s even transferred the miso soup to actual bowls. It looks elegant and delicious.
“I think we’re ready,” he says, carrying the sushi to a marble table by the fireplace. I find myself watching the way he walks, blushing when he looks back and catches me.
There’s a carrot roll for Javier Bardem to enjoy at his own small table. For several moments, I fall into the cute vortex of watching a bunny eat sushi.
“I need to expand Alice’s palate,” I say, thinking of the iceberg lettuce she had for breakfast.
“Chessboard’s by the window if you want to set it up,” Noah says, heading back into the kitchen. “I can make green tea,” he calls, “or open a bottle of sake?”
“Sake,” I say, finding the board and moving it to the table. “We’re celebrating.”
“What are we celebrating?” he asks from the kitchen. I hear the smile in his voice.
“Future epics of the heart. Saying fuck it to the meet-cute. And also . . . surviving a day together.”
“We still have time to ruin it,” Noah says, returning with a chilled bottle of sake.
“Your choice of outing is up next, you know,” I say as he pours sake into crystal cordial glasses. “But don’t worry, no one expects it to compete with today.”
He raises his glass to mine. “I’m not worried. My excursion is pure gold.”
“You have one picked out?” I assumed I’d have to harass him into making any sort of plan.
“I’m in the final scheduling phase right now.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see,” he says as we sit down.
We dive into fresh sashimi, spicy tuna on crispy rice cakes, divine crab handrolls, and halibut carpaccio in spicy yuzu jelly that pairs perfectly with the sake.
“You do takeout really well,” I say, sipping my miso soup.
“You should see what I do in restaurants.”
I laugh. “Where does one even get all these little bowls? And the chopsticks—are they made of jade?”
Noah smiles, watching me mishandle them to seize a slice of halibut. “They’re from a shop called Bo’s. Whenever I go there, I find something special, something I’ve never seen before. It’s not far from Peony. You should check it out. He has chopsticks in pink quartz, too.”
“I will.” I don’t want to let Noah know that most of my sushi eating at home happens on my couch, glued to BBC America, using my hands to drag a spicy tuna roll through the soy sauce I’ve squirted into the lid of the plastic container.
He points at the chessboard between us. “Guests go first.”
I steel myself, intent not to laugh when he debuts that freakish eyebrow tic. But to my surprise, Noah has shifted into serious game mode and clearly isn’t messing around.
I move my pawn into the center quadrant. I watch him do the same.
Though we have never sat across the chessboard from each other quite like this, there is not the curious tension of playing the game for the first time with someone new. We’re used to moving these pieces around each other.
We’re not used to knowing where our real hands go in real life between real turns. Twice our fingers graze at the edges of the board.
I remember our first handshake. How it sent a bolt of lightning through me. His touch now, even accidental, still does the same.
I tell myself to pay closer attention to his hands so as to avoid grazing them, but that backfires, because then I pay too close attention to them and lose my knight. I’ve never noticed how strong they are.
Lanie. Remember your career on the line? The precarious balance you are in with this man? Stop gazing at his meet-cuticles. Win the game and go home.
I swig another glass of sake, because something needs to take the edge off. Because, is it just me or is it getting a little too Thomas Crown Affair in here?